Thursday, April 9, 2015

Eye on Iran: Iran's Khamenei Breaks Silence in Nuclear Deal, Says Details Are Key








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Reuters: "Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday demanded that all sanctions on Iran be lifted at the same time as any final agreement with world powers on curbing Tehran's nuclear program is concluded. Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's most powerful figure and who has the last say on all state matters, was making his first comments on the interim deal reached between Iran and the powers last week in the Swiss city of Lausanne... He repeated his faith in President Hassan Rouhani's negotiating team. But in remarks apparently meant to keep his hardline loyalists on side, he warned about the 'devilish' intentions of the United States. 'I neither support nor oppose the deal. Everything is in the details, it may be that the deceptive other side wants to restrict us in the details,' Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on state television. His stand on the lifting of sanctions matched earlier comments by Rouhani, who said Iran would only sign a final nuclear accord if all measures imposed over its disputed atomic work are lifted on the same day. These include nuclear-related United Nations resolutions as well as U.S. and EU nuclear-related economic sanctions. 'All sanctions should be removed when the deal is signed. If the sanctions removal depends on other processes, then why did we start the negotiations?' Khamenei said. However, the United States said on Monday sanctions would have to be phased out gradually under the comprehensive nuclear pact... One problem is that Iran and the world powers may have different interpretations on what was agreed in the framework accord - a point Khamenei made evident. 'Americans put out a statement just a few hours after our negotiators finished their talks...this statement, which they called a 'fact sheet', was wrong on most of the issues.' Khamenei said... 'I was never optimistic about negotiating with America... nonetheless I agreed to the negotiations and supported, and still support, the negotiators,' Khamenei said to chants of 'Death to America.' ... Iran for its part has said that 'possible military dimensions' (PMD) are an issue it will not budge on. 'PMD is out of the question. It cannot be discussed,' an Iranian official said. This issue has not been resolved. Khamenei ruled out any 'extraordinary supervision measures' over Iran's nuclear activities. 'Iran's military sites cannot be inspected under the excuse of nuclear supervision,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1aq2Fwd

Reuters: "Iran will only sign a final nuclear accord with six world powers if all sanctions imposed over its disputed atomic work are lifted on the same day, President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Thursday... 'We will not sign any deal unless all sanctions are lifted on the same day ... We want a win-win deal for all parties involved in the nuclear talks,' Rouhani said... 'Our goal in the talks (with major powers) is to preserve our nation's nuclear rights. We want an outcome that will be in everyone's benefit,' Rouhani said in a ceremony to mark Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology. 'The Iranian nation has been and will be the victor in the negotiations.' ... 'Our main gain in the talks was the fact that U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged that Iranians will not surrender to bullying, sanctions and threats,' Rouhani said. 'It is a triumph for Iran that the first military power in the world has admitted Iranians will not bow to pressure.'" http://t.uani.com/1CzhgeX

Politico: "With Congress poised to take up a bipartisan bill the White House fears could scuttle its delicate nuclear framework with Iran, Senate Democrats on Wednesday sought to modify the legislation to assuage President Barack Obama's concerns. Democrats are hoping that Republicans will agree to their suggested changes to the measure that would give Congress review power over the nuclear agreement - and the GOP's pursuit of a veto-proof majority in favor of the legislation may depend on it... The proposed modifications stemmed from administration officials who have been contacting senators in both parties to explain their opposition to the legislation, which was written by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and would give Congress an avenue to reject the nuclear framework after reviewing the agreement. Publicly, the White House is standing by its veto threat, but with support for the measure nearing a veto-proof majority in the Senate, administration officials are also hoping to alter the bill in a way they can live with. Corker's committee is scheduled to vote on the legislation Tuesday, and the bill appears increasingly likely to move to the Senate floor in the coming weeks." http://t.uani.com/1DnScgb

   
Nuclear Program & Negotiations

Press TV (Iran): "Iranian defense minister has rejected as false media reports claiming that international inspectors would be granted access to Iran's military sites based on a recent understanding between Tehran and world powers on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan on Wednesday dismissed Western media reports that under a regime of enhanced inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran will allow the body's experts to inspect the military sites across the country. 'No such agreement has been reached and basically, visiting military centers are among the red lines and no visit to these centers will be allowed,' Dehqan said, according to a statement by Iranian Defense Ministry. The Iranian general described such claims as lies and deceit, saying, 'The determination of the nuclear negotiating team of the Islamic Republic of Iran is so that it will not allow anything be imposed on the Iranian nation.'" http://t.uani.com/1H7I8JG

