At the Geneva talks between six world powers and Iran, mediators managed to narrow the circle of differences and highlight the issues to be resolved during the next round of talks on 20 November. Both sides are hoping to find a way out of the negotiation deadlock that has existed for the last ten years, but differences in the positions of Western allies have unexpectedly become an obstacle to compromise. France has not given its support to the other members of the six nations, announcing that Iran’s proposals do not rule out their development of nuclear weapons… France’s particular position has placed the possibility of a speedy resolution to the nuclear issue in doubt.
Logic suggests that the six countries representing the international community should not have their own individual positions when conducting talks with Tehran. Indeed, it is a matter of Tehran fulfilling the requirements contained in the UN Security Council resolutions and implementing the decisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which need to be discussed by everybody equally, including Iran, without any country having its own interpretation (otherwise Iran would have to fulfil the unilateral conditions of France). Up to now, Iran’s nuclear issue has been extremely politicised, and it is highly likely that demands by individual countries with respect to Tehran could return the talks back to zero. This is also true of the emerging danger from the commercialisation of talks. It is no coincidence that the reports on the Geneva talks that dominated the news bore headlines related to the forthcoming «deal of the century»: attention is focused on the conditions of those taking part in the talks, and the withdrawal of sanctions in exchange for Iranian concessions. The West, meanwhile, has started bargaining with Iran, seeking separate agreements and one-sided advantages.
Iran’s decision to hold separate talks with each member of the six world powers seems to be counterproductive in this regard. This kind of method of Iranian diplomacy is nothing new, incidentally. Here the Iranians are repeating the tactic for holding nuclear talks carried out by North Korea, which in a similar situation back in 1989 resorted to the tactic of a multilayered dialogue, carrying out separate meetings with representatives from the US, South Korea and the IAEA. With regard to nuclear non-proliferation, such a policy is fraught with dangerous surprises: remember how at the beginning of 2005, on the back of many years of talks, Pyongyang presented the world with the fact that it has its own nuclear weapons. The North Korean experience may seem inviting to Iran, but the chances of it being duplicated in terms of the Middle East are slim.
The French Foreign Affairs Minister, Laurent Fabius, has brushed off allegations of attempts to prevent an agreement being signed with Iran, declaring that «France is not isolated, but it is not following the crowd. France is an independent country that is working hard to establish peace». If we look at the issue from exactly this angle and proceed from the need for a reliable guarantee regarding the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, it would seem that Paris’s position should be to accommodate the other members of the UN Security Council, as well as Germany. The self-isolation of the French delegation from its allies may be justified and aimed at preventing a collective mistake, something that Israel is constantly warning about, drawing a parallel between present-day Geneva and Munich on the eve of the Second World War. Saudi Arabia is also calling on the six world powers not to believe Iran’s promises, blackmailing negotiators with threats to buy nuclear weapons in Pakistan… Tel-Aviv and Riyadh are joining forces to put anti-Iranian pressure on Washington by threatening to break off allied relations with the White House and attempting to win over the Europeans involved in the talks with Iran. In this regard, the opinion has emerged that France is on their side in order to avoid Iran’s growing influence in the region.
Tehran believes that Paris’s new position is linked to animosities between Iran and France related to regional competition. According to Iranians, France is interested in preserving the confrontation between Iran and the West on the nuclear issue in order to weaken Iran’s influence in its traditional zone of interests – in Syria and Lebanon. Here Iran is not just the strategic rival of France, but of Israel and Saudi Arabia as well. None of these countries have geopolitical reasons for helping Iran come to an early resolution of its differences with the United States. French diplomacy at the talks in Geneva is aimed at delaying the talks, while Iranians are going to have to bargain with Paris on issues in Syria that are not directly related to the dialogue in Geneva. Such is the price of a multilayered dialogue initiated by Iran in which not just France, but other Western members of the «P5+1» group, may easily find reasons for new demands regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, if desired, which for the most part is still blanketed in secrecy.
Iran’s secretiveness makes the West uneasy, and they see it as the desire to keep the true objectives of its nuclear programme secret. A significant part of its programme is still hidden from view, and there are too many things that are unknown about Iran’s nuclear activities. Against this background, France’s demand for Iran to stop the construction of a heavy-water plant in Arak, where deuterium is already being produced that could be used for more than just the production of nuclear energy, nuclear fusion, nuclear medicine and nuclear agriculture, is completely logical. Deuterium can also be used to create hydrogen and neutron bombs. Fears about the fact that the facility in Arak could be used to produce plutonium, which is necessary to build nuclear weapons, have been expressed time and again. Immediately after the conclusion of talks in Geneva on 11 November, the Iranian government and the IAEA agreed to expand their technical cooperation, a key point of which should be checking the Arak nuclear reactor. It is difficult to judge how much France’s intractability influenced Iran’s consent, but the agreement between Tehran and the IAEA can undoubtedly be considered a considerable achievement by the six world powers towards obtaining greater transparency with regard to Iran’s nuclear programme which, ultimately, lead to the agreement of a roadmap of measures with the head of IAEA, Yukiya Amano.
A technical cooperation between Iran and the IAEA may be a convincing basis for achieving an agreement with the international community and for this, it is not remotely necessary for Tehran to seek separate deals with individual members of the six-nation group. The nuances of Iran’s position at this new stage of the negotiation process aimed at achieving unilateral concessions will certainly have an effect on the process of lifting sanctions, as well. There is a possibility that the economic interests of EU member countries in Iran will come to the fore, and the issue of receiving preferential advantages after the banking and oil blockades have been lifted will become key.
American and European companies are extremely interested in entering Iran’s oil and gas market and are ready to act in this regard as soon as sanctions are lifted. Already, they are making attempts to establish contacts with Iran’s Oil Ministry, cunningly noting that the embargo does not extent to trade negotiations. The race has started and is being lead by fierce competition involving the active participation of American companies Chevron, Exxon Mobile, Conoco and Anadarko, which have all been absent from Iran’s oil and gas sector for more than 30 years. Is there any room left for the French company Total, which pulled out of Iran following the introduction of the oil embargo by the European Union? It seems that France is currently trying to resolve this issue in its favour at the nuclear talks. There is also the automotive sector of Iranian industry, which in recent years has been dominated by Peugeot, but Iran has seriously started to consider the possible return of American auto giants. France is expecting to face fierce economic competition from the US and other European partners in Iran. While the sanctions have still not been lifted, Paris’s hindrance of the negotiation process gives the country a chance to obtain definite guarantees from Iran, which may be a small sacrifice for achieving its main aim – securing the lifting of oil and financial embargoes.
How far France is prepared to refuse a coordinated position with its Western allies will now depend on the outcome of its talks with Iran. Washington’s influence on France’s position is not crucial, since Sarkozy’s pro-American policy has once again given way to a strategic rivalry with the White House. The similarity of Paris’s position on Iran’s nuclear programme with that of Tel-Aviv gives reason to suppose that the Jewish lobby in the US is preventing any drastic moves against France, and is not allowing the American administration to lift its current sanctions against Iran in the near future. France’s inflexibility is also receiving unconditional support from the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, and in view of Paris’s hostile relations with Damascus, France may even be able to expect an expansion of its economic presence in the region, including the oil and gas sector, which is crowded with Americans.
Right now, assessing the role of Paris in Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry publicly blamed Iran once again for the breakdown in negotiations, rather than France. He made the statement with a clear focus on the Arabic audience in Abu Dhabi, where he had travelled to from Geneva as part of his Middle East tour. Having allowed the visible progress in talks with Iran to once again reach a stalemate by this time hiding behind the French barrier, are Western diplomats spending too much time playing around?
