Eye on Iran: Kerry Rules Out Extension of Iran Nuclear Talks

Join UANI           Top Stories WashPost: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in an interview broadcast Sunday that it would be 'impossible' to extend nuclear negotiations with Iran if an agreement on fundamental principles is not reached in the coming weeks. Using more categorical language than he has employed previously, Kerry definitively precluded a third extension to talks with Iran about reducing its ability to make a nuclear bomb or easing sanctions. In November, when no deal could be struck by a self-imposed deadline, a temporary agreement, which had been in place for a year and had been extended once before, was pushed to late June. Kerry said at the time that the major points of agreement would have to be reached by late March. In an interview with NBC's 'Meet the Press,' taped Saturday in Munich where he was attending an international security conference, Kerry appeared to close the door on another extension... 'But if we're not able to make the fundamental decisions that have to be made over the course of the next weeks, literally, I think it would be impossible to extend,' he said. 'I don't think we would want to extend at that point. Either you make the decisions to prove your program is a peaceful one, or if you're unable to do that, it may tell a story that none of us want to hear.'" http://t.uani.com/1zNBO5A WSJ: "A final deal to curb Iran's nuclear program remains elusive after the latest talks, with Tehran refusing to move on a central demand to significantly curtail uranium enrichment, Western officials said Sunday. Iran's lead negotiator, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, got a boost Sunday from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who signaled he could back a compromise accord but would oppose a deal he saw as hurting Iran's interests. Mr. Khamenei is widely seen as the final arbiter of Iran's security policies. With political pressure mounting in Washington and Tehran, Mr. Zarif met this weekend with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other members of the six-power group that Iran negotiates with on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. He said now is the time-and perhaps the last chance-to clinch a final deal... Still, Western officials say that despite Iran's public haste, Tehran isn't offering compromises that would make a deal possible... Since negotiations were extended on Nov. 24, there have been a flurry of meetings, especially between the U.S. and Iranian teams. More are expected in the coming days. Privately, Western diplomats have depicted the talks as advancing technical work needed to underpin an agreement. Officials say they have also produced greater clarity on the kind of trade-offs that could help both sides sell a deal... On the central Western demand that Iran agree to a significant reduction in its current enrichment program for the coming years, one senior Western diplomat said Sunday that Tehran isn't budging. 'I'm pretty pessimistic....Unless the Iranians change their position dramatically,' there is little chance of a deal, the diplomat said... Mr. Zarif, never shy about attacking his domestic or foreign critics, appeared more combative than usual Sunday. He said it would not be the 'end of the world' if talks failed and lambasted U.S. lawmakers." http://t.uani.com/1znTalT AFP: "Iran's supreme leader said Sunday he would rather see talks with world powers over Tehran's nuclear programme fail than reach a 'bad deal', as both sides spoke out against extending the negotiations. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comments came as US Secretary of State John Kerry met Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Germany to ratchet up efforts for a lasting nuclear accord. 'I agree with a deal that can take place but I do not agree with a bad deal,' the Iranian leader said, according to the Khamenei.ir website. 'The Americans keep reiterating that it's better to have no deal than a bad one. I fully agree with that,' he said. 'It's better to have no agreement than one that goes against our national interests.'" http://t.uani.com/1C91HLo     Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "Secretary of State John Kerry stressed to his Iranian counterpart Friday that the US aimed to meet a late March deadline for a deal reining in Iran's nuclear programme. Kerry 'reiterated our desire to move toward a political framework by the end of March', a senior US official said after the secretary met Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for two hours in Munich." http://t.uani.com/1DvRQUq Reuters: "Iran's foreign minister has warned the United States that failure to agree a nuclear deal would likely herald the political demise of pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, Iranian officials said, raising the stakes as the decade-old stand-off nears its end-game. Mohammad Javad Zarif pressed the concern with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at several meetings in recent weeks, according to three senior Iranian officials, who said Iranhad also raised the issue with other Western powers. Zarif's warning has not been previously reported. In a statement posted on the Iranian Foreign Ministry's website, Zarif later denied discussing domestic issues with Western officials. Western officials acknowledged the move may be just a negotiating tactic to persuade them to give more ground, but said they shared the view that Rouhani's political clout would be heavily damaged by the failure of talks... One of the Iranian officials, who also had direct access to the talks, said the Americans were talking in terms of years for the sanctions relief while Iran wanted curbs on oil and banking to be lifted within six months... The United States, officials familiar with the talks say, has already compromised on the issue of how many centrifuges Iran would be allowed to operate... Another Western official said Rouhani appeared to have underestimated the resolve of Washington and Europe to demand limitations on Iranian nuclear activities for a decade or more in exchange for sanctions relief. 'Rouhani thought that by speaking nicely and not calling for Israel's destruction, Western powers would rush to sign a deal, any deal, with Iran,' the official said. 'He miscalculated.'" http://t.uani.com/1vzHeTh WSJ: "Talks between Iran and the United Nations' atomic agency have yielded no significant progress in recent months, although the two sides agreed to step up senior-level dialogue, the agency's head said this weekend. Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference annual meeting... After some initial progress, Iran has offered little new information to the IAEA since May. 'There has not been significant progress,' Mr. Amano told The Wall Street Journal. 'Much more needs to be done' to clarify outstanding issues... Mr. Amano said that for Iran, failing to address the issues thrown up by its past work 'is not an option.'" http://t.uani.com/1KERCuj ISNA (Iran): "Rouhani's Chief of Staff hails national solidarity. Mohammad Nahavandian attributed the administration's progress in the P5+1 nuclear talks to the solidarity of the people and added: 'So far in the negotiations we have witnessed victories that have left the other party with no choice but to accept the reality and acknowledge Iran's right to science and technology in the nuclear field, and to accept the reality that criminal sanctions are ineffective.' 'We hope, thanks to this solidarity, our negotiators in the coming days can make great strides towards a dignified comprehensive agreement that maintains Iran's nuclear rights.'" http://t.uani.com/1FpLeGn Sanctions Relief Tehran Times: "Foreign companies are waiting to pounce on Iran's oil and gas projects once sanctions are lifted. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh says foreign energy companies are waiting to pounce on Iran's oil and gas projects once sanctions are lifted. The Islamic Republic is in talks with the U.S. and the Europeans and they hope to put decades of their standoff over Tehran's nuclear energy program to rest. Zangeneh says numerous negotiations have been held with international entities over the past one and half years over their participation in Iran's oil industry projects. 'These companies are waiting for the sanctions against Iran to be lifted so that they can swiftly sign deals,' the minister told the national television during a live program. 'America and its allies however are trying with all their power to impede our work,' he said. Zangeneh said the Americans even oppose a conference in London to present Iran's oil development projects to multinational companies." http://t.uani.com/1Dcf81g Terrorism Haaretz: "The government of Uruguay officially confirmed reports over the weekend that an Iranian diplomat had left the country after being suspected by Uruguayan security forces of collecting intelligence about the Israeli embassy in Montevideo. Ahmed Sabatgold, 32, a political consultant in the Iranian embassy in Montevideo, was suspected of being involved in placing an explosive device near the new Israeli embassy in early January, the Uruguayan El Observador newspaper reported Sunday. Haaretz reported on Friday that the Uruguayan government had expelled an Iranian diplomat on suspicion of involvement in the attempted bomb attack on the Israeli embassy. The publication caused a great deal of embarrassment in Montevideo, where the government had tried to keep the affair quiet so as not to damage its relations with Tehran." http://t.uani.com/1CaFpeE Iraq Crisis NYT: "At their victory rally, the Shiite militiamen used poetry, song and swagger to sweeten their celebration of an ugly battle. More than a hundred fighters from the militia, the Badr Organization, had been killed in the farms and villages of Diyala Province in recent fighting against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State. During the battle, thousands of residents had been forced from their homes - including Sunni families who accused Shiite paramilitary groups like Badr of forced displacement and summary executions... Speaking at the rally, to an audience that included giddy fighters barely past their teens, the head of the Badr Organization, Hadi al-Ameri, boasted of the towns his men and allied militias had set free. 'These were big operations that others must learn lessons from,' he said. But even as Mr. Ameri was fishing for broad support and recognition, his group stands among the most divisive in Iraq, accused of atrocities against Sunnis and known for its close ties to Iran... Erin Evers, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said it was dangerous for the government to outsource military operations to Badr and other militias in Diyala, a mixed province home to Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Turkmen." http://t.uani.com/1znDIWW Human Rights IranWire: "Human rights activists visited Gouhar Eshghi, the mother of Sattar Beheshti, on February 6. Since her son's death in an Iranian jail in 2012, Gouhar Eshghi has pushed for an investigation into her son's case and spoken regularly to the international community about human rights. One of the activists, Zartosht Ahmadi Ragheb, published these photographs on his Facebook page, with the following text: 'Today, the 17th of Bahman, 1993, a group of political and social activists visited Gouhar Beheshti's house. The mother of resistance and kindness welcomed them with homemade soup. I would like to thank all our friends who stand by this brave and strong woman.'" http://t.uani.com/1A4w4Yo Domestic Politics Al-Monitor: "Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, Shahindokth Molaverdi, criticized the administration's lack of attention to opportunities for women to play an active role in society and her own lack of executive authority to implement changes. At a meeting in Esfahan, speaking to a special working group on women's issues, Molaverdi criticized the administration's Sixth Development Plan, saying, 'In these plans, the religious and legal demands of women ... in getting away from poverty, corruption and discrimination must be considered. The time has come that women must fulfill their share in the ... development prospects.' ... When Molaverdi was asked at the meeting why Rouhani has an adviser for women's affairs but not for men's, she answered, 'Mechanisms for the development of women is one of the 12 concerns of the international community according to a 1995 United Nations report. And as long as Iranian women do not have desirable conditions, but have unjust conditions in comparison to men, this office and similar institutions will continue their activities.' This isn't the first time that Molaverdi has voiced her frustrations with the administration over her working conditions. On Jan 3, Molaverdi said that she felt like her 'feet and hands were tied ... but they want to me race with people who are standing.'" http://t.uani.com/16J7HlH FT: "Plunging oil prices have already undermined Iran's fledgling economic recovery. But another energy issue is also holding back President Hassan Rouhani's attempts to revive the country's underperforming industrial base: a lack of power-generating capacity. 'It is absolutely wrong to think we can achieve economic growth without having sufficient electricity production,' Hamid Chitchian, Iran's energy minister, warned recently. 'The electricity sector has consistently been weakened over the past five years and investment has dramatically decreased.' Decades of heavy government subsidies have left Iran with high levels of energy consumption - per capita consumption of electricity is about 2,160 kilowatt hours compared with 1,300 kWh for neighbouring Iraq. While Iran's energy demands are growing at about 6 per cent a year, growth in capacity is limited to a third of that. The energy ministry admits its depleted power network requires at least 120tn rials ($4.4bn) of investment." http://t.uani.com/1vAaSI2 Foreign Affairs JPost: "The toppling of the Yemeni government by Iranian backed Shi'ite Houthis has upped the ante in the regional sectarian Sunni-Shi'ite struggle. Yemen is perfectly set to become a sectarian war that will see millions more in foreign funds transferred to various proxy forces in the country, as in the case of the ongoing civil war in Syria. Sunni states are likely to dramatically increase support for their brothers in the country, not holding back funds from jihadists and other Islamists, just as has been done in Syria. Iran and its allies in the region are not going to sit by either." http://t.uani.com/1z0AIAN Opinion & Analysis UANI Executive Director David Ibsen & UANI Research Analyst Julie Shain in JPost: "In the coming weeks, Congress is expected to resume consideration of Iran sanctions. In response, US and Iranian officials as well as sanctions opponents are preparing their usual barrage of anti-sanctions rhetoric. Sanctions are a clumsy and violent weapon, they say. They are at once devastating and impotent. And most absurd, they are a form of violent extremism. To support these claims, misleading pronouncements about Iranian sanctions will recirculate. Most have been debunked time and again, but because Iranian officials and their surrogates parade them so persistently, some of the most dubious assertions have managed to masquerade as fact. Take the myth that sanctions have devastated Iran's healthcare system. While this is a widely circulated claim, it is also patently untrue. Sanctions are drafted with broad exemptions for humanitarian goods and services. US sanctions specifically allow for the sale of agricultural commodities, food, medicine and