Reuters: "Failure to finalize a framework agreement between Iran and the six major powers aimed at curbing the country's sensitive nuclear work could profoundly destabilize the Islamic Republic, analysts and politicians say. Iranians' hopes of ending their international isolation have risen so high since the accord that failure to finalize it would generate levels of dismay that could hurt the authorities, even if the West was portrayed as the guilty party, analysts say. 'Finally it is over. The isolation is over. The economic hardship is over. (President Hassan) Rouhani kept his promises,' said university student Mina Derakhshande, who was among a cheering crowd on Friday. 'Failure of the talks will be end of the world for us Iranians. I cannot tolerate it.' Managing popular expectations will be more difficult in Iran now, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. 'If the deal doesn't come to fruition, most Americans won't notice, while most Iranians will be devastated,' Sadjadpour said." http://t.uani.com/1aNyxM5

The Hill: "The White House on Wednesday took a shot at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by using a cartoon bomb to defend its nuclear deal with Iran. The bomb diagram attached to a White House tweet looked a lot like a chart used by Netanyahu during a 2012 speech to the United Nations General Assembly urging the U.S. and other world powers to set an ultimatum to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Using a marker, Netanyahu drew a red line near the top of the bomb. 'At this late hour there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs,' Netanyahu told the annual gathering. 'And that is by placing a clear red line on Iran's nuclear weapons program.' The White House's chart is almost identical to Netanyahu's, red line and all. At the bottom of the bomb is a blue line, representing the zero percent chance Iran develops a nuclear weapon under the deal." http://t.uani.com/1FqxHw9

Free Beacon: "On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf called an op-ed by former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz on the Iran negotiations 'a lot of big words and big thoughts.' Kissinger and Schultz, who served under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, said the strategy Obama has pursued is futile and dangerous. 'Absent the linkage between nuclear and political restraint, America's traditional allies will conclude that the U.S. has traded temporary nuclear cooperation for acquiescence to Iranian hegemony,' the column said. Harf sparred with AP reporter Matt Lee, interrupting him several times as he tried to get a reaction to the op-ed from the State Department... 'I didn't hear a lot of alternatives. I heard a lot of-sort of a lot of big words and big thoughts in that piece, and certainly there is a place for that. But I didn't hear a lot of alternatives about what they would do differently,' Harf said." http://t.uani.com/1Clch2J

Congressional Action

The Hill: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday announced she will oppose legislation empowering Congress to review the White House's nuclear deal with Iran. The California Democrat said the proposal, sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), threatens to sink the agreement at a crucial juncture in the talks. She's urging lawmakers oppose the measure in order to allow negotiators the space to hash out the final details ahead of the June 30 deadline. 'Diplomacy has taken us to a framework agreement founded on vigilance and enforcement, and these negotiations must be allowed to proceed unencumbered,' Pelosi said in a statement. 'Senator Corker's legislation undermines these international negotiations and represents an unnecessary hurdle to achieving a strong, final agreement.' ... Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), chairman of the Democrats' communications and messaging team, warned Wednesday that the deal is too important to deny Congress a vote on it." http://t.uani.com/1EbarWS

Sanctions Relief

WSJ: "China will build a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran to Pakistan to help address Pakistan's acute energy shortage, under a deal to be signed during the Chinese president's visit to Islamabad this month, Pakistani officials said... The pipeline would amount to an early benefit for both Pakistan and Iran from the framework agreement reached earlier this month between Tehran and the U.S. and other world powers to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. had previously threatened Pakistan with sanctions if it went ahead with the project... Pakistan is negotiating with China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, a subsidiary of Chinese energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation, to build 435 miles (700 kilometers) of pipeline from the western Pakistani port of Gwadar to Nawabshah in the southern province of Sindh, where it will connect to Pakistan's existing gas-distribution pipeline network." http://t.uani.com/1EbfINZ

WSJ: "Iranian companies are trying to buy a Swiss petroleum refinery, according to people familiar with the deal, as Tehran seeks outlets for oil that may return if western sanctions are lifted later this year. Petro Farhang, the oil-investment subsidiary of Iran's teacher pension fund, and Ghadir Investment, a conglomerate with petrochemical businesses which is controlled by Iranian pension funds, have registered a formal expression of interest to buy a refinery in Collombey, Switzerland, controlled by Libyan firm Tamoil Suisse, according to people familiar with the move. Stephane Trachsler, general secretary of Tamoil Suisse, said the company had rejected all potential bidders so far." http://t.uani.com/1HUYAeH

