Nuclear Bargaining May Harden

Jay Solomon in Washington, Marc Champion in London and Gordon Fairclough in Seoul, South Korea, The Wall Street Journal:

As nuclear talks hit an impasse with both Iran and North Korea, Bush administration officials hope their willingness to take negotiations this far has won new credibility for their demand that allies in Europe and Asia take a harder line.

They may have better luck stiffening others' resolve against Tehran than against Pyongyang, though, given China and South Korea's continued reluctance to risk destabilizing the North.

Watch an Associated Press report on Iran restarting operations at a uranium conversion plant. READ MORE

European negotiators say their two-year effort to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium-enrichment program could be as little as weeks from reaching an end. On the European Union's behalf, France, Germany and the United Kingdom agreed to launch the talks in July 2003, just months after bitter divisions over whether to invade Iraq erupted among them -- and in the face of strong opposition from the U.S. But last week, Iran rejected what was seen as a last-ditch offer by the so-called EU-3 to provide economic and security incentives in exchange for Iran agreeing to permanently suspend its nuclear-fuel program.

Yesterday, Tehran broke seals placed by international monitors at its Isfahan uranium-processing plant in central Iran, in another escalation of the confrontation. The International Atomic Energy Agency put the seals in place in November, and restarting of the plant is an important step in Iran's creation of a nuclear-fuel cycle.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty gives signatories -- which include Iran -- the right to pursue atomic-energy programs if they renounce nuclear weapons. But Washington and others view some civilian nuclear activities as too dangerous and some states as too untrustworthy for the old system to work.

European officials say the talks aren't over yet, but that they may now have to back the U.S. in referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions as soon as next month. Earlier this year, the U.S. and Europe made a deal: The U.S. would support Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization if Tehran would curb its nuclear program; the Europeans in return committed themselves to backing a Security Council referral if the talks don't bear fruit. That commitment still stands, diplomats say.

"Today's breaking of seals is yet another sign of Iran's disregard for international concerns," said Matthew Boland, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the U.N. in Vienna.

Still, European diplomats say it will be difficult to get the 35 IAEA board members to vote to refer Iran to the Security Council. Even if that happens, they say, it might prove even harder to get China and Russia, which have deep economic ties to Iran, to support sanctions against Tehran.

In the North Korea talks, however, the U.S., China and South Korea seem less willing to declare the negotiations near failure, despite the parties having recessed earlier this week with no agreement -- and U.S. officials say they have few options besides dialogue.

"I don't think we'll get China or South Korea to sign up to anything" like U.N. action or economic sanctions, even if the talks remain in a stalemate, a U.S. official said. "We don't know what Plan B is."

Even so, American officials appear to have won some points with their Asian negotiating partners. "The flexibility that the Bush administration has shown put a lot more pressure on Pyongyang to be reasonable," said Peter Beck, director for Northeast Asia at the nonprofit International Crisis Group. "But it's not clear to me that there are any circumstances under which Beijing or Seoul would support coercive measures, such as sanctions."

Six-party talks with the U.S., North and South Korea, China, Japan and Russia are scheduled to resume in China the week of Aug. 29.

U.S. engagement with both Iran and North Korea this year has marked a turning point in President Bush's nuclear diplomacy. After Mr. Bush used his 2002 State of the Union address to brand the two -- along with Iraq -- an "axis of evil," allies around the world worried about a bellicose, unilateral foreign policy. The 2003 toppling of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, carried out despite fierce opposition in some European countries, fueled fears of similar action against the other two "axis" members.

Shortly after Mr. Hussein's fall, the U.S. wanted to turn the heat onto Iran. The Bush administration pushed in mid-2003 to refer Tehran to the Security Council immediately, for having concealed a uranium-enrichment program that could be used for civilian or military purposes. The Europeans wanted to try diplomacy first. That heightened trans-Atlantic tensions.

Throughout Mr. Bush's first term, the U.S. insisted it wouldn't provide any substantial benefits to Pyongyang before it demonstrably dismantled its nuclear program, arguing that would be tantamount to succumbing to nuclear blackmail. Earlier rounds of talks involving U.S. and North Korean negotiators quickly collapsed. In the latest round, negotiators set aside the issue of the timing and sequencing of disarmament steps and corresponding measures from the U.S. and others. That is to be addressed in future discussions.

But shortly into his second term, Mr. Bush became more open to European and Asian allies' desires to instead conduct sustained diplomatic dialogues to end the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. Part of this, say analysts, is driven by the prolonged military entanglement in Iraq that limits Washington's ability to conduct -- or credibly threaten -- military action elsewhere. But they also say the White House appears to be learning about the need for multilateral support.

This new, more flexible U.S. stance -- displayed, in particular, at the disarmament talks with North Korea this month -- is designed to test Pyongyang's and Tehran's intentions and see whether they are serious about negotiating a renouncement of nuclear weapons, say senior U.S. officials.

But a secondary goal was to win the confidence of countries such as South Korea and Germany, which have criticized Washington for being too rigid in its approach toward nonproliferation issues.

State Department and Pentagon officials say Washington is betting that in the longer term, this strategy will offer the U.S. greater authority to exact coercive measures against North Korea or Iran should diplomacy fail. Indeed, one result of the recent breakdowns of talks with both North Korea and Iran, they say, is that these countries offered little indication they would be willing to dismantle their nuclear programs, buttressing a long-held U.S. view.

By engaging in the talks, "we have shown that we are a reasonable power. We are not raging ideologues," said a U.S. academic involved in developing strategy for the North Korea negotiations. Pyongyang, meanwhile, has illustrated that its "preference is the status quo," he said.

"There's greater recognition in this Bush administration that reality isn't going to yield even to strenuous American efforts and desires," said Robert Einhorn, who was a senior nonproliferation official in the Clinton administration. "But is this new approach a reflection of a new willingness by the Bush administration to take a yes [from North Korea]? The returns aren't in yet."

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com, Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com and Gordon Fairclough at gordon.fairclough@wsj.co