A regional nuclear consortium: new hope for an old idea in Iran talks
Iran International
Iranian commentators are floating a long-standing proposal to break the impasse in its nuclear negotiations with Washington: the formation of a regional nuclear consortium involving Iran, Arab states and the United States.
If Tehran has indeed introduced this idea in the fourth round of talks, it may represent new flexibility on the sticky point of enrichment and explain the positive assessment of both Iranian and American officials on the latest round of talks.
A commentary in the conservative Khorasan daily on Monday said the idea of creating a consortium may have been among what Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi referred to as “useful and original ideas reflecting a shared wish to reach an honorable agreement” after the completion of the fourth round of talks on Sunday.
Some signals suggest this idea may have been quietly floated in diplomatic channels: ahead of the Muscat talks on April 11, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Riyadh and Doha, followed by a trip to the UAE after the talks.
The idea was originally proposed by former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel long before the current Tehran-Washington talks in an October 2023 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Such a body consisting of Iran, Saudi Arabia,and other interested Middle Eastern countries would oversee enrichment under international safeguards and ensure that the enriched uranium it produced would be used only for peaceful purposes, they argued.
On the eve of the April 11 nuclear talks in Muscat, Mousavian addressed the risk of failure if the US refused to acknowledge Iran’s rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“Steve Witkoff recently made an unreasonable statement, saying that Iran cannot benefit from the right to peaceful uranium enrichment technology. This stance is a clear violation of the NPT treaty. If this is the final US position, tomorrow's negotiations... will end in failure,” he warned.
In the same post, Mousavian again floated the consortium idea: “The solution is ... the establishment of a joint nuclear consortium among the Persian Gulf countries.” He argued this would resolve the US’s contradictory stance of supporting enrichment in Saudi Arabia while denying the same to Iran.
He also hinted at a broader vision: an Iran-US economic agreement worth up to $1 trillion, involving American investment in Iran’s nuclear, fossil, and renewable energy sectors. Such a deal, he suggested, could help “open the deadlock in US–Iran relations.”
Some commentators have described the idea as a possibility for a breakthrough.
“Araqhchi's visit to Saudi Arabia and the UAE is probably not unrelated to the proposal to create a joint regional enrichment consortium,” Rahman Ghahremanpour, a commentator and analyst of Middle East politics in Tehran, posted on X.
“Iran is trying to break the deadlock on zero enrichment, and if the countries in the region agree to this proposal, perhaps the Trump administration will change its position. This is an important confidence-building measure in arms control,” he added.
Abdolreza Davari, a conservative politician who supports Pezeshkian, also supported the idea in a post on X on May 10. This, he said, would be “similar to the model implemented in Europe that supplies fuel even to the United States.”
“This consortium could be the center of regional cooperation in the areas of nuclear technology exchange, safety, environment, production of fresh water and radiopharmaceuticals, and also include a regional non-proliferation regime," Reza Nasri, another commentator in Tehran, wrote on X before Araghchi’s visit to Riyadh.
Hossein Aghaei, a Turkey-based senior security and geopolitics analyst, referred to Saudi Arabia’s wish to create a consortium in collaboration with the US and possibly Russia in a post on X on May 8. He said Iran could be a participant in the consortium to ensure it will not be able to build nukes.
However, he warned that Israel’s vision is completely different. “In the nuclear matter, Israel may not even trust Saudi Arabia, let alone the Islamic Republic.”