Deal struck with Iran – but West must remain cautious

After marathon negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, officials from Iran and America announced that they have reached a preliminary agreement on Iran's nuclear programme. The basic principle is that Iran will "make drastic cuts to its nuclear programme in return for the gradual lifting of sanctions", says Julian Borger in The Guardian. The deal "does not cover all the issues in dispute and is intended to be only a precursor to a full, comprehensive and detailed agreement due to be completed by the end of June". However, the "joint statement and the details published in Lausanne represent a set of basic compromises that had eluded negotiators for many years".

The result is "a significant achievement that makes it more likely Iran will never be a nuclear threat", says The New York Times. It's true that "some important issues have not been resolved"; nonetheless, the agreement "appears more specific and comprehensive than expected". And as well as reducing the chances that Iran ever builds a bomb, "the negotiations have begun to ease more than 30 years of enmity". In the long run, "an agreement could make the Middle East safer and offer a path for Iran, the leading Shiite country, to rejoin the international community".

Rubbish, says The Times: the deal is "a triumph of naivety over caution". The agreement "invites Iran to explore yet more creative ways of cheating inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency". Note, for example, that the deal allows Iran to retain 6,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium, which is "far beyond the requirements of genuine research". Overall, the "West must be wary" since "pieces of paper drawn up with hostile states can lead to, rather than preclude, war".

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Caution is needed, agrees Nicholas Burns, the lead US negotiator on Iran in 2005-2008, in the FT. Yet the agreement is "a sensible step forward" and the fact that it exists at all is "testament to the power of diplomacy". However, "Iran's record of deception" shows how hard it may be to finalise a deal. "We have to assume that Tehran will again try to cheat," while Iranian "hardliners may yet try to scuttle the deal." The West "must resolve to impose tough sanctions again if Iran reneges".