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AFP:
"The US and Iran will hold a second day of high-level talks in Oman
Monday after a warning from President Barack Obama that there may be no
nuclear accord as a deadline looms. US Secretary of State John Kerry met
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the Gulf sultanate on
Sunday, seeking to resolve key disputes that have left the West's
negotiations with the Islamic republic close to deadlock... With both Iran
and the US facing pressure at home over the talks, Obama reiterated in a
CBS News interview screened Sunday that the sides were still far apart.
'Are we going to be able to close this final gap so that (Iran) can
re-enter the international community, sanctions can be slowly reduced and
we have verifiable, lock-tight assurances that they can't develop a
nuclear weapon?' Obama asked. 'There's still a big gap. We may not be
able to get there,' he said... Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani are
already under pressure from lawmakers sceptical of the interim deal who
have also said that a final agreement must be ratified by parliament. As
if to drive that message home on Sunday, 200 Iranian MPs signed a
statement demanding that Zarif's negotiating team 'vigorously defend' the
country's nuclear rights and ensure a 'total lifting of sanctions.'"
http://t.uani.com/1wL4uLS
Times (UK):
"Iran could have five times more advanced centrifuges capable of
producing weapons-grade uranium than it has previously admitted, according
to the former deputy chief of the UN nuclear watchdog. Olli Heinonen, who
spent 27 years at the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran could
have up to 5000 IR-2m centrifuges rather than the 1008 it has claimed.
The IR-2m devices are up to five times more effective in enriching
uranium than older IR-1 types. Heinonen was speaking on the eve of
nuclear negotiations between Iran's Islamic regime and the P5+1
countries, which are the US, Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany.
Mr Heinonen said Tehran 'could have up to 4000 to 5000 centrifuges or raw
materials for them' located outside two of its largest nuclear sites,
Natanz and Fordow. The estimate comes from intelligence sources and Mr
Heinonen is concerned the negotiations will merely focus on what needs to
be done about Iran's 18,000 or so IR-1 centrifuges and the 1008 IR-2m
devices... Mr Heinonen said negotiators should broker an agreement with
Iran to give the IAEA full access to its centrifuges and not only those
located in Natanz and Fordow." http://t.uani.com/1uf4ymh
Haaretz:
"Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has put forth a plan
to eliminate Israel, which he believes will be accepted by the
international arena. In a neat table posted on Khamenei's official
Twitter account on Sunday, the ayatollah answers nine key questions on
why - and how - this plan is to be implemented. In the post, Khamenei
accuses Israel of seeking to realize its goals 'by means of infanticide,
homicide, violence & iron fist,' and says that the only way to stop
the 'Israeli crimes' is to eliminate the 'fake Zionist regime.' According
to the post, Iran has presented 'international communities' with 'a
practical and logical mechanism' aimed at achieving this goal - and it
doesn't include a massacre of the region's Jews. Instead, the 'proper
way' of eliminating Israel would come through a referendum that would
encompass 'all the original people of Palestine including Muslims,
Christians and Jews wherever they are.'" http://t.uani.com/1srPuwi
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Reuters:
"A U.S. think-tank said Iran may have violated last year's interim
nuclear deal with world powers by stepping up efforts to develop a
machine that could enrich uranium faster, but other experts said they saw
no breach. Iran's development of advanced enrichment centrifuges is
sensitive because, if successful, it could enable the country to produce
potential nuclear bomb material at a rate several times that of the
decades-old model now in use. Western officials were not immediately
available to comment on the allegation by the Washington-based Institute
for Science and International Security (ISIS), which closely tracks
Iran's nuclear program. There was no immediate comment from Tehran... The
confidential document, issued to IAEA member states on Friday, said that
since the U.N. agency's previous report in September Iran had
'intermittently' been feeding natural uranium gas into a single so-called
IR-5 centrifuge at a research facility. The IR-5 is one of several new
models that Iran has been seeking to develop to replace the erratic,
1970s vintage IR-1 centrifuge that it now uses to produce refined
uranium. Unlike other advanced models under development -- IR-2m, IR-4
and IR-6 -- at a research site at its Natanz enrichment plant, Iran had
until now not fed the IR-5 with uranium gas. 'Iran may have violated (the
interim accord) by starting to feed (natural uranium gas) into one of its
advanced centrifuges, namely the IR-5 centrifuge,' ISIS said in an
analysis." http://t.uani.com/1EkKUX5
Reuters:
"Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium gas has grown by 8 percent
to nearly 8.4 tonnes in about two months, U.N. atomic inspectors say, an
amount world powers probably will want to see cut under any nuclear deal
with Tehran... The IAEA report said Iran's stock of uranium gas refined
to a fissile concentration of up to 5 percent stood at 8,390 kg, a rise
of 625 kg since its previous report in September... The stockpile is now
above the defined level but Iran still has time to reduce it before the
temporary deal expires this month, when it is supposed to be replaced by
a long-term one." http://t.uani.com/1xdfrav
Free Beacon:
"Iran's illicit nuclear program could be more advanced than
previously believed, according to new information released Friday by an
Iranian dissident group that raises new questions about what Tehran has
been hiding from nuclear inspectors. Iran is said to have built and still
be in possession of two explosive chambers that have allowed the regime
to conduct advanced testing of nuclear weapons, according to new
information published by the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI), an Iranian opposition group that has exposed Iran's clandestine
nuclear activities in the past. While the existence of one explosive
chamber has been known for some time, the NCRI claims a second device
could be hidden at Iran's Parchin military complex, or at another site
somewhere in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1zeXNRJ
FT:
"Iran's rulers are under growing pressure to secure a nuclear deal
with world powers to help ease the plight of the country's economy, which
has been buffeted by international sanctions and falling oil prices that
threaten to derail economic reforms. Weak demand and oversupply have sent
oil prices plunging more than 25 per cent, since the middle of June, to a
four-year low. In addition to the global pressures on Iran's economy, EU
and US banking and oil sanctions have halved the country's crude oil
exports in the past two years and complicated the regime's access to
dollars from the oil it manages to sell... 'Without at least some kind of
a nuclear deal and with falling oil prices, more industries and
businesses will face the risk of bankruptcies and lay-offs,' said one
economic analyst. 'This dangerous combination means there will be a
shortage of hard currencies in the market soon which will cause a plunge
of the rial and consequently more expensive imports and domestic
production and higher inflation.'" http://t.uani.com/1xlY8ld
Reuters:
"Iran sees no alternative to a diplomatic settlement with six world
powers on its nuclear program and believes both sides are resolved to
reach a deal by a self-imposed Nov. 24 deadline, its deputy foreign
minister said on Saturday... 'No middle solutions exist and all our
thoughts are focused on how to reach a settlement,' Abbas Araghchi, the
deputy foreign minister and Iran's chief negotiator, told the state news
agency IRNA." http://t.uani.com/1oCc89K
AFP: "A
failure by Iran and world powers to reach a comprehensive agreement over
Tehran's nuclear programme would be dangerous 'for the entire world', a
senior Iranian negotiator said on Saturday... 'A nuclear deal is in the
interest of both parties and the region,' deputy foreign minister Abbas
Araghchi said in an interview with Iranian television the day before talks
between Tehran and the so-called P5+1 group of nations resume in Oman
ahead of a final deadline this month. 'No one wants to return to the
situation there was before the Geneva accord, as that would be a
dangerous scenario for the entire world,' he said, referring to an
interim agreement Iran signed last year that traded curbs on its nuclear
programme for limited sanctions relief." http://t.uani.com/1wa7VYz
AFP:
"The head of Iran's atomic energy agency will travel to Russia
Tuesday to sign a construction deal for two nuclear power plants on
Iran's southern Gulf shores, media reported. Ali Akbar Salehi's visit
will cap months of negotiations between Iran and Russia, and comes as the
Islamic republic faces a November 24 deadline for a long-term nuclear agreement
with world powers. 'I am going to Moscow to sign an agreement for the
construction of new nuclear power plants,' Salehi was quoted as saying on
Sunday by Iran's official IRNA news agency. It quoted Tehran's ambassador
to Moscow, Mehdi Sanaei, as saying on Facebook that the visit would take
place on Tuesday... The Bushehr plant, which also produces 1,000
megawatts, was built by Russia after being delayed for years and
officially handed over in September 2013. Iran plans to build 20 more
plants in the future, including four in Bushehr alone, to decrease its
dependency on oil and gas." http://t.uani.com/1svMK1R
Reuters:
"Gunmen killed five nuclear engineers, four of them Syrian and one
Iranian, on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday, a monitoring group said
on Monday. The engineers were shot dead as they were traveling in a small
convoy to a research center near the northeastern district of Barzeh, the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said." http://t.uani.com/1uSUoJE
Military
Matters
Reuters:
"An Iranian copy of a U.S. reconnaissance drone captured in 2011 has
taken its first flight, state news agency IRNA reported on Monday. In
December 2011, Iran said it had captured a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel
reconnaissance drone in eastern Iran that had been reported lost by U.S.
forces in neighboring Afghanistan. 'We promised that a model of RQ-170
would fly in the second half of the year, and this has happened,'
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh told IRNA. 'A film of the flight
will be released soon.' In a video posted by the semi-official Tasnim
News Agency, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei voiced satisfaction at
the news after seeing a replica of the drone, saying: 'Today is a very
sweet and unforgettable day for me.'" http://t.uani.com/1xru5cX
Human Rights
WSJ:
"The Tehran regime has barred four U.K. parliamentarians from
visiting Iran. The delegation was to include Tory MPs David Burrowes and
Alistair Burt, Labour MP Stephen Timms, and Jeffrey Donaldson, a Northern
Irish MP from the Democratic Unionist Party who played a prominent role
in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement. The parliamentarians were
hoping to examine the persecution of religious minorities, particularly
Christians, in Iran. 'I think the Iranian regime is at present
uncomfortable with the idea of a visit with such a specific aim as to
look at issues of religious freedom,' Mr. Burt said in a written
statement Thursday. The Iranians, Mr. Burrowes wrote in an email, 'did
indicate that a visit focused upon human rights and religious freedom was
particularly sensitive at this time no doubt when the nuclear issue is so
prominent.'" http://t.uani.com/1tUaMq5
AFP:
"The international volleyball federation FIVB on Sunday said it will
not allow Iran to host international events as long as women are banned
from attending the game. The announcement comes a week after a
British-Iranian women, Goncheh Ghavami, was jailed by a Tehran court,
five months following her arrest in the city after trying to attend a
volleyball match. The FIVB will 'not give Iran the right to host any
future FIVB directly controlled events such as World Championships,
especially under age, until the ban on women attending volleyball matches
is lifted,' a spokesman for the international federation told AFP. 'This
does not include other volleyball tournaments or next year's World League
tournament because the fixtures are already confirmed,' the spokesman
added." http://t.uani.com/1ty9AoU
ICHRI:
"Twelve prisoners were hanged inside the Orumiyeh Central Prison
between October 18 and October 29, nine of these for drug trafficking
crimes, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has learned.
According to a source, on October 18, 2014, five inmates sentenced to
death on drug-related charges were transferred from the facility's Ward
15 to its Quarantine Ward, and hanged at 11:30 p.m. The five inmates, all
citizens of Orumiyeh, were Fakhreddin Ghavidel, Esfandiar Ghahremani,
Nejat Karimi, Arash Sigari, and Bahram Seddighi. Five other inmates,
Salaheddin Behnam Kerdar, Rashid Alizadeh, Reza Tahmassebi, Younes
Golbahar, and Latif Mohammadi, were executed in the same facility on
October 26, 2014. All of them, except for Mohammadi, had been sentenced
to death on charges of drug trafficking and possession. According to the
United Nations, death sentences may be assigned only in the case of the
'most serious' crimes, and drug-related charges do not fulfill this
requirement. The vast majority of executions in Iran are carried out for
drug-related offenses." http://t.uani.com/1EkPODF
IHR:
"A 36 year old man was hanged in public in the city of Mashhad
(Northeastern Iran) Saturday morning November 8... He was convicted of
Moharebeh (waging war against God) and sentenced to death by Revolution
Court in Mashhad. The execution was carried out at the 'Resalat Square'
of Mashhad in front of several hundred people. The prisoner showed the
victory sign before the execution." http://t.uani.com/1qAigLv
ICHRI:
"Narges Mohammadi, the prominent human rights defender and Deputy
Head of the now shuttered Defenders of Human Rights Center, has been
summoned to the Evin Prison Court following a moving speech she made at
the grave site of Sattar Beheshti, the 35-year-old blogger who died under
torture at a police detention center in November 2012. 'In the summons I
received on November 5, 2014, it is stated that I must turn myself in for
charges, but there is no further explanation about these charges,' said
Mohammadi. A video of her October 31 speech in remembrance of the second
anniversary of Sattar Beheshti's murder quickly went viral among social
networks." http://t.uani.com/1tTYnCv
Opinion &
Analysis
Suzanne Maloney in
Brookings: "With a deadline for the Iranian nuclear
negotiations set to expire in a few weeks and significant differences
still outstanding, President Barack Obama reportedly penned a personal
appeal to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last month. The
move betrays a profound misunderstanding of the Iranian leadership, and
is likely to hinder rather than help achieve a durable resolution to
Iran's nuclear ambitions as well as other U.S. objectives on Iran. If the
reports are accurate - and the administration has not yet confirmed the
scoop by the Wall Street Journal - the letter apparently urged Khamenei
to finalize the nuclear deal and dangled the prospect of bilateral
cooperation in fighting the Islamic State group (also known as ISIS or
ISIL) as an incentive. It marks the fourth time since taking office in
2009 that Obama has reached out to Khamenei personally, in addition to
his exchange of letters (and an unprecedented phone call) with the
country's president, Hassan Rouhani. This constitutes a striking increase
in American outreach to the Iranian leadership since the revolution. The
two countries have not had direct diplomatic relations since April 1980,
and have engaged in direct dialogue only sporadically since that time,
most recently in concert with five other world powers in talks aimed at
eliminating Iran's path to nuclear weapons capability. In dealing with
one of the world's most urgent crises, more direct dialogue is surely a
net positive. But the technique and tactics matter, perhaps even more in
this interaction than in most other disputes, where contact is more
routinized and where there is a more substantial foundation of mutual
understanding or at least familiarity. It makes perfect sense, for
example, that the U.S. military has apparently utilized Iraqi officials
as an intermediary on issues related to the ISIS campaign, which Tehran
has waged independent of the U.S.-led effort through its proxies on the
ground in Iraq. However, it is precisely at the tactical level that an
Obama letter to Khamenei at this juncture appears so spectacularly
ill-conceived. First of all, it poses no realistic possibility of advancing
progress in the nuclear talks or any other aspect of U.S.-Iranian
relations. After all, only the most naïve and uninformed observer of Iran
would believe that a personal appeal from Obama would sway the Supreme
Leader in a positive fashion. Khamenei's mistrust and antipathy toward
Washington has been a consistent feature of his public rhetoric through
the 35-year history of the Islamic Republic. He has described Washington
with every possible invective; he indulges in Holocaust denial and 9/11
conspiracies; and he routinely insists that the United States is bent on
regime change in Iran and perpetuating the nuclear crisis. These views
are not opportunistic or transient. Anti-Americanism is Khamenei's
bedrock, engrained in his worldview, and as such it is not susceptible to
blandishments - particularly not from the very object of his
loathing." http://t.uani.com/1zeXmqB
Jeffrey Goldberg
in The Atlantic: "This most recent letter was
delivered at an unfortunate moment in the run-up to the putatively climactic
negotiations between Iran and world powers scheduled for later this
month. The Obama administration has already given the impression that it
wants a nuclear deal more than Iran wants a nuclear deal. The U.S. has
good reason to want a strong agreement: It could prevent a nuclear-arms
race in the world's most volatile region; it could protect America's
allies, including and especially Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United
Arab Emirates; it could help ensure that Iranian-sponsored terrorists are
denied the protection of a nuclear umbrella; and so on. But it is Iran
that actually needs a deal more than the U.S. Its economy has nearly been
crushed by American-led sanctions, and the ruling regime understands that
further domestic economic hardship could pose a threat to its existence.
And yet, it appears, superficially at least, that it is the U.S. that is
bending to the demands of Iran. The most recent example comes via
official Iranian-state media, which reported that U.S. negotiators have
agreed to allow Iran to run 6,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges, which is
up from the previous maximum American concession, 4,000, proposed just
two weeks ago. Iranian negotiators could take such premature concessions
as signs that more concessions are coming, in exchange for ... not very
much. Certainly, no broad shift in Iranian strategic thinking seems
likely... The most potentially damaging aspect of this latest Obama
letter is that U.S. allies in the Middle East weren't informed of its
existence. Given the dysfunctional nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship
right now, I doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was
particularly surprised to be surprised in this manner. But America's Gulf
allies could legitimately feel some level of disappointment. These
countries, which face twin threats-from Shiite extremism in the form of
the Iranian regime, and Sunni extremism, in the form of the Islamic State
terror group, or ISIS-count on the United States to protect them from
both. Lately, and uncharacteristically (particularly in the case of the
Saudis), they are actually helping the U.S. fight extremism. The Saudis
and Emiratis are both currently participating in attacks on ISIS. In
other words, they are part of an actual wartime alliance led by the
United States. It would have been appropriate for the Obama
administration to let its friends know that it was reaching out, again,
to one of their enemies. The Gulf allies are already paranoid about U.S.
intentions toward Iran. Now they are more paranoid." http://t.uani.com/1EkZnSU
Jackson Diehl in
WashPost: "As a presidential candidate seven years
ago, Barack Obama shook up the foreign policy world by declaring that he
favored 'direct diplomacy' to reshape U.S. relations with long-standing
adversaries like Syria, Cuba and North Korea. Critics, including Hillary
Clinton, called him naive, and until now they have proved right. Yet as
he heads into the last stretch of his presidency, Obama is doubling down
on a bet that in one last case - Iran - his strategy will yield a
spectacular payoff. The news that Obama dispatched yet another letter to
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei broke last week as U.S.
negotiators worked feverishly to complete a deal on Iran's nuclear
program by a Nov. 24 deadline. A pact that restrains - but does not
eliminate - Tehran's ability to produce a weapon for a decade or so - but
not indefinitely - is the administration's current, discounted goal.
Increasingly, however, senior administration officials talk about the
nuclear diplomacy in the context of a larger effort to stabilize the
shattered Middle East with Iran's cooperation. U.S. and Iranian
forces are already working in tacit alliance in Iraq against the Islamic
State, a point Obama apparently made to Khamenei. As they look beyond a
potential nuclear deal, the president's aides are suggesting that Iran
could also support a new attempt to reach a political settlement in Syria
- one that would leave at least part of the current, Iranian-backed
regime in place. It's worth taking a step back to consider how far Obama
is diverging from past U.S. policy in the Middle East. Since Jimmy
Carter, presidents have sought to fashion an Arab coalition to contain
the Islamic regime in Iran and thwart its aim to establish itself as a
regional hegemon. The long and determined Iranian effort to acquire
nuclear weapons has been central to its ambition. Obama's final push, if
it works, would allow Iran to keep much of its nuclear infrastructure
while ceding Tehran a role in the pacification and political reconstruction
of the lands from Baghdad to Beirut. Of course, the pitch to Iran - like
previous, more tactical U.S. attempts at detente dating to the Reagan
administration - may fall flat. As Obama put it last week, 'whether they
can manage to say yes to what would clearly be better for Iran...is an
open question.' It's quite possible the talks will end with an agreement
on extension of the current, interim deal, which would make it harder for
the two governments to collaborate on Iraq or Syria... In essence, the United
States faces a choice in the Middle East of trying to defend its
interests and restore stability with or against Iran. A policy of
marginalizing Tehran - in keeping with that of the past three decades -
would mean seeking the defeat of Assad's army, pressuring Iraq's
government to curb Iran's proxy Shiite militias and stepping up sanctions
until Iran agrees to dismantle - not just temporarily limit - its nuclear
infrastructure. Obama's bet is that the course of 'direct diplomacy' is
more likely to produce an acceptable outcome. His assumption is that
there is a formula for an Iranian nuclear program and governments in
Syria and Iraq that both Khamenei and U.S. allies can live with. Most
likely he is wrong. But the audacity of his policy reflects a president
bidding for vindication - and a legacy." http://t.uani.com/1wL9mAE
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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