1. Historical Background

Historically the Middle East was the arena of superpowers’ vital interests. After the Second World War Iran found itself under Soviet influence while Israel was established as an independent national state in 1948 after the GA UN Resolution 181 and got involved into the war with Palestinian Arabs.

Americans considered Israel as an outpost of its influence in the region and gave this new-born country a huge support. Thus a close alliance with the United States allowed Israel to develop absolutely unique economic, political and ideological systems which differed completely from those in the region. Thus there was a west oriented country in the heart of the Middle East supported by Americans. On the other hand Arabs in Palestine could not form their own state in Palestine. As a result the USSR and neighboring Arabic countries criticized Israel and its Western allies mainly the United States.

At the same time Iran was also in the center of geopolitical game. In 1946 after very intensive and difficult negotiations the Soviet Army withdrew from Iran but it caused struggle between the central government and autonomous territories such as Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. Moreover the United States used the situation to fill in the vacuum and in October, 1947 signed the bilateral agreement to establish the US military mission in Iran.

So under the circumstances of the Cold War the Middle East became a new arena of confrontation between the USA and the USSR. Israel was under the US umbrella while Arabs states and the USSR supported Palestinian Arabs in struggle with Israel. It is necessary to note that Teheran de facto recognized Israel as an independent state in 1950 and established diplomatic relations with it, becoming the first Muslim-majority country after Turkey to do so. With few allies in the region, Israel welcomed Iran’s modest support because each country considered the other a vital friend in a region filled with hostile enemies⁴. But despite extensive military and economic ties there was no de jure recognition. Actually at that time Iran was more interested in stabilization inside the country and focused on its domestic policy cooperating with Americans.

Iran's nuclear program began in the 1950s but was slow to progress. Only in 1967 the USA supplied the Tehran Nuclear Research Center with the first small 5MWt research reactor, fueled by highly enriched uranium. In exchange Teheran joined the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and in 1974 signed Safeguards Agreement which means an obligation to bring all nuclear activity under IAEA safeguards and allow the Agency to carry out inspections at its nuclear facilities.

Simultaneously, by the end of 1960s Israel developed its own nuclear weapons. According to Avner Cohen, a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, in 1969 Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and President Richard Nixon reached a still-secret agreement to refuse to acknowledge officially that Israel possessed atomic bombs. To cite the Washington Post author Patrick B. Pexton “President John Kennedy vigorously tried to prevent Israel from obtaining the bomb; President Lyndon Johnson did so to a much lesser extent. But once it was a done deal, Nixon and every president since has not pressed Israel to officially disclose its capabilities or to sign the NPT. In return, Israel agrees to keep its nuclear weapons unacknowledged and low-profile”⁵.

In general Iran had good relations with the USA until 1979. During this period of time Iran concluded several nuclear technology related contracts with foreign suppliers and invested in education and training for its personnel. In 1973, the Shah unveiled ambitious plans to install 23,000MWe of nuclear power in Iran by the end of the century, charging the newly founded Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. In 1976, Iran paid one billion dollars for a 10 percent stake in Eurodif'sTricastin uranium enrichment plant in France and a 15percent stake in the RTZ uranium mine in Rossing, Namibia. Tehran signed a $700 million contract to purchase uranium yellowcake from South Africa, and sent Iranian technicians abroad for nuclear training. By the time of the 1979 revolution, Iran had developed an impressive capability in nuclear technologies⁶.

However, the 1979 Iranian Revolution and subsequent Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) limited the nuclear program’s expansion. After the Islamic Revolution Teheran changed domestic and foreign policies and this led to termination of diplomatic relations with the USA. Iran concentrated on building strong theocracy and started opposing not only Americans but Israel considering the last as the main enemy in the region. Iran tried to popularize the idea of Islamic revolution and spill the influence of Muslims over other countries. The situation was getting worse because of the mosque which is one of the main Islamic holy places situated in Jerusalem. Since then all Iranian leaders have led anti-Israeli politics. It allowed Iran to become allies with neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Palestine, Turkey and Syria. Moreover Teheran started supporting Palestinian “Hamas” and Lebanon’s “Hezbollah” in struggle with Israel approving their terrorist acts. This fact is still one of the key concerns of Israel and the United States because Iran could provide these organizations with nuclear devices if Teheran pursued them.

