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Times of Israel:
"Iran will begin using its latest generation IR-8 centrifuges as
soon as its nuclear deal with the world powers goes into effect, Iran's
foreign minister and nuclear chief told members of parliament on Tuesday,
according to Iran's semi-official FARS news agency... If accurate, the
report makes a mockery of the world powers' much-hailed framework
agreement with Iran, since such a move clearly breaches the US-published
terms of the deal, and would dramatically accelerate Iran's potential
progress to the bomb. Iran has said that its IR-8 centrifuges enrich
uranium 20 times faster than the IR-1 centrifuges it currently uses.
According to the FARS report, 'Iran's foreign minister and nuclear chief
both told a closed-door session of the parliament on Tuesday that the
country would inject UF6 gas into the latest generation of its centrifuge
machines as soon as a final nuclear deal goes into effect by Tehran and
the six world powers.'" http://t.uani.com/1FljNLN
Roll Call:
"It's no surprise that Speaker John A. Boehner isn't happy with the
Obama administration's Iranian nuclear deal, but his level of discontent
seems to be mounting. While Boehner refrained from saying much of
anything about the nuclear negotiations during his trip to Israel last
week, the Ohio Republican is stepping up his criticism after President
Barack Obama acknowledged Tuesday that, under the framework, Iran would
be about a year away from a nuclear bomb for the first 13 years of the
agreement - and would be able to produce a weapon almost immediately
after that. 'President Obama himself today confirmed exactly what critics
of the deal have argued: his 'deal' would pave the way for a
nuclear-armed Iran in the near future,' Boehner said in a statement. 'The
Iranian regime has consistently taken a long-view on its regional -
indeed global - ambitions of exporting its revolution. After multiple
evasions of international inspections to date, no one should believe that
the proposed inspections and verification are bullet-proof.'" http://t.uani.com/1O8RZRq
Algemeiner:
"'Open confusion' reigned today at the State Department after
spokeswoman Marie Harf tried to withdraw a quote from President Barack
Obama regarding Iran's nuclear breakout time, advocacy group The Israel
Project said... The President said that, 'in year 13, 14, 15' of the
deal, 'they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly,
and at that point, the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to
zero,' and that the assurances of a 1-year warning time would be
available to the international community for 'at least well over a
decade. And then in years 13 and 14, it is possible that those breakout
times would have been much shorter.' ... In the State Department's
attempted response to queries about the President's statement on Tuesday,
Spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters that the President was talking
about a hypothetical sscneario in which the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) had not been enacted. Harf asserted that while the
President's words 'were a little mixed up there,' he was in fact
'referring to a scenario in which there was no deal,' adding that the
President's scenario was 'more of a hypothetical, 'well look, without a
deal, this is what could possibly happen.' He was not indicating what
would happen under an agreement in those years.' The Israel Project
outright rejected Harf's explanation noting that the President wasn't
muddled, as Harf asserted." http://t.uani.com/1E54ACm
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
NYT:
"President Obama has compared the preliminary accord on limiting
Iran's nuclear program to signing a contract to buy a house, emphasizing
that the deal is not done until it closes. But a more accurate analogy
might be that the administration bought a house under construction and is
still haggling over where the windows and doors should go. As the White
House opens its campaign to sell the merits of the nuclear deal, the
unexplained elements of the agreement are about such basics, including
precisely the kind of research and development Iran would be able to
conduct on new types of centrifuges to make uranium and how fast it could
produce the nuclear material for a bomb after the 10-year agreement
period expired. Those gaps have already been seized upon by critics, from
Israel to Saudi Arabia to the halls of Congress, as they seek to
influence the shape of the final agreement, scheduled to be completed by
June 30." http://t.uani.com/1DjXGZi
Daily Star
(Lebanon): "A nuclear agreement between Iran and
world powers will strengthen Tehran's role in the region and rules out
the specter of a regional war, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah
said Monday. 'There is no doubt that the Iranian nuclear deal will be big
and important to the region,' Nasrallah said in a live interview with
Syria's Al-Ekhbariya TV. 'The agreement, God willing, rules out the
specter of regional war and world war.' 'Iran will become richer and
wealthier and will also become more influential. This will also reinforce
