Iranian week in Moscow ahead of IAEA meeting

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MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov.) - This week Iranian diplomats have been active in the Russian capital: Moscow has received Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari.

This is a certain indication that the IAEA board will soon hold an extraordinary meeting (scheduled for early February) to decide on the fate of Iran's nuclear file. A similar event took place last fall, when in comparable circumstances Iranian high-ranking officials paid "a last hope visit" to Moscow. That time Russia and China ensured that the IAEA board did not get enough votes to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. What will happen this time?

As the European Trio - Paris, Berlin and London - has toughened its position and is more than ever poised for a referral, Russia's initiative to create a joint uranium enrichment venture with Iran on its territory looks like a straw proffered to a drowning man: it revives hope that the IAEA will support the project and postpone the move to the UN Security Council. It should be evident to the majority of IAEA members that if Iran's uranium is processed in Russia and not in Iran, as Tehran demands now, it will be a compromise that provides certain safeguards against the Islamic republic developing nuclear weapons in the future.

Opening his meeting with Safari, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "We hope to discuss the so-called Iranian nuclear problem, the situation around which has escalated recently. We hope that our Iranian friends will choose a stand that will allay tensions and settle the issue."

Safari also met with Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alekseyev and held three-hour talks with Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency. The meetings resulted in a statement released by the Iranian Embassy on Thursday, outlining the country's position in the talks. It says that "the Iranian party, referring to the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), emphasized the legitimate right of the Islamic Republic of Iran and all other countries to peaceful use of nuclear energy."

As the talks between Iran and the European Trio came to a deadlock because of Tehran's insistence on its "legitimate right," the position does not seem to have changed.

However, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, met his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov and described Russia's proposal of a joint venture as "positive," but requiring further "improvement." "There are many details around the proposal that need to be resolved," he told journalists. Among them he named "the place where uranium would be enriched, the terms of [Iranian] representatives' participation in the technological process of nuclear fuel enrichment and third countries' involvement." These "details" are pivotal and will require more than one round of Russian-Iranian talks.

The most important thing is how Iran's key opponents, Europe and the United States, will react to the postponement of the decision. The IAEA board will meet on February 2-3, while Russian-Iranian talks are scheduled for February 16. Will Iran's opponents see it as Tehran's attempt to gain time? If so, this will only strengthen their determination to refer the file to the UN Security Council.

If we remember Larijani's warning that in case of referral Tehran will no longer restrict itself to research of uranium enrichment and will start its production, as well as withdraw from the additional protocol to the NPT, we can be certain that debates at the IAEA meeting will be more than heated.

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