Eye on Iran: Iran Pursues Ballistic Missile Work, Complicating Nuclear Talks

Join UANI           Top Stories Reuters: "Despite apparently reducing illicit purchases that breach U.N. sanctions, Iran is pursuing development of ballistic missiles, a confidential U.N. report says, posing an acute challenge to six powers negotiating with Tehran to rein in its nuclear programme. On Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described as 'stupid and idiotic' Western expectations for his country to curb its missile development. He decreed mass production of ballistic weapons, striking a defiant tone just before nuclear talks resumed on Wednesday in Vienna... Tehran's often repeated view that missiles should not be part of the nuclear talks appears to enjoy the support of Russia, one of the six global powers. But a senior U.S. official made clear this week that Tehran's ballistic capabilities must be addressed in the negotiations since U.N. Security Council resolutions on Iran 'among many other things, do say that any missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon must be dealt with.' ... The new report by the U.N. Panel of Experts, seen by Reuters, said Iran's overall attempts to illicitly procure materials for its banned nuclear and missile programmes appear to have slowed down as it pursues negotiations with world powers that it hopes will bring an end to sanctions. But the same report makes clear that, apart from holding off on test-firing one type of rocket, Iran shows no sign of putting the brakes on the expansion of its missile programme. 'Iran is continuing development of its ballistic missile and space programmes,' the experts said. 'A new missile launch site 40 km (25 miles) from the city of Shahrud was identified in August 2013. A larger launch complex is assessed to be close to completion at the Imam Khomeini Space Center at Semnan for ballistic missiles and satellite launch vehicles.'" http://t.uani.com/1n0Vn72 Reuters: "Iran and six world powers are making little progress in arduous talks on ending their dispute over Tehran's nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said on Friday, fanning doubt about the prospects for a breakthrough by a self-imposed July deadline. The Islamic Republic also said the latest round of negotiations, which began in Vienna on Wednesday and were expected to end later on Friday, were difficult and slow. After three months of comparing expectations rather than negotiating possible compromises, the sides planned at the May 13-16 meeting to start drafting the text of a final agreement that could many years of enmity and mistrust and dispel fears of a devastating, wider Middle East war. The U.S. and Iranian statements might be designed in part to raise pressure on the other side but they also betrayed stubborn, major differences that must be overcome if intense diplomacy is to succeed in clinching a final accord. 'Talks have been slow and difficult,' the U.S. official said, declining to be named. 'Significant gaps remain. Iran still has some hard decisions to make. We're concerned that progress is not being made and that time is short.'" http://t.uani.com/1lpmrYa WSJ: "Iran has been recruiting thousands of Afghan refugees to fight in Syria, offering $500 a month and Iranian residency to help the Assad regime beat back rebel forces, according to Afghans and Western officials. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, recruits and trains Shiite militias to fight in Syria. Details of their recruitment efforts were posted this week on a blog focused on Afghan refugees in Iran and confirmed by the office of Grand Ayatollah Mohaghegh Kabuli, an Afghan religious leader in the Iranian holy city of Qom. A member of the IRGC also confirmed the details. 'They [IRGC] find a connection to the refugee community and work on convincing our youth to go and fight in Syria,' said the office administrator of Ayatollah Kabuli, reached by telephone in Qom. 'They give them everything from salary to residency.' Iran is offering the refugees school registration for their children and charity cards in addition to the $500 stipend and residency." http://t.uani.com/1j24mB4         Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "Iran's lead negotiator in high-stakes nuclear talks with world powers in Vienna said Friday that discussions were moving forward only 'very slowly and with difficulty'. 'It's a good atmosphere and discussions are moving forward in a spirit of goodwill, but they are moving very slowly and with difficulty,' the IRNA news agency quoted Abbas Araqchi as saying. The comments came as a fourth round of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany neared its scheduled end in the rainy Austrian capital." http://t.uani.com/1hQUZ36 Military Matters Free Beacon: "A top Iranian naval commander said that he is prepared to order suicide attacks, drone strikes, and missile technology to 'destroy the U.S. Navy' in any upcoming confrontation, according to an interview printed in Iran's state-run media. Iranian Naval Commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, a member of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said that Iran is constantly training and preparing for a clash with the United States, according to a recounting of his remarks provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Fadavi revealed that Iran 'compensates for its technological inferiority to the United States with a strategy of asymmetrical warfare, including suicide attacks and the use of speedboat and its missile capability,' according to MEMRI." http://t.uani.com/RI75VN Sanctions Relief Free Beacon: "Rep. Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.) petitioned the Treasury Department on Thursday to sever all government contracts with any company that attempts to conduct business with Iran, according to a letter the lawmaker sent to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Lamborn's letter was sparked by a report Wednesday in the Washington Free Beacon revealing that several companies with billions of dollars in U.S. contracts were recently in Tehran to attend the Iran Oil Show, a several-day expo that allowed companies in attendance to build ties with top Iranian officials. The oil show was a way for these companies to pave the way for increased business with Iran following the Obama administration's significant rollback on economic sanctions on Tehran. Lamborn-a member of the House Armed Services Committee-told Lew that it is unacceptable for any company that received U.S. taxpayer dollars to begin conducting business with Iran, which continues to threaten war against the United States and conduct a massive military buildup." http://t.uani.com/1veC8Z5 Reuters: "Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that talks with Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh in Moscow on Thursday had not produced a final agreement on a potential oil-for-goods deal between the countries. 'We did not reach a final agreement,' Novak told reporters, adding that he hoped a deal could be agreed in time for an inter-governmental meeting in the autumn." http://t.uani.com/1n0W4NP Terrorism Reuters: "An Argentine Federal court on Thursday struck down an agreement between the South American country and Iran to jointly investigate the deadly 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center that local courts blamed on Tehran. Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor who oversaw an investigation of the AMIA center explosion that killed 85 people, had argued in his appeal to the court that in negotiating the 2013 deal with Iran, the executive branch had overstepped into areas reserved for the judiciary. Thursday's ruling declared the agreement unconstitutional and ordered Argentina not to go ahead with it. The deal had been delayed anyway by Iranian reluctance to move forward in implementing it. The government said it will appeal the ruling to Argentina's Supreme Court." http://t.uani.com/RI6ALq Human Rights FT: "Constitutionally, prisons are controlled by the judiciary, one of the power bases of hardliners who, though small in number, have used their stronghold to block any meaningful political and cultural reforms. For now, there is little Mr Rouhani can do as he consciously avoids confrontation with his hardline opponents so as not to jeopardise nuclear negotiations, which are resuming in Vienna this week. Many Iranians nonetheless expected the president to stand up to hardline forces. Supporters of the opposition Green Movement voted for him in the hope that he could help release opposition leaders Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, as indicated during his election campaign. The two leaders have been under house arrest since 2011 and are reported to be in poor health. The first picture of Mr Moussavi to appear for three years showed him in hospital this week." http://t.uani.com/1nREbjZ Guardian: "Britain has expressed serious concerns about the ongoing destruction of a historic cemetery in southern Iran, where members of the country's most persecuted religious minority are buried... Britain's Foreign Office urged the Iranian authorities this week to stop the destruction and release seven leaders of the Bahá'í faith who have been imprisoned in Iran for the past six years, each serving a 20-year prison sentence... This week, a number of activists, including the celebrated lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, marked the anniversary of six years' imprisonment in Iran of seven Bahá'í leaders." http://t.uani.com/1jCj1hX IHR: "One prisoner was hanged in the prison of Semnan (northern Iran) early this morning reported the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Semnan... According to unofficial sources four other prisoners were hanged in the prison of Urmia (West Azerbaijan, northwestern Iran) on Tuesday May 13." http://t.uani.com/1gaGAUp Foreign Affairs Trend: "Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held a meeting with Austria's president Heinz Fischer in Vienna. The meeting took place on the sidelines of a fresh round of nuclear talks between Iran and the group of six world powers (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) that are in progress in the Austrian capital, Iranian Tasnim news agency reported on May 15. Zarif's Thursday meeting with Fischer comes amid growing speculations that the Austrian president may pay an official visit to Tehran in the near future." http://t.uani.com/1iSsnpM Opinion & Analysis Josh Rogin in The Daily Beast: "'Hillary Clinton is now claiming to be the architect of crippling sanctions on the Iranian economy. But during her tenure as Secretary of State, her department repeatedly opposed or tried to water down an array of measures that were pushed into law by Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Speaking at the American Jewish Committee on Wednesday, Clinton said that she and President Obama faced a 'hard choice' when deciding to both reach out to Iran and increase the pressure on the Iranian government and economy, a not so subtle pitch for her upcoming memoir Hard Choices, which hits bookstores next month. She portrayed the multi-year effort to impose several increasingly tough sanctions measures against Iran as largely led by the administration. 'With the help of Congress, the Obama administration imposed some of the most stringent crippling sanctions on top of the international ones... our goal was to put so much financial pressure on Iran's leaders that they would have no choice but to come back to the negotiating table with a serious offer,' she said. 