The current government of President Hassan Rouhani in Iran has to accept that many years of deliberate obstruction by previous governments like that of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will require the level of proof for any nuclear deal to be of a higher standard than normal. It is regrettable but the country has a history of wishing to not work with the international community, and while the current Rouhani government certainly needs the imminent deal to work, the terms have to be robust enough to cope with another government like that of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Therefore Iran has to think twice about the tough talk from Abbas Araghchi, one of its senior negotiators, who told Iranian TV that it was out of the question for officials from the UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to question Iranian scientists or inspect military sites as part of a final nuclear agreement. The IAEA head, Yukiya Amano, has said that Iran will have to accept inspections of its military sites, but Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has accepted, allows “some access” but not inspections of military sites.
There has to be a way for the two sides to find a way to bridge the gap between “inspections” and “access” which should not be impossible, and on the other issue maybe the IAEA teams can have “conversations” with scientists rather than “interviews”. It is also important that the terms are not humiliating to Iran but are nonetheless realistic, so that both sides can fulfil their political decision that they want a deal.
The pressure is on as they rush towards the June 30 deadline. The negotiators should try to ignore the public rhetoric as both sides hold out for whatever last minute gains they can win, while also playing to the domestic galleries back home in Tehran and Washington to prove how tough they have been in defending their mutually exclusive national interests.
