Eye on Iran: Iran Says Next Nuclear Talks Will Be 'Difficult'

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories AFP:"Iran said Sunday nuclear talks with world powers this week will be 'difficult,' as France made four demands for a deal with Tehran and Israel warned against a 'nightmare' accord. Negotiations between Iran and the so-called P5+1 -- Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China plus Germany -- restart in Geneva on Wednesday after the last round failed to seal a deal. Top diplomats insisted they were closing in on an interim agreement that would see Iran curb or freeze parts of its nuclear programme for some relief from crippling sanctions. Senior negotiator Abbas Araqchi said 'the next round of nuclear talks will be difficult,' the official IRNA news agency reported. 'No agreement will be reached without securing the rights of the Iranian nation' on its nuclear programme and uranium enrichment, he added... From Israel, Hollande laid down four demands 'to guarantee any agreement' with Iran... 'The first demand: put all the Iranian nuclear installations under international supervision, right now. Second point: suspend enrichment to 20 percent. Thirdly: to reduce the existing stock. And finally, to halt construction of the Arak (heavy water) plant. These are the points which for us are essential to guarantee any agreement,' he said." http://t.uani.com/18HNIOL Reuters: "Iran has the right to enrich uranium, but does not insist others recognize that right, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator said on Sunday, in what could be a way around one of the main sticking points between Tehran and world powers in talks this week... Western diplomats said one of the sticking points during the talks was Iran's argument that it retains the 'right' to enrich uranium. The United States argues Iran does not intrinsically have that right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty... 'Not only do we consider that Iran's right to enrich is unnegotiable, but we see no need for that to be recognized as 'a right', because this right is inalienable and all countries must respect that,' Iran's chief negotiator and foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told the ISNA news agency... Zarif said he was confident a deal could be struck, but cautioned that progress made in recent talks could be reversed if a 'satisfactory result' was not reached. 'We want to reach an agreement and understanding,' he said." http://t.uani.com/18HPwaj WSJ: "Obama administration officials said they have taken a series of steps in recent days to overcome the sticking points that tripped up an international agreement over Iran's nuclear program and are set for new talks in the coming week. Senior U.S. officials said that after the failure of world powers to reach an accord in negotiations with Tehran earlier this month, despite high levels of confidence then, most of the problems are being addressed. These officials cited deliberations that have taken place over key issues: Iran's demand for the right to produce its own nuclear fuel domestically; the purity levels for Iranian enrichment and the control of its stockpiles; and the future of a heavy-water reactor that could be capable of producing weapons-usable plutonium within two years. 'We're very close to a deal,' said a senior U.S. official involved in the diplomacy Friday. 'We have a much clearer sense of the text we're negotiating going into this round... So we're definitely much closer to a deal heading into this round than the last one.' ... Among key terms of the offer, according to diplomats briefed on it, is a provision requiring Iran to stop the production of near weapons-grade fuel, which is uranium enriched to 20% purity, and to convert all of its stockpile into an oxide not usable in weapons. Iran also will agree to limit the numbers and capacity of its operating centrifuges; agree to more expansive U.N. inspections; and agree to not make the Arak reactor operational. In return, U.S. officials said they'll provide Iran with significant sanctions relief-but not enough to markedly enhance Tehran's financial position. Among the incentives are suspensions on sanctions blocking Iran's trade in airline parts, precious metals, petrochemicals, and auto sales. The P5+1 also will commit to help Iran repatriate between $3 billion to $5 billion in foreign exchange that has been frozen in overseas accounts." http://t.uani.com/1f6c641 Nuclear Negotiations Fars News: "Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari underlined that Washington fears military engagement with Iran more than any other country. 'The Americans' statement about having the military option on the table is a lie. Americans don't know that we know they are afraid of attacking Iran more than any other country; there is absolutely no such thought in the minds of the US statesmen, but they talk about it (to use it) as a political tool anyway,' General Jafari told reporters in the Southwestern city of Ahwaz on Sunday. He said the US deployed troops in all its bases in the neighboring countries of Iran from 2003 to 2007 in a bid to surround the Islamic Republic for a military attack, and added, 'They intended to launch a direct military attack on the country, but when they saw the Iranian nation's subordination to its Leader, they felt scared and escaped.' In similar remarks earlier today, Commander of Iran's Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi also said Washington's allegations about the continued possibility of military action against Iran are nothing, but a bluff. General Naqdi pointed to US President Barack Obama's recent remarks who said that military option is on the table, and said, 'These are just boastful remarks and bluffing because the US army and its economy are weak and their people do not accept to go to (another) war.'" http://t.uani.com/1jgnqI9 WSJ: "The Obama administration's overtures to Iran are straining the U.S. alliance with Israel in ways not seen in decades, compounding concerns about the White House's ability to manage the Middle East's proliferating security crises, said current and former American diplomats. In a sign of Israel's growing disaffection with Washington, French President François Hollande was given a hero's welcome when he arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday for a three-day visit that would showcase Paris's hard line against Iran's nuclear program ahead of international talks in Geneva this week. Mr. Netanyahu reiterated his criticism that the U.S.-backed compromise was a 'very bad deal' while hailing Mr. Hollande for his opposition to the agreement at a joint news conference Sunday evening in Jerusalem. 'Your support and your friendship is real. It's sincere. You were one out of six,' he said, referring to the six world powers participating in talks with Iran... 'When the U.S. and Israel are at fundamental odds, it weakens U.S. power in the region and sends very bad signals to America's other allies,' said Aaron David Miller, a former senior State Department official now at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 'Israel has more in common now with Saudi Arabia. It exacerbates an already fractious region.'" http://t.uani.com/182rgFw WSJ: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday repeated his warnings against easing sanctions against Iran ahead of a new round of international talks over the country's nuclear program. 'I think you should increase the pressure, because it's finally working,' Mr. Netanyahu said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' ... In talks this month involving the other permanent United Nations Security Council members as well as Germany, U.S. officials believed they were close to completing an initial deal to roll back some parts of Iran's nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions. Israel, on the other hand, has been adamant in insisting that Iran completely dismantle its nuclear program in return for any sanctions relief. Netanyahu said that previous U.N. Security Council resolutions call on Iran to 'dismantle all its centrifuges and the plutonium reactor, which are used only for one thing: to make nuclear weapons.'" http://t.uani.com/1ecSBUr FT: "As the US and other world powers resume pursuit of a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear programme, Israel's outgoing national security chief has joined other officials in sounding a tough warning, insisting that the Jewish state has the ability to strike the Islamic Republic and is willing to go it alone. In an interview with the Financial Times, Yaakov Amidror, who stepped down last month, said Israel could halt Iran's nuclear weapons capability 'for a very long time', and added its air force had been conducting 'very long-range flights... all around the world' as part of preparations for a possible military confrontation with Iran. 'We are not the United States of America, of course, and believe it or not they have more capabilities than us,' Mr Amidror said. 'But we have enough to stop the Iranians for a very long time.'" http://t.uani.com/IcfsUq Reuters: "An exiled Iranian opposition group said on Monday it had information about an underground nuclear site being built in Iran and that this was among a number of secret venues for an atomic bomb program. The National Council of Resistance of Iran exposed Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy-water facility at Arak in 2002... The Paris-based NCRI said members of its affiliated People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) inside the country had obtained reliable information on a new and covert site designated for Iran's nuclear project. But it had no details of what kind of nuclear activity was being carried out there. 'According to specific information obtained by the Iranian resistance, the clerical regime is establishing or completing parallel secret and undeclared sites for its nuclear project,' NCRI official Mehdi Abrichamtchi told reporters... The NCRI said the new site was inside a 600-metre tunnel complex beneath mountains 10 km (6 miles) from the town of Mobarekeh, adjacent to the Isfahan-Shiraz highway, within the existing Haft-e Tir military industrial complex. Abrichamtchi said work on the site began in 2005 and the construction of tunnels ended in early 2009. Work on the facilities was recently completed, he said." http://t.uani.com/19z8gs4 AFP: "Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that Iran nuclear talks had eliminated the fundamental areas of disagreement and there was a real chance of reaching a deal next week. 'Our general impression is that there is a very good chance that must not be missed,' the foreign ministry cited Lavrov as saying in a transcript of the interview broadcast on TVTs television. He said he was referring to a discussion with the European Union policy chief Catherine Ashton on the sidelines of the ASEM conference of European and Asian foreign ministers last week. 