Rouhani Discusses Potential Nuclear Deal with the West

In his first press conference to address the nuclear issue, newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made some important statements about how he intends to approach nuclear diplomacy with the West, and he intriguingly mentioned the specifics of a deal he says he worked out with French President Chirac in 2005 when Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator:

Rouhani proposed that a deal he discussed in 2005 with then French President Jacques Chirac, which he said was rejected by the UK and the US, could be the model going forward.

Hossein Mousavian, who served as a member of the Rouhani negotiating team, said the Chirac idea that Rouhani referenced involved the highest level of transparency of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for Iran having its rights under the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) recognized.

We agreed with Chirac that: first, the EU-3 would respect the legitimate rights of Iran for peaceful nuclear technology under the NPT, including enrichment,” Mousavian told Al-Monitor Monday. “Second, Iran would accept the [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA’s definition for objective guarantees that the Iranian nuclear program would remain peaceful and would not divert toward weaponization in the future.

It means that Iran would respect the maximum level of transparency that internationally exists,” Mousavian, a contributing writer to Al-Monitor, further explained. “In return, the P5+1 would not discriminate against Iran as a member of the NPT. It would respect Iran’s rights under the NPT like other members.

I think that the basic contours of this deal as he describes it, are what everyone is basically coming around to accepting as the inevitable essentials of a potential diplomatic accord between the West and Iran. Its alot like the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in that sense – i.e. everyone basically knows what has to happen here for both sides to agree and for the issue to finally be settled. Now its just down to having leaders on both sides who are willing to do what has to be done to solve the dipute peacefully. Rouhani seems to be going out of his way to try and tell the world that he wants to be that leader on the Iranian side. Now if he can only find a good faith partner in President Obama.