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Reuters:
"The United States and Iran resumed negotiations on Thursday aimed
at clinching a nuclear deal before a March 31 deadline, and officials
close to the talks said some kind of preliminary agreement between Tehran
and six powers was possible... U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz met their Iranian counterparts, Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif and Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar
Salehi in the Swiss city of Lausanne... French Foreign Minister Laurent
Fabius will go to Lausanne on Saturday to join the talks, a ministry
spokesman said... 'The aim is to get a sort of memorandum of
understanding that would be enough for Americans to take to Congress and
the Iranians to keep to Khamenei's demand,' said a Western diplomat
involved in the talks. 'The aim is to get something out by Sunday,
although the deadline is March 31,' the official added. The main
obstacle, Western officials say, remains Iran's refusal to compromise on
sanctions, research and development and other issues." http://t.uani.com/1Bs0GgW
Guardian:
"Even if a deal is agreed during this week's international
negotiations on key elements of Iran's nuclear programme, much of it may
be kept secret until a final deadline at the end of June, a senior
European official has said... A senior European official said: 'This is
not the endgame this week. There will not be an agreement by the end of
this week, because the agreement will only be done when all the technical
details are down and that is quite a lot.' The official pointed instead
to the greater importance of a second deadline, at the end of June, by which
all the fine print and annexes of an agreement are required to be
completed. The text on of that final agreement is still being worked on
and 60% of it is said still to be in brackets, meaning it has not been
agreed. 'What we'd like to achieve by the end of this week is an
understanding on the key issues, key parameters,' the official said.
However, it is unclear how much of that 'understanding' would be made
public, lest it tie negotiators' hands for the remaining three months of
bargaining and draw a backlash from hardliners in Tehran and Washington.
One possibility is for a vague 'fact-sheet' to be issued in public, and
Kerry provide more details in a closed session of Congress. If the
framework deal is reached in the coming days, foreign ministers from the
other negotiating parties - the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China -
are expected to converge on Lausanne for a formal declaration and public
handshakes. But it would be difficult to stage such an event without
releasing some details of what had been agreed." http://t.uani.com/1GZlxg8
Reuters:
"The United States wants major powers to reach a detailed political
understanding with Iran by March 31 to clear the path for a long-term
nuclear accord, a senior U.S. official said, while hinting that Washington
could be flexible on its format. Speaking to reporters traveling with
Secretary of State John Kerry to a new round of talks in the Swiss city
of Lausanne, the senior State Department official added that Washington
would not rush to complete an agreement just because there was a
deadline... 'Any political understanding needs to address in some way all
of the elements of a final agreement,' the official said late on
Wednesday. 'We do not know what form this will take,' the official said.
'We have always said it needs to have specifics. We will need to
communicate as many specifics as possible in some form or fashion (to the
public and U.S. Congress).' ... 'If we get to March 31 and don't have a
political understanding, we will have to evaluate where we are,' the U.S.