'Now there are no fundamental disagreements on the practical questions that need to be resolved,' Lavrov said, with both Iran and the group of six world powers ready to 'seek points of contact.' What is needed now is to 'correctly draw up the agreement we have reached in diplomatic language, so that it is truly a joint document,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1bxyDjo AFP: "Iran on Monday unveiled a missile-equipped drone with a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles), the official IRNA news agency reported. 'The Fotros drone has an operational range of 2,000 kilometres and can fly at an altitude of 25,000 feet, with a flight time of 16 to 30 hours,' Defence Minister Mohammad Dehgan was quoted as saying. Dehgan said the new drone could carry out reconnaissance missions or launch air-to-surface missile strikes. The aircraft was tested 'successfully' and 'shows that sanctions imposed by the enemies are not an obstacle to the progress of the defence industry,' the minister told the unveiling ceremony." http://t.uani.com/1bUfJF3 Sanctions Reuters: "Legislation to impose tough new sanctions on Iran could come to the U.S. Senate floor next week, just as diplomats head to Geneva for a third round of talks aimed at curbing Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons work. President Barack Obama has appealed to Congress to hold off on new sanctions to allow time to pursue a diplomatic deal. But Congress is generally more hawkish about Iran than the administration, and both Republicans and some of Obama's fellow Democrats have balked at any further delay. Frustrated that the Senate Banking Committee has delayed a tough new sanctions package at the White House's request, several Republicans said they were considering forcing the issue by offering more restrictions on Iran as an amendment to a defense authorization bill expected to come to the Senate floor by the middle of next week. 'That means we get the defense bill on the eve of Geneva Part three and all of this back-and-forth between Congress and the White House comes to a head,' a senior Senate aide said." http://t.uani.com/182sDUC Reuters: "The European Union will re-impose asset freezes on several Iranian companies, annulled this year by court order, even as world powers appear close to a breakthrough deal with Tehran over its contested nuclear program. EU diplomats said the move was to re-establish sanctions already imposed, rather than increasing pressure on Iran... The EU decision, taken by senior officials on Thursday, must still be approved by EU governments later this week, diplomats told Reuters. It covers Persia International Bank, Export Development Bank of Iran and Bank Refah Karagan, among others. It aims to counter mounting litigation by hundreds of people and companies from Iran after several legal challenges succeeded in quashing sanctions this year. It is the first time the EU has sought to address legal challenges by imposing new measures against previously listed targets, instead of trying to win appeals, and reflects growing concern that sanctions can be difficult to defend in court. 'We are maintaining the current sanctions regime, not broadening it. The relistings amount to keeping the current system,' one EU diplomat told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity." http://t.uani.com/HUYom0 AP: "Turkey rejects making further reductions in its oil imports from neighbouring Iran, which is under US sanctions over its nuclear programme, the energy ministry said on Friday. 'We have reduced our imports to 105,000 barrels a day from 140,000 barrels. We cannot reduce it any more,' Taner Yildiz told reporters in Ankara... 'What's binding for Turkey is the sanctions imposed by the United Nations but of course the decisions made by the United States need to be taken into consideration,' Yildiz said. The minister said however that Turkey has made its position clear to the United States. 'We are at a point where we can't go any lower' he said." http://t.uani.com/17ELF31 Domestic Politics Bloomberg: "Iran's state-owned National Iranian Gas Co. has declared bankruptcy with more than 100 trillion rials ($4 billion) in debt, Mehr news agency reported, citing Chief Executive Officer Hamidreza Araghi. Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh told Mehr that the financial woes are 'due to erroneous decisions made by the previous administration in implementing the restructuring of government subsidies.' That failure sparked problems in the production and distribution of energy across the country, he said." http://t.uani.com/I16tq6 AFP: "Iran's conservative-dominated parliament on Sunday approved President Hassan Rouhani's nominee for sports minister, filling out the cabinet after rejecting a number of earlier picks, media reported. Mahmoud Goudarzi, currently head of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Science at the University of Tehran, received 199 of the 267 votes cast, with 44 opposed and 24 abstaining... On August 15, Iran's parliament rejected three of the 18 candidates proposed by Rouhani. It approved two ministers but rejected a third in late October. Previous nominees for the sports and youth ministry had been rejected by the conservative-dominated parliament for 'being close to the reformist camp' as well as 'lacking enough experience.'" http://t.uani.com/1akIZ9n Opinion & Analysis UANI President Gary Samore in Foreign Affairs: "In truth, Iran's right to enrich has been at the heart of the nuclear negotiations for the past decade, and it deserves its central place in talks today. Matters of legal theory aside, the right to enrichment has become