Iran Seeks Guarantees on Enrichment Deal

Suggests Willingness for Further Talks

With the international community scrambling to rescue the third party enrichment deal with Iran, Iranian officials have come out today with a conciliatory note, signaling a willingness to talk further. The nation, currently holding a massive simulation to prepare for long threatened military attacks against it, also cautioned against foreign attacks, warning that it would retaliate.

The primary thing Iran is seeking, according to envoy Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, is some sort of guarantee that the deal will actually be followed through on by Western powers.

This has been a complaint of skeptics of the deal in Iran from the start, many of whom are concerned that France might renege on its part of the deal, potentially imperiling 70 percent of Iran’s uranium stockpile.

But previously Iran had insisted that only a straight-up trade would be acceptable. Couching today’s talk as a need for guarantees suggests that the nation might be willing to revisit a proposed deal to have Turkey or some other acceptable nation act as an intermediary to hold the uranium in trust, something they had previously rejected.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.