Top Stories
NYT: "Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon has been delayed by sanctions, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said here on Monday, the first public declaration by the Obama administration that its pressure tactics have hampered Iran's nuclear ambitions. 'Iran has had technological problems which have made it slow down its timetable,' Mrs. Clinton said a televised town-hall meeting at a university in this Persian Gulf emirate. 'The sanctions are working,' she added. 'Their program, from our best estimate, has been slowed down.' Mrs. Clinton did not offer details of the problems with Iran's program or how long a delay they might cause. American officials have previously said sanctions were squeezing Iran's leaders but they have refrained from saying that the measures have bogged down its enrichment of uranium. Her blunt claim is sure to scramble the debate in the Middle East, which has watched Iran's drive for nuclear capability with growing alarm and a fear that it would end in military conflict." http://nyti.ms/g2DqMo
AFP: "Atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi declared in a report on Saturday that Iran is now capable of making its own nuclear fuel plates and rods, technology the West says the Islamic republic does not possess. Salehi, the driving force behind Iran's contentious atomic programme, said the country has completed the construction of a facility in the central city of Isfahan to the fuel plates and rods which power nuclear reactors. 'We have built an advanced manufacturing unit in the Isfahan site for the fuel plates,' Salehi, who is also acting foreign minister, told Fars news agency in what was said to be an exclusive interview. 'A grand transformation has taken place in the production of (nuclear) plates and rods. With the completion of the unit in Isfahan, we are one of the few countries which can produce fuel rods and fuel plates.'" http://bit.ly/hZvP1U
NYT: "The price of fuel has risen sharply in parts of Afghanistan as an Iranian-imposed slowdown on tanker traffic at key border crossings has stretched into its second month, Afghan officials say. The slowdown has increased the price of refined fuel by more than 50 percent in some provinces, forced gas stations on major highways to close and driven up the costs of other basic commodities, including food and heating oil, just as winter is setting in. The bottleneck is also hurting farmers in the south who depend on diesel pumps for irrigation. The issue threatens to strain relations between Afghanistan and Iran, and adds yet another obstacle to President Hamid Karzai and NATO forces as they try to rebuild the economy and provide government services in the face of a resurgent Taliban." http://nyti.ms/gYbJyV
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AP: "Iran has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to higher levels, the country's nuclear chief said Saturday, in defiance of U.N. demands to halt the program... Salehi, who is also Iran's acting foreign minister, said Tehran now has 40 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent, up from 30 kilograms reported in October. Uranium enriched to 20 percent is enough to produce fuel for a medical research reactor but far below the more than 90 percent required to build fissile material for nuclear warheads. Iran started producing the 20 percent-enriched material in February 2010, saying the production rate was about three kilograms (6.6 pounds) each month." http://wapo.st/dSr9DG
AFP: "Talks between world powers and Iran on its disputed nuclear programme will take place in Istanbul on January 21 and 22, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday, local media reported. The dates corresponded to those given by Iran's Fars news agency in a report on Friday, after European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's spokeswoman said she was looking at resuming the talks on January 20. Turkey's Anatolia news agency quoted Davutoglu as saying Ashton would be in Istanbul next week to start preparing for the meeting. A previous round of talks between Iran and six world powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany -- spearheaded by Ashton, took place in Geneva on December 6-7." http://bit.ly/epLJQO
NYT: "Iran's Intelligence Ministry said on Monday that it had broken up an Israeli spy network linked to the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist last year, state-owned media said. After a broad investigation, Iran succeeded in arresting 'the main agents behind the terrorist incident and dismantle a network comprising of Israeli spies and terrorists,' state-owned Press TV quoted the semi-official Fars news agency as saying. It said Israeli intelligence services 'had used bases in certain European and non-European countries as well as Iran's neighboring states in an attempt to achieve its inhuman and non-Islamic goals.' Those same 'bases' had been 'used in the assassination of Dr. Masoud Ali Mohammadi,' an Iranian physics professor at the University of Tehran, who was killed by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle outside his home in northern Tehran a year ago. Iran blamed Israel and the United States for the killing." http://nyti.ms/fDYAAz
Bloomberg: "Congress is demanding that the Pentagon prepare a 'national military strategic plan' for countering Iran's nuclear and conventional arms build-up, and to brief lawmakers on it. The Pentagon additionally must inform lawmakers of 'any resources, capabilities, or changes to current law' that officials believe 'are necessary to address the gaps identified in the strategy,' according to a congressional joint statement accompanying the fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill which President Barack Obama's signed on Friday. The provision is the second in as many years directing the military leaders to initiate a specific task pertaining to Iran. Congress last year, in its fiscal 2010 defense bill, required an unclassified report on Iran's current military capabilities and strategy." http://bit.ly/dEQOIp
WSJ: "India expects an amicable solution to the Iran oil payments issue during a scheduled visit of officials to Tehran later this week, Oil Secretary S. Sundareshan said Monday. 'We would require payments to be channelised through alternative banks which will be suggested by National Iranian Oil Company,' Mr. Sundareshan told reporters. 'We have on table some banks which have been suggested. We will probably work through them.' A delegation comprising officials from the finance and oil ministries and the Reserve Bank of India will be visiting Tehran in the later part of the week, he said. Iran and India have been trying to find an alternative payment mechanism after the RBI stopped Iran-related payments through the Asian Clearing Union route." http://on.wsj.com/geiKAk
Human Rights
