WHO THE EU IS FOOLING? ITSELF, OR THE IRANIANS?
By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor
PARIS - 21 Jun. (IPS) The European Union has decided to launch negotiations with Tehran on closer economic relations, determined to ignore American warning about the dangers the Iranian theocracy presents for the peace and stability in the region.
Negotiations on Trade and co-operation Agreement is supposed to start next September and would give Iran both economic and political benefits, helping to reduce its reliance on oil and open up European markets for new imports and attract foreign investment, experts said.
The Community’s foreign ministers gave their agreement in principle Monday to the opening of formal Trade and Co-operation negotiations with Iran without imposing explicit conditions for an improvement on Tehran's human rights record. The decision paves the way for a formal announcement by heads of government at the EU summit meeting in Seville, Spain, on Friday.
However, the ministers said Iran would be asked to sign separate but parallel agreements on political dialogue and counter-terrorism.
From Tehran's perspective, closer ties relations with the EU can help to counter US attempts to isolate the country, specially after President George Bush characterised the Islamic Republic as an "axis of evil" alongside with North Korea and Iraq and the State Department said Iran was the most active supporter of international terrorism and terrorist organisations.
Iran was quick to congratulate the EU on a "landmark decision", and on ignoring the "pressures and lobbying of both the US and Israel". But even in Europe, fans of engagement are wearying of the wait for results.
"Tehran and the EU are looking to expand ties, regardless of what third parties might think", government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said during a press conference.
The reformist paper "No Rooz", that speaks for pro-Khatami reformists said Wednesday the agreement marks a "turning point in EU-Iran trade and economic ties" since the 1979 Islamic revolution, hailed the EU's "independent stance" and noted the "difference between the EU's interests and those of the United States".
The go ahead for the start of negotiation was given by the 15-members Council of Ministers, despite sharp conflicting views between member states, with some of them, including Germany, Britain and Holland demanding that the Agreement be accompanied with tougher conditions, obliging Iran to renounce acquiring weapons of mass destruction and its support radical Palestinian groups opposed to peace process wit Israel, against France, Spain, Italy and Greece favouring separating trade with politics.
Most EU members believe that trade can be used to bolster the powers of the reformists, led by President Mohammad Khatami, by giving them a new tool with which to push for change. The hope is that the president can use the agreement to convince hardliners in the regime of the need for transparency in economic affairs and progress on political reforms.
"If you don’t talk to the reasonable people," says Chris Patten, the EU’s Commissioner for External Relations, "you fetch up with fewer reasonable people to talk to", adding that no one agrees that one could safeguard peace in the region by isolating Iran.
This falls within the EU's constructive engagement with Tehran, a strategy based on the conviction that dialogue and closer relations strengthen the hands of the reformists in the regime and will help to steer Iran towards more moderate policies. In spite of the many setbacks suffered by reformists in recent years, the EU rightly insists that engaging Iran is preferable to isolating it.
Iranian sources and experts said the West in general, and the EU in particular still think of Mr. Khatami and his supporters when they talk about Iranian reformists, realising not that the President is no more considered as the leader of the reform movements and the reforms symbolised by Mr. Khatami are in the process of being buried, giving the torch of changes to what is called the third current.
"Mr. Khatami has failed in implementing the reforms he had promised. Now in his fifth year of presidency and he is getting closer to the conservatives in order to preserve both his privileges as well as those of some of his supporters who are part of the establishment", commented Mr. Qasem Sho’leh Sa’di, an outspoken lawyer who teaches at the Tehran university.
While reforms suggested by Mr. Khatami and those who gathered around him are aimed at stabilising the present theocracy based on the concept of velayat faqih, branding a utopian contradiction, that of marring democracy with religion, the new third current is calling for more radical changes, starting with separating faith and politics.
Linking trade and political development also can be a hazardous course. Demands for political reforms in EU agreements signed with other Middle Eastern countries have been repeatedly ignored. The importance of the accord with Iran may therefore lie in its ability to promote economic change in the hope that this will help Mr Khatami confront his regime's opponents.
Carrots, it is argued, as well as sticks are needed to encourage the reformers, and help them gain the upper hand in their long-running power struggle with hard line, un-elected clerics.
Dr Mehdi Mozzaffari, a professor of international politics at the Aahrus University near Copenhagen says Mr. Khatami is dreaming to replace Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i as the leader of the Iranian theocracy and his last moves, his compromises with the conservatives over a number of issues and his silence over reformist who are jailed by the Judiciary, are geared towards that goal.
It is not clear, however, that the formula would work in Iran, where ruling conservatives are quick to jump on this kind of situation to push their crackdown on the reformists outside the sphere of government even harder.
As an example, Tehran denounced the EU’s decision to put the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on its list of terrorist organisations.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif has warned EU officials of rising "Islamophobia" which he blamed on Western "discriminatory" policies against Muslims, state radio reported Thursday.
"There is very serious concern in the Islamic world about the resurgence of Islamophobia in the West," Zarif said during a meeting Wednesday in Brussels with EU Commissioner for External Affairs Chris Patten, according to the radio.
"The demagoguery against Islam which is being advocated by a number of extremist groups with political links, as well as governmental policies that are in the making, are blatantly discriminatory against Muslim residents in the West," Zarif told Patten.
Last week, Iran warned of reprisals over reported German plans to tighten up entry visa checks for 22 countries, including Iran, and even summoned the German charge d'affaires Klaus Geyer to discuss the matter with him.
"The Islamic republic of Iran will not refrain from taking common measures against German nationals in order to guard its interests and those of its nationals," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi warned.
"One problem is that Iran's hard line clerics may complicate the EU’s attempts to strike a deal that sets political conditions to trade relations and aims to alter the regime's behaviour, including its support for groups the US considers to be terrorists", observed the prestigious British magazine "The Economist".
The United States had told the EU on Tuesday it wanted assurances that any move to boost economic ties with Iran would be contingent on changes in the Islamic republic's behaviour.
"We have made quite clear in these discussions our grave concerns about Iranian behaviour," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said adding that "any economic incentives for Iran would be linked to improvement in Iranian behaviour on these areas of concern."
Both approaches have some merit; but both might have more effect if they were the result of a co-ordinated policymaking process, rather than an unseemly competitive squabble.
The European Union is Tehran's main trade partner, importing goods, mostly crude oil, from Iran worth 8.4 billion euros (eight billion dollars) in 2000, while exports totalled 5.2 billion euros, according to official EU statistics. ENDS EU IRAN 21602