Two weeks before the fuel proposal meeting was scheduled to take place, on October 21, Hillary Clinton weighed in with a provocative statement. In a press conference with David Miliband, she expressed impatience with the Iranians: “The international community will not wait indefinitely for evidence that Iran is prepared to live up to its international obligations,” she declared. What came next was worse: “With Iran, it is tragic that a country with such a great history, with so much to give to the rest of the world, is so afraid of their own people. The way that they are utilizing secret prisons and detentions, show trials, is a reflection of the discontent that they know people feel toward the current leadership.”[20]
Ahmadinejad and his colleagues were irate. The Iranian ambassador came to inform us that Salehi would now not come to the fuel proposal meeting. I called Glyn Davies. Clinton’s statement, I told him, had been completely unnecessary and was undermining our efforts to create an environment conducive to negotiations. If such provocations continued, I would give up. I asked him to call Washington to see whether Clinton, who was in Moscow to meet with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, could at least make a separate, more positive statement.
The response was prompt. At a press conference with Lavrov on October 13, Clinton toned down her stance, saying that the United States had a “dual-track approach” toward Iran: “We believe it is important to pursue the diplomatic track and to do everything we can to make it successful. We believe that Iran is entitled to peaceful nuclear energy, but that it is not entitled to nuclear weapons.”[21]
Lavrov helpfully added that Russia was convinced “that threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the present situation are counter-productive.”[22]
I called Salehi and Ambassador Soltanieh. I told them I had informed the Americans of Tehran’s angry reaction and pointed to Clinton’s more positive tone. I asked them to convey a message to Ahmadinejad, urging him to take the moral high ground rather than rebutting the United States through the media. Most important, Iran should not squander the opportunity presented by the fuel proposal meeting. The Americans had agreed to discuss the issues Salehi had raised in Tehran: refurbishing the reactor, training Iranian scientists, and the possible sale of a new research reactor. This would be the gateway to a broader dialogue.
Salehi said he could not approach Ahmadinejad again about attending the meeting because the Iranian president was quite upset by Clinton’s remarks. Still, Soltanieh promised he would pass on my message.
“This may be my last chance to help you get engaged with the United States,” I said. I threatened not to hold the meeting if Salehi or someone of his level did not come.
I was not, in the end, required to carry through with my threat. The critical fuel proposal meeting convened in Vienna on October 19, as planned, with Soltanieh present. Dan Poneman—U.S. deputy secretary of energy and a friend of long standing who had worked for many years with Brent Scowcroft and at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration—headed the U.S. delegation. Poneman was a breath of fresh air: bright, modest, a big-picture thinker, always eager to find solutions. The Russian head of delegation, Nikolay Spassky,[23] was also a first-class diplomat.
The French, on the other hand, came across as hard-line and legalistic. Headed by Frédéric Mondoloni, representative to the IAEA, the French delegation arrived with scores of proposed amendments to our prepared draft agreement.
During the meeting, Iran dramatically announced that they did not want France to be party to the agreement. As their reason, they cited France’s failure to deliver the fifty tons of uranium Iran had bought before the 1979 Revolution—exactly the point I had asked Salehi not to raise. I suspected, though, that the undelivered uranium was not the real reason for Iran’s antipathy toward the French, recalling Ahmadinejad’s complaints about Sarkozy being “impolite.” Sarkozy always found ways to insult Iran. In late August, for example, he had reportedly said, “It is the same leaders in Iran who say that the nuclear program is peaceful and that the elections were honest. Who can believe them?”[24]
The Iranians were using this opportunity to get back at the French, even though Sarkozy had offered Obama his support for the deal. Indeed, France was one of the only countries with the technology to manufacture Iran’s research reactor fuel. A call to Salehi was in order. “I think you have made your point vis-à-vis the French,” I said. “You will need them in the future for technology—both for power and research reactors.” I suggested that I could keep the French in the agreement as my own proposal.
The Iranians could live with that, Salehi said, and asked me to have the French send their ambassador in Tehran to see him the next day. In a sidebar meeting with the French delegation, I explained how we had worked to keep them in the deal. “You have to ask your people in Paris to control the rhetoric,” I said. “You cannot publicly accuse people of lying and then expect them to trust you as a partner.” Our next hurdle arose when the Iranians moved to bargain over the modalities for shipping the uranium abroad. The understanding in the P-5+1 meeting in Geneva had been that all twelve hundred kilograms of LEU would be removed in one go. Iran now insisted that they first had to receive the fuel, manufactured from some other source of LEU, and only then would they release their own stockpile of enriched uranium, in two batches. This, they said, was because of the stated lack of trust and their past experience.
As a way out, I suggested that the Agency could take custody of the material from the time it left Iran until it was returned in the form of fuel, thus giving Iran the guarantee it needed. In any case, Iran’s risk would be fairly low: its enrichment capability remained intact. As I told Soltanieh and his colleagues, the timing and amount of LEU to be delivered was, in my view, a red line for the Americans and other Western countries.
We were at an impasse. I called on Salehi, who, to my surprise, said they would deliver the entire twelve hundred kilograms if the United States were their counterpart in the agreement, instead of Russia or France. It was a brilliant stroke. By bypassing the third-party countries, the Iranians would open the door to direct bilateral dialogue with the Americans. This is what Ahmadinejad had told me they wanted all along. It would also send a message of trust and confidence in both directions, from Tehran to Washington and back again.
On receiving Salehi’s message, the Americans were flabbergasted. Poneman and his team scrambled to call Washington for guidance at around four o’clock in the morning, D.C. time. They finally responded with a counteroffer. The United States would not be a partner in the agreement, but they would issue a political statement of support and would commit to helping Iran upgrade the safety of their old research reactor. This was a giant step forward. I suggested that the commitment from Washington be annexed to the fuel agreement and signed by the Americans. They agreed on the spot.
Poneman got authorization to see Soltanieh in a bilateral talk. Soltanieh said he could meet Poneman only if I were present. I took them both into my office. Poneman expressed, on behalf of the U.S. government, their goodwill toward the Iranian people. The conclusion of this fuel agreement, he said, could open the way to a broad range of cooperation between the two countries, including providing Iran with new research reactors, which Iran was keen to have. The meeting was cordial and friendly. Soltanieh took careful notes to report to Tehran.
20
Jeff Mason, “Clinton Warns Iran of Need for Nuclear Progress,” Reuters, October 11, 2009.
21
“Remarks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov,” October 13, 2009. Transcript retrieved at www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/10/130505.htm.
24
James Mackenzie, “France’s Sarkozy Raises Iran Sanction Threat,” Reuters, August 27, 2009.