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WashPost:
"The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said
Wednesday that he had urged Secretary of State John F. Kerry to ignore a
looming deadline for nuclear negotiations with Iran if that's what it
takes to secure a more ironclad deal. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a key
figure in brokering a compromise bill acceptable to the White House and
congressional skeptics of an Iran deal, said he spoke with Kerry by phone
late Wednesday afternoon, a day after Kerry said the United States is not
'fixated' on Iran accounting for every last bit of its past secret
nuclear research. Corker has said he thinks the administration is
softening its positions in a rush to strike a deal by a self-imposed June
30 deadline. 'June 30 is an artificial deadline,' Corker said he told
Kerry. 'If it takes longer to get the right deal, take longer, please.
Don't start cutting corners. I know group dynamics; when you're close to
the end of a deal, and your aides are pushing part of what's going to be
a major legacy, I understand how that can affect things. But please,
please stop!' ... 'They have a fixation on We don't want to offend Iran's
national pride by forcing them to come clean,' he said. 'Are you kidding
me?' he added with a touch of sarcasm." http://t.uani.com/1Lhind1
AFP:
"Iranian lawmakers unveiled proposed legislation Wednesday that a
top official said would protect the nation's nuclear interests, but which
could become an obstacle in negotiations for a deal this month. The bill,
sponsored by the chairman of parliament's national security and foreign
policy committee, was signed by 225 of the country's 290 MPs and faces a
vote on Sunday. 'At the moment, the negotiating team is facing excessive
demands from the United States,' said chairman Alaeddin Boroujerdi. 'This
bill is being introduced with the aim of supporting the negotiators...
and to protect the red lines drawn up by the supreme leader.' It sets out
three criteria that must be met by any deal reached with the United
States and five other world powers, which faces a June 30 deadline. First
is the 'complete and unified lifting on the day of agreement of all sanctions
imposed through the UN Security Council, the US Congress and the European
Union.' That condition does not specify if it means the day a deal is
struck, signed or implemented... Secondly, the bill says that although
the International Atomic Energy Agency will be authorised to conduct
'conventional supervision' of Iran's nuclear sites 'access to all
documents, scientists and military/security sites... is forbidden under
any pretext.' ... Thirdly, the bill states: 'No limit will be accepted on
Iran acquiring peaceful nuclear knowledge and technology and the
materials required for research and development.'" http://t.uani.com/1LkLkBy
Pew:
"As the June 30 deadline for negotiations over its nuclear program
approaches, a new Pew Research Center poll finds that attitudes toward
Iran are mostly negative worldwide. Majorities or pluralities in 31 of 40
countries surveyed hold an unfavorable opinion of the Islamic Republic.
And in several Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Asia,
ratings have declined considerably in recent years. June also marks the
second anniversary of the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani,
who generally receives low marks across the Middle Eastern nations
polled... Perhaps influenced by political and sectarian tensions in the
Middle East, favorable views of majority-Shia Iran have declined
precipitously in some Muslim-majority countries over the last
decade." http://t.uani.com/1SruXY8
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Politico:
"The Obama administration is considering appointing a 'czar'-like
official to oversee the enforcement of a nuclear deal with Iran, one of
several options it is weighing to ensure the still-unfinished accord
doesn't unravel, according to sources familiar with the discussions. It's
an idea that some argue is smart - even crucial - because of the multiple
agencies, countries and international bodies that will be involved in the
deal. People familiar with an earlier nuclear agreement with North Korea
say having had such a position then would have helped, at least for a
while, keep that doomed deal on track... Creating such a role, however,
may irk some Republicans who view the proliferation of 'czars' and other
special positions under the Obama administration as inefficient and
duplicative, while also giving opponents of the ongoing nuclear talks a
new focal point for criticism." http://t.uani.com/1L2AyC1
AFP:
"The United States denied Wednesday making concessions to let Iran
off the hook by not declaring any past military activities relating to
its suspect nuclear program... Top US diplomat John Kerry told reporters
on Tuesday that negotiators were 'not fixated on Iran specifically
accounting for what they did at one point in time or another. We know
what they did. We have no doubt.' His spokesman, John Kirby, stressed on
Wednesday that Kerry's words should not be interpreted as dropping a
long-held insistence that Iranian leaders account for past programs. 'The
