Peace offensive

VAHID SALEMI/AP

THREATENED by sanctions and veiled threats of war, Iran has responded with a peace offensive led by a call for a comprehensive overhaul of the international security architecture. In a packed convention centre set against the backdrop of the snow-capped Alborz mountain range, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on April 17 went far beyond calling for a thorough revamp of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the legal regime that is supposedly meant to prevent the misuse of atomic energy and encourage its peaceful uses. In the presence of representatives from over 60 countries, who had assembled to participate in the two-day international conference on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, the Iranian President called for the democratisation of the international institutions that set the global security agenda.

He recommended that instead of the Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, representing most countries across the globe, should emerge as the most powerful body within the U.N. system. As for the Security Council, the enormous power that its five permanent members exercised should be curtailed, he said. Specifically, these countries should no longer have the veto power. In case that was not possible, the Security Council should be expanded to include countries from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. Crucially, he said, all members of the revamped Security Council, new and old, should, in a non-discriminatory manner, be armed with veto rights.

Irans sharp focus on achieving international security based on the eclipse of the post-War security order, steered by nuclear-weapon states, and its reconstruction on more democratic lines follows the unrelenting pressure that Teheran has been facing on account of its atomic energy programme.

For instance, the Iranians have been deeply offended by the recent Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) of the United States, which brackets Iran with North Korea and threatens the two with nuclear weapons.

At a Pentagon press conference soon after the NPR was unveiled, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates asserted: There is a message for Iran and North Korea here if youre not going to play by the rules, if youre going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you.

Apart from the Americans, the Israelis are also at the forefront of an aggressive international campaign against Iran. On their part, the Iranians justifiably argue that the pressure being imposed on them on account of their nuclear programme is based on illogical premises and is therefore politically motivated. In their defence, the Iranians point to the August 2007 agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

This agreement, titled Understandings of The Islamic Republic of Iran and the IAEA on the Modalities of Resolution of the Outstanding Issues, listed the outstanding issues that needed resolution regarding Irans atomic programme. These issues included the status of Irans uranium mine at Gchine, alleged experiments with plutonium and uranium metal, and the use of Polonium 210.

In addition, and crucially important, was the issue of Alleged Studies. These Alleged Studies related to allegations that Iran had carried out high-explosives testing and tried to manufacture green salt, or uranium tetrafluoride, a derivative obtained during the conversion of uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride, a primary source for the production of enriched uranium. Besides, it was claimed that Iran had been engaged in designing a nuclear warhead as payload compatible with nuclear-capable missiles. These allegations suggested that Iran had been engaged in a nuclear weapons programme.

However, the IAEA, in its report released on February 22, 2008, on the status of Irans nuclear programme, concluded that the agency had not come up with any evidence suggesting that Iran was currently running an undeclared nuclear programme. All the remaining issues listed in the Modalities Agreement regarding Teherans past undeclared nuclear activities had been resolved. The only exception was the Alleged Studies issue. On their part, the Iranians have maintained that the documents relating to Alleged Studies are not authentic and that they are forged.

Iranian officials have raised two major points in their defence. First, the source of information regarding the Alleged Studies is highly suspect. The data regarding the Alleged Studies was stored in a laptop computer, which apparently disappeared from Iran in 2004. The Americans, who are Irans sworn adversaries and can in no way be considered a neutral party, are in possession of this computer, and are supplying this information on a selective basis.

Second, the IAEA has not been provided access by the Americans to the entire range of documentation relating to Alleged Studies, which they apparently have in their possession. In fact, the IAEA has been battling the Americans over making this data available.

The IAEA went on to acknowledge in its report of March 2008 that it had not been provided the necessary documentation and was therefore not in a position to share the required information with the Iranians. Although the Agency had been shown the documents that led it to these conclusions, it was not in possession of the documents and was therefore unfortunately unable to make them available to Iran, the report said. Elaborating, the report clarified that the IAEA received much of this information only in electronic form and was not authorised to provide copies to Iran.

Despite their objections, the Iranians, in April 2008, agreed to address the Alleged Studies issue. However, the non-availability of the documentation on this subject has continued to remain a stumbling block, causing Iran to assert repeatedly that the allegations about its weaponisation programme are false as they are based on forgeries. Irans representative to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, has thus stressed that the United States has not handed over original documents to the Agency since it does not in fact have any authenticated document and all it has are forged documents.

Consequently, the Alleged Studies issue has not come to a closure. The former IAEA head, Mohamed ElBaradei, has gone on record as saying that the current situation was like a merry-go-round. A lot is in documents which we cannot share with the Iranians because of the need to protect sources and methods. Iran says, how I can tell you if it is fake or authentic if I am not getting a copy? he explained.

