WarSclerotic

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the window for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program is “cracking open,” but that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

Kerry made the comments in a speech Sunday via satellite from London to a foreign policy conference in California by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Earlier Sunday, Kerry and European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, held talks on Iran, Syria, Egypt, the Mideast peace process and other matters. The State Department said Kerry’s session with Ashton was “very productive.”

The focus on Iran’s nuclear program comes before the start of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany that are set for Tuesday and Wednesday in Geneva. The nuclear talks will be the first between Iran and world powers since the election of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, who has tried to improve relations with the West to pave the way for lifting economic sanctions.

“Right now, the window for diplomacy is cracking open. But I want you to know that our eyes are open, too,” Kerry said in his remarks to AIPAC.

Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

“While we seek a peaceful resolution to Iran’s nuclear program, words must be matched with actions. In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs. We are mindful of the need for certainty, transparency, and accountability in the process. And I believe firmly that no deal is better than a bad deal,” according to the excerpts of Kerry’s speech.

“In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs,” Kerry said.

International penalties over Iran’s nuclear program have damaged Iran’s economy, and Iran wants to ease them in exchange for some concessions. The West contends Iran is trying to make a nuclear weapon.

Iran rejected on Sunday the West’s demand that it send sensitive nuclear material out of the country but signalled flexibility on other aspects of its atomic activities that worry world powers.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi’s comments on Sunday may disappoint Western officials, who want Iran to ship out uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, a short technical step away from weapons-grade material.

However, Araqchi, who will join the talks in Geneva, was less hard-line about other areas of uranium enrichment.

“Of course we will negotiate regarding the form, amount, and various levels of (uranium) enrichment, but the shipping of materials out of the country is our red line,” he was quoted as saying on state television’s website.

In negotiations since early 2012, world powers have demanded that Iran suspend 20% enrichment, send some of its existing uranium stockpiles abroad and shutter the Fordo underground site, where most higher-grade enrichment is done.

In return, they offered to lift sanctions on trade in gold, precious metals and petrochemicals but Iran, which wants oil and banking restrictions to be removed, has dismissed that offer. It says it needs 20% enriched uranium for a medical research reactor.

However, Araqchi’s statement may be “the usual pre-negotiation posturing,” said Middle East specialist Shashank Joshi at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“It is easy to imagine a compromise whereby Iran would ship out only some of its uranium, allowing the negotiating team to claim a victory. There are many potential compromises that will be explored,” Joshi told Reuters.

Cliff Kupchan, a director and Middle East analyst at risk consultancy Eurasia Group, took a similar line, saying Iran was seeking to gain leverage ahead of negotiations.

“Still, it is sobering that a lead Iranian negotiator is setting red lines so early. These are going to be tough talks.”

Since Iran started making 20% enriched uranium gas in 2010, it has produced more than the 240 to 250 kilograms (530 to 550 pounds) needed for one atomic bomb.

Iran has kept its stockpile below this figure by converting some of it into oxide powder for reactor fuel, potentially buying more time for diplomacy, U.N. watchdog reports show.

But it has also amassed stocks of low-enriched uranium gas that experts say would be enough for several bombs if processed much further to weapons-grade material. It has also sharply expanded its enrichment capacity in recent years.

Israel, which has threatened preemptive military action if it deems diplomacy a dead end, has demanded the total removal of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles along with a dismantling of its enrichment facilities.

Iran says it will never give up its right to refine uranium and Western experts acknowledge it may no longer be realistic to expect Iran to suspend all such work, as demanded by a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions since 2006.

Instead, they say, Iran’s enrichment capacity should be scaled back in order to make it more difficult for the country to launch any weapons bid without being detected in time.

R. Scott Kemp, an assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that merely capping Iran’s nuclear program was unlikely to provide enough confidence in the West.

“Some rollback of the program … is really the only path to confidence and stability,” Kemp wrote in a blog last week.

David Albright, of the Institute for Science and International Security think tank, told a U.S. Senate committee in early October, referring to machines used to refine uranium: “Any future nuclear agreement must include a limit on the number and type of centrifuges Iran can install.”

In a sign that the U.S. may be re-evaluating its sanctions policy, the American delegation in Geneva will include Adam Szubin, the director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces sanctions.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, wrote an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph on Sunday titled “Appeasement won’t reduce the peril of a nuclear Iran.”

In the article, Kirk called on British Prime Minister David Cameron to follow the example of Winston Churchill’s strident opposition to the 1938 Munich Agreement and demand that Iran completely abandon its nuclear program.

“For Britain’s sake, for America’s sake, and for the world’s sake, I pray that the prime minister stands with us, and rejects the policy of appeasement being peddled in Geneva,” Kirk wrote.