Top Stories
Reuters: "Iran
on Sunday rejected the West's demand that it send sensitive nuclear
material out of the country but signaled flexibility on other aspects of
its atomic activities that worry world powers, ahead of renewed
negotiations this week... Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi's
comments on Sunday may disappoint Western officials, who want Iran to
ship out uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, a
short technical step away from weapons-grade material. However, Araqchi,
who will join the talks in Switzerland, was less hardline about other
areas of uranium enrichment, which Tehran says is for peaceful nuclear
fuel purposes but the West fears may be aimed at developing nuclear
weapons capability. 'Of course we will negotiate regarding the form,
amount, and various levels of (uranium) enrichment, but the shipping of
materials out of the country is our red line,' he was quoted as saying on
state television's website." http://t.uani.com/1geBYf7
NYT:
"Iranian nuclear negotiators will offer a new proposal on Tuesday
that is intended to persuade world powers that the country's nuclear
program has only peaceful aims, a top official said on Sunday. The
announcement came from Abbas Araghchi, the deputy foreign minister and
one of Iran's negotiators in the nuclear talks set to begin Tuesday in
Geneva. Mr. Araghchi told Iranian news media that his team would present
a three-step plan that would secure the independence of Iran's civilian
nuclear program while giving assurances that the country is not trying to
assemble atomic weapons. 'We need to move towards a trust-building road
map with the Westerners,' Mr. Araghchi told the Islamic Student News
Agency in an interview. 'To them, trust-building means taking some steps
in the nuclear case, and for us this happens when sanctions are lifted.'
... 'Of course we will negotiate regarding the form, amount, and various
levels of enrichment,' Mr. Araghchi said on state television on Tuesday.
But he seemed to dismiss a proposal raised by the West in earlier talks
that some of Iran's nuclear material be sent abroad for reprocessing.
'The shipping of materials out of the country is our red line,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/1gEjRND
AP:
"U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the window for diplomacy
with Iran over its nuclear program is 'cracking open,' but that 'no deal
is better than a bad deal.' Kerry made the comments in a speech Sunday
via satellite from London to a foreign policy conference in California by
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful
pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United States. The State
Department released excerpts of Kerry's prepared remarks... 'Right now,
the window for diplomacy is cracking open. But I want you to know that
our eyes are open, too,' Kerry said in his remarks to AIPAC... 'While we
seek a peaceful resolution to Iran's nuclear program, words must be
matched with actions. In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of
Israel's security needs. We are mindful of the need for certainty,
transparency, and accountability in the process. And I believe firmly
that no deal is better than a bad deal,' according to the excerpts of
Kerry's speech." http://t.uani.com/19AdEwT
Nuclear
Program
Bloomberg: "Iran's Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the highest-ranking official taking part
in nuclear negotiations starting tomorrow in Geneva, said more meetings
will probably be necessary before progress is likely toward ending the
decade-long standoff... 'I will present Iran's proposal in the opening
session and then my colleagues will carry on the talks,' Zarif wrote on
his Facebook page. 'In order to decide about the details and starting
procedure, we will probably need another meeting at the level of foreign
ministries.'" http://t.uani.com/GXadID
Reuters:
"When the U.N. Security Council first imposed sanctions on Iran in
2006 to try to make it halt its nuclear activity, the Islamic state had a
nascent uranium enrichment program with a couple of hundred centrifuges
it was testing. Seven years later - a period which has seen the major oil
producer come under increasing international punitive measures - it has
installed more than 19,000 such machines for processing uranium, which
can have both civilian and military purposes. The figures, from quarterly
reports by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, demonstrate Iran's determination to
press ahead with a project it says is peaceful but which the West fears
is aimed at developing the capability to assemble atomic bombs. At the
same time, it has amassed stocks of low- and medium-enriched uranium gas
- 6.8 tons and 186 kg respectively - that experts say would be enough for
several bombs if processed further to weapons-grade material... Despite a
more moderate tone from Iran under new President Hassan Rouhani,
Vienna-based diplomats say they see no clear indication so far that Iran
is putting the brakes on its nuclear drive." http://t.uani.com/19Ii0ju
AFP:
"Iran wants the six world powers negotiating over its controversial
nuclear drive to send top diplomats to crunch talks in Geneva next week,
the official news agency IRNA reported Friday. Foreign Minister Mohammad
Javad Zarif is to lead Iran's nuclear team at a new round of negotiations
with the so-called P5+1 group of the United States, Britain, France,
China and Russia plus Germany on October 15 and 16. But Zarif 'will
attend only the opening session on Tuesday and the rest of the talks will
be held between deputies if the six (world powers) are not represented at
the level of foreign ministers,' IRNA said, quoting a source in Iran's
nuclear team. Abbas Araqchi, a deputy foreign minister who was also a
member of the nuclear team under ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will
then lead Iran's delegation at the Geneva meetings, it said. Zarif will
remain in the Swiss city for the duration of the talks, it added." http://t.uani.com/1fvAdsN
Bloomberg:
"The political clash over Iran's nuclear program reflects an equally
implacable legal conflict between treaties that both sides say back up
their positions. Whether Iran has a right to enrich the uranium-235
isotope, used to generate atomic power and make nuclear bombs, is at the
heart of a dispute that has raised the specter of war for the past
decade. The primacy of the question may be the only area of agreement
this week in the first round of international talks since Hassan Rouhani
was elected Iran's president on a pledge to resolve the dispute... Iran
asserts the right to enrich uranium under the 1968 Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, an interpretation rejected by the United
Nations Security Council, which says its demands take precedence." http://t.uani.com/1ckgVmo
AFP:
"Iran is planning to send another live monkey into space within a
month, a top space official said in remarks reported by media Sunday.