AFP: "Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 11 years in jail and banned for 20 years from working as an attorney and leaving the country, her husband told AFP on Monday. 'They told my wife's lawyer yesterday that she has been sentenced to 11 years in jail and banned for 20 years from working as a lawyer and leaving Iran,' Reza Khandan said. 'It is so shocking,' he said. He said Sotoudeh, who has been in jail since September, was found guilty of acting against national security, propaganda against the regime and membership of the Human Rights Defenders' Centre, a rights group headed by Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. The accusations were levelled against Sotoudeh, 45-year-old mother of two, mainly over interviews with foreign-based media about her clients jailed after Iran's disputed June 2009 presidential election, Khandan said." http://bit.ly/fleRnV
Domestic Politics
NYT: "An Iranian airplane carrying more than 100 passengers crashed as it tried to make an emergency landing in heavy snow and fog, killing at least 70 people, official news agencies reported. A rescue official, Heydar Heydari of the Red Crescent organization, said 32 people had survived but that the death toll was likely to rise, the official IRNA news agency reported. Bad weather forced the Boeing 727 aircraft to abandon its first attempt to land as it approached Orumiyeh, a city in West Azerbaijan Province in the northwest, reports said. The plane was circling for a second approach when it disappeared from radar at around 7:45 p.m., state television reported." http://nyti.ms/fhUqOp
Foreign Affairs
NYT: "The Obama administration is working to keep up the pressure on Iran from its neighbors in the Persian Gulf, despite new reports suggesting that a combination of sanctions and sabotage may have delayed by several years Iran's ability to produce a nuclear bomb. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arriving in this Arab emirate Sunday for a four-day visit to the region, urged Iran's neighbors to stay focused on enforcing sanctions. Many Persian Gulf states have curtailed their commercial ties with Iran, and Mrs. Clinton said she did not want these reports to be used as a justification for them to backtrack. 'We don't want anyone to be misled by anyone's intelligence analysis - this remains a serious concern,' Mrs. Clinton said to reporters traveling with her. 'We expect all of our partners who share that concern, as these countries certainly do, to stay as focused as they can, and to do everything within reason that will help to implement these sanctions.'" http://nyti.ms/fhirUX
Reuters: "Iranian border guards have released a woman they were holding who, according to some reports, was suspected of being a U.S. spy, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Sunday. 'This 34-year-old woman who intended to enter Iran at the Norduz terminal on January 5 left Iran's borders after her situation became clear and legal procedures were followed,' IRIB quoted an unnamed 'high ranking security official' as saying. Conflicting news articles had suggested that the woman was either American or was suspected of working for U.S. intelligence, but the official quoted by IRIB denied reports she had been filming the border area." http://reut.rs/ikfbrV
AP: "Iran's interior minister says his visit to Oman will focus on security issues, including safeguarding vital oil routes in the Gulf. The visit by Mostafa Mohammad Najjar comes just days before the scheduled arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is making several stops in the region. Iran's state media reports Sunday that Najjar's talks will include proposals for closer coordination on maritime security. Oman and Iran share control of the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for about 40 percent of oil tanker traffic." http://wapo.st/gTc5eq
Opinion & Analysis
FT Editorial Board: "In the nuclear stand-off with Iran, the US has often appeared the weaker party, pressing others to punish Tehran, but in effect standing helpless while Iran pushed ahead with its nuclear programme. Over the past year, however, the White House's discourse has been more confident. Iran's dismissal of Barack Obama's offer of engagement hardened the international consensus for tougher sanctions. This year's raft of sanctions has been effective in exacerbating the Iranian economy's isolation. Whether by the US's own design or not, mysterious sabotage efforts have unsettled Iran's regime and, many experts think, set back the nuclear programme. A November re¬port by UN inspectors said Tehran had temporarily halted low-level uranium enrichment, suggesting technical problems. The regime has plenty to be anxious about, from the unexplained killings of its scientists - two last year - to the Stuxnet worm that infected several Iranian facilities. Iran is starved of financing, global energy companies have pulled out of oil and gas projects and gasoline suppliers have curbed shipments. Good news for Washington and its allies. But there is little sign of a change of heart in Tehran. Even US officials accept that economic damage alone is far from certain to convince Tehran to bow to international demands. Iran did return to the negotiating table in December. But in the recent talks in Geneva Iranian negotiators were as adamant as ever that enrichment was not negotiable." http://bit.ly/fwVBhQ
David Ignatius in WashPost: "The Obama administration has concluded that Iran's nuclear program has been slowed by a combination of sanctions, sabotage and Iran's own technical troubles. Because of the delay, U.S. officials see what one describes as 'a little bit of space' before any military showdown with Iran... The delays in the Iranian program are important because they add strategic warning time for the West to respond to any Iranian push for a bomb. U.S. officials estimate that if Iran were to try a 'break out' by enriching uranium at Natanz to the 90 percent level needed for a bomb, that move (requiring reconfiguration of the centrifuges) would be detectable - and it would take Iran one to two more years to make a bomb. The Iranians could try what U.S. officials call a 'sneak out' at a secret enrichment facility like the one they constructed near Qom. They would have to use their poorly performing (and perhaps still Stuxnet-infected) old centrifuges or an unproven new model. Alternative enrichment technologies, such as lasers or a heavy-water reactor, don't appear feasible for Iran now, officials say. Foreign technology from Russia and other suppliers has been halted, and the Iranians can't build the complex hardware (such as a 'pressure vessel' needed for the heavy-water reactor) on their own. The Obama administration keeps holding the door open for negotiations, and another round is scheduled this month in Istanbul. But the real news is that Tehran has technical problems - bringing sighs of relief (and a few mischievous smiles) in the West." http://wapo.st/icLLph |
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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