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Reuters:
"Iranian, U.S. and European Union officials will start two days of
talks about Tehran's nuclear programme on Monday, Iran said, giving its
first word about what appears to be a bid to rescue faltering wider
negotiations on ending a decade-old dispute. Iranian Deputy Foreign
Minister Abbas Araqchi told state-run Iranian television in remarks
broadcast on Sunday that the meeting in Geneva would also discuss
sanctions that have damaged the OPEC member's oil-dependent economy.
'The meeting tomorrow with the Americans will be trilateral and Helga
Schmidt, the deputy of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, will
be present as well,' Araqchi said. Nuclear talks between Iran and six
major powers in Vienna last month ran into difficulties, with each side
accusing the other of having unrealistic demands in negotiations aimed
at curbing Tehran's atomic program in exchange for an end to economic
sanctions that have crippled its economy... The United States said on
Saturday it would send its No. 2 diplomat, Deputy Secretary of State
Bill Burns, to Geneva to meet senior Iranian officials on Monday and
Tuesday. Burns, who led secret U.S.-Iranian negotiations that helped
bring about a Nov. 24 interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the
major powers, would head a U.S. delegation, it said. Under Secretary of
State Wendy Sherman, the primary U.S. negotiator with Iran, will
accompany him on a team that will include senior White House national
security staff." http://t.uani.com/1pclmc0
Reuters:
"The United States believes that it needs to pursue active and
aggressive diplomacy with Iran to determine whether a diplomatic
solution on Tehran's nuclear program is achievable, a senior U.S.
administration official said on Saturday. 'In order to really seriously
test whether we can reach a diplomatic solution with Iran on its
nuclear program, we believe we need to engage in very active and very
aggressive diplomacy,' said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity. The official, who was speaking ahead of bilateral talks
between senior U.S. and Iranian officials in Geneva set for June 9-10,
said Washington had not yet seen 'the kind of realism on the Iranian
side that we need to see.'" http://t.uani.com/1pcmhJq
AP:
"The U.S. is reassembling key members of the diplomatic team that
held secret negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, leading to
a breakthrough agreement, and sending them to Geneva for direct talks
with representatives from Tehran in hopes of making progress toward a
comprehensive final deal. The discussions involving Deputy Secretary of
State William Burns, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden's top foreign
policy adviser, are set for Monday and Tuesday. The European Union's
political director, Helga Schmid, will sit in... Iran's official IRNA
news agency said the upcoming U.S. talks would be followed by separate
discussions in Rome between Iranian and Russian officials on Tuesday
and Wednesday. IRNA quoted Abbas Araqchi, a senior member of Iran's
nuclear negotiating team, as saying that the Islamic Republic planned
to hold other bilateral talks as well with the other world powers, but
those meetings had yet to be set." http://t.uani.com/1xxwi6m
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
AFP:
"Direct talks with the United States this week on Tehran's nuclear
programme hold the key to bridging gaps at a 'serious phase' of
negotiations and sealing a deal, a top Iranian official said Sunday...