IAEA's concerns about possible military dimensions past and present, have
to be fully addressed before there's going to be a deal,' Kirby told
reporters. Kerry 'didn't say, and we've never said, that past potential
military dimensions ... don't matter. Of course, they matter. We wouldn't
be sitting down with them having a negotiation about this if it didn't
matter,' Kirby added." http://t.uani.com/1K0krEe
Al-Monitor:
"The State Department (State) is three years late in slapping
certain sanctions on Iran, prompting new allegations that the Barack
Obama administration is deliberately skirting US law in its quest for a
nuclear deal. Under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act
(INKSNA), State is supposed to inform Congress every six months of
attempts to help the three countries obtain weapons of mass destruction
and certain missile technology. The law requires the agency to sanction
violators or justify its decision not to. But the department has fallen
way behind in recent years, according to a government watchdog report
obtained by Al-Monitor. Delays have kept on getting longer, with Congress
receiving an update on violations committed in 2011 only in December
2014. 'Our analysis demonstrates that State is falling further and
further behind in providing the reports and is now juggling a backlog of
draft reports at different stages of that process,' the US Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report concludes. 'The imposition of sanctions
no sooner than 3 or more years after the transfer occurred may diminish
the credibility of the threatened sanction.' ... Unnamed State Department
workers, however, acknowledged to the GAO that US diplomacy impacts how
the law is implemented." http://t.uani.com/1dMfliz
Congressional
Action
The Hill:
"A high-ranking GOP lawmaker predicts that President Obama will use
the 'bully pulpit' to pressure lawmakers into backing a yet-to-be-seen
deal to restrict Iran's nuclear program. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.),
a former chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, wants her
colleagues to buck the White House on what she calls a 'very weak deal,'
but is bracing for Congress to approve it. The Republican says Democratic
lawmakers will buckle after Obama presents stark options to the public
about the deal - due by June 30. 'The president has so much power, he's
got the bully pulpit, and he's gonna tell everybody in all of our
communities that if your member of Congress isn't for this deal, then
that member of Congress wants to go to war with Iran. That's not
true. So I'm afraid of the president using the megaphone that he
has to get members of Congress to go with him on this very weak deal,'
the Foreign Affairs Middle East and Central Asia subcommittee chairwoman
tells The Hill's Molly K. Hooper." http://t.uani.com/1GiQ721
Sanctions
Relief
WSJ:
"At the year's biggest aviation trade fair this week, executives
welcomed a potential new, big customer: Iran. Western governments and
Tehran are approaching an end-of-month deadline for sealing an agreement
over Iran's nuclear program. If there is a deal that eases sanctions,
Iran says it is in the market for billions of dollars of plane purchases.
Earlier this week, Iranian Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi visited the
Paris Air Show, meeting with aviation and other executives gathered for
the industry's big annual bazaar. Speaking to reporters earlier in Paris,
he said Iranian companies could replace as many as 400 aircraft over the
next 10 years, at a cost of at least $20 billion... 'We all recognize
there is a substantial market opportunity,' said Marty Bentrott, head of
Middle East sales at Boeing." http://t.uani.com/1eqlphD
Tehran Times:
"French automaker Renault boosted its sales of cars to Iran in May
by two a half times, selling 2,500 cars to the country. Renault had sold
a total of 1,000 cars to Iran in April. Renault had sold a total of 2,050
cars to Iran in January, but sales were halted in February. January sale
was higher than the same period last year by 36 percent when the
company's sales to Iran stood at 1,050 cars. The company's overall sales
to Iran for 2014 stood at 36,300 cars which showed a decrease of about 9
percent year-on-year." http://t.uani.com/1N5WBag
Tehran Times:
"The Central Bank of Iran has announced that the national economy
expanded by 3 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended
on March 20, 2015. The country's gross domestic product (GDP) hit
10,807,477 billion rials (about $327 billion), in Iranian calendar year
1393 (March 2014-March 2015), a 3 percent rise year on year. It should be
noted that the Iranian economy had contracted by 1.9 percent in Iranian
calendar year 1392 (March 2013-March 2014)." http://t.uani.com/1IR2Mxe
Human Rights
ICHRI:
"Mohammad Moghimi, a defense lawyer who was imprisoned for shaking
the hand of his client, the imprisoned artist and civil activist Atena
Faraghdani, during a prison visit, will be released on June 16 after his
family posted bail, a source close to Mr. Moghimi's family told the International
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Mr. Moghimi, who has been in custody
at Rajaee Shahr Prison since June 13 after his meeting with Ms.
