Iran's Nukes: Can Tehran and the US Make A Deal?

Julien Mercille, writing in Asia Times Online, assessed whether a Washington-Tehran settlement on enriched uranium for Iran's medical research reactor could defuse tensions over the nuclear issue:

The latest chapter in the Iranian nuclear crisis revolves around a possible "nuclear fuel swap" through which Iran would send most of its low-enriched uranium stocks (LEU at 3.5%) abroad, possibly to Russia and France, which would further enrich it (making it LEU at 19.5%) and then turn it into fuel rods. The fuel rods would be sent to Iran, which could use them in the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) to produce much needed medical isotopes. The problem for Iran at the moment is that the TRR was last refueled in 1993 by Argentina, but it will soon run out of fuel (perhaps in a few months).

The Latest from Iran (14 April): Ahmadinejad’s Struggle

The swap deal could be a win-win for both Iran and the West. The West should be pleased by the removal of a good portion of enriched uranium from Iranian soil since this will reduce the possibility that Tehran could decide to use it to make nuclear weapons (nuclear weapons require highly enriched uranium, HEU at 90%). For Iran, fuel for its TRR would allow it to keep producing important isotopes used in the medical field and on which hundreds of thousands of Iranian cancer patients rely.



However, there has been some confusion among experts on whether Iran is currently producing its own medical isotopes, or is it only importing them from other countries? It is important to clarify this issue since the ways in which the latest crisis can be resolved depend in part on what exactly Iran is doing.

Flynt and Hillary Leverett, well known analysts of Iran, wrote recently that Iran was not producing any medical isotopes domestically and that it imported all of its requirements. So did Geoffrey Forden writing at Jeffrey Lewis' blog. But others say that Iran is now producing isotopes, although they don't give many details.

When asked about the issue an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) representative said the agency is not commenting ''at this time".

So what's the situation?

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, was asked about Iran's activities in the field of medical isotopes production and his statements cross-checked by reviewing a March 2010 article by Iranian scientists from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran in the journal Nuclear Technology, published in the United States by the American Nuclear Society [1]. The two accounts appear to match, and are as follows.

Iran now produces two important medical isotopes with the TRR: technetium-99 and iodine-131. Since recent media stories have emphasized production of technetium-99, this is worthy of focus.

Technetium-99 is obtained from molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), perhaps the most important medical isotope in the world. Four countries - Canada, Belgium, South Africa and the Netherlands - meet 95% of the world's Mo-99 demand, using highly enriched uranium (HEU at 90%) to produce it.

Up until 2007, Iran bought its Mo-99 on the world market, but it has now developed a way to produce it domestically, through irradiating Mo-98 in the TRR. This leads to the production of Mo-99, which is then used to produce technetium-99. Apparently Iran does not currently import Mo-99.

As an aside, Iran is also producing other medical isotopes, notably isotopes of thallium and gallium, at its cyclotron facility near Tehran. This production process does not involve uranium, however, so it is not part of the current nuclear "crisis" with the West.

The problem today is that Iran's TRR is running out of fuel (which is made of LEU at 19.5%) and the production of isotopes is therefore at risk. The way to solve this problem is at the origin of the current crisis.

Several solutions are possible for Iran:
1. Buy the fuel for the TRR on the world market.
2. Receive fuel in exchange for most of its LEU stocks (this is the swap deal).
3. Enrich its own LEU to 19.5% (currently it is only enriching at 3.5%) and produce the TRR fuel domestically.
4. Stop producing its own isotopes and buy them on the world market (it would therefore not need fuel for the TRR to produce isotopes).

Any one of those solutions, if implemented, would provide Iran with medical isotopes and ensure its patients receive appropriate care, and therefore, solve the crisis. But they all have some problems, either real, or related to international politics:

1. Buying fuel on the market: Iran has actually said this would be its preferred solution, since it would allow it to keep its own LEU, rather than exchanging it for the fuel under a swap deal. As a member of the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), Iran does have the right to purchase the fuel on the open market. However, as Scott Ritter has noted, "The United States and Europe have held any such sale hostage to Iran's agreeing to suspend its indigenous uranium enrichment program." Since Iran also has the right to enrich uranium according to the NPT, the obstacle here appears to lie in Western capitals, and this explains why they have preferred a swap deal in which Iran would give up its stocks of LEU.

