source: www.todayszaman.com - 31 May 2010, Monday
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is flying to Washington for talks on Tuesday with his US counterpart, Hillary Clinton, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan plans to meet with President Barack Obama next month as the two NATO allies work to contain a deepening dispute over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program.
The rift puts Turkish-US ties at risk, which, in the words of Davutoğlu, were in their “golden age” until quite recently. Turkey, working together with fellow UN Security Council member Brazil, managed on May 17 to get Iran agree to a deal almost identical to one proposed by the UN atomic watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and backed by the US and other world powers only seven months ago.
But the US swiftly dismissed the deal as nothing but a “ploy” for Iran to avoid sanctions.
Turkey and Brazil appeared to be surprised by the US dismissal of their deal, saying they used the US’s demands as a guide in their negotiations with Iran. Angered by the US statements that the Brazil-Turkish approach makes the world “more dangerous, not less,” Brazilian officials revealed last week a letter Obama sent to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on April 20 in which he outlined the US position on Iran’s nuclear program.
The letter, which found limited coverage in the US media, shows that Obama supported a possible agreement by Iran to transfer 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU) out of the country, saying in the letter that it “would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran’s” uranium stockpile.
But senior US officials briefing journalists in Washington on Friday said the amount of uranium Iran agreed to send abroad -- to Turkey -- was not enough because Iran’s uranium stockpile has grown since the proposal was first made. One official noted that when the idea of the fuel deal was first proposed in October, Iran had an estimated 1,200 kilograms of uranium but that it had since nearly doubled that stockpile. That means even if Iran sent some abroad it would still have enough to build one nuclear weapon.
Another issue of contention is the fact that Iran has not given up on enriching uranium. US officials said the deal co-sponsored by Brazil and Turkey does not address this issue.
But Turkish and Brazilian officials insist that the May 17 deal was not about uranium enrichment -- that they were never told that Iran should also agree to stop it -- and urged the world powers to use the positive atmosphere emerging in the wake of the deal to press for separate negotiations on uranium enrichment. Senior US officials said on Friday that the issue was raised in separate discussions and that they “would have specified all of the elements that would have made a deal acceptable to us” if Washington had asked Turkey and Brazil to negotiate with Tehran on behalf of the US.
Turkey and Brazil say they were encouraged to work for a deal that meets the conditions outlined in the October proposal and that this is exactly what they did. Davutoğlu has earlier said that during negotiations with Tehran, three conditions were presented by the world powers negotiating with Iran as essential in any deal on its nuclear program: that Iran should agree to transfer abroad 1,200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium stockpile; that the amount of that transfer should take place in one batch; and that it should be deposited in a third country -- Turkey -- while awaiting delivery of high-enriched uranium from Russia and France.
Davutoğlu and Clinton are now due to meet on Tuesday in Washington to “compare notes” on Iran, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Friday. Prime Minister Erdoğan will meet with Obama on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Canada on June 26-27. The Brazilian president is also expected to join the talks.
“We know we did the right thing,” said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim in a press conference flanked by Davutoğlu in Rio de Janeiro on Friday. Davutoğlu was convinced that the deal should not disturb the US because Turkey and Brazil were following in the footsteps of Obama, whose 2008 campaign platform called for greater engagement of the Islamic Republic. “This [agreement] is a success for Turkey and Brazil, but it is also a success for President Obama’s policy of engagement,” Davutoğlu said.
