When the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program began in 2003, I was a member of the first Iranian nuclear negotiating team. At the time, Ayatollah Khamenei made it very clear to us that he was supportive of taking steps to conclusively substantiate that Iran’s nuclear program was exclusively for peaceful purposes. He was open to making the nuclear program beholden to the maximum verification measures under international law, and even by constraints, as an unprecedented confidence-building measure. What the ayatollah fiercely rejected was Iran giving up its legitimate right to enjoy the benefits of nuclear technology, and in particular, uranium enrichment at the levels required for peaceful purposes, such as generating nuclear energy. At that time, he even told current President Hassan Rouhani, who was then chief nuclear negotiator, that if Iran were to give up its right to enrichment, it should either come after his death or his resignation as supreme leader.
The nuclear negotiations between Iran and European powers during the latter years of the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, from 2003 to 2005, failed principally because the United States was not willing to accept Iran’s right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, while Iran’s negotiators were not allowed to engage in direct negotiations with the United States about the nuclear issue.
