Iran 01 (Jul 08 - Apr 18)

[winston]

Good alternative ...

IAEA to vote on demand Iran freeze new nuclear site By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - World powers are demanding that Iran immediately mothball a uranium enrichment site it hid for years, heightening fears it is planning to build atom bombs, in a resolution to be voted on by U.N. nuclear watchdog governors.

Diplomats forecast majority approval for the resolution in a vote in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation governing board on Thursday or Friday in what would be its first action against Iran in almost four years.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/ ... nnel=11621

[winston]

Do you remember the Lebanon War, where Israel used the excuse of Hezbollah capturing 2 Israelis soldiers, to invade Lebanon and caused massive civillian casualties ?

Well, if Israel want to take out the nuclear reactors in Iran, this will be their excuse...

So it's very likely that they ( UN + others ) will now impose sanctions on Iran, to prevent Israel from doing anything funny...

===============================================


ElBaradei slams Iran at his last IAEA meeting

VIENNA: Outgoing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei fired a parting shot at Iran on Thursday, saying efforts to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme had reached a dead end, as the UN atomic watchdog considered censuring Tehran.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 98/1/.html

[winston]

U.S. officials talk tough on Iran sanctions By Jill Dougherty and Charley Keyes, CNN

Washington (CNN) -- The United States warned Iran on Friday it is prepared to push for significantly stronger economic sanctions against it in the wake of the U.N nuclear watchdog's resolution censuring Tehran's nuclear program.

Senior administration officials spoke with reporters on the condition their names not be used said.

"We are committed to putting together a package of consequences if we don't find a willing partner. We hope Iran takes note of that clear message," one senior official said.

On Friday, the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. agency, passed a resolution, demanding Iran stop construction of its previously secret nuclear facility at Qom as well as stop uranium enrichment that can be used for producing fuel for a nuclear device. Twenty-five nations backed the IAEA move.

The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany endorsed the resolution. Until recently, Russia and China have resisted the push for imposing strong sanctions on Iran.

The officials called the resolution significant because it underscores the unity of purpose among the six countries. "There was an intensive diplomatic effort that went into this," one of the officials said.

"It sends a strong signal of serious international concern about Iran's continued noncompliance" with demands by the IAEA and to the U.N. Security Council, an official said. "[Iran] is essentially not playing by international rules."

The officials denied the United States intends to hurt the Iranian people. Some critics of sanctions argue that stronger sanctions will only deepen the economic plight of Iranians.

"Nothing that we contemplate or we would consider is aimed at causing greater harm for the Iranian people who have suffered enough as a result of repression of people's efforts to express themselves peacefully since the elections on June 12," an official said.

The officials would not confirm media reports that two senior U.S. officials while in China warned the Chinese that Israel might take unilateral action against Iran's nuclear program. They said, however, the United States has made clear its concern with the possible consequences of Iran's noncompliance.

"The last thing the Middle East needs right now," an official said, "with all the other challenges that face it is another source of insecurity and instability, and that is exactly where continued Iranian noncompliance is going to lead."

Despite the resolution and tough talk, the officials repeated that the United States is still ready to engage with Iran and that Tehran can reap benefits if it divulges full details of its nuclear program.

Iran maintains its nuclear development is solely for peaceful purposes.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast ... index.html

[winston]

US warns defiant Iran as it vows new uranium plants

TEHRAN: A defiant Iran said on Sunday it would build 10 new uranium enrichment plants as the United States warned the Islamic republic that time for it to meet international nuclear guidelines was running out.

Two days after the UN atomic watchdog condemned Tehran for building a second uranium enrichment plant, state television reported that the cabinet ordered building to begin at five new sites earmarked for enrichment plants.

It also ordered officials to locate sites for another five such facilities over the next two months, the broadcaster's website reported.

"Ten new enrichment sites will be built. We are as much committed to our rights as we are to our international obligations," Salehi said.

"From now on our enrichment sites will not be built in the open air but in the hearts of mountains... They will not be concentrated in one area... taking into consideration all safety measures from any attacks."

After the cabinet announcement, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that time is running out for Iran.

