ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey said on Tuesday that Iran has shown political will to solve a dispute with the West over its nuclear program and said it was not time to discuss further U.N. sanctions.
Iran agreed on Monday with Brazil and Turkey, two non-permanent members of the Security Council, to send some of its uranium abroad, reviving a fuel swap plan drafted by the United Nations with the aim of keeping its nuclear activities in check.
“Everybody should understand... that yesterday Iran showed great flexibility which was not expected before, and this flexibility is an opportunity for a new phase of diplomacy,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Reuters in an interview.
The accord set a quantity of uranium to be transferred that the international community had sought, set a timetable for the process to be completed, and restated Iran’s commitment to the principles of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Davutoglu said this commitment reassured him that Iran was not planning to build a nuclear bomb.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which would oversee the nuclear material under the plan, said it was waiting for Iran to agree to the relevant provisions in writing.
Yet Western powers have expressed skepticism over the deal and analysts said the move seemed intended to split the international community and avert planned new U.N. sanctions.
Speaking earlier at a news conference, Davutoglu warned that discussions of sanctions would “spoil the atmosphere,” provoke Iranian public opinion, and risk a hardening in the public statements made by the different sides.
Within hours, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that major world powers had agreed on a draft sanctions resolution against Iran and would circulate it to the full U.N. Security Council later on Tuesday.
A LOT TO LOSE
Turkey, which has an $11 billion trade with Iran and buys
30 percent of its gas from the Islamic Republic, has made it clear it does not want sanctions even at the risk of angering its ally Washington.
“We don’t want any nuclear weapons in our region... We don’t want any new sanctions in our region because it affects our economy, it affects our energy policies, it affects our relations in our neighborhood,” Davutoglu said.
China, one of the world powers discussing possible new U.N. sanctions and one of the five permanent Security Council members, has welcomed the nuclear fuel-swap plan.
The agreement, clinched between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, could stall U.S. President Barack Obama’s push for new U.N. sanctions.
But Davutoglu said Erdogan had been “encouraged” by Obama during a nuclear summit in Washington in April to pursue dialogue with Tehran.
Turkey, an increasingly confident Muslim country that covets a bigger role in the international arena, has been working for months to mediate in the dispute between the West and Iran.
But its focus was fixed narrowly on securing a deal for the nuclear fuel swap and neither Turkey or Brazil had a mandate to negotiate on the core concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.
Yet, Davutoglu saw the accord struck in Tehran as possibly the most important diplomatic initiative by Iran in 30 years of disputes with the West because there was a text, signed and binding on Iran.
Writing by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Michael Roddy
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