West puts on united front over Iran talks

Western governments presented a united front over Iran on Monday and played down reports that France had been the main obstacle in weekend talks that failed to secure an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The US and the UK both backed up assertions from Paris that it was the Iranians who blocked an agreement at the talks in Geneva, rather than the public objections raised by Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister.

“The French signed off on it, we signed off on it,” said John Kerry, US secretary of state. “There was unity but Iran couldn’t take it.”

The talks broke up early on Sunday morning without an interim deal despite high expectations that the six powers and Iran would sign the first agreement in over a decade over the Iranian nuclear programme.

Senior officials will resume talks on November 20 to try to secure a preliminary agreement which would halt parts of the nuclear programme in return for modest sanctions relief, buying time for more detailed discussions about a long-term agreement with Tehran.

Western diplomats fear that the signs of disagreement among the six powers – which also include Germany, Russia and China – could give Iran an advantage in the negotiations. At the same time, the arguments in Geneva have also given ammunition to critics in Israel and the US Congress who oppose the outlines of the interim agreement.

France has been blamed for the failure of the talks in part because Mr Fabius went public with his misgivings about parts of the proposed agreement. “There is an initial text that we do not accept,” he told French radio on Saturday morning, warning that the six powers should avoid playing a “fools’s game”. At the time, Mr Fabius raised concerns about the Iranian heavy water reactor under construction at Arak and its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 per cent.

However, speaking on Monday to France’s Europe 1 radio station, Mr Fabius denied that France was the main reason the deal was not reached and voiced tempered optimism about the talks.

“We [France] are not closed . . . we want a deal for regional and international security,” he said. “France is neither isolated nor a country that follows the herd. It is independent and works for peace.”

He added: “We have already advanced a lot . . . We are not far from an accord.” French officials suggested that one of the outstanding issues was Iranian objections to the language about its right to enrich uranium in the future.

The French and US comments were backed up by William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, who also denied that there had been a split among the western powers at the weekend.

“It was a completely united position that was put to the Iranians at the close of our discussions,” he said. “Reports of vetoes by one country or obstruction by another should be seen in that light.”

He mentioned that the Iranians had changed their position in the final hours of discussions in the light of specific comments made by some individual member countries, but insisted this was a normal part of the process.

The Iranian government agreed to let inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visit the Arak site as well as the Gachin mine in Bandar Abbas, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Monday.

Ali-Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, said the agreement with the IAEA was “a road map” beyond the country’s obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty which “will surely have an impact on the nuclear negotiations” with major powers because “these two paths will prove complementary to each other”.

Israel’s government on Monday welcomed the failure to reach a deal with Iran on its nuclear programme, and said that it would continue to press them to take a tougher line against Tehran in coming weeks.

“Israel is united in opposition to the deal being offered to Iran,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in remarks at the Knesset on Monday. “We are speaking in a clear and unequivocal voice. The time that was achieved over the weekend must be utilised to achieve a much better deal. The target date for this deal is – the date on which a good deal will be achieved that will deny Iran a military nuclear capability.”

Responding to a suggestion by Mr Kerry that he was not aware of all the details in the proposed agreement, Mr Netanyahu insisted that “I know whereof I speak”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013.