Diplomacy over Syria brings another chance to talk with Iran- Hans Blix

Diplomacy over Syria brings another chance to talk with Iran

A diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis could also prompt a calmer dialogue over Tehran's nuclear programme

• • Hans Blix

For some weeks the world's attention has turned from the brutal civil war that continues to rage over much of Syria, and focused instead on the horrible large-scale use of chemical weapons near Damascus – which has now been verified in a report by UN appointed impartial inspectors. After several bewildering political turns, the framework agreed in Geneva by the foreign ministers of the US and Russia may be viable and meet the interest of their own and many other governments – even though it is bitterly denounced by Syrian rebels, who had hoped for strong US military action, and even though there is no consensus on the question of guilt.

Rather than a fast-track, global-police action with the US ignoring the UN security council – and charter – to punish Syria with limited military strikes, we now see Damascus brought on a fast-track to the chemical weapons convention and an accelerated process for those weapons to be declared (within a week), verified by international inspectors and removed from or destroyed in Syria (within the first half of 2014). The executive council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the security council are, quite properly, to run the process and supervise it.

This "framework" takes the US off a military course that appeared to go against American public opinion, might have been rejected in Congress, and could have led to loss of many lives in Syria and dragged Washington into further armed conflict. Many governments welcomed that, under the framework, the security council is no longer ignored but made the central forum for action and supervision. For Russia, as a permanent council member with a veto, this meant preserved influence. Through the framework, Russia also protected the Syrian government from the loss of military assets that would have been destroyed in punitive strikes. While Moscow reaped praise for preventing armed action, the only price it paid was the destruction of a chemical arsenal that the Syrian government could hardly have used a second time.

What now looks almost like an international "due process" will undoubtedly raise questions. It seems unlikely the Syrian government will seek to obstruct the process and raise a need for enforcement measures, but troublesome practical and political problems will inevitably arise. The reset that has already taken place between the US and Russia in Geneva will be needed to solve such problems. Even more co-operation will be needed between the two, and within the security council, to tackle the much greater challenge of achieving a ceasefire in Syria and a conference to bring about a transitional government.

It is welcome that the US now seems fully aware that Iran is central to this challenge, and that dialogue with Tehran – and not only threats – are needed. In comments made before the final deal was struck, President Obama made clear that Iran will have a place at the conference about peace in Syria. He cautioned Iran that its getting closer to a nuclear weapon is a far larger issue to the US than Syrian chemical weapons, and warned Tehran it should not conclude that the readiness to strike against it was gone. However, Obama also signalled that the deal reached in Geneva showed there is a potential to resolve these issues diplomatically. One would hope this potential will soon be explored. It could improve the atmosphere.

Iran has a new president who seems intent on entering into a calmer dialogue about its nuclear programme and reducing the concerns about it. Opportunities for talks will arise very soon during the UN general assembly session in New York. They should be well used.

Years of talks with Iran have gone stale, and are accompanied by increasing threats and crippling economic pressures. As its nuclear-power programme has no practical need for more and higher levels of uranium enrichment, the suspicion that Iran aims to produce a nuclear weapon is understandable. However, it should also be understood that rather than hearing strained legal arguments that it has "forfeited" a right to enrichment, Iran has a need – as a matter of pride and dignity – to hear that under the non-proliferation treaty it has a right to enrich for peaceful purposes just as it has a duty to refrain from making a nuclear weapon.

If the situation is not ready for such statements, Iran might bring about a good measure of detente if it chose to declare unilaterally that for a number of years at least it sees a need for enrichment only to the low levels required for nuclear power reactors and will enable the International Atomic Energy Agency to fully verify this production

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/18/diplomacy-syria-chance-talk-iran