Iran also needs to be careful while entering into any negotiations with the West.
KARACHI: This is with reference to your editorial of August 7 titled “Winds of change in Iran”. I agree with your viewpoint. However, I think Iran also needs to be careful while entering into any negotiations with the West. In your editorial, you are assuming that the real objective of any revived talks between Iran and the US in particular and the West in general, is the same when viewed either from Iran’s perspective or that of the West’s.
If this is so, then indeed there may be a greater possibility of settling the dispute between Iran and the West with a new person who does not carry any baggage. I also agree that such an agreement would be in the interest of Pakistan — and that we can then go ahead with the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline without pressure from the US not to engage in any financial transactions with Iran. However, I think we cannot discount the possibility that the objective of revived talks, at least from the point of view of the hardliners in the US and the powerful Israel lobby, could be very different.
The reason why I say this is that there is a real possibility that the whole attitude of the US and the West while negotiating with the Iranians on the nuclear issue does not appear to be fully kosher. Please recall that Iran’s stated intention to develop nuclear technology is that this technology is going to be used only for peaceful purposes and the clerics have issued a fatwa that the production of nuclear bombs for offensive purposes is “haram”. Also note that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran is a signatory, does not forbid it to produce uranium required for power generation as long as the enrichment levels are much lower than those required for nuclear bombs. (I think the numbers are 20-30 per cent enrichment for power and more than 98 per cent for a nuclear weapon).
Readers should note that American and Western reaction and policy towards North Korea, which uses even more inflammatory language towards its neighbours and has actually become a nuclear power, is very different. There they say that this is just a new young leader trying to consolidate power and seeking attention from the West by his jingoistic remarks, and that North Korea should be helped by giving it aid!
Iran had actually agreed to a Western proposal that Iran would ship out its stockpile of nuclear fuel to a third country in return for a guarantee that it would be supplied with the fuel required for any of its nuclear reactors as necessary under international supervision. Turkey and Brazil had acted as intermediaries but when this was coming towards finalisation, the West moved the goalposts and said that this was now too little and too late.
Iran should, therefore, be particularly careful during these negotiations and not overreact in any way. Iran must negotiate and try its level best to come out of the sanctions regime that is crippling its economy. I wish it the best.
Ali Hashmi
Published in The Express Tribune, August 12th, 2013.
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