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AFP: "European Union lawmakers sought to pressure the bloc's chief diplomat Tuesday to step up sanctions against Iran after failed talks over its disputed nuclear drive. After EU High Representative Catherine Ashton 'left Istanbul empty-handed last weekend,' Scottish Conservative Struan Stevenson called for the European Union 'to impose tougher sanctions on the clerical regime for its flagrant human rights violations, continuous drive to acquire nuclear weapons and export of terrorism.' Leading Spanish MEP Alejo Vidal-Quadras added that the ongoing 'soft' approach to talks between Western powers and Tehran would only prove 'futile,' after the pair and others met with Iranian opposition figures in Brussels and US backers of an Iranian opposition movement. The call comes as diplomats and analysts query whether fresh sanctions should be applied by the West over Iran's disputed nuclear drive, after the latest talks between world powers collapsed in Istanbul at the weekend." http://bit.ly/eaEWYh
AFP: "The US government suggested on Tuesday that Europe match Washington sanctions for Iranian human rights violators, including asset freezes on key figures, against a backdrop of failed nuclear talks. 'We share a common assessment of the deterioration in the situation of human rights in Iran,' said US deputy assistant secretary of state Philo Dibble, a day after New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch slammed Tehran's use of torture and intimidation to consolidate power in an annual report. 'We have suggested that the Europeans consider something like the designation that we have done,' he said, referring to visa bans and asset freezes applied to eight figures in September 2009. Dibble said that the effect of European Union sanctions for human rights breaches would have a greater effect, because 'Iranian officials are more likely to travel to Europe than they are to the US.'" http://bit.ly/h6pZW4
AP: "A leading Iranian official has accused Western nations of 'nuclear terrorism' and blamed them of being behind the recent assassination of an Iranian scientist, in an internal document obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. The documents was drawn up by Egypt as the head of the Vienna chapter of nonaligned nations, and cites another senior Iranian official as pledging to stage further visits to the nation's key nuclear sites to outsiders in the wake of a recent tour by envoys from nonaligned, developing and Arab nations. The six-page report summarized the Jan. 15-16 visit of the diplomats to two sites of international concern - a heavy water reactor and related facilities being built in Arak and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at the central city of Natanz." http://wapo.st/icUC1Y
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "President Barack Obama played up U.S. progress in both Afghanistan and Iraq on Tuesday, while declaring the United States would stay tough on North Korea and Iran over their nuclear ambitions... Obama said the United States was committed to defusing the world's nuclear threats -- signaling no let up in U.S. pressure on Tehran and Pyongyang despite efforts to engage both in discussions of their nuclear programs. 'Because of a diplomatic effort to insist that Iran meet its obligations, the Iranian government now faces tougher and tighter sanctions than ever before,' Obama said, less than a week after the latest round of talks between Tehran and world powers ended with no sign of progress." http://reut.rs/gQSaMl
AFP: "Iran is not currently working on producing a nuclear weapon but could make one within 'a year or two' of taking such a decision, Israel's military intelligence chief said on Tuesday. 'The question is not when Iran will acquire the bomb, but how long until the leader decides to begin enriching (uranium) at 90 percent,' Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi told parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee in his first briefing since taking up the role in November. Once such a decision is made, it would take 'a year or two' to produce a nuclear warhead, he said, adding that Iran would then need more time to develop an effective missile delivery system for it. Kochavi said it was unlikely that Iran, which currently enriches uranium to 20 percent, would start enriching it to the 90 percent level needed for a bomb, because it would be in open breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty exposing it to harsher sanctions or even a US or Israeli military strike." http://bit.ly/h6ASfq
WSJ: "As expected, the White House named David S. Cohen to replace the outgoing Stuart Levey as the undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, whose portfolio includes the financial war against Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea and others. As undersecretary, Levey was the architect of the Iran sanctions regime, which involved leveraging international companies' need to access the U.S. financial system as a way to get cooperation. He was a holdover from the George W. Bush presidency who had agreed to only stay on for six months, but lasted more than two years. Levey told the Wall Street Journal that he planned on taking time off before figuring out what he wanted to do next." http://on.wsj.com/gQ1bsW
Human Rights
Radio Farda: "Workers in Tehran are continuing to stage protests against nonpayment of salaries that, in any case, do not keep pace with inflation, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. The most recent such protest, reported by the ILNA agency, was in Tehran on January 24. Employees of the Pars Metal Company gathered in front of the Iranian parliament. They staged a similar gathering last summer in front of the presidential office after having not been paid for five months. Workers say not only are they not paid on time, the money they do get does not go far enough. The minimum wage for workers in Iran is pegged at 303,000 tomans (around $290) a month. Aziz Amoli, a member of the board of the Confederation of Iranian Employers, recently said wages might be increased by 15 percent in the new year that begins in March." http://bit.ly/fM4hHW
