Iranian Alert -- August 2, 2003 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

To find all the links to all 54 threads since the protests started, go to:

Join Us at the Iranian Alert -- August 2, 2003 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

Live Thread Ping List | 8.2.2003 | DoctorZin

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

US options on Iran

By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst 8.2.2003

The Bush administration has dubbed Iran part of an "axis of evil", yet there is a widely-shared feeling that it has no clear policy towards the regime. In the last of four reports, Roger Hardy looks at short-term and longer-term US options.

US policy is, for now, to work with allies, the European Union, Russia, Japan, to put pressure on Iran to accept more stringent inspections of its nuclear facilities.

The Iranians have not rejected the idea, but seem to be trying to exact some kind of price. But supposing they accept? The underlying problems between the US and Iran, over its alleged links with terrorism, its opposition to the Middle East peace process, and its suppression of human rights, would remain unresolved.

So, what policy options might the US choose to pursue? The choices range from engagement with Iran to the aggressive pursuit of "regime change".

Engagement would mean the pursuit of a dialogue with the Iranian Government, and a willingness to give it some inducements to modify its behaviour.

This option is favoured by one of Washington's elder statesmen, the former Democratic Party Congressman Lee Hamilton.

"I think that, while we have to keep uppermost the nuclear-weapon component of our policy, at the same time we ought to try to engage Iran on some of these difficult issues," says Mr Hamilton.

"That engagement would have to be done very carefully, very cautiously. It would probably have to be a conditional engagement. But I think over the long run it would have some hope of improving the relationship. We ought not to put all of our eggs in the regime-change basket."

Mr Hamilton takes issue with the hawks, both inside and outside the Bush administration, who believe the Iranian regime is irredeemable, and has to go.

This is the view of the radical Republicans known as the "neo-conservatives", or "neo-cons".

Joshua Muravchik, a prominent neo-con of the right-wing think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute, thinks that the goal of regime change in Iran is at least clearly implicit in what the Bush administration is trying to do.

"This is both in the rhetoric about the "axis of evil" and in the formal national security strategy paper that the president issued last September," says Mr Muravhick.

That was the paper which set out what has come to be known as the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive, or more accurately, preventive, action against perceived threats to the US.

A few of the neo-cons favour military action to remove what they see as the threat posed by Iran, for example, through strikes against its nuclear facilities.

But most think military action too risky and prefer a mix of pressures designed to weaken the regime, and encourage dissent.

A key question, however, is whether the neo-conservatives are in the ascendant, or have passed their peak.

"If you had to mark the high point, the high tide, of neo-conservative thinking in this administration, in a post-9/11 world, it would probably be the day the statue of Saddam Hussein came down in Baghdad."

Biding their time

Michael Hirsh is a senior editor at Newsweek and author of a new book on US foreign policy.

"Since 11 September, what we have seen looks very like a quagmire in terms of the post-war rebuilding (of Iraq). And it's become clear that the neo-conservative agenda is rather limited," he says.

"It focuses on regime change. It postulates the idea that countries and peoples so deeply want to embrace this Reaganite revolution of democratic and open-market transformation that they'll rush to do it on their own. And, of course, that has not been the situation since the war ended. I think the bloom has come off the neo-con rose, to some degree, and I think the direction of the Bush administration's policy is very much at issue now."

But if the neo-cons have been temporarily weakened, they are certainly not out of the game. They are determined and influential people, and there are some in Washington who feel they are biding their time, waiting for George W Bush to win a second term in next year's presidential elections.

If he is re-elected, then, in the view of Raad al-Kadiri, Middle East expert at the Washington-based energy consultants, PFC, the neo-cons will be ready to push forward their agenda on Iran.

"Rightly or wrongly, they see in Iran a country that is on the edge, a country that requires a simple push and will actually undergo transformation from within, and that is what they're aiming to achieve.

"But this isn't something that's going to be quick or something that you're likely to see shouted from the rooftops until (George Bush's) second term. Put very simply, in terms of US domestic politics, regime change in Iran is not going to win a presidential election."

There is speculation in Washington that the neo-cons' preferred option would not be an Iraq-style invasion of Iran, but destabilisation through covert action. This would be highly controversial in Washington and among America's allies, who favour multilateral pressure on Iran rather than dangerous unilateral adventures.

For now, US policy is in limbo, but sooner or later the policy-makers will need to decide whether they want to negotiate with the Iranian mullahs in order to change their behaviour, or isolate and bully them in the hope they fall from power.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3115973.stm

This is final installment of the four part series by the BBC on the US stance on Iran. -- DoctorZin

US options on Iran
By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst 8.2.2003

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/956863/posts?page=3#3

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

Thanks for all of your work, DoctorZIn.

Get some rest.

'Nite.

Thank you Mr. Hardy.

Final point being England, Germany, Russia, France, Japan and others are making too much money off of cheap Iranian oil to aid in the masses protesting against the regime. (My what a difference considering they aided and funded the outright overthrow of the Shah---especially English who gave 24 hour free-air time to Khomeini because they were so-called promoting democracy--however, the BBC is now ridiculing democratic forces in the country).

How can a revolution happen in Iran even with 80 percent of the people against the regime when 90 percent of the world is siding with the Mullahs for selfish intentions?

Only friend Iranian people have right now are half-heartedly the US and Israel.

How are you going to win that war?

Hi, there.

The picture I have, and it may be wrong, is that throughout Europe, there are increasing numbers of groups of pro-democracy in IRAN organizations or supporters. That Iran stories are disseminated through their newspapers to a much greater degree than ours. If true, this is what shaped public opinion and eventually put pressure on gov'ts in Europe, to adopt the stand they took on the U.S. over Iraq. Couldn't it then do the same to re-shape opinion
of their gov'ts toward the mullahs and the Regime?

...How are you going to win that war?...

We are fortunate that president Bush supports the people of Iran in their struggle with the Islamic regime of Iran. But he needs public support.

We can and must continue to do everything possible to educate the public and the media of the need to support the Iranian people.

One of the ways we can do this is by contacting the media.
The media does respond to our emails. We were effective when we asked for more coverage of the student protests, last month.

I heard Fox News reporting yesterday that they were receiving a "huge" number of emails on a story. He said they had received several thousand.

If we make a concerted effort to contact the media on important breaking stories, the FR community could easily send thousands of emails. This would certainly get the attention of the media.

I have a lot more thoughts on the topic but this is a start.

I just received this info from one of our participants in this thread...

The History Channel in their "This Week in History" program debunks the commonly-held theory that the Canadians were the ones who smuggled out six of the Americans held hostage in Iran back in 1979. The CIA with the help of a Hollywood make-up artist and front company was how it was done and the truth was kept secret for 20 years. The CIA agent responsible for getting the Americans out alive tells his real-life spy story. Rebroadcast 8/3/03 10AM EST/PST

http://www.historychannel.com/global/listings/series_showcase.jsp?EGrpType=Series&Id=215768&NetwCode=THC

...That Iran stories are disseminated through their newspapers to a much greater degree than ours. If true, this is what shaped public opinion and eventually put pressure on gov'ts in Europe, to adopt the stand they took on the U.S. over Iraq. Couldn't it then do the same to re-shape opinion of their gov'ts toward the mullahs and the Regime?...

I don't believe so. Those in the Europena media that are now supporting the people of Iran have made a shift away from their past postion of appeasement. It will not be easy for them to go back.

Lebanese Hizbollah driver of Iranian Embassy dies in car bombing

World News
Aug 2, 2003

BEIRUT - A powerful car bomb killed a member of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group on Saturday in an attack in the Iranian and Syrian-backed group's stronghold of Beirut's southern suburbs that it blamed on Israel.

Hizbollah called the dead man -- whom security sources have identified as a Lebanese driver for the Iranian embassy -- a martyr and one of its "holy warriors", in accounts of the bombing on the group's television station.

"Hizbollah laments one of its mujahideen," a presenter on the al-Manar station said, before reading a statement saying: "Hizbollah mourns Ali Hussein Saleh, who perished in an explosion in his car this morning."

