U.S. and Iran to Enter Bilateral Negotiations This Week

June 9, 2014 | Edited by Lauren Mladenka and Geoff Wilson

Bilaterals - “The U.S. is reassembling key members of the diplomatic team that held secret negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, leading to a breakthrough agreement, and sending them to Geneva for direct talks with representatives from Tehran in hopes of making progress toward a comprehensive final deal,” reports Bradley Klapper for the AP. “The discussions involving Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden's top foreign policy adviser, are set for Monday and Tuesday.”

--“Iran's official IRNA news agency said the upcoming U.S. talks would be followed by separate discussions in Rome between Iranian and Russian officials on Tuesday and Wednesday. IRNA quoted Abbas Araqchi, a senior member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team, as saying that the Islamic Republic planned to hold other bilateral talks as well with the other world powers, but those meetings had yet to be set.” Read the full story here. http://abcn.ws/1l09d1S

Tweet - @JasminRamsey: "Direct talks between #Iran & the US made the interim nuclear deal possible. Will be needed again to close the deal." says @suzannedimaggio

Meanwhile, in Vienna - “Iran finished expert talks with six other countries on obstacles to ending an entrenched nuclear dispute by July,” Global Security Newswire reports. "The Wednesday and Thursday intensive, technical negotiations were focused on technical details, which were surveyed painstakingly," said Hamid Baeedinejad, Iran's top delegate to the two-day meeting in Vienna. "The results of this technical round of talks will be delivered to the top officials of the two sides."

--“The gathering was intended as preparation for a higher-level meeting of Iranian diplomats and their counterparts from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Those officials, who are slated to begin several days of talks on June 16, are pursuing an agreement that would grant Tehran sanctions relief in return for potentially limiting activities feared in Washington and other capitals to be geared toward nuclear-weapons development.” http://bit.ly/1ig1NrB

Verification measures - “As the negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran intensify ahead of the July 20th deadline for a comprehensive agreement on limits to Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, it is no surprise that talks have hit a rocky phase,” writes Jofi Joseph in Iran Matters. “One of the likely key issues in the negotiation is the nature of transparency and verification measures designed to ensure that Iran is complying with the various limits on its nuclear program. As a State Party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and a signatory to a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is obligated, like every other non-nuclear weapons state, to provide appropriate access such that the IAEA can confirm that any fissile material is not diverted to a nuclear weapons program.”

--“The challenge facing the P5+1 and Iran is forging an agreement on transparency and verification measures above and beyond the status quo... Some analysts have called for the imposition of an ‘anywhere, anytime’ inspections regime in Iran, modeled after the UNSCOM regime in Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War.”

--“Although such an inspections regime sounds appealing, it is neither feasible nor necessary. References to an Iraq-style inspections regime for Iran should remind us why the latter will never accept such a model – unlike Iraq in 1991, today’s Iran has not suffered a military defeat and formally surrendered at the hands of those with whom it is negotiating. Economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation have pressured Iran into considering limits on its nuclear program to assuage international concerns, but it is not under such duress that it is willing to abdicate sovereign control over its own territory to international inspectors. Moreover, ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections are not required if the goal is to detect in a timely manner whether Iran has covertly reconstituted elements of a nuclear fuel cycle.” Full piece here. http://bit.ly/SrGyw9

Keep the INF - “Some in Congress are agitating for action regarding possible Russian violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty,” writes Steven Pifer in a piece for The National Interest. “That treaty prohibits the United States and Russia from having land-based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5500 kilometers (300-3400 miles). One noncompliance charge concerns the RS-26 ballistic missile, but that missile does not violate the INF Treaty’s terms. The other charge, regarding a cruise missile, appears to pose a more serious question for the treaty.”

--“Maintaining the INF Treaty remains in the interest of the United States. American allies value the agreement, and the U.S. military has no stated plans for intermediate-range missiles of its own. The U.S. government should press Russia to clarify the status of the cruise missile and, if the missile does indeed violate the treaty, to end the program. In addition to raising this issue with Moscow, Washington should brief Russia’s neighbors, both in Europe and Asia, on what it knows about the Russian cruise missile. Those countries will be in range of the missile; the United States will not.” Read the full story here. http://bit.ly/1oN5Mjn

Sanctions trap - “Washington’s reliance on sanctions has increased as it has developed more effective types of penalties and ways of implementing them,” write Peter D. Feaver and Eric Lorber for Foreign Affairs. “Although U.S. policymakers have learned much about imposing sanctions, they have given far less thought to lifting them. As seen in the last few years, an inability to ease sanctions can seriously complicate Washington’s diplomacy.”

--“Coercion, after all, is ultimately about following through on promises. When sanctions are used as a way of bringing about certain policy outcomes, they contain an explicit threat and an implicit guarantee: If a state continues the unwanted policy, it will continue to suffer sanctions; if the state changes course, the punishment will end. But if the United States proves incapable of ending sanctions after its demands are met, the targeted state will have little incentive to favorably adjust its activities.”

