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Top Stories
Reuters:
"Iran and world powers blamed each other on Tuesday for the lack of
progress in talks on Tehran's nuclear program, which has dimmed hopes of
a breakthrough to avert the threat of a new Middle East war. On the
second and final day of talks in Moscow, frustration mounted over the
failure to move any closer to ending a decade of negotiations over
Iranian work which the United States and its allies fear is designed for
building nuclear weapons. If talks collapse, nerves could grow on
financial markets over the danger of higher oil prices and conflict in
the Middle East because Israel has threatened to bomb Iranian nuclear
sites if diplomacy fails to stop Tehran getting the bomb. 'We did not
come to Moscow only for discussions. We came to Moscow for a resolution.
But we believe the opposite side is not ready to reach a resolution,' an
Iranian diplomat said... A Western diplomat made clear late on Monday
Iran needed to do more to address proposals made by the six powers at the
last round of talks. 'Our key requirements are: stop, shut and ship,'
said the Western diplomat, who was present at the talks. He was referring
to demands for Iran to stop producing higher-grade uranium, ship any
stockpile out of the country and close down an underground enrichment
facility, Fordow." http://t.uani.com/LBJGw0
AFP:
"Iran and world powers on Tuesday return for what could be the last
day of so far stormy negotiations aimed at putting a peaceful halt to the
Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear drive. Western officials said their
patience was running out with Iran as its enrichment capabilities
developed and the danger of it starting to produce material that could be
made into nuclear weapons grew. 'If there are signs of progress that they
want to move things forward, then we would do that,' an EU official said
in reference to a possible fourth round of negotiations at a future date.
But 'we have to wait and see whether they come back with a positive
attitude toward our proposals,' the EU official added. 'It is not in our
interests to stall.'" http://t.uani.com/MmclYK
AP:
"Iran became more adamant Monday that the world must ease the
sanctions choking off its oil sales before it will curb activities that
could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said. But with six world
powers insisting that Tehran take the first conciliatory step, fears grew
that talks in Moscow would fail. The diplomats said the Islamic Republic
had asked the six world powers it is meeting to talk about 'comprehensive
sanctions relief,' along with any consideration of their request that
Tehran stop enriching uranium to a level just steps away from the purity
needed to arm nuclear missiles. But the six world powers - the United
States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - insist that any
lessening of sanctions can come only after Tehran curbs that kind of
enrichment, and the first of two days of talks ended Monday on a downbeat
note." http://t.uani.com/NMKgvR
Nuclear
Program
LAT:
"Russian diplomats have offered 'ideas' that may breathe life into
the sputtering international talks over Iran's nuclear program, an
Iranian official said Tuesday. The official, a member of the Iranian
delegation to the international discussions underway here, said the
Russian ideas might be able to narrow differences between Iran and six
leading world powers negotiating with Tehran on acceptable limits on the
nuclear program. The official said the Russian offerings were not formal
proposals, but only 'ideas.' A second Iranian official described the
Russian ideas as preliminary. The yawning gaps between the sides were
apparent Monday when Iran's chief negotiator harshly criticized the six
powers' proposal in a lengthy session. Yet all the powers have reasons to
want to avoid a breakdown in the talks, and many analysts believe the
most likely result of this gathering is another, later meeting to
continue the inconclusive discussions." http://t.uani.com/MrREGJ
Guardian:
"In the run-up to this third round of talks on Iran's nuclear
programme, Tehran's point man, Saeed Jalili, was asked to respond to an
international confidence-building proposal and to clarify Iran's
negotiating position. This he undoubtedly did in Moscow, and used a
projector and a PowerPoint presentation to press his case. But the new
technology and clarity simply revealed the gulf between Iran and its
negotiating partners. Last month in Baghdad, the Iranians claimed they
had presented a five-point plan but nobody on the other side of the table
(US, Russia, China, UK, France, Germany and the EU) were quite sure what
the five points were, such was the opacity of Jalili's use of language.