'We went after Iran's oil industry, banks, and weapons programs, enlisted insurance firms, shipping lines, energy companies, financial institutions and others to cut Iran off from global commerce.' Clinton referred indirectly to a series of bills passed from 2009 through 2012 that attacked Iran's ability to export goods, participate in international financial markets, and continue with its illicit activities and money laundering. What Clinton didn't mention was that top officials from her own State Department-in conjunction with the rest of the Obama administration-often worked hard against many of the measures she's now championing. Some bills Foggy Bottom slowed down; others, the State Department lobbied to be made less strict; still others were opposed outright by Clinton's deputies, only to be overruled by large majorities in the House and the Senate. For the senators who worked against the administration to pass the sanctions, Clinton's comments Wednesday were an attempt to rewrite the events without acknowledging the administration's actions at the time. 'Secretary Clinton's comments are a blatant revision of history,' Kirk told The Daily Beast on Thursday. 'The fact is, the Obama administration has opposed sanctions against Iran led by Senator Menendez and me every step of the way, as was thoroughly documented at the time.' The most egregious example of the administration's effort to slow down the sanctions drive came in late 2011, when Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez openly chastised top administration officials for opposing an amendment to sanction the Central Bank of Iran that he had co-authored with Sen. Mark Kirk. Leading administration officials including Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman publicly expressed 'strong opposition' (PDF) to the amendment, arguing that it would anger allies by opening them up for punishment if they did not significantly reduce their imports of Iranian oil. Clinton's top deputies fought the amendment at every step of the legislative process. Clinton's #2 at the State Department, Bill Burns, even joined an emergency meeting with top senators to urge them to drop the amendment. They refused. The amendment later passed the Senate 100-0. Menendez said at the time that the administration had negotiated on the amendment in bad faith. 'At your request we engaged in an effort to come to a bipartisan agreement that I believe is fair and balanced. And now you come here and vitiate that agreement.... You should have said we want no amendment,' Menendez said at the time." http://t.uani.com/1jPOSAR Amb. Eric Edelman & Amb. Dennis Ross in JINSA: "More than three months since the implementation of the interim deal with Iran over its nuclear program, formally known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), we thought it valuable to offer an assessment of the impact of the agreement. Evidence suggests the JPA has set back Iran's breakout timing by nearly one month. However, that benefit is more than offset by provisions which: allow Iran to enrich uranium more rapidly than before the deal; steadily reduce the pressure on Tehran from sanctions; and fail to resolve international concerns about Iran's weaponization activities. As a result, in our judgment the JPA is not making a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear program more likely to be achieved. This is based on three key trends we observe thus far, all of which are permitted under the JPA. First, increased centrifuge efficiency could negate the ongoing neutralization of Iran's most advanced uranium stockpile. As a result, Tehran's overall progress toward nuclear weapons capability could be unchanged, or even advanced, during the interim period. Second, even as the JPA leaves Iran's potential breakout timing unchanged, it is decreasing U.S. leverage for compelling Iran to conclude and adhere to an acceptable final deal. Specifically, we estimate increased oil exports resulting from the JPA's unlacing of sanctions will yield Iran $9- 13 billion more in revenue between the deal's announcement in November 2013 and the end of the six-month interim deal than if it had not been agreed. Third, despite some transparency improvements, Iran continues to deny the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) full access to suspected military dimensions of its nuclear program. As before the JPA, this leaves inspectors largely in the dark about the true extent of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Tehran's compliance should not obscure the fundamental character of the regime with which the United States is trying to negotiate a final deal. Amid the hopeful atmosphere surrounding these talks, the Islamic Republic remains the leading international sponsor of terrorism and the backbone of the Syrian regime's brutal suppression of its own citizens. It continues rejecting international law and global norms - including binding U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on it to suspend its nuclear program and comply with its non-proliferation obligations - as self-serving instruments of Western repression. This is part of the regime leadership's conspiracy-laden worldview. Only days before the JPA was announced, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claimed publicly the United States used nuclear weapons against Japan after Tokyo was ready to surrender, 'with the excuse of war so that it becomes clear whether these bombs work properly or not.' During the JPA interim, he described the Holocaust 'as an event whose reality is uncertain, and, if it happened, it's uncertain how it happened.' This should inform U.S. negotiators' ongoing approach to a comprehensive settlement: how can a regime with such ingrained radical policies be entrusted with sensitive nuclear technologies? Considering how close the Iranian regime remains to nuclear weapons capability, we therefore believe it is critically important to gauge the effectiveness of the interim deal in the wake of February and April 2014 IAEA reports on Iran's nuclear program. We frame our assessment according to six principles, listed individually below, to which we believe any deal must conform to protect U.S. national security interests." http://t.uani.com/1gMSXRl 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.