Faraghdani at Evin Prison, received bail orders of 20 million toman
(approximately $60,000) from Branch 4 of Evin Prison Court, which his
family paid on June 15. Officials told the family that he would be
released on June 16, although at press time he was not yet released.
Mohmmad Moghimi was charged with 'non-adultery illegitimate relations'
for shaking hands with his female client. He had gone to Evin Prison to
meet Ms. Faraghdani and to prepare an appeal request for her 12-year
prison sentence." http://t.uani.com/1K0rCfA
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Advisory
Board Member Olli Heinonen & Simon Henderson in WINEP:
"Under the U.S. parameters for Iran's uranium enrichment program
announced in Lausanne on April 2, Tehran will decrease its stock of about
19,000 installed centrifuges to just 6,104, with only 5,060 of these
designated for enriching uranium. This arrangement will last for ten
years, and all of the centrifuges will be first-generation IR-1s. The
parameters also state that 'Iran will not use its IR-2, IR-4, IR-5, IR-6,
or IR-8 models to produce enriched uranium' during this period, and that
it will 'engage in limited research and development with its advanced
centrifuges, according to a schedule and parameters which have been
agreed to by the P5+1.' In addition, the amount of low-enriched stock
that Iran can retain is capped at 300 kilograms of 3.67 percent-enriched
uranium for the next fifteen years (i.e., uranium that contains 3.67
percent of the fissile isotope U-235). The technical details underlying
these parameters raise several concerns that go to the heart of the
proposed deal's efficacy. For one thing, the 1,044 centrifuges designated
only for non-nuclear enrichment will remain installed, so they could
potentially be reconverted to enriching uranium in a short time
regardless of technical or monitoring arrangements. More important, no
details have been revealed about the agreed 'schedule and parameters' for
R&D on more advanced centrifuges. Iran's current timeframe for
acquiring enough high-enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb -- known as
breakout time -- is around two or three months, and the United States
wants a deal that extends that period to at least one year. In
Washington's view, a full year would provide enough time to detect
noncompliance and take diplomatic or military action if Tehran seems
poised to make an illegal dash for a nuclear weapon. Yet the use of more
efficient centrifuges would shorten that time, so Iran's determination to
develop more advanced machines is as much a concern as, for example, its
continuing retention of large low-enriched uranium stockpiles despite a
commitment in the parameters that they be converted into less contentious
forms. Using partially enriched feedstock could also reduce breakout time
substantially. Central to calculations about centrifuges is their
efficiency, usually measured in terms of separative work units (SWUs),
which relate to both the amount of material processed and the degree of
enrichment reached. An SWU describes the annual enrichment output of a
centrifuge, either as 'SWUs uranium/year' or 'SWUs UF6/year,' where UF6
is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for a centrifuge. A
typical 1,300-megawatt light-water power reactor requires 25 tons of 3.75
percent-enriched fuel annually. To produce this fuel from 210 tons of
natural uranium, an enrichment effort of 120,000 SWUs is needed. But a
nuclear explosive device requires high-enriched uranium (i.e., 90 percent
or more U-235) containing twenty-five kilograms of U-235, and producing
such material would necessitate an enrichment plant with an annual
capacity of 5,000 SWUs... In short, close attention to several technical
factors is essential to the success of a nuclear deal, including the
number and type of installed, operable centrifuges; Iran's inventories of
enriched uranium; the dismantling of excess centrifuges; unfettered
inspection access; and enhanced intelligence on and enforcement of
compliance. To maintain a credible verification and monitoring scheme,
Iran's installed centrifuge capacity should not exceed 5,000 SWUs per
year. That calculation depends on the efficiency of the centrifuges, not
just their number." http://t.uani.com/1MOu5cj
Simon Chin &
Valerie Lincy in Iran Watch: "Despite Secretary
Kerry's confidence that the United States understands what Iran 'did at
one point or another' and can assess the direction of Iran's nuclear
program without an accounting of past activities, the International
Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has long hoped to complete its
investigation into what it calls the 'possible military dimensions' of
Iran's program -- alleged past research related to developing nuclear
weapons. It may be that the U.S. intelligence community has 'absolute
knowledge' of the alleged weaponization activities in question, though
it's a difficult point to confirm in an unclassified setting. But even if
answers to the IAEA's long-standing questions would not yield any new
intelligence for the U.S. government, here are four reasons why the PMD
issue still matters:
1.
