Netanyahu praises western powers for not signing deal with Iran in Geneva

(Pictured clockwise from top left) French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, US Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif 

On 10 November, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the western powers negotiating with Iran in Geneva on its nuclear programme for avoiding signing what he called “a bad deal”.

The marathon talks in the Swiss city failed to result in a deal as EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton announced that the talks would reconvene on 20 November. “A lot of concrete progress has been achieved but some issues remain,” she said at a press briefing alongside with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif , adding: “Our objective is to reach a conclusion and that’s what we’ll come back to try to do.”

Zarif declared: “I think it was natural that when we started dealing with the details, there would be differences.”  According to diplomatic sources, it was not only divisions between Iran and the major powers (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany —US, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, the so-called P5+1) that prevented a deal, but fissures within the negotiating group.  France objected strenuously that the proposed deal would do too little to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment or to stop the development of a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium.

“The Geneva meeting allowed us to advance, but we were not able to conclude because there are still some questions to be addressed,” French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, told journalists after the end of the meeting.  He did not elaborate, but it appeared France wanted tougher constraints on a reactor that will make plutonium when completed, and on parts of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.  Speaking at Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting which was held in kibbutz Sde Boker, in the Negev, to mark 40 years since the death of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, Netanyahu said a good agreement would lead to a dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and a bad one would be letting Iran retain its nuclear capabilities and “taking the air” out of the sanctions.  He reiterated what he said Friday after meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem that the deal that was being considered in Geneva talks was “bad and dangerous”.

“Over the weekend I spoke with President Barack Obama, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with French President Francois Hollande, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron,” Netanyahu said.  “I told them that, based on information Israel has received, the deal taking shape is bad and dangerous. Not just for us, but for them as well. I suggested they wait and think carefully, and it’s good that they decided to do so. We will do everything in our power to convince these powers and these leaders to avoid a bad deal.”

He said that the proposed agreement did not call on the Iranians to dismantle “one centrifuge”.  “I asked the leaders, what is the rush,” Netanyahu said. “I suggested that they wait, that they consider things very carefully. We are taking about a historic process, a historic decision. I requested that they wait.”

He said he had “no delusions” that a deal would yet be on its way, but vowed to do all he could to ensure it was not a dangerous one. Under the current terms, he said, “not a single centrifuge would be dismantled.”

Israeli journalist Alex Fishman commented in daily Yediot Aharonot that “the technique of gradual agreements, that do not include clear agreement on the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capabilities at the end of the process, allow Tehran to continue leading the world astray: the gradual reduction of sanctions and a return to the family of nations, without committing in advance to giving up the nuclear project.”

Iran currently runs more than 10,000 centrifuges that have created tonnes of fuel-grade material that can be further enriched to arm nuclear warheads.  It also has nearly 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of higher-enriched uranium in a form that can be turned into weapons much more quickly. Experts say 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of that 20%-enriched uranium are needed to produce a single warhead.

During his visit to Israel on 8 November, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States was asking Iran, as part of an interim accord, to agree to a “complete freeze over where they are today”, implying that Iran’s plutonium production programme would be affected in some way as well.  He made clear that limits on the Arak reactor should be part of an initial agreement.  Under a compromise favored by some American officials, Iran might agree to refrain from operating or fuelling the facility during the six months the interim accord might last, while continuing construction of the installation.  Once the reactor at Arak is operational, as early as next year, it might be very hard to disable it through a military strike without risking the dispersal of nuclear material.

That risk might eliminate one of the West’s options for responding to Iran and reduce its leverage in the talks.  The Arak reactor has been a contentious negotiating point because it would give Iran another pathway to a bomb, using plutonium rather than enriched uranium.  Moreover, the Iranian explanations for why it is building Arak have left most Western nations and nuclear experts sceptical. The country has no need for the fuel for civilian uses now, and the reactor’s design renders it highly efficient for producing the makings of a nuclear weapon.

“Whenever the Iranian leadership decides to achieve nuclear 'breakout' capability, it will have in its possession at least seven tonnes of low-level uranium and some 180 kilograms of medium-level uranium, which is enough to build five to six nuclear warheads as powerful as the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima,’’ said Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai, a top commentator on national security issues.  “With this amount of uranium, along with the operational centrifuges and the knowledge it has gained on how to assemble a nuclear bomb, Iran will be able to decide at any point in time to develop a nuclear weapon and achieve the goal within a few weeks,” he adds.

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