The Dilemma of Mutual Trust and the Futile Round of Negotiations

It is often said that in the realm of International Relations, mutual trust is so hard to achieve; trust-building is much more difficult especially among nuclear rivals. In fact, in this case, trust is hard to build and easy to destroy. The difficulty arises from the fact that countries usually think that their own security requires the insecurity of the others. The case of Iranian- Western relations and the Iran’s nuclear program crisis in particular, is a very good example in this respect. The language of mutual trust should be considered by all parties in the negotiations; neither side should not adopt policies that make the other side feel insecure. But if each side considers only their own interests, trust-building among those security- seeker states is not likely to achieve.

Problem Commences when in the eyes of each side, the other side is unreliable and untrustworthy. The west thinks that Iran is about to build nuclear weapons in order to intimidate the Arab States aligned with the West and to attack Israel. Iran’s leaders, in turn, think that the original intent of the West is the deposition of the regime and the nuclear program is just a pretext; this view is reinforced by looking at the history of relations between Iran and the West. As long as such pessimistic approach from both sides continues, we cannot see any improvement in the process of the negotiations.

Even a cursory glance at the history of negotiations between Iran and the West reveals the high degree of mutual mistrust. In spring 2003, when Iran offered its first proposal on a variety of issues, from the stability in Iraq and Afghanistan to full transparency over Iran’s nuclear program and cooperation against terrorist organizations; but the Bush administration, rejected the proposal before the scrutiny of it, in favor of putting additional pressure on Iran.

In August 2005 EU3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) presented their most comprehensive proposal to Iran; this proposal included the following:

·                     Making Iran assured of supplying of low enriched uranium in Iran for any light water reactors constructed in Iran;

·                     A commitment by Iran not to withdraw from the NPT;

·                     EU’s commitment of considering Iran as a long-term source of fossil fuel;

·                     EU-Iran cooperation on Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, and drug trafficking.

This was Iran’s turn to reject that proposal; Iran claimed that it did not recognize Iran’s right to enrichment.

Since 2006, China, Russia, and the United States joined the EU3 countries in offering a proposal to Iran; its key points were:

·                     Iran’s suspension of enrichment- related an reprocessing activities;

·                     The provision of state-of-the-art light water reactors to Iran through joint projects, along with nuclear fuel guarantees and a 5-year buffer stock of fuel;

·                     Cooperation on civil aviation, telecommunications. High-technology, and agriculture, and other areas, between the United States, EU, and Iran.

Tehran once again rejected the proposal.

In June 2008, the P5+1 except the United States offered another proposal which included a six week “ freeze-for-freeze “ period in which the six countries would agree not impose additional sanctions against Iran; but this round of negotiation was also inconclusive.

Since 2009 and the election of president Obama, the P5+1 declared that they will renew their proposals, but a glimpse look at the negotiations since then, makes it clear that there was no significant difference in their proposals and they included the previous points, and Tehran did not accept them.

In the spring of 2010, Brazil and Turkey took the initiative aiming to resolve the crisis. Tehran Declaration included two important points:

·                     Recall the right of all state parties to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy (as well as nuclear fuel cycle including enrichment activities);

·                     The IAEA, France, Russia, and the United Sates would agree to provide 120 kilograms of 20 % enriched uranium fuel to Iran within one year.

France, Russia, and the United States rejected the Tehran Declaration. Their reason was that the Declaration did not address Iran’s production of 20 % enriched uranium. Russia step by step proposal in 2011 did not include any new point.

During three rounds of talks in Istanbul, Baghdad, and Moscow in 2012, the both sides agreed to discuss about the technical aspects of the issue. But once again the West asked Iran to halt all 20 % enrichment activities, to transfer all 20 % enriched uranium to a third country, and to shut down the Fordow facility. It was obvious that Iran could not accept all of these conditions.

It can be clearly seen that due to the mutual mistrust between the both sides, these monotonous rounds of negotiations will be continued without any remarkable progress. This atmosphere can be exacerbated if the West continues to impose additional sanctions against Iran. In fact, the West should accept the possibility that Iran was showing positive signals on its nuclear program not because of sanctions, but in spite of them, and Iran also should not see the West as its permanent foe, but as a potential partner in many political and economic areas and if Iran increase its cooperation with the west in the case of its nuclear program, in can gain many advantages from the West in other issues.

The seeds of trust will grow if both sides accept that in the realm of International Relations, the feelings of security or insecurity of countries are linked together and every single action that one actor do, can contribute to the other’s feelings and considering the mutual interests of the countries in each issue, is the best way to reduce the challenges and resolving the problems.