the position of its allies.' 'A stronger and wealthier Iran in the coming
phase will be able to stand by its allies, and especially the Palestinian
resistance, more than at any other time in history,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1FBpUOK
NYT:
"Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian hard-liners have been
free to take to the streets and object to any form of compromise with the
West, and particularly the United States. But when a conspicuously small
group of hard-liners did so on Tuesday morning in front of the Parliament
building, holding up placards and shouting slogans against the nuclear
framework agreed to last week in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Iranian
Interior Ministry condemned the demonstration as illegal, because the
protesters had failed to obtain a permit. There were also very few
reporters. It was perhaps the first time that conservatives - in this
case mostly young people genuinely disappointed over the compromises Iran
has made to reach a nuclear agreement - seemed disconnected from the
power structure here. Analysts say the message from the top is clear: Get
with the program. Senior officials, important clerics, lawmakers and
Revolutionary Guards commanders, who in the past have reflexively opposed
any accommodation with the West, now go out of their way to laud Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his team of negotiators, as well as the
government of President Hassan Rouhani." http://t.uani.com/1IsuzWZ
Mehr (Iran):
"Iran's Zarif and Ali Akbar Salehi attended a closed session in the
Parliament today to brief the MPs on Swiss Statement regarding Iran and
the 5+1 nuclear talks... Zarif was also quoted to have asserted that the
additional protocol must be passed by the Parliament. He stressed that
Iran would allow no online cameras to be installed in nuclear facilities
as the country had have several tragic experiences in which Iranian
nuclear scientists had been assassinated due to having been
identified." http://t.uani.com/1O8V18p
Politico:
"Last week's nuclear agreement with Iran closes what some experts had
called a potentially major loophole that could make it easy for Iran to
reconstitute its program, according to unpublished details of the deal
described by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Moniz, who is taking the
lead in explaining the deal for the Obama administration, told POLITICO
in an interview that Iran won't be allowed to reduce its 11-ton stockpile
of partially enriched uranium by converting it to an oxide form, a
process that is easily reversed. That process would be akin to turning
water into ice cubes, which can be melted at any time, experts say.
'Simply converting it does not alleviate the issue,' Moniz said in the
interview Monday evening. 'Simple conversion to a different chemical form
would not count.' Instead, Moniz said, the deal requires Iran either to
ship the uranium out of the country or to dilute it to a form similar to
its harmless natural state... In effect, dilution would return the
low-enriched uranium to its natural state, giving the material no value
to Iran above mined uranium." http://t.uani.com/1akRe8X
Reuters:
"Opponents of Iran's initial agreement to curb its nuclear program
are being 'disingenuous' when they say the deal could still allow the
Middle Eastern state to build nuclear weapons, the head of the Central
Intelligence Agency said on Tuesday. The initial accord reached last week
between Iran and major world powers - which would lift crippling economic
sanctions in exchange for Iran's agreement to step back from developing
nuclear weapons - is likely the most realistic deal that could be
reached, CIA Director John Brennan told an audience of students and
faculty at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside
Boston. 'The individuals who say that this deal provides a pathway for
Iran to a bomb are being wholly disingenuous, in my view, if they know
the facts and understand what is required for a program,' Brennan said at
Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. 'I certainly am
pleasantly surprised that the Iranians have agreed to so much here.'"
http://t.uani.com/1Cff5hM
Politico:
"No single party to the Iran deal could decide to go easy on the
Islamic republic if it tries to cheat on the nuclear agreement, U.S.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Monday... 'No one country could block
a snap-back of sanctions,' Moniz, speaking to reporters at the White
House, said without specifying how the U.S. and its allies would go about
reimposing economic punishments if Iran refuses inspections or is caught
breaking other provisions of the agreement. But given that the six world
powers taking part in the agreement include countries that aren't always
on the same page as the U.S. - primarily Russia and China - preventing
any one of them from protecting Iran could be key to shoring up support
in the United States." http://t.uani.com/1GoRFNn
Congressional
Action
Reuters:
"Democrats are aligning with Republicans to support a bill giving
Congress the opportunity to approve or reject sanctions relief in an Iran
nuclear deal, and are close to forming a veto-proof majority that U.S.
