Former diplomat Hossein Mousavian said in an opinion piece for the USA Today on Friday that during the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), Tehran has shown "substantial flexibility, goodwill and transparency" to help put an end to the decade-long standoff with the West over its nuclear program, noting that the six major powers should now take steps to break the deadlock.
Mousavian said based on "credible American reports," Iran as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has adopted a series of measures as part of its "voluntary confidence-building purposes" that go far beyond what the NPT requires and fulfilled commitments that "no other NPT has even undertaken."
He added that such goodwill gestures "should be reassuring enough for the world powers on verifiable transparency for the Iranian program" and put an end to western concerns over alleged Iran's intention to "build a nuclear bomb."
He referred to technical conversions at the Arak heavy water facility to ensure significant reduction in its plutonium output, re-purposing the Fordo enrichment facility and capping the level of enrichment at 5 percent among just a few examples of such "confidence-building measures" adopted by Tehran.
The former nuclear negotiator (2003-2005) and now a research scholar at Princeton University in the United States stressed that "unprecedented progress has been made in the extremely tough process" and that Iran has done its part of the bargain.
He added, "The onus is now on the other side on the two sticky points: Iran's enrichment capacity and the timetable for lifting sanctions."
Mousavian concluded his article by leaving the success of the nuclear negotiations to a decision by US President Barack Obama to "exhibit the necessary audacity" and make a decision on Iran's practical enrichment capacity and lifting UN, multilateral and unilateral sanctions before his departure.
