Javad Zarif, the former Iranian foreign minister, is proposing a new UN-endorsed forum for civil nuclear cooperation across the Middle East and north Africa, dedicated to sharing enriched uranium and the fruits of civil nuclear power, as part of a drive to end the threat of nuclear weapons in the region.
The proposal is made in a Guardian article written jointly by Zarif, until recently a close adviser to the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and Mohsen Baharvand, a former Iranian ambassador to the UK.
It represents the most positive if long-term Iranian proposal to resolve the impasse over the west’s concerns that Iran’s nuclear programme aims to create nuclear weapons, a charge Zarif denies.
The US and Israel conducted a 12-day bombing campaign in June in an attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites, and since then Iran has refused to resume negotiations with the US, but it has held talks with Britain, France and Germany, the three European countries (E3) that were party to the original nuclear agreement signed in 2015 and which expires in October.
The European countries have said they will start a process next month to reimpose sweeping UN sanctions on Iran unless it agrees to allow UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) back into Iran.
Zarif in his proposal says the Middle East is one of the few regions of the globe without a nuclear weapons-free agreement. He proposes a new “Middle East Network for Atomic Research and Advancement” (Menara) open to countries that “reject the development or deployment of nuclear weapons and commit to mutual verification of their compliance”. In return, Menara would help participant countries “benefit from peaceful nuclear technology including energy production, medicine, agriculture and scientific research”.
Iran’s critics will accuse Zarif of seeking to divert attention from Tehran’s alleged covert plan to develop nuclear weapons, or of trying to throw the spotlight on Israel’s undeclared nuclear programme. Others will claim his proposal is a ploy in advance of continued talks between the E3 and Iran in which fresh pressure will be placed on Iran urgently to readmit IAEA inspectors.
But his proposal does provide a new long-term context in which countries’ civilian nuclear programmes in the regions could be developed, inspected and controlled.
It could also provide a new more acceptable international context in which Iran could pursue its determination to enrich uranium. Iran’s demand that it still be entitled to enrich uranium domestically has been a red line in negotiations with the US.
Zarif claims the proposal would help reframe the debate in the region about nuclear power. “For too long, nuclear issues have been cast solely in terms of risk and threat. But nuclear science also offers solutions – to climate change, water scarcity, food security, and energy diversification,” he writes. “As oil and gas reserves dwindle, nuclear energy will be vital for regional growth and sustainability. Menara can make this future a shared, secure reality.”
