A NUCLEAR (MIS)ADVENTURE IN ISFAHAN
By Pepe Escobar
The Roving Eye
Asia Times, Hong Kong
Sept 1 2005
ISFAHAN – It is one of the most sensitive sites in the world, a
compound 15 kilometers north of beautiful Isfahan, on a back road
skirting a rocky mountain. The blue panel, in white lettering,
says “Isfahan Nuclear Production Research Center”/”Atomic Energy
Organization of Iran”/”Nuclear Production Branch”.
Anti-aircraft guns are strategically positioned along the road,
which is far from the busy Tehran-Isfahan highway. Security at the
main gate consists of only one uniformed, unarmed official carrying
a walkie-talkie.
It’s 5pm on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Everything is calm, except
for a white SUV carrying International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
inspectors waved inside through the main gate. That’s
exactly the problem. They can get in. We can’t.
Looking at the peacock’s tail It had been a very tense day of waiting
and waiting since early in the morning. Our fixer, tireless Mahmoud
Daryadel, had spent most of it glued to his mobile, placing and
receiving a frantic series of calls. Three days earlier Ivan Sahar,
an official tied to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance,
had promised Asia Times Online a visit to the controversial Isfahan
Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF). Chances of success were evaluated at
“85%”. The UCF, one of Iran’s key nuclear sites, is at the center of
the Iran-EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany) nuclear negotiations. It
converts yellowcake – or concentrated uranium oxide – into a gas that
can be enriched to produce reactor fuel.
We were supposed to receive a morning call giving the go-ahead
for the visit. The call never came; something was going on; there
was official talk from the management at the Isfahan site about
“obstacles”. We had to wait for clearance. There is hardly a better
place in the world to spend a tense waiting day than the pearl of
Shah Abbas, which in the 17th century reached its full splendor,
impressed in the famous rhyme Isfahan nesf-e jahan (“Isfahan is half
the world”). By a strange twist of fate, Isfahan in the early 21st
century is now synonymous with nuclear confrontation.
At Jolfa, the Armenian quarter, which also dates from the 17th century,
the Vank cathedral is an apotheosis of mixed Christian and Islamic
art. On graceful Khajoo bridge, which is also a dam, young Iranians
hang out under the arches while families have picnics on the grass. And
then there’s the wonder of reexploring stunning Imam Khomeini Square,
still locally referred to as the Meidun, built in 1612 and one of
the largest squares in the world – the Persian answer to Saint Mark’s
in Venice.
There’s the Imam Mosque, covered, inside and out, with the trademark
Isfahan pale blue and yellow tiles; the two madrassas (seminaries);
and the Sheikh Lotfollah mosque, whose dome tiles progressively change
color, from cream to strong pink as the day goes on (and our crucial
call does not come). Inside the mosque, under the dome, there is a
famous painted peacock; as the light changes, the reflection forming
the peacock’s tail also moves. One can spend hours contemplating this
living example of the architecture of light. Especially when a mobile
ringing tone does not disturb the peace.
At the fabulous bazaar that envelops the Meidun, Hossein Peyghambary
of Nomad carpets, speaking fluent Spanish, displays the best tribal
patterns straight from villages in Balochistan. The Cultural Heritage
Organization in Iran is planning to register Iranian nomad’s summer
migration – by Balochis, Bakhtiaris, Qashqaiis and Azeris – on the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s
list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
As far as Balochi nomad carpets are concerned, they are hard to beat
as tangible masterpieces themselves.
By mid-afternoon we have lost almost any hope of getting a permit
for the visit. The back channels try to untangle the “obstacles”
to no avail. It seems a group of IAEA inspectors showed up impromptu
at the UCF; according to an agreement between the Iranian government
and the UN agency, no journalists may visit the UCF while there are
inspectors on the premises. This is to prevent any information leak.
Indeed, foreign media are allowed inside the UCF only in exceptional
circumstances.
Finally we get a call at 4pm: go, someone will meet you on the way.
