Thursday, September 12, 2013

Eye on Iran: Harsh Introduction for Iran's New IAEA Envoy







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AFP:
"Western envoys gave Iran's new ambassador to the UN atomic agency a frosty welcome Wednesday, saying Tehran's new government should waste no time proving to the world it does not want the bomb. Speaking at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors, US envoy Joseph Macmanus said Iran was refusing to comply with UN Security Council and IAEA resolutions demanding it suspend key parts of its nuclear programme. 'In fact, Iran continues taking actions in direct contravention of its obligations to expand and deepen these prohibited programmes,' Macmanus told the closed-door quarterly gathering in Vienna. These include uranium enrichment, a process that lies at the heart of the international community's worries about Iran's activities since it could provide Tehran with material for the fissile core of a nuclear weapon. 'With a new president in office, and a new government in place under his leadership, Iran today has an opportunity to change its path from intransigence to cooperation, from obfuscation to transparency,' Macmanus said, according to the text of his remarks. Lithuania's IAEA representative said in a statement on behalf of the European Union that the IAEA's latest regular report on Iran last month that showed a continued expansion 'further aggravates our deep concerns.'" http://t.uani.com/1b9r7QG

AP: "Ten rounds of negotiations over the past two years have failed to end the deadlock. The two sides meet again Sept. 27, and Macmanus indicated that the West will consider those talks a yardstick of Rouhani's professed interest in easing nuclear tensions. The West, he said, will work with other board members to hold Iran accountable should it fail to seize the moment and 'continue its intransigence and obfuscation.' His comments appeared to be diplomatic code for an effort in November to again refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council if the Sept. 27 talks end inconclusively. Past referrals have led to U.N sanctions. While permanent council members Russia and China would likely veto additional sanctions, a new referral would still be a harsh international expression of displeasure with Iran. Also voicing the threat of referral, a statement from the European Union warned of possible 'action' if Iran does not cooperate with probe attempts by November. The IAEA is particularly interested in visiting a site at Parchin, a sprawling military complex southeast of Tehran, where it suspects Iran worked on a conventional explosives trigger for a nuclear blast." http://t.uani.com/1b9rJpp

LAT: Signaling a possible thaw in long-frozen relations, the Obama administration and the new leadership in Iran are communicating about Syria and are moving behind the scenes toward direct talks that both governments hope can ease the escalating confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program. President Obama reportedly reached out to Iran's relatively moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, through an exchange of letters in recent weeks. The pragmatist cleric is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, and after years of the United States cold-shouldering his ultraconservative predecessor, U.S. officials say it's possible they will meet with Rouhani on the sidelines. Beyond that, U.S. and Iranian officials are tentatively laying the groundwork for potential face-to-face talks between the two governments, the first in the rancorous 34 years since radical students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and founded the Islamic theocracy. Diplomatic relations have been broken ever since." http://t.uani.com/14Ok0G0
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Nuclear Program

Reuters: "Iran's new envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency said on Thursday he would cooperate with it to find a way to 'overcome existing issues once and for all', potentially signaling a more flexible approach from Tehran's new administration. But Ambassador Reza Najafi, at his first board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also repeated Iran's position that it would not give up what it sees as its legitimate right to a peaceful nuclear energy program. 'Based on its rights and obligations recognized under the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), Iran is ready to faithfully engage and remove any ambiguity on its nuclear activities,' Najafi told the governing board of the Vienna-based U.N. agency." http://t.uani.com/15WzNmy 

Sanctions

Trend: "Iraq and other countries should bar the import of Iranian cars, until Iran halts its nuclear program, UANI (United Against Nuclear Iran U.S. group) Communications Director Nathan Carleton told Trend. Latest reports from Iranian news outlets indicate that Iranian car manufacturer Saipa shares some 40 percent of Iraqi car market, and Iraq has a very large share of Iran's car exports. This is while Iraq is not very pleased with Iran-made cars, which seem to have a lot of manufacturing flaws and this turns into a lot of road accidents. 'Countries that continue to support Iran's automotive sector are indirectly supporting the Iranian regime,' Carleton said. 'The entire world should take note that Iran's automotive sector is now under U.S. sanctions, due to President Obama's Executive Order.'" http://t.uani.com/14ICH33

Reuters: "A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the owners of a New York City skyscraper at the center of a long-running dispute violated U.S. laws against doing business with Iran. The ruling, which is likely to be appealed, could result in the building, 650 Fifth Avenue, being seized by the U.S. government. The ruling came just days before two parallel trials were to begin in federal court in New York in which the Justice Department and private plaintiffs were seeking to take control of the building... Forrest found that the majority owner of the building, the Alavi Foundation, knew that two minority owners were fronts for Iran's Bank Melli, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and U.S. money laundering laws... Alavi is a non-profit organization that promotes Islamic culture and the Persian language. It donated more than $1.5 million in 2012 to recipients including Hartford Seminary, Harvard University and the Muslim Women's Institute for Research and Development, according to a website for 650 Fifth Avenue." http://t.uani.com/14OgVpz

Reuters: "India will talk to Iran about paying for its oil imports fully in rupees after the Middle Eastern nation ended a brief trial of the mechanism and reverted to a system of partial rupee payments, an Indian oil ministry official said. Iran, isolated from the global financial system due to U.S. and European Union sanctions against its nuclear programme, wants to boost imports from India to fix its trade imbalance and utilise billions of rupees lying in an Indian bank account. India, on the other hand, wants to use its local currency, which has declined sharply against the dollar, to settle imports and save foreign exchange. 'They had given some invoices in rupees for 100 percent but I think lately they have stopped that. So that matter had to be further discussed,' oil secretary Vivek Rae told reporters on the sidelines of an industry event on Thursday. India pays 45 percent of the import value of Iranian oil in rupees and Indian refiners hold back the remaining 55 percent as Iran explores avenues for alternative payment mechanisms." http://t.uani.com/1atwozJ

Human Rights

RFE/RL: "RFE/RL's Persian language Service, Radio Farda, has reported several recent instances of intimidation targeting reporters' relatives in Iran, despite widespread expectations that the new government of President Hassan Rohani would usher in a period of more moderate politics and ease societal tensions. In five separate instances in August, relatives were approached, and in some cases interrogated, by agents of Iran's Intelligence Ministry with the aim of pressuring them to persuade their sons, daughters, and siblings to resign from their jobs. Radio Farda journalists are banned from working in Iran, and RFE/RL President and CEO Kevin Klose called the harassment 'censorship by other means.' 'These methods are meant to pressure journalists living and reporting from abroad and are no less heinous than threatening the journalists directly,' Klose said. He added that if the Rohani administration wants to signal a departure from its predecessors, 'it can stop these tactics.'" http://t.uani.com/17sXkOH

IHR: "Two prisoners were hanged in the prison of Kermanshah (western Iran) today September 11. reported the Iranian state media... The human rights group HRANA reported about scheduled public execution of three prisoners in Dehdasht (western Iran) tomorrow September 12." http://t.uani.com/1d7XT2S 

Domestic Affairs

Guardian: "Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have seen an improvement in the conditions of their house arrest as hopes grow for their release. Since Hassan Rouhani took office as Iran's new president last month the two men, who have been held for more than two years without being put on trial, have been treated better by the security guards and allowed more frequent family visits. Karroubi's son, Mohammad Taghi, told the Guardian on Wednesday that both leaders have been dealt with in a positive fashion recently as news emerges that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has agreed that the country's supreme national security council can decide on their fate. 'The supreme leader has agreed for the council to handle the issue regarding their house arrests,' he said. 'We have received this news from a reliable source.'" http://t.uani.com/1e61YaE

AP: "Iranian authorities say a prominent center for filmmakers and artists can reopen, more than 20 months after it was closed by hard-liners. The decision, reported Thursday by the official IRNA news agency, appears to reflect the more tolerant views on social and cultural issues by Iran's new moderate-leaning president, Hasan Rouhani. IRNA quotes Hojjatollah Ayoubi, a deputy culture minister, as saying the reopening of the House of Cinema is an indication of support for film by Rouhani's government." http://t.uani.com/1emaUKc

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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