Iran Nuclear Briefing: April 30, 2006 Morning
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani attends a talk at Sharif university in Tehran April 30, 2006. Iran on Sunday suggested there could still be life in failed uranium enrichment negotiations with Russia, as Tehran edged closer to a legally-binding U.N. Security Council demand that it halt all atomic fuel work.
ASSociated Press: Iran: Inspections OK if Dossier Returned
Iran said on Saturday it would allow United Nations inspectors to resume snap inspections of its nuclear facilities, but only if the dispute again went before the U.N. nuclear monitor.
The White House rejected the offer, which apparently came as Iran sought to avoid a full-blown
U.N. Security Council debate over sanctions.“Today’s statement does not change our position that the Iranian government must give up its nuclear ambitions, nor does it affect our decision to move forward to the United Nations Security Council,” White House spokesman Blaine Rethmeier said.
Russia, which has steadfastly opposed possible sanctions against Iran, joined the international chorus in telling Iran it must stop nuclear enrichment.
ASSociated Press: Rice Says Iran Playing Games With Offer
The United States rejects Iran’s offer to allow a watchdog agency to inspect the country’s nuclear facilities and will press ahead for U.N. penalties against Tehran, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.“They’ve had plenty of time to cooperate. I think they’re playing games,” Rice said.
Iran on Saturday offered to allow inspections to resume if the Security Council turned over the dispute to the U.N. nuclear monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
A report from the IAEA confirmed that Iran had successfully produced enriched uranium and defied the Security Council’s Friday deadline to stop the process.
Rice said the offer to resume IAEA inspections suggests the Iranians “are indeed somewhat concerned” about actions the Security Council might take to further isolate Iran.
Her remarks contrasted with comments from her predecessor at the State Department,
Colin Powell, who said in an interview broadcast Sunday in London that Iran seems to “have pretty much decided they can accept whatever sanctions are coming their way.”
Regardless, Rice said the U.S. probably would seek a U.N. resolution that would require Iran to comply with demands that it stop enriching uranium. Rice mentioned a resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which means it can be enforced through penalties or military action.“The international community’s credibility is at stake here,” she told ABC’s “This Week.”
“And we have a choice, too. We can either mean what we say, when we say that Iran must comply, or we can continue to allow Iran to defy.”
Washington Post: EU and US strike different tones on Iran
The United States and the European Union struck different tones on Saturday on how to respond to Iran’s nuclear defiance while insisting they were in full agreement.
Speaking at a transatlantic conference, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said no one was considering military action over Tehran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment and Europe did not want to join a “coalition of the willing” against Iran.
Influential U.S. Senator John McCain told the Brussels Forum in a speech on Friday night: “There is only one thing worse than military action, and that is a nuclear-armed Iran.”
He said the United States would not stand by and let Iran wipe out Israel, as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had called for.
Wall Street Journal: Iran Fails to Meet Nuclear Demands, U.N. Says
U.S., Europe Plan to Press Case With Security Council, But Sanctions Seem on Hold
A new United Nations report says Iran is defying demands that it halt sensitive nuclear activities and allay suspicions about its suspected weapons ambitions, but any serious discussion of international sanctions may still be months away.
Nervousness about the brewing crisis drove crude-oil-futures prices up 91 cents Friday to $71.88 a barrel.
U.S. and European officials said they now would press the U.N. Security Council to swiftly pass a Chapter VII resolution, citing Iran’s actions as “a threat to international peace and security” and making its compliance mandatory. But officials said that, to avoid near-certain vetoes from Russia and China, the resolution wouldn’t threaten Iran with any immediate punishment.
“Neither China nor Russia wants” Iran to develop a nuclear capability, “but they’re not at the point of agreeing to sanctions,” Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph said in an interview Friday. “That’s clearly where we need to move this.”
• Text of the April 28 IAEA report
• Oil Minister Asserts Iran Won’t Cut Exports
04/26/06• U.N. Security Council Drafts Iran Statement
03/30/06
NewsMax: U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Report Slams Iran
A report released Friday to the U.N. Security Council from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna detailed Iran’s failure to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear agency and paved the way for Security Council action against Iran.
A copy of the 8-page report, obtained by Newsmax, found that Iran had failed to comply with the March 28 Security Council “presidential statement” that gave Iran a 30-day deadline to halt all uranium enrichment activities.
Tehran reacted predictably by dismissing the report and the threat of U.N. action: “The Iranian nation won’t give a damn about such useless resolutions,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd in northwestern Iran.
Highlights from the latest IAEA report:
Iran continues to refuse to provide documents relating to a 1987 offer by an intermediary for the A.Q. Khan nuclear black market network for centrifuge enrichment equipment. “The document related to the possible supply of: a disassembled centrifuge; drawings, specifications and calculations for a “complete plant”; and materials for 2000 centrifuge machines,” the report states. The document also made reference to “uranium re-conversion and casting capabilities,” which can be used for manufacturing nuclear weapons cores. Iran also refuses to provide “any documentation or other information about the meetings that led to its acquistion of 500 sets of P-1 centrifuge components in the mid-1990s” from the Khan network. Iran claims it never any of the centrifuges obtained from the black market network. Iran continues to stonewall the agency on its success in manufacturing the more advanced P-2 centrifuge in Iran, despite recent claims in the press by “high level Iranian officials concerning R&D and testing of P-2 centrifuges in Iran.” Iran continues to refuse IAEA demands that it provide a complete copy of a 15-page technical document received from the Khan network that describes uranium casting and manufacturing proceses of “hemispherical” shapes of highly-enriched uranium. Officials acknowledge there is no other purpose of HEU hemispheres other than as bomb cores. Iran continues work on a Plutonium-breeder reactor in Arak, despite an IAEA demand that it suspend work on the project until full safeguards can be applied. Iran refused AEA demands to provide information relating to the “Green Salt Project,” a secret, parallel program to make nuclear materials exempt from IAEA inspections. In addition, “Iran has yet to address the other topics of high explosives testing and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle.” Earlier IAEA reports and information from Western diplomats indicated that the re-entry vehicle had been specially designed to carry a nuclear warhead.While the low-key IAEA report was both factual and technical, its political implications were immediately clear.”We are ready to take action in the Security Council,” U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told reporters in New York. “We’re concerned about Iran’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.”