'The second live animal will be ready within a month to be sent into
space,' said Hamid Fazeli, deputy head of Iran's space organisation, the
Jomhuri Eslami newspaper reported. Iran in January claimed to have
successfully launched a live monkey into space and to have brought it
safely back to earth. The experiment's success was disputed, however,
when a different monkey was presented to the media after the landing. An
earlier attempt had failed in September 2011. Iran's space programme has
prompted concern among Western governments, which fear Tehran is trying
to master the technology required to deliver a nuclear warhead." http://t.uani.com/1bRuaOy
Sanctions
WashPost:
"Iran has been making cars for more than half a century, becoming
the top producer in the Middle East. The distinctive Paykan, first
produced in 1967, remains an enduring source of national pride. Just two
years ago, Iran was producing 1.65 million cars a year, with exports to
Syria, Iraq and Venezuela. Even the 'Happy Birthday' song that Iranians
sing to one another was first commissioned by Paykan manufacturers to
celebrate the car's anniversary. But if the car industry's rise has been
stunning, so has been the crash. This year alone, car production has
plunged by 40 percent. From a rank of 13th in the world two years ago, it
has fallen to 21st. And in the first half of 2013, the country shipped
only 1,456 cars abroad - a tiny trickle compared with 2012. The falloff
reflects the crumbling of a key state-run Iranian industry, one that
planners had hoped might one day help to diversify an economy that
remains highly dependent on energy. As government employees, autoworkers
enjoy job protection, but their factories now lie increasingly
idle." http://t.uani.com/19J3pEw
Reuters:
"The U.S. delegation to next week's talks about Iran's nuclear
program includes one of the U.S. government's leading sanctions experts,
a hint that Washington may be giving greater thought to how it might ease
sanctions on Tehran. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, effectively
the State Department's third-ranking diplomat, will lead the U.S.
delegation to negotiations between Iran and six major powers in Geneva on
Tuesday and Wednesday, the State Department said... The U.S. delegation
will include Adam Szubin, the director of the Treasury Department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, and among the U.S.
government's foremost experts on sanctions. Szubin has led OFAC since
2006 and is responsible for administering and enforcing the U.S.
government's economic sanctions programs to advance foreign policy and
national security objectives. The U.S. team also includes James Timbie,
senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security; Puneet Talwar, senior director for Iran, Iraq and
the Gulf States on the White House National Security Staff; and Richard
Nephew, principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the State
Department, a U.S. official said." http://t.uani.com/19KZ2yD
Terrorism
WT:
"The leader of Hamas is taking a select few of his followers to
Tehran this week in what's being billed as a reach-out to Iran for
stronger support and for permission to relocate exiled ranks to the
country. The Jerusalem Post reported that the upcoming meeting between
Khaled Meshal and his delegation with Iranian leaders will be a worldwide
watched event, as international leaders - especially the West - look to
newly minted President Hassan Rouhani's reaction. Mr. Rouhani has set the
stage for himself as a more moderate leader than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His
embrace of Hamas could compromise that label." http://t.uani.com/GXc2oQ
AFP:
"A court in Azerbaijan on Friday sentenced an alleged Iranian spy to
15 years in jail for allegedly plotting an attack on the Israeli embassy
in the tightly-controlled ex-Soviet state. Iranian citizen Bahram Feyzi,
who was arrested by Azerbaijani security forces in March, was sentenced
by the Baku Court on Grave Crimes, court officials said. According to
court documents, Feyzi-- who was also found guilty of espionage and drug
possession-- was accused of being an agent of the secret service of
neighbouring Iran... At least seven people have been sentenced to lengthy
jail terms in connection with the alleged plot while 29 more are
currently facing trial." http://t.uani.com/1bqZZJQ
National Post:
"The first Canadian to make use of a new law that allows victims to
sue state sponsors of terrorism will be allowed to intervene in a case
that threatens to hand Iran's assets to Americans, leaving her with
nothing. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled Friday that Dr. Sherri Wise, a
Vancouver dentist injured by Palestinian suicide bombers, can make
arguments in the case of Marla Bennett, a U.S. terror victim whose family
is seeking Iran's Canadian assets... Last year, the government enacted
the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which permits those harmed by
terrorism to seek damages from the state sponsors of their attackers. Dr.
Wise was badly wounded by Hamas, which is financed, trained and armed by
Iran." http://t.uani.com/1ciskDk
Human
Rights
RFE/RL:
"This week Iran's new Culture Minister Ali Jannati denounced book
censorship under the administration of former President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad and said if they could, censors would have banned the Koran,
which is considered to be the word of God by Muslims. That doesn't mean
censorship will necessarily ease anytime soon, seeing as Jannati also
suggested that the government should not allow problematic books 'to
poison' society. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has also,
in the past, spoken against 'harmful books.' What it is like for authors
in Iran to try to get their work past censors? Writers, translators, and
publishers in Iran have to navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth in order to
see their writings published." http://t.uani.com/1fvzc45
Domestic
Politics
Reuters:
"While Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tries to ease friction with
the United States, chants of 'death to America' on Friday may deepen
doubts in the West that Tehran is ready for a deal as talks on its
nuclear program resume next week... Former president Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, a prominent Rouhani backer, said earlier this month that he
saw no value in chants calling for death to countries or individuals. An
editorial in a moderate newspaper argued that it was time for the
habitual chants of 'death to America' to go the same way as the slogans
of 'death to the Soviet Union' and 'death to China' which were abandoned
shortly after the revolution. But Tehran Friday prayer leader Ayatollah
Ahmad Khatami, an eminent hardliner appointed by Khamenei, clearly disagreed.
'America is the great satan,' he told worshippers at Tehran University,
the main venue for Friday prayers in Iran. 'During the last 35 years has
this evil become less or more? If yesterday in the arena of conspiracies
against Iran, American was a snake, it is now a poisonous serpent. Any
conspiracy that is directed against Iran stems from America,' Fars news
agency quoted him as saying. 'According to this logic we say death to
America. And Americans .... should know that this slogan is the secret of
Iran's resistance and for as long as there is American evil, this slogan
will endure across the nation of Iran.' 'Death to America!' the
congregation chanted repeatedly." http://t.uani.com/1bpj0wk
Bloomberg:
"Iran's central bank Governor Valiollah Seif said he's reversing
policies introduced under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that led
to a surge in money supply, to curb one of the world's highest inflation
rates. Seif, in his first interview with an international news
organization since taking office in August, said President Hassan
Rouhani's cabinet has agreed to separate monetary and fiscal policies,
giving the central bank more independence. That will allow it to focus on
'controlling liquidity and bringing down inflation.' ... 'Under the previous
administration, the allocation of credit to many sectors was not based on
the analysis of experts,' Seif said yesterday in Washington, where he's
attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank. 'There was a housing project for the poor, and a lot of
resources were allocated to that, about 40 percent of the liquidity
volume.' ... The central bank's main priority is to reduce inflation and
money supply, even as the economy is struggling with a recession, Seif
said. 'We are now facing a stagflation,' he said. 'Expansionary monetary
and fiscal policies will not help the growth.'" http://t.uani.com/GN3y2U
AP:
"Iran's president stepped up his challenge to hard-line factions on
Monday, calling for the lifting of restrictions on academic freedoms and
for granting Iranian scholars more opportunity to take part in
international conferences. The message from Hassan Rouhani underscores
the increasing friction between his moderate-leaning views and entrenched
forces such as a student wing of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which
has questioned the scope of the new president's overtures to
Washington... 'This is a shame for an administration that its students
and professors are not able to express their viewpoints,' Rouhani told Tehran
University students and professors. 'This administration will not
tolerate factional pressures on universities.'" http://t.uani.com/1akTrKn
Opinion
& Analysis
UANI
President Gary Samore Interviewed in TIME:
"America's long showdown with Iran over its nuclear program could
begin its endgame tomorrow when a new round of negotiations - the most
promising since the West began cracking down on Iran about a decade ago -
begins tomorrow in Geneva. Secretary of State John Kerry will lead a U.S.
