Posted on 11/27/2004 9:46:53 PM PST by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
Iran Reasserts Its Right to Enrich Uranium as Standoff Persists
By NAZILA FATHI
Published: November 28, 2004
EHRAN, Nov. 27 - Iran's foreign minister said Saturday that Iran had every right to keep, for research purposes, some centrifuges that could be used to enrich uranium, an indication that a standoff on the country's nuclear program may not be easily resolved.
"Iran's demand to keep 20 centrifuges is not against its commitments," said the minister, Kamal Kharrazi, the IRNA news agency reported.
In talks in Paris with Britain, Germany and France, Iran agreed on Nov. 15 to freeze all its nuclear activities. But this week, Iran said it wanted to retain 20 centrifuges for research purposes, stunning negotiators. The Paris accord was meant to pave the way for a resolution to be passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring body, in Vienna, to say that Iran was in compliance.
On Friday, it appeared that negotiators in Vienna had worked out a compromise, under which Iran would turn off the 20 centrifuges but put them under camera surveillance rather than under seal by the I.A.E.A. Mr. Kharrazi's comments seemed to indicate otherwise.
"There is no ban on research activities in the agreement," IRNA quoted him as saying.
Mr. Kharrazi pointed to the resolution drafted in Vienna by the three countries and said there were positions that were "not acceptable by Iran and were contrary to the Paris agreement." He did not specify which ones.
The talks will resume on Monday.
Iran has been walking a tight line in the negotiations, under great international pressure to make concessions on its nuclear program, while hard-liners at home lash out against moves they interpret as weakness on Tehran's part.
An article in the daily Jomhouri Islami on Saturday said that the nuclear agency's opposition to allowing Iran to keep centrifuges for research was aimed at preventing Iran to master the cycle of nuclear fuel production.
"We must not trust the Europeans who have dishonored their pledges with Iran in the past and we should develop our fuel cycle with full capacity," it said.
Last week, President Mohammad Khatami called the Paris agreement a "success," and Hossein Mousavian, a member of the negotiating team, said Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had approved the agreement.
Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political scientist and adviser to the negotiating team said that Iran considered the deal a victory, "because unlike the United States that wants to dismantle Iran's nuclear program, Europe has recognized it and even promised to help Iran become one of the 18 fuel producers."
The United States has accused Iran of trying to make a nuclear bomb and urged Europe to press the issue at the I.A.E.A. to send Iran's case to the Security Council, where it could face economic sanctions.
There have been reports that the nuclear agency was anticipating that Iran would withdraw its request on the 20 centrifuges formally, in writing. But Mr. Kharrazi rejected that idea on Saturday. "We are not talking about a written guarantee," he said, adding that none had been requested.
At least one Western diplomat suggested that Iran might agree to abandon use of the remaining centrifuges verbally but would not do so in writing.
As foreign minister, Mr. Kharrazi outranks some of the negotiators in Vienna, but some of the negotiators report to the National Security Council, which is controlled by the supreme leader.
Opponents of the deal have put pressure on the foreign ministry and the negotiating team, arguing that they have sacrificed the country's right to develop nuclear technology.
Alireza Akbari, a former deputy defense minister, said Saturday that he believed Mr. Kharrazi's comments had been aimed at satisfying opponents of the deal in the country.
"I think the Iranian team will eventually choose its wording and say that it will suspend the 20 centrifuges voluntarily but it will be for a limited time," he said.
DoctorZin Note:
Why Iran must to shut down its last 20 centrifuges
If Iran has an “undeclared” centrifuge program as many claim, then Iran needs a few centrifuges to be permitted to stay in operation to mask this larger program they have in operation. Once Iran declares that all enrichment has ceased US intelligence would be “hear” the undeclared centrifuges and thus be able to prove their deception. Therefore Iran cannot shut down all their centrifuges. Read the report.
This was quite a topic in Church this morning!
I wonder where my Pastor got the news...
