Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Eye on Iran: Iran Seen Needing Big Steps for Final Deal








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Top Stories

WSJ: "Iran would have to remove 15,000 centrifuge machines and take other drastic measures to forge a comprehensive nuclear agreement with the West, according to a report by a U.S. think tank that drew from conversations with senior U.S. officials. The steps required to preclude Tehran's ability to develop nuclear weapons illustrate the challenge the U.S. and other world powers will face in moving over the next six months from an interim deal to a final one. In addition to removing the thousands of centrifuges that enrich uranium, Iran would have to shut down an underground uranium-enrichment site, convert a heavy water reactor and agree to a 20-year inspections regime, according to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington. The findings were provided exclusively to The Wall Street Journal... The institute's prescriptions aren't viewed as particularly harsh or hard-line. The report accepts that Iran will maintain some ability to continue producing nuclear fuel as part of a final agreement through the enrichment of uranium at low levels for civilian use... David Albright, who heads the think tank, is a former U.N. weapons inspector who has advised the administration on arms control. He said the study was developed by independent research and through extensive discussions in recent months with Obama administration officials working on the Iran file. 'Our requirements are a far cry from what Iran wants. The negotiations are going to be really tough,' said Mr. Albright. 'We don't see ourselves as sketching an extreme case, however.' Mr. Albright said the report is based on a formula that would ensure Iran would need six months to a year to build a nuclear weapon if it decided to break off its cooperation with the West and the IAEA." http://t.uani.com/1e9V4N0

WSJ: "The United Nations, under intense pressure from the U.S. and other countries, withdrew an invitation to Iran to participate in a Syria peace conference this week, a diplomatic bungle that muddied international efforts to end the civil war. The bruising international face-off over Iran's participation came just two days before world powers gather in Switzerland for a long-awaited conference aimed at finding a way out of the nearly three-year conflict that has claimed more than 100,000 lives... Senior U.S. officials on Monday said they were committed to keeping negotiations over Iran's nuclear program apart from efforts to end Tehran's support for Mr. Assad's government. 'The discussions of whether Iran should be invited...are entirely a separate issue from whether and how we are moving forward on stopping the Iranian nuclear weapons program,' said an American diplomat... Mr. Ban's invitation to Iran risked scuttling the conference in Switzerland. The main opposition umbrella group quickly announced on Monday morning that it would boycott the conference if Iran were allowed to attend. The group accuses Tehran of being virtually the only reason Mr. Assad has remained in power because it has provided extensive arms, cash and fighters... U.S. officials also bristled on Monday morning over the idea of Iran attending. They described a rogue Iranian regime in ways very different from how American diplomats have depicted their Iranian counterparts taking part in the nuclear negotiations. 'They are actually escalating problems on the ground. They have sent in their own uniformed military personnel, Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces,' said another senior U.S. official working on Syria. 'They are doing nothing to de-escalate tensions and sectarian tensions in particular.'" http://t.uani.com/1hIP4Py

Bloomberg: "Importers of Iranian crude kept purchases little changed in December, the month after world powers agreed to relax some sanctions against the Persian Gulf state as part of an accord to curb its nuclear program, the International Energy Agency said. Buyer countries received 1.15 million barrels a day last month, compared with an upwardly revised 1.1 million barrels in November, the IEA, a Paris-based adviser to 28 nations, said in an e-mailed report today. Most shipments that arrived at Asian ports in December would have left Iran in the prior month. The deal to curb some sanctions was reached in principle on Nov. 23 and took effect yesterday... The estimate for Iranian shipments in November given today by the IEA was raised 29 percent from its Dec. 11 report. The agency calculates shipments from governments' submissions and statistics, customs agencies, tanker tracking and news reports." http://t.uani.com/1kTQ341
   
Nuclear Program & Negotiations

Al-Monitor: "A third senior US official who spoke to reporters on Monday said that Iran has pledged to cap its stockpile of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride gas at 7,650 kilograms (8.4 tons) - apparently the amount Iran had on hand as of Jan. 20. While Iran is allowed to continue to enrich uranium to 5% over the next six months, any additional stockpile is supposed to be converted into a powder form that cannot be reinserted into centrifuges for enrichment. David Albright, a former IAEA inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, told Al-Monitor that Iran does not yet have operational a facility to convert excess enriched uranium into powder. An IAEA spokesperson confirmed this but said it was not yet a concern and that Iran had time to get the facility up and running... Albright said he was satisfied with the interim deal, but 'the real battle is coming up. It's going to be extremely tough to reach a comprehensive agreement.' According to Albright, the US government would like to reduce Iran's operating centrifuges from about 10,000 to 5,000, while Iran wants to keep its current inventory, including 8,000 centrifuges installed but not running. Washington also wants constraints to remain in effect for 20 years, Albright said, while Iran has said privately that it would agree to at most 10 years and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has spoken publicly of a period of only three to five years." http://t.uani.com/1aHIGD7

Military Matters

AP: "Two Iranian warships set sail Tuesday for the Atlantic Ocean on their navy's first-ever mission there, state TV reported. The report said that the destroyer Sabalan and the logistic helicopter carrier Khark will be dispatched on a three-month voyage. 'The warships will have task of securing shipping routes as well as training new personnel,' the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Iran's navy chief Admiral Habibollah Sayyari as saying. The voyage comes amid an ongoing push by Iran to demonstrate the ability to project power across the Middle East and beyond." http://t.uani.com/1fVFlbc

Sanctions Relief

Reuters: "The United States has followed through on promised sanctions relief for Iran covering oil exports, trade in precious metals and automotive services as part of a nuclear agreement that began taking effect on Monday, U.S. officials said... 'At the same time, we will continue our aggressive enforcement of the sanctions measures that will remain in place throughout this six-month period,' White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement... 'While the positive economic impact on Iran will go beyond this relief, as foreign investors are rushing in, our leverage over Iran shrinks,' said Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives' foreign affairs committee. 'Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear program continues,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1aHF2cq

AFP: "The European Union suspended a range of sanctions against Iran on Monday after Tehran began implementing a deal to curb its nuclear programme, the EU said. 'As part of the implementation of the Joint Plan of Action agreed by Iran and the E3/EU+3, which enters into force today, the Council today suspended certain EU restrictive measures against Iran for a period of six months,' a statement said. This six month period 'may be prolonged by mutual consent,' it noted... The new measures notably include the suspension of a 2012 ban on insuring and transporting Iranian crude oil that contributed to a more than 50 percent drop in Tehran's oil exports. European insurers up until then had accounted for 90 percent of coverage for deliveries of Iranian oil anywhere in the world. The EU also will suspend bans on trade in gold, precious metals and petrochemical products while increasing a ceiling on financial transfers not related to remaining sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1aHFsQ2

LAT: "The formal start of the landmark deal to restrain Iran's nuclear program drew clashing statements from Iran and the Obama administration about how much of a boost the temporary accord would give Iran's battered economy. Iran's leaders, eager to sell the temporary accord to their population, said the agreement would open the way to a surge of trade and investment. U.S. officials, facing criticism that the deal is too lenient, insisted that the temporary sanctions relief was chicken feed and that crippling restrictions on Iran's economy remain. Following implementation of the deal, 'the window of opportunity for Iran's trade with Europe will increase tenfold,' Abbas Araqchi, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, told the semi-official Islamic Republic News Agency. 'The private sector of Iran will have a great share of trade with the European Union.' Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's nuclear agency, said the deal was a victory on two key points, because it marked the beginning of the end of sanctions while allowing Iran to continue low-level nuclear enrichment. 'The iceberg of sanctions is melting while our centrifuges are also still working,' he said on state television. 'This is our greatest achievement.'" http://t.uani.com/1aHIbJ3

Reuters: "Japan's main private ship insurer, the Japan P&I Club, said it has resumed normal coverage for tankers carrying Iranian oil, a step in easing imports in line with U.S. and EU moves as relations with Tehran thaw. Japan oil buyers were the hardest hit by the shipping insurance limits in Western sanctions because they chose to continue to use Japanese tankers for deliveries. India, South Korea, and China, at least partially, all began relying on Iranian shippers and insurance providers for their oil deliveries from Tehran. The international P&I club, of which JPI is a member, resumed normal coverage of $7.6 billion per ship, including $1 billion for oil spills, on Monday as European Union reinsurance became available again for the first time since mid-2012, a JPI official said. That means Japanese buyers of Iranian oil will not have to rely on Tokyo's sovereign scheme to provide the same level of liability coverage for tankers carrying the crude... Japan's imports of Iranian oil in January-November 2013 fell by 4.6 percent from a year earlier to 178,539 barrels per day (bpd), trade ministry data showed last month." http://t.uani.com/1e9W5on

Reuters: "Iran's first chance to unveil new oil and gas investment opportunities to Western oil companies - a widely anticipated London conference - has been delayed until November from early April, industry sources said on Tuesday. Tehran wants Western oil companies to revive its giant ageing oilfields and develop new oil and gas fields once sanctions are lifted and is improving its oil investment contract in order to lure them in... Tehran's leading contract negotiator Mehdi Hosseini told Reuters in December that the London conference would offer international oil companies the first opportunity to see Tehran's more attractive commercial terms. The conference organiser was not immediately available to comment on the reason behind the delay." http://t.uani.com/1hdHA6a

Bloomberg: "Iran's national currency appreciated to 29,000 rials to the dollar, compared to 29,450 two days ago, according to figures compiled by Daily Rates for Gold Coins & Foreign Currencies, a Facebook page used by traders and companies in Iran and abroad." http://t.uani.com/1aHHxLM

