Iran's supreme religious leader has acted in an exceptionally
high-profile manner on recent atomic discussions with six major
governments, suggesting Iranian diplomats would enjoy his unambiguous
backing in potentially seeking to defuse a long-running standoff over
suspected nuclear weapons activities, the Christian Science Monitor on Friday quoted experts on the Middle Eastern nation as saying (see GSN, May 3).
Diplomats from Tehran are scheduled on May 23 to meet in Baghdad with representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States in an effort to resolve international concerns that Tehran's atomic activities are geared toward establishment of an Iranian nuclear-weapon capability. Iran has maintained its nuclear efforts are aimed strictly toward civilian ends. The gathering would follow up on an April session in Istanbul, Turkey.
Support from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields the final word on all Iranian policy decisions, would shield a possible atomic deal against domestic legislative disputes like the challenges faced by an agreement hashed out in 2009, the Monitor reported (see GSN, Jan. 20, 2010). Many observers believe Khamenei would back a negotiated resolution if the intensifying economic pressure against Iran endangered the existence of its present government, according to the newspaper.
At the same time, Khamenei's highly publicized link to the dialogue indicates his country's delegates could behave less flexibly in hammering out an agreement, specialists in Iran said. The elimination of economic penalties against Iran is the country's "minimum expectation" of the multilateral process, Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel, a high-level counselor to the supreme leader, said on Wednesday.
“The leader's (open) involvement in the whole process is a major shift because until now, he had never done it," according to one unidentified expert in Tehran. "This means Iran's negotiators will have a lot more leeway in the compromises they make, and that whatever they commit to will stick."
"So Iran will negotiate,” the observer said. “But he's taking the lead in foreign policy because he thinks (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad was too compromising in the past.”
U.S. specialists anticipate Tehran will demand concessions unacceptable to the six other negotiating nations.
“There are indications Iran could be preparing its elite and the population for some sort of deal. But the Iranian side will also be looking for some of the sanctions to be rolled back, and that could be more difficult,” RAND expert Alireza Nader said. “There are a lot of steps to be taken, and the process could really face hurdles along each of those steps. Looking at the Baghdad negotiations, I don't think you should expect a 'final solution'" (Roshanak Taghavi, Christian Science Monitor, May 4).
Tehran on Friday reaffirmed its refusal to halt operations at the subterranean Qum uranium enrichment facility, Reuters reported. The uranium enrichment process has the potential to generate civilian nuclear fuel as well as bomb material.
The five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany intended in negotiations to seek an end to activities at the site as well as Iranian production of 20 percent enriched uranium, a high-level U.S. government insider said last month (see GSN, April 9). The leader of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization quickly ruled out compliance with the first demand (see GSN, April 10).
The nation's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday said he saw "no justification" for shuttering the facility, which he noted is subject to U.N. monitoring.
"When you have a safe place, secure place under IAEA control, then why do you tell me that I should close it?" Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh asked, stressing his nation had constructed the facility to improve protection of its atomic assets against possible military action by Israel or the United States.
"[Qum] is a safe place. We have spent a lot of money and time to have a safe place," he said.
Iranian uranium enrichment would "never be suspended," according to the official. "Neither sanctions, nor military actions, nor terror against our scientists will stop the enrichment."
Soltanieh refused to discuss requests by Western powers for an end to the country's manufacturing of 20 percent enriched uranium. Tehran says it needs the material for operating a medical isotope production reactor, while the United States and other nations worry the operation is a key step toward production of weapon-grade material, which requires an enrichment level of roughly 90 percent (Fredrik Dahl, Reuters I, May 4).
Beijing should back multilateral steps to address Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday, adding that preventing the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran is an objective China holds in common with her country.
Washington hopes to resolve the manner without military force, Clinton added during a stop in the Chinese capital.
"The best way to achieve the diplomatic solution we all seek is to stay strong and united,” Agence France-Presse quoted Clinton as stating in comments written for delivery to high-level Chinese government personnel. “If we ease off the pressure or waver in our resolve, Iran will have less incentive to negotiate in good faith or to take the necessary steps to address the international community’s concerns about its nuclear program.”
China and India as of June 28 could fall subject to unilateral U.S. penalties targeting state importers of petroleum from Iran. Each nation has curbed purchases of unrefined Iranian oil while publicly taking issue with the U.S. measures.
Clinton is scheduled to start a trip to India at the beginning of next week, and the petroleum matter is an anticipated priority during her stay, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse I/Dawn, May 4).
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday said Iran's atomic policy might in the future enable the state to construct a nuclear weapon in 60 days, Reuters.
"They are currently trying to achieve immunity for the nuclear program," Barak said in an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper. "If they arrive at military nuclear capability, at a weapon, or a demonstrated capability, or a threshold status in which they could manufacture a bomb within 60 days -- they will achieve a different kind of immunity, regime immunity."
