Other Concessions!

Not surprisingly, the U.S. and Western countries doubt the merits of the Iranian-Turkish-Brazilian agreement on the re-enrichment of uranium outside of Iran. During the past nine months, they exerted pressure on Iran to consent to the International Atomic Energy Agency‘s proposal to re-enrich the Iranian uranium abroad, which differs significantly from the tripartite agreement.

The IAEA proposes that Iran send Russia 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, a quantity representing nearly 70 percent of Iran’s total stores as of nine months ago. Russia will then re-enrich the uranium and return it to Iran for manufacturing nuclear fuel. However, the tripartite agreement stipulates that Turkey be entrusted with keeping this quantity of uranium until Iran receives its 1,200 kilograms of nuclear fuel within the agreed time frame. In other words, the Vienna group will commit to giving Iran the nuclear fuel it needs before getting the Iranian low-enriched uranium from which future nuclear fuel will be manufactured. Of course, Iran wants to get the nuclear fuel first. The agreement says that Turkey will hold Iran’s funds for the cost of the fuel, and Iran will not pay until after fuel delivery.

Perhaps this clause is the main obstacle in the Iranian-Turkish-Brazilian agreement that will make securing American and Western approval difficult.

In addition, since nine months have passed, this quantity of low-enriched uranium no longer represents 70 percent of the Iranian stockpile. According to Western and American estimations, it is less than 58-60 percent! Ironically, the aim behind the IAEA proposal was to alleviate American and Western fears regarding the Iranian nuclear program by getting a large proportion of Iran’s uranium outside of the country, thus preventing Iran from producing a nuclear bomb.

Moreover, Western fears recently increased after Tehran declared it would go on enriching uranium by 20 percent. Theoretically, if it continues stockpiling quantities of enriched uranium, it will be on the verge of producing the nuclear bomb pursuant to American and Western accusations.

On the other hand, Iranians believe that their agreement with Turkey and Brazil has raised awareness of the initiative amongst Western countries, who responded that efforts to impose new sanctions on Iran would not cease.

However, Turkey and Brazil, after concluding this agreement, will resist the imposition of new sanctions on Iran. For the most part, Lebanon and China will not agree to these sanctions. Yet, Washington still guarantees support by Russia, which was quick to reveal its suspicions about the tripartite agreement.

American and Western pressures on Iran will continue and the problem of the Iranian nuclear program may remain unsolved. All that happened was that Iranians presented a deal with concessions that Washington did not regard as enough. Instead, this agreement encouraged the U.S. to exert more pressure on Iran to offer more concessions.