This time he spelled out the Iranian position at length and in detail. The
five Iranian five points are (according to participants in the
talks)..." http://t.uani.com/KJDNC3
Wired:
"The manager of Venezuela's drone program is an engineer who helped
build ballistic missiles for Iran. The engineer's identity raises new
questions about the purposes behind Venezuela's drone program. But it's
also only one part of a mystery involving drones shipped from Iran to
Venezuela while hidden in secret cargo containing possibly more military
hardware than just 'bots. According to El Nuevo Herald, the
Spanish-language sister paper of The Miami Herald, US officials believe
Iran shipped drones to Venezuela hidden in cargo containers. The date and
specific port are not known, but Venezuela only received six drones - in
a shipment of 70 containers carrying each more than 24,000 pounds of
cargo. The cargo was camouflaged as material 'from Venirauto
(Venezuelan-Iranian Automotive) through a Chilean company,' a source told
the newspaper. The containers were headed for a Venezuelan air base and
the location for the M2 drone project, named after the Mohajer, a light
surveillance drone manufactured by Iran. The supervisor, Ramin Keshavarz,
is member of the Revolutionary Guards and former employee of Iran's
Defense Industry Organization, a firm embargoed by the United States for
overseeing Iran's ballistic missile program. The stealthy cargo, the
Iranian missile engineer, and more than a million pounds of unaccounted
weight, was not all. 'Excessively high' amounts of money are paid for the
drone program, much higher than the total cost of the 'bots." http://t.uani.com/Mpi8ea
Sanctions
Bloomberg:
"Europe's sanctions on insurance for Iranian oil shipments won't be
lifted or suspended as Asian importers look to governments to cover
cargoes. Insuring ships carrying crude from the Persian Gulf country will
be banned when the European Union's embargo takes effect July 1, Michael
Mann, foreign-policy spokesman for the 27-nation bloc, said today in
Moscow. The rules apply to 95 percent of the world's tankers because
they're covered by the 13 members of the London-based International Group
of P&I Clubs." http://t.uani.com/Mm6YZz
Reuters:
"India's Bharat Petroleum Corp has made its first payment for
Iranian oil in rupees, two industry sources said on Tuesday, becoming the
first refiner to use a payment channel that skirts tightening Western
sanctions on Iran's trade. India is Iran's second-largest oil buyer, but
has struggled to find ways to pay for the oil as Western sanctions curb
international financial payments destined for Tehran's coffers. Since
December 2010, refiners in India have been using Turkey's Halkbank to pay
their annual oil import bill of more than $10 billion, after a previous
payment channel was blocked. Tehran and New Delhi agreed in January to
settle 45 percent of the oil trade in rupees to ensure payments continue
should any problem arise with the Halkbank agreement, and also as a way
to encourage more exports from India to Iran that could be settled in
rupees. 'BPCL made (its) first payment on Friday and the second on
Saturday. It has settled a backlog of 27 billion rupees for last fiscal
year's imports,' said one of the source familiar with the development.
The figure is equivalent to $482.19 million." http://t.uani.com/KxeSQW
Reuters:
"Iran's Bank Pasargad has applied for a license to operate in
Turkey, a banking sector official told Reuters on Monday, but its bid was
seen having little chance of success given global efforts to isolate
Tehran over its nuclear program. Pasargad's move is a fresh sign of the
strengthening commercial ties between the neighboring countries in recent
years but coincides with growing U.S. pressure on Turkey and other
countries to curb oil purchases from Iran. Turkish media reported at the
weekend that three Iranian banks, including Pasargad and Bank Tejerat,
had applied to the Turkish banking watchdog for a banking license. A
Turkish banking sector official said only Bank Pasargad had applied
recently to the BDDK banking regulator, doing so around 20 days
ago." http://t.uani.com/MaF9kB
Terrorism
Guardian:
"A multinational investigation into bomb plots targeting Israeli
diplomats earlier this year has produced the clearest evidence yet that
Iran was involved, illustrating the risks to the west if it fails to
reach detente with Tehran over its nuclear weapons programme. Talks on
Iran's nuclear aspirations resume in Moscow on Monday, and western
intelligence officials have told the Guardian the price of failure could
be high. With Israel refusing to rule out military action if diplomacy
fails, intelligence officials fear the volley of attacks carried out by
Iranian operatives show Tehran is capable of an asymmetric response.
