|
|
Top Stories
WSJ:
"Iran would have to remove 15,000 centrifuge machines and take other
drastic measures to forge a comprehensive nuclear agreement with the
West, according to a report by a U.S. think tank that drew from
conversations with senior U.S. officials. The steps required to preclude
Tehran's ability to develop nuclear weapons illustrate the challenge the
U.S. and other world powers will face in moving over the next six months
from an interim deal to a final one. In addition to removing the
thousands of centrifuges that enrich uranium, Iran would have to shut
down an underground uranium-enrichment site, convert a heavy water
reactor and agree to a 20-year inspections regime, according to the
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington.
The findings were provided exclusively to The Wall Street Journal... The
institute's prescriptions aren't viewed as particularly harsh or
hard-line. The report accepts that Iran will maintain some ability to
continue producing nuclear fuel as part of a final agreement through the
enrichment of uranium at low levels for civilian use... David Albright,
who heads the think tank, is a former U.N. weapons inspector who has
advised the administration on arms control. He said the study was
developed by independent research and through extensive discussions in
recent months with Obama administration officials working on the Iran
file. 'Our requirements are a far cry from what Iran wants. The
negotiations are going to be really tough,' said Mr. Albright. 'We don't
see ourselves as sketching an extreme case, however.' Mr. Albright said
the report is based on a formula that would ensure Iran would need six
months to a year to build a nuclear weapon if it decided to break off its
cooperation with the West and the IAEA." http://t.uani.com/1e9V4N0
WSJ:
"The United Nations, under intense pressure from the U.S. and other
countries, withdrew an invitation to Iran to participate in a Syria peace
conference this week, a diplomatic bungle that muddied international
efforts to end the civil war. The bruising international face-off over
Iran's participation came just two days before world powers gather in
Switzerland for a long-awaited conference aimed at finding a way out of
the nearly three-year conflict that has claimed more than 100,000
lives... Senior U.S. officials on Monday said they were committed to
keeping negotiations over Iran's nuclear program apart from efforts to
end Tehran's support for Mr. Assad's government. 'The discussions of
whether Iran should be invited...are entirely a separate issue from
whether and how we are moving forward on stopping the Iranian nuclear
weapons program,' said an American diplomat... Mr. Ban's invitation to
Iran risked scuttling the conference in Switzerland. The main opposition
umbrella group quickly announced on Monday morning that it would boycott
the conference if Iran were allowed to attend. The group accuses Tehran
of being virtually the only reason Mr. Assad has remained in power
because it has provided extensive arms, cash and fighters... U.S.
officials also bristled on Monday morning over the idea of Iran
attending. They described a rogue Iranian regime in ways very different
from how American diplomats have depicted their Iranian counterparts
taking part in the nuclear negotiations. 'They are actually escalating
problems on the ground. They have sent in their own uniformed military
personnel, Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces,' said another senior U.S.
official working on Syria. 'They are doing nothing to de-escalate
tensions and sectarian tensions in particular.'" http://t.uani.com/1hIP4Py
Bloomberg:
"Importers of Iranian crude kept purchases little changed in
December, the month after world powers agreed to relax some sanctions
against the Persian Gulf state as part of an accord to curb its nuclear
program, the International Energy Agency said. Buyer countries received
1.15 million barrels a day last month, compared with an upwardly revised
1.1 million barrels in November, the IEA, a Paris-based adviser to 28
nations, said in an e-mailed report today. Most shipments that arrived at
Asian ports in December would have left Iran in the prior month. The deal
to curb some sanctions was reached in principle on Nov. 23 and took
effect yesterday... The estimate for Iranian shipments in November given
today by the IEA was raised 29 percent from its Dec. 11 report. The
agency calculates shipments from governments' submissions and statistics,
customs agencies, tanker tracking and news reports." http://t.uani.com/1kTQ341
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Al-Monitor:
"A third senior US official who spoke to reporters on Monday said
that Iran has pledged to cap its stockpile of low-enriched uranium
hexafluoride gas at 7,650 kilograms (8.4 tons) - apparently the amount
Iran had on hand as of Jan. 20. While Iran is allowed to continue to
enrich uranium to 5% over the next six months, any additional stockpile
is supposed to be converted into a powder form that cannot be reinserted
into centrifuges for enrichment. David Albright, a former IAEA inspector
and president of the Institute for Science and International Security,
told Al-Monitor that Iran does not yet have operational a facility to
convert excess enriched uranium into powder. An IAEA spokesperson
confirmed this but said it was not yet a concern and that Iran had time
to get the facility up and running... Albright said he was satisfied with
the interim deal, but 'the real battle is coming up. It's going to be
extremely tough to reach a comprehensive agreement.' According to
Albright, the US government would like to reduce Iran's operating
centrifuges from about 10,000 to 5,000, while Iran wants to keep its
current inventory, including 8,000 centrifuges installed but not running.
