Following are excerpts of the article written by Paul Richter:

Three months into intense international negotiations over Iran’s disputed nuclear development program, Tehran’s team has surprised almost everybody with its apparent eagerness for a deal.

Iranian negotiators have met all of their commitments under November’s interim agreement, have proposed compromises on some key disagreements, and have taken part in three top-level meetings without the squabbles that were common over the last decade of fruitless haggling.

Yet President Hassan Rouhani’s government is moving away from the United States and its allies on an issue that may be the most important of all.

Put simply, the six world powers want Iran to curtail enrichment of uranium. They want Tehran to cut its 19,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges to a few thousand.

Tehran, however, is insisting on vastly expanding capacity by adding thousands more centrifuges for what it says is strictly civilian energy purposes.

With talks scheduled to resume this week in Vienna, the dispute looms as the biggest threat to the comprehensive nuclear deal the two sides are trying to complete by a July 20 deadline.

Iran’s demand to boost enrichment capacity “would be a show-stopper,” said Robert Einhorn, who was a member of President Obama’s inner circle of nuclear advisors until late last year and is now with the Brookings Institution. “There won’t be an agreement.”

The six world powers — France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia and China — are aiming for a deal that would curb Iran’s nuclear development in exchange for easing the international sanctions that have (negatively affected) Iran’s economy.

Iranian officials have repeatedly declared that they intend to expand, not dismantle, Iran’s $100-billion nuclear infrastructure.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s nuclear energy agency, said last month that he wants to install 30,000 additional centrifuges to enrich enough uranium to fuel Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, which now uses uranium purchased from Russia. Beyond that, “other Bushehrs” are planned.

Those declarations may be bargaining tactics aimed at winning concessions from the six powers. But Iran may be unwilling to yield on an issue that the (Iranian) government has promoted to Iranians for years as one of its chief accomplishments.

Gary Samore, Obama’s nonproliferation advisor from 2009 to 2013, said he believes the Iranians are not bluffing, though they may ease their demands later in negotiations.

“I think this is their real position,” said Samore, executive director for research at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The Iranians seem to be signaling, he said, that they would be willing to freeze nuclear operations for several years in exchange for sanctions relief. But after that they want to be free, like any other country, to build an “industrial level” enrichment capacity, he said.

Such an approach would be unacceptable to the Obama administration and its allies because it would give Iran too much latitude if it decides someday to try the “breakout” for a bomb. The kind of deal sought by Iran also would limit it for a couple of years, not the decade or longer that Washington and its allies require.

“This is a major stumbling block,” Samore said.

Another roadblock also has emerged. Iran’s negotiators are demanding that all sanctions be lifted permanently when the deal is signed. The West wants sanctions to be suspended, not revoked, to ensure that they could be quickly clamped back if Iran violated the agreement.

Samore said he doesn’t expect the two sides to resolve these disputes and complete the deal by mid-July. But he said they may make enough progress to convince both Congress and (critics) in Tehran that negotiations should continue six more months, as the interim agreement allows.

Obama remains cautious about the prospects, saying the likelihood of success is 50-50 at best, White House officials say.

Despite these hurdles, a sizable group of diplomats and analysts believe chances for a deal are good. The key reason: Iran needs sanctions relief to bolster its economy, and the White House wants to ease a top-priority threat and score a major foreign policy victory.

The optimists note that Iran has increased cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, and has become more transparent about current and past nuclear activities.

Another hopeful sign is Tehran appears willing to compromise on a heavy-water research reactor that the West fears could enable Iran to build a plutonium-fueled bomb. Under a proposed compromise, the Arak reactor would be redesigned to limit plutonium production.

“There’s a sense of momentum now,” said Jofi Joseph, a White House specialist on nonproliferation until last November. “Lots of things could still go wrong. But there’s a real chance of a long-term deal.”

9 Comments on "Iran nuclear talks face a major hurdle"

Makati1 on Sun, 11th May 2014 3:44 pm 



“…“The Iranian nuclear program will only be operational in another 10 years,” declares Eilam, a senior official in Israel’s atomic program. “Even so, I am not sure that Iran wants the bomb…Eilam is one of the central figures in the development of Israel’s nuclear and missile programs in the last half century: Before his decade heading the Atomic Energy Commission, he was head of the IDF’s Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure ….Netanyahu and other politicians have struck terrible, unnecessary fear into the hearts of the Israeli public, and thankfully the flames fanned over the issue seemed to have died down for now.”…

http://www.globalresearch.ca/former-israeli-nuke-chief-iran-is-10-years-away-from-having-the-bomb/5381661

DC on Sun, 11th May 2014 6:06 pm 



The corrupt and lawless amerikan ‘govt’ has no authority to tell Iran how many centrifuges is is ‘allowed’ to have.Iran is a signatory to the NPT and is in full compliance with it. The terms of the NPT are mutually agreed upon, and evidence has ever been presented that Iran is violating either the spirit or letter of the NPT. Compare and contrast to the u$ and Israel, which are serial violators of all nuclear non-proliferation agreements.

I remember u$ propaganda from the early 80s saying Iran was just about to develop a nuke. If they are, the Iranians are either spectacularly inept, or they only work on there ‘nuclear bomb program’ for about 3 hours a day,(4 day work week), less an hour for lunch.

Plantagenet on Sun, 11th May 2014 7:03 pm 



Can you imagine the Islamists of Boko Haram with nukes? The Islamists of Iran with nukes would be much like that.

GregT on Sun, 11th May 2014 9:09 pm 



It would appear to me, that only one country has ever unleashed a nuclear warhead on a civilian population. Many other countries have nuclear weapons, and have restrained from using them.

steve from virginia on Sun, 11th May 2014 9:55 pm 



No mention of plutonium production @ Arak reactor complex. Enriched uranium is a poor fuel for a weapon, almost every modern nuclear device made since the 1950s has used- or uses plutonium fuel

Iran needs to dismantle Arak or eliminate its plutonium-producing and refining capability. Otherwise, Iran is not serious.

MKohnen on Sun, 11th May 2014 10:23 pm 



Hey, Plant, could you imagine the US with nukes? Bet they would use them on innocent civilians!

MKohnen on Sun, 11th May 2014 10:36 pm 



GregT,

Yes, that even includes nutjobs like Kim Jong-Il.

simonr on Mon, 12th May 2014 3:20 am 



I wonder why Kim Jong-Il has not used his weapons ?

Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 12th May 2014 5:44 am 



Simon, I imagine that is the plan when the boy leader’s world starts crashing. The guy is pathologically sick megalomaniac with a million man army and a population in subjugation. China has already done its due diligence for his regime end so you know it does not have much of a future. I cannot see how Kim and those in his ruling clique will not resort to battle in a final act of glory.