France: World Firmly Behind Already Rejected US Offer to Iran

Will Talks Amount to US Trotting Out Worse Version of Last Year's Deal?

by Jason Ditz, November 05, 2010

This month’s upcoming P5+1 talks with Iran look poised to end in quick and perhaps predictable failure tonight as reports grow that the Obama Administration is planning to demand Iran accept a dramatically worse version of the same offer he made last year, which Iran accepted and then the US angrily reneged on.

But according to France the whole world, or at least the whole P5+1, is “united” behind the US offer and that there is absolutely no disagreement on the terms of the upcoming demand, which would demand that the Iranian government turn over 2,000 kg of uranium for production of fuel for its medical isotope reactor.

But Iran has already rejected the deal, and it isn’t hard to see why. The old deal, which involved 1,200 kg being turned into fuel would’ve given Iran many decades of fuel for an aging reactor that may not have that many years left. Iran was willing to accept the deal for more than they needed or wanted primarily as a confidence-building move.

But the mood is decidedly less conciliatory today, after Iran agreed to the old 1,200 kg deal and the US pulled the rug out from under it, then angrily demanded (and got) more anti-Iran sanctions because the deal never happened. 2,000 kg is a riduclous amount of fuel for the nearly half-century old reactor, and Iran is likely to meet the offer with added skepticism that even if accepted it will only be stalled again, and replaced with an even worse deal in 2011.

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