Washington also wants constraints to remain in effect for 20 years,
Albright said, while Iran has said privately that it would agree to at
most 10 years and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has
spoken publicly of a period of only three to five years." http://t.uani.com/1aHIGD7
Military
Matters
AP:
"Two Iranian warships set sail Tuesday for the Atlantic Ocean on
their navy's first-ever mission there, state TV reported. The report said
that the destroyer Sabalan and the logistic helicopter carrier Khark will
be dispatched on a three-month voyage. 'The warships will have task of
securing shipping routes as well as training new personnel,' the
semi-official Fars news agency quoted Iran's navy chief Admiral
Habibollah Sayyari as saying. The voyage comes amid an ongoing push by Iran
to demonstrate the ability to project power across the Middle East and
beyond." http://t.uani.com/1fVFlbc
Sanctions
Relief
Reuters:
"The United States has followed through on promised sanctions relief
for Iran covering oil exports, trade in precious metals and automotive
services as part of a nuclear agreement that began taking effect on
Monday, U.S. officials said... 'At the same time, we will continue our
aggressive enforcement of the sanctions measures that will remain in
place throughout this six-month period,' White House spokesman Jay Carney
said in a statement... 'While the positive economic impact on Iran will
go beyond this relief, as foreign investors are rushing in, our leverage
over Iran shrinks,' said Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman
of the House of Representatives' foreign affairs committee. 'Meanwhile,
Iran's nuclear program continues,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1aHF2cq
AFP:
"The European Union suspended a range of sanctions against Iran on
Monday after Tehran began implementing a deal to curb its nuclear
programme, the EU said. 'As part of the implementation of the Joint Plan
of Action agreed by Iran and the E3/EU+3, which enters into force today,
the Council today suspended certain EU restrictive measures against Iran
for a period of six months,' a statement said. This six month period 'may
be prolonged by mutual consent,' it noted... The new measures notably
include the suspension of a 2012 ban on insuring and transporting Iranian
crude oil that contributed to a more than 50 percent drop in Tehran's oil
exports. European insurers up until then had accounted for 90 percent of
coverage for deliveries of Iranian oil anywhere in the world. The EU also
will suspend bans on trade in gold, precious metals and petrochemical
products while increasing a ceiling on financial transfers not related to
remaining sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1aHFsQ2
LAT:
"The formal start of the landmark deal to restrain Iran's nuclear
program drew clashing statements from Iran and the Obama administration
about how much of a boost the temporary accord would give Iran's battered
economy. Iran's leaders, eager to sell the temporary accord to their
population, said the agreement would open the way to a surge of trade and
investment. U.S. officials, facing criticism that the deal is too
lenient, insisted that the temporary sanctions relief was chicken feed
and that crippling restrictions on Iran's economy remain. Following
implementation of the deal, 'the window of opportunity for Iran's trade
with Europe will increase tenfold,' Abbas Araqchi, Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator, told the semi-official Islamic Republic News Agency. 'The
private sector of Iran will have a great share of trade with the European
Union.' Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's nuclear agency, said the deal
was a victory on two key points, because it marked the beginning of the
end of sanctions while allowing Iran to continue low-level nuclear
enrichment. 'The iceberg of sanctions is melting while our centrifuges
are also still working,' he said on state television. 'This is our
greatest achievement.'" http://t.uani.com/1aHIbJ3
Reuters:
"Japan's main private ship insurer, the Japan P&I Club, said it
has resumed normal coverage for tankers carrying Iranian oil, a step in
easing imports in line with U.S. and EU moves as relations with Tehran
thaw. Japan oil buyers were the hardest hit by the shipping insurance
limits in Western sanctions because they chose to continue to use
Japanese tankers for deliveries. India, South Korea, and China, at least
partially, all began relying on Iranian shippers and insurance providers
for their oil deliveries from Tehran. The international P&I club, of
which JPI is a member, resumed normal coverage of $7.6 billion per ship,
including $1 billion for oil spills, on Monday as European Union
reinsurance became available again for the first time since mid-2012, a
JPI official said. That means Japanese buyers of Iranian oil will not
have to rely on Tokyo's sovereign scheme to provide the same level of
liability coverage for tankers carrying the crude... Japan's imports of
Iranian oil in January-November 2013 fell by 4.6 percent from a year
earlier to 178,539 barrels per day (bpd), trade ministry data showed last
month." http://t.uani.com/1e9W5on
Reuters:
"Iran's first chance to unveil new oil and gas investment
opportunities to Western oil companies - a widely anticipated London
conference - has been delayed until November from early April, industry
sources said on Tuesday. Tehran wants Western oil companies to revive its
giant ageing oilfields and develop new oil and gas fields once sanctions
are lifted and is improving its oil investment contract in order to lure them
in... Tehran's leading contract negotiator Mehdi Hosseini told Reuters in
December that the London conference would offer international oil
companies the first opportunity to see Tehran's more attractive
commercial terms. The conference organiser was not immediately available
to comment on the reason behind the delay." http://t.uani.com/1hdHA6a
Bloomberg:
"Iran's national currency appreciated to 29,000 rials to the dollar,
