The enrichment riddle

To what extent can they succeed is difficult to guess, but the personal diplomacy between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Javed Zarif has upped the ante.

Published: Wed 25 Feb 2015, 10:02 PM

Last updated: Thu 25 Jun 2015, 7:48 PM

Geneva is once again buzzing with activity. Away from the diplomatic heat in Minsk, Brussels and the United Nations, envoys have calmly resumed their third and final round of deliberations to reach an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme. Though the stakes are too high, the good point is that both Washington and Tehran are not talking through the media, which indicates maturity at work. Yet, it is too early to say that both the archrivals are close to a deal. The body language and the political narrative, however, suggests that something is cooking up and the intention is to end up in a breakthrough of sorts rather than going back to blame game politics.

All they have to do this time around is to keep the deadline of July 1 in mind to reach a permanent accord. The Six-plus-One talks under the aegis of the world body is a rare opportunity to address the concerns that hover around the Islamic Republic’s ambitious uranium enrichment, which Tehran says is meant for scientific purposes and is not weapon-specific. The fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency and a host of technical experts from respective countries are part of the parleys provides it with due credence to interpret it on a meaningful trouble-shooting module, rather than furthering it as a debate interwoven with political point scoring.

Which is why the broad-based focus is to agree on the acceptable scale of enrichment, foolproof inspection of Iranian nuclear facilities and subsequently scrap sanctions that has kept Iran at bay with the West, especially the United States. The sooner the technical differences are narrowed down, the faster will be the momentum to iron out political issues between the parties concerned. To what extent can they succeed is difficult to guess, but the personal diplomacy between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Javed Zarif has upped the ante.

Kerry and Zarif, as major stakeholders, are at least aware of the fact that their success will go a long way in leaving behind a legacy in their otherwise three decades of troubled relationship. That is why Barack Obama and Hassan Rohani are non-committal until and unless the beans are spilled in Switzerland. It’s high time the nuclear riddle is put to rest in all congeniality.