Zarif Reveals Iran’s Proposal for Ensuring against “Breakout”
By Gareth Porter | IPS | June 13, 2014
TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has revealed for the first time that Iran has made a detailed proposal to the P5+1 group of states aimed at ensuring that no stockpile of low-enriched uranium would be available for “breakout” through enrichment to weapons grade levels.
In an exclusive interview with IPS, Zarif described an Iranian plan, presented at the meetings with the P5+1 last month in Vienna, that would exclude weapons grade enrichment. “The parameters of the proposal would be set to continue Iran’s enrichment but to provide the necessary guarantees that it would not enrich to anything over five percent,” said Zarif.
The proposal, which was later published by the Iranian government, included a series of “technical guarantees” against nuclear weapons proliferation.
The plan would involve the immediate conversion of each batch of low-enriched uranium to an oxide powder that would then be used to make fuel assemblies for Iran’s Bushehr reactor, according to Zarif.
Because Iran does not have the capability to manufacture fuel assemblies for Bushehr, the proposal implies that the oxide power would be sent to Russia, at least for several years, rather than remaining in Iran.
The previously undisclosed Iranian plan is part of a broader negotiating stance that insists on the need for a large increase in the number of centrifuges it would have in the future – a demand that the United States and its negotiating partners have rejected.
Obama administration officials have made it clear that they are insisting on very steep reductions in the number of centrifuges, based on the argument that Iran cannot be allowed to have the capability to enrich enough uranium to weapons grade for a single nuclear bomb in less than six to 12 months.
Zarif said he could not discuss the details of the Iranian proposal, because it is “still being negotiated”.
But he described it as involving a complete cycle “from conversion to yellowcake, to UF6, to enriched uranium, back to oxide powder, and back to fuel rods,” all of which would be “designed specifically to meet the requirements of the Bushehr reactor.”
Zarif revealed that the Iranian plan for guaranteeing that Iran could not have a nuclear weapons capability is very similar to the proposal that Iran made to a meeting with the European three (U.K., France and Germany) in Paris in March 2005.
The proposal, which was later published by the Iranian government, included a series of “technical guarantees” against nuclear weapons proliferation. It describes one of those guarantees as “immediate conversion of all enriched uranium to fuel rods to preclude even the technical possibility of further enrichment.”
The U.S.-educated Zarif said he had developed that 2005 proposal himself when he was Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations, after he had consulted with a number of American nuclear scientists on ways to reassure the Europeans and the U.S. that Iran could not enrich enough uranium to weapons grade for a nuclear bomb.
“I asked them what would provide the necessary confidence,” said Zarif. “They gave me a number of elements, which I put in a package and sent to Tehran, and they took it to Paris.”
Frank N. Von Hippel, former assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology and now a professor at Princeton University, confirmed in an e-mail that he had been part of a small group of American scientists and others who had met with Zarif to discuss the problem of how to provide assurances that Iran’s civil nuclear programme would not be used to support a nuclear weapons programme.
Von Hippel said his recollection was that the group had suggested “not building up a stockpile but rather shipping [the low-enriched uranium] to Russia to make fuel for the Bushehr reactor.”
Peter Jenkins, then the U.K. permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, participated in the Mar. 23, 2005 meeting at which the Iranian plan was presented.
“All of us were impressed by the proposal,” he recalled in a 2012 interview. The Europeans did not accept it as the basis for negotiation, however, because the George W. Bush administration had insisted that Iran not be allowed to have any enrichment whatsoever, according to European diplomats involved in that earlier phase of negotiations.
Zarif rejected the Obama administration’s position that Iran should obtain whatever reactor fuel it needs for Bushehr or any future reactors from Russia or other foreign sources rather than relying on its own enrichment capabilities. “People should not tell us you have to rely on us,” he said. “It is 30 years too late.”
He was referring to Iran’s experience with its reliance during the early 1980s on a French-based uranium enrichment consortium called Eurodif in which it had a financial stake acquired during the Shah’s regime that entitled Iran to 10 percent of the enriched uranium produced by the consortium.
After the Islamic Republic resumed the nuclear programme begun by the Shah, however, the French government prevented Eurodif from supplying any enriched uranium for nuclear fuel for the nuclear reactor at Bushehr in the early 1980s.
