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Reuters: "After a year of sanctions and sabre-rattling over Iran's nuclear programme, negotiators from Tehran and six world powers finally resumed talks and found at least enough common ground to agree to meet again next month. With threats of war hanging over an already unsettled Middle East, U.S. and other Western diplomats welcomed an Iranian willingness in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss their nuclear activities - something they had refused since early last year. But though they will meet again, in Baghdad on May 23, they remained poles apart. Iran called for a lifting of sanctions and recognition its uranium enrichment is for purely peaceful ends; the United States demanded urgent action to prove the Islamic Republic is not seeking the potential nuclear arsenal which Washington and ally Israel threaten to eliminate by force. 'While the atmosphere today was positive and good enough to merit a second round, we continue to stress ... that there is urgency for concrete progress and that the window for a diplomatic resolution is closing,' said a senior U.S. official." http://t.uani.com/HZd8td
AFP: "US President Barack Obama said Sunday that nothing had been 'given away' to Iran at weekend nuclear talks in Istanbul, warning Tehran that the clock was still ticking to reach an accord. Obama's comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his 'initial impression is that Iran has been given a freebie' at a first round of key talks with world powers over its disputed nuclear program. 'The clock is ticking and I've been very clear to Iran and our negotiating partners that we're not going to have these talks just drag out in a stalling process,' Obama told reporters after an Americas summit in Colombia. 'But so far at least we haven't given away anything -- other than the opportunity for us to negotiate,' he said." http://t.uani.com/HKxjjX
WSJ: "Renewed negotiations between Iran and international powers over Tehran's nuclear program this weekend already are facing fire from Israel and American lawmakers, who fear the Islamic Republic is seeking to use the revived diplomatic track to forestall additional economic sanctions while continuing to advance its nuclear work. This skepticism toward the talks, which will go into a second round on May 23 in Baghdad, illustrates the tight political space U.S. President Barack Obama and his diplomatic partners face as they seek to peacefully end the standoff over Iran's nuclear program, which has fueled higher global energy prices and sparked fears of war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has continued to threaten to take military action against Iran's nuclear sites if diplomacy appears futile. And leading U.S. lawmakers on Sunday again pledged to enact new economic sanctions on Tehran if it doesn't immediately abide by United Nations resolutions calling for it to freeze its production of nuclear fuel. 'My initial impression is that Iran has been given a freebie,' Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday. 'It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition.'" http://t.uani.com/IFTozP
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AFP: "Iran's agreement in talks Saturday with world powers for a more in-depth meeting in Baghdad on May 23 is the tiniest of steps in what will be a long and difficult road to restoring trust, analysts said. 'It's too early to say whether or not we've turned a corner,' Peter Crail, analyst at the Arms Control Association think-tank in Washington, told AFP. 'An agreement to begin a negotiations process that can dig deeper into these high-stakes and highly technical issues was as good as we could have expected. There's still much work to be done,' he said. What happened here on Saturday 'cannot be called a breakthrough. If there is a breakthrough, it would come at the next meeting,' agreed Bruno Tertrais, senior research fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) in Paris." http://t.uani.com/HRanfq
AFP: "Iran's delegation to crunch talks with world powers on its nuclear programme Saturday turned down a US request for what would have been a rare bilateral meeting on the sidelines, a source told AFP. 'Their request was presented numerous times but Iran has refused,' said the source close to the Islamic republic's team at the talks with six world powers in Istanbul, which diplomats said were nonetheless going well. Earlier diplomats at the talks had said that the US delegation led by Wendy Sherman, undersecretary for political affairs, had let Iran know she was ready for face-to-face discussions with her counterpart Saeed Jalili." http://t.uani.com/HZaIuA
