Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
WEDNESDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2007
DR KIM
HOWELLS MP, ANTONY
PHILLIPSON AND
PAUL ARKWRIGHT
Q220 Mr. Horam: Mr. Phillipson pointed
out a few moments ago that there is a debate going on in Iran
about these issues, and that they are rather good debaters. They
have a very strong narrative about the west. When we were in Tehran,
one of the points that the Iranians made to us was that between
2003 and 2005 they voluntarily suspended the enrichment process.
We offered them a package as part of that arrangement, but that
package was described by an undisclosed EU diplomat as, "A
lot of gift wrapping around a pretty empty box," and by the
British American Security Information Council as, "Vague
on incentives and heavy on demand." Was this a missed opportunity?
Dr. Howells: No, I don't believe
that it was. What we were trying to offer the Iranians at the
time was a perfectly reasonable package, and I will tell you why.
I remember being in Libya about 18 months ago, and the Libyans
who gave up their weapons of mass destruction programme voluntarily
asked me, "How come you are making these offers to the Iranians,
and how come you are retraining all these Russian former nuclear
bomb scientists to become other things?" It is seen in the
international community as a very good offer, and it has always
been so.
Q221 Mr. Horam: How do you account
for these adverse comments about it then?
Dr. Howells: I do not know. I
do not trust former diplomats or generals further than I can throw
them.
Mr. Horam: They are actually undisclosed,
not necessarily former.
Dr. Howells: If they are not former,
they should not be saying those things.
Mr. Horam: They did.
Dr. Howells: Well, I trust them
even less.
Q222 Mr. Horam: None the less, the
fact is that it failed. It is thought that one of the problems
was that we left putting anything serious on the table until the
moderates had lost power. One of the reasons why the moderates—that
is, President Khatami—lost power was that they were thought
in Iran to have not got much in return for what they were proposing
to give away, hence the hard-line President Ahmadinejad came in.
So, we did contribute in that sense. The whole episode might not
have been an entirely missed opportunity. We do not think so;
none the less, some people do. Secondly, it contributed to a hardening
in a political situation in Iran.
Dr. Howells: I do not agree with
that, Mr. Horam. There were many reasons why Khatami's faction
lost the election. One of the reasons why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
won the election was that he promised to do something about two
internal issues: one was corruption, and the other was alleviating
poverty.
With all the best will in the world, one can
look at former Iranian regimes. They talk these days about Rafsanjani
being a moderate. Well, he was one of the fathers of the secret
nuclear programme. I do not think that the people of Iran were
influenced by that, quite frankly.
Q223 Mr. Horam: But let us deal with
the facts. The fact is that for two years they did suspend enrichment.
Dr. Howells: Yes, and there were
reasons for that, not least the international pressure that they
were coming under.
Q224 Mr. Horam: They did suspend
enrichment. Now we are saying that we will not start negotiations
again until they suspend enrichment again.
Dr. Howells: No, we are not.
Q225 Mr. Horam: Yes, we are. The
west is saying that a precondition for starting negotiations is
that they must suspend enrichment. Even people like Barak Obama
in America have said, "Why do we have these preconditions?
Isn't it better to have a proper dialogue with the Iranians and
start talking to them properly?" As Ken Purchase said earlier,
what we heard both in America and Iran was pretty frightening,
with people talking about military options on the table and so
forth. Why can we not have some dialogue? Are we afraid of losing
face?
Dr. Howells: We have endless dialogue
with the Iranians, believe me.
Q226 Mr. Horam: But we are not having
a dialogue about what matters.
Dr. Howells: No. Let me say this:
when I first came into this job quite a long time ago, I remember
people saying, this is a line in the sand and we are not going
to go any further back than this. We have gone back a line; we
have gone back a line; and we have gone back a line. That has
not stopped the Iranians enriching uranium, in the least. They
are continuing. We think that they are digging tunnels. They are
putting factories underground in Natanz. If it was a civil nuclear
programme about which they were up front, honest and transparent,
why are they doing that?
I put it to you that, far from not talking to
them, we have been extraordinarily open with them. We have talked
to them endlessly via Javier Solana, for example, as the High
Representative of the EU. We have tried to cajole them in so many
ways. We have said to them, "Look, this is a twin-track approach.
Here is an offer that is going to rehabilitate Iran in every way
in terms of its relationship with the international community,
or you can face more sanctions." They are pretty weak sanctions,
by the way. In reality, I do not think that the UN has gone out
of its way to cripple Iran by any means. Quite frankly, the very
idea that we have not tried to negotiate and talk with Iran is
nonsense. We have tried all the way along the line to do it. We
are trying to do it now.
Q227 Mr. Horam: The official position
of the west at the moment on Iran is that we are refusing to start
proper official negotiations until they suspend enrichment.
Dr. Howells: Is that true, Antony?
Antony Phillipson: It is true.
It is not an arbitrary demand. The reason why it is important
goes back to a common theme that has run through some of the earlier
questions. The real issue is about the international community's
total lack of confidence in what the programme is about. We are
told that it is about civil nuclear power. We are told that there
is a fatwa that prohibits the development of nuclear weapons.
But, the facts on the ground, as we see them, do not bear that
out.
There is a nuclear programme where they are
starting with the most complex technical aspect of it, with nothing
else around it.
Q228 Mr. Horam: Fine. We do not trust
them, but they do not trust us either because of the history of
this recent proposal, among other things.
Antony Phillipson: The reason
why it is important that they suspend the enrichment programme
is that that is where we can apply a break point in terms of their
ability to move to a position in which they have a nuclear weapons
capability.
Q229 Mr. Horam: They have got themselves,
whether we like it or not, into a position whereby they would
lose face if they suddenly suspended enrichment. You cannot see
President Ahmadinejad doing that now because he would lose face
politically. Someone has to move. Why can we not move?
Antony Phillipson: That is where
we need to play back into this internal debate. President Ahmadinejad
will not, because he is pursuing an agenda where he is using this
as part of—
Chairman: Please could the member of
the public who has not turned off their mobile phone leave the
room? I said at the beginning that I did not wish to have mobile
phones in here. Please go outside. I apologise to the witnesses
for the interruption, but members of the public were told not
to have their mobile phones on.
Andrew Mackinlay: I think she was recording
as well.
Chairman: I do not know about that. We
will investigate it, but we will continue. If anyone else has
a mobile phone, please ensure that it is switched off.
Antony Phillipson: I will make
two points. We need to play back into this internal debate. There
are those in Iran who do not believe that they should hold out
everything on the basis of a nuclear programme that does not deliver
them any real benefits at the minute. The other point goes back
to the previous suspension. You say that they will lose face if
they suspend, but they have suspended before.
Q230 Mr. Horam: They made a gesture,
but nothing came of it.
Antony Phillipson: The memorandum
that we submitted to the Committee went into some detail about
what that suspension consisted of. A lot of it consisted of a
pretty long-winded argument about what the suspension constituted.
They kept trying to redefine it and eventually we got them to
a definition that we were happy with. It lasted for about 18 months
before they broke the suspension. In hindsight, I would argue
that the reason they suspended was that they felt that they could.
They could suspend that part of the programme while continuing
to work on other aspects. There are some interesting comments
today in that regard from Rohani, who was the nuclear negotiator
at the time. He is explicit that they were able to suspend then
because they could do so and continue to perfect other parts of
the programme, while holding out this carrot to the international
community.
I would agree that there is an open question
about whether they could argue that we did not offer enough in
return. However, our offer since then has been considerably improved
with the E3+3 offer in June 2006, both in terms of its content
and because of the fact that the Americans were an explicit party
to it. That was not the case during the previous suspension. It
is in return for that offer that we will continue to insist on
the suspension of enrichment.
Q231 Mr. Horam: It sounds as though
we are getting nowhere very fast.
Dr. Howells: Iran signed up to
the rules of its own free will in the IAEA. We are not the only
players in this game. The UN Security Council, on two occasions,
has voted with total solidarity on the issue. It is very worried
about it. Dr. el-Baradei is not known to be a neo-con or a raving
radical, and he is very worried about it. The Iranians did not
have to sign up to the non-proliferation treaty and the safeguard
elements of that treaty. In effect, what they are doing is snubbing
the rest of the world when it says, "We are very worried
about this. What are you going to do about it?"
The idea that we have to offer them endless
sweets and chocolates in order to get them to do something that
they signed up to originally is very perverse. We blame ourselves
for the fact that they are not doing it.
Q232 Mr. Horam: There is an issue
of trust on both sides. Surely you understand that.