2. Swap deal: From Iran's perspective, one problem here is that by sending most of its LEU stocks to Russia and France, Tehran runs the risk of never receiving the fuel, or, at least, this would give Russia and the West an important bargaining chip in future negotiations. One can easily conceive how the West, in possession of Iran's stocks, could lay out conditions for Iran to receive the fuel, such as asking for a full suspension of uranium in Iran.

There are historical reasons for Tehran to be worried: in the 1970s, under the US-allied Shah, Iran invested more than $1 billion in Eurodif, a consortium enriching uranium in France. This was supposed to give Iran the right to obtain part of the fuel produced by the consortium. However, the 1979 Iranian Revolution led France to renege, and Paris has since then refused to deliver Iran's share of the fuel or to reimburse it with interest. The fact that nuclear hardliner Nicolas Sarkozy is now in power only adds to Iran's fears that France could break the deal.

Partly because of such concerns, Tehran proposed that the swap should take place on Iranian soil and the LEU would leave Iran only when the fuel was delivered. As Siddharth Varadarajan put it, this would look something like this:

At a certain date, when French fabrication of the TRR fuel starts, the IAEA could take into its custody an equivalent amount of Iranian LEU and hold it, in escrow, inside Iran. When the TRR fuel is ready, the Iranian LEU could be loaded onto a plane, which would take off once the French fuel lands inside Iran. At the end of the day, the outcome for the US from a simultaneous swap would be the same as from a sequential swap: Iranian LEU stocks would have been depleted.

But US President Barack Obama, instead of jumping on the opportunity to close the deal, said he was disappointed with Iran, and called for sanctions - for a change.

3. Iran enriches LEU at 19.5%: In February 2010, Iran announced that it would enrich its own uranium up to 19.5% in order to make the fuel rods itself. One question mark here is whether Iran has the technical expertise for doing so. It could always reconfigure its centrifuges to produce 19.5% instead of 3.5% uranium, but Tehran has never before attempted to produce fuel rods out of enriched uranium.

Another potential problem is that Iran's enrichment process is plagued by the fact that its domestic uranium is contaminated with molybdenum and this makes enrichment more difficult (the molybdenum here is a separate issue from the medical isotopes of molybdenum). Further, the prospect of Iran enriching its uranium to an even higher level does not please the West.

4. Importing isotopes: Iran's announcement that it would attempt to reach the near 20% enrichment level led US officials to accuse Tehran of threatening the lives of its patients, since, if Iran was more reasonable, it would simply buy the isotopes on the world market and that would settle the crisis. For instance, Glyn Davies, the US ambassador to the IAEA, asked: "Why is Tehran gambling with the health and lives of 850,000 Iranian cancer patients in pursuit of ever more dangerous nuclear technology," a move he said was "callous and chilling".

Davies said that "to address the humanitarian needs of Iran's people, we are prepared to facilitate Iran's procurement of medical isotopes from third-country sources", maintaining that the American proposal was a "faster, cheaper, and more responsible alternative than enriching to 20%".

But one problem with importing isotopes is that world supply in the future may not be as reliable as it once was; and even if it remains reliable, Iran could still prefer to be self-sufficient and produce its own isotopes. Is the US right to say that it would be more responsible not to enrich uranium to 20%? One could certainly argue the case - but there is a stronger argument that it would be more responsible for states that have nuclear weapons to eliminate them, their obligation under the NPT, and convince Israel to eliminate its own nukes and join the NPT. That would certainly contribute to defusing the crisis.

