1.

World

Middle East & Africa

U.S. AND EUROPE AGREE ON STEPS IN IRAN DISPUTE
By David E. Sanger and Steven R. Weisman

New York Times
March 11, 2005
Page A01

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/politics/11iran.html

WASHINGTON -- Europe and the United States have agreed on a joint approach to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program after months of dispute, with the Bush administration agreeing to offer modest economic incentives and the Europeans agreeing to take the issue to the United Nations Security Council if negotiations fail, senior American officials said Thursday.

The American incentives would go into effect only if Iran agreed to halt the enrichment of uranium permanently. The agreement represents a major shift in strategy for both the Bush administration, which has refused for years to offer Iran incentives to give up its program, and for Europe, which had been reluctant to discuss penalties.

The agreement, which has been widely anticipated since President Bush returned from Europe late last month, is expected to be announced on Friday. The United States will agree to support Iran's entry into the World Trade Organization, a process that usually takes years, and the sale of critical spare parts for the country's aging commercial airliners.

"We're in support of what the Europeans are doing, but we had to find a way to demonstrate it," a senior American official deeply involved in the debate within the administration said about the pending announcement. "This is our way of making clear that we will join the Europeans in giving Iran positive reasons to give up its program."

Though Mr. Bush will not announce the change himself, just as he did not announce a similar offer to North Korea last June, he has been closely involved in the administration's change of direction. But while the United States is a party to negotiations with North Korea, it does not plan to join the talks with Iran directly, officials said, leaving that to the Europeans.

Until now, the president has insisted he would never "reward" Iran for giving up activities that he has insisted are a cover for a weapons program. That position hardened after Iran admitted that it had hidden facilities and enrichment activities from international inspectors for 18 years.

Iran has voluntarily halted its enrichment activities while it is engaged in negotiations with Britain, France and Germany. But its leaders have repeatedly declared that it will never give up its right to enrich uranium for what it insists are peaceful purposes. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran has ratified, gives all signers the right to enrich uranium as long as the work is peaceful, declared and fully monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The monitoring is intended to assure that a country is only producing low-enriched uranium capable of fueling commercial nuclear reactors, rather than high-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran's senior negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, told a conference in Tehran last weekend that the country would never agree to a permanent cessation of enrichment. But the senior American official involved in the administration's negotiations with Europe said that, after some heated internal debate, "the Europeans are now with us in the view that we could never monitor their enrichment activity reliably enough" to ensure that Iran was not producing bomb-grade uranium.

Some European diplomats have argued that point in recent weeks, saying that Iran cannot be prohibited from enrichment while other signers of the treaty are permitted to produce nuclear fuel. But the American official insisted "that argument is now over."

Some officials in the Bush administration have said they believe that Iran will not agree to give up enrichment, no matter what incentives Mr. Bush offers. They see the president's decision to dangle what amount to modest American economic incentives as part of an effort to speed along the negotiating process so that Iran's intentions become clear.

At that point, in the view of hawks on the issue inside the White House and the Pentagon, the Europeans will be bound to take the issue to the Security Council. These officials would only speak anonymously because such delicate negotiations hang in the balance.

When she served as national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice often said that the question of stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon should be put before the Security Council, but the Untied [sic! the Times should know that sometimes spellcheckers are not enough] States could never muster the votes among the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog.

The Europeans, in contrast, have argued that unless the United States joined in the incentives they offered, Iran would never seriously consider giving up control of what is called the "nuclear fuel cycle," the ability to produce nuclear fuel itself.

American officials have said they will insist on a timetable so that talks do not drag on for months or years. Whether the Europeans will announce such a timetable is unclear. Several weeks ago, the new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, said that Iran was judged to be several years away from producing an actual weapon.

Iran could see benefits from the offer of aircraft parts relatively soon, officials said. Its aging craft are in need of parts for engines and American-made avionic equipment. But entry into the World Trade Organization is far more complex, requiring huge changes in a nation's economy and vast openings to foreign investors. The United States offered to help Russia along that path eight years ago, but it has still not joined the W.T.O. China took years to negotiate its entry.

With Friday's announcement, the administration will have changed course in dealing with both of the leading aspirants for nuclear technology, North Korea and Iran. Mr. Bush came to office refusing to deal with either nation until each first gave up its weapons program. In North Korea's case, that approach was judged no longer tenable last June, and the administration offered a similar road map of incentives. But North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, has yet to respond to that offer.

--David E. Sanger reported from Washington for this article and Steven R. Weisman from Mexico City.

2.

World

Middle East

The Gulf

Iran

U.S. TO BACK EUROPEANS ON INCENTIVES FOR IRAN
By Robin Wright and Peter Baker

** Rice to Announce Shift on Nuclear Issue **

Washington Post
March 11, 2005
Page A14

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25356-2005Mar10.html

President Bush has decided to back European allies in their plan to offer economic incentives to persuade Iran to abandon any effort to build nuclear weapons, a sharp shift in policy for a government that had long refused to bargain for Tehran's cooperation, senior administration officials said yesterday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to announce the decision as early as today, culminating an intense negotiation over recent weeks that brought U.S. and European leaders together in their approach to Iran after a long split. By agreeing to try incentives first, U.S. officials believe they will later gain European support for taking the matter to the U.N. Security Council if talks fail.

Rice hinted at the decision yesterday before traveling to Mexico. "I think we're really coming to a common view of how to proceed," she said of her discussions with the Europeans, who have taken the lead in negotiating with Iran. "We're looking for ways to more actively support that diplomacy. But I want to be very clear that this is really not an issue of what people should be giving to Iran. This is an issue of . . . keeping the spotlight on Iran, which ought to be living up to its international obligations."