official said. 'We will have to look at what we think the path forward is
and we will make decisions based on that.'" http://t.uani.com/1BrYx4H
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Bloomberg:
"Negotiators aim to conclude a framework agreement over Iran's
nuclear program by March 29, diplomats said as talks in Switzerland
resumed after a week-long break. Reaching an understanding by Sunday is a
best-case scenario and the sides may be forced to go until March 31,
according to three European and U.S. officials, who asked not to be named
in line with diplomatic rules. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is
provisionally scheduled to attend an event with President Barack Obama
and Senate leaders on March 30." http://t.uani.com/1GZkE7o
Reuters:
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has begun to signal that Israel
could resign itself to an Iranian nuclear deal that would leave its enemy
with some uranium enrichment capability, a compromise he has long
opposed. The shift seems surprising given Netanyahu's contentious speech
to the U.S. Congress earlier this month in which he argued against world powers
letting Tehran keep thousands of uranium centrifuges and remain on
possible course to a bomb. But faced with Western impatience and White
House wrath over the calls to avoid a 'very bad deal' - while offering no
detailed alternative of his own - Netanyahu and his envoys are now
engaging with negotiators on the small print of what Israel hopes will be
a better agreement. Almost lost in the prime minister's March 3
denunciations in Congress was a line urging U.S. President Barack Obama
to seek a 'better deal' that 'Israel and its neighbors may not like, but
with which we could live, literally'... Instead, officials say, Israel
has been challenging Western powers on specific details of a deal, such
as strong technical safeguards and extending the breakout time... A
European diplomat confirmed this was now the Israelis' focus, saying that
although they 'are clearly not fans of the one-year (breakout) they are
principally concerned by research and development and want the most
restrictions possible on it. The message is simple: stop all enrichment
possibilities.'" http://t.uani.com/1FL8eml
WSJ:
"As President Barack Obama gets closer to a nuclear agreement with
Iran, his handling of other foreign policy challenges could complicate
his effort to convince Congress that a deal with Tehran would be
effective. A key part of the White House sales pitch is the promise that
if Iran does not comply with the terms of an agreement, the president
would take other action to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Obama has made similar promises in dealing with Russia and Syria. The
White House continues to threaten Russia with additional 'costs,' while
President Vladimir Putin continues to defy the West. And Mr. Obama's
decision in 2013 to back off of his threat of military strikes against
Syria in retaliation for President Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical
weapons raised doubt among U.S. allies and in Congress about whether he
means what he says." http://t.uani.com/1NcrVnT
AFP:
"Failure to secure a deal with Iran could mean a nuclear arms race
in the Middle East, the foreign secretary warned in comments released on
Thursday. 'I remain clear that no deal is better than a bad deal. But we
should also be clear-eyed about the alternative,' Foreign Secretary Philip
Hammond said in a speech in London. 'No deal means no restrictions on
enrichment, no restrictions on research and development, and no
independent monitoring or verification. It means a fundamentally more
unstable Middle East, with the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the
region.' ... 'So now is the time, with our key allies, to build on the
recent momentum, to press Iran where differences remain, and to strain
every sinew to get a deal over the finishing line,' Hammond said. 'The
door to a nuclear deal is open, but Iran must now step through it.'"
http://t.uani.com/1HKLnbb
WSJ:
"Talks over Iran's nuclear program have hit a stumbling block a week
before a key deadline because Tehran has failed to cooperate with a
United Nations probe into whether it tried to build atomic weapons in the
past, say people close to the negotiations. In response, these people
say, the U.S. and its diplomatic partners are revising their demands on
Iran to address these concerns before they agree to finalize a nuclear
deal, which would repeal U.N. sanctions against the country. 'Progress
has been very limited,' Yukiya Amano, who heads the U.N.'s International
Atomic Energy Agency, told The Wall Street Journal this week. 'No more
new issues' have been addressed... Iran's refusal to implement the IAEA
work plan threatens to undermine the prospects for this comprehensive
agreement, say diplomats involved in the talks." http://t.uani.com/1Bs4Rct
Sanctions
Enforcement
Reuters:
"The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday that a subsidiary of
Schlumberger Oilfield Holdings had pleaded guilty to violating U.S.
sanctions related to Iran and Sudan and would pay a $237.2 million fine.
The oil well manufacturing company also agreed to a three-year period of
corporate probation, during which it will cease all operations in Iran
and Syria and hire an independent consultant to review its policies on
complying with sanctions. 'For years, in a variety of ways, this foreign
company facilitated trade with Iran and Sudan from Sugar Land, Texas,'
U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr. said. 'Today's announcement should
send a clear message to all global companies with a U.S. presence:
Whether your employees are from the U.S. or abroad, when they are in the
United States, they will abide by our laws or you will be held
accountable,' Machen warned. In a statement, Schlumberger said it
voluntarily ceased oilfield operation in Iran as of the second quarter of
2013 and said it has ceased oilfield operations in Sudan as of the plea
agreement." http://t.uani.com/1CdxOwq
Iraq Crisis
WashPost:
"U.S. warplanes began striking Islamic State forces in and around
the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Wednesday, drawing the United States directly
into a battle that has pitted the militants against Iraqi forces
dominated by Iranian-backed militias. Pentagon officials said that the
Iraqi government had requested the assistance as the fight for Tikrit
stalled as it moved into its fourth week. They said initial targeting for
the strikes will be aided by U.S.-led coalition surveillance aircraft
that recently began flying over the city, 110 miles northwest of
Baghdad." http://t.uani.com/1GZnqJD
Yemen Crisis
Reuters:
"Warplanes from Saudi Arabia and Arab allies struck Shi'ite Muslim
rebels fighting to oust Yemen's president on Thursday, a gamble by the
world's top oil exporter to check Iranian influence in its backyard
without direct military backing from Washington. Riyadh's rival Iran
denounced the assault on the Houthi militia group, which it backs...
Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV reported that the kingdom was contributing 100
warplanes to operation 'Storm of Resolve' and more than 85 were provided
by the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco and
Sudan... A United Arab Emirates official expressed Gulf Arab concerns
about Iranian influence in Yemen. 'The strategic change in the region
benefits Iran and we cannot be silent about the fact that the Houthis
carry their banner,' UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar
Mohammed Gargash wrote on Twitter." http://t.uani.com/1EXHZ9i
LAT:
"Secret files held by Yemeni security forces that contain details of
American intelligence operations in the country have been looted by
Iran-backed militia leaders, exposing names of confidential informants
and plans for U.S.-backed counter-terrorism strikes, U.S. officials say.
U.S. intelligence officials believe additional files were handed directly
to Iranian advisors by Yemeni officials who have sided with the Houthi
militias that seized control of Sana, the capital, in September, which
led the U.S.-backed president to flee to Aden. For American intelligence
networks in Yemen, the damage has been severe. Until recently, U.S.
forces deployed in Yemen had worked closely with President Abdu Rabu
Mansour Hadi's government to track and kill Al Qaeda operatives, and
President Obama had hailed Yemen last fall as a model for
counter-terrorism operations elsewhere." http://t.uani.com/19ndPRr
Opinion &
Analysis
Amb. Dennis Ross
& Eric Edelman in JINSA: "After two renewed
negotiating deadlines and more than a year of talks, momentum appears to
be building for a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
Specific parameters may remain unresolved, but the emerging contours of a
prospective deal raise several fundamental concerns that must be
addressed by Congress and the Obama Administration before there could be
any assurance it would further U.S. national security interests. Given
the information currently available, a comprehensive agreement building
on the JPA clearly would fall significantly short of this Task Force's
baselines for an acceptable comprehensive agreement, as spelled out in
previous reports. Multiple issues must still be clarified, resolved and
strengthened before the basic tenability of the prospective agreement
could be assessed properly. The Obama Administration must explain how it
envisions imposing restrictions on Iran's nuclear program to prevent it
from obtaining an undetectable nuclear weapons capability. Before
considering taking any agreement to the United Nations, the
Administration must address very real and legitimate concerns from
Congress about an agreement over which it has had no substantive input,
and which it justifiably fears would be implemented without its consent.
Indeed, Congress's voice and vote is vital to the credibility and
durability of a final deal. The two branches must work together in
advance of a final agreement to set the terms that would be acceptable to
the United States, not just to the Administration. They must also define
every class of potential Iranian violation and the specific responses to
each." http://t.uani.com/1D1A515
Sadegh Zibakalam
in Politico: "The nuclear negotiation between Iran
and the United States represents a historic shift-one that is actually
more significant for Iranians than it is for Americans. If there is a
deal over the next week, as the two sides approach their end-of-March
deadline, it will severely undermine the ideology that has been in place
since the beginning of the Iranian Islamic Republic in 1979, and which
regime hardliners have used to great effect to consolidate their power:
anti-Americanism as a legitimizing force. For more than 35 years, any
liaison whatsoever with the United States has been perceived in Iran as
simple treason. Any taint of involvement with the United States by anyone
has politically undermined the alleged perpetrator and shored up the
regime. Every misfortune and disaster the country confronted was blamed
on U.S. intrigues against the Islamic Revolution: Saddam Hussein's invasion
of Iran in 1980 and subsequent eight-year war with Iraq; the massacre of
more than four hundred Iranian pilgrims in Mecca in 1986; the fall of the
oil prices in the late 1980s; the assassinations of hundreds of Iranian
revolutionary officials by the People's Mujahidin and everything else
that went wrong in post-revolutionary Iran. The Islamic Revolution was
turned into a historic struggle against the U.S. aggressor. Now, for the
first time since the founding of the Islamic Republic, Tehran and Washington
are openly negotiating, and they may be close to an agreement. Were that
to be achieved, the Iranian government would have to own up to a new
reality that would be a hammer-blow to hardline thinking and could pave
the way for the two countries to cooperate on mutual concerns in the
region, including in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and even Lebanon. If the
talks fail, on the other hand, it could all easily backfire and play into
the hands of the hardliners once again. And we will all be back where we
were... It is against this background that the West should view Iran's
willingness to negotiate now over the nuclear dispute. Any concession in
the country's nuclear activities has been seen, until today, as
tantamount to giving in to Western arrogance. Hardliners in Iran would
invariably see any suggestion of an easing of hostility between the two
countries as a treasonable course, and a path which deviated from
Khomeini's path. So this is another revolution for Iran-and if the talks
succeed in a deal it could be an enduring revolution. It will undercut
the hardliners who have been using anti Americanism as a powerful fuel to
justify a wide range of policies both domestically and internationally
and exploit Anti-Americanism to justify their mismanagement and wrongdoings.
At the same time it will create a more appropriate climate for moderates
and reformists inside the country who won't fear engaging in serious
conversations with hardliners on both domestic and international
concerns, as they will no longer have to labor under the fear of being
accused of being pro-American." http://t.uani.com/1Nj1k74
John Bolton in
NYT: "The Obama administration's increasingly
frantic efforts to reach agreement with Iran have spurred demands for
ever-greater concessions from Washington. Successive administrations,
Democratic and Republican, worked hard, with varying success, to
forestall or terminate efforts to acquire nuclear weapons by states as
diverse as South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa. Even
where civilian nuclear reactors were tolerated, access to the rest of the
nuclear fuel cycle was typically avoided. Everyone involved understood
why. This gold standard is now everywhere in jeopardy because the
president's policy is empowering Iran. Whether diplomacy and sanctions
would ever have worked against the hard-liners running Iran is unlikely.
But abandoning the red line on weapons-grade fuel drawn originally by the
Europeans in 2003, and by the United Nations Security Council in several
resolutions, has alarmed the Middle East and effectively handed a permit
to Iran's nuclear weapons establishment. The inescapable conclusion is
that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program. Nor will sanctions
block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure. The
inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel's 1981 attack
on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a
Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is
required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.
Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment
installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor
would be priorities. So, too, would be the little-noticed but critical
uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan. An attack need not destroy all of
Iran's nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the
nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years.
The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel
alone can do what's necessary. Such action should be combined with
vigorous American support for Iran's opposition, aimed at regime change
in Tehran. Mr. Obama's fascination with an Iranian nuclear deal always
had an air of unreality. But by ignoring the strategic implications of
such diplomacy, these talks have triggered a potential wave of nuclear
programs. The president's biggest legacy could be a thoroughly
nuclear-weaponized Middle East." http://t.uani.com/1FLmjAn
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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