Top Stories
Reuters: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday talks with world powers could be 'fruitful' if sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program were scrapped. Six world powers and Iran started a second day of talks in Geneva, with little sign of any substantial progress in the row over Iranian nuclear activities the West suspects are aimed at making atom bombs. Ahmadinejad called on world powers to publicly declare Iran's national 'rights,' saying they would have 'nothing but remorse' if they failed to do so. Iran says it has a sovereign right to continue enriching uranium, something the U.N. Security Council has called on it to suspend amid suspicions its pursuit of peaceful nuclear power may be a cover for developing atomic weapons. 'By putting aside all of the wrong decisions, and the inappropriate manners that you have, by scrapping all those (sanctions) resolutions that have had no effect on the Iranian people, by putting aside and cancelling all those restrictions you have created...If you start the talks with these (actions), the talks will definitely be fruitful,' Ahmadinejad said in the speech which was dubbed into English on state-TV channel Press TV." http://yhoo.it/fthPYA
Reuters: "Iran and major powers agreed on Tuesday to meet again next month in their dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme, but the chief Iranian negotiator said there could be no discussion of any halt to uranium enrichment. The agreement to reconvene in Turkey in late January, after two days of talks in Geneva this week, was as much as either side had expected from their first meeting in over a year on the intractable nuclear issue. Iran has insisted all along that it has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful electricity generation and will never give into pressure and abandon that right. Iran had also said it would not discuss enrichment in Geneva, but Western diplomats said a range of issues including the nuclear dispute were tackled at this week's talks. 'I am announcing openly and clearly that Iran will not discuss a uranium enrichment halt in the next meeting in Istanbul with major powers,' chief Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili told a news conference." http://reut.rs/ekMJPU
Fox News: "Iran has shut down an office of television channel Farsi1, owned by News Corp. and Moby Group, and arrested at least four employees for 'anti-revolutionary' activity, the Tehran prosecutor was quoted as saying Tuesday. 'With the intention of helping the anti-revolutionary movement, this bureau was tasked with dubbing movies for Farsi1 channel in an office in the center of Tehran,' Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency. State television's website quoted him as saying 'four or five people' had been arrested. Hong Kong-based broadcaster Star, equally owned by News Corp. and Afghanistan's Moby, launched the Farsi1 satellite channel in summer 2009, airing soaps and sitcoms dubbed into Farsi and targeting a potential 100 million-strong audience in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. News Corp. also owns NewsCore. Farsi1 was an instant hit in Iran, where private TV and radio stations are also forbidden, but it infuriated hardliners who accused its broadcaster of promoting 'corruption' in the country's conservative Islamic society." http://fxn.ws/gXmbLh
UANI in the News
CNBC Video: "There are American companies right now, doing business with Iran, reports CNBC's Erin Burnett. Stuart Levey, undersecretary of Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, shares his insight." http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=hfdiftcab&et=1104042585292&s=30860&e=0019WWQhl29rKfUyWIvN_bb445OdDBxQXypCgYvCdX0E7-m8-dQMg24XpTAi59Nhv96GKvYqBO9W0esLwd5xALUC1LRdbl_AOYxI4pRimNyeCc=
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Talks between six major powers and Iran over its nuclear program were 'difficult and candid' but must lead to practical steps by Tehran to assuage global concerns, a senior U.S. administration official said Tuesday. The official, who asked not to be named, underlined how difficult future talks would be by noting that the six powers, known as the P5+1, insisted that Iran must suspend its enrichment of uranium -- something categorically rejected by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. 'Suspension is mandated by several Security Council resolutions. That is still the position of the P5+1,' the official told reporters." http://nyti.ms/h5n12p
Daily Telegraph: "Iranian security forces have arrested two suspected 'spy pigeons' near the Natanz nuclear facility. One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the Etemad Melli newspaper reported. It said that some metal rings and 'invisible' strings were attached to the bird, suggesting that it might have been somehow communicating what it had seen with the equipment it was carrying. 'Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings,' a source told the newspaper. The source gave no further description of the pigeons, nor what their fate might be." http://bit.ly/f4Z3A9