President Barack Obama says could undermine the delicate final stage of
negotiations. The support for the legislation by lawmakers in Obama's
party illustrates the depth of concern in Washington over the threat
posed by Iran and the concern of many lawmakers that they are being shut
out of the process to contain it... 'There's no way that Congress should
allow the congressional sanctions regime to be negotiated away without
saying a word,' Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who helped Corker write the
legislation but who also supports the administration's nuclear
negotiations with Iran, told Reuters. Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the
most influential Democrats and a co-sponsor of Corker's bill, has
reaffirmed his support for a congressional role." http://t.uani.com/1CUE7Fm
The Hill:
"The White House's nuclear deal with Iran could hinge on President
Obama's most trusted Democratic ally: Nancy Pelosi... Pelosi and a long
list of House Democrats - hailing last week's framework deal as real progress
toward a historic accord between longtime adversaries - seem ready to
give the White House leeway... If every House Republican voted for a
Corker-like bill, the GOP would need about 45 Democratic votes to
override Obama. Some Democrats have already endorsed such a plan, and
voting 'no' could be used against members of the party who face a
challenging reelection race in 2016... The coming debate will be a
significant test of Pelosi's leadership. The California Democrat's
whipping ability is legendary, exemplified most famously by the passage
of ObamaCare. But division in her ranks over the Iran talks has been
long-standing." http://t.uani.com/1E52ceO
Sanctions
Relief
Reuters:
"Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian counterpart Hassan
Rouhani agreed to boost trade and signed a slew of deals at a meeting on
Tuesday, but steered clear of directly addressing differences over
conflict-ridden Yemen. Erdogan paid a one-day visit to Iran at a time
when relations between Ankara and Tehran -- already strained by
disagreements over Syria -- have been battered by events in Yemen, where
they have backed opposing combatants... The two presidents signed eight
agreements and took pains to emphasise the need for greater economic
cooperation, with Erdogan saying they were far behind a target to lift
trade volume to $30 billion, from $14 billion last year." http://t.uani.com/1PjDDzk
WSJ:
"Top Iranian officials are traveling this week to Beijing to meet
executives at one of China's largest energy companies to discuss oil
projects after a political agreement to eventually lift Western sanctions
was struck, people familiar with the matter said. The meetings with
Sinopec Group, a state-owned Chinese company, come as China is looking to
secure its interests in Iran following a tentative agreement last week
with the U.S. and European powers that could enable the return of major
Western oil companies to the world's fourth-largest oil patch. They are
also among the first signs that foreign companies are moving to position
themselves for Iran's opening up to the world if sanctions over its
nuclear program are lifted. Iran and the six major powers still must
hammer out final details of the agreement by June 30... The Iranian
delegation will include Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and the deputy
oil minister for international affairs, Amir-Hossein Zamaninia. They plan
to meet the management of Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, an
Iranian official and people close to Sinopec said." http://t.uani.com/1CnN6LQ
Tehran Times:
"The framework agreement on Iran's nuclear deal has generated a
gold-rush atmosphere in the business world. The former Swiss ambassador
in Tehran talks of a 'very interesting market' and a Swiss trade
delegation is travelling to Iran at the end of the month... [Livia] Leu
Agosti is currently a delegate for trade agreements at the State
Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and will travel in this capacity
with Swiss business leaders to Iran... The trade delegation visit, from
April 26-29, will be the first such Swiss trip for ten years." http://t.uani.com/1E07Ejc
Reuters:
"South African mobile phone operator MTN Group has said easing of
sanctions against Iran would allow it to transfer about $1 billion in
accumulated dividends and a loan repayment from its Iranian unit. MTN,
which owns 49 percent of unlisted Irancell, the Middle Eastern country's
second-biggest mobile phone operator by subscribers, has been restricted
from repatriating money from Iran owing to the sanctions imposed by the
West. 'We have in total an equivalent of about $1 billion, which is both
a loan repayment from Irancell due back to MTN, as well as accumulated
dividends,' Nik Kershaw, head of investor relations at MTN told Reuters
on Tuesday." http://t.uani.com/1NTtMfQ
Sanctions Enforcement
Reuters:
"The European Union re-imposed sanctions on an Iranian bank and 32
Iranian shipping companies on Wednesday, using new legal grounds, after
the measures were struck down by a European court. Coming days after Iran
and six major powers reached a framework agreement to end a long-running
dispute over Iran's nuclear programme, the EU's move is a signal that the
28-nation bloc will keep up sanctions pressure on Iran until a final
nuclear deal is sealed. The EU's second-highest court annulled an EU
asset freeze on Bank Tejarat and 40 Iranian shipping companies in
January, finding fault with the legal grounds given by the EU. The EU, as
it has done in other cases, responded by re-listing Bank Tejarat and 32
of the Iranian shipping firms, including Hamburg-based Ocean Capital
Administration GmbH, using new legal grounds. Eight firms were not put
back on the list published in the EU's Official Journal on
Wednesday." http://t.uani.com/1aJROxP
Terrorism
Daily Telegraph:
"Iran has sent Hamas's military wing tens of millions of dollars to
help it rebuild the network of tunnels in Gaza destroyed by Israel's
invasion last summer, intelligence sources have told The Sunday
Telegraph. It is also funding new missile supplies to replenish stocks
used to bombard residential neighbourhoods in Israel during the war,
code-named Operation Protective Edge by Israel. The renewed funding is a
sign that the two old allies are putting behind them a rift caused by the
conflict in Syria, where Shia Iran is backing President Bashar al-Assad
against Hamas's mainly Sunni allies. Iran has sponsored Hamas's military
operations for years, despite the contradiction that Hamas is part of the
worldwide, Sunni-supremacist Muslim Brotherhood, while Iran is
Shia." http://t.uani.com/1DJtSqZ
Opinion &
Analysis
Henry Kissinger
& George Shultz in WSJ: "The announced framework
for an agreement on Iran's nuclear program has the potential to generate
a seminal national debate. Advocates exult over the nuclear constraints
it would impose on Iran. Critics question the verifiability of these
constraints and their longer-term impact on regional and world stability.