The minister countered former Israeli General Security Service head Yuval Diskin's suggestion last week that Tel Aviv was promoting a "false impression" of an Israeli capability to fully end Iranian nuclear activities.
"This is not so. We have been talking all the time about a delay," Barak said, suggesting Israeli leaders could consider merely setting back Iran's atomic progress to be a worthwhile endeavor.
Iran might view Israel's possible elimination through nuclear force to justify the possibility of a devastating backlash, the official added. Israel is widely thought to presently be the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed state, but the nation has publicly neither confirmed nor denied possessing such weapons.
"After the exchange of strikes, Islam would remain and Israel would no longer be what it was," he said (Dan Williams, Reuters II, May 4).
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and one-time top intelligence officials are harming Tel Aviv's bid to rein in Iranian atomic activities, the Xinhua News Agency quoted him as telling the Israeli newspaper (see GSN, May 1).
"The Olmert gang is traveling the world and saying things that weaken Israel's significant accomplishment of turning the Iranian issue into an important and urgent one -- not only to Israel but to the world," Barak said. "It isn't hard to see that this is only serving Iran."
Iran "is not even [Diskin's] field of expertise or his responsibility, and the government is the one that has to make decisions," he added (Xinhua News Agency I, May 3).
Israeli President Shimon Peres, though, warned on Thursday of possible negative repercussions from taking advance military action against Iran's nuclear efforts.
“You must ask, what will be the next step?” Peres told the Globe and Mail. “In order to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear(-armed) country you have to introduce a system of verification and inspection,” he said, suggesting an armed offensive could endanger development of the arrangement.
“Say if somebody wants to attack Iran -- that’s good, but what will happen after the attack?” he asked. “Some people say it will make Iran powerless for two to three years. That’s not good enough" (Patrick Martin, Globe and Mail, May 3).
Delegates for the six powers negotiating with Iran are "not naive," but are still hopeful about the potential for achieving progress in the atomic discussions, Haaretz quoted high-level personnel for the United Kingdom as saying in talks with Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror. The Israeli official since Sunday has been in the British capital to address matters related to Iran; he spoke with his British equivalent, Kim Darroch, Foreign Secretary William Hague and high-level intelligence and defense insiders.
"There were very intense discussions on Iran," British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould told Haaretz following his participation in the exchange. "We compared notes about the negotiations approach, about how we continue to tighten sanctions and about the analysis of the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. The level of cooperation between the two countries is very high."
"We are very clear, we are absolutely not naive about Iran's intentions and about Iran's negotiation tactics," the newspaper on Friday quoted Gould as saying. "The people in London who deal with this dossier have been dealing with Iran for years and years."
The world powers "will not let Iran use those negotiations simply to buy time," the British envoy added. "These will not be open-ended negotiations and if Iran thinks it can just string those negotiations out to avert further pressure they are totally wrong."
"Iran will not get something for nothing. We will not be lifting sanctions simply because the atmosphere of the talks is constructive. Iran needs to come to the table with concrete proposals for how it can rebuild the trust of the international community. We will judge Iran by its actions and take our decisions accordingly. People who are worried that we are going to get carried away with a kind of negotiating warmth and that suddenly we will dismantle the sanctions regime don't need to worry," Gould said.
Only substantive Iranian actions could prompt cancellation of a European Union ban on Iranian petroleum set to take effect on July 1, the official added. "Iran must not think and Israel must not worry that just because we are talking the pressure is off Iran," he said.
"We all agree that a negotiated peaceful solution to this is better than the alternative," Gould said. "If this is the case, we need to at least keep the door open to the possibility that these talks might succeed. We need to be ready to take yes for an answer. I know there is concern in some quarters in Israel that the P-5+1 will give away all the leverage we have with the sanctions just to get an agreement. I think our record on this issue should give confidence that we are not trying to get an agreement just for the sake of an agreement" (Barak Ravid, Haaretz, May 4).
Germany's top diplomat on Friday said Iran's present atomic work "represents an enormous danger" to Israel and the surrounding area, AFP reported.
"We cannot and will not accept an Iranian nuclear weapon," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle added in remarks to a Jewish lobbying organization in Washington. "We need substantive and verifiable guarantees that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon."
"Our patience is limited. We will not accept playing for time," Westerwelle said, adding "the Iranian regime continues to threaten Israel with annihilation."
"I want you to know that we will continue to stand by Israel's side," he said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, May 4).
Tel Aviv should avoid launching strikes against Iranian atomic holdings, the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba as telling his Israeli counterpart on Tuesday.
"Military operations would give Iran an excuse for going ahead with nuclear development and increase instability in the region, so patience and self-restraint are called for on the part of Israel," Gemba told Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Hiroyuki Ishida, Yomiuri Shimbun, May 3).