medical devices to Iran. The Iranian regime, on the other hand, cynically restricts public access to drugs and medicine, depriving its citizens of quality healthcare. In fact, Iran's former health minister Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi was fired in 2012 after exposing such corrupt practices. Speaking on state television, Dastjerdi revealed that Iran's Central Bank delivered only $600 million worth of imported medicine and medical supplies out of the $2.5 billion earmarked in Iran's annual budget. The former head of Iran's Central Bank later confirmed Dastjerdi's report, and acknowledged that officials were importing large quantities of cars and luxury goods in place of medicine and other essential products. Iran's government has also placed artificial constraints on the drugs and medicines it does import. One government employee revealed that out of 20 units of medication in government supply, only two are available to the public. The rest are 'reserved' for Iranians with influence or good connections... In concert, critics would have us believe that sanctions starve and devastate the Iranian people by depriving them of food, education and healthcare while failing to affect policy change among regime leaders. The inconvenient truth however is that the Iranian regime's rampant corruption, mismanagement and repression have devastated the Iranian economy and restricted freedoms for millions of Iranians. The targeted and multilateral Iran sanctions regime is an effective non-violent policy tool that has raised the costs of the Iranian regime leadership's ongoing intransience and illicit behavior while complementing US diplomatic efforts. It was after all US Secretary of State John Kerry who stated that 'outreach alone is not a strategy. If diplomacy is to work, it must be backed by the prospect of tough, escalating multilateral sanctions strong enough to actually change behavior.' Absent continued sanctions enforcement and the prospect of additional sanctions measures the Iranian regime will have little incentive to abandon its nuclear program. It is time to cut through the cloud of fictions that surround the Iranian sanctions debate. Targeted international sanctions, coupled with responsible humanitarian exemptions, have effectively and responsibly pressured the Iranian regime. These are the facts of the Iranian sanctions. It is time to discern them from the fictions." http://t.uani.com/1xVlpIb WSJ Editorial: "The ghost of Scoop Jackson is hovering over the Obama Administration's troubles with the Senate and its nuclear negotiations with Iran. Senator Henry M. 'Scoop' Jackson, a respected national-security Democrat from Washington state, was often a thorn in the side of Presidents who were negotiating arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union in the 1970s. President Obama wishes Senate critics such as Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican Bob Corker would simply get their noses out of the deal. This President needs a history lesson: Senate involvement in arms-control agreements goes back at least 50 years. Threatening vetoes of anything the Senate sends him on Iran, President Obama seems to think his job is to negotiate nuclear arms agreements unilaterally, while the Senate's job is to keep its mouth shut. It was never thus. The idea of nuclear-arms agreements negotiated by an Administration with little or no input from Congress is a relatively recent phenomenon. The Clinton Administration unilaterally negotiated the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea to stop its construction of nuclear reactors. The George W. Bush Administration followed, producing five sets of Six-Party Talks with North Korea. They all fell apart because the North Koreans cheated by continuing to test nuclear devices and develop missiles capable of delivering a bomb. The Obama negotiation with Iran is called P5+1, which asks everyone to believe that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, can be trusted to put Iran's nuclear genie to sleep. That arms-control model may appeal to the Nobel Peace Prize committee, but it should not impress U.S. Senators. The Senate's experience with nuclear-arms control dates at least to the Kennedy Presidency in 1963 and the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which emerged after eight years of negotiations with the Soviet Union. Like virtually all Soviet-era arms agreements, that deal was a formal treaty and subject to the Constitution's treaty-making process: The President may commit the U.S. to a treaty with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. The Senate ratified the Kennedy test ban 80-19. With a few exceptions, that public process was followed for decades. The agreements were openly debated by Senators with input, pro and con, by national-security specialists from inside and outside the government... Barack Obama's Iran project is the outlier in the history of arms control. His insistence that no one may interfere in his negotiations has only increased misgivings in Congress about the details. If Mr. Obama were pursuing the traditional route to gain approval of an Iran agreement, exposing it to formal public debate and a vote, there would have been no need for