The Iranians are also of the view that they are being unfairly targeted on account of their alleged resistance to the nuclear swap arrangement as proposed by the IAEA at Vienna in October 2009. After intense deliberations among Iran, Russia, the U.S. and France, ElBaradei proposed a nuclear swap arrangement that would help ease tensions dramatically. According to the IAEA draft, Iran should send the bulk of its Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) stocks purified to a 3.5 per cent level to Russia. Russia, in turn, would enrich the material to 20 per cent purity and send it to France for fuel fabrication. The fuel will be finally sent back to Iran for use in the Teheran Research Reactor, engaged in producing medical isotopes that are required to treat cancer patients. The entire operation would be carried out under strict IAEA supervision.

Iran subsequently raised several objections to the proposal, stressing, especially, that the swap should take place inside Iran. Besides, Teheran said it wanted the supply of the fuel soon, given the urgent requirements of radio-medicine for its patients.

In an interview to Frontline, Ali Bagheri, Deputy Secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council (foreign affairs and international security), pointed out that under the Vienna proposal, Iran had been asked to send abroad 1,200 kilograms, or the bulk of its stocks of LEU, in one go. But in return, it would be supplied with badly needed fuel only after a gap of one year.

Why one year? They [Irans interlocutors] should provide the reason, he said.

Bagheri said that the Western insistence that the swap should take place outside Iran was not logical as the IAEA would, in any case, take custody of the uranium material. We have told our interlocutors that wherever you take this [nuclear] material, you will have it under the custody of the IAEA. Our question then is what is the difference between IAEA custody inside Iran and outside Iran?

Despite raising serious objections, Bagheri said that Iran had not ruled out a nuclear swap outside its borders. In the meantime we have not closed the door of interaction and talks regarding providing fuel outside Iran. Iran wants interaction on this issue.

After raising arguments for years to defend its nuclear case, Iran, by hosting the Teheran conference, has decided to get proactive in a bid to push its adversaries on the defensive. Not surprisingly, Ahmadinejad, in his address to the conference, made some radical proposals, which are likely to make the Americans and their allies seriously uncomfortable. Focussing on practical steps to achieve disarmament, the Iranian President called for the establishment of a new international group that would be capable of functioning independently, free from pressure of big powers, in order to draw a road map that would lead to the elimination of atomic weapons and steer the global non-proliferation agenda.

Ahmadinejad emphasised that the new body should function under the aegis of the General Assembly. He also called for a thorough revision of the NPT, but only by non-nuclear weapons states. He singled out the U.S. as the country that should be dissociated completely from this process. He justified his assertion by alleging that the U.S. had been involved in the production, proliferation and unfair use of atomic weapons. He also stressed that the revised NPT must be comprehensive, fair and just and strong enough to function efficiently.

At the conference, Iran attacked the Western powers for failing grossly in achieving all the three core objectives of the NPT non-proliferation, disarmament and promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In his concluding remarks at the end of the conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that the failure of the NPT under the dominance of the nuclear weapons states to control non-proliferation was evident in the manner in which Israel had emerged as a nuclear weapons power. Everybody knows who equipped Israel with these weapons, which enabled it to acquire different types of (atomic) warheads, he said. He also observed that nothing has been achieved in the direction of disarmament, mainly because of the Wests inability to defend the core principles of the NPT.

The Teheran conference has been widely viewed as a preparation for Iran and its supporters, especially in the Non-Aligned group, to take on the big powers at the NPT review conference in New York in May. In New York, the Iranians are expected to push for the introduction of a time line within the NPT to eliminate the global stockpiles of atomic weapons. Iran is also expected to go on the offensive against Israel by calling for, with added vigour, the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in West Asia.

Besides, Teheran is likely to call upon the IAEA to establish a committee to probe the Israeli nuclear weapons programme and its external linkages. The Teheran conference is intended as much to promote the cause of disarmament as to signal to the world that it has surmounted its deepest internal crisis following last years disputed presidential election. The convening of the conference follows the Iranian governments success in preventing the widely anticipated unrest during the February 11 celebrations marking the Islamic Revolutions thirty-first anniversary.

With its confidence boosted, Iran is now set to host in May the G-15 summit and to receive Brazilian President Lula da Silva in a carefully choreographed visit. Free from pressing domestic preoccupations, the Iranians, after convening the nuclear conference and deciding to follow it up with another one next year, are likely to make a bolder bid to mount the international stage to shape global events.