Iran's Bushehr atomic energy facility is performing at nine-tenths of its potential and would reach peak output on May 23, Xinhua quoted the site's Russian state-run construction firm as saying on Thursday.
http://www.nti.org/gsn/
Diplomats from Tehran are scheduled on May 23 to meet in Baghdad with representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States in an effort to resolve international concerns that Tehran's atomic activities are geared toward establishment of an Iranian nuclear-weapon capability. Iran has maintained its nuclear efforts are aimed strictly toward civilian ends. The gathering would follow up on an April session in Istanbul, Turkey.
Support from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields the final word on all Iranian policy decisions, would shield a possible atomic deal against domestic legislative disputes like the challenges faced by an agreement hashed out in 2009, the Monitor reported (see GSN, Jan. 20, 2010). Many observers believe Khamenei would back a negotiated resolution if the intensifying economic pressure against Iran endangered the existence of its present government, according to the newspaper.
At the same time, Khamenei's highly publicized link to the dialogue indicates his country's delegates could behave less flexibly in hammering out an agreement, specialists in Iran said. The elimination of economic penalties against Iran is the country's "minimum expectation" of the multilateral process, Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel, a high-level counselor to the supreme leader, said on Wednesday.
“The leader's (open) involvement in the whole process is a major shift because until now, he had never done it," according to one unidentified expert in Tehran. "This means Iran's negotiators will have a lot more leeway in the compromises they make, and that whatever they commit to will stick."
"So Iran will negotiate,” the observer said. “But he's taking the lead in foreign policy because he thinks (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad was too compromising in the past.”
U.S. specialists anticipate Tehran will demand concessions unacceptable to the six other negotiating nations.
“There are indications Iran could be preparing its elite and the population for some sort of deal. But the Iranian side will also be looking for some of the sanctions to be rolled back, and that could be more difficult,” RAND expert Alireza Nader said. “There are a lot of steps to be taken, and the process could really face hurdles along each of those steps. Looking at the Baghdad negotiations, I don't think you should expect a 'final solution'" (Roshanak Taghavi, Christian Science Monitor, May 4).
Tehran on Friday reaffirmed its refusal to halt operations at the subterranean Qum uranium enrichment facility, Reuters reported. The uranium enrichment process has the potential to generate civilian nuclear fuel as well as bomb material.
The five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany intended in negotiations to seek an end to activities at the site as well as Iranian production of 20 percent enriched uranium, a high-level U.S. government insider said last month (see GSN, April 9). The leader of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization quickly ruled out compliance with the first demand (see GSN, April 10).
The nation's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday said he saw "no justification" for shuttering the facility, which he noted is subject to U.N. monitoring.
"When you have a safe place, secure place under IAEA control, then why do you tell me that I should close it?" Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh asked, stressing his nation had constructed the facility to improve protection of its atomic assets against possible military action by Israel or the United States.
"[Qum] is a safe place. We have spent a lot of money and time to have a safe place," he said.
Iranian uranium enrichment would "never be suspended," according to the official. "Neither sanctions, nor military actions, nor terror against our scientists will stop the enrichment."
Soltanieh refused to discuss requests by Western powers for an end to the country's manufacturing of 20 percent enriched uranium. Tehran says it needs the material for operating a medical isotope production reactor, while the United States and other nations worry the operation is a key step toward production of weapon-grade material, which requires an enrichment level of roughly 90 percent (Fredrik Dahl, Reuters I, May 4).
Beijing should back multilateral steps to address Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday, adding that preventing the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran is an objective China holds in common with her country.
Washington hopes to resolve the manner without military force, Clinton added during a stop in the Chinese capital.
"The best way to achieve the diplomatic solution we all seek is to stay strong and united,” Agence France-Presse quoted Clinton as stating in comments written for delivery to high-level Chinese government personnel. “If we ease off the pressure or waver in our resolve, Iran will have less incentive to negotiate in good faith or to take the necessary steps to address the international community’s concerns about its nuclear program.”
China and India as of June 28 could fall subject to unilateral U.S. penalties targeting state importers of petroleum from Iran. Each nation has curbed purchases of unrefined Iranian oil while publicly taking issue with the U.S. measures.
Clinton is scheduled to start a trip to India at the beginning of next week, and the petroleum matter is an anticipated priority during her stay, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse I/Dawn, May 4).
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday said Iran's atomic policy might in the future enable the state to construct a nuclear weapon in 60 days, Reuters.
"They are currently trying to achieve immunity for the nuclear program," Barak said in an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper. "If they arrive at military nuclear capability, at a weapon, or a demonstrated capability, or a threshold status in which they could manufacture a bomb within 60 days -- they will achieve a different kind of immunity, regime immunity."
The minister countered former Israeli General Security Service head Yuval Diskin's suggestion last week that Tel Aviv was promoting a "false impression" of an Israeli capability to fully end Iranian nuclear activities.
