AN EXIT FROM THE TOP IN THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR CRISIS?

(Published on October, 16, 2017 by Lobelog.com)

Despite President Trump’s demands that it do so, Iran has no intention of renegotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Unless, of course, it will receive in exchange concessions that no one is likely to offer. In Tehran's internal politics, the JCPOA is a highly fragile product that has been imposed on fiercely competing factions. Why would Iran’s leadership be disposed to reopen this Pandora's box?

Yet outside Iran, a palpable frustration has been building in the absence of the hoped-for evolution in Iran’s foreign policy expected from the JCPOA’s successful implementation. Nor has the agreement produced the anticipated slowdown in Iranian ballistic-missile program. Hence, Trump’s "decertification” on the questionable grounds that Tehran is violating the “spirit” of the deal. To be fair, however, disappointment over Iran’s post-deal policies is perceptible in Europe as well.

If one believes in diplomacy, this unhealthy situation must be addressed.

Three Gestures on Non-Proliferation

On the non-proliferation front, the Islamic Republic could make in principle three positive gestures, none of which would prejudice its national interests, its basic policy positions, or its national pride. On the contrary, if combined, they would bring Iran to the highest international standard in terms of non-proliferation.

-          The first would be to ratify the Additional Protocol to its standard safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In 1993, Iran signed the Additional Protocol, which allows heightened inspections on nuclear facilities and materials, and is provisionally implementing its provisions in the framework of the JCPOA. In the same JCPOA, Iran pledged to present this Protocol to its parliament for ratification in 2023. An operative Additional Protocol is a prerequisite today for any country wishing to be recognized as the legitimate manager of a peaceful nuclear program. If Tehran is to be believed, such a recognition is exactly what Iran is pursuing. Since Iran is not gaining anything in the interim, why shouldn’t the government submit the Protocol for ratification now? After all, the current government maintains a fairly positive relationship with the present parliament, and who knows what political landscape will emerge from the 2020 parliamentary elections and the 2021 presidential elections?

·         The second gesture would be to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that Iran signed in 1996. By acceding to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) back in 1970, Tehran has already forsaken the possibility of acquiring a nuclear arsenal. As a result, ratifying the CTBT would not impose any new obligation. It would, however, be highly symbolic as the Islamic Republic would join for the first time in its history a major international non-proliferation instrument.

·         The third gesture would be to join the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation. The Code's members agree to disclose the composition of their stockpiles of missiles, to present annually the outline of their ballistic programs, and to announce their ballistic tests in advance. At a time of comprehensive satellite monitoring of ballistic-missile activities around the world, these commitments do not jeopardize the members' freedom of action, and send a significant confidence-building signal.

A venue for regional dialogue

But why would Iran take such initiatives when it is the United States that bears the responsibility of the present crisis and President Trump relishes the "chaos" he has created? Yet perhaps there could be a way to convince Iran to give it at least a try.

Most countries in the Middle East have not yet acceded to the Additional Protocol with the IAEA, nor have they joined the CTBT or the Hague Code of Conduct. This applies in particular to major countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The invitation to all these countries to envision a simultaneous accession to these three instruments would indeed constitute an important step forward. It would moreover offer a venue for dialogue between Iran and its neighbors.

With regard to concerns about Iran’s ballistic-missile program, in particular, it would permit Tehran to put forward its quite reasonable objections to accepting unilateral commitments in the field of defense. It would also be a first response to Iran's constant appeal for the creation of a collective security system in its region. And opportunities might arise for addressing other subjects of contention in the region, notably Syria and Yemen. Of course, Israel would be missing. But as long as most of these countries, Iran in the forefront, do not recognize the State of Israel, they cannot expect it to join such an initiative.