The historic significance of the agreement and indeed its sustainability
depend on whether these emotions, valid by themselves, can be reconciled.
Debate regarding technical details of the deal has thus far inhibited the
soul-searching necessary regarding its deeper implications. For 20 years,
three presidents of both major parties proclaimed that an Iranian nuclear
weapon was contrary to American and global interests-and that they were
prepared to use force to prevent it. Yet negotiations that began 12 years
ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to
develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this
very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first 10 years.
Mixing shrewd diplomacy with open defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iran has
gradually turned the negotiation on its head. Iran's centrifuges have
multiplied from about 100 at the beginning of the negotiation to almost
20,000 today. The threat of war now constrains the West more than Iran.
While Iran treated the mere fact of its willingness to negotiate as a
concession, the West has felt compelled to break every deadlock with a
new proposal. In the process, the Iranian program has reached a point
officially described as being within two to three months of building a
nuclear weapon. Under the proposed agreement, for 10 years Iran will
never be further than one year from a nuclear weapon and, after a decade,
will be significantly closer... The final stages of the nuclear talks
have coincided with Iran's intensified efforts to expand and entrench its
power in neighboring states. Iranian or Iranian client forces are now the
pre-eminent military or political element in multiple Arab countries,
operating beyond the control of national authorities. With the recent
addition of Yemen as a battlefield, Tehran occupies positions along all
of the Middle East's strategic waterways and encircles archrival Saudi
Arabia, an American ally. Unless political restraint is linked to nuclear
restraint, an agreement freeing Iran from sanctions risks empowering
Iran's hegemonic efforts... If the world is to be spared even worse
turmoil, the U.S. must develop a strategic doctrine for the region.
Stability requires an active American role. For Iran to be a valuable
member of the international community, the prerequisite is that it
accepts restraint on its ability to destabilize the Middle East and
challenge the broader international order. Until clarity on an American
strategic political concept is reached, the projected nuclear agreement
will reinforce, not resolve, the world's challenges in the region. Rather
than enabling American disengagement from the Middle East, the nuclear
framework is more likely to necessitate deepening involvement there-on
complex new terms. History will not do our work for us; it helps only
those who seek to help themselves." http://t.uani.com/1DJupt5
Abdulrahman
al-Rashed in Asharq al-Awsat: "I tried to ignore
U.S. President Barack Obama's interview with the New York Times because I
am sure it's part of his propaganda campaign for the initial deal with
Iran. Still, the interview's impact cannot be ignored. Obama provoked
many here in the region, a lot more than he calmed their fears! Thomas
Friedman, one of the Times' most prominent authors and one of the most
knowledgeable about the region's affairs, interviewed the president.
Perhaps this was why the nation's leader was dragged into arguing his
points, instead of justifying them. What's strange about the conversation
was that Obama commended the Iranian regime and justified its actions,
while implying a sense of guilt over what the U.S. had done against Iran.
I don't know what books the American president reads before he goes to
bed or how he understands events of the past three decades. Tehran's
mentality and practices are close to those of al-Qaeda -religious,
fascist and hostile towards anyone who opposes their ideology. Tehran's
understanding of the world paints others as believers and infidels. It is
Iran that was responsible for much of the violence in the region under
the banner of religion - and this was around 15 years before al-Qaeda
even emerged. And as much as Obama was apologetic to the Iranian regime
and generous with his gift of a nuclear agreement, he was harsh towards
Arabs, and his harshness was unjustified. For example, he said that
instead of issuing statements on their fear of Iran, they must stand
against the crimes of Bashar al-Assad... Then Obama criticized his Gulf
allies by saying their fears are domestic, as a result of a lack of
satisfaction among their people, as well as extremism, terrorism and
unemployment. Of course, this is all true and no one denies the presence
of domestic challenges. However it does not mean the Gulf will not voice
its irritation at the agreement that the Americans reached with Iran and
which set the Gulf's hand free in a manner that threatens it. There's no
contradiction here. It's as if we are telling the American president that
he does not have to worry about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) and al-Qaeda because he has national problems such as unemployment
and inadequate healthcare. These two issues are not contradictory! ...
What's stranger is that after Obama's statements were published, the
president's deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes addressed the
Arabs of the Gulf, commending and reassuring them - and thus, some of his
statements contradicted what Obama told Friedman." http://t.uani.com/1ycUej0
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