"This is not so. We have been talking all the time about a delay," Barak said, suggesting Israeli leaders could consider merely setting back Iran's atomic progress to be a worthwhile endeavor.
Iran might view Israel's possible elimination through nuclear force to justify the possibility of a devastating backlash, the official added. Israel is widely thought to presently be the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed state, but the nation has publicly neither confirmed nor denied possessing such weapons.
"After the exchange of strikes, Islam would remain and Israel would no longer be what it was," he said (Dan Williams, Reuters II, May 4).
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and one-time top intelligence officials are harming Tel Aviv's bid to rein in Iranian atomic activities, the Xinhua News Agency quoted him as telling the Israeli newspaper (see GSN, May 1).
"The Olmert gang is traveling the world and saying things that weaken Israel's significant accomplishment of turning the Iranian issue into an important and urgent one -- not only to Israel but to the world," Barak said. "It isn't hard to see that this is only serving Iran."
Iran "is not even [Diskin's] field of expertise or his responsibility, and the government is the one that has to make decisions," he added (Xinhua News Agency I, May 3).
Israeli President Shimon Peres, though, warned on Thursday of possible negative repercussions from taking advance military action against Iran's nuclear efforts.
“You must ask, what will be the next step?” Peres told the Globe and Mail. “In order to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear(-armed) country you have to introduce a system of verification and inspection,” he said, suggesting an armed offensive could endanger development of the arrangement.
“Say if somebody wants to attack Iran -- that’s good, but what will happen after the attack?” he asked. “Some people say it will make Iran powerless for two to three years. That’s not good enough" (Patrick Martin, Globe and Mail, May 3).
Delegates for the six powers negotiating with Iran are "not naive," but are still hopeful about the potential for achieving progress in the atomic discussions, Haaretz quoted high-level personnel for the United Kingdom as saying in talks with Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror. The Israeli official since Sunday has been in the British capital to address matters related to Iran; he spoke with his British equivalent, Kim Darroch, Foreign Secretary William Hague and high-level intelligence and defense insiders.
"There were very intense discussions on Iran," British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould told Haaretz following his participation in the exchange. "We compared notes about the negotiations approach, about how we continue to tighten sanctions and about the analysis of the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. The level of cooperation between the two countries is very high."
"We are very clear, we are absolutely not naive about Iran's intentions and about Iran's negotiation tactics," the newspaper on Friday quoted Gould as saying. "The people in London who deal with this dossier have been dealing with Iran for years and years."
The world powers "will not let Iran use those negotiations simply to buy time," the British envoy added. "These will not be open-ended negotiations and if Iran thinks it can just string those negotiations out to avert further pressure they are totally wrong."
"Iran will not get something for nothing. We will not be lifting sanctions simply because the atmosphere of the talks is constructive. Iran needs to come to the table with concrete proposals for how it can rebuild the trust of the international community. We will judge Iran by its actions and take our decisions accordingly. People who are worried that we are going to get carried away with a kind of negotiating warmth and that suddenly we will dismantle the sanctions regime don't need to worry," Gould said.
Only substantive Iranian actions could prompt cancellation of a European Union ban on Iranian petroleum set to take effect on July 1, the official added. "Iran must not think and Israel must not worry that just because we are talking the pressure is off Iran," he said.
"We all agree that a negotiated peaceful solution to this is better than the alternative," Gould said. "If this is the case, we need to at least keep the door open to the possibility that these talks might succeed. We need to be ready to take yes for an answer. I know there is concern in some quarters in Israel that the P-5+1 will give away all the leverage we have with the sanctions just to get an agreement. I think our record on this issue should give confidence that we are not trying to get an agreement just for the sake of an agreement" (Barak Ravid, Haaretz, May 4).
Germany's top diplomat on Friday said Iran's present atomic work "represents an enormous danger" to Israel and the surrounding area, AFP reported.
"We cannot and will not accept an Iranian nuclear weapon," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle added in remarks to a Jewish lobbying organization in Washington. "We need substantive and verifiable guarantees that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon."
"Our patience is limited. We will not accept playing for time," Westerwelle said, adding "the Iranian regime continues to threaten Israel with annihilation."
"I want you to know that we will continue to stand by Israel's side," he said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, May 4).
Tel Aviv should avoid launching strikes against Iranian atomic holdings, the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba as telling his Israeli counterpart on Tuesday.
"Military operations would give Iran an excuse for going ahead with nuclear development and increase instability in the region, so patience and self-restraint are called for on the part of Israel," Gemba told Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Hiroyuki Ishida, Yomiuri Shimbun, May 3).
Iran's Bushehr atomic energy facility is performing at nine-tenths of its potential and would reach peak output on May 23, Xinhua quoted the site's Russian state-run construction firm as saying on Thursday.
http://www.nti.org/gsn/