LAT: "If Mohsen doesn't come up with $100,000 by the end of the week, he's a dead man. Or so the seemingly well-to-do Tehran businessman says as he fidgets in his chair, inhales another Marlboro Light and adjusts his fitted sports jacket, his eyes darting nervously back and forth in the cafe as if he were being hounded by a ghost. His company, he says, is a million dollars in the hole. 'Do you know where I can get a $100,000 loan?' he demands of a friend, only half in jest. 'No?' he replies to his own question, the word weighted with despair. 'That's it. I'm going to jail.' The tale of Mohsen, a partner in a firm that exports petroleum products, goes some way toward explaining the economic conundrum of Iran, a land under heavy international economic sanctions yet managing to scrape by or, by some accounts, thrive." http://bit.ly/hRN31w
Commerce
Reuters: "Iran, pressured by international sanctions imposed over its disputed nuclear program, wants to send more trade via Turkish ports to reduce dependency on the Gulf, Tehran's envoy to Turkey said on Tuesday. Ambassador Bahman Huseyinpur spoke while visiting Turkey's Black Sea coast as part of a fact-finding mission on the facilities available at Turkish ports. 'We want to transfer a large portion of our trade from the Gulf... to Turkey,' the state-run Anatolian news agency quoted Huseyinpur as saying. 'Hence we want to make use of your ports.'" http://reut.rs/eHFanc
Domestic Politics
BBC: "Iranian students have defied a security clampdown to stage anti-government protests throughout the country, witnesses and opposition groups say. Unconfirmed reports say about a dozen people have been arrested, including at Tehran University in the capital. Last year's protests led to clashes with security forces as students lashed out over the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This year's protests appear smaller, and there are no reports of violence. Pro-government rallies have also been held across the country." http://bbc.in/efo4UY
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "Turkish clothing and beer are hot sellers in the streets of Arbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish north. Far to the south, Iranian cars roam the streets of Basra and Iranian pilgrims flock to Iraq's holy sites. Sunni Ankara and Shi'ite Tehran, old rivals turned friends, are vying for post-war economic clout in neighboring Iraq to capitalize on an expected oil boom, and have been flexing their muscles in Baghdad's government formation talks, diplomats and politicians said. Already one of Iraq's main trade partners, Turkey wants a bigger foothold in its southern neighbor through increased investment to counter Iran's growing influence and to boost its stature as a regional economic and political power." http://reut.rs/ibYKKU
Reuters: "The United States government lobbied the head of the U.N. climate panel to block the appointment of an Iranian scientist to a key position, saying it would be problematic, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables show. The revelations come amid a major UN climate change meeting in Cancun where negotiators are trying to work out a modest climate change deal after the 2009 Copenhagen summit ended in a brief non-binding pact. At a meeting in Geneva in 2008, the U.S. delegation told Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that the election of Mostafa Jafri as one of two co-chairman of a key climate group would affect U.S. funding of the climate body. The other chair was to be an American expert." http://reut.rs/eYsu9A
Opinion & Analysis
Henry Sokolski and Greg S. Jones in TNR: "When faced with a particularly scary, nettlesome problem, there's a natural tendency in Washington to accentuate the positive and play for time even when the clock has pretty much run out. This is certainly so with Iran's nuclear program. In this case, U.S. officials have prepared for talks with Iran, China, Russia, and our key European allies by highlighting Iran's nuclear difficulties. In specific, they've focused on how much Iran's nuclear capacity to enrich uranium is on cold standby (answer: roughly as much enrichment capacity as Iran is currently operating), how computer viruses may have crippled it, and how another year might be needed just for Iran to bring its existing capacity fully online. What they and most pundits have ignored, however, are the hard facts that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported and posted November 23. Iran, it turns out, already has more than enough low enriched uranium on hand (some 2,152 kilograms) to make its first bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium in roughly ten weeks. All Tehran would have to do is feed the low enriched uranium it has into the 4,186 centrifuges that it's currently operating. Mind you, all of this is possible even if Iran stops producing more low enriched uranium, never makes another centrifuge (it can draw from an additional 4,100 centrifuges at Natanz that are on cold standby), does nothing to increase the efficiency of its operating centrifuges, and stays clear of using any covert enrichment facilities that it might have hidden." http://bit.ly/g1qxzv