--“Over the past decade, Washington has faced three main obstacles to easing sanctions in exchange for good behavior: domestic politics, coordination problems with international organizations, and the private sector’s reluctance to engage with formerly sanctioned countries and companies. As recent history makes clear, such challenges can significantly imperil U.S. objectives. It’s high time, then, that policymakers worked to address them.” Read the full piece here. http://fam.ag/1qhdHXc

Security improvements - “A U.S. atomic official said a Tennessee nuclear-arms site's defenses ‘definitely’ improved after an illegal 2012 entry,” Global Security Newswire reports. “The summertime intrusion by peace activists made protective measures at the Y-12 National Security Complex a key focus for the Energy Department, the agency's semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, and other offices across the federal government, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz told the newspaper in comments published on Thursday… One key reform after the break-in, Klotz said, was to ‘reduce the number of nuisance alarms’ in the facility's main control room and ensure that detection systems ‘are very, very rapidly repaired.’" Read the full article here. http://bit.ly/1oN0yUM

The road paved with good intentions - “Some government screw-ups are so epic that they require decades of effort,” writes Mark Strauss in a piece for io9. “Such was the case for the recently cancelled plan to convert surplus weapons-grade plutonium into nuclear fuel. Not only did the U.S. waste $4 billion dollars, it increased the likelihood that terrorists could obtain bomb-making materials.”

--“The United States settled on a plan to convert most of its surplus plutonium into fuel for nuclear reactors. A massive reprocessing plant would be built at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which, during the Cold War, had refined nuclear material for deployment in warheads. Now, the site would have a new mission: creating nuclear fuel from a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxide, otherwise known as mixed oxide fuel, or MOX. Although nuclear power plants in the U.S. use fuel made from low-enriched uranium (LEU), other countries had demonstrated that MOX was a viable alternative. Instead, the final outcome was a mothballed facility and a still-increasing supply of surplus plutonium. Like I said, this isn't your typical government boondoggle. It was twenty years in the making.” Full story here. http://bit.ly/1l0cTkr

Unreported plutonium - “Japan has failed to mention 640 kilograms of unused plutonium in its reports to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2012 and 2013,” The European Union Times reports. “An official in Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission said on Saturday that the 640 kg was part of the plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel, known as MOX, that was placed in an offline reactor at the time and was considered as being used… Japan has the largest amount of plutonium among non-nuclear countries; therefore, it is subjected to strict international monitoring.” Full story here. http://bit.ly/1pvcsnC

Quick-hits:

--“How Not to Make Comparisons Between Iran and China” by Paul Pillar in The National Interest. http://bit.ly/1o5uHme

--“Is China Rattling Nuclear Sabres Over Shangri-la?” by Gregory Kulacki in All Things Nuclear. http://bit.ly/1jfhZcY

--“Mideast Envoys Weigh Two New Bids to Jolt WMD-Ban Talks” by Elaine Grossman in Global Security Newswire. http://bit.ly/1kGpL43

Events:

--“Nuclear Flashpoints: U.S.-Iran Tensions Over Terms and Timetables.” Discussion with Stephen Hadley, Jon Wolfsthal, Daryl Kimball and Robert Litwak. June 10 from 9:30 to 11:00 at the Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, floor 6. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1tqM3Hk

--“Verifying Iran’s Nuclear Compliance.” House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing with Stephen Rademaker, John Lauder, Olli Heinonen, and Joseph DeTrani. June 10 at 10:00. Webcast available here. http://1.usa.gov/1nf1h1l

--“PONI Breakfast with Vahid Majidi.” June 11 from 9:00-10:30 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW., 2nd floor. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1jfnHvp

--“Regional Implications of a Nuclear Deal with Iran.” Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Dennis Ross, Scott Modell, and Frederick Kagan. June 12 at 10:00 at 419 Senate Office Building. Webcast available here. http://1.usa.gov/SgNUSW

--“Securing Radiological Materials: Examining the Threat Next Door.” Senate Committee on Homeland Security hearing. June 12 at 10:30 at 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Webcast available here. http://1.usa.gov/1k0X5xr

--“War With Iran? Should the United States Use Military Force Against Iran if Nuclear Diplomacy Fails?” Debate with Georgetown University and University of Michigan students; comments by Colin Kahl. June 13 from 9:00-12:00 at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, The Willard Room, 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1gXWlOJ

--“India’s Nuclear Policy and Regional Stability.” Discussion with Michael Krepon, Lt. Gen. Vinay Shankar (ret.), Vice Adm. A.K. Singh (ret.), Joshua White, Vikram Singh, and Jayant Prasad. June 16 from 12:30 to 3:00 at the Stimson Center, 1111 19th St. NW. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1s0k0Db

--“How to Unwind Iran Nuclear Sanctions.” Discussion with Kenneth Katzman and Cornelius Adebahr; moderated by Barbara Slavin. June 16 at 2:00 at The Atlantic Council, 1030 15th St. NW, 12th Floor (West Tower). RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1h9DpN2