Khatami’s attempts to open a dialogue with the West fell on stony ground in President George W. Bush’s Washington, and eventually he was replaced by the populist hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But in Rouhani’s discussions on proliferation back then, Iran had offered the three EU countries with which it had begun negotiations a reasonable compromise: Iran would maintain a civil but not a military nuclear capacity.
哈塔米与西方展开对话的尝试被美国总统小布什冷眼以对，而他最终也被民粹主义强硬派内贾德（Mahmoud Ahmadinejad）取代。但在当时鲁哈尼主持的核扩散问题讨论中，伊朗在谈判伊始便向三个欧盟国家提出了合理的妥协：伊朗将保留民用但非军用的核能力。该条件将把离心机数量限制在较低水平，核浓缩能力将不足以实现武器化，浓缩铀也将替换为用作核燃料的较低浓度的形式。