Heather Robinson in HuffPo: "German activists are raising an outcry over what they characterize as a growing 'offensive of promoting German-Iran relations' on the part of German politicians and businesspeople that they believe is undercutting hard-won gains in the cooperative EU and U.S. effort to isolate Iran's government via sanctions. Members of Stop the Bomb, a coalition of German intellectuals dedicated to preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, protested a November 22 meeting of the Iran Business Forum, a business networking group that hosted numerous Iranian officials at a Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. Iranian Ambassador to Germany Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, a close confidant of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, reportedly gave the event's opening speech, according to the event programme. Joining Stop the Bomb in protest was United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), a nonprofit that advocates preventing Iran from attaining nuclear capability. UANI's director, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (under George Bush Sr.) Mark D. Wallace, sent a blistering letter to the head of the Marriott hotel chain, J.W. Marriott Jr., threatening to organize a worldwide boycott of Marriott hotels due to Courtyard Marriott Hamburg's hosting of the meeting. The letter argues that hosting Iran's leaders undermines international cooperation designed to isolate the regime via sanctions, and international efforts to counter human rights abuse." http://huff.to/gZccku
Ilan Berman in WT: "It's probably safe to assume that Australian Internet activist Julian Assange wasn't thinking specifically about Iran when his brainchild, the information clearinghouse WikiLeaks, released its latest round of classified U.S. government cables. Still, the data dump, encompassing more than a quarter-million internal memos issued by the State Department and U.S. embassies overseas, successfully demolishes a number of sacred cows relating to American policy toward the Islamic republic and its burgeoning nuclear effort. The first is that there is no consensus regarding conflict with Iran. By now, the idea of using force to derail Iran's nuclear ambitions has been derided so often in the mainstream media that it seems thoroughly discredited. But, as a slew of notes from America's Middle Eastern missions confirm, not only are Iran's regional neighbors increasingly nervous about the Islamic republic's atomic effort, more and more are willing to support its elimination by any means necessary. The list includes the United Arab Emirates, the rulers of which have said that military action against Iran should be 'taken this year or next year,' before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad precipitates a regional conflagration on his own. It also includes Saudi Arabia, whose king for years has urged the United States to attack Iran and 'cut off the head of the snake.' In fact, the only country that appears decisively to have taken the idea of force off the table is the United States." http://bit.ly/gPgJAo
Leo Cendrowicz in TIME: "If there is any test today for Western diplomacy, it surely lies with Iran. While Tehran insists its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, the U.S. and its allies assume the ultimate aim is to develop a bomb. Yet years of talks, threats and sanctions have failed to halt the program, and officials are at their wits' end on how to wean Iran off its nuclear habit. This week, the European Union picked up the baton. On Tuesday, E.U. foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton emerged from two days of talks with Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili aimed at succeeding where countless others had failed. The result: an agreement to talk again, in January, in Istanbul. But is this really progress, or just another Iranian scheme to buy more time for its nuclear scientists? ... In many respects, the West has been here before. In negotiating sessions over the past eight years, Iran has been able to string its counterparts along while it presses ahead with its nuclear program... But there are differences this time round. The talks came days after the WikiLeaks revelations that Arab countries are just as wary of Iran as the West, and Gulf Arab leaders meeting in Abu Dhabi appealed to Tehran on Tuesday to 'respond positively' to talks with world powers about the Islamic republic's contentious nuclear program. This latest round of U.N. sanctions also involved more support from Russia and China than previous attempts, suggesting a more united international front."
Fredrik Dahl in Reuters: "An agreement to hold more talks in the standoff over Iran's nuclear program was probably the best result major powers could have hoped for in their first meeting with the Islamic Republic in more than a year. But while the outcome of two days of discussions in Geneva -- a plan to meet again early next year in Turkey -- may keep Western hopes alive of possible progress toward resolving the row, there was no sign of any rapprochement in substance. 'To be honest, it was an exchange of rather familiar positions, but done in a tone which at least sometimes was better than it's been in the past,' a European official said. Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, made clear his country would not back down over its uranium enrichment work, which the West suspects is aimed at developing nuclear weapons capability but Tehran says is for peaceful electricity only... But analysts say Iran's hardline leaders, who use the nuclear program to rally nationalist support and distract from domestic problems, are unlikely to agree to the demands. 'This government has obviously linked the development of the nuclear program so closely to its own legitimacy that it would be difficult for them to backtrack on it,' said Gala Riani of the IHS Global Insight consultancy." http://reut.rs/fIGo8L |
Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.
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