The nuclear truce continues, no deal with Iran

*This is important. The negotiations in the Middle East have direct consequences for U.S. security. A central concern for all Americans. Latinos need to include these issues in our dialogue. VL

fuente latinaBy Mikel Ayestaran, La Rioja/FuenteLatina

JERUSALEM – A year of nuclear truce was not enough to weave the needed confidence into a final agreement between Iran and the 5 + 1. The group consisting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, France, UK, Russia and China) plus Germany, will have to wait. It’s an agreement as important as it is complicated, that would have achieved an end to three decades of confrontation and changed the current balance of power in the Middle East. The two sides exhausted the final seconds of a pre-determined deadline with the idea of getting an extension that serves to draw “a logical agreement” within “a new political environment” – this according to press leaks in Vienna by sources close to the negotiations. This extension could last for “weeks” to “months,” depending on how close the parties are to an agreement.

The departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran and the arrival of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani, enabled a rapprochement with the West which resulted in a six month “action plan” that began last November 24. The plan was extended for another six months in July. Thanks to a preliminary agreement, the Islamic republic has limited its uranium enrichment to 20% and, in exchange, the world community has raised a precautionary series of sanctions against its nuclear program.

But this trial period has still not resolved all of the doubts that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has concerning what Teheran characterizes as the “exclusively civil” character of its nuclear program. The head of the agency, Yukiya Amano, lamented before the summit in Vienna that Iran has stopped responding to questions from the agency about a supposed project for building a bomb that Iran had in the past. Tehran denies the existence of such a plan and ensures that the allegations are  “fabrications” of the intelligence services.

As in previous key summits, the talks were stretched to the final moments of the deadline and heavy weights on both sides took an active part in the talks: Secretary of State, John Kerry; Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and on the Iranian side, the chief diplomat and Rohani right hand, Javad Zarif.

During the year of direct negotiations, the IAEA has had access to key facilities in Iran. But the suspicions of the Western governments against the Islamic republic are still open after a secret facility was discovered near the city of Qom in 2009. There are fears that there may be more secret facilities within Iran. Zarif’s change in attitude from the recent past contrasts with the activism of the most radical sectors of the regime, who according to AFP News took to the streets of Tehran to protest the possible agreement. The negotiation has the approval of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, although he announced in February that “they are useless and will lead nowhere.”

A historic shift

The times have changed and apart from  the nuclear dialogue, Tehran and Washington have held their first direct talks ending 34 years of isolation and crisis confrontation, as with the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran when the US became the “great satan” of the ayatollahs. That crisis sparked a program of sanctions that has finally overwhelmed Iran and brought it the negotiating table. Communication between the two powers has also extended to the issue of security due to the emergence of the Islamic State (EI) in Syria and Iraq, an enemy that has suddenly put them on the same front.

Since the “plan of action” was announced, Israel has made no secret of its distaste for what it considers “a historic mistake”. That is how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu qualified the talks, because they involve international acceptance of their ultimate enemy as a nuclear state. The Israeli press maintains that Kerry is in constant contact with Netanyahu to inform him of the details of each negotiation process. A similar stance that the U.S. has with Saudi Arabia, its other regional partner who is wary of rapprochement with Iran, the Shiite power that challenges the orthodox Sunnism representing the Saudis.

The ‘action plan’ in force until now does not explicitly recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium, but neither is it denied. This detail, not reflected in the text signed in Geneva last November, was a major victory for Iran – possibly also the formula that enabled the plan’s go ahead – and the biggest concern for Israel and Saudi Arabia, as the Islamic republic maintains its ability to control the nuclear cycle.

This article was originally published in FuenteLatina.

Translated from Spanish by NewsTaco.

[Photo by U.S.Embassy Vienna/Flickr]

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