SECRET US-IRAN NUCLEAR TALKS

Former US diplomats and experts have been engaged in secret talks with Iranian academics and policy advisers over Tehran’s nuclear program and frozen diplomatic relations between their countries.

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June 18, 2022
Former US diplomats and experts have been engaged in secret talks with Iranian academics and policy advisers over Tehran’s nuclear program and frozen diplomatic relations between their countries. “We discussed what’s going on domestically in both countries and wide-ranging issues affecting the US-Iran relationship,” former US undersecretary of state Thomas Pickering was reported as saying. “Some of the Iranians were connected to official institutions inside Iran,” said Pickering, himself a participant.
The meetings, held in different places outside the US and Iran, were organised by the UN Association of the USA, a pro-UN organisation, and facilitated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a government-funded think-tank. Pickering said none of the participants was from the US or the Iranian governments. “[But] each side kept their officials informed.”
Three US participants in the secret talks have tabled a new initiative to solve the West-Iran nuclear standoff. The overture, sponsored by Pickering and colleagues Williams Luers and Jim Walsh, allows Iran to enrich uranium on Iranian soil under the supervision of a jointly managed international consortium. It will allow Iran to build only “safe” light-water reactors but will bar Iran from producing highly enriched uranium, which can be used to produce nuclear bombs. If Tehran breaks the agreement, UN Security Council members would be authorized to take punitive measures. “It can be feasible if governments wish to make it so, technically and financially. But it will take a lot of negotiation,” Pickering said.