Just before the end of the meeting, Solana called, reaching me in Kathmandu. The P-5+1, he said, had confirmed that the inspection of the new facility should take place within the next couple of weeks. He wanted to check whether this was all right. The timing was fine, I said, but it was not up to them to set inspection dates. Solana apologized, saying they had not meant to interfere.
I said no more. But the behavior struck me as typicaclass="underline" the Western countries involved in the process always wanted to be perceived as being in charge—to push, to prod, to put pressure, to set deadlines, to dominate the debate, to inflict punishments—which inevitably gave them the appearance of the schoolyard bully and undermined precisely the objectives they hoped to achieve. Solana added that they had gotten the Iranians to agree in principle on the fuel offer. I did not volunteer that this had been prepared in advance, set up through a patient series of discussions with Salehi. I just said I had heard as much in my conversation with President Obama.
At a press conference after the P-5+1 meeting, Obama discussed the progress made. “I have been in close touch with the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, who will be traveling to Teheran in the days ahead. He has my full support.” I marveled at how the world had shifted, in just a few months. After years of being either ignored or attacked as the archenemy of the United States, the IAEA was once again a partner, treated with confidence. It was an unexpected but welcome finale to my tenure with the Agency. I had hoped to last long enough to see a move away from the Bush administration’s policies. But I had not expected to encounter a new president in full command of the issues, reachable by phone, who spoke with appreciation for our work.
From Kathmandu, I arranged to fly on short notice to Tehran on October 3. Meeting me at the Esteqlal Hotel, Salehi reported that Iran was ready to let IAEA inspectors visit the new facility at Fordow. However, there would be a slight delay. Given the public statements by Obama and the West that the inspections had to take place within two weeks, the IAEA would have to wait until after that deadline. Tehran did not want to appear to be taking instruction, whether from the United States or anyone else.
The fuel proposal concept was now also facing a lot of internal opposition in Tehran, yet Salehi had managed to convince Ahmadinejad to go along. The Iranian president, he said, wanted dialogue with the United States, and if anyone could make it happen, it would be Ahmadinejad.
I tried to probe Salehi on what issues Iran might raise at our upcoming fuel proposal meeting. He mentioned a number of possibilities: asking for assistance with refurbishing the Tehran Research Reactor, which was forty years old and had originally been supplied by the United States; alternatively, asking for help with purchasing a new research reactor from the West; or asking the P-5+1 to let Iranian engineers receive training abroad.
Salehi also mentioned a long-standing, contentious issue: uranium Iran had paid for but that, after the 1979 Revolution, had never been delivered. He said Iran might ask France and Germany about finally receiving this uranium. This was not a good idea, I told him. Bringing more uranium into Iran at this stage hardly seemed like a sensible way to defuse the crisis.
On the fuel proposal, I told him the arrangement might call for twelve hundred kilograms of LEU to be shipped out to Russia, where it would be further enriched, and then to France, where the fuel for Iran’s research reactor core would be fabricated.
“This quantity assumes that we need a core for ten years,” Salehi responded. “We might be asking for a core with only a five-year life, which would require less LEU.”
My advice was to get as much LEU out of Iran as possible, to calm the enrichment situation and create an opportunity for negotiation. While this was a technical issue, it had huge political implications.
I also asked whether there was there any chance that Iran might now reconsider a time-out or freeze-for-freeze agreement, to get the dialogue under way. The idea would not sell in Tehran, Salehi said frankly. With all the condemnation from the West, enrichment had become a sensitive matter of national pride. The room for compromise on this was limited. From my discussions with Iranian officials, however, I understood that Iran might be able to implement an undeclared de facto freeze, letting the news reach the public via IAEA reporting.
We discussed how Iran might pursue dialogue bilaterally with the United States. To some extent, success on a bilateral front would alter the P-5+1 negotiations, making the multilateral efforts easier. But bilateral dialogue needed a pretext to begin. Perhaps “technical discussions” with the United States—advice on how to renovate the research reactor’s control room, for example—could furnish such a pretext?
Salehi was noncommittal. It had been quite difficult, he said, for him to achieve even the progress made thus far.
My next meeting was with Ahmadinejad. I had requested a one-on-one conversation, with only Salehi present to act as an interpreter. I explained to Ahmadinejad the political value of the proposed fuel arrangement and said it would be good for the IAEA to inspect the new facility at Fordow as early as possible, suggesting—as agreed with Salehi—that the inspection take place soon, before October 25. I was mindful of the conclusion of my term but, more important, I wanted to stanch the buildup of speculation by the West. “You should know,” I added, “that Western intelligence agencies were aware of the facility for a number of years.”
Ahmadinejad smiled. “If they really did know,” he replied, “Obama would not have said”—as he had, in a press conference—“that it is possibly a military facility.” Ahmadinejad made no reference to my own statement on CNN that Iran was on the wrong side of the law, in terms of its failure to inform the IAEA about Fordow.
He added that Obama should stop lecturing Iran, stop saying “you must do, you must do” and reproving Tehran in public. Ahmadinejad should understand, I said, that Obama had domestic constraints, to which he replied, “So do I.” Clearly, for Ahmadinejad and for Iran as a whole, respectful treatment by the West was critical. Ahmadinejad was especially dismissive toward Sarkozy, who he said had been “impolite” for some time. He was also insulted that Obama had not responded to his congratulatory message after the U.S. elections. The key to progress in bilateral relations with the United States would be a matter of tone, making Iran feel more like a partner and less like an outcast.
When I mentioned that the application of the Additional Protocol would help Iran’s case, Ahmadinejad said this would not be a problem, but he felt that Tehran needed some sort of positive gesture from the West. Perhaps, I suggested, once the fuel agreement was concluded, the Americans could provide spare parts for Iran’s aging fleet of civilian aircraft. “Spare parts are not so important. We need,” he said, “to get past fifty years of animosity.”
This led me, indirectly, to the sensitive topic of Ahmadinejad’s statements about Israel and the Holocaust.[19] “You should not give your detractors an opportunity to misuse your statements,” I said. He understood what I was referring to immediately; nobody in the Arab and Muslim world, he said, was ready to accept the “Zionist regime.”
After the meeting, Salehi passed on that Ahmadinejad appreciated my efforts to help resolve the Iranian issue and had told him, on his next trip to Vienna, to bring a nice present for my wife. Thus Aida received a traditional Iranian vase and a lovely framed verse from the Koran. On leaving Tehran, I myself was given some first-class pistachios. Such are the perks of international civil service.
Although the stage was set for progress, the situation remained delicate. One misstep in any direction could upset the precarious structure we had built.
19
I had discussed this with Salehi ahead of time. He said that if I wanted to approach the topic, I should only do so in a convoluted way. Apparently, in Farsi it is customary to make any critical remarks in a roundabout manner.