Nuclear Iran - better three hours too soon than a minute too late

Children have golden lessons to teach matures, even more valuable than what both parents and teachers endeavor together to train them.

Infants tongue whatever they desire, demand desired thing at any expense, forget what is lost and pay attention to something new, but elders mostly hide their desires, making their hearts the graveyard of repressed wishes, withdraw from ambitions after first failure and dedicate the rest of life to sorrow for sad memories of what was lost in the past. Elders are quite odd, but even more in interest-related issues.

With reviewing several rounds of failed attempts by both Iran and the U.S. to reach a common position since 1979 revolution, especially the historical misses during Bill Clinton and Mohammad Khatami's presidencies, and regarding the increasingly strengthened distrust walls after tough sanctions against Tehran, achieving a result from current nuclear talks seems to be more complicated than ever.

In 2000 during UN General Assembly annual meeting, Clinton's advisors scheduled a sudden opportunity to face him with Khatami in the corridor for shaking hands. When Khatami was approaching the scene, reportedly, the guardians of the Iranian president led him to be hidden in the toilet, to avoid the face-to-face greeting, and a handshake as well.

Khatami's concern was the heaven consequences of hardliners' reaction inside the country, while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was extremely against any direct dialogue with the "Great devil".

Now, after 13 years, on the occasion of UNGA meeting in New York, the two nations' presidents held a half of hour-long historic telephone talks since 1979. At the same time, Iran's new administration has held two rounds of direct meetings with the U.S. on foreign ministers level, supported partly by Khamenei - who is Iran's Supreme Leader, and based on Section 1, Article 110 of the Constitution of Iran, is responsible for delineation of the country's general policies.

Without reaching common point with the U.S., Iran's relations with international community wouldn't be normalized, and biting tough sanctions along with reaching "vital technologic point" in nuclear sphere are likely to have Tehran go for concessions with Washington, rather than getting equal concessions.

Iran suspended some sensitive nuclear activities including uranium enrichment in 2003, without getting any reward from West.

After Khatami, the new government led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, restarted all nuclear activities, accelerated installing centrifuges, and backed it all up with "Israel must be wiped off the map" chants.

Now, Hassan Rouhani - Iran's new, rather moderate president compared to Ahmadinejad - seems to be pursuing nuclear talks to ease sanctions on Iran, and call international community to boost relations with the Islamic Republic. There is a great opportunity for both Iran and the U.S. to resolve some challenges step-by-step.

Iranian side, as IAEA reported last week, has virtually halted a previously rapid expansion of its uranium-enrichment capacity since Hassan Rouhani became president in August. This is a good signal from Iran which has lost more than a half of his petroleum exports during last two years which shared 80 percent of the country's total export revenues in 2011.

Iran enjoys fourth-generation centrifuges to boost Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) purity from law enrichment level to military grade within two months, but Iran's current 20-percent enriched uranium stockpile is about 197 kg, which is less than required amount for building one nuclear warhead.

However, as the U.S. intelligence agencies reported before, Iran has not decided to produce nuclear weapon yet. Boosting refined uranium's purity level by 90 percent is just a one step of complicated process of making nuclear weapon.

Highlighting Iran's nuclear threat more than it is in reality and spreading "Iranophobia" among international community would lead the current nuclear talks between Iran and P5+1 to failure and increase possibility of a strike on the Middle East country.

More soon, more better for burying the hatchet and for that, "better three hours too soon than a minute too late"*.

It is a very important reality that Iran has not lost tens of billions of dollars due to imposed sanctions for coming back to the zero point, namely halting uranium enrichment completely. The other thing is Iran's biggest demand: "Getting a guarantee from the U.S. that it will not pursue regime's collapse".

I have frequently asked my favorite question both US and European diplomats whenever I meet or have an interview with them: "Is West ready to give guarantee for Iranian regime?"

All responses are almost the same, meaning "It's impossible, but we respect Iran's sovereignty".

* "Better three hours too soon than a minute too late", from " The Merry Wives of Windsor " written by William Shakespeare.


Dalga Khatinoglu     /Trend/