Allow enrichment in Iran, says former UK envoy

London, Feb 4, IRNA - A former British Ambassador to the UN is calling on the UK government to urgently alter its policy with regard to the dispute over Iran?s nuclear programme.

Speaking ahead of the latest 5 + 1 talks to be held in Frankfurt on
Wednesday, Sir John Thomson suggested that Britain should follow US
President Barack Obama and drop its demand for Iran to suspend its
enrichment programme as a pre-condition for negotiations.
?Britain and the other Europeans were important when we were hanging
on to (former US president) George Bush's coat-tails,? said Thomson,
who is now a research affiliate at MIT in the US.
?But we followed the US line with such enthusiasm that, now that Obama
has replaced Bush, we find ourselves, together with France, to the
right of Washington; strange for a Labour government,? he said.
?Were we to persuade the new US team to stick with "suspension", we
might well wreck the best chance of a negotiated settlement,? the
former ambassador warned in an article for the Independent on Sunday
weekly.
He said that ?time, as the five-plus-one privately admit, is against
us. So are the facts. We have slipped into denying reality. The
Iranians, as they have repeatedly said, are not going to ?suspend?.?
?We pretend that Iran has not already produced enough low-enriched
uranium to make one bomb were they to enrich it further to "weapons
grade". Russia and China refuse to support tough sanctions. Iran has
seen off unanimous Security Council resolutions. In short, our policy
has failed and, if we persist with it, the failure will grow.?
Thomson, who was British ambassador to the UN between 1982 and 1987,
suggested that there was an alternative policy and that Britain
?could be the catalyst to make it work.?
?Back in 2006, we insisted that the US join the negotiations,
basically because we understood that there had to be an accommodation
between the two main protagonists. Now we must promote that
accommodation by facilitating US-Iranian talks,? he said.
The former envoy believed that the nuclear issue with Iran ?needs to
be resolved quickly,? but that a ?real accommodation involves more.?
?We should propose to Tehran and to our colleagues in the
five-plus-one that if the Iranians will discuss the proposals made by
the five-plus-one in June 2008, we will discuss the Iranian proposals
of May 2008,? he said.
While it would be impractical to consider all the ideas in the two
proposals simultaneously, he suggested taking one political security
item that appears in each, say Iraq and Afghanistan, and one
economic/energy item like Middle East resources and add to these the
nuclear problem as an acceptable initial agenda, which could be used
first in confidential bilateral US-Iran discussions.
?We should urge the Americans to say to the Iranians that they have
noted repeated statements by the Iranian President and Foreign
Minister favouring an international consortium to enrich uranium in
Iran,? Thomson said.
?By comparison with the continuance of this situation, an
international consortium, albeit enriching on Iranian soil, is
preferable.?
He suggested this would lead to an end to sanctions, Security Council
approval, the return of the nuclear file to the IAEA and Iran would
achieve their bottom line, enrichment on their soil, even though it
contrasts with the UK?s current policy.
If Foreign Secretary David Miliband wants accommodation in the Middle
East and no nuclear weapons in Iran, ?this is a deal you cannot afford
to miss,? the former ambassador urged.

End