PRESIDENT BARACK Obama hailed yesterday’s talks between six world powers and Iran in Geneva as a “constructive beginning” but warned that “hard work lies ahead”.
Mr Obama gave Iran only two weeks to allow UN inspectors to visit the unfinished uranium enrichment plant near Qom.
“Since Iran has now agreed to co-operate fully and immediately with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it must grant unfettered access to IAEA inspectors within two weeks,” he said.
Mr Obama, British prime minister Gordon Brown and French president Nicolas Sarkozy revealed the existence of the secret facility a week ago today.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA “will be travelling to Tehran in the days ahead,” Mr Obama said. A senior US official told Reuters that Dr ElBaradei will visit Iran this weekend.
Mr Obama said the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany were united in their approach: “The Iranian government heard a clear and unified message from the international community in Geneva,” he said. “Iran must demonstrate through concrete steps that it will live up to its responsibilities with regard to its nuclear programme.”
As a confidence building measure, Mr Obama said, Iran has agreed “in principle” to transfer enriched uranium from a Tehran research reactor “to a third country” for further enrichment to the level of fuel for a nuclear power reactor. The third country is understood to be Russia.
The state-controlled Russian news agency RIA said Moscow was willing to discuss enriching Iranian uranium from 4 per cent purity to 19.75 per cent. This fuel, which Russia would ship back to Iran, would be suitable for civilian reactors, but would fall far short of the approximately 90 per cent enrichment required for nuclear weapons. Warning that US “patience is not unlimited”, Mr Obama indirectly addressed critics who fear his administration may be an inexperienced “soft touch” for wily Iranian negotiators. “We expect to see swift action,” he said.
“We’re committed to serious and meaningful engagement. But we’re not interested in talking for the sake of talking.”
Alluding to the threat of more stringent sanctions, Mr Obama said the US “will not continue to negotiate indefinitely” and is “prepared to move towards increased pressure”. Sanctions were not discussed in yesterday’s meeting, but diplomats have talked of the possibility of sanctions on the export of Iranian petrol – about 3 per cent of the world’s supply – and on Iranian imports of refined petrol, which account for 40 per cent of domestic consumption.
The Iranians also portrayed yesterday’s meeting in a positive light. “We began good talks in today’s negotiations,” Saeed Jalili, head of the Iranian negotiating team, told Iranian journalists. “We have common viewpoints with which we will deal in the continuing talks.” The mood was one of hope, tempered by years of Iranian perseverance and western frustration.
“I think it was a productive day, but the proof of that has not yet come to fruition, so we will wait and continue to press our point of view and see what Iran decides to do,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.