nuclear-news

Quiet optimism over deal between Iran and the West

Iran nuclear talks: Quiet optimism over deal between Islamic State and the West on weapons programme The INdependent 24 April 14 All sides in the effort to resolve the stand-off between the West and Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions have agreed to hold a new round of expert-level negotiations in New York beginning 5 May amid tentative indications that so far, at least, positive progress is being made. Keeping its side of an interim bargain struck last November and implemented in January, the Joint Plan of Action, the White House has this month released $1bn-worth of Iranian assets in two instalments, the last on 15 April. And last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran has so far fulfilled its part of what was agreed, dramatically reducing its stockpile of 20 per cent enriched uranium.

While significant hurdles remain before a final and comprehensive deal can be reached ahead of an informal deadline of 20 July, quiet optimism is gathering around the talks. That assessment stands in sharp contrast with almost every other foreign affairs dossier currently on President Barack Obama’s desk, be it concerning Syria, Russia, Ukraine or the faltering Middle East peace process.

The talks in New York, to be held at the UN on the fringes of a Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting, will be followed up by high-level talks between foreign ministers of Iran as well as the so-called P5+1 – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US, plus Germany – in Vienna on 13 May.

If the negotiations are still on track it is in spite of loud opposition from hard-line critics of the putative deal both in Iran, on Capitol Hill and, as ever, from inside Israel. Yet those at the negotiating table, including the Iranians, have so far seemed determined to ignore those pressures.

“There is the political will to get an answer,” Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, remarked during a visit to Abu Dhabi last week. “The domestic audience will be satisfied if we have a good deal. Of course some people will never be satisfied but that is fine because we have a pluralistic society.” He crucially has the support of the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, as well as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei……..

Meanwhile, in Washington the White House continues to resist calls from some in Congress to stall the release of Iranian assets that had been frozen by sanctions as well as Israeli exhortations to take a stronger line with Tehran. Further encouragement has been drawn by an Iranian concession announced last week radically to reduce the amount of plutonium that could be made at a new heavy-water reactor at Arak. There had been fears that its scientists could switch to plutonium from enriched uranium to build a bomb.

“I’m actually starting to believe that an agreement is possible,” David Petraeus, the former CIA director, told an audience at Harvard University this month. He went on: “It could be that it’s possible before this particular six-month deadline expires,” referring to the target of concluding an agreement by 20 July…….http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/iran-nuclear-talks-quiet-optimism-over-deal-between-islamic-state-and-the-west-on-weapons-programme-9275504.html

April 25, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Vital to carry through with diplomacy between Iran and the West

Why we must give Iran nuclear deal a chance, Global Public SquareBy Tyler Cullis and Jamal Abdi, Special to CNN 18 April 14 Editor’s note: Tyler Cullis is a policy associate at the National Iranian American Council. Jamal Abdi is policy director at NIAC. The views expressed are the authors’ own.

The United States could be on the verge of securing a historic agreement over Iran’s nuclear program, one that verifiably limits it and opens the door to further cooperation between the two countries. Yet with a diplomatic victory on the horizon, the rhetoric of those who have long opposed any diplomatic resolution is reaching dizzying heights of disingenuousness.

During a recent Senate hearing, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) hit out at reports that negotiations with Iran may produce a deal that “only” extends Iran’s nuclear breakout timeline to 6 to 12 months.

“I don’t think we did everything that we’ve done to only get a six to twelve month lead time,” Menendez lamented as he grilled Secretary of State John Kerry over the progress of the talks………

April 19, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

The realities of nuclear diplomacy between Iran and the West

Iran and the Language of Nuclear Diplomacy http://guardianlv.com/2014/03/iran-and-the-language-of-nuclear-diplomacy/ by Christopher Spencer on March 30, 2014. The ongoing negotiations related to Iran and its nuclear program reflect the realities of the diplomacy of nuclear weapons. A current scholar of international relations observed that Iran learned a valuable lesson from the fate of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That lesson is that a state cannot directly oppose the United States in a violent fashion without possessing nuclear weapons. It was the supposed presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that formed the justification for the U.S. invasion of the country and the subsequent removal of Hussein’s regime. It is important to note that the U.S., as well as many other countries, categorizes weapons of mass destruction to include chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. In terms of foreign policy or military application, the use of a chemical weapon is the same as a nuclear weapon to the U.S.

The mullahs in Iran were carefully watching the interaction between the U.S. and Iraq. It is true that aspects of the Iranian nuclear program pre-date the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, but it can be argued that this event cemented the desire in the Iranian leadership to pursue a nuclear capacity of their own and to accelerate the process of acquiring it. Iran sees itself as a powerful player in the Middle East and seeks to expand that power further. They claim to represent the Shi’a sect of Islam and stand in opposition to Sunni regimes in states such as Saudi Arabia. The possession of nuclear weapons would offer Iran a valuable “shield” against possible aggression from the U.S.

Nuclear weapons have always been more valuable for the threat of their use rather than their actual deployment. The entire foreign policy of the Cold War confrontations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was based on the fact that both states possessed a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying civilization several times over. This made direct confrontation between the two super powers almost impossible to fathom, and indeed the one time it did nearly occur during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is perhaps the closest the world has ever come to annihilation. This is another lesson in the language of nuclear diplomacy that Iran has learned during its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Another more contemporary example would be that of North Korea. The belligerent state constantly flaunts its nuclear capacity and uses it as a negotiating tool in order to extract concessions from the international community. When they need additional food or energy imports, they will conduct a nuclear test or reopen a closed nuclear facility and then tell the world community to give them more goods in exchange for shutting down or scaling back the program. The fact that the North Korean regime possesses some functional nuclear devices forces more powerful actors like the U.S. to deal with them differently. The U.S. is vastly more powerful than North Korea, but it must acknowledge the North Korean nuclear capacity and the potential possibility of such weapons being used against local allies like South Korea or Japan.

It is this “latitude” that Iran is seeking by pursing a nuclear program of its own. Despite the rhetoric from Iranian leaders regarding the destruction of Israel, it is almost unthinkable that Iran would deploy a nuclear device against Israel, either directly or through the use of a terrorist organization as an intermediary. Such an action would almost assuredly result in retaliation from the world community that would destroy the current Iranian regime, if not the entire country itself. The question must then be asked about the stability of the Iranian regime. Would they essentially commit suicide by deploying a nuclear weapon against Israel, or do they seek the diplomatic and foreign policy protection that a nuclear capability provides?

This is not to say that a nuclear armed Iran would be a positive development for the Middle East or the world. An Iran with more diplomatic latitude would be a danger not only to the region but the rest of the world. Furthermore, other Middle East states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt have stated that if Iran develops a nuclear capability, they will seek nuclear weapons of their own. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East would not benefit the world at all. But this is the language of diplomacy for Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

March 31, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment