Iran: still hope for an enrichment agreement

As I’ve been keen on the idea of an enrichment agreement with Iran, one that would allow Iran to exercise its “right” to enrich but limit the extent and quantity, the question arises:  how might the appointment of Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, as Acting Foreign Minister affect the prospects for such an agreement?

The most detailed recent  interview with the MIT doctorate Salehi I have been able to find in English was done by CBS in April. He says there:

we have been consistent. That we are against nuclear weapons. That we are not looking for nuclear weapons. That we are a member of the NPT. That we should stay in the NPT. That we allow the inspectors to visit our sites. And we don’t want nuclear weapons. We want peaceful nuclear technology and this is our right in accordance with Article 4 of the NPT.

The interview with CBS’ Elizabeth Palmer ends this way:

the mere fact that we’ve offered not to enrich uranium to 20% …this was a big message sent to the West. But unfortunately they did not receive the message. I remember in many interviews I said ‘Please. Please Listen. This is a big offer…that Iran is offering. OK? We keep our promise of [only enriching up to] 5%… although it is our right to enrich to whatever level we want. But we keep our promise to 5%. And please enrich for us the 20%. But they didn’t. They started putting conditions after conditions after conditions. And then we had to start 20% enrichment. And now I am saying we are ready if they – today – say ‘OK we will supply you the fuel’, we will stop the 20% enrichment process. What else do they want?

Palmer: And you will give up the LEU equivalent to what you’d get back [in the plates for the Tehran Research Reactor].

Salehi: Yes, in fact [in a proposal for…] partial shipment. We said ‘No. We will give it in one go….the 1,000 kilos of 3.5% enriched uranium, in return for the 100 kilos of 20% enriched uranium. You can put that 100 kilos of uranium under the custody of the Agency in Iran.

Palmer: So that deal is on the table?

Salehi: Yes. That deal is on the table.

It is not clear to me whether it is still on the table, but on the face it seems pretty close to what Hillary Clinton has been hinting for some time. You can also watch Salehi in an Al Jazeera interview from February, where he seems to be saying the same things he said to CBS in April.

It would be a mistake to conclude that an agreement at the late January meeting in Turkey of the P5+1 with Iran  is therefore likely, or even possible. Iran and the U.S. are both countries with multiple power centers that will be difficult to satisfy. Salehi’s relationship to the emerging praetorian Iran is not clear to me:  is he close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps?  What does his appointment by President Ahmedinejad signify?  Is he just window dressing, or can he deliver a serious agreement with verification measures sufficient to satisfy not only the Obama Administration but also the Congress?   These are critical questions I am not seeing answered–they would of course be key questions for a U.S. embassy in Tehran, if we had one.

For those who are interested, Salehi’s MIT Ph.D. thesis, “Resonance region neutronics of unit cells in fast and thermal reactors,” is available on line. Whatever his political connections and clout, I hope the Americans have negotiators at the same technical level.

PS:  In my original post three days ago, I omitted this link, which is an excellent 360 of the issues Salehi faces. It is as good as I’ve seen on the subject.