Reaching final N-deal, very difficult task: Professor
Press TV has conducted an interview with Nader Bagherzadeh, professor at the University of California, about Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi saying Tehran and the P5+1 group have discussed all the topics included in the interim Geneva nuclear deal signed between the two sides back in November.
What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Well let’s look at this latest round of talks and the topics that are covered and so far do you feel in general that things are moving in a positive direction and what are the main factors behind if this is going to actually lead to a final solution or not?
Bagherzadeh: I think the most important parties that they are meeting and they are discussing …, that is very positive.
We do not know about the details. I think numerous times we have heard Mr. Araqchi say the details are not going to be discussed in the press so we are not very familiar with the content of what is going on but judging from what he has said, they have made some progress probably, I think I read on the Arak issue, the heavy water plant. In my opinion that is not a major issue so I am glad that they are solving those quickly.
The main issue at hand as been said before and I have said it is the enrichment, scope of the enrichment. What the Western countries want is a very limited enrichment and Iran wants to have, exercise its right under the NPT and be able to continue the enrichment with the inspectors in place. And so that is the main difference in my opinion between the two sides.
Press TV: What about the, we have seen a lot of negative comments coming out of Washington from various officials, members of Congress, why is this the case?
If the United States would like to see this go forward, why are we seeing so much of this coming especially out of United States and even we have seen lately out of Europe itself also?
Bagherzadeh: I think you have to realize that the Western leaders have certain constituents that they have to address their needs and some of these constituents’ special groups are not happy about what is going on and this is not just limited to Israel.
There are some countries in the Persian Gulf as you have seen over the past few weeks and I think you may have reported it in your program, they are not happy about this and they put pressure on the officials and this may be one of the reasons that some of the officials in Washington have to provide that point of view which as I agree with you it is not very helpful but I think the patience from both sides have to continue and they basically have to filter [out] those comments and continue negotiating and not to rely on the specifics of those comments. Otherwise ,this would be a very futile exercise in my opinion.
Press TV: Well Mr. Araqchi says that perhaps in six months a final solution can come about. What would that mean first of all for Iran and then for the six countries that Iran has been negotiating with?
Bagherzadeh: So going back to the enrichment it is very, very complicated to come up with something that is satisfactory to …. I think you have heard that they have said dismantlement is not an option. So how are we going to change the scope? So that is one of those difficult problems.
One way of dealing with it is that perhaps they could find a way of limiting the enrichment or perhaps, this is one topic that has been talked about before, is allowing Iran to continue with enrichment but export the material [under] the auspices of the IAEA. Therefore there will not be enough to have a breakout but at the same time the centrifuges are spinning.
That would be in my opinion a win-win situation. Iran will continue with its enrichment, perhaps even remodel and put in place faster centrifuges as they have done …, but they will not keep enough to have a breakout period.
If you do not have enough products to have that potential breakout, then that would be a win-win. I do not know if the two sides will agree with that. There are definitely disadvantages for both sides but that could be one option.
The other option is to have prolonged, extended plan whereby Iran will continue to enrich but not at the same level that it is but it will expand to the current level or beyond within several years. That has a problem of governments change, negotiators change and that would be a problem in general.
So they all have some problems. There might be some other issues. Dr. Zarif [Iran’s Foreign Minister] said there are many ways of dealing with this so we do not know even there are third or fourth or fifth options on the table in terms of what could be achieved in six months, but we have to be cognizant of the fact that this is a very difficult task in my opinion.