Sanctions Enforcement & Impact

AFP: "Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday said Ottowa's sanctions on Iran would remain 'fully in place' as an interim nuclear deal between world powers and Tehran took effect. 'We truly hope that it is possible to walk the Iranian government back from taking the irreversible step of manufacturing nuclear weapons,' Harper said in an address to the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem. 'But for now, Canada's own sanctions will remain fully in place. Should our hopes not be realised, should the present agreement prove ephemeral, Canada will be a strong voice in the world for renewed sanctions,' he added." http://t.uani.com/1bfJqiJ

Reuters: "China's daily Iranian crude oil imports fell 2.2 percent to 428,840 barrels per day in 2013, a smaller-than-expected drop than previously forecast due to imports of condensate by an independent firm... Tuesday's customs data showed that China's December crude imports from Iran fell 14.5 percent from a year earlier to 507,707 bpd. For the whole of 2013, China - Tehran's top oil client and trading partner - imported 21.442 million tonnes of Iranian crude, or 428,840 bpd, data from the General Administration of Customs showed. That compared with around 27.76 million tonnes, or an average of 555,200 bpd in 2011, prior to the latest rounds of toughened sanctions. December's was down 5.7 percent versus November and the fourth highest daily rate last year, supporting indications that top refiner Sinopec Corp had increased liftings since November to top up cuts in previous months. The cut for the whole of last year was below the 5-10 percent estimated by Chinese oil officials in late 2012, after independently-run petrochemical firm, Dragon Aromatics, had since the second half of 2013 shipped in Iran condensate, a light crude oil as feedstock." http://t.uani.com/1ijiUgo

WSJ: "A Saudi-based food company that has done well for itself in sanctions-era Iran experienced the downside of investments there this week, when Iran's double-digit inflation ate into Savola Group's earnings. Savola, which makes cooking oil and other staple foods in markets around the Middle East and North Africa, reported a $150 million net profit for the quarter ended December 31, missing most analyst expectations of around $170 million. The company generates about 15% of total revenue from its business in Iran, pointed out NCB Capital's Farouk Miah, making that country one of its most important overseas market." http://t.uani.com/1ijhUIX

Syria Conflict

Reuters: "A Syrian military police photographer has supplied 'clear evidence' showing the systematic torture and killing of about 11,000 detainees in circumstances that evoked Nazi death camps, former war crimes prosecutors said. Syrian officials could face war crimes charges as a result of the evidence provided by the photographer, who has defected, the three prosecutors said. One of the prosecutors said the evidence documented 'industrial scale killing' that was reminiscent of the World War II concentration camps of Belsen and Auschwitz... 55,000 images provided by the photographer, who fled Syria after passing the pictures to Assad's opponents, show emaciated and mutilated corpses. Bearing signs of torture, some of the corpses had no eyes. Others showed signs of strangulation or electrocution. 'There is clear evidence, capable of being believed by a tribunal of fact in a court of law, of systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government,' the three prosecutors said in the 31-page report." http://t.uani.com/1f8PMmZ

Domestic Politics


WashPost: "Iranian opponents of the deal stepped up their denunciations of what they are calling their country's capitulation to Western demands. Vatan-e Emrooz, a newspaper closely associated with conservatives, printed Monday's edition in all-black type and dedicated it to coverage of what it called Iran's 'nuclear holocaust.' 'What we have given up is not only incomparable with what we have received, but much less significant than can be called a win-win situation,' wrote Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor in chief of Kayhan, a newspaper often referred to as the mouthpiece for the most conservative members of Iran's political establishment. Criticism of the deal was not unexpected, but opponents of Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, and his administration's nuclear outreach had been uncharacteristically quiet until now. Ahmad Tavakoli, a prominent conservative member of parliament, told fellow lawmakers Monday that there were two main problems with the nuclear deal. 'First of all, there are so many discrepancies in the text of the agreement that we can hardly be hopeful that our national interests will ever materialize. Second, as officials, we must not reveal our weak points in a way that our enemies can exploit them,' Tavakoli said." http://t.uani.com/1anaNgf

Foreign Affairs


Al-Monitor: "Khamenei said that the enemy has been working to make the Islamic world neglect Palestine by 'creating differences, promoting extremism and deviations in the name of Islam, religion and Sharia and have a number of Muslims declare the majority of Muslims apostates.' He continued, 'The existence of these takfiri movements in the Islamic world ... has been good news for the arrogance and enemies of Islam.' ... Khamenei said of the takfiri groups, 'Instead of focusing on the reality of the wicked Zionist regime,' they draw focus to other places... Support of takfiri groups comes from the 'arrogance,' Khamenei said. The term 'arrogance' is a religious one, but it often is used to refer to Western countries and Israel." http://t.uani.com/19KLAf4

Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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