Legal opinion on Iran’s right to uranium enrichmen
Iran’s right to uranium enrichment unquestionable: Intl. lawyer An international lawyer tells Press TV that Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes is unquestionable under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).Press TV 30 Sept 13
Alfred Lambremont Webre said Monday that Iranian officials have made it clear that they will not go after weapons-grade uranium enrichment, citing Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s fatwa on the prohibition of nuclear arms production and development.
“I think things are very clear that statements have been made that Iran will not be going forward to enrich at weapons grade, which is over 90 percent. It will be doing under 20 percent down to 5 percent, which is enough for power enrichment,” he said.
“There is no question that under the NPT Iran has the right to enrich uranium of non-weapons grade, that is, of power-station grade, which you would say would be between 5 percent and certainly under 20 percent,” he added.
He said that there was no evidence that Iran was intending to develop nuclear weapons, adding the Islamic Republic was enriching for nuclear power as its “basic legal right.” …..http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/30/326923/iran-right-to-enrichment-unquestionable/
Iran speaks out about Israel’s 200 nuclear warheads
Iranian foreign minister: Israel has an arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads Jerusalem Post, 29 Sept 13 In interview with ABC, Zarif 
says Holocaust “is not a myth. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused Israel on Sunday of having an arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads, and said it is the source of insecurity in the Middle East.
“Israel has 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is the source of insecurity in our region. Israel is the source of aggression and violation of human rights of the Palestinian people. It should not have the audacity to continue to lie to the American people and to the world and mislead everybody,” Zarif toldABC’s This Week in his first appearance on the show in 26 years……..
Echoing similar statements made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when he was asked to address the issue, Zarif made the leap from the Nazis’ condemnable crime to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
“We condemn the killing of innocent people, whether it happened in Nazi Germany or whether it’s happening in Palestine. One crime, however heinous – and [the] Holocaust was a heinous crime, it was a genocide, it must never be allowed to be repeated. But that crime cannot be, and should not be, a justification to trample the rights of the Palestinian people for 60 years. We should have abandoned this game and start recognizing the fact that without respect for the rights of the Palestinians we will never have peace in our region,” he said.
Iran’s right for nuclear enrichment ‘nonnegotiable’……. http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Iranian-foreign-minister-Israel-has-an-arsenal-of-200-nuclear-warheads-327408
At UN Egypt calls for nuclear-free Middle East
Egypt proposes nuclear-free Mideast Sky News Sunday September 29, 2013 Egypt has proposed for the Middle East, including Israel, to rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction after the UN Security Council ordered Syria to destroy its chemical arsenal. Addressing the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy on Saturday called on the five permanent members of the Security Council to support the idea of a Middle East free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Fahmy, part of Egypt’s army-installed government, proposed that all nations in the Middle East would then commit by the end of the year to ratify agreements against weapons of mass destruction……..http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=910396
Rouhani calls on Israel to join Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty,
The Iranians have frequently pointed out that they have publicly renounced nuclear arms and that — unlike Israel — Iran is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitor. The Iranians also have countered that Israel is believed to already have an arsenal of nuclear weapons, which it refuses to confirm or deny.
According to the Arms Control Association, a non-proliferation group in Washington, Israel is suspected of having 100 to 200 nuclear warheads.
Iran’s president calls on Israel to join nuclear treaty http://www.smh.com.au/world/irans-president-calls-on-israel-to-join-nuclear-treaty-20130927-2uhgw.html#ixzz2g9sTxNSF September 27, 2013
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran told the United Nations on Thursday that “no nation should possess nuclear weapons,” and that Israel should join the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, as Iran did long ago, as part of a grander plan to create a zone free of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Continue reading
Libya’s 6,400 Barrels of Uranium controlled by militias
Libya Wondering What to do with 6,400 Barrels of Uranium Stored in City Controlled by Militias Front Page mag, September 26, 2013 By Daniel Greenfield At the UN, Obama asked whether it would have really been better to leave Gaddafi in charge of Libya. Can we get a final answer on that after we decide what to do about those 6,400 barrels of uranium?
The country was reportedly holding 6,400 barrels of the “yellowcake” uranium at a warehouse in Sabha.
Foreign Minister Muhammad Abdul Aziz said his country “is trying to determine if the concentrated uranium can be used for peaceful nuclear energy purposes or sold to countries which use the product for peaceful purposes.”