Asharq Alawsat:Iran’s Secret Plan if Attacked by US Codenamed “Judgement Day”Â
Eight fundamentalist Islamist organizations have received large sums of money in the last month from the Iranian intelligence services, as part of a project to strike U.S military and economic installations across the Middle East Asharq Al-Awsat has learned.The plan, which also includes the carrying out of suicide operations targeting US and British interests in the region, as well as their Arab and Muslim allies, in case Iran is attacked, was drawn up by a number of experts guerilla warfare and terrorist operations, and was revealed by a senior source in the Iranian armed forces’ joint chief of staff headed by the veterinary doctor Hassan Firouzabadi,
The source added that the forces of the Revolutionary Guards’ al Quds Brigades, under Brigadier General Qassim Suleimani is responsible for coordinating and providing logistical support for the groups taking part in the execution of the plan, codenamed al Qiyamah the Islamic word for “Judgment Day”.
The plan includes three steps, which Asharq al Awsat has examined in earlier reports. The source gave more details about how the plan will be implemented. He said, “Most of Iran’s visitors in the last four months, including the leaders of revolutionary groups in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the heads of Hezbollah cells in the Persian Gulf and Europe and North America were asked, when they met with the Iranian intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei and his aides: are you ready to defend the Islamic revolution and vilayat e faqih? If you agree to take part in the great jihad, what would you need to be ready for the great fight?
According to Iran, the latest military plan includes:
1- A missile strike directly targeting the US bases in the Persian Gulf and Iraq , as soon as nuclear installations are hit.
2- Suicide operations in a number of Arab and Muslim countries against US embassies and missions and US military bases and economic and oil installations related to US and British companies. The campaign might also target the economic and military installations of countries allied with the United States .
3- Launch attacks by the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi fighters loyal to Iran against US and British forces in Iraq , from border regions in central and southern Iraq .
4- Hezbollah to launch hundreds of rockets against military and economic targets in Israel .
According to the source, in case the US military attacks continue, more than 50 Shehab-3 missiles will be targeted against Israel and the al Quads Brigades will give the go-ahead for more than 50 terrorists cells in Canada, the US and Europe to attack civil and industrial targets in these countries.
What about the last stage in the plan?
Here, the Iranian source hesitated before saying with worry; this stage might represent the beginning of a world war, given that extremists will seek to maximize civilian casualties by exploding germ and chemical bombs as well as dirty nuclear bombs across western and Arab cities.
The Guardian: Scathing nuclear report as US brands Iran enemy No 1
The US administration branded Iran public enemy number one, calling it one of the world’s most active sponsors of terrorism, as the UN nuclear inspectors revealed that Tehran has successfully enriched uranium and is racing ahead with its nuclear programme.
AFP: Iran says digging in for confrontation over nuclear programme
Iran has said it was digging in for a confrontation with the West over its disputed nuclear programme, vowing that neither UN Security Council resolutions nor US military action could force a climbdown.
“We will not accept any forced resolution,” Iran’s top national security official Ali Larijani told students at Tehran’s Sharif University Sunday, the most prestigious scientific faculty in the Islamic republic.
Drawing loud applause, he asserted the country’s bid to master sensitive nuclear technology — for peaceful purposes and not weapons as the United States alleges — was “a strategic objective”.
“We will use any means to achieve that objective,” he said. “Our programme is to continue research and development in enrichment and to have the nuclear fuel cycle.”
“We are ready for all scenarios. The government has set up a committee and has thought about all scenarios. If the situation becomes a military one, we have thought about that too,” Larijani said.
AFP: Iran cannot be forced to halt nuclear programme: Larijani
Iran cannot be forced to halt its disputed nuclear programme and will defy any UN Security Council resolution demanding a freeze of uranium enrichment, the country’s top national security official has said.
“We will not accept any forced resolution,” Ali Larijani told a group of students at Tehran’s Sharif University, the Islamic republic’s most prestigious scientific faculty.
“They should not think they can make us happy with sweets. Iran is allergic to the terms of the suspension. Our programme is to continue research and development in enrichment and to have the nuclear fuel cycle,” he said Sunday.
“If they want to pressure us, our reaction will be to revise our relations with the IAEA,” he said, referring to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. “The ball is in their court.”
Indeed, the ball is in President Bush’s court.
Look for measured United Nations Security Council Chapter 7 resolutions and a vote which will be vetoed by Russia and/or China.
The United States and some of its European partners will then impose their own sanctions while intelligence operations and war planning continues.
Stay tuned……
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