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Top Stories
NYT:
"But amid the fervent diplomatic theater, intended to end Iran's
isolation, it was at times difficult to tell whether Mr. Rouhani was a
genuinely transformative Iranian leader, as his cabinet insisted, or a
more polished avatar of the past, as his critics claimed. In television
interviews and public addresses throughout the week, he repeatedly sought
to cast himself as a moderate ready to do business with the West. But it
was also clear that whatever he said here was closely and instantly
dissected at home, raising uncertainty over whether he could truly
deliver a compromise with the West, if that is what he sought. And so he
condemned the Nazis in a television interview, but quickly hedged by
saying he was not a historian. And even as he called for 'time bound'
talks to resolve the nuclear standoff, he skipped a lunch at which he
might have had the chance to meet President Obama and shake his hand.
Even charmed diplomats pointed out he offered no concrete proposals,
while also noting he had received nothing concrete from Western officials
to take back to his constituents... Gary Samore, a former Obama adviser,
and now the president of United Against Nuclear Iran, said the substance
was 'very similar to Ahmadinejad's, but he says it in a much kinder and
gentler way.' 'That's the definition of a charm offensive,' he
continued." http://t.uani.com/177EdKV
Bloomberg:
"Foreign ministers from the U.S. and five other powers met with
Iran's top diplomat to see whether the Islamic Republic's new
administration is serious about resolving disputes over its nuclear
program. The meeting at the United Nations today represented the
highest-level formal talks between the U.S. and Iran since before the
1979 Islamic Revolution. It came after President Hassan Rouhani, who took
office last month, asserted a desire to resolve tensions over his
nation's nuclear program, which the U.S. and its European allies say is
being used to develop nuclear weapons capability... Some Western analysts
say they're uncertain what Rouhani can do, in part because Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ultimate authority over the country's nuclear
program. 'I haven't seen a dramatic change in what they're willing to
offer, or on the limits to what they're willing to do' said Gary Samore,
Obama's top coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction
until February." http://t.uani.com/1av3Sx2
Back Channel
(Al-Monitor): "US Secretary of State John Kerry
shook hands and met alone with Iran's new top diplomat Mohammad Javad
Zarif for thirty minutes Thursday, in the highest level direct talks
between the two countries in decades. 'We had a constructive meeting, and
I think all of us were pleased that Foreign Minister Zarif came and made
a presentation to us, which was very different in tone and very different
in the vision that he held out with respect to possibilities of the
future,' Kerry told journalists after the meeting. 'Now it's up to
people to do the hard work of trying to fill out what those possibilities
could do,' Kerry said... Zarif 'made a thoughtful presentation, he laid
out what Iran's interests were, ... and expressed a desire to come to an
agreement and have it fully implemented in a year's time,' the senior
State Department official said Thursday, stressing again that Zarif
proposed both reaching and implementing a nuclear deal within a year...
'If the Iranians agreed to establish a US-Iran channel on the margins of
the P5+1, it's a good sign,' former top Obama nonproliferation advisor
Gary Samore, president of United Against a Nuclear Iran [UANI], told
Al-Monitor Thursday." http://t.uani.com/1dNTGkY
Nuclear
Program
Reuters:
"Six major powers and Iran on Thursday agreed to meet in Geneva next
month for further talks on resolving the standoff with Tehran on its
nuclear program, the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine
Ashton said on Thursday... Ashton said the Geneva meeting on October
15-16 would 'carry on from today's meeting and hopefully move this
process forward.' 'We want to spend our time in Geneva translating that
into the practical details,' said Ashton, adding: 'I am very ambitious
for what we can do, but we all know we have to be very practical.'" http://t.uani.com/16F5PTo
Reuters:
"Iran has sharply criticized the U.N. nuclear watchdog over
'baseless allegations' about its atomic activity, a document showed
before talks between the two sides on Friday to discuss a stalled inquiry
into suspected bomb research by Tehran. The uncompromising language in
the paper, and the fact that Iran asked the U.N. agency to make it
public, may disappoint those hoping for a softening of the Islamic
state's nuclear stance under new President Hassan Rouhani, a relative
moderate. Iran's new government said on Wednesday it wanted to
'jump-start' separate talks with six world powers on a diplomatic
solution to a decade-long dispute over its uranium enrichment program and
hoped for a deal in three to six months. But in a 20-page 'explanatory
note' posted on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency on
Thursday, Iran's mission to the IAEA detailed many objections to its
latest report on Tehran's nuclear program, issued last month. 'The claims
and baseless allegations against the Islamic Republic of Iran's peaceful
nuclear activities ... are unprofessional, unfair, illegal and
politicized,' it said." http://t.uani.com/1h6dz6N
Reuters:
