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Ambassador Pierre Vimont: Thank you very much. I am very pleased to be here and I would like to thank the Middle East Institute. A few days ago I was thinking I would be able to give you my remarks in the coziness of one of your panels and nobody would pay any attention to those and then suddenly I am upgraded to the keynote speaker for your lunch and to talk about Iran, of all issues. Being a diplomat, you can see the ordeal I am going through. But I will do it as I have promised and we will go ahead.

I will try to give you a few remarks as honest and candid and lucid as I can be, speaking on the record of course. I think it is very interesting to exchange views at this time of the relations between Iran, my country, Europe and many other countries. I would ask two or three questions and go on to dwell on those questions and then I will take also your questions after that.

The first one is: what is the reality at the moment in the relations between Iran and its neighbors in the area, with countries like France, with the United States, with Russia and China, etc.? The focus, as you know, is on the nuclear issue. This focus on the nuclear issue is having many effects and consequences and implications in all the different dimensions of our relationship with Iran. Think for a second – and I will be mostly talking about my country of course – about the kind of political relations we can have with Iran as we go on emphasizing the sanctions process, increasing the sanctions and therefore reducing our economic relations, the positions of our enterprise, the exposure of our financial institutions with regard to Iran. The nuclear issue is becoming the real central issue with our relations with Iran. This we have to maybe think a little bit more, and I will say a few more words about that.

On the nuclear issue, what can I say first of all? If you look at the history of the last several years we think we have a sensible position. We started the three Europeans in 2003. As David Mack remarked, I was there in my office at the time. We started at that time a real negotiation with Iran – sometimes this is forgotten but we managed at the time to convince the Iranians to suspend their nuclear program in 2003 and it went on for a little more than one year, having many discussions in different fields with them. Unfortunately, without any success. Maybe the Europeans are to blame partly; maybe the Iranians – I will try to be as balanced as possible. But the fact is, we did not succeed.

Then we tried to set up this new group of five, managing to have the Americans on board with the Russians and the Chinese. This group has been working since then at the ministerial level, at the political directors’ level. I must say, it has done some pretty good work. It has set up what we call this diplomatic option of sanctions, economic and financial, on one side and proposals on the other side for deep and serious cooperation in many fields with Iran. We have time and again tried to convince the Iranians to go along those lines with the precondition that they suspend their enrichment and reprocessing program that is going on at the moment. We have tried to keep as much as possible the door open to try to convince them to show some opening. We have also managed so far to keep unanimity inside the international community. All the resolutions we have taken so far inside the Security Council have been adopted by consensus. So this is the good side of the process.

The not so satisfactory side of this process is that so far there has been no result, as you know. We are going on. We are trying to improve the sanctions. There is a draft for a third resolution on sanctions that is being discussed at the moment in New York, after the six ministers of the Group of Six have found an agreement very recently in Berlin. We are going through the process of the Security Council and I must tell you this is not easy. We are still having some difficulties with some of the members but we are trying to reach an agreement on a new resolution. Of course the major point, at least for France, is to get a unanimous agreement. It is very important for us to show to Tehran that the international community is united in this request for suspension of the nuclear program that is at the moment going on in Tehran.

It is unsatisfactory because even if this sanctions process is going on we have no move at all on behalf of Tehran. Even if we have tried to set in the framework of those resolutions the condition of suspension, we have tried to find as much flexibility as possible. We have tried, the Russians have tried, the Chinese have tried. We have all tried to convince the Iranian authorities that there could be some room for maneuver with a little help from everybody and some goodwill. Nothing has come out of this so far. Tehran has been adamant in going ahead with its nuclear program and refusing in any way to suspend it or to freeze it for a while, for a few days, etc. Nothing has come out of this.

The sanctions, as we understand, are starting to have some effect on the ground in Tehran. Interestingly, the informal sanctions more than the formal sanctions or the official sanctions adopted in the Security Council. What do I mean by informal sanctions? Simply the fact of life that many banks, looking at what is going on in the relationship between our countries and Iran, have decided to be rather cautious and reduce their business with Iran. Time and again when they have been noticed by officials in each of our countries that one of the Iranian banks had violated the sanctions adopted in the United Nations, they have taken the necessary measures on their own without being asked with too much pressure.

So as far as we understand sanctions are biting but they are biting slowly. We all know, past experience is very clear about that, sanctions policy is a policy that takes a long time to have some effect. You just have to remember South Africa in the 1960s or 1970s, Rhodesia before it was Zimbabwe, and many others. Sanctions are not usually something which has some quick effect.

This is where we are at the moment. I suppose the second question we have to ask ourselves: why is it so difficult to get any result with the process we have set up, a process that has the agreement of the whole international community? I suppose we could say there are two main reasons for that. You have to try to understand in a better way what is the situation at the present moment in Iran and what all this represents for the Iranian authorities. I am sure you have discussed that in your panels so I will go over it very quickly.

The first reason is that you have to look at the way Iran perceives itself, how Iran sees itself in its regional environment. This is very important. If you look at the situation in the area for many years, Iran has since 1979 a new regime after its revolution and has kept with that regime and has a permanent regime, which means they have a lot of political stability. Even if inside that regime there has been some difficult divisions and contradictions and battles, they still have the same regime in Tehran since then. Look at all their neighbors – look at Afghanistan, how things have changed there in recent years. Think about Iraq, Pakistan, the countries of the Caucasus, Turkey and the Kurd problem. Think also about the fact that in recent years, whether it be in Iraq or Afghanistan, Iran has experienced Western militaries on its borders in the west and in the east. With this feeling that one can have in Tehran that things are changing around your country and sometimes that they can feel that there are threats around them, they have a need to act and to move and to take bold initiatives in trying to assert their own position in that environment. This is why you have – and you can all detect that very easily – this very strong will on behalf of the Iranian authorities to increase their influence in the area.