Rice said Iran would have to commit to not using its civilian nuclear power program as a cover for secret weapons development and would have to submit to intensive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. She did not discuss particular incentives, but those on the table include accelerating membership for Iran in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and permitting Tehran to purchase badly needed spare parts for its aging passenger jets.

Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick met with British, French and German officials in Washington on Tuesday to work through the details, according to a European diplomat. The two sides "share a common understanding of where our red lines are . . . and when we'd go to the Security Council," the diplomat said. Among the bigger hurdles has been coming up with terms that would win support from the rest of the European Union.

The decision on incentives would put the United States in the position of engaging Iran diplomatically after a quarter-century of hostility. It could also go a long way toward reconciling the country with its traditional European allies, particularly France and Germany, which broke with Washington over the war in Iraq. Bush's recent trip to Europe, including meetings with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, broke through a long logjam over Iran.

But it was not at all clear that incentives would be enough to persuade Iran, which denies trying to build nuclear weapons, to give anything up.

"It's a nose in the tent, but the concessions themselves were really disparaged by Iranians that I spoke with as not meaningful," said Clifford Kupchan of the Nixon Center, a think tank. "In reality, it would take years for Iran to accede to the WTO, and airplane parts, while badly needed, just aren't of the scale that would induce Iran to begin to consider trading their crown jewels."

Still, Kupchan, who just returned from a two-week trip to Tehran during which he met with senior Iranian officials, said U.S. involvement in the negotiations is essential to Tehran. "It's clear that the Iranians view U.S. participation in the E.U. talks as critically important," he said. "It's also clear that they view these first steps as insufficient to engage them in meaningful discussions on the nuclear issue."

Hadi Semati, a visiting public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a University of Tehran political scientist, agreed that Iranian leaders would dismiss the incentives as inadequate.

"They want much more serious carrots, much more serious discussions of security guarantees," he said. "I don't think it will impress the Iranians at this stage, given the backdrop of rhetoric warfare by the administration over the past couple of months." More than airplane parts, the Iranians are looking for a broad change in U.S. strategy toward Tehran, he said. "They want a new paradigm of rapprochement to Iran. That's the price of giving up any program."

Bush's willingness to go along with incentives of any kind stems from a desire to gather support for later punitive action, assuming the incentives do not work, and to present a united front before the Security Council. Rice plans to disclose the incentives decision in an interview with the Reuters news agency today, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

--Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.

3.

U.S. IN SHIFT TO BACK EU ON IRAN INCENTIVES
By Arshad Mohammed and Carol Giacomo

Reuters
March 11, 2005

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1002729&tw=wn_wire_story

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, in a major shift, on Friday will adopt a European proposal to offer Iran economic incentives to abandon its nuclear ambitions, U.S. and European officials said on Thursday.

The United States is expected to allow Iran to join the World Trade Organization and buy aircraft spare parts and, in return, Britain, France and Germany have agreed to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council if it fails to give up its suspected nuclear weapons program, the officials said.

The united U.S.-European approach, expected to be announced in coordinated, separate statements, would mark an important milestone in efforts to curb what Washington believes is Iran's attempts to develop nuclear arms.

A U.S. decision to embrace economic incentives is a significant reversal from Washington's previous refusal to reward Iran for what it regards as bad behavior.

The Europeans, in turn, would shift gears by pledging that if their negotiations with Iran collapse or if Tehran reneges on a promise to suspend nuclear enrichment activities, they will join Washington in bringing the issue to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters U.S. and European views on dealing with Iran's nuclear program were converging. Later, authoritative sources said a common position would come on Friday.

"We talked through in great detail the Iran issue with the Europeans. They are very firm how to ensure Iran's compliance, so we're preparing to take some steps to support them," one U.S. official told Reuters.

Another U.S. official added: "The Europeans are ready to make sure Iran meets her obligations and to look at what next steps to take."

"We are really coming to a common view of how to proceed," Rice told reporters during a trip to Mexico when asked about European diplomatic efforts to resolve the matter. "We are making a lot of progress and will come to conclusion on that fairly soon."

U.S. SKEPTICAL DIPLOMACY WILL SUCCEED

The United States accuses Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies this, saying its nuclear program is for peaceful power generation.

Washington can effectively block Tehran from joining the WTO and from importing aircraft parts with substantial U.S. content, making U.S. support vital if Iran is to get either benefit.

While deeply skeptical the European diplomacy will work, U.S. officials have said they want to give it the best chance of success and to insulate themselves from blame if it fails.

"I want to be very clear that this is really not an issue of what people should be giving to Iran. This is an issue . . . of keeping the spotlight on Iran, which ought to be living up to its international obligations," Rice said.

Some U.S. officials had indicated they wanted specific commitments from the Europeans to bring the Iran issue to the Security Council in June or another specific date and to support sanctions once the council took up the matter.

But one U.S. official told Reuters: "There's not a lot of detail, not a lot of specificity" on these points.

He said the European statement was expected to generally reaffirm verbal commitments by European officials to join the United States in bringing Iran to the Security Council but would not specifically define what constitutes a breakdown in negotiations.

"If you have a commitment in principle, that's pretty good," the U.S. official said.

U.S. and European officials said that while they discussed such issues as deadlines and sanctions, the administration in the end did not insist on specific EU commitments on these points. The EU statement is not expected to mention sanctions directly, officials and diplomats said.

A European diplomat said the EU view is that "we go (to the Security Council) if Iran breaks its commitments," including if some new revelation about covert nuclear facilities or activities is uncovered.