Yemen Crisis

NYT: "Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the United States knew Iran had been providing military support to the Houthi rebels in Yemen and that Washington 'is not going to stand by while the region is destabilized.' Mr. Kerry's remarks, in an interview on Wednesday night with 'PBS NewsHour,' appeared to be the most direct warning yet from Washington about Iranian support for the Houthi movement, which has allied with security forces loyal to a former strongman and taken control of Yemen's capital, Sana. The comments came as the United States has increased its provision of weapons, intelligence and logistical support for a Saudi-led campaign of airstrikes aimed at stopping the Houthis and their allies from dominating Yemen... 'We are well aware of the support that Iran has been giving to Yemen, and Iran needs to recognize that the United States is not going to stand by while the region is destabilized, or while people engage in overt warfare across lines - international boundaries of other countries.'" http://t.uani.com/1cdgNKh

Reuters: "Iran's leader on Thursday condemned the military intervention by its main regional rival Saudi Arabia in Yemen as genocide, sharply escalating Tehran's rhetoric against the two-week-old campaign of air strikes. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saudi Arabia would not emerge victorious from the war in Yemen, where Iran-allied Houthi fighters who control the capital Sanaa have been trying to seize the southern city of Aden from local militias... 'The aggression by Saudi Arabia against Yemen and its innocent people was a mistake... It has set a bad precedent in the region,' Khamenei said in a televised speech. 'This is a crime and genocide that can be prosecuted in international courts,' he added. 'Riyadh will not emerge victorious in its aggression.' Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also criticized the coalition assembled by Riyadh, saying it was repeating errors committed in other parts of the Arab world where Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran back rival sides. 'You tried it in Lebanon, and realized your mistake. You tried it in Syria, and realized your mistake. You realized your mistake in Iraq. You will realize soon that you also made a mistake in Yemen,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1H7Dxr5

Reuters: "Iran is sowing discord in Yemen and other regional countries as part of a 'revolution export' strategy, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday, and Gulf Arab states are losing hope of building normal ties with Tehran. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nayahan also said a Saudi-led coalition now carrying out air strikes on Iranian-allied Houthi fighters in Yemen seek a U.N. Security Council resolution requiring all to pursue dialogue and imposing a ban on arms purchases by Houthis and other groups 'that are out of line'. Asked about evidence to back up allegations by Saudi- and U.S.-backed Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi that Shi'ite Muslim Iran provided support for Shi'ite Houthi militia fighters opposed to his rule, Sheikh Abdullah told a news conference: 'Iran is not carrying out this activity only in Yemen, it is conducting the same activity in Lebanon, in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and in Pakistan. 'Someone might say that the information provided by Yemen is not accurate, but there is systematic action that has been going for years on the idea of exporting the (Iranian) revolution.' ... Sheikh Abdullah said Sunni Muslim Gulf Arabs could have 'positive, normal' relations with Tehran, 'but Iran is not giving its partners in the region this hope... Each time we try to come close to Iran it starts spoiling the region, making (matters) difficult for our countries.' 'It is not possible to accept any strategic threat to Gulf Arab states,' he added." http://t.uani.com/1NWr1L0

WSJ: "Iran dispatched a naval flotilla to the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, a move that could raise tensions between the Islamic Republic and a Saudi-led coalition conducting a military campaign in Yemen, which borders the waterway. The Iranian 34th flotilla, which includes a destroyer and a logistics vessel, headed for the Gulf to protect Iranian and other countries' trading vessels from piracy, according to a report on Iran's ISNA news agency. The flotilla would conduct missions there as well as in the Red Sea and the key Bab al-Mandeb shipping strait over a three-month deployment, the report said." http://t.uani.com/1Cli0W7

Human Rights

IranWire: "No new regulation, which would permit women to attend sporting events and matches, was ever approved by the Security Council, said the Director of Information and International Affairs at the Ministry of Interior. The announcement, which was covered extensively by the media, came out after a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Sport and Youth, said that the Security Council was considering allowing women and families to attend sport stadiums. However the Official Website for the Ministry of Interior denied this and said: 'When publishing any news about the Ministry of Interior and the Security Council, the media should exclusively use official sources from the Ministry of Interior for information.'" http://t.uani.com/1OdX36Y

