Eye on Iran: Western Powers Ask is Iran Really Ready to Make a Nuclear Deal?

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories Reuters: "Western nations are struggling to answer one key question as they assess conflicting signals from Tehran ahead of next week's big-power meeting with Iran in Geneva - is the Islamic Republic ready to make a deal on its controversial nuclear program. While it is clear that Iran wants an end to the crippling international sanctions world powers have imposed on it for refusing to halt uranium enrichment and other sensitive atomic work, Western diplomats say it is not clear whether Tehran is prepared to significantly curtail its nuclear activities. On the one hand, Iranian officials recently suggested in New York that they plan to present a new offer to six world powers on October 15-16 in Geneva, Western diplomats say. On the other hand, the Iranians have indicated the opposite - that they want a new offer from the six powers before proposing anything. 'Obviously they are very much worried about the sanctions,' a senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. 'Obviously they want a lifting of the sanctions. But how much are they ready to pay? I don't know.' The main unknown, the diplomat said, is the position of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei: 'Nobody knows the answer to the central question, which is whether Khamenei has decided to strike a deal.' ... According to the senior diplomat, the Iranian charm offensive during the General Assembly sparked a flurry of internal analyses in Western capitals among 'all the Iranian specialists, like at the time of the (Soviet Union's) Kremlin.' He compared the blizzard of studies of Iranian behavior and comments to the days when former Soviet Communist Party Chairman Yuri Andropov was considered by Western Kremlinologists as 'a liberal because he was drinking whiskey.'" http://t.uani.com/1hELwvt RFE/RL: "Then 12-year-old Mehran placed a noose around his neck and hanged himself with the help of his younger brother, suicide was the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, the boy was playing a game. And his fatal inspiration was a public execution of the sort often seen in his home province of Kermanshah in western Iran... Mehran is an unexpected victim of a culture of public executions that remains pervasive in the Islamic republic. According to a report by Amnesty International to be released on October 10, Iran executed 560 people in 2012... Most of Iran's executions take place in prisons. But 63 executions took place last year -- and dozens more this year -- in public. The rationale, under the country's harsh legal code, is that public executions offer a public deterrence to crimes running from murder and rape to drug smuggling. Yet if the public executions are intended to be instructional, they do not only impress adults. Khandani says that whenever an execution is carried out in the public, children are also often among the spectators." http://t.uani.com/GHTsjU IHR: "Four prisoners have been hanged in two different Iranian cities reported Iranian state media today. One of the prisoners was a 23 year old man identified as H. A., reported the state run Iranian news agency ISNA. The Iranian State Broadcasting reported that H.A. was 21 year old. The prisoner was charged with armed robbery, spreading fear and Moharebeh and was hanged in public in the town of Fasa (southern Iran) today October 9. Three prisoners were hanged in the prison of Rasht reported the state run Iranian news agency Fars today." http://t.uani.com/1eaRnsv       Nuclear Program AFP: "A top US official on Wednesday stepped up overtures to Iran to prove that it wants a nuclear proliferation deal with the West. 'We should be cautious but cognizant of potentially historic opportunities,' Rose Gottemoeller, US assistant secretary of state for arms control told a UN disarmament committee. 'We must continue to push to bring Iran back into line with its international nuclear obligations,' Gottemoeller told the forum, which included Iranian diplomats. 'The United States is ready to talk. We are ready to listen. We are ready to work hard and we hope that every country in this room is ready to do the same,' Gottemoeller said." http://t.uani.com/1hEKUGj Reuters: "An exiled Iranian opposition group said on Thursday it had information about what it said was a center for nuclear weaponisation research in Tehran that the government was moving to avoid detection ahead of negotiations with world powers. The dissident National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak in 2002... The Paris-based NCRI, citing information from sources inside Iran, said a nuclear weaponisation research and planning center it called SPND was being moved to a large, secure site in a defense ministry complex in Tehran about 1.5 km (1 mile) away from its former location. It said the center employed about 100 researchers, engineers and experts and handled small-scale experiments with radioactive material and was in charge of research into the weaponisation of nuclear weapons. 