"Iran played down prospects for a quick breakthrough in talks with
the U.N. nuclear agency on Friday over a stalled inquiry into its atomic
work, the first such meeting under the new relatively moderate Iranian
government. The discussions in Vienna, home of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), started at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT), a day after separate
but related talks at the United Nations in New York, where Iran and the
United States held their highest-level talks in a generation. For the
West, the IAEA negotiations are a test of any substantive shift by Iran
from what it saw as intransigence under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline
predecessor of new President Hassan Rouhani. Iran's envoy to the IAEA,
Reza Najafi, stressed the new government's policy of 'constructive
interaction' but also said he did not expect any agreement on
Friday." http://t.uani.com/18usKpc
AFP:
"President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday that Iran was committed to
negotiate on its nuclear program in 'good faith' after the highest-level
talks yet held with world powers. 'We are fully prepared to seriously
engage in the process toward a negotiated and mutually agreeable
settlement and do so in good faith and with a business-like mind,'
Rouhani told a think tank forum in New York." http://t.uani.com/15YXHkY
AP:
"Iran's Revolutionary Guard has unveiled an attack drone, capable of
carrying missiles and described as the unit's 'most sophisticated' so
far. The Guard's website, sepahnews.com, says Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari
unveiled the drone Friday. He is quoted as saying the all-Iranian-made
drone is a strategic asset in protecting the nation's borders. The
website says the drone, dubbed Shahed-129, or Witness-129, can fly up to
a distance of 1,700 kilometers (1,062 miles), which puts much of the
Middle East within its range." http://t.uani.com/1h8lIrf
Sanctions
AFP:
"US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that if Iran takes
rapid measures to cooperate with international monitoring of its nuclear
program, Washington could begin lifting sanctions within months. Speaking
to CBS News flagship 60 Minutes he said Iran should, for example, open up
its Fordow underground nuclear facility to international inspection and
undertake to scale down the level to which it enriches uranium. 'The
United States is not going to lift the sanctions until it is clear that a
very verifiable, accountable, transparent process is in place, whereby we
know exactly what Iran is going be doing with its program,' he said. But,
asked by his interviewer whether Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had
been right to predict that a deal could be in place within three to six
months, Kerry replied: 'Sure, it's possible.'" http://t.uani.com/1fMykGC
Reuters:
"Japan's top buyer of Iranian crude JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp
is set to cut the oil it takes from the Middle Eastern producer in an
annual contract for next year by nearly 20 percent, an industry source
familiar with the matter said... 'JX is set to cut close to 20 percent,
or by more than 10,000 bpd,' the source told Reuters on condition of
anonymity. JX Nippon, a downstream unit of JX Holdings, is expected to
cut its Iran import volumes to around 60,000 bpd in 2014, down from an
estimated 73,000 bpd this year." http://t.uani.com/1dNU9DS
Human Rights
Guardian:
"Parliamentarians in Iran have passed a bill to protect the rights
of children which includes a clause that allows a man to marry his
adopted daughter and while she is as young as 13 years. Activists have
expressed alarm that the bill, approved by parliament on Sunday, opens
the door for the caretaker of a family to marry his or her adopted child
if a court rules it is in the interests of the individual child... Shadi
Sadr, a human rights lawyer with the London-based group Justice for Iran,
told the Guardian she feared the council would feel safe to put its stamp
of approval on the bill while Iran's moderate president, Hassan Rouhani,
draws the attention of the press during his UN visit to New York. 'This
bill is legalising paedophilia,' she warned. 'It's not part of the
Iranian culture to marry your adopted child. Obviously incest exists in
Iran more or less as it happens in other countries across the world, but
this bill is legalising paedophilia and is endangering our children and
normalising this crime in our culture.'" http://t.uani.com/1fMBwlB
Opinion &
Analysis
Charles
Krauthammer in WashPost: "The search, now 30 years
old, for Iranian 'moderates' goes on. Amid the enthusiasm of the latest
sighting, it's worth remembering that the highlight of the Iran-contra
arms-for-hostages debacle was the secret trip to Tehran taken by Robert
McFarlane, President Reagan's former national security adviser. He
brought a key-shaped cake symbolizing the new relations he was opening
with the 'moderates.' We know how that ended. Three decades later, the
mirage reappears in the form of Hassan Rouhani. Strange résumé for a
moderate: 35 years of unswervingly loyal service to the Islamic Republic
as a close aide to Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei. Moreover, Rouhani
was one of only six presidential candidates, another 678 having been
disqualified by the regime as ideologically unsound. That puts him in the
99th centile for fealty. Rouhani is Khamenei's agent but, with a smile
and style, he's now hailed as the face of Iranian moderation. Why?
Because Rouhani wants better relations with the West. Well, what leader
would not want relief from Western sanctions that have sunk Iran's
economy, devalued its currency and caused widespread hardship? The test
of moderation is not what you want but what you're willing to give. After
all, sanctions were not slapped on Iran for amusement. It was to enforce
multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding a halt to uranium
enrichment. Yet in his lovey-dovey Post op-ed, his U.N. speech and
various interviews, Rouhani gives not an inch on uranium enrichment.
Indeed, he has repeatedly denied that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons at
all. Or ever has. Such a transparent falsehood - what country swimming in
oil would sacrifice its economy just to produce nuclear electricity that
advanced countries such as Germany are already abandoning? - is hardly
the basis for a successful negotiation. But successful negotiation is not
what the mullahs are seeking. They want sanctions relief. And more than
anything, they want to buy time. It takes about 250 kilograms of 20
percent enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb. The International Atomic
Energy Agency reported in August that Iran already has 186 kilograms.
That leaves the Iranians on the threshold of going nuclear. They are
adding 3,000 new high-speed centrifuges. They need just a bit more
talking, stalling, smiling and stringing along of a gullible West.
Rouhani is the man to do exactly that. As Iran's chief nuclear negotiator
between 2003 and 2005, he boasted in a 2004 speech to the Supreme Cultural
Revolution Council, 'While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran,
we were installing equipment in parts of the [uranium conversion]
facility in Isfahan .... In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were
able to complete the work in Isfahan.' Such is their contempt for us that
they don't even hide their strategy: Spin the centrifuges while spinning
the West." http://t.uani.com/1eMqFJE
Shane Harris in
FP: "Hasan Rouhani, a 37-year-old senior foreign
affairs advisor in the Iranian government, and his country's future
president, sat with a delegation of White House officials on the top
floor of what was once the Hilton hotel in Tehran. It was May 27, 1986,
and Rouhani had come to secretly broker a deal with the Americans, at
great political and personal risk. The U.S. team's ostensible purpose was
to persuade Iranian leaders to assist in the release of American hostages
held in Lebanon, something Rouhani was willing to do in exchange for the
United States selling missiles and weapons systems to Iran. But the
group, which consisted of senior National Security Council staffers,
including a then little-known Marine lieutenant colonel named Oliver
North, had a second and arguably more ambitious goal: to forge a new
political alliance with moderate Iranian leaders, such as Rouhani and his
bosses, the men who ran the country. In those meetings, the man to
whom U.S. officials are now turning as the best hope for a rapprochement
with Iran, after more than three decades of hostilities, showed himself
to be a shrewd negotiator, ready to usher in a new era of openness. But
he was also willing to subvert that broader goal and string the Americans
along to get what he wanted -- more weapons. If there is a window into
how Rouhani thinks today and how he will approach negotiations over
Iran's nuclear program, it may be those few days in May he spent in
high-stakes talks with the Americans over hostages and the countries'
shared futures. Rouhani knew that helping to free the hostages held
by Hezbollah, the terrorist group with which Iran held some influence,
was a top priority for President Ronald Reagan. The U.S. president had
personally committed to the families that he'd do whatever it took to
rescue their loved ones. A televised homecoming would be a political triumph
for Reagan. 'By solving this problem we strengthen you in the White
House,' Rouhani told North and his colleagues. 'As we promised, we will
make every effort.' But it would not come without cost. Rouhani and his
cohort, a group of lower-level functionaries in the regime, kept turning
the conversation back to the subject of weapons. The Americans had
pledged to have a plane full of missile parts on its way to Tehran within
10 hours of the hostages' release. The Iranians wanted the missiles
first. When it was clear that wouldn't happen, they offered to help
secure the release of two hostages and said that after further
negotiations they'd try for two more." http://t.uani.com/15zHdS8
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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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