‘Promising Trends’ in Nuclear Talks – Iran

Past Work on EBW Detonators Still Unresolved

Iran’s Minister of Economy Ali Tayyebnia said today Tehran was satisfied with the “promising trends” in nuclear talks with the West.

“Both sides have realized that the talks should have a positive outcome,” Tayyebnia said. (Fars News Agency, 31 May)

Tayyebnia's sentiment echoed Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s assessment after his talks with EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton last week that the West now has the “political will” to reach a comprehensive deal with Iran.

After the failure to make progress in talks with P5+1 in mid-May, and the subsequent inconclusive report by IAEA on the so-called possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program, the comments by senior Iranian officials seem to be aimed at reassuring a somewhat skeptical public at home that the West is serious about ending the nuclear impasse with Iran.

The last round of talks in Vienna that ended on 17 May failed to start the much-anticipated drafting process of the final agreement; in what Iranian senior negotiator Abbas Araqchi called a meeting that made “no progress.” Later a report published by IAEA left the question of previous Iranian nuclear weapons work still unanswered.

Iran and IAEA had agreed last November to end all ambiguities about the development of Exploding Bridge Wire (EBW) detonators that are used to initiate detonation reaction in explosive materials and commonly used in nuclear weapons. IAEA and Iranians held a technical-level meeting on 13 May to give Iran an opportunity to show that any previous EBW work were not part of a nuclear weapon program. The subsequent report published by the agency said the analysis of information provided by the Iranians was on-going. 


The same IAEA report said, however, that Iran was on track to fully comply with its commitments under the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) by 20 July deadline. If IAEA could not certify by July deadline that Iran’s work on EBW detonators were not related to nuclear weapons, however, then reaching a final agreement before the deadline could become problematic.