This doesn’t happen, and we have to find the way by ourselves, with
the help of plenty of Isfahani motorists. As we arrive at the main
gate, we get another last-minute call, from security inside the
plant: you cannot get in. You are only allowed to film outside. A
security guard arrives in a van to lay down the rules. No filming
inside. No filming the road. No filming of faces. But we are not TV:
we write stories. Makes no difference: no talking to anybody. Please
leave. Exactly on cue, the white SUV carrying the IAEA inspectors
crosses the main gate.
Hours later, on the road back to Tehran, we learn that our
(mis)adventure took place exactly as the rules of the game were being
changed in Tehran. So apparently no one is to blame: there would
be no question of allowing foreign media inside the UCF at such a
delicate juncture.
Time to make a move Following the nuclear confrontation from Tehran
is like following a game of chess – a game, by the way, invented
by the Persians. It has become a national sport – and the recurrent
conversation theme on all occasions. These have been the most recent
key moves:
Hassan Rowhani, the widely respected former secretary of the Supreme
National Security Council and Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator,
dismisses Iran’s referral to the UN Security Council: “If this does
happen it will only indicate that the IAEA has diverted from its
legal path and succumbed to US pressure.”
Nuclear spokesman Hussein Musavian stresses that Iran’s decision to
resume uranium conversion at Isfahan is irreversible (“The Isfahan UCF
is not at all related to nuclear weapons production.”), adding that
enrichment at the Natanz plant was still suspended and that Iran still
remains committed to talking to the EU-3. Iranian officials for their
part keep stressing that work at Isfahan will never be suspended again.
The EU-3 suspends talks with Iran that should have taken place this
past Wednesday in Paris.
Iranian officials learn that the US is heavily lobbying the 35-member
board of IAEA governors – especially Russia, China, India and South
Africa – against Iran. The IAEA board is to receive a key report on
Iran this Saturday from IAEA head Mohammad ElBaradei. None of these
four key countries is keen to send the matter to the UN Security
Council, as the IAEA has not found that Iran has breached the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad announces a new breakthrough, a
constructive proposal to advance the negotiations. After two days,
it’s finally settled that the proposal will be unveiled at the UN
summit in New York on September 14-16 (provided the US issues a visa
to the Iranian president).
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi says that Iran will
continue to negotiate with the EU-3, “but on the other hand we will
not restrict our negotiating partners to just these three countries”,
adding that Iran has also been talking to Japan, Malaysia and South
Africa. Iran’s position changes tack: now “it is up to the Europeans
not to remove themselves from the negotiations”. This new directive
seems to have come from a meeting last week between Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Asefi says that Ahmadinejad’s
new proposal will “enshrine Iran’s right to master the fuel cycle
and will also include objective guarantees” that Iran is not building
nuclear weapons.
New top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani meets ElBaradei in Vienna and
says that negotiations should not be “exclusive”. He accuses countries
mastering the nuclear fuel of trying to create a fuel cartel like the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and stresses that Iran
is against this “nuclear apartheid”.
On the day of Asia Times Online’s aborted visit to Isfahan, Tehran
announces that its main interlocutor in the confrontation is not
the EU-3 but the IAEA. The EU-3 demands, qualified as “conditional
negotiations”, are rejected.
Ahmadinejad reappoints Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh as head of Iran’s Atomic
Energy Organization. The former oil minister, from 1985 to 1997,
calls the EU-3 package “a joke”.
So the next crucial steps are ElBaradei’s report this Saturday; what
could be the sensational debut of Ahmadinejad on the world stage,
at the UN in New York next week, delivering a new proposal to end the
stalemate; and the meeting of the 35-member IAEA board of governors
on September 19, which will examine not only ElBaradei’s report but
Ahmadinejad’s solution.
Meanwhile, anyone contemplating a visit to the UCF in Isfahan
will have to settle on contemplating the peacock’s tail at Sheikh
Lotfollah’s dome.