The group was quick to point the finger at Israel, saying in a statement: "All information available since this morning proves beyond a doubt complete Israeli responsibility for this heinous crime.

"This crime will not go unpunished."

Lebanon's culture minister, Ghazi al-Aridi, said the killing was related to Hizbollah's role in ending Israel's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000.

"This young man is one of the men who had a main role in fighting the Israeli occupation and I think this action was deliberately aimed at eliminating him," he told Arabic television network Al Jazeera.

Witnesses said the blast gouged a gaping hole in the ground, propelled the car about 10 metres (yards) and blew its driver to pieces. A passerby, whom witnesses and security officials initially thought had been in the car, was seriously injured, security sources said.

Security forces cordoned off the area and used bags to collect the dead man's body parts, which the force of the blast had thrown up to the second and third-floor levels of the surrounding buildings.

A senior security official said a bomb in the car ripped it apart as the dead man drove away from his residence.

"He started the engine, got going and went about 100 metres (yards), then it blew him up. It appears to be a well-planned operation," the source said.

Documents retrieved from the car identified the body as that of Saleh, a 42-year-old from the town of Brital in Lebanon's Bekaa valley, a traditional Hizbollah power base.

Security forces strained to hold back crowds milling about the mangled wreckage as it was examined by a forensic team.

The Iranian embassy refused to discuss the incident or its ties to the dead man.

Senior Hizbollah figures have been the targets of assassination attempts before, including the group's former leader Abbas al-Musawi who was killed by Israel in 1992.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1525.shtml

Lebanese Hizbollah driver of Iranian Embassy dies in car bombing

World News
Aug 2, 2003

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/956863/posts?page=11#11

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

Iran Wants U.S. to Swap MKO Rebels for Qaeda Men

World News
Aug 2, 2003

NEW YORK - Iran wants the United States to hand over members of an Iranian opposition movement in return for any al Qaeda figures it extradites to Washington, the New York Times said on Saturday.

The newspaper quoted a U.S. official as saying Washington had approached Tehran with a request for the handover of members of Osama bin Laden's network in Iranian custody, including Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian thought to be al Qaeda's security chief.

But the approach, relayed through the Swiss embassy that handles U.S. interests in Tehran, did not include any proposed swap and the United States "did not receive a positive response," the Times quoted the official as saying.

A senior Bush administration official told the newspaper the administration would reject any kind of swap for members of the Mujahideen Khalq, which is listed by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization.

Many Mujahideen Khalq members are in camps in Iraq under U.S. military supervision.

There will be "no quid pro quo," the Times quoted the official as saying of the reported exchange proposal.

The United States has accused Iran of harboring and assisting terrorists. Tehran denies the charge.

The New York Times quoted senior U.S. and Middle Eastern officials as saying Adel was among al Qaeda members in Iranian custody after having been detained several weeks ago.

They said they believed other al Qaeda figures in Iranian hands include Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's older sons, and Suleiman Abu Ghaith, an al Qaeda spokesman.

The Times quoted a U.S. official as saying Washington believes Iran is also holding Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian identified by the United States as a lieutenant of bin Laden.

Iran publicly acknowledged for the first time last month that it was holding some senior al Qaeda figures.

"Since the collapse of the Taliban regime we have arrested a large number of them," Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said on July 23. "Many of them have been expelled and a large number of them are in our custody -- a mixture of big and small members."

The Mujahideen Khalq, the main armed opposition to Iran's clerical leadership, lost its guerrilla base in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion toppled its principal patron Saddam Hussein.

The Mujahideen joined the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah but later broke ranks with Iran's new leaders.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1520.shtml

Iran Wants U.S. to Swap MKO Rebels for Qaeda Men

World News
Aug 2, 2003

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/956863/posts?page=13#13

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

Will U.S. Negitiate?

August 01, 2003
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Waren Strobel and John Walcott

WASHINGTON - A terrorist group based in U.S.-controlled Iraq continues to broadcast propaganda into Iran, purchase equipment and move about the country without interference from American authorities, despite a White House order banning any U.S. support for the group, according to senior administration officials.

