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Wednesday, January 12, 2005
EU Lessens Nuclear Issue in Iranian Trade Talks
January 12, 2005
The Wall Street Journal
Marc Champion and Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck
Trade talks between the European Union and Iran to be reopened today won't be linked directly to progress on controlling Iran's nuclear ambitions, EU officials said.
The talks, aimed at securing a Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Iran , were frozen in 2003. They now are being reopened as a result of Iran's Nov. 15 agreement with Britain, France and Germany to suspend its uranium-enrichment program temporarily.
Even if nuclear watchdogs were to catch Iran cheating, however, the EU wouldn't automatically abandon trade talks, EU officials said yesterday. "There is no mechanical link between the two," the official said.
Parallel negotiations are also under way between the so-called EU-3 and Iran to secure permanent "objective guarantees" that Iran isn't building a nuclear-weapons program. Negotiators in those talks have said specifically that trade talks would end if the nuclear negotiations were to fail.
The differences on linkage are largely bureaucratic, according to a British official familiar with the wider talks. If the nuclear talks fail, the EU-3 would go to other EU leaders to persuade them to halt trade talks too. Nevertheless, the lack of a direct trigger is unlikely to help the European effort to use increased trade and investment as leverage to persuade Iran to abandon its enrichment program, which Iranian officials have vowed to keep.
Iran is entitled to enrich uranium, but the process can be used to make either civilian or weapons-grade nuclear fuel, and for 18 years Iran failed to meet treaty obligations to report the program. A deal interests the EU because of Iran's great growth potential, officials said. Over the past three years, Iran has grown at an average clip of 5.8%. EU exports make up 40% of Iran's imports.
--Marc Champion and Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck
link to original article
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