Iranian Alert - December 13, 2004 [EST] - Feith to 'Post': US action against Iran can't be ruled out

Straw presses Iran to respect nuclear freeze

Mon Dec 13, 8:06 AM ET

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Iran must respect the spirit as well as the letter of an agreed nuclear fuel cycle freeze, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said ahead of EU-Iran talks on confidence measures to show Tehran is not making atomic weapons.

AFP/File Photo

But Tehran hinted it was ready to reintroduce a demand, already refused by the European Union (news - web sites), for some nuclear equipment to be exempted from the freeze.

"What is important is that each side accepts both the spirit as well as the letter" of an agreement on Iran suspending all uranium enrichment activities that was reached in Paris November 7, Straw told reporters before the gathering in Brussels.

Straw, along with German and French foreign ministers Joschka Fischer and Michel Barnier, as well as EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana, were to meet with top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani to discuss the Paris agreement.

The accord, endorsed by the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), promises Tehran trade, technology and security rewards in return for fully suspending enrichment, a crucial fuel-making process that can also be used to make atomic weapons.

The European trio refused at an IAEA meeting in Vienna last month to let Iran withhold 20 centrifuges -- the machines that enrich uranium -- from the freeze in order to do research, saying the halt must be total and involve all related enrichment activities.

Straw said: "We'll be discussing ... the full implementation of the Paris agreement."

"The words of the Paris agreement mean what they say," he said.

But in Tehran government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh said Iran was sticking to its demand that 20 centrifuges be excluded.

"The question of halting research is not on the agenda," he said.

Ramazanzadeh said however: ""We are optimistic over the results of the negotiations given the good faith that we have shown and they have shown."

Straw said the European trio and Iran would be setting up "three working groups to take forward the Paris agreement and after that meeting I will have a bilateral discussion with Dr Rowhani."

The working groups cover the incentives Iran is to be offered over the long term. They are in technology and cooperation, nuclear issues, politics and security, diplomats said.

"This process is going to take off today," a senior European diplomat told AFP, adding that it would take "a bit longer" than the three-month deadline the Iranians have set.

The road is fraught with difficulties since Iran says its suspension of uranium enrichment is a temporary measure designed to show its intentions are peaceful, while EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany want it to become permanent, diplomats said.

The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear programme for almost two years on US charges, which Tehran denies, that the Islamic republic is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Iran said Sunday that it was not prepared to accept a permanent freeze as it claims it has the right to do enrichment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Rowhani warned that the Islamic republic would abandon the talks, and the suspension, if no progress was being made.
The two sides will be negotiating a long-term accord that includes "objective guarantees" Iran will not develop the bomb.
Iran will get incentives such as promises to help it join the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) and to obtain a light water research reactor. Tehran would in turn abandon plans to build a heavy water reactor that would be more capable of producing bomb-grade material.
The IAEA had on November 29 decided against referring Iran to the UN Security Council for threatened sanctions, as the United States wants, after Tehran agreed on the suspension.
In a sign of continuing concern about Iran's intentions, diplomats said last week that the Islamic Republic was conducting secret high-energy neutron experiments that could be civilian-oriented or directed towards making nuclear weapons.
The diplomats told AFP in Vienna there was concern since the experiments are allegedly taking place under military supervision.
The IAEA is trying to look into claims from the United States and the main exiled Iranian opposition group that Iran is hiding nuclear weapons development at military facilities

How to Approach Iran

Monday, December 13, 2004; Page A21

The following article was signed by Madeleine Albright, secretary of state in the Clinton administration, and by seven former foreign ministers: Robin Cook of Britain, Hubert Vedrine of France, Lamberto Dini of Italy, Lloyd Axworthy of Canada, Niels Helveg Petersen of Denmark, Ana Palacio of Spain and Jozias van Aartsen of the Netherlands.
Foreign ministers from France, Germany and Britain meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator this week at a moment of enormous consequence. The United States will not be there, but the subtle signals it will send from a distance will have a tremendous impact on the outcome. There are some who believe that Washington expects, and perhaps hopes, that the talks will collapse altogether. But if the United States and Europe are to be successful in preventing a radical regime from gaining nuclear weapons, there will have to be much greater coordination and new approaches on both sides of the Atlantic.
We are a group of former foreign ministers from Europe, Canada and the United States who are very concerned about the current state of transatlantic relations and the effect it is having on our ability to join together to address a number of global challenges. Halting Iran's nuclear ambitions is a case in point. We have met a number of times under the auspices of the Aspen Institute to consider why habits of cooperation are yielding to a psychology of competition and strain. We believe that genuine transatlantic cooperation is the only path to viable solutions.
As a result of the work of the British, French and German foreign ministers, the Iranians agreed last month to suspend their nuclear programs while negotiations for economic and technical cooperation take place. This agreement represents progress, but it will not be successful until Iran permanently suspends any attempt to create a nuclear weapons capacity. As people who have experienced firsthand the challenge of balancing carrots and sticks in these sorts of delicate and serious negotiations, we offer the following ideas on obtaining full cooperation from the Iranians.
First, the United States and Europe must be clear about their collective purpose. The Iranians have made splitting the Atlantic partnership their modus operandi, hoping that disagreements between the United States and Europe will buy them the time to progress down the nuclear path to the point of irreversibility. In order to counteract this strategy, European and U.S. policymakers must repeatedly and jointly articulate that they seek to hold Iran to the obligations it has accepted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to refrain from building nuclear arms. In the same breath, American and European heads of state must emphasize that the West does not seek to deny Iran the right to a peaceful civilian nuclear energy program under the necessary safeguards.
Second, the major nuclear suppliers (Russia, the United States and Europe) should provide a firm guarantee to supply fresh reactor fuel for civilian nuclear power and to retrieve and dispose of spent fuel in exchange for Iran's agreement to permanently forswear its own nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities, including enrichment, reprocessing, uranium conversion and heavy-water production.
Third, the Bush administration should support the recent agreement the three European countries negotiated with the Iranians as an important first step. While it is unclear whether this deal will ultimately halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, only a unified approach will enable Europe and the United States to find out. Washington should put its full support behind this diplomatic effort and consider launching commercial and diplomatic engagement with Iran. That country's political leadership and culture have changed dramatically over the past two decades and are much more complex than many realize. Understanding the various political operatives inside Iran and their motivations requires the United States to instigate face-to-face interaction. Doing so could bring direct benefits to the United States as disagreements over the nuclear question need not, for example, disrupt efforts to achieve cooperation on such matters as narcotics enforcement, Iraq, the fight against terrorism and peace in the Middle East.
If the Americans need to increase their support for diplomatic efforts, Europeans must prove to the Iranians that severe political and economic consequences will result if Iran does not renounce the nuclear weapons option. In the event that diplomacy fails and Iran decides not to abandon its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, Europeans should be ready for alternative courses of action, including going to the U.N. Security Council, and they should repeatedly stress their willingness to act. The transatlantic community should not be trying to force a confrontation with Iran, but we must not fear one if that's what is necessary to prevent the introduction of another nuclear weapons program into the combustible Middle East.
The interests of every nation will be served by an arrangement that gives Iran the civilian nuclear program it says it wants and the international community the insurance it needs. Together, with sufficient patience and resolve, Europe and America must push as hard as possible to achieve that outcome and stand together, as well, in the event the effort does not succeed.

MISSILE DEFENSE BRIEFING REPORT NO. 162
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC
http://www.afpc.org
December 13, 2004

IRAN'S OMINOUS MISSILE ADVANCES...
As international pressure continues to mount on Tehran for its nuclear ambitions, new revelations have focused international attention on another element of Iran's strategic arsenal. On December 2nd, an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), disclosed that the Islamic Republic is hard at work on a new medium-range ballistic missile, the "Ghadr 100." Experts like Uzi Rubin, the former director of Israel's Arrow Program, believe that the propulsion system, range, and re-entry vehicle of the "Ghadr-100" are similar to that of the advanced "Shahab-4" - a missile the Iranian regime publicly pledged in November of 2003 not to build. Specific alterations in the missile's nosecone allow it to hold larger warheads, including nuclear devices, Rubin tells Jane's Defence Weekly in an interview published on December 6th. What's more, according to the Israeli specialist, the alterations are the work of "seasoned missile engineers," likely from the Russian Federation.

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