...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...
VIENNA, Austria - A package of incentives presented Tuesday to Iran includes a provision for the United States to supply Tehran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium — a major concession by Washington, diplomats said.So far, it appears AP is out there alone on this development. The New York Times reported earlier that the package contained a combination of carrots and sticks: the carrots including aircraft parts and the stick including travel restrictions.The offer was part of a series of rewards offered to Tehran by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, according to the diplomats, who were familiar with the proposals and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were disclosing confidential details of the offer.
The package was agreed on last week by the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — the five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, in a bid to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran.
Meanwhile, the Iranians are sending out positive signals.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Tehran to present the package, agreed by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.But are the Iranians merely stringing everybody along until they work out the bugs in their cascade process? Stay tuned."The proposals had some positive steps in them and some ambiguities which should be removed," Larijani said after receiving the proposals. He did not elaborate on the "ambiguities".
"We hope, after we study the proposal in detail, we will have another round of talks and negotiations to achieve a balanced and logical conclusion," he said.
The Iranians will do everything to negotiate eating their cake and having it too, because if negotiations fail, they are still enriching. And they'll wait until the next round. I predict China will hold out the longest on any real sanctions, due to their reliance on Irans oil resources, and to their relative neutrality in the squabble. After all, if TSHTF, they will be relatively untouched and will become the supreme superpower that much faster.
Posted by: will on Jun. 6, 2006Will, you are definitely onto something. Too many people ignore China and Russia's geopolitical motivation for being dovish on Iran. It's not all about oil for those 2 countries. They are simply playing the age old game of balance-of-power politics, which makes perfect sense from their points of view. Imagine, if there had been no 9/11, and there were no GWOT, guess who our chief international concern would have been... That's right, China. And early on in GWB's first term, it seemed like that was the way it was going to play out. China (and to a lesser extent, Russia) benefits when the US is preoccupied with containing other rivals.
Posted by: annika on Jun. 6, 2006