Seeking even a small step forward in a yearslong dispute, negotiators from Iran and six world powers mulled options Tuesday for preserving Tehran’s nuclear program while still trying to keep it from becoming an atomic arsenal.
It was the latest meeting in excruciatingly technical diplomatic discussions. Iran spent the day studying a new offer from the West to curb some tough international sanctions that have ravaged its economy in exchange for limiting its uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons.
Talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, were due to continue for a second day Wednesday, but diplomats at the negotiations warned that a major breakthrough was unlikely.
Western negotiators say they have brought small, if significant, proposals that should prove tempting to Tehran, although they have declined to divulge any details.
“The Iranians went away to consider our proposal during the course of the afternoon and the evening,” said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leading the negotiations. “There was a useful discussion on that proposal.”
He said Iran is “in breach of their international obligations, therefore the onus is on them to begin the process of building confidence.”
Mehdi Mohammadi, a member of the Iranian delegation, said Tehran will make an offer of its own to end the deadlock but is resisting some of the West’s core demands.
The Obama administration is pushing for diplomacy to solve the impasse but has not ruled out the possibility of military intervention in Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“Our proposal includes reciprocal measures that encourage Iran to make concrete steps,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Berlin. “My hope is Iran will make its choice to move down the path to a diplomatic solution.”
Israel has threatened it will use all means to stop Iran from being able to build a bomb, potentially as soon as this summer, raising the specter of a possible Mideast war. In Jerusalem, former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Tuesday on the international community to take more “significant” steps to dislodge Iran from its nuclear program. Lieberman, who is acting head of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Israeli’s parliament, did not elaborate, but Israeli officials often hint at a possible military strike on Iran‘s nuclear facilities.
“Sanctions alone will not be enough to rein in those same extremists from their goal to achieve nuclear capabilities and the time has come to move toward steps that are much more significant than the talks and sanctions that we’ve seen to date,” said Lieberman.
Lieberman resigned from his post as foreign minister in December amid legal troubles but remains a top political ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Off-and-on talks between Iran and the world powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — began after the six offered Tehran a series of incentives in 2006 exchange for a commitment from Tehran to stop enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons.
A senior U.S. official …read more
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