Speaker John Boehner to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress. Details matter. The Defense Intelligence Agency in its annual threat assessment last February said, 'In addition to its growing missile and rocket inventories, Iran is seeking to enhance lethality and effectiveness of existing systems with improvements in accuracy and warhead designs.' Missile delivery systems and warhead design were make-or-break issues during arms agreements with the Soviet Union. In Mr. Obama's negotiations with Iran, they are virtually non-subjects. Senators Menendez, Corker and Mark Kirk have led the effort for more accountability on an Iranian arms deal. President Obama's response is a threat to veto any advice or consent the Senate may enact that doesn't simply assent to whatever he signs. What an irony that his unilateral point man is former Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry. This new Senate needs to re-establish its traditional role in letting the American people know what is in-and what is not in-these deals with the next generation of nations seeking nuclear bombs." http://t.uani.com/1FoN4aq Danielle Pletka in AEI: "The immolation of a Jordanian pilot is only one of many signs of a Middle East collapsing into brutal disorder. Leaders have fallen, civil wars are spreading and terrorism is thriving. It's tempting to yearn for the relative security of years past, when the United States' client dictators kept the region quiet, and to look for another candidate to play the role. Of course, the lore of the old, stable Middle East is more myth than reality - the half-century before the Arab Spring saw multiple governments fall, the rise of Islamist terror, three Arab-Israeli wars and civil wars in Yemen and Lebanon. Still, the allure of the strongman pervades Washington. The latest example is what appears to be the Obama administration's efforts to create a regional compact centered on Iranian power. Few dispute the notion that Iran has designs on the Middle East. Even before the Islamic Revolution, Persia's leaders long aimed - without success - to restore the empire of old. Over the past 36 years, however, the clerical regime has built an army of proxies that have hobbled governments and emerged politically and militarily dominant across the region. Since creating Hezbollah in 1982, Iran has sought to dictate policy in Lebanon. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Tehran, and Hamas is well on its way to becoming the same. With the U.S. retreat from Iraq and the collapse of the Arab Spring, Iranian diktat has spread farther and wider. In Iraq, Revolutionary Guard commanders and Iranian-trained militias are a bulwark of the fight against the Islamic State. In Bahrain, Tehran has sought to transform the downtrodden Shiite majority's demand for rights into an Iranian-armed uprising. And in recent weeks, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have overthrown a Yemeni government vital to the fight against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have both rounded up Iranian agents and detained Iranian-backed terrorists in the past few years. When President Obama initiated talks with Iran on its nuclear program, both he and Iran's leaders insisted they would be limited to the outstanding nuclear dispute. But it soon became clear that Obama had higher hopes and had begun to see the talks as a prism through which to view, and even solve, the region's troubles. The clearest sign of a new attitude was the growing, if tacit, coordination between Washington and Tehran in Iraq. Secretary of State John Kerry lauded Iranian efforts while Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further, declaring, 'Iranian influence will be positive.' Gulf allies in the fight against the Islamic State view Obama's coziness with Iran with trepidation: United Arab Emirates forces have reportedly pulled back from airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, in part because of disagreements with Washington over the growing Iranian role. Even the Iraqi government is privately fretting over Iran's growing domination of Shiite militias... The slow-motion acquiescence to Iran's terms in talks over Tehran's nuclear weapons program is the icing on the cake. If the president's State of the Union threat to veto new Iran sanctions wasn't enough, reports that Washington is now comfortable with Iran keeping most of its current arsenal of 10,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges are a clear sign that change is afoot. On its face, taking the Iranian side in a sectarian war in which the Islamic State stands on the other side may make sense in an enemy-of-my-enemy way. What could be wrong with using Iran to kill the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, even if the price is keeping a few bad guys in power in Damascus or Sanaa? Unfortunately, lots. There is no reason to believe that a Shiite version of the one-stop dictator shop that characterized U.S. diplomacy for much of the 20th century will work any better than the earlier Sunni compact that denied tens of millions their democratic aspirations and paved the way to today's turmoil." http://t.uani.com/191h1CM         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.