Saturday's formal talks between Iran and the international community went surprisingly well, if only in the sense that they did not end in a walkout and mutual recrimination. Instead they all agreed to meet for another round of talks on May 23. But if these talks are to go anywhere, Iran must open up and become transparent about its nuclear programme so as to regain international trust, and prove that it is not breaking any international treaties.
The Istanbul meeting was the first time in 15 months that the P5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) and Iran had met, and the hardening of attitudes caused by heated rhetoric from extremists in the United States and Israel had led some to believe that these talks would fail. Of course, it is perfectly possible that skilled negotiators on the Iranian side told the P5+1 what they wanted to hear.
While Iran's critics accuse it of developing a nuclear weapons programme, Iran insists that its programme is peaceful. To convince the international community that it is telling the truth, Iran will have to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into all its facilities, visiting any site they want, without prior notice.
Iran insists that it should be able to exercise its right to enrich uranium up to 20 per cent under the terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it must be allowed to use this uranium in its nuclear power reactors. But its deliberate refusal to be transparent has encouraged suspicions that it is enriching uranium well beyond this point, which can only be used in nuclear weapons. One key test of Iran's truth would be for it to allow access to the Parchin military base near Tehran, where the IAEA says Iran may have tested explosives for warhead research.
