Join UANI
Top Stories
AP:
"In the eyes of most Iraqis, their country's best ally in the war
against the Islamic State group is not the United States and the
coalition air campaign against the militants. It's Iran, which is
credited with stopping the extremists' march on Baghdad. Shiite,
non-Arab Iran has effectively taken charge of Iraq's defense against
the Sunni radical group, meeting the Iraqi government's need for
immediate help on the ground. Two to three Iranian military aircraft a
day land at Baghdad airport, bringing in weapons and ammunition. Iran's
most potent military force and best known general - the Revolutionary
Guard's elite Quds Force and its commander Gen. Ghasem Soleimani - are
organizing Iraqi forces and have become the de facto leaders of Iraqi
Shiite militias that are the backbone of the fight. Iran carried out
airstrikes to help push militants from an Iraqi province on its border.
The result is that Tehran's influence in Iraq, already high since U.S.
forces left at the end of 2011, has grown to an unprecedented level."
http://t.uani.com/1sq1bde
AFP:
"Iran's atomic agency chief insisted Sunday on Tehran's demands
for increased uranium enrichment, days before the resumption of thorny
talks with world powers in Geneva. Ali Akbar Salehi, a former foreign
minister and ex-nuclear negotiator for the Islamic republic, said that
within eight years the country would need 12 times more enriched
uranium than at present... 'We currently produce 2.5 tons but will need
30 tons eventually,' Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy
Organisation, was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA. 'They
refuse... and ask that we reduce the number of centrifuges (the
machines that enrich uranium),' Salehi said. 'We must have that right
in eight years... we are ready to do this in stages. They can set the
first step but we want to set the last step.' ... Salehi also
reiterated Iran's demand for an eventual enrichment capacity of 190,000
SWU (separative work units), which was first set out by the country's
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last July.... Salehi also pointed
to a third difficulty -- the time period the West considers necessary
for confidence-building measures to ensure Iran's nuclear programme is
peaceful. 'We want this period to be less than 10 years,' he said, noting
that the P5+1 powers want it to last 'between 10 and 20 years.'" http://t.uani.com/14LpzMk
Reuters:
"The U.S. and Iranian foreign ministers will meet in Geneva on
Wednesday to discuss the Iranian nuclear program ahead of a fresh round
of talks among Tehran and major powers on the issue, a senior U.S.
official said on Friday. The meeting will take place ahead of
lower-level bilateral nuclear talks between Iran and members of six
major powers expected to start on Jan. 15 in Geneva as well as a
collective discussion among the entire group scheduled to resume on
Jan. 18. Speaking to reporters, the senior U.S. State Department
official said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif planned to meet so as 'to provide guidance
to their negotiating teams before their next round of
discussions.'" http://t.uani.com/1BYSJ4t
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
AFP:
"Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday that a
more active role for Russia could speed up talks aimed at sealing a
comprehensive deal on Tehran's disputed nuclear programme. With
meetings between Iran and world powers to resume in Geneva on
Wednesday, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov was visiting
Tehran, with both sides seeking a breakthrough. 'A more active Russian
role is an important element in accelerating the final settlement of
questions for a global nuclear agreement,' Zarif was quoted as saying
on state media... Ryabkov, who heads up the Russian negotiating team
under the P5+1 talks, said good ties between Tehran and Moscow can
still help 'a rapid settlement of nuclear relations relating to
Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/1A7RE8g
LAT:
"High-level meetings in Geneva in coming days will offer an early
test of whether Iran is willing to show new flexibility in the stalled
international negotiations on its nuclear program. With only six weeks
before the next deadline in the negotiations, Secretary of State John
F. Kerry will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
on Wednesday in the Swiss capital. The U.S. and Iranian negotiating
teams will meet Thursday through Saturday, and on Sunday diplomats from
all seven countries involved in the negotiations will hold a final
session... Western officials hope to see whether Rouhani will return
with new instructions from Iran's supreme leader that will allow
completion of the several major issues that remain unresolved. 'There
is hope that, having come so close, there will now be a decision to
take the final steps,' said a person close to the negotiations, who
declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the issue. Iranian
officials insist that it is not they, but Western officials, who are
intransigent." http://t.uani.com/14Pig5C
Al-Monitor:
"But a former US nuclear negotiator warns that continued internal
disagreements in Iran seem to be stalling progress on a deal. 'In my
view, the talks have become hostage to internal divisions in Tehran,'
Robert Einhorn, former top arms control adviser on the US Iran nuclear
negotiating team, told Al-Monitor in an interview Jan. 9. 'Progress in
the negotiations will require a decision in Tehran to make adjustments
in Iran's negotiating position,' Einhorn, now with the Brookings
Institution, said. 'It means the supreme leader has got to ...