NYT: "C.I.A. analysts studying the geopolitical gamesmanship now at play over Iran's nuclear program have expensive and highly classified tools at their disposal, but one of their best sources is free and readily available: the public utterances of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Like much of the information about Iran's secretive and enigmatic government, Ayatollah Khamenei's remarks are sometimes contradictory, and always subject to widely different interpretations. But as negotiations over the country's nuclear program begin on Saturday in Istanbul, efforts to divine where Ayatollah Khamenei really stands on the nuclear issue have taken on critical importance. Underscoring Ayatollah Khamenei's direct involvement in the issue, Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, arrived in Turkey with a new title: 'personal representative of the supreme leader.'" http://t.uani.com/Ixeeff
WSJ: "Adm. Jonathan Greenert made an important observation last fall from the tower of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis while in the Strait of Hormuz on the southern coast of Iran, the world's busiest oil-shipping lane. The chief of naval operations was sailing in a flotilla that showed off the Navy's overwhelming power to strike at long distances: F-18 fighter jets, Tomahawk cruise missiles and deck guns able to fire a shell 15 miles. Yet in the claustrophobic waters of the strait, which narrows to just 24 miles, Adm. Greenert noted that all that long-range firepower could potentially be countered by the Iranian patrol boats that came out to track the U.S. warships. Faced with a fight in close quarters, Adm. Greenert told a Senate panel recently, 'You also may need a sawed-off shotgun.' As the U.S. and other Western powers prepare to meet Saturday in Istanbul with Iran to resume negotiations over its nuclear program, the U.S. military is sharpening its contingency planning." http://t.uani.com/Jp9uZQ
Daily Telegraph: "The high-profile rocket launch, which took place to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea's founder, was reportedly attended by 12 officials from the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHID). The organisation, which is the subject of a number of international sanctions, attended in order to witness the launch at first hand, according to Yonhap news agency reports. 'The Iranians undoubtedly were there to observe the missile launch and receive test data from North Korea,' a diplomatic source as quoted as telling the news agency. News of North Korea's guests from Iran is likely to cast the spotlight onto the suspected relationship between the two nations in terms of the exchange of ballistic missile technology." http://t.uani.com/J1u8Qg
Bloomberg: "Iran has tested detonators for a nuclear bomb, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported in an e-mailed preview of an article to be published today. The newspaper added that the International Atomic Energy Agency had solid evidence that the attempt was made in a blast chamber at Parchin, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified Western intelligence service official. Agency inspectors want access to the Parchin base to determine the possible military dimensions of the tests, the newspaper added." http://t.uani.com/HNvVu6
Sanctions
AP: "A German-owned ship was halted after its owners received information - which allegedly came from Syrian government defectors - that it might be carrying weapons bound for Syria, according to a report published Saturday. The agent for the company chartering the ship vehemently denied that it was carrying any such load... German weekly Der Spiegel reported that the Atlantic Cruiser was stopped in the Mediterranean after its owners were warned it was suspected to be carrying Iranian military equipment to Tartus, Syria. Without citing sources, it said 'defectors in the Syrian government apparatus' were behind the alert. Der Spiegel quoted shipping agent Torsten Lueddeke of Hamburg-based C.E.G. Bulk Chartering as saying: 'We stopped the ship after we received information on the weapons cargo.' He said the ship had been chartered to an Odessa, Ukraine-based company called White Whale Shipping and 'they declared to us as cargo above all pumps and things like that,' according to the report. 'We would never have allowed weapons on board.'" http://t.uani.com/HWsq5Z
Reuters: "The fate of a new package of sanctions on Iran proposed by U.S. lawmakers may hinge on whether Iran and six major world powers can make any progress at high-level talks this weekend toward resolving a dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. There is broad support among Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress to add more oil- and banking-related sanctions aimed at pressuring Tehran to abandon its nuclear program. But the proposed package of sanctions stalled in the gridlocked U.S Senate in late March, just before lawmakers left Washington for a two-week break. Lawmakers, who return to Congress on Monday, will be watching to see what comes from the talks in Turkey for clues about where to take the proposed new sanctions. 'Maybe the talks actually increase the pressure when we're back in session next week,' said one Senate aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity." http://t.uani.com/HKApnX