The US opposition to Iran's nuclear efforts increased during the 1980s and 1990s. Washington blocked nuclear deals between Iran and Argentina, China, and Russia. This resulted in the near disintegration of Iran's nuclear program post-1979. Work on nuclear projects that had been ongoing under the Shah, such as construction of the Bushehr nuclear reactors, was suspended. However, in 1984 Khomeini expressed a renewed Iranian interest in nuclear power, seeking the assistance of international partners to complete construction at Bushehr. Since then Teheran has intensively developed its own nuclear industry.

As for Israel it had another problem. Within the atmosphere of secrecy about its nuclear weapons program it was a leak from an Israeli insider, nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu in 1986. ⁷ In response Israeli agents kidnapped him in Italy, taken home to trial, convicted and served 18 years in jail. Since then, according to Cohen, relatively few people have had overall knowledge of the Israeli program and no one leaks. He said information about Israeli nuclear capabilities remains some of the most compartmentalized and secret information the U.S. government holds.

As George Perkovich, director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, put it, secrecy about Israel’s nuclear weapons serves both U.S. and Israeli interests. He said, “If Israel were public about its nukes, or brandished its program recklessly — as North Korea does every time it wants something — it would put more pressure on Arab states to obtain their own bomb”.⁸

By the way Israel has always considered itself as a reliable and responsible state whereas its neighbors, Iran and Iraq got into a long conflict in 1980-1988. During this war Iraq used banned chemical weapons. Moreover it was found out about Iraqi secret nuclear military program. Under those circumstances Israel in June, 1981 attacked and destroyed nuclear facility in Iraq to prevent it from possessing nuclear weapons. It is well known now that Iraq in fact developed its own nuclear arsenal until 1991. Only after American invasion all the facilities were destructed under the IAEA control.

In 1990s Iran began pursuing an indigenous nuclear fuel cycle capability by developing a uranium mining infrastructure and experimenting with uranium conversion and enrichment⁹. The USA put embargo on military supplies.

In 1997 a new president of Iran Khatami undertook some efforts to overcome international isolation and even normalize relations with the United States. But there was no chance to establish relations with Israel otherwise Iran could lose its friends in Arabic world.

Meanwhile in 2002 the IAEA found out that Iran carried out clandestine activities building several nuclear sites without IAEA safeguards. The sites included a uranium mine at Saghand, a yellow cake production plant near Ardakan, a pilot uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, and a commercial-scale enrichment facility on the same site. In addition, Iran was continuing work on a 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor at Bushehr and was building a heavy water production plant at Arak, next to which Iran planned to build a 40 megawatt heavy water reactor.¹⁰ It meant that the country got all the necessary capabilities to produce enriched uranium which could be used either for nuclear weapons or reactors but the Agency as well as the international community didn’t have any information about this secret program.

Moreover IAEA inspectors detected the evidence of experiments with fissile materials in 1980s. According to the Safeguards agreement Iran would oblige to create the initial declaration of its nuclear facilities and materials and then provided access for the Agency’s inspectors to verify the completeness and correctness of the announced activities but Teheran failed. It led to the negative reaction from Western countries so Germany, Great Britain and France tried to persuade Iran to join the IAEA Additional Protocol to make sure that Iran wouldn’t have secret ambitions or activities any more. In 2003 Teheran signed the Protocol but the Parliament didn’t ratify it. First, Iran considered the Protocol as a leverage of Western countries on Iran. Iranian officials have still underlined that there is no need to join another document to assure peaceful character of its nuclear program.

It was the start of international negotiations which have lasted till now without any visible results. The situation was getting worse when in 2005 a new President Ahmadinejad undertook policy aimed at raising the role of Iran in the region and strengthen the state’s ability to resist American and European influence.

It took several years to negotiate with Iran. The six world powers, the “P5-plus-1” group, which are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany, wanted Iran to obey Security Council resolutions ordering it to suspend enrichment and open itself up fully to IAEA inspectors, to ensure that there is no effort to build a nuclear weapon. This is the chronology of talks.¹¹

2009.

October 1- Iran meets six world powers in Geneva and approves in principle a plan to send 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be made into special fuel for a Tehran reactor making medical materials.

October 25 - U.N. nuclear experts inspect a newly disclosed enrichment plant being built inside a mountain bunker at Fordow. Iran explains this fact as need to defend the facility from air attacks.

October 30 - Iran tells the IAEA it wants fresh nuclear fuel for its Tehran medical research reactor before it will agree to ship enriched uranium stocks to Russia and France, according to U.N. officials.

November 18 - Tehran says it won't send enriched uranium abroad but will consider swapping it for nuclear fuel on Iranian soil.

November 27 - The IAEA’s 35-nation governing Board censures Iran for developing the Fordow plant in secret and demands Iran freeze the project. Iran rejects the demand.

2010.

January 19, 2010 - Iran rejects major parts of the deal to send most of its enrichment material abroad for processing.

February 9 - Iran begins making higher-grade nuclear fuel, enriched to a level of 20 percent, at its Natanz plant.

February 18 - An IAEA report suggests for the first time Iran might be actively chasing nuclear weapons capability.

May 17 - Iran, Brazil and Turkey sign a nuclear fuel swap deal. Iran says it has agreed to transfer low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month in return for higher-enriched nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor. The deal is not implemented due to a lack of U.S., French and Russian involvement.

June 9 - U.N. Security Council votes to expand sanctions against Iran. U.S. Congress approves new unilateral sanctions on June 24.

December 5 - Nuclear energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi says Iran will use domestically produced uranium concentrates, known as yellowcake, for the first time at a nuclear facility, cutting reliance on imports of the ingredient for nuclear fuel.

December 6 - Talks begin in Geneva between Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leading the discussions on behalf of big powers.

2011.

January 21, 2011 - World powers fail to prise any concessions from Iran in the talks, calling the discussions disappointing and saying no further meetings are planned.

June 9 - Russia and China join Western powers in telling Iran its “consistent failure” to comply with U.N. resolutions “deepened concerns” about possible military dimensions to its nuclear program.

September 3 - Iran says its Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant begins to provide electricity to the national grid.

2012

February 15, 2012 - Iran proclaims nuclear advances, including new centrifuges able to enrich uranium much faster. The next day it proposes a resumption of nuclear talks with world powers.

February 20-21 - Senior U.N. inspectors end a second round of talks in Tehran without success and with Iran continuing to refuse to let IAEA inspect a suspect military site at Parchin.

March 5 - Iran has tripled its monthly production of higher-grade enriched uranium and the IAEA has “serious concerns” about possible military dimensions to Tehran's activities, IAEA head Yukiya Amano says.

March 6 - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton accepts Iran's offer of new talks after a year’s standstill. On the same day Iran says it will let U.N. nuclear inspectors visit Parchin but diplomats note a proviso saying access to the site hinges on a broader agreement on outstanding issues.

April 14 - Talks between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain resume in Istanbul. Discussions are inconclusive but good enough to schedule another round in May.

May 21 - IAEA chief, Yukiya Amano, makes a short-notice trip to Iran and says talks with nuclear negotiator Jalili are extensive and would have a positive impact on negotiations.

May 25 - Iran and world powers talk again in Baghdad and agree to hold another session the following month.

June 8 - The IAEA says it made no progress in its talks with Iran about suspected nuclear weapons research and calls the outcome “disappointing”.

June 11 - Chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili agrees to focus on the six powers' demands at Moscow talks on June 18 and discuss a proposal to curb production of high-grade uranium.

June 18 – no any sufficient progress in Moscow and break in the negotiation until February, 2013.