Fruitful. Intensive. Detailed. Substantive. These were the words used to describe the nuclear talks between Iran and the six major world powers held this week in Geneva. Of course positive words have been heard before in this impasse. The one word that’s never heard? Breakthrough.
Still, after the meetings between Iran the P5+1 – the US, the UK, France, Russia, China and Germany – both sided sounded positive, according to the Fars News Agency. They even agreed on a joint statement that called the talks the most “substantive” and “detailed” yet.
The sides will meet again to go even further into details on November 7-8. The negotiations center around Iran’s illegal nuclear program and concerns Iran is working towards nuclear weapons. In response, the West has imposed harsh sanctions on Iran’s economy. Iran is now seeking to reach a deal to resolve the impasse and end the sanctions.
That Iran is feeling good does not mean good things for you necessarily. One major concern before the talks is that the world powers may make too many concessions to Iran, since they appear eager for a deal to the decades-long nuclear dispute.
One specific concern of Israel’s is that Iran not retain the ability to enrich nuclear fuel on their soil, lest they use that “peaceful” ability to sneak their way to nuclear weapons.
On that front, Iran sounded committed as ever to retaining enrichment capability. Whether the world will let them remains to be seen.
However, Iranian negotiator and foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted by Fars as saying vaguely that the world powers “exhibited the necessary political will to move the process forward.” However, he did say the detailed stage of the talks will be the “most difficult part.”
As for Iran, they are reportedly open to limiting their enrichment in some way and permitting “snap” inspections of their nuclear facilities, but only towards the end of the negotiations. “None of these issues exist in the first step, but they are part of our last step,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi was quoted by Fars as saying.
So will the West crack and relax sanctions too soon? Will Iran accept a real, peaceful solution to the crisis? Looks like we’ll have to wait until November to find out.
(By Joshua Spurlock, themideastupdate.com, October 16, 2013)