Radio Farda: "Iranian media is reporting that companies from Western nations that are imposing sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program are sending representatives to the 17th International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition that starts April 17. IRNA reported on April 15 that companies from the U.S., Germany, Britain, Italy and other countries will have delegations attending the April 17-20 event in Tehran. Press TV provided a longer list on April 12, adding companies from Austria, Spain, Switzerland, France, Finland, Canada, Romania and Norway to the list of attendees, as well as companies from Asia, South America and Africa." http://t.uani.com/HZdinG
Human Rights
Reuters: "An Iranian official accused of involvement in the torture of protesters while in custody has resigned from his post after parliament threatened the government with impeachment, Iranian media reported on Sunday. Saeed Mortazavi stands accused of involvement in the deaths of protesters detained at the Kahrizak detention centre after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. A group of lawmakers launched the impeachment motion against Labour and Social Welfare Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami this month after he appointed Mortazavi as the new head of the social security office." http://t.uani.com/J4znkR
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Arab foreign ministers of the Gulf are to hold a special meeting in the Qatari capital on Tuesday to discuss the islands dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, an official source said. A Gulf Cooperation Council official said earlier that the meeting would take place in Riyadh but the GCC finally said it will be held in Doha. The meeting comes after Abu Dhabi recalled its ambassador to Tehran in protest at a visit to Abu Musa island by Iran's president. Abu Dhabi has also lodged a protest with the United Nations over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit, stressing that the territorial dispute should be resolved through negotiations or at the International Court of Justice." http://t.uani.com/HZaKpH
Opinion & Analysis
Amir Taheri in NYPost: "'An important reversal of America's position!' is how Tehran's government-mouthpiece daily Kayhan described the outcome of the latest talks between Iran and the 5+1 group of nations on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The 5+1 team (the permanent members of the United Nations' Security Council plus Germany) was led by European Union foreign-affairs spokeswoman Catherine Ashton. High Council of National Security Secretary Saeed Jalili led the Iranian team. The talks, held in Istanbul on Saturday, supposedly tried to persuade Tehran to comply with UN Security Council resolutions it has ignored for years - the key demand of which is that Iran stop uranium enrichment and open its nuclear sites to regular International Atomic Energy Agency inspection. Yet both sides said the Istanbul session dealt only with 'confidence-building' measures, including another round of talks in Baghdad on May 23. The way Tehran sees it, Istanbul showed that the 5+1 group has dropped the UN resolutions' demand for ending uranium enrichment. 'Up to now their position was that uranium enrichment was not allowed in any form,' Kayhan said in an editorial yesterday. 'Now, it is clear that enrichment between 3.5 and 5 percent is acceptable. Their hope is that Iran would decide not to enrich at higher levels.' Kayhan adds that Iran is enriching up to 20 percent and could 'go higher if needed.' The 40 kilos it has enriched up to 20 percent would have to be enriched up to 90 percent to provide nuclear-warhead material." http://t.uani.com/IPQRC3
Patrick Clawson in FP: "You wouldn't know it from following the news, but the nuclear impasse is not the only issue dividing Iran and the United States. In his latest message to the Iranian people on the occasion of their festival Nowruz in March, U.S. President Barack Obama emphasized another: human rights. After describing at length how 'the Iranian people are denied the basic freedom to access the information that they want,' he announced measures to penetrate 'the electronic curtain that is cutting the Iranian people off from the world.' It's difficult, by contrast, to find any mention of Iran's human rights record in the many background briefings and on-the-record comments by officials of the P5+1 - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States -- ahead of Saturday's negotiations with Iran in Istanbul. Proposals for how to resolve the nuclear standoff pour forth from pundits, but few if any include suggestions for what to do about Iran's jailing of journalists, execution of hundreds of people per year, persecution of religious minorities, or other human rights problems. Indeed, Iranian dissidents chafe at the attention the West gives to the nuclear impasse, and Iranian reformers have long feared that their interests will come second to a nuclear deal. As noted dissident Akbar Ganji warned in his September 2006 'Letter to America' in the Washington Post, 'We believe the government in Tehran is seeking a secret deal with the United States. It is willing to make any