“Nuclear talks with Iran: Two principles for both sides,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Hermann Von Rainer, Frankfurter Algemeine, October 10, 2013. (German)
Tag: NPT
Iran Won’t Give Up Nuclear Program, Ex-Rouhani Associate Says
“Iran Won’t Give Up Nuclear Program, Ex-Rouhani Associate Says,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Patrick Donahue, Bloomberg, October 10, 2013.
Rouhani’s Nuclear Options
[Author’s note: The views in this paper were presented prior to the Iranian presidential election at the NPT Prepcom on April 25 and publicly at Global Zero event at University of California-Irvine on May 23, 2013 respectively. This paper does not reflect in anyway the official position of the Iranian government.]
The Iranian nuclear dilemma is centered on the legitimate rights of Iran to enrichment under the NPT, and is not about building a nuclear bomb. Iran has signed onto every Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) convention, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1996, and the NPT in 1970. Such conventions entail rights and obligations for all signatories. The West, however, has chosen, in contravention of international law, to carry out a coercive policy whereby Iran is pressed on obligations while its rights are denied.
“Rouhani’s Nuclear Options,” Hossein Mousavian, Asharq Al-Awsat, July 10, 2013.
Five Options for Iran’s New President
[Author’s note: The views in this paper were presented prior to the Iranian presidential election at the NPT Prepcom on April 25 and publicly at Global Zero event at University of California-Irvine on May 23, 2013 respectively. This paper does not reflect in anyway the official position of the Iranian government.]
Nuclear negotiations lasting more than a decade between Iran and world powers have failed. The talks have been unable to reconcile the concerns voiced by the United States and other parties that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon with Iran’s insistence that its program is strictly peaceful and only intended for civilian energy production.
Publicly, the U.S. and other Western officials blame the failure of nuclear talks on Iran. The key question, however, is whether talks have failed because of the perceived Iranian intention to build a nuclear bomb, or due to the West’s unwillingness to recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium under international safeguards. Former U.S. officials Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, authors of Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran, recently addressed this issue, which rarely is part of Iran policy debates in the United States: “Washington’s unwillingness [to recognize the rights of Iran for enrichment] is grounded in unattractive, but fundamental, aspects of American strategic culture: difficulty coming to terms with independent power centers (whether globally or in vital regions like the Middle East); hostility to non-liberal states, unless they subordinate their foreign policies to U.S. preferences (as Egypt did under Sadat and Mubarak); and an unreflective but deeply rooted sense that U.S.-backed norms, rules, and transnational decision-making processes are meant to constrain others, not America itself.”
Iran, as a sovereign state and a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is entitled to uranium enrichment. I believe that if Washington recognized Iran’s right to enrich, a nuclear deal could be reached immediately. Without this recognition, no substantial agreement will be possible.
“Five Options for Iran’s New President,” Hossein Mousavian, Cairo Review, pgs. 68-79. Published by the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, July 2013.
Iran’s Next President and The Third Nuclear Strategy
The Iranian presidential election is set for June 14, and the candidate selected will take office in August. The world is eager to know the new president’s nuclear policy.
The ongoing Iranian nuclear issue dates back to early 2003, when Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), visited the nuclear facilities at Natanz and officially announced that Iran was among 10 nations that had attained enrichment technology and capability. After that, during the tenures of Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran and the world embarked on two approaches to nuclear diplomacy with varying costs and benefits.
“Iran’s Next President and The Third Nuclear Strategy,” Hossein Mousavian, Al-Monitor, June 10, 2013.
3 factors set to rescue Iran nuclear talks
The west is eagerly awaiting the results of the upcoming June presidential elections in Iran to determine whom they will be working with in Tehran for the foreseeable future. Certainly the nuclear issue will remain a high priority for world powers and Iran. Over a decade of negotiations with Tehran, world powers have challenged Iran’s legitimate rights for enrichment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), yielding no outcome. The world powers have continued hitting the hammer on the same nail and it is time for a renewed look at the status quo.
“3 factors set to rescue Iran nuclear talks,” Hossein Mousavian, Asharq Al-Awsat, May 19, 2013.
La questione nucleare vista da Teheran: ipotesi di negoziato (Italian)
Dopo un decennio di stallo sulla questione nucleare, per trovare una soluzione è necessario avere ben chiare le cause di fondo dell’attuale crisi e l’eredità della storia. Prima della rivoluzione islamica del 1979, i paesi occidentali – e in particolare gli Stati Uniti – mantenevano ottimi rapporti con l’Iran e facevano a gara per aggiudicarsi i redditizi progetti di nuclearizzazione del paese, gettando così le basi per lo sviluppo della sua potenza atomica. In quel periodo, l’Occidente sosteneva che la tecnologia nucleare era di fondamentale importanza per Teheran. Nel 1976, il presidente Gerald Ford firmò una direttiva che consentiva all’Iran di acquisire la tecnologia necessaria a sviluppare un ciclo nucleare completo. Nel documento si legge: “L’introduzione dell’energia nucleare provvederà al crescente fabbisogno energetico dell’economia iraniana e renderà le riserve petrolifere del paese disponibili per l’esportazione o la trasformazione in prodotti petrolchimici”.
“La questione nucleare vista da Teheran: ipotesi di negoziato,” Hossein Mousavian, Aspenia, issue no. 60, pgs. 62-70. Published by the Aspen Institute, March 2013, (Italian).
Globalizing Iran’s Fatwa Against Nuclear Weapons
Over a decade of negotiations between Iran and various world powers over Tehran’s nuclear programme have yielded little or no progress. Although all parties seek a peaceful resolution to this quagmire through diplomacy, all the major demands of the P5+1 (the permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Russia, China, France and the UK – plus Germany) go beyond the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its Safeguard Agreement, the only viable and legitimate international framework for non-proliferation. In 2011, I proposed a peaceful solution based on the 2005 fatwa (religious decree) of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banning the acquisition, production and use of nuclear weapons, and in 2012 Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi declared Iran’s willingness to transform the fatwa ‘into a legally binding, official document in the UN’, to secularise what many in the West see as a purely religious decree.1 Such a step would provide a sustainable legal and political umbrella for Iran to accept required measures; facilitate transparency and confidence-building measures; and help address doubts in the West about the commitment to the principles expressed in the fatwa in the context of Iran’s system of government, where politics and religion are intertwined.
“Globalizing Iran’s Fatwa Against Nuclear Weapons,” Hossein Mousavian, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 55:2, 147-162. Published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), April 8, 2013.
Embrace the Fatwa
As the Western media reported it, the future of U.S.-Iranian nuclear negotiations suffered a major setback on Feb. 7 when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seemed to reject Vice President Joseph Biden’s offer of direct talks. “Some naive people like the idea of negotiating with America, however, negotiations will not solve the problem,” the supreme leader said in a statement posted on his website. “You are pointing a gun at Iran saying you want to talk. The Iranian nation will not be frightened by the threats.”
“Embrace the Fatwa”, Hossein Mousavian, Foreign Policy, February 7, 2013.
Iran wants a nuclear deal, not war
To stop Iran achieving “critical capability” to produce nuclear weapons in the coming months, President Obama must impose “maximal” sanctions – that is the message of a new report issued in Washington by five senior non-proliferation specialists. They call on Obama to implement a de facto international embargo on all investments in, and trade with, Iran, declaring: “A successful outcome in any negotiations with Iran depends on the immediate implementation of these sanctions, along with simultaneously reinforcing the credibility of President Obama’s threat to use military force, if necessary, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
“Iran wants a nuclear deal, not war”, Hossein Mousavian, the Guardian, January 21, 2013.
