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World Powers Present Iran With Nuclear Concerns At Baghdad Meeting

May 23, 2012
by RFE/RL

Six world powers, meeting with Iran in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have presented a proposal addressing concerns about Iran's pursuit of 20 percent uranium enrichment.

Iran has previously declined to halt work on 20 percent enrichment -- a level that would bring the Islamic republic closer to being able to make a nuclear weapon.

Michael Mann, spokesman for European Union foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton, indicated that the offer had been presented to Iran at the meeting in Baghdad on May 23.

"We made proposals in order to persuade Iran to get back in line with their obligations under Security Council resolutions and persuade the international community that they are only interested in peaceful use nuclear power," Mann said.

"But of course, in order to persuade them to do that, we also have to put proposals on the table to encourage them."

No details about the offer were revealed. No response was immediately available from the Iranian delegation, led by chief nuclear negotiator Said Jalili.

Mann also said he did not expect any "dramatic" progress at the Baghdad meeting.

The Baghdad talks are the first between Iran and the six powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States -- since April.

'No Instant Solution"

Speaking in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that Iran appeared ready to agree to specific steps to end the standoff. "We have to understand that there will be no instant solution, it will be a process," he said.

"But at every stage of this process, conducted in accordance with the principles of gradual, reciprocal steps, we want to see concrete results: Iran takes a step to meet the demands of the international community; the international community takes steps that weaken sanctions pressure on Iran and so forth until we reach the point when it is clear to all that Iran's nuclear program has no military aspect."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak urged the world powers on May 23 not to make concessions in the talks. He told Israeli public radio that "without strengthening the current painful sanctions, Iran will continue towards a nuclear capability."

Israel, which views a potential Iranian nuclear bomb as a threat to the Jewish-led state's existence, says military strikes on Iran remain an option.

Ahead of the talks, Iran agreed in principle to give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to sites, documents and experts that inspectors suspect may be connected to weapons projects.

Banking, Oil Sanctions

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said he expected that the agreement, not yet signed, would include access to the Parchin military site near Tehran.

Inspectors believe Iran built a containment building at Parchin in 2000 for testing explosions related to nuclear weapons development. IAEA inspectors last visited Parchin in 2005, but were not granted access to the containment facility.

After the announcement of the agreement in principle on May 22, Tehran said it would be seeking concessions from the powers at the Baghdad talks.

Tehran wants Western powers to lift sanctions on its banking and oil sectors -- measures that target the government's main sources of foreign revenue.

The West says the sanctions are necessary to force Iran to prove its nuclear program is not aimed at developing atomic weapons. Iran says it has never sought to develop a nuclear bomb.

Iran is already under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions aimed at forcing it to suspend uranium enrichment and other aspects of its nuclear and missile programs until all outstanding questions about its intentions are answered.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/iran-world-powers -hold-nuclear-meeting-in-baghdad/24589967.html

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World Powers Present Iran With Nuclear Concerns At Baghdad Meeting