Eye on Iran: Kerry on Iran Nuclear Talks: 'I Want to Get This Done'

Join UANI           Top Stories WashPost: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Wednesday said it would be more difficult to reach a deal with Iran curbing its ability to build nuclear weapons if negotiations extend beyond a Nov. 24 deadline. 'I want to get this done,' Kerry said during a series of meetings in which the Iranian negotiations figured prominently. 'And we are driving toward the finish with a view of trying to get it done.' Kerry said Iran is entitled to develop its nuclear program for civilian, not military, use. 'They have a right to a peaceful program but not a track to a bomb,' Kerry said. 'We believe it is pretty easy to prove to the world that a plan is peaceful.'" http://t.uani.com/1E8iTlr AFP: "The US has put forward a 'framework' plan to meet Iran's energy needs, President Barack Obama revealed Wednesday, but warned it was unclear if a deal to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions would be struck... 'We presented to them a framework that would allow them to meet their peaceful energy needs,' Obama told reporters. It was the first time the United States has alluded to a completed framework being on the table, and came just days before top diplomat John Kerry holds fresh negotiations with his Iranian counterpart. If Iran is sincere in not seeking a nuclear weapon, 'if that's in fact true, they have an avenue here to provide that assurance to the world community,' Obama said. It would be 'a progressive step-by-step verifiable way' which would 'allow them to get out from under sanctions so they can re-enter as full-fledged members of the international community.' ... But Obama again repeated Washington's long-held insistence that 'no deal is better than a bad deal.' 'Whether we can actually get a deal done, we'll have to find out over the next three to four weeks,' Obama told reporters ahead of weekend talks in Oman between Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif." http://t.uani.com/10YzXhP Reuters: "Iran may be ready to reach a nuclear deal with world powers to revive its economy, but is in no rush to go further by restoring relations with the United States, calculating this would imperil its domestic support. According to one official, hardline loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have reached a compromise with supporters of the pragmatic president: Tehran should try to win relief from international sanctions by resolving the nuclear dispute, but not normalize ties with 'the Great Satan'... Hostility to the United States has always been a rallying point for the clerical establishment, despite the decades of political isolation and sanctions-related economic hardship that estrangement has cost. Take this bogeyman away, and the ideological glue that holds together the faction-ridden leadership would weaken, analysts say... 'They have reached a compromise: resolving the nuclear dispute but no normalization of ties with the Great Satan,' said a senior Iranian official, who asked not to be named." http://t.uani.com/1wzKmwa     Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "After the election drubbing suffered by his Democrats, President Barack Obama will face a Republican-controlled Congress critical of his foreign policy -- and which could rebel against any eventual Iran nuclear accord. Aside from the war against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria, Tehran's nuclear program is undoubtedly the top foreign policy issue before Congress, with negotiations between the Islamic republic and world powers coming down to a November 24 deadline. Until now, the Obama administration has essentially had a free hand in its handling of the negotiations. Through his Democratic allies in the Senate, the president has managed to squelch any expansion of punitive sanctions against Tehran -- measures introduced by lawmakers skeptical of Iran's efforts. But the new Republican-controlled Senate likely will not show the same deference as Democrats, should Obama agree to extend the talks. 'It's hard to imagine an extension being palatable on the Hill without something in return, without some sort of consequence for Iran,' a senior Republican congressional staffer told AFP. 'There's a fairly strong consensus in this town that Iran does not feel urgency.'" http://t.uani.com/10zGIG7 Sanctions Relief Trend: "An official from the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) said. Iran has signed agreement to buy 126 tank trucks from the UAE based Mammut company. Abbas Filsaraei, an NIOPDC deputy director said that the trucks are to enter the country's fuel transport network, after the necessary licenses are issued by the Iranian National Standards Organization, the official SHANA news agency reported Nov. 6. The Mammut Company will provide Iran with 1000 tank trucks, Filsaraei said, adding the price of each tank truck is about $200,000." http://t.uani.com/1GtumQE Sanctions Enforcement & Impact Reuters: "New York's banking regulator has demanded $300 million from Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ as part of a potential agreement over sanctions-related violations, according to people familiar with the matter. The demand comes on top of a $250 million settlement Japan's largest bank negotiated with the regulator last year for deleting information from $100 billion in wire transfers that authorities could have used to police transactions with Iran, Sudan, Myanmar and other entities subject to U.S. sanctions. The new penalty stems from the discovery after the June 2013 settlement that the bank had submitted a report that allegedly whitewashed a scheme to falsify transactions for entities subject to the sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1s9BnLM Reuters: "Commerzbank on Thursday warned shareholders it may face considerable fines from U.S. authorities as a result of investigations into alleged embargo breaches with countries like Iran, Sudan and North Korea." http://t.uani.com/1wzKtI7 Opinion & Analysis Eli Lake in The Daily Beast: "The Republican victory in the 2014 midterms is less than 24 hours old. But already, the hawkish wing of the GOP is planning an ambitious battle plan to revamp American foreign policy: everything from arming Ukraine's military to reviewing the ISIS war to investigating the U.S. intelligence community's role in warming relations with Iran... Another major issue for the new Republicans will be a potential Iran deal. President Obama was circumspect Wednesday at a press conference on the current nuclear negotiations between Iran and six major powers that are set to expire in November. Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican likely to replace Rep. Mike Rogers as the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast Wednesday that he would like to begin digging into the administration's Iran talks-in particular, the role played in those talks by the U.S. intelligence community. 'There is going to be real scrutiny from the House and Senate in what's taken place on the entire Obama administration's tenure dealing with the Iranians,' Nunes said. Nunes said he was interested in following up on why U.S. intelligence officials who briefed his committee did not acknowledge their role in negotiations with Iran when asked by the committee's chairman, Mike Rogers, earlier this year. Nunes would not get much more specific. The Republicans will not likely choose committee chairmen in the House until next week. But the interest of Nunes, who is currently a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in the role of U.S. spies in Iran talks is significant. For years the CIA and the State Department have relied on interlocutors as channels to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps. In 2007, 2008, and 2009, the U.S. intelligence community participated in talks led by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad with representatives of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force and the man reported to be helping lead Iraq's ground campaign against ISIS. To date, much of the details of the diplomacy and even the interim deal between Iran and the West are shrouded in secrecy. Before November 2013, when the current talks were announced, the State Department and the White House kept from the press the private discussions with Iranian counterparts taking place in Oman. Gary Samore, who served as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction in Obama's first term, said the Oman discussions were kept quiet at the request of the Iranians. 'We were happy to have this be an open meeting,' he said. 'Meaning that it would be public knowledge that it would take place. The Iranians insisted on secrecy, for them the sensitivity about meeting bilaterally with Americans is very acute.' If Nunes pushes further on the details and extent of the Iran talks as chairman of the House intelligence panel, he will be taking a very different tack from some of his colleagues. Republicans and Democrats this year tried to pass new sanctions on Iran aimed at taking effect after talks expire if Iran does not dismantle its nuclear program. The White House was able to kill the sanctions bill this year and persuade key Senate Democrats like Sen. Robert Menendez, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to hold off on pushing for a vote. Recent reports say the United States would be willing to allow Iran to keep thousands of its centrifuges in place, if the machines were disconnected and incapable of producing a cascade of enriched nuclear fuel. Nunes said he thinks the deal being contemplated could lead to disaster. 'Shouldn't the Congress be concerned about the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon,' he said. 'They are going to be close to getting a nuclear weapon because of this deal, this should matter to the American people.' McCain said he, Corker, and Burr are also interested in pursuing more vigorous oversight of the Iran deal as well. 'The Iranians are helping [Syrian dictator] Bashar Assad,' McCain added. 'They are the ones that got the 5,000 Hezbollah guys into the fight [against Syria's rebels], they are gaining more and more influence in Baghdad. And we somehow believe we make a nuclear deal with them and that will lead to other areas of cooperation.'" http://t.uani.com/1pqqMBG      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.