Iran, already under three sets of UN sanctions for defiantly enriching uranium at its Natanz facility, further infuriated world powers in September when it disclosed it was building the Qom plant.

Source: AFP/de

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 97/1/.html

[winston]

World powers discuss options should Iran miss nuclear deadline
From Elise Labott, CNN State Department Producer

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says others can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care."

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Iran faces year-end deadline from other nations to address nuclear concerns
Permanent U.N. Security Council nations plus Germany discuss options
Iran yet to accept proposed deal on converting uranium abroad for medical reactor
Time running out for Iran to accept deal, White House spokesman says

(CNN) -- World powers are discussing next steps toward Iran if it fails to meet a year-end deadline for addressing international concern over its nuclear program, the White House and State Department said Tuesday.

Top officials from the "P5 plus one" -- permanent United Nations Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany -- held a conference call Tuesday to discuss possible sanctions against Iran, Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley told reporters.

He said the group "united its resolve that Iran must either answer the questions that we have about its nuclear aspirations or face additional pressure" and that Washington would be "consulting broadly across the international community in the coming days and weeks" about its options.

In October the six nations offered Iran a deal to send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad for conversion into fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that time is running out for Iran to accept the deal.

"The decision for them to live up to their responsibilities is their decision," Gibbs said of Iranian officials. "We have offered them a different path. If they decide not to take it, then the [nations that offered the deal] will move accordingly."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the offer Tuesday, telling Iranians in a speech in the southern city of Shiraz that the international community can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care." He also accused the United States of fabricating a document said to detail Iranian plans for critical components of a nuclear device.

Gibbs countered his defiance, saying the international community is prepared to take additional steps if the year-end deadline passes without any Iranian action.

"Mr. Ahmadinejad may not recognize, for whatever reason, the deadline that looms, but that is a very real deadline to the international community," Gibbs said.

Western powers fear Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran denies.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast ... index.html

[winston]

Intel report: Iran seeking to smuggle raw uranium

Intelligence report says Iran is seeking to smuggle 1,350 tons of uranium from Kazakhstan

GEORGE JAHN


Iran is close to clinching a deal to clandestinely import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan, according to an intelligence report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Diplomats said the assessment was heightening international concern about Tehran's nuclear activities.

Such a deal would be significant because, according to an independent research group, Tehran appears to be running out of the material, which it needs to feed its uranium enrichment program.

The report was drawn up by a member nation of the International Atomic Energy Agency and provided to the AP on condition that the country not be identified because of the confidential nature of the information.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "the transfer of any uranium yellowcake ... to Iran would constitute a clear violation of UNSC sanctions."

( And when did the US started to follow the UN recommendations ? )

"We have been engaged with many of our international nonproliferation partners on Iran's illicit efforts to acquire new supplies of uranium over the past several years," he said.

A senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was talking about confidential information said Washington was aware of the intelligence report, but he declined to discuss specifics.

"We are not going to discuss our private consultations with other governments on such matters but, suffice to say, we have been engaged with Kazakhstan and many of our other international nonproliferation partners on this subject in particular over the past several years," he told the AP. "We will continue to have those discussions."

In New York, Burkina Faso's U.N. Ambassador Michel Kafando, a co-chair of the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, referred questions Tuesday about a potential deal between Iran and Kazakhstan to his sanctions adviser, Zongo Saidou. Speaking in New York, Saidou told the AP that, as far as he knew, none of the U.N.'s member nations has alerted the committee about any such allegations.

"We don't have any official information yet regarding this kind of exchange between the two countries," Saidou said. "I don't have any information; I don't have any proof."

A senior U.N. official said the Vienna-based IAEA was aware of the assessment but could not yet draw conclusions. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing confidential information. A Western diplomat from a member of the IAEA's 35-nation board said the report was causing concern among countries that have seen it and was generating intelligence chatter. The diplomat also requested anonymity because he was barred from publicly discussing intelligence information.

A two-page summary of the report obtained by the AP said the deal could be completed within weeks. It said Tehran was willing to pay $450 million, or close to euro315 million, for the shipment.