The U.S. State Department acknowledged in 1984 that it had not only ended its own nuclear cooperation with Iran but had “asked other nuclear suppliers not to engage in nuclear cooperation with Iran, especially while the Iran-Iraq war continues.”
The foreign minister ruled out the acceptance of the P5+1 proposal in the last round of negotiations, which reportedly would limit the number of Iranian centrifuges to a fraction of its present total of 19,000.
“We’re not going to redefine our practical needs,” he said, referring to the language in the Joint Plan of Action agreed to last November calling for agreement on an Iranian enrichment programme whose “parameters” would reflect Iran’s “practical needs”.
But the foreign minister indicated that Iran was “prepared within the scope of those practical needs to work on timing, to work on various technical details….”
Zarif criticised statements by former and present U.S. officials to the news media as well in the negotiations referring to demands that the number of Iranian centrifuges must be geared to the need to extend the time required for “breakout” to 6 to 12 months.
Some of the statements made to the press, including those by former State Department proliferation official Robert Einhorn, as well as some of those made in the negotiations “amount to posturing”, Zarif said, adding that they “amount to creating expectations that can never be met.”
“It will be much more productive if everyone involved refrains from shaping the debate in a way that [it] will be out of control,” said Zarif.
Zarif said the U.S. insistence on Iran’s ending of all enrichment at its Fordow facility, which is located in a tunnel under a mountain, is based on “the argument that you can’t have this facility, because otherwise we can’t bomb it.”
The implied assertion of the right to bomb Iranian facilities “strikes the wrong chord in the Iranian psyche and produces exactly the opposite reaction,” he said.
Zarif challenged the view reflected in Western news coverage that the Rouhani government is under strong political pressure to produce results in the talks that would remove the worst sanctions.
The last round of talks in Vienna, which were unsuccessful “has been the easiest time at home,” he said, and “the toughest time” for him as he had to explain “each positive result to a population that is extremely skeptical of the West’s intentions.” If he rejected a deal, Zarif said, he would receive a “hero’s welcome.”
Share this:
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
- Click to print (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- More
- Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Related
June 13, 2014 - Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular | Iran, Sanctions against Iran
No comments yet.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Featured Video
Cardiologist on the Over-Prescribing of Statins for Heart Disease
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Is this a War?
Resetting the relationship between The State and The Citizen
LIES ARE UNBEKOMING | NOVEMBER 6, 2021
I’ve been wondering for quite some time about whether we are in a War and the resolution of my thoughts on the subject has recently improved.
Oddly enough, I have some standing on the subject.
I lived in Iraq between 1981 to 1991, a period that covered almost all of the Iraq/Iran War and all of the Gulf War, the original, not the sequels.
It was an old school type of war, with two parties fighting over territory and trying to redraw a border. A lot of people died over 8 years and the border stayed the same. But weapons were sold, and internal power was consolidated.
That’s really what war is about, territory. You have something that I want, and I will fight you for it.
So, if this is a war, who are the warring parties and what is the fight over?
The war is between “the state” and “the citizen”. The latter is YOU and ME… continue
Blog Roll
-
Join 2,732 other subscribers
Visits Since December 2009
- 6,342,207 hits
Looking for something?
Archives
Calendar
Categories
Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity Militarism Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for IsraelTags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa al-Qaeda Argentina Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Brazil Canada CDC Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Colombia Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Da’esh Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI FDA France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem Joe Biden Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank Yemen ZionismRecent Comments
jbthring on America Has a Political Assass… charles allan on BMJ: “We need RCT gold standar… Buddy on Cardiologist on the Over-Presc… charles allan on Phasing out petrol and diesel… Pip on Government report claims pande… charles allan on Is this a War? charles allan on The Vax-Gene Files: An Acciden… michael on Henry Kissinger, Statesman, Ce… Thomas L Simpson on Authorities Should Look Into B… jbthring on British special forces deploye… michael on The Biden regime’s plan… John Looez on The Biden regime’s plan…
Aletho News
- Fake Scientific Studies by Nobel Prize Winner and Johns Hopkins Prof. Gregg Semenza
- BMJ: “We need RCT gold standard to study misinformation & vaccine hesitancy on social media”
- GOP Lawmakers Demand FBI Briefing on Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Investigation Following Whistleblower Disclosures
- Government report claims pandemic as a precedent for ‘environmental’ policy
- Phasing out petrol and diesel cars is just pie in the sky
- Spiegel, after running multiple stories blaming the Nord Stream attack on “Russian ships”, reverses course
- Professors: The Entire Fossil Fuel Industry Must Be ‘Euthanized’ To Save Humanity From Warmth
- The USAF Chief Said That F-16s Won’t Be A Game-Changer For Kiev So Why’s The Kremlin So Upset?
- Iraq unveils $17bn infrastructure project linking West Asia to Europe
- Post-Bakhmut scenario in Ukraine war
If Americans Knew
- New 3rd political party “No Labels” seeks middle ground – except on Israel
- Is the United States Moving Its Capital to Jerusalem?
- NYT downplays Palestinian civilian deaths, political motivation for Gaza attack
- What is behind the latest Israel-Gaza violence?
- What’s standing in the way of an Israel-Gaza ceasefire? Israel wants to keep breaking int’l law
- Israeli Missiles Kill Eight Palestinians, Including A Child, In Gaza
- Israel closes Gaza crossings; possible serious deterioration of humanitarian conditions
- Israel has killed 20 journalists with impunity since 2000
- Israel attacks Gaza, killing 15 Palestinians, including women and children
- Khader Adnan’s death & Israel’s decades of despotic military orders
Brownstone Institute
- The Censors are Exposed: Major Update to Missouri v. Biden from Tracy Beanz
- Kids Need the Opportunity to Take Risks, Learn from Mistakes, and Succeed on Their Own
- The Vax-Gene Files: An Accidental Discovery
- How Lockdowns Bolstered an Industrial Cartel
- The Best Life Lesson for a Teen Is a Job
- Media Complicity in Policing the Opinion Corridor
- And Just Like That, Your Rights are Gone
- The Biology of the Administrative State
- The Dashed Dreams of Digital Learning
- The Cosplay of Elite Pride
Richie Allen
- Talk To Richie On Today’s Show
- “Bollocks To Wokeism In Acting” Says Succession Star Brian Cox
- Scottish Police Chief Says Force Is Racist, Sexist & Misogynistic
- Net Migration Hits Highest Level On Record
- Calvin Klein Uses Bearded Trans Man In Sports Bra Ad
- Met Police Falsified Data On Child Searches
- US Retailer Target Removes LGBTQ Products Following Threats
- Scottish Covid Inquiry Asks Public To Share Pandemic Experiences
- Indefinite Ban For Teacher Who Misgendered Pupil
- AI Scanner Used In US Schools Fails To Spot Knives
Not A Lot Of People Know That
- EVs Will Increase Tyre Toxin Pollution
- BBC Verify
- New Energy Price Cap
- Record World Cereal Outputs Forecast for 2023/24
- The inconvenient truth about heat pumps
- Tom Burke
- Europe can achieve Net Zero by demolishing historic buildings and starting again, Central Bank claims
- King Charles backed these care homes for 40 years – now Net Zero is forcing them to close
- Lord Frost warns: Hurtling towards net zero at any cost will be a mistake
- The Telegraph & Infectious Diseases.
No Tricks Zone
- Cold Grips Globally: Alaska’s 4th Cold Winter… Record Cold Down Under…UK’s Delayed Spring…
- Aarhus University Researchers Find Arctic Warmer, Ice-Free In Summertime 10,000 Years Ago!
- Professors: The Entire Fossil Fuel Industry Must Be ‘Euthanized’ To Save Humanity From Warmth
- German Green Parliamentarian Shocks The Nation…Couldn’t Even Name First German Empire Chancellor!
- Another New Study Shows The Siberian Arctic Is Warmer When CO2 Is Low And Colder As CO2 Rises
- German Greens In Crisis, Plummet 40% In Opinion Polls As Anger Mounts Over Bans, Scandals
- Germany’s Growing List Of Bans: Next Up: Wood Stoves And Heating With Wood!
- New Study: The Lowest Tibetan Plateau Glacial Temps Were Still 3°C Warmer Than Today
- Germany’s Federal Network Agency Plans To Ration Electricity As Electric Power Crisis Heightens
- California’s Mean Annual Temps Were Up To 3.8°C Warmer Than Today During The Last Glacial
More Links
Contact:
atheonews (at) gmail.comDisclaimer
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Leave a Reply