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NYT: "The Obama administration and its European allies plan to open new negotiations with Iran by demanding the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of a recently completed nuclear facility deep under a mountain, according to American and European diplomats. They are also calling for a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country, the diplomats said. That negotiating position will be the opening move in what President Obama has called Iran's 'last chance' to resolve its nuclear confrontation with the United Nations and the West diplomatically. The hard-line approach would require the country's military leadership to give up the Fordo enrichment plant outside the holy city of Qum, and with it a huge investment in the one facility that is most hardened against airstrikes." http://t.uani.com/ItLIyY
WSJ: "As Western sanctions on Iran have grown tighter, some small banks have found a lucrative niche financing what remains of the legal trade with the Islamic Republic. Top-tier financial institutions including Société Générale SA and Rabobank Group have stepped back from business with Iran in recent months, citing increased political risk and logistical hassles that attend even legal trade with the country. As a result, the remaining players are commanding higher fees and offering increasingly complicated services. Like Russia's First Czech-Russian Bank LLC and China's Bank of Kunlun Co. Ltd, they are typically small, obscure financial institutions often based in countries historically friendly to Iran. The firms and other intermediaries still brokering these trades are charging more than 6% per transaction for legitimate trade deals with Iran, on top of traditional banking fees, according to traders and bankers knowledgeable with the process... In Geneva, Hinduja Bank (Switzerland) Ltd., handles Iranian food transactions for Swiss companies... In Iran, a trio of small, private banks-Saman Bank, Karafarin Bank and Pasargad Bank-have stepped in to replace the larger, sanctioned institutions." http://t.uani.com/Iq8cy3
NYT: "In the diplomatic shadowboxing ahead of a planned resumption of nuclear talks between global powers and Iran, a senior official in Tehran was quoted on Monday as hinting at what seemed to be a modest compromise to partially meet some Western concerns about the country's uranium enrichment program. But another high-ranking figure, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted as saying that Iran would not accept preconditions for the discussions. 'Setting conditions before the meeting means drawing conclusions, which is completely meaningless and none of the parties will accept conditions set before the talks,' the Iranian parliamentary news agency quoted the minister as saying, according to Reuters. Earlier, Fereydoon Abbasi, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, indicated that Iran was prepared to enrich uranium to 20 percent purity 'just to meet its own needs' for a research reactor but not beyond that point, the official IRNA news agency reported." http://t.uani.com/IyHLFC
 Nuclear Program
AFP: "World powers will hold a fresh round of nuclear talks with Iran in Istanbul on Saturday, a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said. 'We have agreed to launch talks in Istanbul on April 14,' Michael Mann said on Monday. 'We hope that this first round will produce a conducive environment for concrete progress.' 'We are of course aiming at a sustained process,' Mann added. Iran last held talks with the so-called P5+1 powers -- permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany -- in January 2011 with no results." http://t.uani.com/HDqhrC
WashPost: "More than three years ago, the CIA dispatched a stealth surveillance drone into the skies over Iran. The bat-winged aircraft penetrated more than 600 miles inside the country, captured images of Iran's secret nuclear facility at Qom and then flew home. All the while, analysts at the CIA and other agencies watched carefully for any sign that the craft, dubbed the RQ-170 Sentinel, had been detected by Tehran's air defenses on its maiden voyage... CIA stealth drones scoured dozens of sites throughout Iran, making hundreds of passes over suspicious facilities, before a version of the RQ-170 crashed inside Iran's borders in December. The surveillance has been part of what current and former U.S. officials describe as an intelligence surge that is aimed at Iran's nuclear program and that has been gaining momentum since the final years of George W. Bush's administration... At a time of renewed debate over whether stopping Iran might require military strikes, the expanded intelligence collection has reinforced the view within the White House that it will have early warning of any move by Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb, officials said." http://t.uani.com/Iab4Dt
AP: "Iran's nuclear chief signaled Tehran's envoys may bring a compromise offer to the talks this week with world powers: Promising to eventually stop producing its most highly enriched uranium, while not totally abandoning its ability to make nuclear fuel. The proposal outlined late Sunday seeks to directly address one of the potential main issues in the talks scheduled to begin Friday between Iran and the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany. The U.S. and others have raised serious concerns about Iran's production and stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, which could be turned into weapons-grade strength in a matter of months. But the proposal described by Iran's nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, may not go far enough to satisfy the West because it would leave the higher enriched uranium still in Tehran's hands rather than transferred outside the country." http://t.uani.com/HWWhcR
AFP: "Iran on Sunday rejected demands the West is reportedly to submit at talks due to take place in days, saying it will neither close its Fordo nuclear bunker nor give up higher-level uranium enrichment. Those two demands, outlined by European and US diplomats to The New York Times newspaper, were 'irrational,' the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, told ISNA news agency in a lengthy interview. Fordo, an underground bunker near the holy city of Qom, 'is built underground because of sanctions and the threats of attacks,' he pointed out. 'If they do not threaten us and guarantee that no aggression will occur, then there would be no need for countries to build facilities underground. They should change their behaviour and language,' he said." http://t.uani.com/I9fYSe
AP: "A prominent Iranian lawmaker says Iran has the knowledge and scientific capability to produce nuclear weapons but will never do so. Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam says Iran can easily produce the highly enriched uranium that is used to build atomic bombs but it is not Tehran's policy to go that route. Moghadam made the comment in an interview with the parliament's news website, icana.ir, late Friday. His views do not represent the Iranian government's policy. It is the first time that a prominent Iranian politician has publicly stated that Iran has the technological capability to produce a nuclear weapon." http://t.uani.com/HsAw8I
Reuters: "A senior Iranian lawmaker warned Western powers they would soon have to accept the reality of the country's nuclear advances, Iran's state news agency reported late on Saturday, days before talks are set to re-open on its disputed nuclear programme. The head of the parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, was speaking at a ceremony in Mashhad in memory of what Iran describes as its nuclear martyrs; at least four scientists associated with Iran's nuclear programme have been assassinated since 2010 and a fifth was wounded in a bomb attack." http://t.uani.com/I9BQbW
AP: "The U.S. Navy says it has deployed a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf amid rising tensions with Iran over its nuclear program.Cmdr. Amy Derrick-Frost of the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said on Monday that the deployment of the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise along the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group marks only the fourth time in the past decade that the Navy has had two aircraft carriers operating at the same time in the region." http://t.uani.com/Hr4CUk
Sanctions
Reuters: "Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday the country's sovereign wealth fund could reach $55 billion by March next year if oil prices kept high, in an apparent bid to defend his economic record in the face of increasing isolation. Washington and the European Union have stepped up sanctions on the Islamic Republic, alarmed by its disputed nuclear program. Iran earned up to $100 billion in oil revenue last year but an EU embargo set to come into force in July could put a major dent in future income... Iran's National Development Fund - which is currently valued at around $35 billion - was set up by Ahmadinejad's government last year to collect some of the proceeds from the country's oil and gas industries for the benefit of future generations. A minimum of 20 percent of its reserves is supposed to be invested abroad." http://t.uani.com/HDrwXN
Reuters: "Hong Kong maritime insurers will not provide full cover to tankers carrying Iranian oil after EU sanctions take effect from July, a senior industry official told Reuters, another blow to Chinese importers struggling to find ways around the measures. As more insurers confirm they will soon halt or sharply reduce coverage to tankers operating in Iran, China's government may need to step in and take the risk to get contracted crude supplies from Tehran, said Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association. China is the top buyer of Iranian crude. Bowring's comments come days after officials at China's P&I club, which covers more than 1,000 ships, told Reuters the insurer would not extend cover to tankers carrying Iranian oil when the new EU sanctions come into force. 'For the liability coverage that we now need, the reinsurance is essential and that comes from the international market, which of course is affected by the sanctions,' said Bowring." http://t.uani.com/Hr67Sx
Reuters: "Iran's official inflation rate has almost doubled over the past year as prices are driven up by budget reforms, a weak currency and international sanctions, according to new data which could add to criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Inflation in urban areas was 21.5 percent for the last Iranian year which ended on March 19, the central bank said in a statement on Sunday. Prices of goods and services rose 12.4 percent during the preceding year, according to figures previously released by the bank. During the final month of last year, when consumer demand related to year-end celebrations added to upward pressure on inflation, prices jumped 3.4 percent from the previous month." http://t.uani.com/HDtibk
NYPost: "He sure knows how to play both sides. A Russian bank chief with suspected ties to the funding for the construction of a nuclear-power plant in Iran has just inked a lucrative deal with a top real-estate firm led by a prominent Jewish leader in New York to snap up distressed properties along the East Coast - including in the city, The Post has learned... Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman, 47 - who runs Alfa Bank, his nation's largest private finance house - teamed up with developer Jack Rosen of Rosen Partners in December to invest $1 billion in US real estate from New York to Miami." http://t.uani.com/Hr6oF6
Foreign Affairs
Bloomberg: "Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon contacted the Central Intelligence Agency in late 2009 with an urgent question. The school's campus in Dubai needed a bailout and an unlikely savior had stepped forward: a Dubai-based company that offered to provide money and students. Simon was tempted. She also worried that the company, which had investors from Iran and wanted to recruit students from there, might be a front for the Iranian government, she said. If so, an agreement could violate federal trade sanctions and invite enemy spies. The CIA couldn't confirm that the company wasn't an arm of Iran's government. Simon rejected the offer and shut down undergraduate programs in Dubai, at a loss of $3.7 million. Hearkening back to Cold War anxieties, growing signs of spying on U.S. universities are alarming national security officials." http://t.uani.com/IyHToD
Opinion & Analysis
Karim Sadjadpour in WashPost: "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has never been a gambling man. Since becoming 'supreme leader' of Iran in 1989, he's sought to preserve the status quo by eschewing transformative decisions. But as unprecedented political and economic pressures - including sanctions against Iran's central bank and the European Union oil embargo - increasingly push his back against the wall, Khamenei seemingly has two paths to deliverance: a nuclear compromise or a nuclear weapon. Each could be perilous for him; both would be transformative for Iran. Khamenei's aversion to compromise is well-established. He has long said that Washington's underlying goal in Tehran is not behavior change but regime change. 'If you supplicate, withdraw and show flexibility, arrogant powers will make their threat more serious,' he has said. Just as perestroika hastened the demise of the Soviet Union, Khamenei believes that compromising on revolutionary ideals could destabilize the foundations of the Islamic Republic. Contemporary history has validated his worldview. To Khamenei's thinking, it was Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi's abdication of his nuclear program that made him vulnerable to the NATO intervention that ended his regime, and his life, last year. By contrast, Pakistan's nuclear weapons tests in 1998 helped turn foreign pressure and sanctions against it into foreign engagement and incentives. While Khamenei may shun compromise, however, his path to a bomb would be perilous. Overt signs of weaponization - the expulsion of nuclear inspectors or the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium - are likely to trigger U.S. or Israeli military action. Unless Khamenei wants to provoke a military attack on Iran for domestic expediency - an improbable but not implausible prospect - he will continue to favor a deliberate, incremental approach. Such a pace leaves the regime at least two years from a bomb. But time may no longer be Khamenei's friend. He must calculate whether his regime can sustain severe and escalating economic pressure for the period it would take to acquire a weapon. Nor will the path toward a weapon be a straight line. Khamenei must consider that foreign intelligence services have probably penetrated Iran's nuclear facilities and prepared various obstacles and pitfalls - computer viruses, 'accidental' explosions, mysterious assassinations and defections - that could set Iran's nuclear clock back even further. Are these challenges enough to force Khamenei into a compromise? The very few instances in which Iran has made significant compromises - such as ending its war with Iraq in 1988 or suspending uranium enrichment in 2003 - have come when the regime has perceived existential angst. While Iran is under enormous pressure today, two factors are different. First, when Iran felt compelled to compromise in the past, oil cost less than $25 a barrel. Today, oil prices hover around four times that amount, softening the blow of sanctions. Second, instances in which Iran has compromised were spearheaded not by the obstinate Khamenei but by wily former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani or his acolytes. In the past few years, however, Khamenei has purged these pragmatic elements from positions of authority and surrounded himself with sycophants who share his cynical hard-line worldview." http://t.uani.com/HsBrpE |
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