"The Primacy of Diplomacy"

The Simons Foundation occasionally features briefings from Guest Contributors.  Sergio Duarte and Ronaldo Sardenberg are members of the newly formed Latin American and Caribbean Leadership Network for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (LALN) and former Ambassadors for Brazil.

"The Primacy of Diplomacy"
By Sergio Duarte & Ronaldo Sardenberg
Published (in Portuguese) by Rio de Janeiro's Jornal O Globo
December 13, 2013

The interim agreement between Iran and the informal group known as P-5+1 – the five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations (UNSC), United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, plus Germany – is encouraging to all those who, like Brazil, believe in the primacy of diplomacy for the peaceful solution of controversies among States. Although negotiated outside the scope of the United Nations, the agreement renews the expectation of concrete assurances about the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program. The participation of Germany in the group certainly benefits that country’s objectives in the United Nations.

Both in the United States and in Iran utraconservative sectors criticised the agreement. Israel considered it “a historical mistake”. For the first time Saudi Arabia and its allies in the region expressed parallel positions with those of Israel, in opposition to Washington.

Tehran and Washington diverge about the right to enrich uranium. For States not possessing nuclear weapons, Article IV of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is clear: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without discrimination”. Nuclear weapon States deny that right. The NPT, however, does not authorize any State or group of States to generate norms on its implementation.     

Among other commitments, Iran will suspend uranium enrichment above 5%; degrade to below that limit its stockpile of uranium already enriched to 20% or prevent its future re-enrichment; not install new centrifuges and render inoperative a considerable number of those at Natanz and Fordow; limit to current levels the stockpile of uranium enriched at 3.5%; suspend activities for the production of plutonium at Arak; permit daily inspections in these plants and related installations; and provide information on past and present issues.

The countries that make up the P-5+1 group will ease partially and temporarily some of the sanctions imposed on Iran, the largest part of which shall remain in force, and may reestablish them at any time in case of non-compliance by Iran. They will not impose new sanctions for six months and will suspend restrictions on some Iranian exports. Limitations on the licensing of spare parts for Iranian aircraft will be lifted. The transfer, in installments, of a total of US$4.2 in funds from Iranian petroleum sales abroad will be permitted. Restrictions applied to Iranian assets abroad, industrial investments and technical services shall remain in place.

The ensemble of these obligations seems to indicate an imbalance to the detriment of Iran. During the next months new negotiations will search for a definitive solution, which should not  be invoked as precedent. If that effort is successful, possibilities of progress on the proposal for the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East are to be expected. Much remains to be done in order to break the resistance of the nuclear-armed States to accept concrete, irreversible and legally binding measures, with clear timelines, for their own nuclear disarmament, a longstanding aspiration of all peoples of the world.