Iran, EU Agree U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Resolution
Sun Nov 28, 2004 03:28 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=GZQ0PVFU11CIWCRBAELCFFA?type=worldNews&storyID=6935461
VIENNA (Reuters) - France, Britain and Germany finalized a draft resolution on Sunday that calls on Iran to freeze sensitive nuclear work, but does not make any threats of punitive action if Tehran resumes such work, the U.N. said.
"The resolution has been submitted to the members of the board," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. He was referring to the IAEA board of governors, which diplomats on the board say is almost certain to approve the resolution on Monday.
Diplomats familiar with the text said Washington did not like the resolution, which it believes is too weak, but would not block it when the IAEA's 35-member votes on it on Monday.
Iran Group Signs Up Suicide Volunteers
Middle East - AP By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran - The 300 men filling out forms in the offices of an Iranian aid group were offered three choices: Train for suicide attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq (news - web sites), for suicide attacks against Israelis or to assassinate British author Salman Rushdie.
AP Photo
It looked at first glance like a gathering on the fringes of a society divided between moderates who want better relations with the world and hard-line Muslim militants hostile toward the United States and Israel.
But the presence of two key figures — a prominent Iranian lawmaker and a member of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards — lent the meeting more legitimacy and was a clear indication of at least tacit support from some within Iran's government.
Since that inaugural June meeting in a room decorated with photos of Israeli soldiers' funerals, the registration forms for volunteer suicide commandos have appeared on Tehran's streets and university campuses, with no sign Iran's government is trying to stop the shadowy movement.
On Nov. 12, the day Iranians traditionally hold pro-Palestinian protests, a spokesman for the Headquarters for Commemorating Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement said the movement signed up at least 4,000 new volunteers.
Mohammad Ali Samadi, the spokesman, told The Associated Press the group had no ties to the government.
And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters recently that the group's campaign to sign up volunteers for suicide attacks had "nothing to do with the ruling Islamic establishment."
"That some people do such a thing is the result of their sentiments. It has nothing to do with the government and the system," Asefi said.
Yet despite the government's disavowal of the group and some of its programs, there are indications the suicide attack campaign has at least some legitimacy within the government.
The first meeting was held in the offices of the Martyrs Foundation, a semiofficial organization that helps the families of those killed in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war or those killed fighting for the government on other fronts. It drew hard-line lawmaker Mahdi Kouchakzadeh and Gen. Hossein Salami of the elite Revolutionary Guards.
"This group spreads valuable ideas," Kouchakzadeh told AP.
"At a time when the U.S. is committing the crimes we see now, deprived nations have no weapon other than martyrdom. It's evident that Iran's foreign policy makers have to take the dignified opinions of this group into consideration," said Kouchakzadeh, who also is a former member of the Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian security officials did not return calls seeking comment about whether they had tried to crack down on the group's training programs or whether they believed any of Samadi's volunteers had crossed into Iraq or into Israel.
In general, Iran portrays Israel as its main nemesis and backs anti-Israeli groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah. It says it has no interest in fomenting instability in Iraq and that it tries to block any infiltration into Iraq by insurgents — while pleading that its porous borders are hard to police.
In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support a 1989 fatwa against Rushdie issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But the government also said only the person who issued the edict could rescind it. Khomeini, angered at Rushdie's portrayal of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in "The Satanic Verses," died in June 1989.
Samadi described the movement as independent, with no ties to groups like al-Qaida.
Despite its very public canvassing for volunteers, the group can be secretive. Samadi agreed only reluctantly to an interview and insisted it be held in the basement of an unmarked building in central Tehran — not the Martyrs Foundation offices.
Samadi refused to identify any of his volunteers or the wealthy sympathizers who he says underwrote their efforts. Asked to describe the training programs, he would say only that classes were sometimes held "in open spaces outside cities" but more often inside, away from prying eyes.
Samadi claimed 30,000 volunteers have signed up, and 20,000 of them have been chosen for training. Volunteers had already carried out suicide operations against military targets inside Israel, he said.