Who, then, could launch such an endeavor? Obviously, the United States under President Trump is not in the appropriate state of mind. Could this then be an opportunity for Europe? French President Emmanuel Macron has just announced that he has spoken with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani about the possibility of paying a visit to Tehran. Such a gesture would represent a highly symbolic opening. If, at the same time, the perspective of a regional negotiation around the Additional Protocol, the CTBT, and the Hague Code of Conduct could take shape, Washington could be asked at least to encourage its friends in the Arabian Peninsula to take part and to refrain from gestures that could destabilize the process. Turkey, which is already party to these three instruments, could also help.

Of course, some voices will dismiss such an initiative as doomed to fail. But diplomacy means to never give up, to always try.

The Additional Protocol and Beyond: A Legal and Political Point of View

Nobody knows the exact content of the Additional Protocol signed by Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December 2003. That protocol was designed to complement and reinforce the somewhat outdated Safeguards Agreement signed by the same two parties in 1973, which entered into force the following year. Iran did not present the protocol to its parliament for ratification but applied it as a goodwill gesture from 2004 to February 2006, when Tehran was dragged before the Security Council. The text of this protocol has never been published, and we must thus believe Mr. Yukio Amano, the director general of the IAEA, when he tells us that this document allows his agency to investigate all types of Iranian locations, be they civilian or military. We also know that the Iranian Supreme Leader has vehemently forbidden his negotiators to accept a future agreement that permits just any kind of intrusion of the IAEA into military facilities or access by IAEA inspectors to Tehran’s nuclear scientists.

On the other hand, we can assume that the content of the Additional Protocol signed between the IAEA and Iran is not significantly different from the model Additional Protocol, text available on the Agency website. If this is the case, what exactly are the rights and duties of Iran under the provisions of such an agreement? This is a point of major importance, as Iran has accepted, in the Lausanne framework for the future Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to be finalized by the end of June—with the “P5+1” group of China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States—to voluntarily implement, again, the Additional Protocol signed in 2003, pending ratification by its parliament.

The model Additional Protocol makes it clear that the IAEA has a right of access to any place, site, location, or facility, thus implicitly including military sites. But the grounds on which the Agency can seek such access are precisely defined. They must relate to the presence of nuclear material or nuclear fuel cycle-related research and development activities. In other words, the IAEA inspectors are entitled to look for fissionable material or sources of fissionable material—mainly uranium and plutonium—and activities related to the management of such material in processes such as conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, operation of nuclear reactors, and fuel reprocessing. But any activities related to theoretical or basic scientific research are outside the IAEA’s domain. Even under the Additional Protocol, its inspectors are not authorized to enter any building or any office, or open any drawer in search of just any kind of document.

“Possible Military Dimensions”

Strangely enough, activities properly dedicated to the engineering of a nuclear explosive device are not covered by the model Additional Protocol, as long as those activities do not include some use or manipulation of uranium or plutonium. This means, for example, that the IAEA’s repeated requests to inspect a specific building located in the sprawling military complex of Parchin—where it suspects that Iran conducted experiments in the late 1990s with classical explosives capable of triggering a nuclear explosion—do not fall under the scope of the Additional Protocol. And this should also be the case for all the other requests submitted by the Agency on the ground of “possible military dimensions” (PMD) of the Iranian nuclear program.

In the Agency’s jargon, these “possible military dimensions” cover activities conducted for the most part before 2003, the date on which the American intelligence community, followed later by the IAEA itself, considers that Iran halted a clandestine weaponization program by a decision taken at the highest political level. We know that the P5+1, or at least its Western members, are eager to clarify the PMD question. But the above analysis of the scope and limits of the Additional Protocol leads to the conclusion that the protocol does not cover that question. It should be addressed in a separate chapter of the future JCPOA, still to be completed, that is sometimes referred to as “Additional Protocol Plus.”

This should also be the case regarding the IAEA’s request to interview Iranian scientists. The Model Additional Protocol does not specifically consider this type of activity in the definition of “verification activities” that the Agency is entitled to conduct. But it could rightly be considered as part of information-gathering procedures pertaining to the implementation of the basic Safeguards Agreement as well as the Additional Protocol. Even so, such interviews should not blur the borders of these two documents. They should be limited to collecting data related to uranium and plutonium present on Iran territory and to nuclear fuel cycle-related research and development activities. But again, the questions that the IAEA would like to ask in order to clarify the “possible military dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program go much beyond these definitions and belong rather to an “Additional Protocol Plus.”

Bad Memories and Fears

The provisions contemplated for such an “Additional Protocol Plus” naturally revive unpleasant memories for the Iranians. They were not, of course, directly concerned about the investigations conducted by the United Nations and the IAEA on Iraqi territory after the first Gulf War in search of production sites and stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But various reports regarding rough behavior and poor secrecy discipline of some of the UN inspection teams reverberated throughout the region and beyond. The whole episode was perceived as humiliating to any sovereign State.

And there is also the Stuxnet affair, which although not linked to IAEA inspections, certainly resonated negatively as an act of aggression by one or more foreign powers. The introduction by a foreign hand of this highly destructive computer virus in a centrifuge-monitoring program produced by Siemens was made possible by Iran’s interaction with the outside world. Iranians also cannot forget the serial assassinations of their nuclear scientists between 2010 and 2012. There is also no link here with IAEA verification activities, but these murders likely were related to some kind of international cooperation. Three of the victims participated in the Sesame project, a regional scientific venture around a synchrotron based in Jordan and run by nine participants: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey. Those scientists therefore had to travel to Amman, thus making them easy targets for clandestine collection of information on their residences, personal relationships and other data of interest for an intelligence service. Some observers also consider that, contrary to its previous record, the IAEA has developed somewhat unwholesome relationships in recent years with various intelligence services, relationships that, while allowing the Agency to expand its information base, has also enhanced the risk of its manipulation.

All these elements certainly loom large in the minds of the Iranian negotiators, making them particularly suspicious of any proposal regarding verification requirements that go beyond the limits of their Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol. On one hand, the suspicions raised by Iran’s previous infractions of its non-proliferation obligations make it difficult for the IAEA to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear activities on Iranian territory without having at its disposal, at least for a given period of time, some kind of toolbox allowing it to probe into possible weaponization activities. And the issuance of such a clean bill of health is an essential step for creating long-standing confidence between Iran and the international community.

On the other hand, the Iranians fear that such a toolbox could very well turn into a kind of Pandora’s box, paving the way for never-ending and ever more intrusive inquiries. Making things even more difficult, Iranian scientists, engineers, and officers who may have played a role in the covert nuclear program halted in late 2003 have most likely obtained from the Supreme Leader himself some kind of pledge of immunity and personal protection in exchange for their compliance with such a painful decision. As a result, negotiators on both sides must deploy all their imagination and ingenuity in finding a mutually acceptable solution to the highly divisive issue of an “Additional Protocol Plus.”

(as published by the website Lobelog on June 2, 2015)

Lights and Shadows of the Lausanne Agreement

                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                             April 5, 2015

The results obtained in Lausanne on April 2 in the negotiation between the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) and Iran represent an outstanding landmark in the long process initiated by the first contacts in 2012 between Iran and the United States under the aegis of the Sultan of Oman. This process was bolstered by the November 24, 2013 Joint Plan of Action establishing the method, the accompanying confidence-building measures, and the end goals of the negotiation of a comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. Now, the Lausanne arrangements appear to have removed a significant number of stumbling blocks on the way to such an agreement, allowing us at long last to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Reached through exceptional efforts by the American and Iranian delegations, it can be hailed as a success of the U.S. team led by Secretary of State John Kerry, which displayed an extraordinary amount of perseverance, imagination, and initiative to circumvent Iranian resistance and finally win the day.

At the same time, an analyst owes the truth to its readers. Two documents seem to constitute the visible bulk of the Lausanne arrangements. First, a Joint Statement read successively to the press by EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif; second, a document issued almost simultaneously by the US State Department Press Office, and entitled “Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program.” The first one is rather short and drafted in general terms. The second is much more detailed, with precise figures, percentages, and time spans, such as the number of first-generation centrifuges allowed to spin over a period of 10 years, or the maximum stockpile of low enriched uranium (3.67% at most) allowed on Iranian soil over a period of 15 years.

