Standing up to the West

The Iranian leadership and people are united in their defence of the country's uranium enrichment programme.

JOHN CHERIAN in Teheran

IRAN'S leadership and people seem determined to stand up to the considerable diplomatic pressure being exerted by the West. On August 22, Iran responded officially to the package of incentives offered by the United States and five other powers. The government, in its reply, said that it was open to "serious negotiations" on its nuclear programme. The reply came nine days before the United Nations Security Council's (UNSC) deadline to Iran either to halt its uranium enrichment programme or to face economic and political sanctions. According to reports, Teheran has indicated that it is unwilling to abandon its uranium enrichment programme. This is the key demand of Washington. Iranian officials have indicated that they have offered a broad set of counter-proposals that could provide the basis for further talks. Going by recent statements emanating from Beijing and Moscow, there is little likelihood of the Security Council endorsing the American call for all-encompassing sanctions on Iran for its alleged non-cooperation with the U.N. on the nuclear issue.

Pressure from the West is nothing new for the Iranian government. Ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which overthrew the Shah, Washington has adopted a hostile posture towards Teheran. Sanctions were imposed almost immediately on the new government. The U.S. had also encouraged Iraq to attack Iran. The "imposed war" as it is called in Iran, lasted eight long years. The scars from that war have yet to disappear completely. More than a million Iranians lost their lives in the war. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking a day before Iran sent its reply to the Security Council, said that the country would not bow down to the demands of "arrogant powers and the U.S." and would "continue on its path" to develop nuclear power. On the same day, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation said, "the suspension of uranium enrichment is not possible anymore" because of the "technical advancement of Iranian scientists".

This correspondent last visited Teheran in January 1996. In the 10 years since then, the capital city has changed substantially. It is today dotted with flyovers and the streets are filled with new cars. The city, known for its traffic jams, now has a Metro, which has come as a boon to the residents. The capital also has a new airport which is comparable to the best in the region; it is named after the icon of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

All over Teheran and in other major Iranian cities such as Isfahan and Shiraz, there were big posters extolling Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. The Iranian government has reasons to be proud of Nasrallah. He studied in Qom in Iran. Though the Hizbollah takes orders from no outside powers, it looks up to the Shia heartland for spiritual guidance. The fighting prowess that the Hizbollah resistance displayed against the overwhelming firepower and strength of the Israeli Army can to a great extent be credited to the training imparted to the fighters by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The eight-year-old war with Iraq turned many of the IRGC personnel into battle-hardened veterans and they are counted among the best fighters in the world.

Another hoarding, displayed prominently at street corners, called for the "removal of Israel from the map of the world". President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a controversial speech made earlier in the year, had called for Israel to be relocated from the region. But Mahdi Karroubi, who ran for President along with Ahmadinejad, and narrowly lost in the first round, said that the posters did not reflect state policy. Karroubi was the Speaker of the last Majlis (Parliament).

While travelling around the country, this correspondent saw signs of rapid development everywhere. One of the most ambitious projects undertaken by the Iranian government is the multi-billion Pars Special Economic Energy Zone (PSEEZ) at Assaluyeh on the northern coastline of the Persian Gulf. Work on the PSEEZ started in 1998 and it seeks to exploit the oil and gas resources from the South Pars Gas Field, which has the biggest gas reserve in the world, jointly shared by Iran and Qatar. The Pars reservoir contains 9 per cent of the world's gas reserves and 48 per cent of Iran's known reserves. The field is situated 105 km from the PSEEZ.

Sections of the PSEEZ have already become operational. Japanese, South Korean and Italian companies have been participating in a big way in the projects despite the looming threat of international sanctions. Assaluyeh, which was a small village until a few years ago, seems all set to become a bustling metropolis on the lines of Dubai.

The UNSC Resolution 1696 was passed during the time the three-member team from the Hindu Group, led by Editor - in-Chief N. Ram, was in Iran. The resolution demanded Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme by August 31 or face possible international sanctions. From available evidence, the threat of draconian sanctions has not evoked undue concern in either the government or the people. The issue has become a very emotive one for Iranians across the political divide. Public opinion polls have shown that the overwhelming majority of Iranians support the government and are of the view that their nation has the right to enrich uranium. The "reformist" politicians, who are otherwise critical of the "conservative"-dominated government led by Ahmadinejad on most issues, say that they are united on the "nuclear" issue. Some in the Opposition, however, allege that the President is focussing on the "nuclear" standoff with the West to score political brownie points.

The President, in an interview given to The Hindu and Frontline, said that Iran might have to reconsider its membership of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He said that the UNSC resolution came at a time when Iran was getting ready to respond to the incentives package offered by the European Union. "We said we would reply on August 22 and they issued a resolution nevertheless." The President, dressed in his trademark light grey wind-sheeter, was as usual forthright in expressing his views. He said that the timing of the UNSC resolution showed that "they (the West) are bullying us" and that "they are not looking for a dialogue".

Ahmadinejad asserted that Iran was not unduly concerned about the pressure being sought to be exerted by the West. He went on to say that the U.S. and the West would "regret the miscalculation they have made". The President emphasised that his country had managed "to access" nuclear technology "indigenously" and added that nobody could take away this right from the Iranian people. Ahmadinejad warned that if Iran was pushed to the brink and denied its legal rights under the NPT, the country could exercise its option of walking out of the NPT. At the same time, he emphasised that Iran was against all weapons of mass destruction. "We think that the time of weapons of mass destruction having a say in or determining the course of political relations is a thing of the past." The Iranian leadership, he reiterated, remained committed to Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa. Khomeini had ruled that it is un-Islamic to possess a nuclear weapon.

The Indian government's stand at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board meeting last year, which led to Iran being referred to the UNSC on the nuclear issue, had taken the Iranian government by surprise. When questioned on the topic, Ahmadinejad said that both countries had many shared interests besides "many cultural and civilisational commonalities". He said that India's position on the nuclear issue "came as a surprise". He indicated that Iran had now put the issue on the backburner. "Ours is not the kind of relationship that will be affected by one mistake. I think that the relations are important enough that if one of the parties makes a mistake, they would correct that mistake themselves," he said.

Ahmadinejad went on to clarify that the delay in the signing of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) contract with India had nothing to do with the IAEA vote. He said that the issue related to pricing and that he would be personally looking into the matter. He indicated that something positive could emerge on the subject within "30-40 days". Ahmadinejad also spoke positively about the prospects of the gas pipeline from Iran. He said that even though European countries were offering high prices for Iranian gas, he would like the pipeline "to be constructed and stretch between Iran, Pakistan and India. We want this pipeline to be the pipeline of peace and brotherhood".

Replying to a question relating to the events in Lebanon, Ahmadinejad said that the Israeli "war machine has come to an abrupt halt" following the defeat it suffered at the hands of the resistance in Lebanon. He was of the opinion that a "vacuum" now existed in the region, which could be used to usher in "a just and durable peace". At the same time, he said that the past behaviour of the U.S., Britain and Israel had shown that they were not interested in peace. "They want to have hegemony. This is very much evident by the behaviour of the Americans and the British when the whole issue of establishing a ceasefire in Lebanon was being debated recently." He said that the people of India and Iran should draw their conclusions from the recent events. "Those who only think about bombs, attacking and oppressing others - they are the root cause of everything that is wrong with the world,", the President said .

Iran's point man in the nuclear talks, Ali Larijani, told The Hindu and Frontline that Iran was always prepared for "just and constructive" negotiations but would never agree to change its policies under duress. He said that the main point to remember was that Iran was a signatory to the NPT and that all its activities were within the framework of the legitimate rights conferred by the NPT. "We consider the bomb as a poison for the region. Even the U.S. has said that we don't have the bomb," he said. Larijani, who is the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said that Washington by getting the Security Council to set a deadline for Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment programme had "kicked out" the package of nuclear proposals they had presented to Iran in June this year. "There is no legal sanction for the resolution," he said.

Iran had on several occasions said that it would give a detailed response to the "package" by August 22. The package formulated by the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany (Five Plus One) had offered Iran among other incentives light water reactors and nuclear fuel. Iran had said that there were a lot of ambiguities in the package. According to Larijani, the Iranian side had communicated to the E.U. chief negotiator, Javier Solana, that the package "would be considered a base for starting our logical cooperation. But its scope should be complete and its ambiguities removed". He went on to add that the "Five Plus One" had now become a "stick over our head".

Larijani, who is known to be close Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that putting pressure on Iran could "lead to a harsh reaction from us". He said that the introduction of the UNSC resolution in the first week of August had made the package meaningless. "In an atmosphere where there is no trust, packages are meaningless," he said. Larijani said that the package on offer talked about long-term cooperation with Iran without specifying whether the cooperation would be confined to the nuclear field. He accused the U.S. of practising double standards. "If you see the attitude of the U.S. towards Israel, you can see the double standards," he pointed out.

He also compared Washington's stance on India's atomic programme to that of Iran's. "India does not accept the NPT and has the atomic bomb but the Americans don't have any problems with this and are also concluding a long-term nuclear agreement with India. But we are members of the NPT and we don't have the bomb. Why do they have the kind of attitude towards Iran?" asked Larijani. He was quick to add that Iran has no problem with India's nuclear deal with the U.S. "What we want to clarify is the double standards of the U.S.," he said. Larijani said that he was not disappointed by India's stand at the IAEA. "Maybe a country that has friendly relations with us must use its reputation and its capacity in a right way. It does not mean that we have to come up with an illogical reaction from our side." He said that India's IAEA vote would not in any way influence the outcome of the negotiations over the LNG contract.

Larijani said that his country had a bad experience with European diplomacy earlier too. "In 2003, three Foreign Ministers from the E.U. came to Teheran. They said that if you suspend enrichment for several weeks we could resolve the problem. These several weeks of suspension got converted to more than two years." He said that the "adventurist" policies of E.U.-3 (Germany, France and the United Kingdom) had the backing of the U.S. He pointed out that it was the U.S. that first announced that Iran was making the bomb and took the case to the IAEA despite the 28 visits the IAEA inspectors made to Iran's nuclear sites. He asserted that all this was done to put pressure on Iran.

"In Teheran, they suspended the activities of our centrifuges, in Brussels they said all spare parts manufacturing should be suspended, and in Paris they said all kinds of activities should be stopped. Even the request for 10 centrifuge machines for research was not granted." According to Larijani, the Europeans had instead promised "objective guarantees" to Iran within months whereby the enrichment programme could be pursued in Iran without the nuclear fuel being diverted for weapons. "Later we saw that their idea of objective guarantees was that we should completely stop our activity," he said.

Larijani said that at this juncture there was a lack of trust on either side. "When they talk with the logic of force, it has no meaning for us. When we sit at the table together, we should have an agreement over some paradigm. If one side wants to talk with a stick, there can be no paradigm," said Larijani. He said that IAEA inspectors had spent more than 2,000 man-hours in Iran looking for evidence of any diversion. The IAEA has failed to unearth tangible evidence of any clandestine activity in Iran. "I would like to state frankly that the nuclear issue of Iran is only an excuse. If this issue is resolved, they will create another one," he said.

Larijani is of the view that the events in Iran will have no impact on Iran's stance on the nuclear issue. He said that the attack on Lebanon was "a harsh reaction on the part of the Americans and this is of course their own mistake". The Iranian official said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's dream of "a new Middle East" is borrowed from Shimon Peres (currently Israel's Vice-Premier) who wanted Washington to "forget democracy" and instead put pressure on countries of the region to have economic relations with Israel.

He said that the "entire reputation" of the U.S. had been put behind Israel in the war against Lebanon. According to Larijani, this has not prevented Hizbollah from resisting valiantly and as a consequence its ideology has spread to other countries. "They created this situation with their own hands. The way the U.S. and Britain think is as they did 50 years ago. They believe that with military force they can do anything."

The Vice-President of Iran, S. Rahim Mashaee, who also met the mediapersons from The Hindu, is of the view that the UNSC resolution on Iran was timed to divert attention from the events in Israel. He said: "Issuing a resolution at this time was meaningless. It shows that it was politically motivated, done at the behest of Israel. We thought that the UNSC would pass a resolution against Israel, instead this happened." He said that the passage of the resolution would make it "very difficult" for Iran to cooperate with the Security Council. He emphasised that Iran would not change its position on the enrichment issue. "It is the right of the Iranian people. No trade-off is possible on this," he said. He reiterated the Iranian government's position on nuclear weapons. "We are against producing, keeping or making nuclear weapons. It is against our religion," he emphasised.

He said that countries that already had mastered the enrichment technology were the most vocal in their criticism of Iran. He pointed out that countries like Germany had promised Iran nuclear fuel before the 1979 revolution and invested in the building of nuclear plants. When Russia stepped in to complete the work on the nuclear plant in Bushehr, the West started putting pressure on it. "They do not want us to have the right to use the enriched fuel from the Bushehr plant. Now they are saying, `We will give you the fuel, you don't produce'," said the Vice-President.

Mashaee said that during negotiations with the West, the onus was always on the Iranian side. "We were asked to trust them and that we should prove that we don't make nuclear weapons. We can't show proof when we are not making them. They don't come forward with any proof either. The burden of proof is always on us."

He said that if Iran agreed to cut-off the enrichment programme, then it would be the first step to make it give up the entire programme. "They only want us to be dependent on oil. Nuclear technology will make us more independent in a strategic region," Mashaee said. He made it clear that if Iran was given its rights, then it would be willing "to enter into a dialogue with anybody or any country".