Cleansing the Middle East of all weapons of mass destruction could be one way to settle America's dispute with Iran, common courtesy being another, Dina Ezzat reports European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana arrived in Tehran on Monday to present the Iranian leadership with Europe's latest proposals that aim to resolve the standoff between Iran and the US and some Western European capitals over Tehran's nuclear programme. Solana's visit to Tehran comes against a backdrop of several relevant international and regional developments. The US has expressed interest in direct talks with Iran. Insider sources say that while these talks would be declared as focusing on Tehran's nuclear programme, they would also address the devastating situation in Iraq that the US is desperate to contain. "The Americans know very well that it is the Iranians who can help them stabilise the situation in Iraq and it seems they decided to go the direct way," commented one informed European source. He added that while high-level talks would require a political breakthrough, which could be achieved during Solana's upcoming visit, lower-level undeclared talks could take place shortly "on neutral ground". Geneva is being suggested as a potential venue. In press statements made as his trip to Tehran was being announced, Solana said that the European Union welcomes all direct Tehran-Washington contacts. Solana, sources say, is meant to set the ground for direct talks by encouraging the Iranian leadership to adopt an accommodating discourse. The sources add that it is Solana's hope to present to a US-European summit that will convene later this month in Vienna -- the seat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- some "positive nods" from Tehran. Arab and Muslim countries have been pressing European capitals on the need to talk sense to the US to contain the escalation of tensions between the US and Iran. Arab diplomatic sources in several Arab and Western capitals say that most Arab officials do not miss a chance to convey concern over the future of the Middle East region should the confrontation between Washington and Tehran get out of control. During a recent trip to Germany, Jordan's King Abdullah, known for his interest in keeping close ties with the US, stressed the need for containment and dialogue. And during the recent World Economic Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's monarch and President Hosni Mubarak made similar appeals. Another voice joining the chorus for dialogue is that of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). At the EU's request, some sources say, the NAM watered down their support for Tehran's nuclear ambitions, calling instead, during their recent meeting in the Indonesian town of Purta Jaya, for diplomatic solutions to the current standoff. This was done contrary to repeated requests from Iran. But as sources explain, Iran was informed by several NAM member states that such a compromise had to be made at a time when the EU has been working hard to "talk some sense into the mind of the American administration". Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his country will take "the appropriate time" to review whatever proposals the Europeans wish to table. The White House has already encouraged Iran to carefully examine the proposals and offer a reply within the coming days. With the suspension of harsh rhetoric recently gaining ground in some quarters of the US capital, last week in Geneva a senior Iranian diplomat underlined that the US needs to adopt "polite" language if it expects his country to listen and respond. Ambassador Seyed Mohammed Kazem Sajjadpour, Iranian deputy permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, was addressing a seminar hosted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). Joining Sajjadpour were Gennady Mikhailovich Evstafiev, a retired senior Russian official long involved in the Iranian file, and Professor Harald Mèller, executive director of the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt, along with a host of Arab, Western and other diplomats. Most participants in the GCSP seminar appeared to agree that Iran should not be allowed access to nuclear weapons. The rationale for this varied from the need to maintain the non-proliferation aspect of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- to which Iran is state party -- to the need to prevent Tehran, whose president has made strong anti-Israel statements, gaining any access, no matter how remote, to nuclear weapons, even if Iran decided to withdraw from the NPT, unburdening itself of its legal obligations to eschew military nuclear capacity. Unlike some other forums that have addressed Tehran's "nuclear ambitions" -- never declared to be military by the Iranian leadership -- the GCSP seminar offered opportunity to discuss the Iranian issue within the wider context of the entire Middle East. "The Middle East region's nuclear apartheid cannot last forever," stressed Mèller, who was unequivocal in his criticism of sceptical statements made by the Iranian president about the Holocaust. "Israel must give up on the illusion that it will be the only nuclear power in the Middle East." Mèller's position found support among other participants who acknowledged that Israel's nuclear arsenal -- known to exist, though Tel Aviv still maintains its long-standing policy of nuclear ambiguity -- presents adequate reason for Tehran to desire nuclear weapons. As one Western nuclear non-proliferation expert, requesting anonymity, argued, when Israel likely possesses between 50 and 200 nuclear warheads, and when Western countries support the existence of this nuclear arsenal, it becomes difficult for the world to appear credible -- or for that matter serious -- in attempts to thwart Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, even under the NPT pretext. "There will always be attempts to get equal with Israel in the Middle East. Those countries who do not access nuclear weapons now will eventually try to do so, and meanwhile they will opt for other weapons of mass destruction, including chemical or biological," he added. Sajjadpour, who did not acknowledge any military nuclear ambitions on behalf of his country, insisted that Iran is not living in a world of its own. He urged the US and other countries that are attempting to punish Tehran for its pursuit of advanced nuclear technology to "re-read the Middle East", adding "we need a comprehensive solution." Declaring the Gulf area a zone free of weapons of mass destruction was one possibility considered in the GCSP seminar, as proposed by Evstafiev. However, the suggestion was not well received by Arab diplomats who argued that focusing on the Gulf excludes Israel unfairly. "Our objective is to get the Middle East -- all of the Middle East -- to be declared as a zone free of nuclear weapons. It is not just a matter of Iran; it is an issue of the entire region" Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said in Bejing this week. Mèller meanwhile proposed freeing the whole of the Middle East not just of nuclear weapons but also of all military capacity for mass destruction. He criticised the international community, including his native Germany, for failing to move in this direction as repeatedly proposed by Egypt's President Mubarak. Nuclear and chemical non- proliferation experts, speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, argued, however, that a weapons of mass destruction free Middle East was an ambitious and hard to attain aspiration. Due to the support of Washington and some other Western capitals, the experts added, it is almost certain that the Israeli government would reject outright any call for it to give up its nuclear arsenal, even if all its security concerns were addressed. For their part, the experts added, Arab countries would continue to resist any attempt to deny them access to chemical weapons, which they argue is the least they should be afforded to balance Israel's nuclear capacities. In the words of one expert, "This is a tough mission to accomplish but nobody is saying that it should be accomplished overnight. There has to be a starting point." This same expert added that the IAEA ought to initiate a campaign on this front. Meanwhile, as many commentators and politicians in the Arab and Islamic world have been insisting, participants in the GCSP seminar accepted that all talk of military action against Iran should be excluded. "Threats are impolite, to say the least, and we do not accept threats," Sajjadpour said. "There is no smoking gun in Iran," Evstafiev argued, insisting that the grams of high-enriched uranium found by the IAEA in Iran are far from the 25 kilogrammes of higher enriched uranium required for serious nuclear military activity. Evstafiev's assessment was underlined last week by IAEA Director Mohamed El-Baradei who insisted that his organisation sees no "immediate threat" in Iran's nuclear programme. "And if we were to allow Iran to be subject to the same game that Iraq was subjected to under the pretext of alleged position to weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be 'weapons of mass disappearance', then we will have a much worse scenario in the region," Evstafiev warned. "We do not need to further aggravate a troubled region," Moussa stressed in Bejing. "We should not jump the gun ... the Middle East right now is a total mess ... Oil should not be added to fire," El-Baradei echoed in Monterey. But perhaps the nub of the issue was stated most clearly by Sajjadpour in Geneva: "We are willing to talk if we are addressed politely."
