Iran Leader Sees Progress in Paris Talks on Nuclear Program

Craig Smith, NY Times:

President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, on a brief visit here, expressed hope that his country could reach an agreement with France, Britain and Germany that would satisfy the West that Iran's nuclear power program has no military applications.

"We are closer today to a resolution than we have been for some time," Mr. Khatami told reporters gathered in the gravel courtyard of Élysée Palace after his meeting with President Jacques Chirac of France. "The European reaction, in particular that of France, has been very open" to Iran's latest proposal, he said. Mr. Chirac did not speak to reporters. READ MORE

Although Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is only to generate electrical power, many countries worry that it is secretly developing weapons as well. The United States has urged that the case be referred to the United Nations Security Council, which could threaten Iran with sanctions. But the Europeans have favored a less confrontational approach. Last year, France, Britain and Germany persuaded Iran to temporarily suspend its most worrisome activities while negotiating a package of incentives for Iran to give up them up altogether.

Iran has never said anything to suggest that it will permanently abandon those activities - in particular the complicated process by which raw uranium is refined for use as nuclear fuel or, at higher enrichment levels, for bombs.

On Tuesday, Mr. Khatami repeated his country's assertion that it would not give up its right to uranium enrichment, no matter what the West thinks its true intentions are.

Last month, the Iranians proposed that they be allowed to maintain a pilot enrichment facility, too small to produce a sufficient quantity of weapons-grade uranium to build a bomb, but large enough to allow them the face-saving position that they have not backed down.

"We are ready to consider any reasonable solution, but we reject the definitive suspension of our activities," Mr. Khatami told Le Figaro in an interview published Tuesday. "The Europeans must understand that the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and international conventions authorize us to possess nuclear technology for peaceful ends."

Mr. Khatami said he hoped for progress at the next round of talks between European and Iranian nuclear experts, on April 29.

The Europeans have not yet responded. But few people expect the United States to accept that proposal for fear that the pilot program will be used to mask a larger enrichment capability or allow the country to master the technology sufficiently so that it could mount a weapons program relatively quickly later on.

"There's a possibility the Europeans would accept that, but I don't think the U.S. will," said Shahran Chubin, director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy.

Mr. Chubin said there was likely to be little real progress before May, when the nuclear nonproliferation review conference in New York will address ways to tighten the treaty.

Mr. Khatami, a relative moderate in a country run by archconservatives, was in Paris to address the United Nations cultural organization, Unesco. Though he has put a Western-friendly face on Iran, an Islamic state, his power has always been limited, and he is now a lame duck whose term ends in June.

He told Le Figaro that after his term ends, he would work to improve relations between Iran and the West and help to train a future Iranian elite "who will be the engine of tomorrow's evolutions."

His visit drew more than a thousand demonstrators into the streets decrying what they called France's appeasement policy and protesting Iran's human rights abuses as well as its suspect nuclear program.