Domestic Politics
Reuters: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hit out at the heads of parliament and the judiciary, accusing them of 'interfering' in his government's business, media reported Wednesday. Ahmadinejad's latest attack on fellow conservatives who run the Islamic Republic came in a letter to parliament whose leadership, he said, 'insists on limiting the executive power's legal authority and interfering in some parts of its duties.' The letter, reprinted in many newspapers Wednesday, ramped up the hostility in a long running row between Ahmadinejad and a parliament which has accused him of trampling its rights and seeking to accrue more power for himself." http://reut.rs/dMtXXu
Foreign Affairs
Radio Farda: "A top U.S. State Department official says Iran's efforts to exercise 'hard power' in Iraq have failed, prompting Tehran to try to influence its western neighbor through the use of 'soft power,' or more indirect means. Michael Corbin, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq issues, made the comment at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. 'The Iranians will always have influence in Iraq,' Corbin said, 'but they have chosen to use soft power for the most part because they have failed at using the hard power.' Corbin said that more direct attempts to influence events in Iraq, including support for terrorist groups that the United States accuses Iran of backing, have not 'succeeded in making an impression on the Iraqi people that's favorable.'" http://bit.ly/erZPTm
Opinion & Analysis
Benjamin Weinthal in NRO: "The nuclear negotiations between Iran's regime and the Obama administration, including U.S. global partners Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, and Germany, have come to embody a kind of repetitive motion disorder. In short, these talks have become compulsive rituals that have done little to induce Iran's rulers to end its illicit nuclear weapons program. The most recent bargaining sessions on Friday and Saturday in Istanbul produced no concessions from the Iranians, mirroring last December's failed talks in Geneva. A new negotiating session has not been scheduled. And that is how it should remain. When dealing with odious regimes like Iran and North Korea, there is a misguided departure point for U.S. State Department diplomats, particularly European diplomats and political leaders, namely, it is better to discuss than not to discuss. Plainly said, following this logic, negotiations for the sake of negotiations with Iran's pariah regime are the best strategy. Yet the United States and its partners are negotiating with themselves rather than with Iranian decision makers. Eight years of dialogue and bargaining with Iran has permitted the tyrants in Tehran to secure much-needed time to develop its nuclear technology and missile program. All this means that it makes sense to call for a negotiating time out and significantly ratchet up the sanctions pressure. As Amir Taheri noted in last week's Wall Street Journal, sanctions are taking an enormous toll on Iran's economy and nuclear program. The only cure at this stage is not more negotiations, but sanctions, more sanctions, and even more sanctions." http://bit.ly/gDj2dJ
Amir Taheri in WSJ: "The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (plus Germany) resumed talks yesterday in Istanbul with Iran. Although American officials keep repeating that 'all options are on the table' to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, the Obama administration clearly hopes the economic sanctions imposed by the U.N., the U.S. and the European Union will induce Iran to blink. So how effective are the sanctions? A report published by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) last Oct. 20 offers a picture of an economy under growing pressure. Two figures suggest the magnitude of the problems. The first is a 7% drop in imports over the previous six months. Because almost all of Iran's nontraditional industries (outside carpet-weaving and handicrafts) depend on imported raw material and parts, this indicates a significant economic slowdown. The second figure is a 45% drop in applications for building permits for commercial and industrial units. There is also bad news for government finances. Oil exports, which account for 75% of government revenue, dropped by 13.3%, or more than 600,000 barrels a day, according to the CBI. That's a projected loss of $16 billion in annual government income. Not all of Iran's economic woes are due to international sanctions, but the sanctions do appear to be hitting Iran's vital energy sector. Late last year the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) announced the discovery of 'major natural gas fields' in Sedipan, in the southwest, and Tous, in the northeast. But the absence of foreign partners, whose investment and technology are needed to develop the fields, means these finds will likely join the much larger offshore fields of South Pars in the Persian Gulf as untapped sources of wealth... Sanctions are also affecting the regime's nuclear ambitions. At a September press conference in Tehran, Ali-Akbar Salehi, the MIT-educated head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, admitted that sanctions would 'significantly slow down' the nuclear program... The fashionable opinion in global circles is that sanctions do not work. Nevertheless, the evidence is that they're hurting the economy and could weaken a regime that is also facing a tenacious internal opposition for the first time since 1981." http://on.wsj.com/gPj2SB
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