Abbas Araqchi, a vice foreign minister who will lead the Iranian
delegation, said the tete-a-tete with the United States was essential,
as the negotiations are delicately poised... 'We have always had
bilateral discussions with the United States in the margin of the P5+1
group, but since the talks have entered a serious phase, we want to
have separate consultations,' Araqchi said, quoted by official IRNA
news agency. 'Most of the sanctions were imposed by the US, and other
countries from the P5+1 group were not involved,' he added, in a
telling remark about how the US stance remains Iran's main
concern." http://t.uani.com/1xxxXZF
Al-Monitor:
"The House and Senate are back in session next week, and lawmakers
in both chambers plan to use the dwindling time before the July 20
deadline for a nuclear deal to hammer the Barack Obama administration
on its negotiations with Iran. The House Foreign Affairs and Senate
Foreign Relations committees are both holding hearings on Iran next
week, as Al-Monitor first reported June 4. And activists plan to raise
the temperature with a show of force on Capitol Hill. The House kicks
things off June 10 with a hearing dedicated to 'verifying Iran's
nuclear compliance.' This is but the first in a series of hearings on
the nuclear talks, according to committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif.,
and will feature four former government officials with expertise on the
matter - including former Bush administration Assistant Secretary of
State for Arms Control and International Security and Nonproliferation
Stephen Rademaker. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee follows suit
June 12 with a hearing on the regional implications of a potential deal
with Iran. Witnesses include President Obama's former special adviser
for the Persian Gulf, Dennis Ross, and Frederick Kagan of the
conservative American Enterprise Institute. Meanwhile, the pro-Israel
Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Foreign Policy Initiative
are banding together for a Capitol Hill 'conversation' on June 12
dedicated to Iran's 'dashed hopes' for improved human rights under President
Hassan Rouhani. Speakers are expected to address 'the regime's
accelerated human rights abuses as well as how human rights concerns
should inform the nuclear negotiations presently underway,' according
to an advisory; they include Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., the co-author of
stalled Iran sanctions legislation." http://t.uani.com/1hzPH1u
Domestic
Politics
NYT:
"In their early 30s, married, and with prospects for successful
careers, Bita and Sherag could be contemplating the logical next step
in their lives: becoming parents. But for them and an increasing number
of young, middle-class Iranians who are deeply pessimistic over their
country's future, raising a child is one of the last things on their
minds. Bita, who like her husband asked for her family name to be
withheld so they could speak freely, said she had had two abortions,
which are illegal in Iran. 'We are really serious about not having
kids,' she said. Iran's leaders have taken notice. Worried about a
steep decline in fertility rates that experts are predicting could
reduce population growth to zero within 20 years, Tehran has started a
broad initiative to persuade Iranian families to have more children.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sounded the alarm in a
speech last winter, saying he was 'shaking with fear' over the
'dangerous issue' of population decline and warning officials to begin
grappling with it now... Like many young couples, Sherag, an architect,
and Bita, a recent college graduate, cited a litany of problems as reasons
for their dark outlook: an intrusive state and its conservative
ideology, a sickly economy, political instability. 'When we go to bed
we don't even know what will happen when we wake up,' he said. 'I just
don't want to bring children into this hell,' she said." http://t.uani.com/1pvaFPl
Foreign
Affairs
Bloomberg:
"Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Turkey today for the
first state visit by an Iranian president in 18 years, as both
countries push to lift trade restrictions imposed by the UN over Iran's
nuclear ambitions. The trip to Turkey is 'a great opportunity for
cooperation and constructive engagement,' Rouhani said on his Twitter
account yesterday. Iran's central bank Governor Valiollah Seif also
accompanied him to Ankara, according to Rouhani's Twitter account
today. Turkey and Iran will seek to double annual commerce to $30
billion by 2015 in the event of 'unfair' sanctions being lifted, said
Turkey's Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz said June 3. Iran is
seeking a bigger share in Turkey's energy market, Iran's Ambassador Ali
Reza Bikdeli to Turkey said May 16, adding that oil and gas exports to
Turkey could be boosted if sanctions are eased." http://t.uani.com/1qh79I3
RFE/RL:
"Afghanistan has been the recipient of millions of dollars in
assistance from neighboring Iran. But while Kabul has accepted the
much-needed support, it has often shown wariness of Tehran's motives.
That's because many in Afghanistan accuse the Islamic republic of
meddling in the country's internal affairs and exerting its influence
through its export of cultural and political views, strong media
presence, and the funding of religious schools. It is little surprise
then that Iran has met stiff opposition with its plan to build and run
a regional hospital in the impoverished central province of Bamiyan --
a predominately Hazara and Shi'ite region where Tehran once exerted
considerable influence... 'This region doesn't have good memories of
Iran's activities because of what they did in the past,' says
Khairullah Hamidi, a prominent civil society activist in Bamiyan. After
the defeat of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the collapse of the
subsequent regime in Kabul in the early 1990s, Afghanistan's neighbors
funded, armed, and trained their Afghan proxies to gain regional
leverage -- a move that helped fuel the country's descent into civil
war. Iran supported Shi'ite and Persian-speaking groups, including
groups in Bamiyan." http://t.uani.com/1nu2pyl
NYT:
"The fevered struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional dominance
has for years aggravated nearly every conflict across the Middle East
as the two nations armed, funded and encouraged each other's
adversaries. So it has come as a surprise to many here that even with
the region still in tumult, there have been signs that both powers are
looking to temper their destructive rivalry. But as officials in Riyadh
and Tehran give hints of détente, the reality, experts say, is that the
two battle-scarred adversaries are more likely circling as they adjust
to shifting regional dynamics. For the moment, Iran has the upper hand,
having successfully staked its position on supporting President Bashar
al-Assad in Syria's civil war and having opened talks with Washington
over its nuclear program. 'Iran is in a stronger position than Saudi
right now,' said an adviser to the Saudi government, speaking
anonymously in order to be more candid. 'They have more cards.'" http://t.uani.com/1hzRcNd
Opinion &
Analysis
Jeffrey Lewis in
FP: "If the Obama administration can achieve a
diplomatic agreement to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,
historians will probably judge the U.S. president much more kindly than
contemporary pundits and partisans. That's why I spit out my coffee
when on Wednesday I read that the chances for an Iran deal are slipping
away over the issue of how many centrifuges Iran will be allowed to
keep. '[The Iranians] expect to get capacity to fuel Bushehr, and
that's unrealistic,' one diplomat told Reuters. 'It gets you a very
short breakout time.' 'Breakout' is the theoretical time it would take
Iran to reconfigure its cascades of centrifuges at its declared
enrichment sites and then make enough highly enriched uranium for one
nuclear weapon. The theory goes that a 'short' breakout time -- on the
order of weeks -- makes it somehow more likely that Iran will build a
nuclear weapon. This is completely wrong. Breakout is precisely the
wrong measure of whether a deal is successful. If Obama lets this deal
slip away over a breakout calculation, he'll earn the dismal reputation
that pundits have been trying to hang on him. The Iranians are
extraordinarily unlikely to break out using a facility that is under
International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, even if they are able to
do so very quickly. I don't know how this calculation became the
dominant measure of any agreement with Iran -- but it depends on a
number of dubious assumptions.The most dubious assumption is that
anyone in Iran cares about the breakout timeline. Breakout is a wonk's
calculation -- there is simply no evidence that political figures in
Iran, like Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, think about the problem in
terms of math and are, therefore, deterred by breakout taking a month
in way they might not if it took a week. And if Iran gains enough
fissile material for one weapon in a week's time, so what? The United
States nearly attacked North Korea when it had enough plutonium for, in
the words of the U.S. intelligence community, 'one, possibly two'
nuclear weapons. Having a significant quantity of highly enriched
uranium sitting around isn't a deterrent -- it is an invitation to
preemption. If Khamenei chooses to break out, this will ignite an
enormous crisis with the United States, Israel, and others. The supreme
leader might opt for a crisis, but this is the kind of decision that
usually depends on larger issues such as domestic political
considerations, how the Iranian leadership judges U.S. resolve, and the
stakes at the moment. Back-of-the-envelope breakout calculations don't
matter. What Khamenei is more likely to do, if he decides that nuclear
weapons are no longer un-Islamic, is to order the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps to build a covert facility with technology from the civil
program. You know, like Iran did at Natanz before 2002, and near Qom
before 2010. A covert facility would provide Iran with a significant
and steady supply of highly enriched uranium. With a little luck for
the Iranians, this approach would present the United States and its
partners with a fait accompli -- one where we don't know how much
highly enriched uranium they have or where it's made. That's what the
North Koreans are doing now, having wised up about the limited value of
a plutonium production infrastructure housed in very large reactors and
a reprocessing building that are easily identified and targeted. Let me
put this simply: Even if the Iranians build a bomb, they are likely to
pretend for a prolonged time that they haven't. Imposing limits on the
number, capability, or operation of Iran's centrifuges is a fool's
errand. It is far more important to win concessions on verification and
access to Iran's nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/1hJEH24
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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