Iran nuclear talks

The resumption of the IAEA-led negotiations with Iran have considerably brightened the prospects of US-Iran stand-off. Over the last one week or so palpable progress has been noticed on the stalled negotiations, thanks to the realistic reappraisal of the inflexible positions the two sides had taken ever-since Tehran rejected the agency's last report after making a visit to some of Iran's nuclear sites. While the pro-IAEA side has made public its intention to re-engage Tehran, the latter has positively responded by consenting to the IAEA inspectors' access to its Parachin military base where Iran is suspected to have carried out high-explosives tests in large metal containers only a few weeks after ramping up uranium-enrichment to 20 percent purity. The flexibility shown by the United States, followed up by the 5 plus 1 (five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), is no less encouraging. With President Obama snubbing visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over "loose talk of war", and the former Defence Secretary Panetta backing it up by telling an all-powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that military action against Iran is not the first option, the ice besetting the negotiations is breaking. The Obama administration believes that economic sanctions against Iran are making a desired impact and diplomacy is the best option. Not that such a change of mind stems only from the Western mind that peace is better than war. There are other equally weighty reasons that have triggered a change of this mindset. For one, sanctions against a major oil producer and exporter, which Iran is, are also making a negative impact on those who have voted for the sanctions - oil prices on the world market are rising. Also, and no less important, Russia and China, the two who backed the anti-Iran economic sanctions are deadly opposed to imposing an Israel-driven war on Iran, ruling out the possibility of the Security Council endorsing the war option. And, left to itself Israel is in no position to take on Iran, which is a regional power and has the desired military capability to hit back. Should that be the scenario not only the Zionist entity would confront a lasting existential threat, but the entire region would be destabilised, particularly the pro-West regional powers. That being the backdrop, the six major powers (5 Plus 1) initiative is a timely and significant move, pregnant with high probability that the two sides can move in the direction of fixing a helpful climate for a productive dialogue. The EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, speaking for the six, has invited Tehran to a "sustained process of constructive dialogue", expecting a positive response. And that is a wee-founded expectation, as it comes in the name of replying to a February letter sent indicting the latter's desire to resume negotiations. Since it is Iran's standing position that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and it has no plan to weaponize it and is ready to open to the IAEA inspectors for verification, it would be in the larger interest of regional and global peace that the emerging hopeful narrative should not be held hostage to the warmongers' appetite for one more war in the region. With North Korea also moving in the same direction there are clear signs that time has come to rid the world of the ever-lurking threat of nuclear war. But that is possible only if the negotiation process is launched now without further loss of time, and at a quick pace. The window of opportunity for concrete progress is narrow. In the United States, the wannabe Republican presidential candidates are accusing of being soft on Iran. In Tehran, President Ahmadinejad is confronted with the rising clout of hard-liners who have soundly beaten his party in the latest elections, making his reelection next year uncertain. Also, the pro-sanctions lobbies and states have to realistically look into the results of the multi-layered UN-mandated economic and financial restrictions and to who is the ultimate sufferer. In the end, all sanctions have proved to be a failure in prompting their purpose. The logic has to sink in somewhere in the West that peaceful exploitation of nuclear potential is every country's right and it cannot, and should not be applied selectively. Then it is to be understood that any country which has honed the technology to enrich uranium for power generation, can always enrich it to weapon-degree potentiality. And, if many countries are not making nuclear weapons but using this technology for power generation and other peaceful purposes it is their political decision; they have the capability to make nuclear bombs. So, the United Nations should not restrict itself to country-specific actions but move in, positively and strongly, to banish the threat of nuclear war forever. Copyright Business Recorder, 2012