„Ne hagyd,hogy Genfben 2013 úgy alakuljon mint Münchenben 1938”

As talks between Iranian negotiators and the West over Tehran’s contentious nuclear program entered their second day in Geneva on Wednesday, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said that Israel was following the talks „with hope and concern.”

„Hope,” he said, „because we haven’t ruled out a diplomatic resolution, and if a serious, satisfactory agreement that distances Iran from nuclear capability is formulated, we would welcome it. It would be beneficial for both sides.”

„Concern,” he went on to explain, „because we fear that Geneva 2013 will turn into Munich 1938. History once knew an agreement that was celebrated by the entire world and then, a year later, World War II broke out.”

Speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Steinitz remarked that „the nuclear standoff has an obvious, logical solution: Iran can have a nuclear reactor to supply peaceful needs like the production of electricity and energy, like many other countries such as Canada and Mexico, while enrichment capabilities will be disarmed.”

Meanwhile Wednesday, Iran suggested it was ready to address calls to give the United Nations atomic watchdog wider inspection powers as part of Tehran’s proposals to resolve a decade-old nuclear dispute with the West.

The comments, made by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, appeared to be the first specific indication of what concessions Tehran might be prepared to make in return for the removal of sanctions hurting its oil-dependent economy.

Iran presented a three-phase plan for ending the standoff over its nuclear program during the first day of an Oct. 15-16 meeting with six world powers in Geneva on Tuesday. The talks were due to resume later on Wednesday.

Iran did not give details of its proposal On Tuesday, but said it included monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear body which regularly inspects declared Iranian facilities.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency asked Araqchi about the issues of uranium enrichment and the so-called Additional Protocol to Iran’s agreement with the IAEA.

„Neither of these issues are within the first step (of the Iranian proposal) but form part of our last steps,” he replied without going into further details, in comments reported on Wednesday.

The Additional Protocol allows unannounced inspections outside of declared nuclear sites and it is seen as a vital tool at the IAEA’s disposal to make sure that a country does not have any hidden nuclear work.

The world powers have long demanded that Iran implement the protocol. Iran says it is voluntary. The six world powers known as the P5+1 — the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia — also want Iran to scale back its uranium enrichment program and suspend higher-level activity.

Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, Iran’s stated aim, but can also provide the fissile core of a nuclear bomb if processed further, which the West fears may be Tehran’s ultimate goal.

Western diplomats have stressed repeatedly that they want Tehran to back up its newly conciliatory language with concrete actions.

Both sides are trying to dampen expectations of any rapid breakthrough at the two-day meeting, the first to be held since Iranian President Hasan Rouhani took office, promising conciliation over confrontation in Iran’s relations with the world.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who oversees diplomacy with Iran on behalf of the P5+1, said that „There is still an awful lot of work to be done.”

„We have had a certain amount of information from the Iranian side and we will hope to get more detail from them tomorrow,” spokesman Michael Mann said after the first day of talks.

His statement suggested Iran had yet to persuade Western nations it was willing to curb the nuclear work and assure them this was purely for peaceful energy production and medical purposes, as Tehran says. In the Tuesday session, negotiators had started discussing the „nitty-gritty” details of Iranian suggestions, Mann said.

Araqchi said his side had presented a proposal capable of achieving a breakthrough. But he later added it was not possible to tell whether progress was being made. „It’s too soon to judge,” he told Reuters.

Rouhani’s election in June raised hopes in the West that Iran was finally ready to strike a deal. Tehran is anxious to win relief from Western-led sanctions which have crippled its economy, cut its oil export revenues 60 percent and brought about a devaluation of its currency, the rial.

The White House warned against expecting quick results from the talks, saying they were complex and technical and that economic pressure on Teheran would remain.

At the heart of the dispute are the Iranian efforts to enrich uranium to 20% fissile purity, an advance that would bring it close to producing weapons-grade fuel.

Iran has previously spurned Western demands that it abandon such work as an initial step in return for modest sanctions relief, and has repeatedly called for the most painful trade sanctions, such as in the oil sector, to be lifted.

Western diplomats have said their demands on the 20% uranium must be addressed before progress can be made. But some diplomats acknowledged before the Geneva talks that the offer might be changed substantially depending on what concessions Iran offers.

A U.S. administration official said any possible reduction of sanctions would be „targeted, proportional to what Iran puts on the table.”