The Geneva Process Should Be Supported

When the Iranian nuclear negotiator met with Javier Solana and the representatives of  the 5+1 countries in Geneva on July 19, the expectation was high that the two sides could work together to reach an agreement on the Iranian nuclear file. The Geneva meeting was important for two reasons. First, because it was held after a long pause and second, because for the first time a U.S. representative was present in the talks.

Following the meeting, both sides gave a more or less positive assessment of the meeting calling it "constructive", even the top U.S. military commander described the talks as such. Only two days after the Geneva meeting, the U.S. Secretary of State, in an interview, accused Iran of not being serious in the talks and threatened it with new sanctions. Furthermore, the Americans raised their rhetoric against Iran. The White House spokeswoman said that Iran was still part of an "axis of evil", mentioned by Bush for the first time in 2002.

The notion of a deadline for Iran to respond to the proposal put forward by 5+1 countries was first raised by Secretary Rice when she said in the same interview that unless Iran responded positively within two weeks, it could expect more sanctions.

Iran immediately rejected this assertion, calling the language of deadline-setting "not understandable". Foreign Minister Mottaki said that both sides agreed to continue the talks to work on the commonalities of the packages presented by 5+1 and Iran. Interestingly enough, Russia as one of the participants in the Geneva talks opposed setting a deadline for Iran to respond to the 5+1 package. The Russian Foreign Minister said that no artificial limits should be set.

The Russian position is indicative of the fact that either the idea of the "two-week time" was not raised in the talks at all or it was mentioned but not as a definite deadline forcing Iran to give its response within two weeks.

During the last two weeks, two developments took place. First was the endorsement of Iran’s nuclear activities by the ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran that backed Iran’s right to peaceful use of nuclear energy. Second was a new wave of verbal attacks by Israel against Iran. A number of high ranking Israelis resorted to Iran-bashing again in an attempt to portray Iran as advancing toward a military nuclear capability. They called for imposition of new sanctions with ’teeth".

The U.S. too has intensified its campaign to impose new sanctions against Iran within the framework of the United Nations or by Western countries. The U.S. has also said that representatives of 5+1 countries decided in a conference call to pursue new punitive measures against Iran.

Yesterday’s telephone conversation between Jalili and Solana raised the hope again that the two sides were eager to continue the talks. The U.S. should realize that increasing the heat is not going to help. Adoption of new sanctions, unilateral or otherwise, will only agitate the situation. All sides should give the new process a chance to succeed. The Geneva process should be unconditionally supported. It should be continued until the two sides reach an agreement. There is no alternative to that.