Of the two documents, only the first can be considered as being formally agreed by all the parties. The second has been issued unilaterally, under the sole responsibility of the American side. We presume of course that American diplomacy behaves in a responsible way and, therefore, that the Iranian delegation has judged the numerous parameters listed in this document as at least acceptable. But this is the most that we can say. The first paragraph of this second document underlines that these key parameters have been “decided in Lausanne” but does not say by whom exactly. It reminds the reader that these parameters “form the foundation upon which the final text of the JCPOA will be written between now and June 30, and reflect the significant progress that has been made in discussions.” Needless to say, in diplomatic language, there is still a long way between “significant progress in discussions” and a real agreement. And the paragraph concludes with the now consecrated formula: “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” In other words, at this point in time, nothing is agreed.

As for the short Joint Statement, which reflects the common understanding of the parties, it speaks indeed of solutions reached on “key parameters,” thus alluding to the American document. But it does not say explicitly that all the delegations have agreed to these solutions. On the positive side, however, the Iranian authorities have not yet raised any formal protest following the publication of the “Parameters” document, which contrasts with what happened in November 2013 after the Americans had issued a similar document giving their own vision of the Joint Plan of Action just agreed upon. This time, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted that “The solutions are good for all, as they stand. There is no need to spin using ‘fact sheets’ so early on.” This can be read as a veiled critique of the “Parameters” document but not as an outright rejection. It should also be kept in mind that the Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, publicly dismissed last February the idea of a two-stage deal, thus preventing the Iranian delegation from joining in Lausanne any kind of interim detailed agreement. All in all, these parameters can certainly be considered as a kind of resource bank for building the final agreement and a basis for discussion for all the parties. But obviously the road to the comprehensive, detailed agreement expected at the end of June will still be hard, bumpy, and full of booby traps.

At the present time, the indisputable bedrock on which the Parties are invited to build an agreement consists only of the formulas found in the Joint Statement:

• “Iran’s enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specified durations… there will be no other enrichment facility than Natanz;”
• “Iran’s research and development on centrifuges will be carried out on a scope and schedule that has been mutually agreed;”
• “Fordow will be converted from an enrichment site into a nuclear, physics and technology centre…There will not be any fissile material at Fordow;” 
• “A modernized Heavy Water Research Reactor in Arak …will not produce weapons grade plutonium;”
• “A set of measures has been agreed… including implementation of the modified Code 3.1 and provisional application of the Additional Protocol;”
• The EU will terminate the implementation of all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions and the US will cease the application of all nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions, simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation by Iran of its key nuclear commitments;”
• “A new UN Security Council Resolution will endorse the JCPOA, terminate all previous nuclear-related resolutions and incorporate certain restrictive measures for a mutually agreed period of time.” 

This is already plenty, enough to characterize the Lausanne arrangement as a success, and to be optimistic about the final result.

One concluding remark. A silence looms large over the results of the Lausanne meetings. Why do we not find in any of the available documents or the flow of accompanying declarations produced in Lausanne at least a signal encouraging Iran to consider ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which forbids all kinds of nuclear explosions for military as well as civilian purposes? As we know, Iran was among the first countries to sign this treaty in 1996 but has not yet ratified it. Its ratification within the framework of the future Comprehensive Plan of Action would be an overwhelmingly positive indication for the international community and provide an added solemn guarantee about the peaceful intentions of Iran in the nuclear field. There is an explanation, of course, for this strange neglect. Two members of the P5+1 group, whose ratification of the Treaty would help it enter into force, still hold back on their own decision: China and the United States. This is how it goes with non-proliferation.

