Iran nuclear talks

Even as the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran near the endgame as to what comes out of them, uncertainty remains. Both sides have once again offered hope of clinching some kind of deal by March 31 deadline, but they also talk of provisos that are no mean challenges. In one of his most assertive positions taken jointly by the P5+1 on Iranian nuclear programme, the US Secretary of State ruled out extending the March 31 deadline unless the basic framework of an agreement is reached. "The only chance I can see of an extension at this point in time would be that you have the outlines of the agreement," he told a media outfit in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. And should that happen he promised a comprehensive deal spelling out nuts and bolts of a long-term agreement between the two sides. The Iranian side too said was keen on clinching a final deal with the global powers. "This is the opportunity...I believe in an agreement, which has no losers and no winners," responded John Kerry's Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javed Zarif, a position openly endorsed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But what looks like matching perceptions between the two sides has the devil in its detail. Ayatollah Khamenei, who does not accept the idea of first a general agreement and later on details, is of the view that such an agreement would become a "tool for the [West's] repeated pretexts with regard to details". The P5+1 want first a political agreement and then discussions and negotiations how it would play out. Tehran on the other hand wants that all aspects of the agreement should be sorted out in one go, to be instantly followed up by lifting the economic sanctions. In order to reach agreement, the Iranians say they have already suspended 20-percent uranium enrichment as well as development of centrifuges at nuclear facilities at Arak and Fordo. But that is not acceptable to the P5+1 group; it wants that on the enrichment both sides should 'mutually define a programme with practical limits and transparency'.
But all of this may very well be mere posturing on the part of the two sides, more to take the edge off the stated position taken by the hard-liners particularly Revolutionary Guards Corps on the nuclear stand-off. Never before, perhaps, was timing for a deal as propitious as now when the two sides find themselves almost on the same side on most of the major regional conflicts. For 35 years, Tehran didn't talk to Washington, a stalemate that was broken by a pragmatist Hassan Rouhani who was elected president of Iran in 2013. Within a few months of his election, he offered to talk on the nuclear stand-off that resulted in crippling economic sanctions imposed on Iran. That failure of nuclear talks with the P5+1 would undermine the popularity of President Rouhani is something that Foreign Minister Javed Zarif has denied. The concern is believed to have been passed on to the other side of the negotiating table, though this has been denied by the minister - who himself was target of his fellow parliamentarians' maligning campaign for his "exhibitionist walk" with John Kerry. With Daesh coming up as a serious threat to domestic peace in most of western countries it is quite unlikely that the P5+1 would be asking Iran to 'do more' and thereby weaken the democratic position of President Rouhani. Iran has moved to the point in talks that it can justifiably ask for lifting all economic sanctions. Alternatively, Iran would be left with no option but to continue its nuclear programme, as it has done all through the times it was under sanctions and, to quote Javed Zarif, "when sanctions were imposed we had 200 centrifuges, now we have 20,000." And then what nuclear regime and standards the West is talking about; hasn't it compromised the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by exempting the non-signatory India from its application? Ideally, Iran's claim that its nuclear programme was peaceful and had signed the NPT should have been taken on its face value - even if Israel was opposed to it; and even today Prime Minister Netanyahu has threatened to thwart any positive outcome of talks. The programme is in exercise of Iran's inherent right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, a premise acceptable to the International Atomic Energy Agency which has conducted scores of on-site inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities and given them a clean chit.