Conflict Resolution: #Iran Breaks Deadlock

Dear Pitaconsumers,

Step one in the deadlock with Iran broke last night around 9PM EST as Iran’s Chief Negotiator, Javed Zarif, shared an historic tweet:

@JZarif “We have reached and agreement.”   #Iran #Irantalks”.

World powers by way of the P5 + 1 reached a deal with Iran on its nuclear program at Iran’s Arak facility. The P5 +1 include the permanent UN Security Council members of the US, Russia, China, Britain and France;  the “plus 1” is non-permanent member Germany.  Turkey and Brazil were key in the 2006 negotiations.  It is a shame that they were excluded in this historic deal.  Nonetheless here’s Turkey’s official–and optimistic–response in the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s statement to Turkey’s English daily:

“The agreement reached by the sides today has become the first positive concrete development since the Tehran declaration in 2010… Naturally, the deal in question forms the beginning of the process and a part of measures to promote confidence.

We call on the sides to keep up their constructive approaches to carry the process further,” the statement said. “We hope both sides will take the necessary steps required by the agreement, so the problem can be solved in a diplomatic way that would satisfy everyone.

Turkey is ready to support this process in all ways as it had made every effort to keep the diplomatic process alive to find a solution. Turkey will keep on defending the right to nuclear energy use for peaceful purposes, while expecting the obligations of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NTP) to be carried out.”

In 2003, when Iran made offer to Bush admin there were 164 centrifuges.   Today, after sanctions, there are 19,000 centrifuges.said U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, in analyzing the impact of sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program status.   Kerry says if abides by deal sanctions will be reduced. Here is the complete story:

World powers reach nuclear deal with Iran at Geneva talks

Source: Al Jazeera

Iran and six world powers including the United States have reached a deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear program and ease the tough international sanctions that have long been imposed because of it.

The deal – struck after negotiations in Geneva that stretched into the early hours of Sunday (late Saturday in the U.S.) – has “opened a new path toward a world that is more secure,” President Barack Obama said in an address broadcast live on television networks.

“While today’s announcement is just a first step, it achieves a great deal,” Obama said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed Obama’s point that the deal is just the beginning of a political rapprochement.

“We need to start moving in the direction of restoring confidence, a direction in which we have managed to move against in the past,” Zarif  said.

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Photo Credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Obama said the deal includes “substantial limitations which will prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon.”

Even so, Zarif said Sunday’s deal with world powers contained a “clear reference that (uranium) enrichment will continue.”

“The burden is on Iran to prove to the world that its nuclear program will be exclusively for peaceful purposes,” Obama said in his address.

The deal includes an agreement that Iran will halt some progress on its nuclear program, including a plutonium reactor at the Arak facility. The deal also reportedly calls on Iran to neutralize its 20 percent enriched uranium stockpiles.

Iran will suspend its enrichment of all uranium above 5 percent.

Iran has further committed to halt its expansion of the nation’s uranium enrichment program, halt the installation of additional centrifuges and ban the use of advanced centrifuges.

In addition, Tehran has agreed to intrusive inspections under the terms of the deal.

“We will gain daily access to key facilities,” Secretary of State John Kerry said at a news conference on the deal in Geneva.

In the interim, Obama promised that the U.S. “will refrain from imposing new sanctions and allow the Iranian government a portion of the revenue” it was previously denied.

Still, he said, “If Iran does not fully meet its commitments in six months, we will turn off the relief and crank up the pressure.”

Zarif indicated in comments early Sunday that in the final step of negotiations, set to take place in six months, negotiators will achieve a comprehensive deal on Iran’s enrichment program when all sanctions are lifted.

The U.S. maintained the controversial sanctions had always been a measure aimed at bringing about the kind of agreement reached in Geneva.

“Make no mistake, and I ask you, don’t interpret that the sanctions were an end unto themselves. The goal of the sanction was always to have a negotiation,” Kerry said.

Obama said that if Iran breaks its promise, it will face more of a backlash from the U.S.

“Because of its record violating obligations, Iran must accept strict limitations on its nuclear program,” Obama said.

Top European Union diplomat Catherine Ashton told Reuters the deal would create the time and space for a more comprehensive deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

Obama and Kerry sought to reassure international allies, including Israel, that commitments to their safety would remain unchanged by the deal.

Still, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the agreement “a bad deal.”

“No deal is better than a bad deal,” Kerry said, expressing confidence in the agreement.

Kerry and his counterparts from Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany joined the Geneva talks after Zarif and Ashton reported progress on uranium enrichment and other issues on Friday.

The diplomats had aimed to hammer out an agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program for six months, while offering the Iranians limited relief from crippling economic sanctions. If the interim deal holds, the parties will negotiate final-stage agreements to ensure Iran does not build nuclear weapons.

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PITAPOINTS

Great, “step two” may be on its way to be checked off as complete; Step three: talk    As Qayyum discussed last week, no deal to remove Assad from power (without killing him) will emerge without including Iran at the table.  Regardless of Saudi Arabia’s nor Israel’s disappointment–Netanyahu called it an “historic mistake”– with what they perceive as the U.S. being “duped” by Iran, the P5+1 broke the deadlock on a decades old issue.  More may follow.  “You can’t have peace in without in negotiations,” observed Mohsen Milani on the Syria Crisis.


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