(as published on April 5, 2015 by the Lobelog website : http://www.lobelog.com/lights-and-shadows-of-the-lausanne-agreement/)

Security Council Resolutions : Barrier to Iran Nuclear Deal?

published on the LobeLog website

This is not the first time that we may have trapped ourselves when drafting UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that were intended to trap another country—in this case, Iran. The present situation recalls in some respects the period around 1997 when most Security Council members would have liked to rescind, or at least amend, the sanctions adopted against the regime of Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, as their effects were obviously getting out of hand: widespread corruption, and the dramatic deterioration of the Iraqi population’s state of health, to name a couple. But any change in the sanctions would have required unanimity from the five permanent members of the Council, and that was definitely out of reach. The situation led French President Jacques Chirac to express his frustration. “We want to convince, not coerce,” he said. “I have never observed that the policy of sanctions can produce positive effects.”

We have not yet reached such a dramatic juncture with Iran. But should it become useful to rapidly lift the sanctions imposed by the four UNSC resolutions between 2006 and 2010 in order to secure a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Western negotiators may find themselves incapable of delivering and may instead try to kick the can down the road to some point in the distant future.

Aimed at halting Iran’s military, nuclear and ballistic activities, these UNSC resolutions are not the ones that hurt the most. More destructive are those unilateral measures imposed by the United States and the European Union, since they were designed essentially to destabilize the Iranian economy. But the UNSC sanctions carry with them a “pillory effect” that the Iranians perceive, quite correctly, as deeply humiliating. They also provide the legal bedrock upon which the European sanctions, in particular, have been constructed. The Iranians are therefore anxious to see them lifted as soon as possible through a decision by the Security Council to close the file it opened in 2006 and return it to the forum from which it should never have been taken: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The conditions for terminating these resolutions, however, are also overwhelming. In fact, the people who drafted them seem to have been pursuing two not necessarily compatible goals at the same time.

The first goal was to pile up all the preconditions that the authors believed were necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a deliverable nuclear device, including:

-       suspending all activities related to enrichment and reprocessing, including research, development, and construction of new facilities;

-       suspending all activities related to the construction of a heavy-water research reactor;

-       providing immediate access to all sites, equipment, persons and documents requested by the IAEA in order to verify Iran’s compliance with the Security Council decisions and to resolve all outstanding issues related to the possible military dimensions (PMD) of the Iranian nuclear program;

-       promptly ratifying the Additional Protocol to Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA; and

-       suspending all efforts to develop ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Considering the context in which these resolutions were adopted, there was little chance that the Iranians would comply with such an elaborate and comprehensive set of so-called “confidence-building measures,” which would have forced Tehran to abandon virtually all of its nuclear and ballistic-missile ambitions.

The second goal was substantively quite different from the first and indeed somehow contradictory. It aimed to push Iran into negotiations, as illustrated by the formula that was included in all the UNSC sanctions resolutions, which ritually expressed the “conviction” that Iran’s compliance “would contribute to a diplomatic, negotiated solution.” Moreover, if Iran suspended its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the Council declared its willingness in return to suspend at least some of its sanctions in order “to allow for negotiations in good faith” and “reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome.”

As we now know, a negotiation process ultimately was initiated, albeit through a radically different path, as the West dropped its demand that Iran fully suspend all its sensitive nuclear activities before entering into substantive talks. One can therefore assume that the second goal will be accomplished as soon as a comprehensive agreement, which will hopefully emerge from the current round of talks in Vienna, enters into force, thus rendering this dimension of the UNSC’s resolutions totally obsolete.

But of course, the resolutions’ first dimension—the exhaustive inventory of “confidence-building measures”—remains in place. Because confidence is essentially an elusive and subjective feeling, taking this path involves embarking on a long-term, winding and always reversible road, the end of which is only faintly discernible now. Such a process is also hardly compatible with the “on-off” mechanism of the Security Council: there is no chance that its resolutions, once cancelled, could be reintroduced. Hence the strong reluctance of the Western powers to commit themselves to such an outcome.

We also all know that the sanctions are much easier to adopt than to rescind, as they tend to create, in the meantime, their own logic and dynamics. They develop new balances of power and vested interests, if only among those in authority who have dedicated themselves so thoroughly to the sanctions’ implementation and enforcement. One has only to recall the notorious example of the general embargo imposed by the Allies against Germany during the First World War whose continuation for several months after the 1918 Armistice unnecessarily prolonged the suffering of the German people and deepened the bitterness of their defeat.

Are Iran’s negotiating partners ready to learn the lessons of history? The Gordian knot that the UNSC sanctions represent should be slashed asunder, if not immediately upon the signing of a comprehensive agreement with Iran, then at least after a moderately short period in which Iran’s determination to comply with its terms could be confirmed. Such a gesture could also be linked appropriately to the formal ratification by Iran’s parliament of the Additional Protocol that Tehran had signed during an unsuccessful round of talks back in 2003—the two moves being equally irreversible.

This would not mean that pending requests made to Iran, such as the ancient issue of the “possible military dimensions” (PMD) of its nuclear program, would have to be abandoned. But it would mean that these requests would thenceforward be dealt with exclusively by the IAEA. It would also mean that the Council, in light of the progress achieved after the signing of a final deal, would no longer consider the Iranian situation a “threat to the peace” under the terms of the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, the only chapter that authorizes the use of coercive measures against a Member State in order “to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

It's time to abandon posturing on Iran

HAARETZ november 5, 2013

Seven former European ambassadors to Tehran: With a 10-year delay after Europe's lead, the United States and Iran are finally committed to serious talks. But they must move fast. 

As ambassadors to Tehran, we have all lived in Iran for several years. We are sure that the current nuclear negotiations between Tehran and six countries representing the international community can advance not only the cause of non-proliferation and stability in the Middle-East but also the everyday well-being of all the people in the region.

The direction these negotiations take will determine whether Iran’s situation will become even worse and its behavior more extreme, or whether it will make progress in welfare, civil liberties and human rights.

It is true that over the years the Iranian nuclear imbroglio has been a major impediment to any positive evolution. The most recent round of negotiations in Geneva showed that everyone is conscious of this and that everyone claims an intention to escape from the deadlock, but it showed as well that the hardest work lies ahead. Past experiences have left a deep divide of mutual mistrust between the parties: all should accept that trust is seldom present at the outset of a negotiation, but is a by-product of clear and verifiable agreements, faithfully implemented. If the parties can reach a good agreement and abide scrupulously by it, trust will blossom.

A good agreement is built on compromises. But it must also preserve essentials. For the international community, the critical point of the Iranian issue is that there should be an impassable barrier to weapons proliferation. For Iran, it lies in international recognition of its right to implement the main technologies of a major civil nuclear program. These two goals are legitimate.

If the negotiators were to fail to build an agreement on these bases, they would prejudice the future of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. These two cardinal instruments of world peace hold the keys to the solution of the Iranian nuclear crisis. To be faithful to those who have given them life and shape over the years, today’s negotiators have a duty to succeed.

And they should move fast, for at least three reasons. First, they would be well advised not to prolong needlessly the hardships inflicted on the Iranian people by international and bilateral sanctions. Second, it would be wise to remove as soon as possible by a good agreement the sincere and deep concerns of neighboring peoples, as in Israel and several Arab countries, about unchecked development of the Iranian nuclear program. Third, it would be good tactics to outpace those who, for various but converging motives, have started to mobilize in order to thwart any agreement with Iran.

Addressing ourselves to the Europeans who have been working on this issue for ten years, to the Americans who have at long last determined to take diplomacy in hand, and to the Iranians who have now set out seriously on the path of negotiation, we ask everyone to abandon posturing and time-wasting once and for all. We encourage you to negotiate firmly, concretely, and with a full intention to succeed. You cannot afford to disappoint the people of the region and beyond: they expect too much from you for that.

Richard Dalton (United Kingdom), Christofer Gyllenstierna (Sweden), Paul von Maltzahn (Germany), Guillaume Metten (Belgium), François Nicoullaud (France), Leopoldo Stampa (Spain), Roberto Toscano (Italy),