Western diplomats say Iran surprised world powers with a proposal offering, for the first time, concessions vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic\’s centrifuge array and their enriched uranium stockpile.
An Iranian proposal to close down a third of its centrifuges and relinquish most of its low-enriched uranium has led to progress in talks with the six world powers in Geneva, according to Western diplomats. However, many issues remain unresolved and the chances of reaching an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program by March 30 are low, they add.
With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scheduled to leave on Sunday morning for Washington, ahead of his controversial speech to Congress on Tuesday, senior Israeli officials appraised of developments in the talks expressed concerns to representatives of the world powers.
The two previous rounds of talks between Iran and the six powers (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany), in Munich and Geneva, focused on finding a formula that would keep Iran a year from obtaining enough high-level enriched uranium to manufacture one bomb.
The two major components of the formula are the number of centrifuges Iran will be allowed to keep and the size of the stockpile of low-enriched uranium that it could retain.
The Western diplomats said that in the Munich talks early last month, the powers made a new offer to the Iranians, in which for the first six years of the agreement Iran could keep operating some 5,000 out of 9,400 old-model centrifuges, while 4,400 would go off-line in such a way that it would take a long time to reconnect them.
In the four following years, according to the Munich proposal, Iran would be able to increase its centrifuges to 7,800, and over the five ensuing years to 9,400, the number it currently operates. The proposal also called for most of the low-enriched uranium Iran currently has (about 6 tons) to be sent to Russia, where it would be converted into nuclear fuel for the reactor at Bushehr, Iran, leaving a symbolic 300-350 kilograms in Iran.