When taking decisions on Iran, the Security Council has gone beyond the legal requirements arising from the NPT, the Statute of the IAEA, and even the Safeguards Agreement between the IAEA and Iran. At the same time, the Board of Governors of the IAEA has clearly specified that most of its demands on Iran are for taking voluntary and nonbinding confidence building measures.

The decision to refer Iran's nuclear case to the United Nations Security Council is bogged by a number of legal problems which have received less attention than they actually deserved. What follows is a brief discussion of those problems.

In the existing conditions, the first confidence building measure to be taken by the West is to recognize Iran's right to enrich uranium after which the Western states can move to announce a schedule for the revocation of all anti-Iran sanctions as well as the best way to do it. In fact, the P5+1 group should specify what steps it wants to take so that Iran would be able to better adapt its reaction to the West’s demands.

While Almaty 2 negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers ended without reaching a conclusive result, most experts, even the Western ones, still insist that the negotiations have not been a failure. At the same time, both Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, and his counterpart in the P5+1, Catherine Ashton, have admitted that there are still wide gaps between the two sides and – as put by Ashton – the two sides are “far apart on the substance” of the negotiations.

After several rounds of negotiations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the P5+1 group, it is now clear that Iran “may need other mechanisms different from the P5+1 to overcome the problem because the P5+1 mechanism is not efficient enough to make way for the achievement of a broad-based agreement” between the negotiating parties.

What is the future outlook for the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers and will negotiations continue between the two sides? 

The P5+1 group is currently looking forward to the results of two major political developments. The first development is the forthcoming presidential polls in Iran with the second one being the future course of bilateral talks between Iran and the United States. Therefore, the final outcome of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group, either negative or positive, will become clear at most within the next few months.

A thorough evaluation of the result of the technical talks in Istanbul can provide relative assessment of the ability of Obama administration to overcome structural restrictions which are barring him from entering into a new trend which may lead to the resolution of Iran's nuclear issue. Ultimately, it would be possible to answer this crucial question: Is the United States merely trying to keep the door of diplomacy open to Tehran, or is it actually trying to find a solution for Iran's nuclear standoff.

They expected Iran to change, but in practice, it was the United States which changed. I believe that an important mental shift has occurred in the minds of the US statesmen about the definition of a nuclear Iran. As a result of that change, the definition of the red line which should not be crossed by Iran, and the definition of “Iran's nuclear energy program” in a way that the United States would be able to accept it in a face-saving manner, have also changed.

During negotiations in Almaty, the two sides moved in the direction of strengthening their interactions. This interaction has created an atmosphere which has raised hope in the possibility of using the aforesaid mechanism for achieving final agreements, provided that both sides show respect for each other’s red lines. On the other hand, they should recognize their interests and show interest in solving the issue. Iran's nuclear issue is ten years old and further prolongation of negotiations will be undesirable for both of them.