It is rather interesting – if you take some sort of scoreboard and put on one side the different countries in the area and on the other side the main issues that are in the area – Lebanon, Turkey, the conflict between Israel and Palestine with Hamas, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. – and you cross every time one of these countries comes along one of these issues, at the end if you look at the scoreboard there is one country and one country alone who has a cross in all the different cases. That is Iran. They are there in most of the issues we are facing. Take Lebanon and the way the Iranian authorities managed to get a great influence on Hezbollah. Look at Hamas. Look even at what they have done recently in Afghanistan. There were rumors about them starting some very concrete and practical links with the Taliban movement, even if they have denied such links. The fact is that Iranian influence in the area has been increasing a lot.

I would like to add two examples of what seems to me to be a very important feature of that influence. It is not only a great influence in the Shi’ite community – it has been recently also a very great influence inside the Sunni community. Take for instance the war of 2006 in Lebanon to see the influence that the Iranian position managed to get in places like the Great Mosque in Cairo and the support they got in some of those areas. This has been quite fascinating so I would like to stress that. In my opinion the nuclear program epitomizes to a large extent and is a clear symbol of the kind of influence Iran wants to get in that area, and the fact that they manage to increase that influence and that we have to take that into account. We maybe have not done that enough.

The second point is that it seems to me that this nuclear program has become a sort of national cause in Tehran. What we have been trying, the Western countries, time and again is to get some sort of edge and divide the so-called moderates in Tehran from the radicals. As we have seen so far we have not managed very well. But what has been very interesting for many of us who have tried to get contacts with some of those moderates in Tehran is that they listen very carefully what we say; they tell us they will see what they can do; and nothing really comes out of this. It seems to me that it is because the nuclear program and the interest of Iran in nuclear activities dates back to the days of the Shah, if you remember around 1972-75. There has been this trend inside the Iranian nation for a clear nuclear expertise and a great nuclear program. Of course the difference is between a civilian program and a military program. What the Shah was talking about at the time was a civilian program. We have our doubts of course about what is going on at the moment with regard to this Iranian nuclear program.

If there are divisions between the moderates and the radicals at the moment in Iran, it seems to me it is less on the objective of getting the nuclear expertise as maybe a debate among them on the tactics. Maybe some of them think that President Ahmadinejad has not been the most able authority and has not taken the most useful initiatives in order to get Iran’s point ahead. But apart from those divisions on tactics there is definitely – and Ayatollah Khamenei has recently stated that again – that for moderates just as radicals the objective is really to get the nuclear capacity, even as they go on saying that this is not done for military use.

The third question: where do we go from here? As I was saying, we have not got exactly the results we wanted so far and have not got any opening on behalf of Iran. It seems to me that maybe we have to be more straightforward in trying to make a difference if we can on the issue of nonproliferation on one side and the issue of Iran’s willingness to increase its influence in the area. In other words, on the question of the nuclear program on one side and the question of the political dimension of this issue on the other side.

On the nuclear question, I think we have to stick to our point even if so far we have not managed to get some opening from the Iranians, even if this new draft resolution that is going ahead is difficult to get an agreement on. I think we have to stick to our position, which is to be very firm on the fact that if we want to negotiate with the Iranians they have to suspend their nuclear program for the simple and very concrete reason that if this program is not stopped and we go on negotiating, in three or four years time – as we know from negotiating with Iranians – we will still be there negotiating whereas the nuclear program will have gone on and managed maybe to get to its final point. So there is a very practical reason for this need for suspension and we have to stick to that. I think we have to stick also to the sanctions process because this is the way to convince the Iranians that we are very serious about what we are saying.

At the same time, the second aspect of the position that we have taken is that we have a lot of good proposals that we have addressed to the Iranians, providing them and pleading for cooperation with them, whether it be in the nuclear civilian industry or for strategic dialogue with them. I think it is on this point that we have to stress more what we want. Coming back to what I was saying previously, if we all agree that really what Iran is looking for is to get a role and play a more influential part in the affairs of the region – and maybe even further on, in the affairs of the international community – then we have to make it clear to them that we are quite prepared to do that but if we want to go ahead with that they have to be more flexible on the question of their nuclear program and accept the suspension. I think this sort of deal has not been put enough to them. As we know, we may have contacts from time to time with the Iranians and we find out clearly that we are equally looking for some sort of political dialogue with our countries. We have to say that for this political dialogue the precondition is indefinitely the suspension of their nuclear program.

That forces all of us in the international community to be much firmer with regard to any kind of political contacts with the Iranians and also with the economic contacts we may have with them. This is not easy, as you know. The international community is not used to being as disciplined as we would wish. But we need to go ahead with that and try if possible at the end to get an agreement with them.

Like many of you in this room, I have some experience dealing with the Iranians. In fact I was posted there in the 1970s. One of the features that has always struck me with my Iranian counterparts is that it is usually at the last minute before midnight that you get a deal with them. I remember at one point leaving my counterparts in the airport of Tehran because we had not managed to get an agreement and just as I was stepping on the airplane they called me back and said okay, let’s get an agreement. We had enough fun, let’s become serious.

So I dearly hope that maybe in the end something like that will come out of the present difficulties we are facing with them on this nuclear issue. Thank you very much.