The latest chapter in the Iranian nuclear dossier can be solved in more than one way. Although technicalities are important, we should nevertheless not forget that there would be no crisis if Western governments, and primarily the United States, had not created it in the first place.

Note

1. Ghannadi Maragheh et al., "Industrial-scale production of 99mTc generators for clinical use based on zirconium molybdate gel", Nuclear Technology Vol. 169, March 2010. See also Davarpanah et al., "Influence of drying conditions of zirconium molybdate gel on performance of 99mTc gel generator", Applied Radiation and Isotopes Vol. 67, 2009.

The New US Nuclear Policy in 3 Bullet Points

Your easy-to-read version of the 49-page Nuclear Posture Review, released yesterday by the Obama Administration:

1. If you're not in the Nuclear Club --- Tehran, Pyongyang, we're looking at you --- don't even think about it. Shove off. Don't make us angry.

Still thinking about it? Don't.

2. If you're in the Nuclear Club --- Moscow, Beijing, how ya doin'? --- great to work with you to keep others out. Cold War? What Cold War?

3. Israel? Who is this Israel? (Repeat for Pakistan and India.)

Obama Document: The New US Stance on Nuclear Weapons

The Latest from Iran (6 April): Challenge Resumes

1945 GMT: Parliament-President Compromise? Mehr News reports that the Majlis and Government have formed a joint committee to resolve the disagreement over revenues from subsidy cuts. The move was announced by Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, head of the special Parliamentary committee studying the economic reform plan.

Still, the move may not be a smooth one. Mesbahi-Moghaddam told Khabar Online, "After many years of studying and teaching economics in universities, why can't I be taken as an economist, but President Ahmadinejad who hasn't studied economy falsely regards himself as an economist?"

NEW Iran Snap Analysis: Playtime’s Over
NEW Iran Document: Mousavi Meeting with Reformists (5 April)
NEW Iran Document: Rafsanjani Meets the Reformists (5 April)
Iran Document: Jafar Panahi’s Wife on His Detention & Health
The Latest from Iran (5 April): Repression

1940 GMT: Karroubi Advisor Tortured? Saham News, the website of reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi’s Etemade Melli party, claims that Mohammad Davari, the detained chief editor, has been subjected to torture intended to force him to cast public doubt on Karroubi’s claims about the rape of post-election prisoners.


Saham News says Davari is in very poor physical and psychological condition. The website reports that he’s been allowed to meet with his mother briefly in jail only three times since his arrest.

1930 GMT:Academic Purity (cont.). Adding to our report that Professor Morteza Mardiha has been expelled from Allameh Tabatabei University, Pedestrian adds two others who have been suspended from their teaching positions: Mir Hossein Mousavi's chief advisor, Alireza Beheshti, and another Mousavi advisor, Ghorban Behzadian-Nejad.

1635 GMT: Oh, This Is Certain to Be Helpful. As the Obama Administration unveils its Nuclear Posture Review --- “If a non-nuclear weapon state is in compliance with the nonproliferation treaty and its obligations, the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it" --- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates decides he needs to add a bit of Clint Eastwood-as-Dirty Harry to the public spin:

If you’re going to play by the rules ... then we will undertake certain obligations to you. But if you're not going to play by the rules, if you're going to be proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you.

1625 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, spokesman for the Khatami Government and leading member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been given a five-year prison sentence.

Another member of the IIPF, Shahab Tabatabaei, has also been sentenced to five years in prison following appeal.

1620 GMT: Academic Purity. Morteza Mardiha, professor of political philosophy at Allameh Tabatabei University, has been expelled from the campus.

1540 GMT: Protest in The Netherlands. A group of Iranian protesters occupied Iran's embassy in The Hague today. There were a number of arrests as the demonstrators were removed.

1530 GMT: The Oil Front --- All is Well! Hamid Hoseini, the head of Petroleum Products Exports Syndicate, has confirmed that oil exports to India, China and Japan have been sharply reduced. In the case of Beijing, the fall is more than 50%. Hoseini warned that sanctions could be "effective" and Tehran cannot be choosy about its customers.

However, Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi preferred to talk about imports rather than exports, saying Iran has the potential to achieve self-sufficiency in gasoline production amid the threat of sanctions and disinvestment.

1440 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist and student activist Omid Montazeri, arrested in December when he enquired about the detention of his mother, has been given a temporary release. He has been sentenced to six years in prison.

The detention of Kaveh Kermanshahi, human rights activist and member of the One Million Signatures Campaign, has been extended for another month. Kermanshahi was taken into custody at the start of February.

1430 GMT: Karroubi's Message. There is now a Persian summary of Mehdi Karroubi's meeting with the reformist coalition in Parliament (see separate entries for the Mousavi and Rafsanjani meetings) and a short English extract:

Mehdi Karroubi, strongly condemning the growth of lies, rumours, and deception in the name of Islam and religion by a small group, added, “Today I am not only mourning for Imam Khomeini [as the founder of the revolution] and what has happened to the revolution but more than anything I am mourning for Islam and Imam Ali (shia’s first Imam who is the symbol of justice).”

1310 GMT: Corruption and the Ahmadinejad Government. Elyas Naderan, a "conservative" MP and member of the Majlis' Economic Commission, has alleged that First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi is the head of a "corruption network".

0955 GMT: Iranian Spying Down Under? The Australian publishes an article claiming that the Iranian Embassy in Canberra is "spying on Iranian democracy activists in Australia, collecting intelligence on their activities, and reporting back to Tehran".

0945  GMT: The Post-Election Dead. Emrooz has posted a list of alleged names and burial places of 50 post-election protesters in Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery.

0830 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Human rights activist Mohammad Rhana Ghaznavids has been arrested.

0710 GMT: The Saberi protests. EA readers update us on the ongoing protests in front on the Japanese Embassy in Washington over the threatened deportation of activist Jamal Saberi.

Mission Free Iran reports on Sunday's demonstration, "Iranian Sweets and a Saberi Solidarity Cherry Tree", and announces another protest for next Sunday.

0700 GMT: We've now updated on the resumed political manoeuvres, posting a full translation of the meeting between Mir Hossein Mousavi and the reformist Parliamentary coalition.

0620 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The families of three of Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s advisors have visited Qom to appeal to senior clerics.

The families of Arab Maziar,  Alireza Beheshti Shirazi, and Ghorban Behzadian Nejad visited Grand Ayatollahs Vahid Khorasani, Mousavi Ardebili and Bayat Zanjani to express concerns about continuing detention and denial of legal rights.

All three men were detained on 28 December, one day after the Ashura demonstrations.

0610 GMT: Looks Like We Have a Theme. "There are a series of unresolved issues that the Parliament could take further" (0530 GMT) --- the Iranian Labor News Agency reports that 233 of the 290 members of the Majlis have written to Iran's head of judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, demanding a fight against "big" corruption.

0600 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Cleric Seyed Ahmadreza Ahmadpour, a senior member in Qom of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been given a one-year prison sentence by a clerical court.

The 1 1/2-year sentence of student activist Kaveh Rezaee has been upheld by an appeals court.

0530 GMT: We start this morning with the impression that, after the New Year holidays, the political battle has been resumed, big-time, in Iran.We put up a summary of Mousavi's statement to the reformist coalition at the end of our Monday updates, and we've now posted the exchange between the reformists and Rafsanjani.

We have a snap analysis, "Playtime's Over", of the developments.

UPDATED Afghanistan: Karzai Back on the Attack

UPDATED 1645 GMT: Different accounts of the Karzai visit to Kandahar, made with US commander Stanley McChrystal. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty focuses on the message ahead of an expected US military offensive, with Karzai assured about 2,000 officials and tribal leaders that there will be no military operation there without their "cooperation and consultation". (Another warning shot to the Americans?)