Opinion & Analysis

WSJ Editorial Board: "Remember when the left accused the Bush Administration of politicizing intelligence to justify its invasion of Iraq? It wasn't true, but someone ought to remind CIA director John Brennan. Because in attacking critics of the President's Iran policy Tuesday, he sounded more like a White House communications director than a CIA chief. During remarks at Harvard's Institute of Politics, Mr. Brennan said anyone who knew the facts and believes the deal with Tehran 'provides a pathway for Iran to a bomb' is being 'wholly disingenuous.' If we take him at his word, former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, who wrote on our pages Wednesday, must be dishonest in their detailed, careful critique. Think about that for a moment. A CIA director claims that any disagreement over a highly complicated and controversial deal must come from base motives. Think of the signal that sends to the CIA analysts who will be responsible for monitoring the deal and ascertaining whether Iran is violating it. Better not speak up! Then again Mr. Brennan has been carrying water for President Obama for a long time. After he left the CIA in the 2000s, he denounced waterboarding as something that 'goes beyond the bounds of what a civilized society should employ,' which nicely fit the Obama campaign narrative. But Mr. Brennan still insisted it had provided vital intel. The 2008 campaign help earned Mr. Brennan a White House job in 2009, then a promotion to the CIA in 2013, where the White House seems still to be writing his talking points. Regarding facts and nuclear weapons in the Middle East, Mr. Brennan would better spend his time making sure the CIA doesn't repeat its past mistakes. Before the first Gulf War the agency greatly underestimated Saddam Hussein's nuclear programs, then in 2003 it vastly overestimated them. A few years later it wrongly concluded Iran had given up its nuclear ambitions. Mr. Brennan's naked public partisanship harms the CIA by making whatever it now says about Iran simply unbelievable." http://t.uani.com/1ygj8OO

Moshe Ya'alon in WashPost: "The framework concluded last week on Iran's nuclear program was doomed to disagreement. Even the 'fact sheets' issued by the United States, France and Iran - all parties to the talks - didn't agree on the facts. Israel has made clear its grave concerns about the framework's fundamental elements and omissions. The vast nuclear infrastructure to be left in Iran will give it an unacceptably short breakout time to building a bomb. Iran's long-range ballistic missile program - a threat to Israel as well as the rest of the Middle East, Europe and the United States - is untouched. The sanctions on Iran will be lifted (quickly, according to the Iranians; gradually, according to the United States), while restrictions imposed on the Islamic republic's nuclear program will expire in about a decade, regardless of Iran's campaign of murderous aggression in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere across the Middle East; its arming, funding, training and dispatching of terrorists around the world; and its threats and violent efforts to destroy Israel, the region's only democracy. To justify the risks inherent to the framework, its supporters have posited three main arguments: that the only alternative is war; that Iranian violations will be deterred or detected because of 'unprecedented verification'; and that, in the event of violations, sanctions will be snapped back into place. These arguments have one important feature in common: They're all wrong. The claim that the only alternative to the framework is war is false. It both obscures the failure to attain better terms from Iran and stifles honest and open debate by suggesting that if you don't agree, you must be a warmonger. It also feeds and reflects the calumny that Israel in particular is agitating for war. As Israel's minister of defense, as a former Israel Defense Forces chief of general staff and as a combat veteran forced to bury some of my closest friends, I know too well the costs of war. I also know that Israelis are likely to pay the highest price if force is used - by anyone - against Iran's nuclear program. No country, therefore, has a greater interest in seeing the Iranian nuclear question resolved peacefully than Israel. Our opposition to a deal based on the framework is not because we seek war, but because the terms of the framework - which will leave an unreformed Iran stronger, richer and with a clear path to a bomb - make war more likely. The framework is supposed to prevent or detect Iranian denials and deception about their nuclear program by means of inspections and intelligence. Unfortunately, the track record of inspections and intelligence makes the framework's outsize reliance on them both misguided and dangerous. In many ways, the Iranian nuclear crisis began and intensified after two massive intelligence failures. Neither Israeli nor other leading Western intelligence agencies knew about Iran's underground enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow until it was too late. As good as our intelligence services are, they simply cannot guarantee that they will detect Iranian violations at all, let alone in time to stop a dash for a bomb. Twenty years ago, inspectors were supposed to keep the world safe from a North Korean nuclear bomb. Today, North Korea is a nuclear weapons state, and Iran isn't complying with its existing obligations to come clean about its suspected efforts to design nuclear warheads. There is no reason to believe that Iran will start cooperating tomorrow, but the deal all but guarantees that it will nonetheless have the nuclear infrastructure it would need to produce a nuclear arsenal. Intelligence and inspections are simply no substitute for dismantling the parts of Iran's program that can be used to produce atomic bombs. Finally, there are the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place. These took years to put in place and even longer to become effective. Once lifted, they cannot be snapped back after future Iranian violations. It is fantasy to think the sanctions can be restored and become effective in the exceedingly short breakout time provided by the terms of the framework... The choice is not between this bad deal and war. The alternative is a better deal that significantly rolls back Iran's nuclear infrastructure and links the lifting of restrictions on its nuclear program to an end of Iran's aggression in the region, its terrorism across the globe and its threats to annihilate Israel. This alternative requires neither war nor putting our faith in tools that have already failed us." http://t.uani.com/1IvYXzK
        

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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