Dr. Howells: Of course I understand
it. We have tried to be very transparent about this issue.
Q233 Sir John Stanley: Minister,
I accept that this is a big if, but if you take at face value
the views of the two major protagonists—the United States
and the Iranian regime—on what their intentions and objectives
are, this problem is soluble. It is soluble peacefully and diplomatically.
If you accept that the Americans' only objective is to make certain
that Iran does not become a nuclear weapon state; that the United
States is not bent on regime change and possibly using military
action supposedly to achieve that; and that, as the senior Iranians
with whom we had discussions in Tehran swore blind was the case,
they have no intention of turning their civil nuclear power programme
to the production of nuclear weapons, a document would be relatively
easily draftable and negotiable.
That document would give the United States the
assurance that, with all the appropriate verifications and supervision,
the existing civil nuclear power programme in Iran would not go
into nuclear weapons, and it would give the Iranians the assurance
that the American Government were not bent on regime change supported
by military intervention. Does such a document exist? Will the
British Government produce such a document and endeavour to broker
it? If such a document was on the table, it would at least flush
out whether the two major protagonists' policies were in line
with their stated intentions.
Dr. Howells: You have cut through
to a very interesting question that reduces this complex situation
to quite a simple equation. Do we have such a document? No, we
do not. Is it at the heart of the international arrangements currently
in place? Yes, I think that it is.
The controls that you are looking for to assure
the Americans and the rest of us that there is not a nuclear bomb
programme on the way could be achieved quite simply. It would
be possible if Iran signed up to the additional protocols to the
safeguards agreement to guarantee the access and transparency
that the IAEA inspectors would need.
As for what the Americans would want out of
this, their aims are as complex as all of ours. They want to see
a country that will not be a threat to its neighbours. That is
a genuine desire on their part; it might be unfashionable to say
it, but I did not meet anyone in the States who wanted to invade
Iran. They realise that they have enough problems as it is in
Iraq and Afghanistan without a new war in Iran. They are probably
looking for a much more stable situation there. That means that,
if we could take the heat out of this nuclear stand-off, it would
benefit everyone, not least America
If the Iranians could get investment into their
oil and gas industries and some decent new tankers, I am sure
that that would have an effect on the price of oil worldwide.
I do not think that the Americans are any less desirous than we
are to see a much more stable situation in Iran and to see those
basic guarantees given. There are people in America, and you will
have met them, who will argue, "Well, it's absolutely impossible.
The Shi'a theocracy will not allow it to happen. They will say
things that promote a holy jihad against the west." Frankly,
that is nonsense. We have seen moderate approaches in the past.
Mr. Horam mentioned, for example, the suspension of nuclear enrichment,
which must have been a political decision taken at the highest
level. It is entirely possible to arrive at those guarantees,
but there must be recognition within Iran that they have to abide
by what they have signed up to, in terms of the International
Atomic Energy Agency's remit. If they do not do that, it is hard
to see how they can move forward.
Q234 Sir John Stanley: Minister,
I am disappointed that the document I outlined apparently does
not exist, but I am glad that you recognise that it might go to
the heart of the issue. Given that the lack of diplomatic relations
between the United States and Iran, and the history between the
two, makes the brokering of such an bilateral agreement between
them extraordinarily difficult, and given, also, the huge experience
of the British Government and the British diplomatic service,
and the British experience of nuclear weapons that is available
in this country, are not the British Government remarkably well
positioned to be the Government who endeavour to produce a draft
of such a document and to try to broker it with the other five
parties to see whether an agreement on it can be reached? If we
can do that, the party that does not sign up is certainly going
to be exposed to the rest of the world as not living up to its
stated intentions. That would be a significant step forward. If
everybody is going to fulfil their intentions, we have the makings
of a peaceful resolution of this very serious issue.
Dr. Howells: There are two answers
to that. The first is to say yes. The American bilateral relations
broke down effectively in 1980, and they have hardly had contact
since, although just a few months ago, Ambassador Crocker and
the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad met. I think that those were
the first formal discussions that they had had for 27 years. So,
their ability to negotiate a bit of paper, such as the one that
you described a little earlier, has been impossible up until now.
Can we do it? Well, I have no doubt that we
can help to do it. We are members of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, so we are states that have signed up to that. It
would be pretty disastrous if we went off on our own on a kind
of bilateral attempt to deal with the Iranians without taking
into account the ideas and opinions of our allies.