'There is a link between this transfer and the date of Geneva (talks) because the regime needed to avoid the risk of visits by (U.N. nuclear) inspectors,' Mehdi Abrichamtchi, who compiled the report for the NCRI, told a news conference." http://t.uani.com/1bJoPJc BBC: "Iran's parliament has denied reports that the country has a surplus of enriched uranium and plans to use this as a bargaining tool at nuclear talks. The Associated Press attributed the claims to Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, in an interview ahead of high-level talks in Geneva. But MPs said the claims were 'false and fundamentally inaccurate'... 'We have some surplus, you know, the amount that we don't need. But over that we can have some discussions,'' he was quoted as saying. However, a statement carried by Iranian news agency ICANA said: 'Parts of Dr Larijani's interview with Associated Press, where it had been emphasised that Iran had more enriched uranium than it needed and intended to use that as a winning card in next week's negotiations in Geneva, are false and fundamentally inaccurate.'" http://t.uani.com/1gt8iZt Sanctions Times Ledger: "A federal lawmaker brought attention to the strained relations between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran this week by hosting a public forum at the Forest Hills Jewish Center this week. In 2010, the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran used a billboard to bring attention to the fact that the American heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar was operating in Iran through a foreign subsidiary. The billboard was placed outside the company's headquarters in Peoria, Ill., according to UANI Executive Director David Ibsen. 'Every employee, every manager, every executive, every potential partner, every bondholder who drove into Caterpillar's headquarters saw that billboard,' Ibsen said. The awareness tactic was reported on by The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, effectively distributing the image of the billboard around the world. The head of Caterpillar called UANI the next day, Ibsen said, and the company ended its ties to Iran soon after. The Caterpillar campaign is an example of the type of reputation damage that UANI uses to isolate Iran economically and sever it from financial, credit and business markets, Ibsen said." http://t.uani.com/1eaTpc4    Human Rights Trend: "The Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has arrested a group of 'devil worshippers' and gays in the western city of Kermanshah, Mehr news agency reported. According to the report, the arrested peoples were pursued by IRGC forces for several months. Some foreigners, including Iraqi citizens are among the peoples who were captured. These people were arrested during a party in one of the city halls. Iranian security forces arrested 104 'devil worshipers' during a party in the southern city of Shiraz in 2009." http://t.uani.com/17qtGqj  Domestic Politics AP: "Iran's internal power plays have produced many moments of political theater, but never one like this: The foreign minister checks himself into a hospital because of stress, blaming it on hard-line critics of the recent thaw with Washington. A cascade of events Wednesday suggested there was no end in sight to the ideological skirmishes following President Hassan Rouhani's outreach to the U.S. Those overtures will be put to the test next week in Geneva when nuclear talks with world powers resume. For Rouhani, the immediate prize would be winning pledges from the West to roll back painful sanctions in exchange for concessions on Tehran's nuclear program. But, on a deeper level, Rouhani's gambit also exposes sudden insecurities among the West-bashing factions that have shaped Iranian affairs for decades... 'One of the main reasons behind Ayatollah Khamenei's recent decision to support (Rouhani's) efforts is sanctions,' said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born political analyst based in Israel. 'Such support will not be open-ended or unconditional, as (Khamenei) has his own hard-line audience to play to. So Rouhani better deliver, and deliver fast.'" http://t.uani.com/GPaU6R Reuters: "For the first time since Iran's authorities cracked down on dissent after the 2009 presidential election, some critics are returning from exile, spurred by signs of openness by the government of President Hassan Rouhani. Seraj Mirdamadi, a journalist who had not set foot in his homeland since 2009, is one of this number. He says he decided to go back after Rouhani's unexpected election victory in June on the basis of little more than a 'feeling' and with no assurance that he would be welcome. 'I entered Iran on the night of Rouhani's inauguration and since then I've seen signs that have only confirmed my original feeling,' said Mirdamadi, 42, by phone from Tehran. The hopes and uncertainties of Mirdamadi and other exiled Iranians are shared in part by Western officials searching for a breakthrough in a decade-long dispute over Iran's nuclear program. The officials are trying to work out how much of Iran's apparent new openness is tone and how much is substance." http://t.uani.com/17hvUsS  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.