a shorthand for the real central issue in the negotiations -- whether Iran will be allowed to maintain a nuclear weapons option as part of a nuclear program under international safeguards. Whether the NPT guarantees signatories a right to enrichment is a long-standing dispute among the parties to the treaty. The NPT never uses that phrase, but Article IV of the text states that 'nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.' Iran and many other parties to the NPT (including China, Germany, and Russia) have interpreted the NPT as guaranteeing a member's right to develop enrichment for 'peaceful purposes' under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom argue that the treaty does not guarantee a right to enrichment, only a right to 'peaceful uses of nuclear energy,' without specifying what that right might include... But in the case of the Iranian nuclear negotiations, the United States and its partners have been making an additional argument -- that Iran's rights under the NPT (whatever those might be) have been superseded by numerous UN Security Council resolutions since 2005 that demand that Iran suspend enrichment and reprocessing activities until 'confidence is restored in the purely peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.' In this view, the UN Security Council -- by virtue of its mandate to maintain international peace and security -- has the authority and responsibility to demand that member states take actions to comply with the treaty and prevent proliferation. The resolutions are silent on how long such a suspension would last, how it would be terminated, and what kind of nuclear program Iran would be allowed post-suspension... Of course, the legal distinctions would not matter as much if the world trusted Iran to maintain a substantial enrichment program without using it to produce nuclear weapons. Iran says its right to enrichment means that it must pursue enrichment on an industrial scale, sufficient to produce enough low enriched uranium to fuel a single light water nuclear power reactor, such as the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power reactor. (Although Russia is contracted to provide fuel for the lifetime of the reactor, Iran argues it needs to have a backup fuel supply in the event that Russia fails to deliver.) Since nuclear power reactors require far more enriched uranium than nuclear weapons -- this is a matter of tons versus kilograms -- an industrial-scale enrichment plant would give Iran a plausible path to nuclear weapons... For the United States and its partners, these scenarios are all too plausible. They believe that the primary purpose of Iran's enrichment program is to create an option to produce nuclear weapons. Therefore, their primary objective is to limit the physical capacity of Iran's enrichment program so that Iran cannot produce nuclear weapons and to ensure that, under the careful watch of international inspectors, any enrichment Iran conducts is entirely for peaceful purposes... In theory, it should be possible to come to a compromise on the issue of enrichment. The P5 plus 1 and Iran could agree on a final deal that would allow Iran to maintain a domestic enrichment program but impose physical limits on its scale and scope so that Iran could not quickly produce large amounts of weapons-grade uranium. A deal would also involve additional verification measures that would minimize the risk of breakout or sneak-out. Iran would be able to claim that its right to enrichment was respected but it has chosen to limit the exercise of its rights to provide assurances that its nuclear program is purely peaceful. To accept such an agreement, however, Tehran would need to make a strategic decision to abandon (at least for now) its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability in exchange for comprehensive sanctions relief. Optimists believe that the pressure of economic sanctions -- which brought about the election of President Hassan Rouhani and Iran's willingness to negotiate in the first place -- may have already produced such a strategic shift. It's more likely, however, that Iran is only offering tactical adjustments to slow or limit some elements of its nuclear program in hope of removing the sanctions without fundamentally sacrificing its long-term goal of acquiring nuclear weapons. By pursuing a phased approach to eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities, the P5 plus 1 have indicated that they are prepared to accept an interim stage that slows Iran's nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief, while hoping to retain sufficient sanctions leverage (and the threat of future sanctions) to eventually compel Iran to accept stronger limits and intrusive monitoring. Whether negotiators can agree on such an end state is questionable: there are no indications as of yet that Supreme Leader Ali Khameini is prepared to give up Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions." http://t.uani.com/183eDtQ Robert Satloff in Politico: "Israel's critique of U.S. Iran policy has three key aspects. First, in terms of strategy, Israel worries that the administration quietly dropped its longtime insistence that Iran fulfill its U.N. Security Council obligation to suspend all enrichment activities and that an end to enrichment is no longer even a goal of these negotiations. Second, in terms of tactics, Israel cheers the administration's imposition of devastating sanctions on Iran but fears that the near-agreement in Geneva would have wasted the enormous leverage that sanctions have created in exchange for a deal that, at most, would cap Iran's progress without any rollback of Iran's uranium enrichment capabilities and no commitment to mothball the worrisome Arak plant, which could provide an alternative plutonium-based path to a nuclear weapon. And third, operationally, Israel has complained that it was kept in the dark on details of the proposed Geneva deal-what was being offered to Tehran and what was being demanded of it-despite commitments from Washington to keep Jerusalem fully apprised. These are weighty concerns and serious accusations. They deserve a full accounting. It is shameful to suggest that anyone who raises these questions prefers war to diplomacy. That is especially because each of these charges appears to have merit. One would be hard-pressed, for example, to find a senior administration official saying that securing Iran's full implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions remains the goal of these negotiations, let alone an American 'red line.' Instead, officials have termed the pursuit of suspension a 'maximalist' position and prefer to cite the president's commitment to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, a far looser formulation that could allow Iran a breakout capacity. Rejecting the Iranians' claim to a "right to enrich," as the administration apparently did in Geneva, is important, but it is not the same as demanding that they suspend enrichment. In terms of the details of the 'first step' agreement, administration officials argue that early sanctions relief for Iran will be marginal and limited, and that the core oil and banking sanctions will remain in place until a comprehensive accord is reached. This, however, is a promise that no administration can guarantee since sanctions are only as strong as their weakest link. No one can predict how other countries, some greedy for trade with Iran, will react to the imagery of a 'first step' deal, but it is not fanciful to suggest that the sanctions regime may begin to erode once the interim agreement is reached. That underscores the wisdom of demanding the maximum possible concessions in the 'first step'-i.e., a stoppage at Arak-and of countering the image of fraying sanctions by giving Iran tangible evidence that they will become tighter and more painful. As for whether Israel was kept in the dark about Geneva, an inconsistency in Kerry's comments suggests there is something to it. After all, he and other officials have said that Israeli leaders have been continually and fully briefed and that Israel's critiques were unwarranted, since the Israelis didn't know the details of what actually was on the table in the talks. Both statements cannot be true. Moreover, it is patently disingenuous to ask Israel or domestic detractors of a 'first step' deal to withhold their criticism until after the agreement is signed, which is the administration's position, since there would then be zero chance to affect an outcome already reached." http://t.uani.com/18hZ7bt Robert Fulford in the National Post: "An ambitious and barbaric theocracy with the ultimate weapon would terrify anyone, but Iran's intentions should be seen in context. A bomb dropped on Israel would invite a response of equal or greater ferocity. The Iranian leaders won't make such a suicidal move unless they are even crazier than their speeches make them sound. Their ambitions, if we judge them by their actions, go beyond Israel. Iran has imperialistic dreams. Apparently, it hopes to become the most powerful and influential country in the Middle East. In the 1980s, Iran created Hezbollah, at considerable expense, and ever since has used it as the terrorist wing of the Revolutionary Guard. Today Iran controls Lebanon, through Hezbollah operatives who exercise veto power over every act of the Lebanese government. They even have their own radio and TV stations. Iran's tentacles also reach into the Assad regime in Syria; sometimes Bashar al-Assad is called an Iranian puppet. An Iranian bomb, when added to a powerful conventional army and Hezbollah, would lift Iran above every other country in the Middle East (except, of course, Israel). Iranian regional hegemony would not be pleasant to experience for most of the Arab states in the area. This explains why Saudi Arabia is so disturbed by America's willingness to talk to Iran. It would also lead to nuclear proliferation. If Iran acquires a bomb, and tests it now and then as proof, other major countries in the Middle East will decide that they can't get along without one of their own. The Saudis, the Egyptians and the Turks will soon be importing atomic weapons. Egypt plans to begin its nuclear power system, peaceful for now, early in 2014. The BBC said last week that the Saudis already have ordered a nuclear weapon from Pakistan. The only thing that will stop Iran at this point is transparency. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should have total access to all nuclear facilities, without any of the prohibitions that Iran has placed on inspectors over the years. Unfortunately, the U.S. government approach to the current talks is sadly typical of the Obama era. It combines haste with wishful thinking and an impatient desire for a foreign-policy success to bring back to American voters. Every word reported from the recent negotiations in Geneva suggests that Obama's diplomats will settle for a lot less than they should; they hate coming home empty-handed." http://t.uani.com/1akx3oi 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.