But he said discussing attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq "will cause problems for the country's foreign policy. It will have grave consequences for our country and our group. It's confidential."
As devoted Muslims, members of his group were simply fulfilling their religious obligations as laid out by Khomeini, he said.
In his widely published book of religious directives, Khomeini says: "If an enemy invades Muslim countries and borders, it's an obligation for all Muslims to defend through any possible means: sacrificing life and properties."
Samadi said: "With this religious verdict, we don't need anybody's permission to fight an enemy that has occupied Muslim lands."
___
Associated Press reporter Nasser Karimi contributed to this report.
DoctorZin Note: Here is an actual copy of the application and translation.
"stunning negotiators"
Yeah, I'm sure the EuroDunces were taken by surprise.
Of course, the Iranian mullahs don't know what it is to be stunned...
yet...
MOAB.
?Sharon: European deal won't stop Iran's nuclear plans
? ?By The Associated Press
??Iran has agreed to what Western diplomats hope is a comprehensive suspension of all activities that could yield fuel for nuclear weapons, half a year after a similar deal between Iran and the European Union collapsed.
The agreement was to be presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday, lifting an immediate threat of UN Security Council sanctions over U.S. accusations it is trying to develop nuclear bombs.
Iran, though oil-rich, says its atomic program is aimed solely at generating electricity.
Under the terms of the deal, Tehran pledged to suspend all activities related to plutonium reprocessing and the enrichment of uranium, a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel in nuclear power plants or, when very highly enriched, in weapons.
In exchange, France, Britain and Germany have offered on behalf of the EU a package of economic and political benefits, including a promise to build a light-water nuclear reactor that is more difficult to use for weapons purposes than other types.
In a cliffhanger week of backroom haggling, Iran had asked that 20 centrifuges - which enrich uranium by spinning at supersonic speeds - be exempted from the deal it reached with the EU's "Big Three" freezing its nuclear program on Nov. 7.
Under intense international pressure, it withdrew the demand, which had threatened to wreck the entire deal.
Washington, diplomats say, will not block an EU resolution to be voted on by the IAEA board on Monday - which contains no threats of punitive action if Tehran resumes enrichment-related activities -- or the EU's offer of incentives.
But it will not actively support them either, which some observers say could eventually kill the EU-Iran deal.
"The Iranians know that to get all the incentives the EU has offered them, the U.S. has to be on board," said Jon Wolfsthal, a senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
A Western diplomat who follows the IAEA in Vienna agreed the EU project was doomed if Washington did not actively support it.
"Everyone knows that this thing needs the active participation of the U.S. to work," the diplomat said.
In an interview with Newsweek magazine conducted before Sunday's decision, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he doubted the EU deal would be successful.
"Iran is making every effort to possess a nuclear weapon," he was quoted as saying. "It seems that the steps taken by the IAEA and the Europeans are insufficient to stop Iran's nuclear program."
Rather than the agreement, Sharon said, "the only real solution is a major international effort to exert economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran, and to bring the issue to the UN Security Council, where sanctions can be imposed."
For years, the Israeli government has been promoting the sanctions option, but many Middle East experts believe that any ban on Iranian oil exports - the only effective economic penalty that might be used against it - is almost certain to be rejected by an oil-starved world.
Estimated at 126 billion barrels, Iran's proven oil reserves are the second largest in the world, trailing only those of Saudi Arabia.
"Oil is the center of Iran's economy," said London-based oil consultant Peter Gignoux. "Sanctions would be extremely painful for it, particularly now with high oil prices."
However, said Gignoux, the likelihood of the UN Security Council imposing oil sanctions on Iran is virtually nonexistent. Such a step would cause oil prices to climb even further, undermining world economic growth, estimated at a relatively healthy 4 percent in 2004, he said.
Another possible response to the Iranian nuclear program - destroying Iran's nuclear installations with a single air strike as Israel did in Iraq in 1981- is also seen as problematical by many Israeli and foreign experts, because the sites are scattered or hidden, and intelligence about them is weak.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/507152.html
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