delegation that joins teams from China, Russia, France, Germany and the
U.K. (a group shorthanded as the P5+1, because it includes the five
permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany). They will
meet with an Iranian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad
Zarif. On the eve of the talks, TIME spoke with Gary Samore, who served
until January as the Obama White House's coordinator for arms control and
weapons of mass destruction - making him the Administration's point man
on the Iran nuclear issue. Samore is now president of United Against
Nuclear Iran.
Gary, what's at the crux of these negotiations? The
single most important issue is whether Iran offers to accept limits on
its overall enrichment capacity: limits as defined by the number of
centrifuges, the type of centrifuges, the number of enrichment locations
and the stockpile of enriched material they have on hand. The goal of
these limits is to prevent Iran from enriching large amounts of uranium
quickly. If the Iranians had an industrial-scale enrichment facility,
with tens of thousands of centrifuge machines enriching low-enriched
uranium, they could pretty quickly convert that facility to producing
large quantities of weapons-grade uranium. And that is called 'breakout.'
The U.S. will try to trade sanctions relief for physical limits on the
Iranian nuclear program, and the Iranians will try to get sanctions
relief for as few limitations as possible But without offering some kind
of limits on capacity, any proposal Iran makes is not going to be taken
seriously.
What's going to happen in Geneva? Put us in the room.
You'll have a big plenary session with all the delegations around a
table. The expectation is that the Iranians will come to this meeting
with a new proposal. Everyone will listen, and there will be some
questions and discussion. Then there would normally be a break for lunch
and hopefully an opportunity for bilateral meetings. The only way to
negotiate is to meet bilaterally - you can't negotiate with seven
delegations sitting around the table.
What will it mean if the Iranians meet with the Americans
privately? That will show they are taking the negotiations seriously.
Since 2009 the Iranians have completely refused to meet with the
Americans bilaterally. We have tried over and over again, and they have
always refused and said they don't have authorization. It will be a very
important development if Zarif or his delegation is authorized to meet
with the head of the American delegation, [Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs] Wendy Sherman.
Are you hopeful we can reach a deal? I
imagine there's a very intense debate going on in Tehran now between
those who think they need to come up with something pretty dramatic and
interesting, and the Supreme Leader, who thinks the Americans can't be
trusted and that whatever concessions Iran makes, the U.S. will simply
pocket them and demand more. I think the proposal they put forward in
Geneva is going to be pretty modest - it will fall short of what we
consider a dramatic breakthrough. But I think it will be enough for us to
schedule another meeting. Even if the Iranians were prepared to make big
concessions, they wouldn't show it in the first meeting. That's just not
how you negotiate.
Do you have any doubt that Iran wants a nuclear bomb?
There's some ambiguity about their intention. Almost all governments that
are involved in this issue believe that at a minimum they want a
nuclear-weapons capacity - the option to build nuclear weapons. Whether
they have made a decision to build a nuclear weapon, when they think they
can get away with it, that's a matter of dispute. My personal position is
if they thought they could build nuclear weapons with impunity they would
do so, and that what has held them back so far has been fear of an
American or Israeli strike...
What's going to be the
hardest part of reaching a deal? There's a fundamental
conflict of national interest between the U.S. and Iran. They want to
have a nuclear-weapons capability. We're not going to be able to persuade
them that having a nuclear-weapons option is a bad idea. They're deeply
committed to that and have been for decades. The best we can use is
coercive pressure. We also need to realize that, down the road, the
agreement could fall apart - the last one with the Europeans did, when
Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment from 2003 to 2005. So people
shouldn't view any deal as a comprehensive agreement that ends this once
and for all. They should view it as a way to buy time, in the hopes that
the next Iranian government has a different calculation of their national
interest." http://t.uani.com/19J4RXw
WashPost
Editorial Board: "The Obama administration says it
expects Iran's new leadership to show its seriousness about striking a
deal on its nuclear program by offering a response in Geneva this week to
a proposal that the United States and its partners put forward this year.