Though the officials admit that predictions are extremely difficult to
make, their concerns are based on investigations into plots against
Israeli diplomats in India, Thailand and Georgia in February which point
to the involvement of Iran. In India, local agencies told ministers a
bomb attack which badly injured the wife of the Israeli military attaché
in New Delhi in February was the work of an Iranian 'security entity'.
Their conclusions have not previously been made public and Indian
officials have made significant efforts to avoid blaming Tehran, an ally
and oil supplier." http://t.uani.com/KQCZqj
Guardian:
"The attack was one of three incidents over a 36-hour period that
had taken at least 10 months to plan. On the day of the Delhi bombing -
which involved a device the size of a large smartphone stuck to the side
of the diplomatic car with magnetic strips - a second bomb was found
attached to an Israeli diplomat's vehicle in Tbilisi, Georgia. The day
after, an explosion destroyed much of a house in a lane off the central
Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok. A 28-year-old Iranian stumbled out and threw
makeshift grenades at taxi drivers and police, before collapsing, badly
injured. It did not take long for Iran to be blamed." http://t.uani.com/Livc7q
Human Rights
Al Arabiya:
"Iran executed on Monday three brothers from the Ahwazi Arab
community who were detained in April 2011 and were later sentenced to
death for allegedly killing a law enforcement official, a charge
dismissed by international rights groups as false. The Brothers -Abdul
Rahman Heidari, Taha Heidari and Jamshid Heidari - were reportedly
detained together with their cousin Mansour Heidari and Amir Muawi during
the unrest in the Khuzestan province. Ahmad Haidaran, a relative of the
three brothers who currently lives in Turkey as a refugee, told Al
Arabiya that his family from Ahwaz informed him of the executions." http://t.uani.com/LbVEBA
Opinion &
Analysis
Jamie Fly &
William Kristol in The Weekly Standard: "Two years
ago, we wrote in these pages that we were entering with respect to Iran
what Winston Churchill called in 1936 a 'period of consequences,' in
which 'the era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and
baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close.' And so it finally
is. The Obama administration has remained committed to procrastination
and half-measures, to soothing and baffling expedients. But even friends
of the administration now acknowledge the obvious: After all the
diplomatic efforts and attempts at various forms of economic pressure,
Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapons capability, with a new
enrichment facility, thousands more centrifuges spinning, and enough
enriched uranium to produce five nuclear weapons. The last year has also
witnessed a foiled Iranian plot to assassinate U.S. diplomats and their
families in Azerbaijan, attempts to kill Israeli diplomats in the
Republic of Georgia, Thailand, and India, and a plot to kill the Saudi
ambassador (and American bystanders) at a Washington, D.C., restaurant.
As we have shamefully dithered for more than a year, Iran has sent
weapons, troops, and money to support its brutal ally Bashar al-Assad in
Syria. All of this is, of course, in addition to years of Iranian
complicity in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. This
record of Iranian murder and mayhem is the reality of our failed Iran
policy-a policy, to be fair, that began under the Bush administration.
President Obama sometimes seems committed to ending the era of
procrastination. He said in March that U.S. policy 'is not going to be
one of containment... My policy is prevention of Iran obtaining nuclear
weapons.' Since that tough talk, however, he and his top advisers have
temporized-claiming that Iran is increasingly isolated and on the ropes,
insisting that there is time for negotiations and sanctions to work
because Iranian leaders have not yet made the decision to weaponize,
arguing that 'loose talk of war' only serves to strengthen Iran's hand,
and his administration hints that covert activities against Iran can
effectively substitute for real action. But Iran's nuclear progress
marches on. That fact trumps all the administration's hopes and wishes
and theories. Facts are stubborn things, and so is the Iranian nuclear
program. No one seriously believes the talks set to resume shortly in
Moscow will stop Iranian nuclear progress. Indeed, the talks look
increasingly like the farcical diplomatic process pursued by the Bush and
Obama administrations with respect to Iran's friend, North Korea, a
'process' that has resulted in a growing nuclear stockpile in that
country and a series of unanswered North Korean provocations. But Iran is
much more dangerous than North Korea. And while it may serve President
Obama's short-term political interests to avoid taking action against
Tehran this year, it doesn't serve the nation's." http://t.uani.com/KJCyTw
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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