An independent think tank in Tripoli, though, has reportedly advised the government to use the material in its nascent nuclear-power program, as well as for “industrial and agricultural development.”
How secure is the city of Sabha? As secure as any place in Libya. Which is to say… not at all….http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/libya-wondering-what-to-do-with-6400-barrels-of-uranium-stored-in-city-controlled-by-militias/
No place for nuclear weapons in Iran – Rouhani
Hassan Rouhani tells UN there is no place for nuclear weapons in Iran ABC News 25 Sept 13 Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani says nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s security and that he is prepared to reach a “framework” for managing his country’s differences with the US.
In his address to the UN General Assembly in New York, Mr Rouhani blasted “violent” international sanctions against Iran and called on US president Barack Obama to avoid the influence of “warmongering pressure groups”……..
Earlier, Mr Obama used his speech at the UN General Assembly to respond to recent friendly overtures from Iran over its nuclear program.
Mr Obama cautiously lauded signs Iran’s new moderate president wants to pursue an agreement…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-25/iran-us-un-rouhani-barack-obama-nuclear-weapons/4979158
With possession of nuclear weapons Israel has become a target
Putin: ‘Israel’s nuclear weapons just make it a target Jerusalem Post, Linda Gradstein/The Media Line contributed to this report. 19 Sept13 ‘Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons stockpile only serves to make the Jewish state “a target” and creates “foreign policy problems.”…… The chemical weapons deal with Syria has increased pressure on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Some 190 states have joined the NPT, whose goal is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.
Of the world’s nuclear powers, only four have not joined the treaty. Of these, India, Pakistan and North Korea have all openly tested nuclear weapons. Israel continues with its policy of nuclear ambiguity.
Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite pressure from the international community.
Putin’s comments, reported by AFP, came in response to questions from reporters on the US and Russia-brokered deal to put Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal under international supervision………http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Putin-Israels-nuclear-weapons-just-make-it-a-target-326567
No nuclear weapons for Iran: President Rouhani
Rouhani says Iran will never develop nuclear weapons: NBC 
interview (Reuters) Reporting By Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Christopher Wilson and Xavier Briand, 18 Sept 13, – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a television interview on Wednesday that his government would never develop nuclear weapons and that he has full authority to negotiate a nuclear deal with the West, NBC News reported.
Speaking to the U.S. network at his presidential compound in Tehran, Iran’s new president also said the tone of a letter he had received from President Barack Obama, part of a recent exchange of messages between the two leaders, was “positive and constructive.”
“It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future,” Rouhani said, in another sign that he may be seeking a thaw between Iran and the West after years locked in a standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Rouhani’s comments came just six days before he will be in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly, a speech that will be closely watched for fresh diplomatic overtures.
Echoing what Iranian leaders have said before, Rouhani was quoted by NBC as declaring that his government would “never develop nuclear weapons” under any circumstances………
Since Rouhani was elected president in June, the centrist cleric has called for “constructive interaction” with the world, a dramatic shift in tone from the fiery anti-Western rhetoric of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad……..http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/18/us-iran-nuclear-rouhani-idUSBRE98H11S20130918
Iran not planning to close uranium enrichment plant
| Iran will not close Fordo nuclear plant: source, Tehran Times, 17 Sept 13 TEHRAN – Iran would not suspend activities at the Fordo enrichment plant, the ISNA news agency said on Tuesday, quoting an informed source.
According to the source, Iran would not come up with any fresh proposal to the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) in New York and it would await the other side’s offers. His comments came after the Spiegel weekly published an article on Monday claiming that Iranian President Hassan Rohani is reportedly prepared to decommission the Fordo enrichment plant and allow international inspectors to monitor the removal of the centrifuges.,,,,,,,http://tehrantimes.com/politics/110850-iran-will-not-close-fordo-
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Iran’s President Rohani prepared to shut uranium enrichment plant
Rohani Ready to Shut Uranium Plant to Ease Sanctions: Spiegel http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-16/rohani-ready-to-shut-uranium-plant-to-ease-sanctions-spiegel.html By Kambiz Foroohar – Sep 16, 2013 President Hassan Rohani ready to decommission Iran’s Fordo uranium enrichment facility, near the city of Qom, in exchange for an easing of international sanctions, Der Spiegel says. *Magazine cites unidentified intelligence officials on decommissioning. *Rohani will close down Fordo, which started operations in late 2011, and allow international inspectors to monitor removal of centrifuges, according to German publication. *Rohani may demand U.S. and EU rescind sanctions against Iran, lift ban on oil exports and allow central bank to conduct business overseas: Spiegel. *Rohani is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24 in New York.To contact the reporter on this story: Kambiz Foroohar in New York atkforoohar@bloomberg.netVbcx
Sentence delayed for Sister Megan Rice and friends
Sentencing delayed for Duluth nuclear protester, Duluth News Tribune A judge has delayed a sentencing hearing for a Duluth man and two other protesters for breaking into a nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee. By: Associated Press staff,, 16 Sept 13 A judge has delayed a sentencing hearing for a Duluth man and two other protesters for breaking into a nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee.
U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar granted a motion last week from defense attorneys asking to postpone the date.
The sentencing, which had been scheduled for this month, was reset for Jan. 28 in Knoxville.
Defense attorneys said they needed more time to prepare for the proceeding.
The defendants — Greg Boertje-Obed of Duluth, Sister Megan Rice and Michael Walli — were convicted in May of sabotaging the plant and damaging federal property last year at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.
Numerous letters have been sent to the federal judge asking for leniency and objecting to the government’s labeling of pacifists as terrorists.
“The court continues to receive a large volume of letters,” Thapar wrote in the order postponing the hearing.
The defendants remain in federal custody.http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/278086/
Syria’s chemical arsenal bad, but what about Israel’s nuclear and chemical arsenals?
Double standard: Disarming Syria puts Israel’s nuclear and chemical arsenal in the spotlight, MondoWeiss Annie Robbins on September 14, 2013 “.…..As John Kerry meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva today to discuss the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile the Wall Street Journal spotlights a “ripple effect“, the focus on Israel’s nuclear program:
GENEVA—The joint U.S. Russian push to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons is starting to have ripple effects, focusing attention on the suspected arsenal of Israel.……
But a frequent complaint among Arab countries in the region—that Israel has an undeclared but presumed nuclear-weapons program—has already resurfaced.
Syria’s government has hinted that it could raise Israel’s suspected arsenal of nuclear and other weapons as an international issue ………
Israel’s regional enemies have insisted they need chemical weapons to counter the threat of the nuclear weapons Israel is believed to possess. No other Middle East nation is thought to have such an arsenal. http://mondoweiss.net/2013/09/double-standard-disarming-syria-puts-israels-nuclear-and-chemical-arsenal-in-the-spotlight.html
Israel’s extensive arsenal of nuclear weapons
Israel has 80 nuclear warheads, can make 115 to 190 more, report says By LA Times, Batsheva Sobelman September 15, 2013,
JERUSALEM– Israel has 80 nuclear warheads and the potential to double that number, according to a new report by U.S. experts.
In the Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, recently published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, proliferation experts Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris write that Israel stopped production of nuclear warheads in 2004.
But the country has enough fissile material for an additional 115 to 190 warheads, according to the report, meaning it could as much as double its arsenal.
Previous estimates have been higher but the new figures agree with the 2013 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute yearbook on armament and international security. The yearbook estimated 50 of Israel’s nuclear warheads were for medium-range ballistic missiles and 30 were for for bombs carried by aircraft, according to a report in the Guardian. Although widely assumed a nuclear power, Israel has never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons or capabilities and continues to maintain its decades-old “strategic ambiguity” policy on the matter, neither confirming nor denying foreign reports on the issue.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician,leaked the country’s alleged nuclear secrets to a British newspaper, and said Israel had at least 100 nuclear weapons. Vanunu was later convicted of espionage and treason and wasreleased from jail in 2004 after serving 17 years…….
the nuclear facility in Dimona, a location in Israel’s southern Negev desert, is off-limits for the IAEA and not under its supervision. According to foreign reports, that is where the nuclear warheads have been produced since 1967.
Of the many multilateral agreements on nuclear issues the IAEA offers, Israel has signed a few and ratified fewer, mostly relating to nuclear safety issues. But it is not a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In 2010, Israel dismissed a demand from the parties to join. …. http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-israel-nuclear-weapons-20130915,0,4117406.story
American military intervention in Syria could go nuclear
Five Ways a Wider Syrian War Could Go Nuclear Truth Dig, By Harvey Wasserman, 13 Sept 13, In the wake of an apparent break in the march to a wider war, the reality of a nuclear dimension in Syria remains largely unspoken.
There are at least five key reasons why American military intervention in Syria’s civil war could go nuclear:
(1) There’s a reactor near Damascus.
It is relatively small, by most accounts containing about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium. That’s not much in the scheme of things when it comes to building an atomic bomb. But as Alexsandr Lukashevich of the Russian Foreign Ministryputs it, “If a warhead, by design or by chance, were to hit the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MSNR) near Damascus, the consequences could be catastrophic.”……
(2) Despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s promise of an “unbelievably limited” attack, once the U.S. military commits to action in Syria, it is unlikely to hold back any of its tactical arsenal. That would almost certainly include depleted uranium (DU).
When shells made of this super-hard material penetrate armored vehicles, hardened bunkers and other structures, the DU disperses into fine radioactive particulates that are easily inhaled. Wherever deployed—as in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan—DU inflicts horrifying health consequences, including cancer among people of all ages and birth defects among children born well after its use. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, imposing virtually permanent contamination.
Should DU weaponry be used yet again, this time in Syria, the contamination would be widespread and irreversible. Many thousands of innocent people—including the countless unborn—would suffer greatly. As with all radioactive fallout, the lethal effects will stretch through the generations.
(3) When the world’s superpowers collide, nuclear war is always a possibility.
At this point, the U.S. and Russia appear to be coming together. But in this too-often irrational global tinderbox, the stakes could not be higher.
In such situations, we hope for the best, but can’t lose sight of the potential worst………
(4) In the bottomless turbulence that defines today’s Middle East, the Americans and Russians so far seem to retain some shreds of rationality. But given the Peaceful Atom’s half century of weapons-grade proliferation, we cannot know which nations or marginal groups might now have atomic devices and what random impulses might prompt their use.
In a profoundly unpredictable world, each of the more than 400 commercial-sized reactors still operating continues to produce radioactive materials that could fuel a nuclear weapon.
Each of those reactors is itself a profoundly vulnerable target. Should the situation in Syria devolve to a wider war, the likelihood of a freelance atomic “situation” becomes all too probable.
(5) While the world’s attention is focused on Syria, the global-scale disaster at Fukushima spirals out of control.
The more serious the crisis in Syria, the more it will divert attention from an existing nuclear disaster. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/five_ways_a_wider_syrian_war_could_go_nuclear_20130913/
Iran reduces enriched uranium stockpile
the West should speak to Iran not with a language of threats or sanctions but with a language of respect.”
Iran says it has reduced its 20 percent-enriched uranium stockpile by producing reactor fuel, Newser.13 Sept 13 By NASSER KARIMI | ASSOCIATED PRESS Iran significantly reduced its stock of 20 percent-enriched uranium by converting it to reactor fuel, a senior official said, an announcement that appears to be a bid to ease international concerns over its nuclear program. The West remains concerned over Iran’s continuing production of 20 percent uranium, which is enriched to a higher level than that used to fuel most energy reactors and is closer to the 90 percent needed for a warhead. The U.S. and its allies demand Iran halt all enrichment, which Tehran rejects.
The late Thursday announcement, from the government of moderate President Hasan Rouhani, appeared to be a signal to ease Western worries. Speaking to state television, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said the country’s stocks of 20 percent-enriched uranium has fallen from 240 kilograms to around 140 kilograms as it is converted into fuel for a medical research reactor. Salehi said the remainder is also being converted.
“We have converted a remarkable part to fuel rod,” Salehi said. “The amount of 20 percent-enriched uranium is small.”…..
Salehi’s remarks came ahead of a new round of talks planned for later this month between Iran and the U.N. nuclear agency. Talks over the past years failed to reach any breakthrough.
It also came a few days after Rouhani showed a willingness to use his coming visit to the U.N. General Assembly as a point for resuming nuclear talks with world powers.
Earlier Thursday, the new Iranian envoy to the U.N. agency said in Vienna that Tehran was ready for more engagement to clarify its disputed nuclear program. However, Reza Najafi stressed Iran would never give up its “inalienable right to develop a nuclear program,” the official IRNA news agency reported Friday. “Iran is ready to engage and remove any ambiguity,” Najafi said, according to the report. He added: “If other sides want a proper response, the West should speak to Iran not with a language of threats or sanctions but with a language of respect.”
A disarmament expert, Najafi, 51, replaced former envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh after Rouhani came to power in August.http://www.newser.com/article/da8pic783/iran-says-it-has-reduced-its-20-percent-enriched-uranium-stockpile-by-producing-reactor-fuel.html
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