Eye on Iran: Iran Nuclear Talks Begin

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories WSJ: "Global powers presented Iran with a new package of demands and inducements Wednesday aimed at limiting the country's nuclear program, according to Western officials involved in the diplomacy. The negotiations are seeking to build on a tentative agreement reached Monday between Iran and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that would allow international inspectors access to sites, scientists and documents that the West believes are related to an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program. The talks, which are being held in the Iraqi capital, bring together Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany. The international diplomatic bloc, known as the P5+1, is seeking to get Iran to freeze its production of nuclear fuel enriched to 20% purity, according to Western diplomats, and to ship out its stockpile of the fuel to a third country. Such moves are seen as reducing Iran's ability to quickly amass the fissile material needed to develop an atomic weapon." http://t.uani.com/KBz1BD NYT: "Six global powers including the United State resumed negotiations with Iran here on Wednesday a day after Tehran signaled willingness to allow potentially intrusive international inspections of secret military facilities, raising expectations that it was searching for a diplomatic solution to the standoff over its nuclear program. But a Western official at the talks played down prospects for an immediate breakthrough. 'You are not going to get dramatic happenings here today, I don't think,' said Michael Mann, a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, representing the global powers. Mr. Mann called the negotiations a 'process,' according to news reports, saying 'these things can't be solved overnight.' 'We are going to make solid progress if things go well,' he added." http://t.uani.com/KLdlqj WSJ: "A tentative deal between Tehran and the United Nations' chief nuclear official offered a potential breakthrough on crucial inspections on the eve of international talks, but U.S. officials feared Iran won't honor the pact and is just seeking to divert its Western critics. The announcement in Vienna Tuesday by Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tehran would allow international inspectors access to sites, scientists and documents the West believes to be related to an alleged Iranian nuclear-weapons program. While the tentative deal with the IAEA pointed to possible progress, it didn't cover all Western concerns over Iran's program, and the Obama administration quickly voiced skepticism, noting Tehran's history of allowing verification, and then backing out once international pressure eased." http://t.uani.com/KdjoB4      Nuclear Program     Reuters: "The White House on Tuesday called the U.N. nuclear watchdog's progress toward an inspection agreement with Iran a step forward but said it would keep pressuring Tehran until there were concrete actions to curb the Iranian nuclear program. 'Promises are one thing, actions and fulfillments of obligations are another,' said White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking on the eve of major power talks with Iran in Baghdad over a program the West says is aimed at acquiring an atom bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier announced it was close to a deal to unblock monitoring of Iran's suspected work on a nuclear weapon, a positive sign one day before the six big powers meet Iran's security council chief. 'The announcement today is a step forward. It's an agreement in principle. It represents a step in the right direction,' Carney said. However, he also spelled out that it was premature to discuss easing sanctions, including on Iran's vital oil exports, which are due to take force in July." http://t.uani.com/JHnowF Reuters: "Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday that any efforts by Western powers to put pressure on Iran at talks in Baghdad over its nuclear programme would be futile. His comments come just hours before world powers and Iran sit down for talks in the Iraqi capital to try to reach agreement over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme. Salehi told a news conference in Tehran: 'Their (Western powers') policies of pressure and intimidation are futile. They have to adopt policies to show goodwill to solve this issue. The ideas fielded to us speak of the fact that the other side would like to make Baghdad a success. We hope that in a day or two we can bring good news.'" http://t.uani.com/JpSWmJ FT: "Western powers are prepared to offer Iran an 'oil carrot' that would allow it to continue supplying crude to Asian customers in exchange for guarantees it is not building an atomic bomb. As the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union prepare for talks with Iranian officials in Baghdad on Wednesday, diplomats and oil executives said Washington and Brussels were likely to hold out the prospect of a possible suspension of an EU insurance ban on ships carrying Iranian oil. They added that the US and EU are not prepared to lift other sanctions - including an EU import ban on Iranian oil - and also cautioned that a deal is unlikely to be agreed at the meeting. Waiving the EU insurance ban, which takes effect on July 1, would allow China, India, Japan and South Korea to buy shipping insurance in London, which dominates the market." http://t.uani.com/KoognP AP: "Israel's defense minister says Iran's preliminary agreement to open its nuclear facilities to U.N. inspectors doesn't rule out a possible Israeli military strike. Ehud Barak said on Wednesday that he's skeptical about the deal, which he calls an Iranian ploy to fend off international pressure to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions. But Barak told Army Radio that buying time is a problem for Israel. He says that a 'nuclear Iran is intolerable and no options should be taken off the table.' The phrase is Israel's oblique reference to the use of force." http://t.uani.com/LooTOx Sanctions WSJ: "When Iran meets with world powers in Baghdad this week for nuclear negotiations, the Islamic Republic's most pressing concern will be how to ease sanctions crippling its economy. It is unclear whether Iran will make concrete concessions in talks that begin Wednesday with the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, the international parties that are focused on reining in Tehran's nuclear ambitions. But inside the country, indications are growing that the country is struggling under international sanctions, and that business has taken a pause ahead of what Iranians broadly say they hope will be an easing of the pressure... Economists inside Iran say inflation is above 50% annually and prices for basic daily goods such as dairy products, meat and rice increase weekly. Iran's central bank puts the inflation rate at 21%, a figure disputed even by Iran's official newspapers. Dozens of factories across Iran, in sectors ranging from dairy to steel, had shut down and over 100,000 workers had been laid off in the past year, a union of contract workers said last week." http://t.uani.com/JRe0Y1 The Hill: "House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said Tuesday that the House would push for tougher Iran sanctions language than what the Senate approved on Monday. 'I am gratified that the Senate finally passed its Iran sanctions legislation, although I am concerned that the legislation is not strong enough,' she said. 'I look forward to convening a House-led conference that will afford members from both sides of the aisle in both chambers the opportunity to further strengthen the legislation and get it to the president's desk for signature as soon as possible.'" http://t.uani.com/KylNTO AP: "The president of a North Charleston company has been arrested and charged with illegally exporting goods to Iran and lying to agents about his trade practices, according to federal prosecutors. Markos Baghdasarian was arrested Saturday at Atlanta's main airport before he could board a flight to the United Arab Emirates. That's where, according to federal authorities, Baghdasarian had a business associate who helped get his South Carolina-made products into Iran. Baghdasarian was president of Delfin Group USA, a Russian-owned producer and supplier of synthetic motor oils that solidified its U.S. presence in the North Charleston area in 2008 with a $55 million renovation to an old Shell Oil plant it had bought for $20 million." http://t.uani.com/KfTnS2 Foreign Affairs Reuters: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit China in June for a security summit and discuss his country's disputed nuclear programme with Chinese President Hu Jintao, a senior diplomat said on Wednesday, criticizing new sanctions aimed at Iran. Ahmadinejad will be attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting hosted by Beijing in June, China's Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told reporters at a briefing. The SCO is a regional security forum that groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and which Iran is attending as an observer." http://t.uani.com/JRj2DE Reuters: "Iran has withdrawn its ambassador from Azerbaijan after clerics criticised Baku's hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest, further souring relations between the Islamic Republic and its secular neighbour. Iran's withdrawal of its ambassador, for consultations in Tehran, comes after months of accusations by the two countries of meddling in each other's affairs and as the western-allied, mostly Shi'ite Muslim Azerbaijan is about to host a hugely popular international talent show. Azerbaijan's hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest - a flamboyant annual pageant of pop music from around Europe - has been condemned by some Iranian clerics and lawmakers who have referred to a 'gay parade' - although no such event is planned." http://t.uani.com/JHpCfe Opinion & Analysis Lindsey Graham, Joseph Lieberman & John McCain in WSJ: "As negotiations resume Wednesday in Baghdad between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (the 'P5+1'), there are growing hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. This sense of optimism has been buoyed by the hopeful statements of the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after his visit to Tehran this week. We want to be hopeful, too. A negotiated settlement that verifiably ends Iran's illicit nuclear activities and prevents Iran from possessing the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon quickly is desirable and possible. But we must not allow these talks to become a movie we've seen before, in which success is defined less by the outcome of negotiations than by their mere perpetuation. The Iranian regime's long record of deceit and defiance should make us extremely cautious about its willingness to engage in good-faith diplomacy. And its nuclear pursuit cannot be divorced from its other destabilizing actions-support for violent extremist groups such as Hezbollah and the Taliban, threats against Arab governments and Israel, attempts to assassinate foreign diplomats, and lethal assistance to the Assad regime in Syria. In fact, Iran's new-found interest in negotiating is almost certainly a result of the strong pressure that the regime now faces from economic sanctions. Most important of all have been U.S. and European Union efforts to obstruct Iran's ability to derive revenue from international oil sales-a campaign whose full brunt won't be felt until later this summer. Based on its past behavior, we should expect Iran's government to use the talks to buy time, undermine international unity, and relieve the mounting economic pressure it faces. The U.S., in turn, must work with our partners to make clear that there will be no diminution of pressure until the totality of Iran's illicit nuclear activities has been addressed. That will require much more than shuttering the underground enrichment facility at Fordow, removing from Iranian territory all uranium enriched to 20%, and suspending further enrichment at that level-the three steps that reports suggest the P5+1 negotiators will emphasize in Baghdad. Remember that Iran had no uranium enriched to 20% until two years ago, nor was the Fordow site operational before then. Focusing only on these recent manifestations of Iran's nuclear program, without also addressing older and broader enrichment and proliferation-sensitive activities, would effectively reward the Iranians for their escalation and allow them to move back the goal posts. Rather, the U.S. must make clear that international pressure will continue to build on Iran until it takes the concrete steps that will address the entirety of the threat, with a swift timetable for implementation. These must include..." http://t.uani.com/KTeZCs Michael Singh in FP: "In one of the most memorable lines of his March 4, 2012, speech on the Middle East, President Obama declared, 'Iran's leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.' However, containment is rarely a policy one prefers, with its implication of preventing a bad situation from getting worse. Instead, it tends to be the policy one is left with once other realistic options have been exhausted. Avoiding containment, therefore, has less to do with declarations about the future, and far more to do with sound strategy today: We must prevent ourselves from being maneuvered into a corner where we have little choice other than to accept containment as our de facto Iran policy. Instead of emphasizing what we may do if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, or is on the cusp of doing so, the U.S. should focus on denying Tehran the necessary building blocks to reach that point -- in other words, a nuclear weapons capability. North Korea provides a case in point. It would surprise most Americans to learn that the United States provided North Korea with over $1.3 billion in assistance from 1995 to 2008. This aid, along with other benefits, such as North Korea's removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and the unfreezing of key assets, was provided even as the U.S. and its allies spent countless dollars more defending themselves from the dangers emanating from Pyongyang, and as North Korea made steady progress toward a nuclear weapon, culminating in a pair of nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The North Korean regime was given relief, not in exchange  for irreversible denuclearization, but for 'confidence-building measures' (CBMs), which stopped short of addressing Washington's core concerns. The net effect, however, is that diplomatic confidence has instead been undermined due to the North's reversals, and Pyongyang has reportedly assembled a nuclear arsenal despite withering international pressure. While Iran and North Korea are different in many regards, these outcomes should nevertheless be bracing for those involved in the nuclear negotiations with Tehran, into which similar language regarding interim agreements and CBMs has crept. In order for the talks resuming this week in Baghdad to provide a path to Iran's denuclearization -- rather than a slippery slope towards containment -- the Obama administration should avoid three key mistakes. First, the U.S. should not provide relief from sanctions in exchange for anything less than the full suspension of uranium enrichment by Tehran, and other hard-to-reverse steps such as the removal of Iran's enriched uranium stocks and dismantlement of its key fuel fabrication facilities. This is necessary for three reasons: First, it prevents Iran from using the talks simply to derail the pressure campaign against it, only to renege on its commitments later, as it has done in the past. Second, it prevents Iran from legitimizing its uranium enrichment program and thereby gaining technical mastery of the enrichment process, which would be a boon should the regime later kick out inspectors. Finally, it would simplify the task of detecting Iranian cheating. If Iran is permitted a legitimate enrichment program, then the IAEA and Western intelligence agencies must seek to detect diversion of uranium or other material and personnel to a possible parallel, clandestine program, whereas if Iran is not permitted such activities at all, any enrichment-related work would be a red flag and a cause for punitive action." http://t.uani.com/KTkK38 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.