The BBC chooses another angle with participants telling Karzai of their fear of being killed by militants and accusing the President of failing to deal with bribery and nepotism. Still, in a passage that extends the RFE/RL report, the BBC says "the message from this gathering of some 1,500 tribesmen is that they are not ready for any major military operation by Afghan and Nato led forces any time soon".

Afghanistan Follow-Up: Karzai Pulls Back from Confrontation with US?

Well, that "reconciliation" between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Obama Administration, marked by a phone call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, lasted less than 24 hours, at least in public. The Wall Street Journal, from Afghan sources, claims another Karzai outburst:

President Hamid Karzai lashed out at his Western backers for the second time in three days on Saturday, accusing the U.S. of interfering in Afghan affairs and saying the Taliban insurgency would become a legitimate resistance movement if the meddling doesn't stop.

Mr. Karzai, whose government is propped up by billions of dollars in Western aid and nearly 100,000 American troops fighting the Taliban, made the comments during a private meeting with about 60 or 70 Afghan lawmakers.

At one point, Mr. Karzai suggested that he himself would be compelled to join the Taliban if the Parliament didn't back his controversial attempt to take control of the country's electoral watchdog from the United Nations, according to two of those who attended the meeting. The people included a close ally of the president.

Five of the lawmakers at the 2 1/2-hour meeting said Karzai criticised the Parliament for rejecting his attempt to take control of the country's Electoral Complaints Commission, saying that legislators were being used by Western officials who want to install a "puppet government" in Afghanistan.

One lawmaker claimed, "[Karzai] said that the only reason that the Taliban and other insurgent groups are fighting the Afghan government is that they see foreigners having the final say in everything." All five added that Karzai asserted the Taliban's "revolt will change" to a legitimate "resistance" if the US and its allies kept dictating how the Afghan Government was run.

Today Karzai has met local leaders in Kandahar, where his brother --- often criticised for corruption and contacts with insurgents --- is a key politician. News is eagerly awaited....

Israel-Palestine Analysis: Welcoming a 3rd Intifada?

Is a Third Intifada On Way?: Haaretz's Zvi Bar'el considers the possibility of a third Intifada. He states that there is no one on the "other" side to take reins of such an uprising, since the Palestinian Authority is looking forward to "progress" from the Obama Administration and Hamas is locked inside the Gaza Strip, yet he says that an uprising cannot be predicted in advance and may surprise everyone.

Middle East Inside Line: Washington Reverses on Settlements?; US & Ahmadinejad on Gaza

Bar'el then makes a critical point, "An outbreak of violence will certainly do wonders for Israeli interests". He continues:

There's nothing like a murderous terror attack to give Israel back its image of being the victim; it would give us an excellent excuse to stop the fake freeze on settlement construction and show Barack Obama who the real culprit is. Enough with playing games, bring it on. Save us with an intifada.

Is the international community ready for those Israeli pretexts to shelve any talks or negotiations with Palestinians? If Israeli's politicians believe so, is their optimal course to sustain tension with Palestinian "radicals"?

Meanwhile, that tension played out in a statement by Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal that all options against Israel remain open, including war: "We will do everything to obtain the rights stolen from us, including confrontation with the enemy."

Israel's Army Radio reports that Hamas also called for Palestinian Authority President Salam Fayyad to be put on trial for comments  in an interview with Haaretzr. Fayyad had stated that, by 2011, there would be a Palestinian state by which refugees would be absorbed. Hamas officials responded:

Fayyad is a person without legitimacy, who has stolen control in the West Bank and whose hands are contaminated with the suffering of thousands of martyrs in the West Bank.

And on another front,  a report submitted to French President Nicholas Sarkozy by his two top diplomats supposedly gives no chance to renewed peace talks between Israel and Syria.

Patrice Paoli, director of the North Africa and Middle East desk at the French Foreign Ministry, and Nicolas Gallas, a special adviser to Sarkozy on Middle East affairs, had been in Israel and talked to top officials. Their report concludes that Israel is not ready to fully withdraw from the Golan Heights, while Syria is not prepared to cut ties with Iran and Hezbollah.