I was still in my summer house on August 20, 2006, when Frank-Walter Steinmeier called to say he would like me to meet with Peter Castenfelt, the mysterious Swedish banker who had once talked to me prior to my trip to North Korea. Castenfelt now wore a new hat: adviser to Tehran. He wanted to bring one of Larijani’s deputies, Ali Monfared, the foreign policy head of Iran’s National Security Council. They were keen to see me before Iran submitted its formal response to the latest EU-3 offer.
Meeting them in Cairo, I stressed the need for the Iranians to respond positively, despite all that had happened. Iran should be clear that it was willing to suspend moving toward industrial-scale enrichment, or at the very least promise not to introduce nuclear material. I believed that their questions about regional security were legitimate, since this was a key issue for them and addressing these concerns could facilitate an agreement on enrichment suspension. We talked for two hours; Castenfelt told me later that he spent five more hours with Monfared trying to put our discussion into appropriate written form.
The Iranians submitted their response, as scheduled, on August 22. They had accepted some but not all of my advice. The twenty-one-page document was long and convoluted, but distilled to its essence, it included a number of positive elements. Despite Larijani’s earlier defiant public statement, the Iranians remained open to the notion of suspension, so long as it was not a precondition of negotiations. They were willing to implement the Additional Protocol on a voluntary basis during the negotiations. And they were ready to commit to permanent membership in the NPT, to allay fears of a “breakout” scenario in the style of North Korea.
The reaction was cautious. The EU-3 felt that dialogue was possible; the Russians spoke out against sanctions as a dead-end street; China advised patience. They all called or came by, as did Javier Solana and Kofi Annan, to ask what I thought of Iran’s response. But no one seemed ready to take a leadership role.
Eventually, the United States and the Europeans appointed Solana to meet with Larijani to try to determine a way forward. Larijani, however, was not too keen on the idea, since he felt that Solana did not have the authority to make decisions. He was especially set against seeing Solana together with the EU-3 representatives; he still had a sour taste in his mouth from their mid-July meeting in Brussels.
I suggested to Solana that he and Larijani meet alone to agree on a set of four principles as a framework for negotiation. The first principle: Iran would suspend enrichment during the talks. In reciprocation, as the second principle, the Europeans and Americans would suspend Security Council sanctions during this period. The third principle would affirm Iran’s right under the NPT to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, making clear that the suspension was not permanent. And the fourth: a statement respecting Iran’s political independence and sovereignty.
If Solana and Larijani could settle on these principles, then the foreign ministers could meet and declare them the basis for the negotiations. “Both sides would save face,” I said to Solana. Tehran could tell its domestic audience that they had accepted the suspension only for the duration of the negotiations. The United States could say they had attended the meeting knowing Iran had agreed. Rice’s attendance would be essential as an incentive for Iran.
I repeated these ideas to Larijani. He and Solana fixed a date for early September. I outlined the principles over the phone to Kofi Annan, who planned to visit Iran at about the same time.[9]
Tehran was showing restraint. The IAEA had observed no significant quantitative or qualitative expansion of Iran’s enrichment program beyond the 164 centrifuges already in place. Nuclear material was introduced only occasionally and for short periods, which was not the way to build enrichment expertise, had that been the Iranians’ objective. We could not tell whether the slow progress was due to a technical problem or a political choice. But in any case, Iran’s program was still at a rudimentary level.
On September 5, Condoleezza Rice called me to ask about the set of principles, as conveyed to her by Ambassador Schulte. “Iran cannot accept suspension as a precondition,” I explained. “They see this as political suicide. Also, they will need some sort of statement about security.”
“This sounds like what we did in North Korea,” Rice replied, seeming quite willing to consider the four principles, which was a departure from Washington’s unyielding position on Iranian enrichment. “But we will have problems with giving them any security assurances,” she said.
“Then make it a statement of good intention,” I urged her. “You can fudge it.” Rice agreed to at least take some time to mull over the principles and get back to me, but added, “You know we also cannot sit down with Iran until the suspension is in place. But perhaps,” she mused, “the Europeans—or maybe the Europeans with the Russians and the Chinese—can have a meeting with the Iranians first.” Then, after the declaration of principles and verification of the suspension, the United States could join.
As I headed off to Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England, where my daughter, Laila, was getting married, Peter Castenfelt called, asking to see me urgently. On the night before the wedding, he made his way to the hotel just as our extended family, in from Cairo, New York, and other parts of the world, was about to gather for dinner. The bride was not pleased. “He’d better have something important to tell you,” she said.
Castenfelt did more listening than talking. He had just come from Tehran the day before and wanted to know precisely what was required of the Iranians. “Could they do some version of suspension but not full suspension?” he asked.
That would not work, I said. He needed to tell the Iranians that time was running out. Without an agreement, the United States and the EU-3 would go to the Security Council to propose new sanctions on Iran for failure to adhere to the demands of Resolution 1696. “Even if they start with a mild set of sanctions,” I said, “Iran will retaliate, and that will start an uncontrolled chain reaction of retaliation, which could lead to a major confrontation, and solve nothing.” Castenfelt nodded solemnly, scribbled some notes, and took his leave.
On the following day, September 8, my daughter, Laila, married Neil Pizey, a young British man, at Blenheim Palace. For a few hours, the stresses of Vienna seemed distant. As the solemnity and beauty of the wedding ceremony unfolded, I thought of the part of my Nobel speech that had brought Laila to tears: “I have hope because of what I see in my children and some of their generation… my son and daughter are oblivious to colour and race and nationality. They see no difference between their friends Noriko, Mafupo, Justin, Saulo, and Hussam; to them, they are only fellow human beings and good friends.”
At the time, Laila had been collecting her courage to introduce me to the man she loved. Laila knew that, at some level, I had hoped she would marry an Egyptian. But as someone who daily observed the ruinous effects of cultural distrust, I blessed my daughter for her choice.
That same day, Solana and Larijani were meeting in Vienna. They spent seven hours together, and Larijani, recounting their conversation afterward, considered the meeting constructive. Suspension remained the central hurdle. Larijani was still trying to deal with the fear emanating from certain quarters in Tehran, that if Iran suspended enrichment they might face insurmountable obstacles to resuming their fuel cycle activities.