Q235 Sir John Stanley: I suggest
that we are in a great position to take the lead and to take people
with us—I was not suggesting acting unilaterally.
Dr. Howells: I think we have very
much been taking the lead, and we are certainly doing so inside
Europe at the moment, although the French have been very vigorous
on the issue as well. Yes, I think that we should be using our
experience in the Middle East and our close relationship with
Iran over the years. I am almost certain that it was British money
that developed the Iranian oil and gas industries in the first
place. We have maintained our embassy in Tehran throughout this
period, or at least since we rebuilt relations. We have dealt
with the problems of many other countries through that embassy
in Tehran. We have always made sure that the ambassadors whom
we have sent to Tehran have been among our very best. We take
the Iranians very seriously. We think that they are a people with
a great history and a great part to play in the world. However,
we will not resile from the position that we have taken on their
nuclear programme. If they have nothing to hide, there is nothing
to stop them abiding completely by the terms and conditions that
they signed up to in the safeguards agreement.
Q236 Mr. Hamilton: To follow up a
point that John Horam made earlier about Barak Obama's comments
about talking directly to the Iranians without precondition, when
we were in Washington, we were told by Tom Lantos, the Chairman
of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, that many of the
members of that committee would like to go to Tehran, but cannot
get visas. That is something that we put to some of the interlocutors
at senior levels: why will you not give these Americans, who have
some good will, the visas to come to Iran to talk to you directly?
You will not be surprised that we did not get an answer.
My question relates to Javier Solana, and the
meeting that he was supposed to have had a couple of weeks ago
with Ali Larijani, who was then replaced by Saeed Jalili. We were
privileged to have a meeting with Saeed Jalili, as you mentioned
earlier, and I wondered whether you have had any reports of positive
progress from Javier Solana's meeting.
Dr. Howells: I believe that he
is going to report on 30 November. Is that right?
Antony Phillipson: They will meet
this Friday.
Q237 Mr. Hamilton: Presumably, the
meeting was postponed because of the change of personnel.
Dr. Howells: Paul has something
on that.
Paul Arkwright: There was a meeting
about two or three weeks ago between Javier Solana, Larijani and
Jalili. That was about a month ago. Frankly, there was little
to report from it, and we are waiting to see what happens at the
meeting between Solana and Jalili on Friday.
Q238 Mr. Hamilton: Minister, you
mentioned earlier that some of our best ambassadors are sent to
Tehran, which is quite right. We were surprised to learn that
our ambassador, who is a pretty senior ambassador of very good
quality, had no access to senior people within the Iranian Foreign
Affairs Ministry or to the chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili.
In fact, the first time that he met him was with us. Are you surprised
by that?
Dr. Howells: No, not entirely.
The world of diplomatic contacts is very strange. Last year, I
was in a small Caribbean country with a population of around 70,000.
I was supposed to have met its Prime Minister, but he suddenly
decided that he could not see me because I was not our Prime Minister.
Q239 Mr. Hamilton: A great deal has
obviously been made of the negotiations of the E3+3 group. Are
you concerned about differences among the members of that group,
and do they threaten its usefulness as a negotiating organisation?
Dr. Howells: It has a dynamic
that has to be worked at constantly—there is no question
about that. In a sense, the E3+3 offer is similar to that which
Sir John Stanley described earlier—at least, in my mind,
it was the offer that he described. We are saying to Iran, "Look,
there is a lot here for you, including everything you require
for a proper civil nuclear programme and lots of technical back-up."
There are possibilities for trade, and I do not think that anyone
wants to isolate Iran in the long run with regard to trade. On
the contrary, there are 68 million people in Iran, and it is a
market that the Chinese are positively slavering at. I do not
think that any of us want to isolate Iran.
However, there are differences in the way in
which some European Governments see how far Iran has gone down
the road and what the possibility is for influencing them in the
future. I think that some countries have almost given up on Iran
and decided that what will be will be, but we are not one of those
countries. We think that it can still be influenced. We appeal
to its rationale on that and ask, "What is the point of this?
If you do not want a nuclear bomb programme and just want a civil
nuclear programme, here is the way to get around that." That
is the way to have a renaissance in Iran, as far as trade and
prosperity is concerned—God knows that Iran needs it. For
the majority of the Iranian people, life is pretty tough.
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