An acknowledgment from Iran about its
past nuclear-weapons-relevant work would provide a basis for IAEA inspectors
to access military sites where such work occurred and to related
documents and personnel -- access that Iran has been reluctant to
concede. Without such an acknowledgement, the authority for the
IAEA to inspect military sites and other undeclared facilities is
weakened.
2.
Taking the PMD issue off the table
undercuts the valuable work of the IAEA and its Director-General Yukiyo
Amano, who have prioritized the PMD investigation and raised this issue
more insistently than has the United States and its P5+1 negotiating
partners.
3.
Unlike whatever classified intelligence
the United States may possess, the IAEA investigation would yield public
answers about Iran's past nuclear-weapons work that could be scrutinized
by countries without intelligence sharing agreements with the United
States -- and by the public at-large.
4.
Transparency on the PMD issue would be
a sign of good faith from Iranian leaders and an early test of whether
Iran is serious about maintaining a peaceful nuclear program.
Secretary Kerry's remarks signal that the P5+1 are prepared
to ease sanctions on Iran before the full resolution of the IAEA's PMD
file. With the PMD issue no longer tied to the implementation of a
final agreement, Iran may continue stonewalling the investigation, thus
undermining the authority of the IAEA and weakening verification efforts
by Agency inspectors - all while reaping the rewards of sanctions
relief." http://t.uani.com/1N5YxPV
Yaroslav Trofimov
in WSJ: "After launching into a tirade about the
malicious designs of their perfidious foe, three Saudi academics and
analysts on separate recent occasions began by pronouncing 'Israel'-and
then, catching their error of habit mid-word, corrected themselves to say
'Iran.' The custodian of Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, Saudi
Arabia has long preached the message of Islamic unity, albeit on its own
terms. That message has traditionally included hostility to Israel,
widely seen as the usurper of Islam's third holiest shrine, in Jerusalem.
Now, however, the Saudis are finding themselves in an unusual and
somewhat uncomfortable position of, if not empathizing with Israel, at
least relating to it. Years of sectarian carnage in Syria and Iraq have
turned public opinion in Saudi Arabia and many other Arab countries
solidly against Iran and against its most powerful Arab ally, the Shiite
Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. These days, official government spokesmen
in the Saudi capital Riyadh frequently draw a parallel between the
pro-Iranian Houthi militia that Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen and Hezbollah.
They say one Saudi objective in the war is to prevent the Houthis in
Yemen from establishing a state-within-a-state like the one Hezbollah has
carved out in southern Lebanon. Responding to the Saudi bombing campaign,
the Houthis have repeatedly fired cross-border rockets at Saudi towns,
just as Hezbollah has done against Israel. 'Wherever the Iranians are
present, they create militias against these countries,' said Saudi
military spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed al Aseeri. 'In Lebanon they have
created Hezbollah, which is blocking the political process and has
conducted wars against Israelis, destroying Lebanon as a result. And in
Yemen, they have created the Houthis.' The Houthis, for their part, have
accused Saudi Arabia of launching airstrikes against them 'on the order
of Israel' and claimed that Israeli pilots are flying Saudi
jets-allegations routinely reported as fact by Iranian media. It isn't
just about Yemen. Saudi Arabia-like Israel-is also concerned by Tehran's
pending nuclear deal with the U.S. and five other world powers. Fearing
that the agreement, and the accompanying lifting of economic sanctions,
would embolden Iran to expand its regional sway, some Saudis even
hope-not so secretly-that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would
use his country's air force to destroy Iran's nuclear installations.
'Israel is an enemy because of its origin, but isn't an enemy because of
its actions-while Iran is an enemy because of its actions, not because of
its origin,' said Abdullah al Shammari, a Riyadh academic who served as a
senior Saudi diplomat. 'This means that Iran is more of a threat. If I
were a Saudi decision maker, I would not hesitate for a second to
coordinate with Israel against Iran's nuclear program.'" http://t.uani.com/1IQYYMB
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