Eye on Iran: At U.N., Iran Urged to Show More Flexibility in Nuclear Talks

Join UANI           Top Stories Reuters: "Iran has not demonstrated sufficient flexibility in nuclear talks with six world powers aimed at ending a 12-year standoff with the Islamic Republic over its atomic ambitions, France and Britain said on Thursday... 'In spite of insufficient flexibility demonstrated at this stage by Iranian negotiators, we'd like to believe that Iran does seek a long-term agreement,' senior French diplomat Philippe Bertoux told the U.N. Security Council. 'We would expect that Iran takes strategic choices and courageous decisions' in upcoming rounds of negotiations, he added. Senior British diplomat Michael Tatham echoed his remarks, urging Iran to be more flexible... Deputy U.S. Ambassador David Pressman said Washington would not talk with the Iranians indefinitely without results. 'While we continue to believe that the best way to achieve our goals is thorough diplomacy, we are not going to sit at the negotiating table forever,' he said... He also referred to a recent report by the Iran Panel of Experts, which oversees sanctions compliance, that said Tehran was continuing to skirt sanctions by attempting to procure banned nuclear technology. 'Recent reporting by the Panel of Experts reminds us why this is so important,' Pressman said. 'We know that Iran is still trying to procure sensitive technology. We know Iran is still smuggling arms in violation of (the U.N. arms embargo on it).'" http://t.uani.com/1AlTkyO AFP: "Iran will hold widespread naval drills extending to the Gulf of Aden in December, its navy chief said Thursday, asking foreign forces to 'leave the area' to avoid incidents. The week-long exercises -- the first on this scale since the election of reformist President Hassan Rouhani in June last year -- are set to start on December 25 and take place between the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Aden, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari was quoted as saying by the official Irna news agency. 'The ballistic capacity of Iran will be on display during exercises including missile launches,' Sayari said." http://t.uani.com/1v0gnsz Al-Monitor: "A conference at the University of Tehran about Iran's nuclear program has produced some of the harshest criticism yet of its costs to the country, prompting condemnation from a parliamentary official, who called for legal action to be taken against the prominent Iranian panelists. The Iranian Students' News Agency published the transcripts of the conference, and the story became popular on social media after foreign-based Radio Farda compiled some of the conference's highlights. Ahmad Shirzad, a former parliament member who came into office in the 2000 Reformist sweep, said, 'During that time in parliament, I said that no water will come from the nuclear well. ... Not even a glass of water. If you ask me why the country went in a nuclear direction, I have to answer that I do not know.' ... Zibakalam said that he once asked nuclear negotiator Abbas Aragchi, '[What] if your grandchildren ask you in the future whether you think Iran not have been better off if the funds for the nuclear program were instead put into managing the country's water?' According to Zibakalam, Araghchi replied, 'I do not know.' Zibakalam said that the nuclear program, which has brought economic sanctions and political isolation to Iran, has been more costly than the devastating Iran-Iraq war... Ismael Kowsari, a member of the Iranian Parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, said that people like Shirzad 'are servants of the foreigners' with 'their hand stretched out' to them. He said that Bavand has 'a problem with the progress and pride' of the country, adding, 'There should be a legal confrontation with people who have a problem with the progress of the system.'" http://t.uani.com/13kLdp6     Sanctions Relief Trend: "Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce Chairman Asadollah Asgaroladi said that China has financed several Iranian projects. 'We agreed to receive our money in the form of goods and finance,' the official explained, Iran's Mizan News Agency reported on Dec. 16. 'The country has no debt to us anymore, except for the goods,' he said. 'Bank of Industry and Mine, Parsian, and Pasargad banks are currently working in this regard,' the official explained. In November 2013, Iran announced that about $30 billion of its oil revenues have been blocked by Chinese banks due to the sanctions imposed on Tehran's banking system. The two countries agreed over Chinese companies' financing of Iranian projects as an approach to return the blocked assets." http://t.uani.com/1zclTzB Human Rights AP: "The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday approved resolutions criticizing the human rights situations of North Korea, Iran and Syria... While General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, they can be a strong expression of world opinion. The representatives of Syria and Iran also protested their respective resolutions Thursday, with Iran's representative calling the effort 'political, prejudicial and unbalanced.' The resolutions criticizing Iran and Syria do not threaten the kind of action that the one on North Korea does. They are annual measures that express concerns over regular reports of U.N. special rapporteurs. The special rapporteur for Iran, who has not been allowed to visit the country, this year focused attention on the country's 'alarmingly high frequency' of the use of the death penalty. The resolution calls on Iran to stop a range of abuses including torture, gender discrimination and the targeting of activists and journalists. Iran's representative protested that the resolution doesn't acknowledge 'positive developments' since President Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013." http://t.uani.com/16zdomh ICHRI: "Nearly a month into their hunger strike inside the Orumiyeh Central Prison to protest dangerous and inhumane prison conditions, 27 Kurdish political prisoners have been summoned and threatened with new judicial cases if they don't cease their hunger strike, a source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Beginning on November 20, 2014, 30 political prisoners inside Orumiyeh Central Prison's Ward 12 embarked on a hunger strike to protest severely overcrowded prison conditions and the prison's refusal to separate categories of prisoners, which has resulted in the incarceration of these political prisoners alongside violent criminals." http://t.uani.com/1x4WtUp Opinion & Analysis Emily Landau in TNI: "The objective of the P5+1 in their negotiations with Iran over a comprehensive deal is to keep Iran at about a year from what is known as 'breakout'-the ability to quickly assemble one nuclear device. The logic of the P5+1 stance is that with some modifications to Iran's nuclear infrastructure and an 'ironclad' verification regime, twelve months will be enough time for an Iranian violation to be detected and for the international community to respond before Iran is able to move to a weapons capability. In a perfect world, they might be right. But in the real world, and based on the experience of the past eleven years, this best-case scenario assumption is unwarranted. It is much more likely that twelve months will be insufficient time for detection and response. Specifically, it will require whoever is in charge-the IAEA? United States? P5+1? UN Security Council?-to successfully manage three crucial tasks: to detect a violation, and produce clear evidence; to secure agreement that the violation is significant and warrants confronting Iran; and to act on the information in a quick, coordinated and determined manner in order to stop Iran. But the quick 'detection-decision-action' process envisioned by the P5+1 will not be as smooth, problem-free and timely as they think. In fact, there are likely to be problems of interpretation, and other political constraints at every turn. Let's begin with presentation of evidence of a violation. Once an agreement with Iran is achieved, after so many years of difficult and time-consuming negotiations, it will no doubt be accompanied by great fanfare and praise to Iran for its cooperation. The negotiators will be ecstatic with their success, and eager to proceed with economic and political cooperation and new ties. The last thing they will want is to find evidence that the agreement is not being adhered to. In fact, the instinct of the P5+1 will be to look the other way if faced with evidence, and they will certainly have no incentive to actively seek it out. Still, intelligence information and analyses of IAEA reports will find their way to media reports and commentary, and these will quickly become the subject of debate in the public domain-in the media and social media. This will force the relevant parties to pay attention, but some recent cases provide a glimpse of what is likely to happen... These cases demonstrate the 'interpretation wars' that will no doubt accompany any news of future violations-among the P5+1 states (and within them), as well as between the P5+1 and Iran. Interpretation of the evidence will be strongly influenced by political considerations-as has been the case for the past eleven years. People will be challenging the veracity and significance of any evidence that is produced, in line with an entire set of political interests. This will be time-consuming, and will come at the expense of the ability to make a quick call that there is clear evidence of a violation. Then there is the question of significance. Is the violation significant enough to warrant confronting Iran? And if it is deemed significant, what should be done about it? Will action be taken in response to any violation or only in the face of a major violation? The latter would certainly be a mistake, especially as we have learned that Iran operates incrementally-the regime consciously avoids blatant violations that may more easily elicit a harsh international response, preferring to move slowly, bit by bit. That's how Iran got from several hundred centrifuges to 19,000, including advanced models, and from the first kilograms of low-enriched uranium to an amount today, which if enriched to weapons-grade level, would be enough for six to seven nuclear devices. Finally, if all of these initial stages are passed successfully, and a decision is made that something must be done, what will that 'something' be? More sanctions? Military force? What will be able to stop Iran in a time frame that is likely at that point to be extremely short? When considering how things are likely to play out-on the basis of how they have played out in the past and the debilitating political constraints-twelve months is in reality no time at all." http://t.uani.com/1v0iBYQ      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.