Opinion - Editorials   

Talk to Iran

The meeting is being described as a “one-time deal.” But the presence of William Burns, the United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, in the upcoming meeting of the P5+1 group of countries and Iran in Geneva marks a potentially new phase in Washington’s bankrupt approach towards Tehran. Until now the Bush administration has preferred to outsource the task of talking to Iran to the European Union and its high representative on foreign a ffairs, Javier Solana. Although Mr. Solana travelled to Tehran last month with a new package of proposals that bore, besides the signatures of the Foreign Ministers of China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany, the initials of the U.S. Secretary of State, the White House refused to send its own diplomat to accompany his delegation. Only time will tell whether Mr. Burns’s presence at the Geneva meeting is the harbinger of a policy rethink by the Bush administration under the pressure of circumstances, a possibility suggested by another straw in the wind — the State Department’s reported desire to post American diplomats in Iran after a gap of nearly 30 years. The bipartisan Hamilton-Baker study group on Iraq recommended engagement rather than confrontation as the way to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue. Direct diplomacy, including the possibility of a high-level meeting with “an appropriate Iranian leader,” is a key element in the stated policy of Barack Obama, the Democratic contender for the White House.

For diplomacy to work, the U.S. and its allies must drop their insistence on meaningless preconditions such as the demand that Iran suspend its programme of uranium enrichment. Iran has the right to enrich uranium under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency is monitoring its work in this field. The agency has not found any evidence to suggest safeguarded nuclear material has been diverted to prohibited purposes. The remaining “unexplained” issues in the Iranian nuclear docket pertain to alleged studies that the Iranians deny having conducted and about which the IAEA actually has only limited jurisdiction since there is no evidence that any nuclear material was used. The P5+1 has already wasted two years insisting on suspension as a precondition; it should have realised by now that the Iranians regard enrichment of uranium as an inalienable right. The solution to the lack of confidence the six countries have in Iran’s civil nuclear programme lies in the elaboration of a package that puts in place additional safeguards, which Tehran has said it is not averse to. Dialogue on this package should begin immediately and without preconditions.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Talk to Iran
Worrying phenomenon
Deepening divide in Jammu and Kashmir
Nelson at ninety
U.S. slumps in global development table
Stifling the spirit: my naani and 61 years of anguish
Bio-fuel producers hit back at OPEC
Politics of the deal
For and against

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu