Eye on Iran: UN: Iran Not Cooperating on Nuclear Weapons Probe

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories AP: "The U.N. nuclear chief said Monday that Iran is not cooperating with an investigation into suspected secret work on nuclear weapons. Yukio Amano told the U.N. General Assembly that talks between the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran have intensified this year after an IAEA report in November 2011 said it had 'credible information that Iran had carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,' he said. 'However, no concrete results have been achieved so far,' Amano said. While the IAEA continues to verify that Iran's declared nuclear material is not being diverted from peaceful purposes, 'Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable us to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities,' Amano said. 'Therefore, we cannot conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities,' he said." http://t.uani.com/VPwcBn Reuters: "A slowdown in Iran's accumulation of its most sensitive nuclear material may have helped put off the threat of a new Middle East war for now, but Tehran's expanding uranium-enrichment capacity suggests any relief could be short-lived. By dedicating a big part of its higher-enriched uranium to make civilian reactor fuel, Iran is removing it from a stockpile that could be used to make nuclear weapons if refined further and which would otherwise have grown faster. This may explain why Israel - assumed to be the region's only nuclear-armed state - recently signaled that an attack was not imminent, after months of speculation that it might be. But the trend that has emerged in U.N. nuclear watchdog reports on Iran this year could yet be reversible, proliferation experts say: the material can be converted back to uranium gas as long as it has not been introduced into a working reactor. Doing so 'would take a bit of time, but not more than a month or two, using technology the Iranians have already demonstrated that they have mastered,' a Western envoy said. In addition, Iran's rapid installation of new centrifuges - the machines that enrich uranium by spinning at supersonic speed - in an underground site gives it the capability to rapidly increase output, analysts say." http://t.uani.com/SJzQ1e   Daily Telegraph: "Speaking on a visit to the United Arab Emirates, David Cameron said that he believed Tehran was trying to develop nuclear weapons which he said would make the Middle East 'a more unstable and more dangerous place'.  He said: 'We should do everything we can to stop it happening.' ... During a 30 minute question and answer sessions with students in Abu Dhabi, he said: 'Iran does pose a threat in two ways. First of all, if Iran is embarked on trying to acquire a nuclear weapon, as I believe it is, that is a threat in itself, particularly given what Iran has said about other countries in the region, and in particular about Israel, about wanting to wipe it of the map. In itself it is a hugely concerning development, a desperately bad development for our world and that is why we should do everything we can to top it happening. But I think there is a second reason why it is so concerning and that is because I think it could trigger a nuclear arms race across the whole region. That would consume a huge amount of resources and energy but also I think make the Middle East a more dangerous, more unstable part of the world." http://t.uani.com/QjyRqb   Nuclear Program    NYT: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday reiterated his willingness to attack the Iranian nuclear program without support from Washington or the world, returning to an aggressive posture that he had largely abandoned since his United Nations speech in September... 'If someone sits here as the prime minister of Israel and he can't take action on matters that are cardinal to the existence of this country, its future and its security, and he is totally dependent on receiving approval from others, then he is not worthy of leading,' Mr. Netanyahu added. 'I can make these decisions.' ... As has been the case over the past two years, however, it is impossible to know whether his hawkish words are harbingers of deeds or part of a strategic campaign to scare nations into increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran.  'I am not eager to go to war,' Mr. Netanyahu said in the seven-minute interview. 'I have been creating very heavy pressure, and part of this pressure comes from the knowledge some of the most powerful nations in the world have that we are serious. This isn't a show, this is not false.'" http://t.uani.com/VPvd40   Reuters: "From a suspected Israeli airstrike in Sudan to cyber warfare in the Gulf and a drone shot down over Israel, the largely hidden war between Iran and its foes seems heating up and spreading. Despite months of speculation, most experts and governments believe the risk of a direct Israeli strike on Tehran's nuclear program stirring regional conflict has eased, at least for now. But all sides, it seems, are finding other ways to fight. For the US and European powers , the main focus remains on oil export sanctions that are inflicting ever more damage on Iran's economy. But the Obama administration and Israel have also ploughed resources into covert operations - a campaign that now appears to have prompted an increasingly sophisticated Iranian reaction. With Iranian hackers suspected of severely damaging Saudi oil facility computers and a suspected Hezbollah drone shot down over Israel, tactics and tools once seen as the sole purview of the United States are now clearly being used on both sides. The mounting body count in Syria, some believe, is also in part a consequence of the proxy war being waged there." http://t.uani.com/VyaeHA Reuters: "Discriminatory implementation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has left many countries feeling that being a party to the anti-atom bomb pact hinders cooperation in the field atomic energy, Iran's U.N. ambassador said on Monday. Western diplomats and analysts have long expressed concern that Iran might one day follow North Korea's example and pull out of the NPT and produce a bomb. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009. Speaking at a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on the annual report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee sought to assure countries that despite Tehran's reservations about the way the treaty is enforced, Iran does not plan to pull out." http://t.uani.com/QkpeHD  Sanctions Reuters: "Switzerland's neutrality is being tested as Brussels and Washington raise pressure over gaps in sanctions against Iran, in particular measures against its oil industry. While Switzerland has replicated the western line on Libyan and Syrian economic sanctions, it has reasserted its traditional neutrality over Iran and opted out of some of the measures passed by Europe and the United States... 'We are not putting in place, or are applying differently, sanctions that seem to us to go too far and tend towards regime change. In particular, that is the issue with the central bank, financial restrictions and the oil embargo,' Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter told Reuters... The Swiss government chose not to join the European Union's embargo on Iranian oil in July and did not add Iran's central bank to a sanctions list. The gulf widened further in October, when the EU voted to tighten sanctions again." http://t.uani.com/ROD6oA WashPost: "International efforts to isolate Iran and force it to halt its uranium enrichment program are having an impact that is both unintended and, for Iranian officials, very much welcome: a jump in tourism. Although most sectors of Iran's economy are struggling and oil revenue has steeply declined, foreign purchasing power is at an all-time high in Iran due to a plunge in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial. As a result, international travelers sensing a good deal are venturing to a country that for decades has been considered off-limits to all but the most intrepid tourists... The number of foreign tourists in Iran reached 3 million last year, contributing more than $2 billion to the national economy, according to Iranian data. Tour operators here say the number has risen this year. The tourists have injected badly needed fuel into a country that has been hobbled by runaway inflation, limited export markets and difficulty in obtaining raw materials... The vast majority of Iran's visitors come for religious reasons, making pilgrimages to Shiite holy sites." http://t.uani.com/VPvG69 Trend: "Turkish Airlines (THY) is struggling to collect 50 million euros from Iran, a sum of money that is said to be blocked on account of difficulties in transferring money, a problem seemingly exacerbated by a shortage of foreign currency in sanctions-hit Iran Today`s Zaman reported... Payments for tickets which THY agencies sell in Iran are deposited into a bank in Iran and some time is needed to transfer this money to Turkey through the Central Bank of Iran. Hamdi Topçu, the chairman of THY, was in Iran in September to meet with the Iranian vice president and officials from the Central Bank of Iran to find a solution to the problem. Talking about the sum of money that THY was due to receive from Iran, Topçu earlier said, 'There was some difficulty in transferring this sum of money to the Turkish Central Bank but we overcome that problem, but some problems still persist.'" http://t.uani.com/Ug3jTd Terrorism NYT: "Relations between Iran and Canada, already at a low point after Canada severed diplomatic ties in September, worsened Monday as Iran denounced a Canadian court ruling that froze Iranian government assets in Canada. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said Iran held Canada's government responsible for the court order, issued last week, which applied to Iran's embassy in Ottawa, two former cultural centers and a diplomatic residence. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Mr. Mehmanparast as saying 'the political motivations behind such a move are not hidden to anybody.' The Ontario Superior Court of Justice temporarily froze the assets in response to a request filed by the family of an American, Marla Bennett, who was killed in a Jerusalem bombing 11 years ago that was said to be the work of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group supported by Iran." http://t.uani.com/SJBhg3 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. 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