authorize [his negotiating team] to make the adjustments that are
necessary to conclude a deal. And he has not done that yet.'" http://t.uani.com/17AdCdq
YnetNews:
"Following reports Syrian President Bashar Assad was building an
underground nuclear facility, a senior Syrian rebel official told Saudi
paper Okaz on Sunday that the Free Syrian Army has noted suspicious
Syrian and Iranian movements in the town of Qusayr on the outskirts of
Homs, where the facility is said to be. According to the official, Abu
Muhammad al-Bitar, the Free Syrian Army noted the presence of Iranian
officers and 'unprecedented' Hezbollah security in the area. Al-Bitar
said the Friday report on Der Spiegel has been discussed at length in
command meetings of rebel factions in the Kalamoon area. He went on to
say that 'what can be confirmed is that what's going on there is
happening under direct Iranian supervision and the Syrian regime is
only a cover-up for this.' ... Citing information made available by
unidentified intelligence sources, Der Spiegel said the plant was in an
inaccessible mountain region in the west of the war-ravaged country,
two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Lebanese border... Western experts
suspect, based on the documents, that a reactor or an enrichment plant
could be the aim of the project, whose codename is 'Zamzam,' Der
Spiegel said. The report said North Korean and Iranian experts are
thought to be part of the 'Zamzam' project." http://t.uani.com/1DPBqo3
Sanctions
Enforcement & Impact
AFP:
"Iran coach Carlos Queiroz has his voiced anger and frustration at
how international sanctions are damaging his plans to build for the
team's future. The three-times Asian Cup champions began their bid for
a first title in 39 years with an impressive 2-0 victory over Bahrain
in Melbourne on Sunday, but Queiroz told AFP it was wrong that Iran's
young footballers were being 'victimised' by politics. 'It's been very
difficult,' the former Portugal and Real Madrid manager said. 'We
suffer a lot to prepare friendly games and to move internationally to
prepare the team and players. After the World Cup the situation is
getting worse and worse. The players are victimised by the limitations
of the sanctions.'" http://t.uani.com/1AI3x7J
Iraq Crisis
Al-Monitor:
"After Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, in an act of rivalry
with the United States, Iran quickly started to form paramilitary
groups in Iraq and also started to support those Iraqi politicians who
had ties to Iran. Several groups including Mahdi Army (Jaysh al-Mahdī)
which is connected to Muqtadā al-Ṣadr, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Liwa'a
Zulfiqar, Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Kata'ib Hezbollah, Liwa'a 'Ammar
Ibn Yasir, Munadhamat Badr (Al Janah Al Askeri) were formed in Iraq
with the support of Tehran especially after the United States withdrew
its forces from Iraq. The most recently created group, however, is
Saraya al-Khorasani. Saraya al-Khorasani means 'Khorasani Brigades' or
in other words: forces obedient to the Seyyed of Khorasan. For the
Shi'ites who have ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, 'Seyyed
Khorasani' is a reference to Ayatollah Khamenei the supreme leader of
Iran. What distinguishes Saraya al-Khorasani from other Shi'ites groups
is the logo that this group has chosen for itself. In a rather
unprecedented move, Saraya al-Khorasani has chosen an official logo
which is identical to the official logo of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard." http://t.uani.com/1IEgFg7
Human Rights
AP:
"Five weeks after being charged in a Tehran court, Jason Rezaian,
the Washington Post journalist imprisoned in Iran, still does not know
the exact nature of the allegations against him and remains unable to
speak to a lawyer, the reporter's family said after visiting him twice
last month. In what appears to be the longest imprisonment for a
Western journalist in Iran, Rezaian, who has been the newspaper's Iran
bureau chief since 2012, has been held at Tehran's Evin prison for more
than 170 days. Weeks after an initial court date, he is aware only that
the five separate charges against him relate to alleged 'activities
outside the bounds of journalism,' said his mother, Mary Breme Rezaian,
and his brother, Ali Rezaian." http://t.uani.com/1Ik4Kpk
IranWire:
"Some will still remember the days following the Islamic
Revolution, when, in a bid to maintain power and silence dissent,
Iran's new leaders targeted the guilty and innocent alike. Among them
were political activists, but also celebrities: artists, filmmakers,
actors, musicians, and athletes. Stars were summoned to court one by
one or in groups. They were forced either into exile or to the confines
of their homes. The popular actress and singer Marjan was sent to
prison for supporting the People's Mojahedin Organization. Football