"The price is high because of the secret nature of the deal and due to Iran's commitment to keep secret the elements supplying the material," said the summary, adding: "The deal is to be signed soon." An official of the country that drew up the report said "elements" referred to state employees acting on their own without approval of the Kazakh government.

After-hours calls to offices of Kazatomprom, the Kazakh state uranium company, in Kazakhstan and Moscow, were not answered. Iranian nuclear officials also did not answer their telephones.

Purified ore, or uranium oxide — known as "yellowcake" — is processed into a uranium gas, which is then spun and re-spun to varying degrees of enrichment. Low enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel, and upper-end high enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran is under three sets of Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze its enrichment program and related activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies such aspirations, saying it wants to enrich only to fuel an envisaged network of power reactors.

Any attempt to import such a large amount of uranium ore would be in violation of those sanctions, which ban exports to the Islamic Republic of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology that could contribute to its enrichment activities.

In addition, transfers of uranium ore in quantities greater than 500 kilograms — 1,100 pounds — annually are subject to close scrutiny by the Nuclear Suppliers Group of countries exporting atomic technology and materials.

Tehran still has hundreds of tons of uranium hexafluoride — the gas that is spun by centrifuges into enriched uranium. But its stockpile of uranium oxide, from which the gas is derived, is thought to be rapidly diminishing.

The IAEA believes that Iran's rapidly expanding enrichment program has been built on 600 tons of uranium oxide imported from South Africa during the 1970s as part of plans by the former regime to build a network of nuclear reactors.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said earlier this year that, based on 2008 IAEA statistics, Iran had already used up close to three-quarters of its South African supply.

In a November report, the IAEA noted that Iran had stopped producing uranium gas from yellowcake in early August and said Iranian officials had notified the agency that the production facility was down for maintenance.

David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said Tuesday that the facility at the city of Isfahan had produced very little for about a year.

"They said it was closed for maintenance but the reality is they probably ran out of uranium," he said.

Kazakhstan is among the world's three top producers of uranium, accounting for more than 8,500 tons last year. Iran, in contrast is producing an estimated 20 tons a year — far too little to power even one large reactor let alone the network it says it wants to put in place.

Experts say it has amassed enough low enriched uranium to build at least two nuclear warheads, should it choose to. Albright estimated that Tehran theoretically could produce about 150 such weapons from 1,350 tons of yellowcake, as specified in the intelligence report, but said that was not necessarily why Iran wanted the material.

"They want to have a civilian nuclear program but on the other hand they want to have nuclear weapons capability and they are willing to risk international sanctions," he said.

Tehran built its nuclear program on purchases from the black market, with its present workhorse centrifuge based on the same basic model that it purchased from the illicit nuclear network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan in the 1980s.

"Their modus operandi is smuggling and that continues," said Albright, alluding to numerous instances of Iranian attempts to import equipment banned by the U.N. Security Council that have surfaced from the time its secret program was discovered seven years ago to the present.

Adding to concerns, Iran has recently announced it plans 10 new enrichment plants. It belatedly revealed that it had been working on a secret facility in September, in an action Western officials describe as pre-emptive and driven by fears it was about to be found out.

It is stonewalling IAEA attempts to follow up on intelligence alleging it experimented with weapons programs. And while sending contradictory signals, it refuses to formally accept an IAEA-brokered plan that would commit it to exporting most of its enriched material for processing into reactor fuel in one batch_ a move that would strip it of the stockpile it would need to make a weapon.

_______

Associated Press Writers John Heilprin at the United Nations and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: AP News

[winston]

Iran warns West it will make its own nuclear fuel

Iranian FM: Iran to produce nuclear fuel on its own if West doesn't supply by end of January

Iran is warning it will produce nuclear fuel on its own if there is no deal to have the West deliver the fuel in exchange for Tehran's enriched uranium by the end of January.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state TV on Saturday the West must "make a decision" whether to accept the Iranian counterproposal to either sell Tehran the fuel or swap it for Iran's enriched uranium.

Mottaki says this is an "ultimatum."

He says the international community "has one month left" to decide — or Tehran will enrich uranium to a higher level, needed for the fuel.

Iran dismissed an end of 2009 deadline on a U.N.-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. The deal would have reduced Iran's capabilities to make nuclear weapons.

Source: AP News

[winston]

US prepares new sanctions against Iran: report

The White House is crafting new financial sanctions targeting the Iranian entities and individuals most directly involved in the crackdown on dissidents, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said US Treasury Department strategists had already been focusing on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has emerged as the economic and military power behind Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But in recent weeks, senior dissident figures from Iran -- who have been speaking at major Washington think tanks -- have made up a list of Revolutionary Guards-related companies they suggest targeting, the report said.

Names on the list include Iran's largest telecommunications provider, Telecommunication Company of Iran, which is majority-owned by the Guards, and the Iranian Aluminum Company, according to the paper.

In a signal of the White House's increased attention to Iran's political upheaval, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered over coffee at the State Department this week with four leading Iran scholars and mapped out the current dynamics, The Journal said.

One issue explored was how the United States should respond if Tehran suddenly expressed a desire to reach a compromise on the nuclear issue, the report said.

Clinton asked whether the United States could reach a pact without crippling the prospects for the opposition, according to the paper.

US allies are mixed in their response to the new focus, The Journal said. One senior Arab official said he told State Department officials this week they were deluded if they though Iran was close to experiencing a revolution reminiscent of the Shah's overthrow.

Israel believes only widespread sanctions will effectively upend Tehran's current political leadership, the paper noted.

"Many Israeli experts have concluded that expansive sanctions will widen the schisms between the Iranian government and its people," said The Journal quotes Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren as saying.

Senior US officials stressed this week that President Barack Obama isn't moving toward seeking a regime change as its policy for Iran, the report said.

Rather, Washington remains committed to a dual-track approach of pursuing dialogue aimed at ending Iran's nuclear program while applying increasing financial pressure if the talks fail, The Journal noted.

Source: AFP Global Edition

[winston]

Petraeus: U.S. has plan to deal with Iran's nuclear program

Gen. David Petraeus said he thinks there is still time to engage in diplomacy with Iran.

* Gen. David Petraeus: Contingency plans in place to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions
* Petraeus: No deadline on enactment of any U.S. contingency plans

Tampa, Florida (CNN) -- In addition to diplomacy and sanctions, the United States has developed contingency plans in dealing with Iran's nuclear facilities, a top U.S. military commander told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, did not elaborate on the plans in the interview, to be aired Sunday. But he said the military has considered the impacts of any action taken there.

"It would be almost literally irresponsible if CENTCOM were not to have been thinking about the various 'what ifs' and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies," Petraeus told Amanpour at the command's headquarters in Tampa.

Iran's nuclear program has become a thorn for the United States and its allies, and Washington has sharpened its tone on dealings over Tehran's program. The Islamic republic maintains the program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other Western nations fear Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israel has called Iran's nuclear program the major threat facing its nation.

When asked about rumors that Israel could attack Iran's facilities, Petraeus declined to comment about Israel's military capabilities. But when asked about the vulnerability of the facilities, Petraeus said Iran has strengthened the facilities and has enhanced underground tunnels.

Still, the facilities are not bomb-proof.

"Well, they certainly can be bombed," he said. "The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear."

Iran is holding out on a United Nations-backed deal on its nuclear program that includes enriching uranium. The country had until the end of 2009 to accept the deal offered by the "P5 plus one" -- permanent U.N. Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany. Instead, Iran countered, giving the West until the end of January to accept its own proposal.

The general said he thinks there is still time for the nations to engage Iran in diplomacy, noting there is no deadline on the enactment of any U.S. contingency plans.

He added, however, that "there's a period of time, certainly, before all this might come to a head, if you will."

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast ... index.html

[grandmaster89]

I don't understand why can't Iran (and other countries) arm themselves with nuclear weapons? Isn't it their national rights? The only country which has wielded nuclear missles was the USA in its attack against 2 Japanese cities. If this country could be trusted with a few thousand warheads, surely the rest of nations could be trusted with a few.

Might make Iran and Israel behave a little better as well since each of them know they could mutually destroy each other.