12 Feb 2013 -- Negotiations with Iran are

Patrick Seale 12 Feb 2013 -- Negotiations with Iran are once more on the international agenda. After an eight-month break, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany -- the so-called P5+1 -- are due to hold a meeting with Iran on 25 February in Kazakhstan. What are the prospects of success? In a nutshell, that would seem to depend more on the climate in Washington than in Tehran. Iran is gesturing that it wants to negotiate, but Washington has not yet signalled any greater flexibility than in the past. In a major speech in Tehran last Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the United States: “Take your guns out of the face of the Iranian nation and I myself will negotiate with you,” he declared. Meanwhile, the Iranian ambassador to Paris told French officials that, provided a work plan was agreed, Iran was ready to allow inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit Parchin, a military facility where Iran is suspected of having done work on atomic weapons. Ahmadinejad himself has said repeatedly that Iran was ready to stop enriching uranium to 20% if the international community agreed to supply it instead to the Tehran research reactor for the production of isotopes needed to treat cancer patients. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025051