Brazil’s Lula may have ‘scored a goal’ on Iran: analysts

The Group of 15 developing countries held a one-day summit in Tehran on Monday with only six heads of states attending an event overshadowed by Iran’s agreement to a nuclear fuel swap. Iran agreed to ship much of its low enriched uranium abroad in a nuclear fuel swap deal backed by Turkey and Brazil but greeted sceptically by world powers seeking new sanctions against Tehran. The accord dwarfed the summit, which was only attended by the presidents of Algeria, Brazil, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Iran, with lower-ranking officials representing the remaining countries.

Even Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a long-time US critic and one of Iran’s main allies in South America, was absent, despite strong relations between G15 member Venezuela and Iran. The G15 was established at the Ninth Non-Aligned Movement summit in Belgrade in 1989 and focuses on cooperation among developing countries in investment, trade and technology. Membership of the G15 has since expanded to 17 countries, although the name remains unchanged. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his final speech before passing the torch for the next G15 summit to Sri Lanka took aim at some permanent members of the UN Security Council.

“The United Nations Security Council acts based on the old reactionary regulations dating back to the end of the Second World War and thus has lost its efficiency and credibility,” he said. “Some of its permanent members are still living in the world of 65 years ago and are expecting other nations to be their subordinates,” Ahmadinejad said. Iranian media reported that Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad would be present at the summit as special guests, but neither Arab leader made an appearance. The emir said a conflict in his schedule had prevented his participation, according to local media, while Iranian officials denied Assad was invited.

For admirers of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — and there are many — the deal reached with Iran over its nuclear activities was a diplomatic triumph seized with high-stakes, last-minute flair.

For the United States and its allies skeptical over Tehran’s track record of broken promises, though, the accord is a vexing problem, an obstacle to UN sanctions on Iran they had been pushing hard for.

Lula himself crowed from Tehran that “diplomacy emerged victorious.”

Unspoken but implied was that he had pulled off a coup in the last year of his mandate, boosting Brazil’s profile on the international stage to the stature it badly wants: that of a global player deserving of a permanent UN Security Council seat.

“If Iran complies with this deal, Brazil will have scored a goal with its diplomacy,” opined one analyst to AFP, professor Marcelo Coutinho of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Rubens Figuereido, a specialist at the University of Sao Paulo, agreed.

“If the agreement is what they say it is, it’s a victory without precedent for Brazil because it’s the first time it has put itself at the forefront of the international diplomatic stage,” he said.

But, he cautioned: “The problem is that Iran has to comply with what it has signed. It hasn’t done so in the past.”

Should the agreement be fulfilled, Lula would be vindicated in his long-held stance that dialogue could prevail in getting Iran to accept an exchange outside its territory of much of its uranium stockpile for enriched fuel for a research reactor.

Already on Monday, the announcement of the new deal seemed to be having an effect on veto-wielding UN Security Council members, creating divisions.

While the United States and Britain said concerns over Iran’s nuclear program — which they claim is a cover to build atomic weapons — persist, Russia welcomed the development.

Brazil itself is one of the 10 non-permanent UN Security Council members, which gave it the pivotal role.

Lula, a former union leader who was elected Brazil’s president eight years ago, mustered all his negotiating talents to extract the promise from Iran.

But perhaps more important of all was his formidable charisma — a gruff bonhomie that has prompted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to call him a “friend” and for US President Barack Obama to last year hail him as “my man.”

That quality has earned him skyhigh popularity ratings of over 80 percent at home, and respect from leaders as far afield as Venezuela, Cuba, Europe and China.

As leader of an emerging economic giant with nuclear energy but a constitutional ban on nuclear weapons, and a reputation for independence from US influence over Latin America, Lula saw himself as uniquely positioned to take on the mediator job in the standoff.

It is a role he has carefully cultivated.

Late last year, days before greeting Ahmadinejad on a visit to Brazil, Lula prudently hosted Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

That spoke to Brazil’s ambition — thus far unsuccessful — of becoming a mediator in the Middle East, where an impasse has also dragged on despite the efforts of the so-called Quartet (the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States).

Under the agreement spearheaded by Lula and agreed to by Ahmadinejad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iran will go back to the principles of a proposition originally agreed to with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The accord calls for Iran to deposit a significant portion of its low enriched uranium, 1,200 kilograms (2,640 pounds), in Turkey in return for reactor fuel enriched to a higher level for medical use, but not high enough for military ends.

The White House said the United States and its allies had “serious concerns” over the deal, but did not categorically reject the agreement.

earlier related report
Brazil, Turkey steal the show over Iran
Paris (AFP) May 17, 2010 – Brazil and Turkey put western powers in a quandary on Monday after the two emerging powers crowned their mediation efforts in Iran with a nuclear deal, analysts said.

European governments showed scepticism as they welcomed the accord signed by the foreign ministers of Iran, Brazil and Turkey, and insisted it was no game-changer in negotiations on new UN sanctions against Tehran.

The agreement commits Iran to deposit 1,200 kilograms (2,640 pounds) of low enriched uranium (LEU) in Turkey in return for fuel for a research reactor in a deal that Ankara said made further talk of sanctions unnecessary.

Some experts insisted however that the deal was a new development in the standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme and said western powers would have no choice but to take it seriously.

“To continue as if nothing happened would only lead to isolating Western powers,” said Pascal Boniface, director of the Paris-based Institute of International and Strategic Relations.

“It could create the impression that the West is rigid and isolated,” he added.

Francois Heisbourg of the Strategic Research Foundation in Paris said the deal was very close to the proposal made to Iran last year by the UN nuclear watchdog the IAEA.

“If the details of the accord turn out to be satisfactory, in terms of deadline for the swap and the type of fuel to be delivered, there will be no room for objections,” he said.

Heisbourg said rejecting the Brazil-Turkey deal would amount to rejecting the work done thus far by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the efforts put in by the two emerging powers.

“The P5+1 are confronted with something that is very difficult to refuse,” he added, referring to the diplomatic group seeking to negotiate a solution with Iran: Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany.

For Mehdi Mekdour, an Iran expert at the Brussels-based Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security, the deal showed emerging countries as a global force.

“The Brazilians and the Turks did more in two days than France and the United States managed to do in a year,” said Mekdour.

The signing came as a result of the personal engagement of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

An accord under negotiation last year provided for Iranian fuel to be sent to Russia and then France where it would have been treated for use in the Tehran reactor, which cannot be put to military use.

The accord hit a deadlock and the United States had repeatedly voiced scepticism that Turkey and Brazil’s efforts would lead to a breakthrough.

Despite the accord, France and Britain have said that talks on sanctions must continue at the UN Security Council and the European Union’s foreign affairs office said it did “not solve the fundamental problem” of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Western powers suspect Tehran is using uranium enrichment as a cover to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying its sole ambition is to develop peaceful nuclear power.

Svenja Sinjen, from Germany’s DGAP Council on Foreign Relations, voiced scepticism that Iran’s deal with Turkey and Brazil signaled a shift from Tehran toward more openness about its nuclear intentions.

“When it is under a sanctions threat, Iran has always made a small effort and then backtracks,” she said.