The officials said the continued operations of the Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, could cost the United States an opportunity to negotiate a deal with Iran's theocratic regime to turn over five senior leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network who are being held by Iranian authorities in what one American official described as "some kind of preventive detention."

Iranian envoys have approached U.S. intermediaries and offered to turn over the terrorism suspects - including Osama bin Laden's son Saad and Saif al Adel, who's wanted in connection with attacks that killed Americans in East Africa and Saudi Arabia - in exchange for putting the MEK out of business, the officials said.

Some Pentagon officials oppose negotiating any deal with Iran because they fear it might undercut an opportunity to overthrow the increasingly unpopular militant Islamic regime in Tehran, one senior official said.

U.S. authorities could try to shut down the MEK without cutting any deal with Iran, of course, but Pentagon officials may prefer turning a blind eye to the group because they like the pressure the MEK puts on the Iranian regime, other officials suggest.

"The fact is, we now have a group that we ourselves have declared a terrorist organization operating out of a country that we control, in direct violation of our own policy," one official said. "We said we would shut down the MEK, but they're still in business, we know they're in business and we haven't done anything about it."

A senior Defense Department official denied that, saying 4,200 MEK members are under U.S. control and are not broadcasting into Iran. The official also denied that the Defense Department plans to keep the MEK in business as an option to destabilize the government of Iran. That is "simply false. It is not true."

The officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue is under fierce debate in the Bush administration and they aren't authorized government spokesmen.

However, their willingness to discuss the controversy illustrates how the long-standing battles among the Defense Department, the CIA and the State Department over control of intelligence and foreign policy have escalated to active sabotage of one another's plans by exposing them in the press.

The suspicion that some defense officials are reluctant to put the MEK out of business is one of a growing number of questions about a secretive Pentagon office that current and former officials charge has been devising its own policies and running its own intelligence and other operations, independent of the rest of the government.

The Office of Special Plans, which deals with policy toward Iran and Iraq, is under congressional scrutiny for lapses in postwar planning in Iraq; for relying too heavily on intelligence from Iraqi exiles and foreign governments; for allegations that it manipulated intelligence; and for employing a large number of like-minded advisers and consultants who, according to current and former employees, ignored the professional staff and kept their colleagues in the dark about what they were doing.

"I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel," wrote Karen Kwiatkowski, a now-retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who worked in the Pentagon's Near East policy office until February. She recently wrote about her experience for the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.

Two senior officials said some activities of the Special Plans Office bore a disturbing resemblance to the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, in which officials on the National Security Council staff shipped arms to Iran and funneled some of the proceeds to Nicaraguan opposition groups in violation of official policy and without the knowledge of most - although not all - other officials.

Similarly, these officials say, the Pentagon's Special Plans Office appears to have run its own operations independent of the rest of the government, with potentially disastrous results.

"This is a huge tar baby for the administration," said one senior official. "We're only beginning to find out what all was going on in there."

Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, is asking the General Accounting Office, Congress' watchdog agency, to conduct an inquiry into the Special Plans Office, a congressional aide said.

It's in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 civilian. Feith and his deputy, William Luti, called a news conference in June to deny reports that their office manipulated intelligence and planned to use the MEK, the Iraq-based terrorist group, to help overthrow the Iranian regime. "There never was such a plan. We will not do that," Feith said.

Other officials, however, said that while there might not have been a formal plan to use the MEK, some Pentagon officials urged that the United States covertly back the group's efforts to topple the Iranian regime.

However, President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, vetoed any discussion of cooperation with the MEK because it's a terrorist group. "A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist," Rice said in one meeting, according to an official who was present.

The MEK, which Saddam's regime supported and which had bases in Iraq along its border with Iran, has launched numerous anti-Western attacks as well as terrorist attacks on the Iranian regime's facilities worldwide, according to the State Department's annual terrorism report.

Nevertheless, MEK members in Iraq continue to make radio broadcasts into Iran for nine hours a day and militia members are driving around the country in SUVs making purchases that could be intended to support their terrorism campaign against Iran, several U.S. officials said. Iran and Great Britain have complained to the United States about the broadcasts, officials said.

