Solana met with Saeed Jalili, who heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council, in London last weekend, prior to the Saturday meeting in Paris of the six countries' mediators in the Iranian nuclear dispute.
The EU representative later said that he had expected more from Iran after five hours of talks. Jalili told him, more firmly than ever before, that Iran would not stop its uranium enrichment program, because it considers it inappropriate to forego this right while honoring all the other commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Solana's statement is shocking, especially because all of his previous talks with Iranian representatives left hope for a compromise, and he assessed them as sufficiently constructive.
The new head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council has proved to be a much tougher negotiator than Ali Larijani. It was most likely because of this that he was appointed to the post, and also because he is Ahmadinejad's man.
This will complicate the solution of Iran's nuclear problem, including for legal reasons.
UN Security Council Resolution 1747, adopted last March, stipulates harsher sanctions against Iran unless it stops uranium enrichment.
The resolution says that the Security Council shall "review Iran's actions in light of the report" submitted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and "suspend the implementation of measures if and for so long as Iran suspends all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, as verified by the IAEA, to allow for negotiations in good faith in order to reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome."
What is the international community to do now that Iran has refused to curtail its uranium enrichment program? The six intermediaries (five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany), who approved the resolution, will either have to agree to toughen sanctions as the resolution demands or admit that the resolution was a mistake and should be revised.
Moscow and Beijing will never agree to tougher sanctions, while Washington, London and Paris will reject the second option.
Russia and China's decisions on the Iranian nuclear problem are based on the rather favorable IAEA report. The United States, Britain and France rely on the resolution and argue that Iran's disregard for Security Council's requirements creates a dangerous precedent.
This is probably why the recent meeting of the six mediators has not produced any concrete results.
The IAEA's November report says that the agency is not sure "whether there was any military involvement in the [Iranian] program" but neither can it be quite confident of its "exclusively peaceful nature."
Chinese experts, who act from the presumption of innocence, are happy with the former conclusion, while American and European experts praise the latter addition.
The United States and Europe initially proceeded from the assumption that, according to the spirit of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, its signatories must prove the peaceful nature of their programs. Iran has been cleverly using this loophole in the treaty, unlike its counterparts who cannot agree on a common stance.
In fact, Iran has reached all of its goals, which clash with the six powers' requirements. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said when Resolution 1737 was adopted on December 23, 2006 that Iran was stronger than ever before, whatever other countries may say on the matter. Iran is a nuclear power and it should be in the interests of the international community to live at peace with it, he inferred.
Three months later, IAEA Director ElBaradei said almost the same shortly before the adoption of Resolution 1747. According to him, Iran's nuclear program has advanced so far ahead that it no longer makes sense to insist that it stop enrichment. Moreover, since the global powers have learned to live side by side with North Korea, which also has nuclear weapons, they should also learn to live at peace with Iran.
Solana told journalists before his talks with Jalili that he had no new proposals to make to Iran, which means that Iran has won, and largely thanks to its president.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
