The group of “six" should seize the moment, expert says

On October 15 in Geneva the negotiators met again on the Iranian nuclear program. Director of the Center for Energy and Security Anton Khlopkov believes that the parties have to compromise and reach concrete agreements, even on minor points; otherwise, the atmosphere of "general euphoria" that emerged after the arrival of Hassan Rouhani may disappear.

"We are on the beginning of our road. This is another attempt to find solutions to the deep crisis that exists. In my view, this crisis in the first place is not nuclear; this is a crisis of confidence between Iran and the United States, primarily between Iran and the West. Secondly, the nuclear aspect is rather a consequence. Since we are at the very beginning, then obviously unwanted details in the media for the general public will probably be excessive for negotiations. Apparently decisions were made in order to avoid excessive pressure from the outside. It is enough to conduct the discussion behind the scenes," he says.

"As I understand it, those at the Geneva meeting that took place were held in a narrow format. Even here they have tried to limit the number of participants in the negotiations. What can we expect from the talks if to sum up some very early, intermediate results of what happened? Of course, the atmosphere changed. Iran stands with its proposals, and certainly this situation is quite new. Moreover, based on the information which is available to the media and which is credible, we can say that the things offered by Iran are a new approach compared to what was in the election previously. In my view the main question today is the time when Iran is ready to compromise and the readiness of the Western countries to go to these trade-offs," he says.

"In my view, both China and Russia are willing to show some flexibility. Are the European countries and the United States ready to demonstrate this flexibility? In my opinion, the question remains. And here in the first place I mean that Iran is ready to limit certain nuclear activities, go to the extension of control by the International Atomic Energy Agency of the nuclear activities in Iran. But in response Iran naturally expects certain steps, primarily from the "five" and Germany, and probably from a wider circle of countries. And, of course, first of all, this lies in the plane of sanctions, facilitating the sanctions regime against Iran which has been introduced. Is the other party ready to do this? If we talk about sanctions, there are three main groups of sanctions: UN sanctions, unilateral U.S. sanctions and EU sanctions. Is the EU ready to implement the abolition of sanctions in response to the moves by Iran? This is a great issue, and, in my opinion, this is lots of work. Unfortunately, this negotiation or the preparation to it has great inertia, and we, unfortunately, currently cannot afford further dependence of the negotiation process of this inertia, because if in the foreseeable future negotiations do not bring concrete results, then, of course, both in Iran and in the U.S. the positive attitude and high expectations that exist can therefore be significantly reduced. Those powers, which, for example, President Rouhani has today, the support that he has within Iran regarding his flexibility, accordingly, may disappear. Therefore, in my opinion, we need to seize the moment, and in this regard a lot of work is to be done within each of the delegations involved in the negotiations – It can be done to achieve not only the end result in the long term, that is, to be sure that Iran will not get nuclear weapons, but also some achievements in the short term," the expert believes.