It remains unclear how seriously the United States should take the Iranian offer, made through intermediaries in Washington and elsewhere, to turn over high-ranking al Qaida operatives - who are eagerly sought by U.S. intelligence agencies - and what the Iranians are demanding beyond disbanding the MEK.

In addition to al Adel, bin Laden's security chief and No. 3 on the CIA's list of wanted al Qaida leaders, and Saad bin Laden, intelligence officials said Iran was holding Abu Hafs "the Mauritanian"; Mohammed al Masri, who's believed to have been planning new terrorist attacks in East Africa; and Abu Musab Zarqawi, who's wanted in connection with the murder of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan and who some U.S. officials have named as a link between Iraq and al Qaida.

Secretary of State Colin Powell was tight-lipped Friday when he was asked in an interview about the possibility of a deal to get the al Qaida operatives in return for disbanding the MEK.

"Using the appropriate interlocutors, we are in touch with the Iranians on both of those issues," Powell said. Asked if he was optimistic, Powell was noncommittal, saying simply: "Wait and see."

A defense official said trying to disband the MEK now could trigger more violence at a time when U.S. forces in Iraq already are fighting a guerrilla war in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's regime. American forces are continuing to interview and fingerprint members of the group, the official said.

But others said that fear of provoking more violence doesn't explain the latitude MEK members are getting.

"The question," said one senior official, "is whether somebody in the Defense Department, with or without proper authorization, doesn't want to put the MEK out of business because they still want to use it to help overthrow the regime in Iran."

(Joseph L. Galloway, Jonathan S. Landay and researcher Tish Wells contributed to this report.)

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/6439353.htm

Will U.S. Negitiate?

August 01, 2003
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Waren Strobel and John Walcott

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/956863/posts?page=15#15

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

It will not be easy for them to go back.

I agree. And as Iran's nuclear capablities rise to the surface, the Europeans may end up looking like hypocrites. The European media may start to get really quiet, when they can push forward a strong agenda.

Iran’s student movement: a catalyst for change?

Recent civil unrest in Iran reawakened interest in the potentially significant role Iranian students can play in the evolution of the Islamic Republic. There is much frustration at the inability of reformists to act as catalysts for real change, but also hope that the increasing independence of the country’s students will help alter this.

Iran has had well-organized student societies since the end of World War II. These have generally been aligned to leftist and nationalist causes and ideologies. Students played an important role in the 1979 Iranian revolution, and some historians have cited the shah’s November 1978 assault on Tehran University as a turning point before his overthrow.

Despite the organized and disciplined nature of Iranian student societies, it was only after the Islamic revolution that they acquired power and influence. On the first anniversary of the Tehran University assault, students stormed the US Embassy and took hostages. In hindsight, the act, apart from determining the premises of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy for the next decade, was the main catalyst for the post-revolutionary theocratic system. Clerics aligned to the late Ayatollah Khomeini used the hostage crisis to settle scores with their opponents and consolidate theocratic institutions.

After a two-year closure, Iranian universities reopened in 1982, ushering in a new chapter in student politics. The main student body, the Office for Fostering Unity (OFU), which had been set up in 1979, was a supra-organizational entity representing dozens of smaller political-cultural student societies and groups. Contrary to some views, the OFU was never a rubber stamp for the interests of the ruling clergy in the universities. From the outset it was a decentralized and autonomous body that maintained strong ties with and loyalties to left-wing factions in the Islamic regime.

The influence of the OFU went beyond Iran’s universities. Many of its founders and leaders played pivotal roles in the Islamic Republic’s security and political apparatus. Abbas Abdi and Ebrahim Asghar-Zadeh are two prominent examples. Both had played a leading role in the seizure of the US Embassy Abdi became deputy to the chief prosecutor in the 1980s, while Asghar-Zadeh held an important position in the political-ideological directorate of the Revolutionary Guards.

The OFU’s decline began a decade after the revolution, around the time of Khomeini’s death. This was largely due to the sidelining of the Islamic left by conservatives in the regime. Moreover a split within the OFU in 1990 led to the emergence of the Islamic Society of Students and Graduates (ISSG). In its early years the ISSG gravitated towards the Islamic right, though it later returned to the OFU fold.

