TRANSCRIPT
The World At One Radio 4
Date & time Thursday 12th May 2005
Subject / interviewee Iran - Jack Straw
Nick Clarke: Well the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has been listening and
he joins us now. Do you take the threat by Iran to break its agreement with
you seriously?
Jack Straw: We do take it seriously. (Indistinct) now at this sort of
(indistinct) very close to the twelfth hour but we hope very much that they
do appreciate that this is a, a far from good idea for themselves as well as
for the international community and they think again about this proposal by
them to (indistinct) to reintroduce part of the (indistinct) activities
which they suspended (indistinct) in November last year but also they've had
suspended effectively for the best part of two years.
And, it is, they claim that we have broken the November Agreement, the Paris
Agreement. That is completely incorrect. We have not. We have been
negotiating on the basis of that agreement and one very good product for
them of that Paris Agreement is that we have got the United States to agree
not to stand in the way of their application for membership of the World
Trade Organization which could bring great benefits for the Iranian
economy. And we have secured again US co-operation for lifting embargoes
and sanctions for example on things like material related to air transport
safety and plenty of other things ...
NC: So in fact if, if they go ahead with this threat then, you think, you
say those will be lost will you to Iran ...
JS: Oh those (indistinct) ...
NC: ... will they?
JS: ... those unquestionably will be lost because they were part of the
negotiations taking place in the context in which Iran had agreed as a clear
but categorical confidence building measure to maintain its suspension of
uranium enrichment and related activities but ...
NC: They, they say in return that if you proceed with any of these threats,
if they're referred to the Security Council that could undermine what they
call their commitment to the Non Proliferation Treaty and that's a pretty
serious threat isn't it, if they say treat us like this and we will simply
ignore our commitment?
JS: Yeah but the, the problem here is that their commitment is brought in
to question in any event and has been, indeed it's, it's that commitment
which has been behind the whole negotiations and the decisions by the
International Atomic Energy Agency Board over a two year period and has been
fundamental to our negotiations with Iran.
What we've had to (indistinct), we, we don't want this situation, it's the
last thing we want. We want these negotiations to produce a satisfactory
conclusion where Iran as its, is its right under the Non Proliferation
Treaty is able to run its nuclear energy power programme but is not able to
produce material which, given its previous record of non disclosure, has
raised very strong suspicions that it could be used for a nuclear weapons
(indistinct) ...
NC: Is that what they're up to you think I mean essentially ...
JS: (Indistinct) ...
NC: ... most of America seems to think that's exactly what they want to do
...
JS: Well ...
NC: ... and in fullness of time that's what they will do?
JS: That, that, there, there is no conclusive evidence that that is what
they're up to. They say they are not. The problem is that what, what is
incontrovertible is that there was a twenty year history of them failing to
disclose aspects of their activities under which they were, in respect of
which they're under a very clear obligation to disclose them to the IAEA
Board. And that was why they agreed to take part in these negotiations.
Now, just to make this clear. If they do lift the suspension of uranium
enrichment activities then we will certainly seek to convene a, an emergency
meeting of the Board of the IAEA ...
NC: Which could well end up in the Security Council.
JS: And/or we could end up in the Security Council. We don't want to do
either of those but it was Iran who decided to go down this track
(indistinct) ...
NC: No indeed, indeed so, but you, and (indistinct) you're the one, you've
been there, you've talked to them, do you believe them? I mean they say
that their, all their aims and ambitions are innocent, do you believe them,
should we believe them?
JS: (Indistinct) well it's a complicated situation, is, is, is, I mean I,
do, do I trust the people I'm talking to across the table? Yes. Do I, are
all the people I, I meet across the table the people actually in power in
Iran? No. So it's a complicated situation.
I mean there's also a, a big issue which was raised by your previous
interviewee Gary Samore, about whether in any event they're, they are simply
trying to maintain their options so that if they could at a later stage move
quickly to develop a nuclear weapon, having built up the necessary
(indistinct) as it were components of that. But if it is the case that they
are sincere in saying that they (indistinct) want nothing whatever to do
with a nuclear weapons programme then the way of convincing the
international community of that is by the route which we have offered them,
which allows them fully to maintain their nuclear power programme but with
fuel, in this case from Russia, but without any suspicions about any
(indistinct) nuclear weapons programme and we still urge them to take that
line.
NC: Jack Straw thank you very much for speaking to us.
Ends
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