concession, provided that the United States promises to remain silent about the regime's repressive measures at home.' One reason Iranian democrats worry that we would throw them under a bus for a nuclear deal is because that is exactly what we would do. The cold truth is that the West, including the United States, would gladly negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran's hardliners at the expense of Iranian human rights and democracy. If all it took to reach a nuclear deal were to remain silent about Tehran's repression, the prospects for a deal would be excellent. But in fact what holds up the deal is that Iran is not prepared to give up much of its nuclear program and the West is not convinced that the Islamic Republic would live up to any commitment it makes. What's more, the West -- especially the United States -- is not willing to offer much in trade so long as the fundamental geostrategic conflict with Iran remains. Not only is a nuclear deal unlikely, but Iran's past record strongly suggests that it would not stick to a deal for long. Iran accepted an enrichment freeze in 2003 (only to immediately cheat, claiming that it was just continuing research on enrichment) and agreed to a renewed freeze in late 2003. Only later did Iranian officials acknowledge that the freeze had come at a convenient moment for Iran, which was having problems getting its centrifuges to work. Once those technical problems were solved and international pressure faded as America's seeming victory in Iraq turned to dust, Iran broke the freeze in February 2006 and installed about 2,500 centrifuges in the next year and a half, bringing its total to about 3,000. By August 2009, Iran had installed roughly 9,000 centrifuges. It is not clear, in other words, whether the temporary two-and-a-half-year freeze actually made much difference in the pace of Iran's nuclear progress. A good argument can therefore be made that counting on sustained implementation of a deal is at least as risky a gamble as supporting democrats." http://t.uani.com/HZ8qLR
Michael Adler in The Daily Beast: "Iran and the six world powers seeking to negotiate with it took a step back from confrontation Saturday when they reopened talks after an almost-year-and-a-half break. The discussions in Istanbul went well, both sides said, as they focused on the disputed Iranian nuclear program. The two sides agreed to meet again-in Baghdad on May 23. This may be a sign that the U.S.-led sanctions designed to reduce Iran's oil exports, the lifeblood of its economy, are having the desired effect of pushing Tehran back to the negotiating table. A diplomat close to the Iranians told me they 'are interested in sanctions relief.' In any case, the meeting was clearly a turning point at a time of increasing tensions with Iran over its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. This is true even though there was no agreement on measures to take, and neither side made proposals. EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton, who speaks for the so-called P5 plus 1 negotiating team of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, called the discussion 'constructive and useful.' The word 'constructive' was significant. The test of the talks had been to see if Iran, which claims its program is a drive to use the atom peacefully, would talk seriously about nuclear matters. The idea was to get started on negotiations that would have a chance of succeeding. Ashton was careful in a final statement read to a packed press conference to give the Iranians the one essential thing they needed for their constituency at home, to show that they were not surrendering in negotiations. She said Iran's right 'to the peaceful use of nuclear energy' under the NPT must be respected. This was tempered by a clause the P5 plus 1 needed, when Ashton said Iran had to meet its 'obligations under the NPT' not to seek nuclear weapons. 'We want now to move to a sustained process of serious dialogue, where we can take urgent practical steps to build confidence and lead on to compliance by Iran with all its international obligations' Ashton said. This 'step-by-step approach' with 'reciprocity' of rewards for compliance is designed to 'lead to concrete steps towards a comprehensive negotiated solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program,'Ashton said, speaking after an intense 10 hours of talks, during which Iran rejected a request for a bilateral meeting with US representative Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman. Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili did meet separately with the Russian envoy Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov as Russia is Iran's best advocate within the P5 plus 1. The real work remains to be done in getting Iran to surrender strategic parts of its nuclear work in return for concessions from the international community. These could include dropping or cutting some sanctions and helping Iran develop its civilian atomic program." http://t.uani.com/HMKpvZ |
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