Inside the Iran Deal a French Perspective

Laurent Fabius
Given the high stakes that this issue represented for national and regional
security as well as for nuclear nonproliferation, we decided, in full agreement
with the President of the French Republic, to engage in a policy of “constructive
firmness.” Our objective? To negotiate and conclude an agreement that would be
solid and verifiable, and that would show real progress and create confidence in the
international community toward Iran’s genuine renunciation of nuclear weapons.
Many things have been written and said about how this major agreement came
into being, some true, others less so. This is why I believe that, without waiting for
the archival materials to be made public, a precise, straightforward description of
the complex discussions as expressed by one of the participants—in this case,
myself—would be of use. It is in this spirit that I wrote the following, which
serves as a kind of first-hand account of events, and ends with some lessons
learned.
April 2012—June 2013: a Dialogue of the Deaf
Discussions on the Iranian nuclear program began again in the spring of 2012, after
an interruption since January 2011 without face-to-face meetings but marked by
“epistolary diplomacy” between the EU’s High Representative, Cathy Ashton,
and the Iranian negotiator and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security
Council, Saeed Tehran. Negotiators were able to return to the table because
Iran had abandoned a certain number of preconditions: the right to enrichment
and the immediate lifting of sanctions. It soon brought these conditions back to
the table, however, and the discussions became pointless.
Nevertheless, this temporary opening on the Iranian side did enable a series of
consultations to take place among policy chiefs of the E3+3 and Iran at several
different times: Istanbul in April 2012, Baghdad in May (which led to the
expression “the Baghdad offer”), and Moscow in June. Experts also held their
own meetings, such as at Istanbul in July. Iran did not really engage with the
debate on the basic E3+3 proposals, which addressed the main concern of Iran
enriching uranium to 20 percent, making it highly-enriched uranium that is
used for weapons. Indeed since the end of 2011, Iran had accelerated the construction
of cascades at the Fordow site, and had begun enriching uranium to 20
percent.
The E3+3 group did advance concrete proposals for cooperation and agreed not
to adopt new resolutions on the nuclear program at the UN Security Council. The
Iranians refused to respond to the expectations of the three key demands on
enrichment: an end to the production of uranium enriched to 20 percent,
closure of the Fordow enrichment site, and removal from Iran of the stockpile
of uranium that had already been enriched to 20 percent. However, the question
8 THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ▪ FALL 2016