The May 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami and the beginning of the reformist offensive provided a massive boost to the student movement, which had had to contend with seven years of relentless low-level political and cultural suppression during the Rafsanjani era. The old loyalties of the 1980s re-emerged as reformists, virtually all of whom hailed from the ranks of the Islamic left, forged a close alliance with the student movement. This alliance reached its peak during the student riots of July 1999, when reformists, many of whom occupied government positions, protested against the harsh measures meted out to students.

The alliance of reformists and students did not last. The reformists’ inability and unwillingness to confront the Islamic Republic’s theocratic power centers alienated students. There were also sharp differences over objectives. Whereas many reformists in government sought to reconcile Iran’s democratic and theocratic facets, the students overwhelmingly wanted to dismantle the latter. The decisive break occurred in the February 2003 local council elections, during which reformers suffered their first electoral defeat since May 1997. The OFU officially withdrew from the Dovomme Khordad Front, the main reformist coordinating forum.

This was followed by moves to change the OFU’s name to the Office for Fostering Democracy. Saeed Rezavi Faghih, a member of the OFU’s central committee, initially made the suggestion, which was long overdue. The OFU was forged in the 1980s, when the embryonic Islamic Republic was in need of unity to overcome a multitude of internal and external challenges. Today, however, Iran’s main test is to reconcile its deep philosophical and ideological incongruities, and this can only be done by irreversibly dismantling the clerical component of the regime.
The OFU’s increasing independence, and that of the broader student movement in general, is welcome. It challenges the stalemate in Iranian politics and exerts real pressures on reformists to adopt a bolder strategy vis-a-vis the conservatives.

However, the separation of the students from the reformists entails real and imagined dangers. The imagined dangers come from the increasingly hollow and perverse rhetoric of conservatives, who seek to link students to foreign plots and discredited exiled opposition groups. In fact, Iranian students have always been at the forefront of resistance to illegitimate foreign influences. Moreover, exiled opposition groups do not have significant constituencies inside Iran. In outlook, knowledge and political acumen, the students are far more sophisticated than the increasingly isolated and extreme voices from beyond the country’s borders.

The real dangers stem from increasing radicalization and the potential for the emergence of a “disloyal” opposition from the students’ ranks. The disturbances of June 2003 showed how peaceful and legitimate protest could turn into mayhem. This can only be to the detriment of students and the democratic movement, undermining the peaceful transition of power in Iran.

Another danger lies in the students’ overestimating themselves and, hence, inflicting real damage on the reform movement. They must recognize, as representatives of a sectional interest, that they are unlikely to transform Iran on their own. Their power resides in prodding the reformists to come to terms with their own ideological confusion and take decisive steps to dislodge unelected regime institutions.

These unelected institutions lack the resources and the popular mandate to decisively halt the inexorable drive toward transparent and accountable governance in Iran. The conservatives’ success has been due to a combination of reformist diffidence and lack of imagination. It is entirely possible that the independence of the students will propel reformers into a decisive confrontation with Iran’s enfeebled theocratic institutions.

Mahan Abedin, a London-based financial consultant and analyst of Iranian politics, wrote this commentary for THE
DAILY STAR

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/02_08_03_b.asp

Iran’s student movement: a catalyst for change?
Mahan Abedin

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/956863/posts?page=18#18

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

EU policy towards Iran unchanged

2003/08/02
Brussels, Aug 2 - EU sources in Brussels are denying that is any major shift in policy by the European bloc towards the Islamic Republic of Iran.

"There is no major change in the policy towards Iran. There is no suspension of talks or threat of any break in dialogue with Iran," an European Commission official said speaking on condition of anonymity.

EU foreign ministers in a meeting in Brussels on 21 July said the European council will review future steps of the co-operation between EU and Iran in September in view of further developments particularly with regard to the second report of IAEA Director General, Elbaradei, on Iran's nuclear programme.

"Of course, we would like to see more cooperation from Iran on the nuclear issue," said the official adding that the ministers merely formalized their position to review future relations with Tehran.

"There was no threat of cut in dialogue or any major shift in policy towards Iran, noted the official.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=184972&n=32