legend Parviz Ghelichkhani escaped to Europe, where he continued his
political activities. Habib Khabiri, a member of the National Football
Team, was executed at Evin Prison. The story continues. Over the last
three decades, there have been numerous accounts of star athletes being
put behind bars for their political or religious beliefs." http://t.uani.com/1tZunZV
Domestic
Politics
AP:
"An Iranian parliament session has descended into chaos as several
hard-line lawmakers disrupted a speech by a moderate colleague
criticizing the long-term house arrest of two opposition leaders.
Parliamentarian Ali Motahari was speaking out Sunday in open session
against the detention orders, calling them 'unconstitutional.' His
remarks were disrupted by several lawmakers shouting 'death to
seditionists.' Parliament vice-speaker Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard
adjourned the session, which resumed about a half hour later." http://t.uani.com/1C7TFEb
Foreign
Affairs
Reuters:
"Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Venezuela's
president on Saturday he backed coordinated action between Tehran and
Caracas to reverse a rapid fall in global oil prices which he described
as a 'political ploy hatched by common enemies'. President Nicholas
Maduro is on a tour of fellow OPEC countries to lobby for higher oil
prices, which hit new lows last week below $50 per barrel, nearly half
of what they were back in June 2014. The plunge in crude prices has
pummeled the public finances of Iran and Venezuela, whose economies
rely heavily on oil exports. 'The strange drop in oil prices in such a
short time is a political ploy and unrelated to the market. Our common
enemies are using oil as a political ploy and they definitely have a
role in this severe fall in prices,' Khamenei said in talks with
Maduro. '(Khamenei) endorsed an agreement between the presidents of
Iran and Venezuela for a coordinated campaign against the slide in oil
prices', the official IRNA news agency said... Earlier on Saturday,
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said OPEC hawks Iran and Venezuela
'can undoubtedly cooperate to thwart world powers' strategies ... and
to stabilize prices at a reasonable level in 2015.'" http://t.uani.com/1spYp85
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Outreach
Coordinator Bob Feferman & UANI Florida Director Tara Laxer in The
Palm Beach Post: "As the international community
represented by the P5+1 proceeds with negotiations with Iran, President
Barack Obama should make it clear that the United States will not renew
diplomatic relations with Iran, or end the U.S. sanctions, until Iran
ends its support for terrorists. We must hold the Iranian regime
accountable for the murder of innocent human beings and its threats to
peace. The recently published book, 'The Bus on Jaffa Road,' by
journalist Mike Kelly, is a powerful reminder that since the 1990s the
No. 1 obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians has been the
government of Iran. Kelly's account of a Hamas suicide bombing on a
Jerusalem bus on Feb. 25, 1996, that killed 26 people shows how Iran
has made every effort to blow up the hope for peace. The attack took
place just three years after the signing of the Oslo Accords. In the
book, Kelly provides a moving tribute to the victims of the bombing,
especially two young Americans: Sara Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld. He
tells of the courageous efforts made by the families of the victims to
identify those responsible for the bus bombing and hold them
accountable through a lawsuit in U.S. federal court. All the facts
pointed to the pivotal role of the government of Iran. In the trial, we
learn that the Hamas bomb-maker, Hassan Salameh, received training in
Iran, and the Iranian regime also provided extensive financial support
for Palestinian terror groups - especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad -
amounting to some $75 million per year. The bus bombing on Jaffa Road
was only one of many suicide bombing attacks. Between 1993 and 2007, no
less than 167 Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up on Israeli
buses, in restaurants and shopping malls. These suicide bombings, and
other terror attacks, killed 1,000 civilians and wounded many thousands
more. Although Palestinian terror groups provided the hateful ideology
and the suicide bombers, it was Iran that provided the financial means
and technical support to commit mass murder. Iran's victims also
include several residents of Florida. Daniel Miller, of Boca Raton, was
severely wounded in an attack on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem on
Sept. 4, 1997, that killed five civilians... Daniel Cantor Wultz, of
Weston, was severely wounded in a suicide bombing attack on a Tel Aviv
restaurant on April 17, 2006, that killed 10 people. Less than one month
after the attack, he died of his wounds. Daniel was 16 years old.
Iranian support for Palestinian terrorism is not limited to suicide
bombings. For more than a decade, Iran has provided tens of thousands
of rockets for Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon that have been
fired at Israeli civilians. More recently, Iran provided the
technological know-how for Hamas to manufacture rockets in Gaza... Iran
must be held accountable for its continued support for terrorism. To
ignore this would be an affront to the memory of the victims and allow
Iran to continue to sabotage the hope for peace. Sarah Duker's mother
said, 'There is this child of mine who isn't here and never will
be.'" http://t.uani.com/1wPr0QI
William Tobey
& Robert Joseph in NRO: "he U.S. negotiating
strategy in nuclear talks with Iran is failing. To date, these
negotiations have focused almost solely on topics that Iran wants to
talk about - how many thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges
Tehran will continue to operate, and how soon sanctions will be lifted.
This all but guarantees an outcome that will fail to block the Islamic
Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons at a time of its choosing.
American negotiators, seemingly willing to make concession after
concession simply to keep the talks from breaking down, have abandoned
the fundamental objective of obtaining a verifiable agreement that
would deny Iran the capacity to build a nuclear weapon (in exchange for
relief from what were crippling economic sanctions). Instead, the U.S.
and its partners have settled for increasing the time it would take
Iran to build its first nuclear weapon from a few months to perhaps a
year. Secretary of State John Kerry haltingly explained the dramatic
shift in the Obama administration's aims in testimony last April: 'I
think it's public knowledge today that we're operating with a time
period for a so-called breakout of about two months. Six months to
twelve months is - I'm not saying that's what we'd settle for, but even
that is significantly more.' With this change, the United States
recognized Iran as a nuclear-weapons threshold state - a status seldom
discussed in the Western media but well understood by Iran's neighbors,
with dire consequences for future proliferation. Incredibly, U.S.
negotiators have actually facilitated Iran's ability to cheat. They do
this by focusing almost exclusively on blocking the use of declared
Iranian facilities to break out of the nonproliferation treaty, while
ignoring the more likely risk that Tehran will operate covert facilities
to achieve its nuclear ambition. This approach is incomprehensible
because Iran has been repeatedly caught red-handed pursuing multiple
clandestine nuclear projects in violation of its international
obligations. Now the evidence of clandestine nuclear-weapons work is
mounting. In August the State and Treasury Departments sanctioned an
Iranian entity created in 2011 for ongoing 'research in the field of
nuclear weapons development.' This fall the State Department briefed a
U.N. panel of experts charged with monitoring sanctions enforcement on
Iran's current illicit procurement efforts. In November an Iranian
dissident group reported that the organization sanctioned in August has
split in two and opened new offices in an effort to evade International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) scrutiny and international sanctions.
Meanwhile, the Iranian government and military continue to stonewall
years-long IAEA efforts to investigate what the agency calls the
'possible military dimensions' of Iran's nuclear program. When asked
how the Obama administration can continue negotiating with Iran even as
it charges its counterparts with violating U.N. sanctions and
conducting clandestine nuclear-weapons work, the spokesmen respond that
Iran is continuing to adhere to the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) interim
agreement. But that says more about the flaws of the JPA than it does
about Tehran's willingness to comply with nuclear agreements. In
addition to strict and verifiable limits on Iran's overt nuclear
activities, a successful deal must address Iran's covert path to
nuclear weapons. This can best be done by two means." http://t.uani.com/1IkerUK
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment