Posted on 09/10/2005 9:33:35 AM PDT by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
Iran readies for UN nuclear battle with EU, US
By Louis Charbonneau
BERLIN (Reuters) - Iran is working hard to gather allies to defeat a joint effort by the European Union and Washington to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council because of their fears it may be developing nuclear weapons.
The 35 nations on the governing board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meet on September 19 to discuss Iran's nuclear program and the EU wants it to report Tehran to the highest body of the United Nations.
EU and U.S. diplomats are lobbying key members of the IAEA to send Iran's case to the Security Council after it resumed uranium processing activities at Isfahan last month, a facility that had been mothballed under a November 2004 agreement with the EU's three biggest powers, France, Britain and Germany.
Washington and the EU trio believe Iran is amassing the capability to develop nuclear weapons and have called on Tehran to abandon its uranium enrichment program, which could be used to produce fuel for either nuclear energy or weapons.
But Iran, which insists its atomic ambitions are peaceful, refuses to give up what it says is its sovereign right to a full nuclear program and has begun its own lobbying effort to keep the matter out of the hands of the Security Council.
"They (the EU and U.S.) have to realize that they cannot talk to Iran with a language of force," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters this week on returning from Pakistan, where he put his case to top officials.
"Many countries will sustain a loss if Iran's nuclear dossier is securitized (by the Council)," Larijani warned.
EU diplomats said Iran was focusing its lobbying efforts on key IAEA board members such as China, Russia, India, Pakistan, South Africa and other non-aligned developing states, which have a good deal of sympathy for Tehran's arguments.
NOT LAST WORD
Despite opposition from Russia, China and other states, the EU and the United States want the powerful U.N. Council involved to ensure that Iran's nuclear ambitions are finally recognized as one of the key global security issues.
This is something the IAEA, a non-political technical agency that accounts for countries' nuclear materials, cannot do.
"We (the EU3) are unanimous in our assessment of the way forward that following what has happened, now it should be for the board of governors of the IAEA to report the issue to the Security Council," Ruediger Luedeking, a senior German negotiator in the EU-Iran talks, said in Berlin this week.
British and other EU officials made similar declarations. Russia said this week it opposed a Security Council referral but some diplomats and analysts doubt this is Moscow's last word.
"As long as the EU and the U.S. are serious about Iran, the Russians will be serious too," said former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack, an Iran expert at the U.S. Brookings Institute.
But he said he had serious doubts about the ability of the divided IAEA board to take a firm and unanimous stand on Iran this month. Those doubts are shared by officials of the EU3, which has tried for two years to get Iran to give up parts of its nuclear program in return for economic and trade rewards.
"There's no guarantee it will succeed," an EU official said.
Luedeking said the aim of a Security Council referral would not automatically be to trigger sanctions. Rather, the Council could use its authority to demand that Iran resume negotiations with the EU3 and the suspension of its uranium enrichment program that it ended last month, he said.
IRAN PREPARES NEW PROPOSAL
Next week in New York, on the sidelines of a U.N. summit of world leaders, Iran's new hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will show U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan a new proposal to resolve Iran's atomic stand-off with the West.
"This proposal will be submitted right before the IAEA board meeting and could lead to calls that Iran not be sent to the Security Council until the proposal has been studied closely," a diplomat told Reuters in Berlin this week.
"This is Iran's strategy to delay a U.N. referral," he said.
Citing intelligence gathered by his country, the diplomat, who declined to have him or his country identified, said the proposal would call for expanding the negotiations with the Europeans to include countries more sympathetic to Iran's cause, specifically Russia, China, India or South Africa.
Regardless of Iran's new proposal, EU officials have said there can be no more talks without a full enrichment suspension. But they acknowledged that the non-aligned developing countries, which make up around a third of the IAEA board, would prefer to delay any Security Council referral of the Iran issue.
"We are trying to persuade them otherwise," an official from one of the EU trio said this week.
(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Brussels, Paul Hughes in Tehran and Madeline Chambers in London)
- The Guardian reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Russia, China and India to support threatening Iran with sanctions for refusing to halt its nuclear program, saying: Iran needs to get a message from the international community that is a unified message.
- Reuters reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: The United States expects Iran will be referred to the U.N. Security council.
- Political Prisoner, Mehrdad Haydarpour, Iran Press News writing from Evin Prison asked: What could the decrepit wolf, Ahmadinejad, have to say at the U.N.?
- Dr. Jermone Corsi, WorldNetDaily reported that a defiant Iran wants confrontation with U.S.
- Iranian blogger, Farid Pouya, Webgardian quoted Fred Halliday, Professor in London School of Economic, who said: if we look at Iranian history we see Iranian leaders always miscalculated when they faced important events.
- Iran Focus reported that more than 500 people attacked two government buildings and set fire to tyres in the streets of the town of Basamanj, northwest Iran, in protest to constant water and electricity disruptions.
- Iranian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, Hoder.com reported that a recent photo provides evidence of the public split between Khamenei and Rafsanjani.
- Reuters reported that Rafsanjani called on the western countries to stop making a fuss over Iran's atomic activities, warning: If they make immature decisions or implement their threats, Iran will not be the only country to be harmed.
- And finally, The Guardian reported that the British government softened its stance on the Iranian nuclear issue yesterday, for the first time, shifting the emphasis away from sanctions.
"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin
Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!
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Join the rally to protest the presence of Islamic Republic terrorist president, Ahmadinejad, in New York City on September 14, 2005
Join the nationwide effort to pass the message of this rally. Help Iranian people in their effort to achieve democracy and peace by sending a loud and clear message to mullahs' regime, that we will no longer tolerate their policy of terror and fundamentalism.
Sep 14, 2005 Time: 11:00 a.m New York City
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza 1st Ave and 47th East, United Nations
See link for more information................
http://www.iranprotestun.com/when.html
Bolton has his work cut out for him dealing with these Muslim lunatics...and their useful fools.
Warm up the diamond tip nucs. Maybe warm up with 100 MOABs just to loosen up first.
Great site. Thanks for the link!
To read todays thread click here.
Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!
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Hmmmmm don't you wonder what this means. By implication countries like France and Germany will again be embarrassed....or do I have it wrong?
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