That confidence-building plan calls for Iran to freeze its higher-level
enrichment of uranium and accept more inspections in exchange for the
easing of several second-order sanctions, including a ban on trading in
gold. Several reports, including one in the Wall Street Journal, have
said that Tehran may be preparing an offer that meets several of those
terms, including the enrichment restriction. If so, that would signal a
major change in position by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who
has repeatedly rejected both interim and comprehensive offers to end the
standoff over the nuclear program. But the Obama administration should
not necessarily be prepared to accept an Iranian 'yes' for an answer,
even if it is unqualified. That is because Iran's continued development
of its nuclear infrastructure during the course of this year has torn
some big holes in what was intended to be a temporary safety net. A year
ago, Iran's growing stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent appeared
to be the most dangerous piece of its nuclear infrastructure, because
that material could be quickly converted to bomb-grade. The enrichment
takes place in an underground facility that has little plausible use
other than for weapons production. A freeze or shutdown of that plant and
the securing of the material already produced, if accepted by Tehran even
six months ago, would have eased the threat that Iran could race to
produce a bomb sometime soon. Since then, however, Iran has begun
installing a new generation of centrifuges at its largest enrichment
plant, in Natanz. Because they can process uranium far more quickly,
these new machines create a threat of an Iranian nuclear breakout beyond
that posed by the 20 percent stockpile. Meanwhile, a new reactor based on
heavy-water technology, in Arak, is due for completion next year and
would allow Iran to produce plutonium that could be used in bombs. Any accord
with Iran, even an interim arrangement, must take these new facts into
account. No sanctions relief should be granted unless Iran takes steps
that decisively push back its potential time frame for producing the core
of a nuclear warhead. That means that the advanced centrifuges and the
Arak reactor must now be part of any deal." http://t.uani.com/16a6uwY
U.S. Senator Mark
Kirk in The Daily Telegraph: "Tomorrow morning, more
than seven years after the United Nations Security Council first ordered
Iran to halt all aspects of its illicit nuclear programme, British and
American diplomats - along with representatives of other global powers -
will sit down with Iranian nuclear negotiators in Geneva to try, once
again, to resolve this crisis. This could be a seminal moment in world
history - for what we choose to do about Iran will have consequences for
generations. In the run-up to the negotiations, there has been much talk
of a new spirit of détente between Iran and the West. The election of
President Hassan Rouhani in June has been followed by a series of
diplomatic overtures, including a meeting between the British Foreign
Secretary, William Hague, and his Iranian counterpart. There have even
been discussions about Britain and Iran reopening embassies in each
other's capitals. We would all welcome a genuine agreement that ensured
Iran would never be a threat to our security. But at such an
extraordinarily important moment, it is vital that both the British and
the American governments remain clear-eyed about the nature of that
regime and its nuclear ambitions. As a committed Anglophile, who studied
at the London School of Economics and worked in the House of Commons
during the Thatcher revolution, I have always been an admirer of your
country. Winston Churchill, whose portrait hangs in my office, remains a
personal hero. And I would urge the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary
to hearken back to one quote of his in particular. On October 5 1938,
Churchill rose in the House of Commons to speak about the agreement
Neville Chamberlain had reached with Adolf Hitler in Munich. In
explaining his opposition to appeasement, Churchill quoted the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle from 1,000 years before, on the payment of
Danegeld: 'All these calamities fell upon us because of evil counsel,
because tribute was not offered to them at the right time nor yet were
they resisted; but when they had done the most evil, then was peace made
with them.' Is Britain at risk of making the same mistake again? To
answer that, we need to outline Iran's primary objectives. First, its
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wants relief from the economic
sanctions imposed by our nations and others, in order to secure his hold
on power. The Islamic Republic remains a brutal dictatorship that
persecutes and tortures its own population. In a society of young people
who do not share the mullahs' radical Islamist vision, the Supreme Leader
knows his regime cannot remain in power for long if the economy continues
to deteriorate. Second, Ayatollah Khamenei wants to build and maintain a
nuclear weapons capability - not to construct an atomic device
immediately, but to have the technical ability to do so at a moment of
his choosing. Such a capability might include the ability to produce
weapons-grade uranium, the ability to produce plutonium, and the ability
to launch missiles capable of travelling long distances with heavy
payloads. If it possessed this, the Islamic Republic would gain enormous
leverage over the West - further emboldening the world's leading state
sponsor of terrorism to expand its sphere of influence... We should
therefore expect that Iran will seek to negotiate an agreement that
fulfils its two primary objectives, while at the same time offering
superficial concessions to help the Prime Minister (and, indeed,
President Obama) sell the deal back home." http://t.uani.com/16HKltE
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