compared to 29,450 two days ago, according to figures compiled by Daily
Rates for Gold Coins & Foreign Currencies, a Facebook page used by
traders and companies in Iran and abroad." http://t.uani.com/1aHHxLM
Sanctions
Enforcement & Impact
AFP:
"Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday said Ottowa's
sanctions on Iran would remain 'fully in place' as an interim nuclear
deal between world powers and Tehran took effect. 'We truly hope that it
is possible to walk the Iranian government back from taking the
irreversible step of manufacturing nuclear weapons,' Harper said in an address
to the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem. 'But for now, Canada's own
sanctions will remain fully in place. Should our hopes not be realised,
should the present agreement prove ephemeral, Canada will be a strong
voice in the world for renewed sanctions,' he added." http://t.uani.com/1bfJqiJ
Reuters:
"China's daily Iranian crude oil imports fell 2.2 percent to 428,840
barrels per day in 2013, a smaller-than-expected drop than previously
forecast due to imports of condensate by an independent firm... Tuesday's
customs data showed that China's December crude imports from Iran fell
14.5 percent from a year earlier to 507,707 bpd. For the whole of 2013,
China - Tehran's top oil client and trading partner - imported 21.442
million tonnes of Iranian crude, or 428,840 bpd, data from the General
Administration of Customs showed. That compared with around 27.76 million
tonnes, or an average of 555,200 bpd in 2011, prior to the latest rounds
of toughened sanctions. December's was down 5.7 percent versus November
and the fourth highest daily rate last year, supporting indications that
top refiner Sinopec Corp had increased liftings since November to top up
cuts in previous months. The cut for the whole of last year was below the
5-10 percent estimated by Chinese oil officials in late 2012, after
independently-run petrochemical firm, Dragon Aromatics, had since the
second half of 2013 shipped in Iran condensate, a light crude oil as
feedstock." http://t.uani.com/1ijiUgo
WSJ:
"A Saudi-based food company that has done well for itself in
sanctions-era Iran experienced the downside of investments there this
week, when Iran's double-digit inflation ate into Savola Group's
earnings. Savola, which makes cooking oil and other staple foods in
markets around the Middle East and North Africa, reported a $150 million
net profit for the quarter ended December 31, missing most analyst
expectations of around $170 million. The company generates about 15% of
total revenue from its business in Iran, pointed out NCB Capital's Farouk
Miah, making that country one of its most important overseas
market." http://t.uani.com/1ijhUIX
Syria Conflict
Reuters:
"A Syrian military police photographer has supplied 'clear evidence'
showing the systematic torture and killing of about 11,000 detainees in circumstances
that evoked Nazi death camps, former war crimes prosecutors said. Syrian
officials could face war crimes charges as a result of the evidence
provided by the photographer, who has defected, the three prosecutors
said. One of the prosecutors said the evidence documented 'industrial
scale killing' that was reminiscent of the World War II concentration
camps of Belsen and Auschwitz... 55,000 images provided by the
photographer, who fled Syria after passing the pictures to Assad's
opponents, show emaciated and mutilated corpses. Bearing signs of
torture, some of the corpses had no eyes. Others showed signs of
strangulation or electrocution. 'There is clear evidence, capable of
being believed by a tribunal of fact in a court of law, of systematic torture
and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government,'
the three prosecutors said in the 31-page report." http://t.uani.com/1f8PMmZ
Domestic Politics
WashPost:
"Iranian opponents of the deal stepped up their denunciations of
what they are calling their country's capitulation to Western demands.
Vatan-e Emrooz, a newspaper closely associated with conservatives,
printed Monday's edition in all-black type and dedicated it to coverage
of what it called Iran's 'nuclear holocaust.' 'What we have given up is
not only incomparable with what we have received, but much less
significant than can be called a win-win situation,' wrote Hossein
Shariatmadari, the editor in chief of Kayhan, a newspaper often referred
to as the mouthpiece for the most conservative members of Iran's
political establishment. Criticism of the deal was not unexpected, but
opponents of Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, and his
administration's nuclear outreach had been uncharacteristically quiet
until now. Ahmad Tavakoli, a prominent conservative member of parliament,
told fellow lawmakers Monday that there were two main problems with the
nuclear deal. 'First of all, there are so many discrepancies in the text
of the agreement that we can hardly be hopeful that our national
interests will ever materialize. Second, as officials, we must not reveal
our weak points in a way that our enemies can exploit them,' Tavakoli
said." http://t.uani.com/1anaNgf
Foreign Affairs
Al-Monitor:
"Khamenei said that the enemy has been working to make the Islamic
world neglect Palestine by 'creating differences, promoting extremism and
deviations in the name of Islam, religion and Sharia and have a number of
Muslims declare the majority of Muslims apostates.' He continued, 'The
existence of these takfiri movements in the Islamic world ... has been
good news for the arrogance and enemies of Islam.' ... Khamenei said of
the takfiri groups, 'Instead of focusing on the reality of the wicked
Zionist regime,' they draw focus to other places... Support of takfiri
groups comes from the 'arrogance,' Khamenei said. The term 'arrogance' is
a religious one, but it often is used to refer to Western countries and
Israel." http://t.uani.com/19KLAf4
|
|
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.
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment