Category: Iran

Tehran suggests date and place for talks

Amid a swirl of speculation that talks on Iran’s nuclear program will start soon, a senior Iranian official has proposed a date and a venue in a new letter to the European Union’s foreign policy chief, an E.U. official said Tuesday.

According to a copy of the letter seen by The Washington Post, Iran has suggested meeting in Istanbul on either Nov. 23 or Dec. 5. The letter was written by Seyyed Kazem Ebadi, head of the office of Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief negotiator.

The United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany have been negotiating with Iran, but the talks have been on hold for more than a year.

One Western diplomat said that Istanbul is a non-starter as a venue because it would bring Turkey into the talks, making an unwieldy format even more cumbersome. The United States and its partners will instead press for Geneva or Vienna.

Iranian officials have also insisted they will not discuss their uranium-enrichment program – which is what the United States and its partners want to focus on. “Iran’s talks with [the six powers] will not be about Iran’s nuclear issue at all,” the ISNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying Tuesday.

The E.U. official said a response would be sent in the next few days.

– Glenn Kessler

afghanistan

Poll: Majority backs accord with Taliban

Nearly all Afghans want their government to make peace with the Taliban despite their growing dislike for the insurgency, according to a survey funded in part by the U.S. government.

The survey released Tuesday by the San Francisco-based Asia Foundation found that 83 percent of Afghan adults back negotiations with armed anti-government groups, up from 71 percent last year. But it also said 55 percent of Afghans had no sympathy at all for the insurgency, up from 36 percent last year. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they had “a little sympathy” for the aims of the insurgency.

Analysts said the survey reflected growing doubt that the government and its NATO allies can defeat the insurgency by military means. They also noted that, after 30 years of war, some Afghans appear willing to sacrifice some freedoms for the sake of peace.

– Associated Press

Cholera confirmed in Port-au-Prince: A cholera epidemic has spread into Haiti’s capital, imperiling the nearly 3 million people living in Port-au-Prince, about half of them in unsanitary tent camps set up after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Health authorities said tests had confirmed that a 3-year-old camp resident who had not been out of the city had caught the disease. At least 100 other suspected cases in the city were being tested.

via Digest.

November 11, 2010
Turkey: Iran suggests dates for nuclear talks in Istanbul

Istanbul – Iran has proposed two possible dates for nuclear talks that would be held in Istanbul, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday.

The state-run Anatolian Agency said Erdogan told reporters in Ankara that Tehran had proposed either November 23 or December 5 as possible dates for a meeting with the so-called P5+1 group, which comprises Britain, China, France, Russia, Germany and the US.

Iran and the P5+1 group last met in Geneva in October of 2009 to talk about Iran’s nuclear programme.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, speaking on behalf of the group, had previously proposed that Iran resume the talks on November 15 in Vienna.

Ankara last May helped broker a deal with Iran that would have the country’s low-enriched uranium sent to Turkey.

via Turkey: Iran suggests dates for nuclear talks in Istanbul – Monsters and Critics.

November 11, 2010
US Designates Anti-Iranian Group as Terrorists

Joseph Schuman Senior Correspondent

(Nov. 3) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today designated an anti-Iranian militant band once linked to the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization, a move that may have little concrete effect on the group but suggests the Obama administration is laying ground for a new round of talks with Tehran.

The State Department’s formal terrorist classification of Jundallah, a group claiming to fight for the rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran, means the group and its members are subject to economic sanctions and could have any U.S. assets frozen, and that Americans are banned from helping it in any way. But it’s unclear how Jundallah’s members, believed to number no more than 1,000, would be affected.

Based in Balochistan, which straddles the Iranian-Pakistani border, Jundallah is accused of killing or injuring hundreds of Iranian civilians and government officials through suicide bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and targeted assassinations, the State Department noted.

An image grab taken from Al-Arabiya footage broadcast June 20, 2008, allegedly shows an Iranian Jundallah fighter with a rifle standing over kidnapped Iranian security workers.

Violently active since 2003, Jundallah may have been responsible for an assassination attempt on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. It destroyed a Shiite mosque in Zahedan — the capital of Sistan va Balochistan province — in 2009, and in July of this year attacked the Grand Mosque there, killing 30 people and injuring hundreds.

The Obama administration roundly condemned the Grand Mosque attack at the time. And though the administration of George W. Bush — and specifically Vice President Dick Cheney — reportedly considered supporting Jundallah, the U.S. government has never publicly done so.

In past periods of warming diplomacy with Iran, the U.S. has placed other domestic Iranian anti-government militant groups on the terrorist list, including Mujahideen-e Khalq and two Kurdish groups.

The formal terrorist designation of Jundallah, probably welcome in Tehran, comes as the Obama administration and European allies look set to return to the nuclear negotiating table with Iran.

Last week the White House said the U.S. is preparing a deal for Iran to give up parts of its nuclear program that could help the country produce atomic weapons, a little over a year after a similar deal fell through.

Iran has been feeling the economic pain of tough new United Nations sanctions imposed in June and a skein of unilateral sanctions from the U.S., Europeans and other countries put in place since then. The Obama administration hopes any new negotiations will reveal whether the Iranian leadership’s long resistance to compromise has softened.

On Friday, Catherine Ashton, the top European Union foreign affairs official, said Iran had finally responded to an invitation to new talks that she made in July and that a new round of negotiations could resume as early as next week.

Iran sent a letter to Ashton saying the talks could start “from Nov. 10 on,” and the two sides are believed to be working on agreeing on an exact time and place.

But Iran has also insisted that Israel’s nuclear program be part of any negotiations — a nonstarter for the U.S. and its partners.

And Tehran’s long history of starting and stalling nuclear negotiations — as well as the progress its nuclear efforts have made since last year’s deal fell apart — have fostered little optimism for this latest round of diplomacy.

, 04 Nov 2010

November 9, 2010
Armenia-Georgia-Iran vs. Ankara-Tbilisi-Baku

Armenia must not be idle. Deepening Georgia-Armenia-Iran cooperation may – if not counterbalance – at least exist simultaneously with the Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan axis, writes the Azg newspaper, commenting on Iranian FM Manouchehr Mottaki’s recent visit to Tbilisi, as well as the establishment of visa-free regime and opening of an Iranian consulate on Batumi.

According to the author of the article entitled “Iran-Georgia-Armenia relations”, Georgia will only enhance its role if it is involved in both alliances. For Armenia to become a land link between Iran and Georgia, it has first of all to ensure minimum conditions for transit. “In this respect, the North-South highway is of high importance to both Armenia and the region. The construction is to be launched soon. A highway to run through Armenia – from the Georgian-Armenian border to the Armenian-Iranian border – will be constructed in conformity with international standards,” the newspaper writes.

Why are deeper Iranian-Georgian relations of importance for Armenia? Armenia has a land border both with Iran and with Georgia. Also, Iran and Georgia, in contrast to Turkey and Azerbaijan, are in good relations with Armenia.

Russia tried to counterbalance the West’s expansion policy with the North-South corridor, which would connect Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Iran. However, the project failed for a number of reasons, Russia’s faults being among them. First, Moscow and Tbilisi are aggressive and even hostile to each other. After the August war the two states severed their relations. In fact, a new dividing line, closed Russian-Georgian border, appeared in addition to the Turkish-Armenian and Armenian-Azeri borders. Viewing Armenia as its strategic ally, Russia has never attached importance to Georgian-Armenian relations or to deep Georgia-Armenia-Iran cooperation.

Moreover, in its communication with Iran, Russia prefers Azerbaijan rather than Armenia. It was Russia that prevented the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline from reaching Georgia – it considered the project as posing a threat to its gas interests.

“Turkey and Azerbaijan are hostile to Georgian-Armenian and Georgian-Armenian-Iranian cooperation, which eases the situation for Armenia, whereas Baku and Ankara aim at bringing Armenia to its knees,” the newspaper writes.

https://news.am/eng/news/37228.html, November 06, 2010

November 9, 2010
Iran pushes for nuclear talks in Turkey

It’s unknown if the U.S. and other world powers have agreed to the proposal. The move is seen as an effort to put diplomatic pressure on Washington and its allies.

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Amman, Jordan —

Iran agreed to talks with the United States and other world powers on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, provided negotiations take place in neighboring Turkey, officials said Sunday. The offer probably was meant to put diplomatic pressure on the U.S. and its allies.

There was no word on whether the U.S. or other world powers had approved of the proposal. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton had previously proposed Vienna, home to the International Atomic Energy Agency and many diplomats familiar with the Iranian nuclear program, as the venue for talks.

But Turkey’s semiofficial Anatolian news agency quoted Foreign Ministry officials as saying that “parties had agreed in principle to hold the talks in Turkey,” though no date or specific site has been set.

Restaurant.com: Get $25 gift certificates for $3 each >>

“We told our friends in Turkey two or three days ago that we have agreed to meet with five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany in Turkey,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters in Tehran on Sunday, according to local news agencies.

Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member that opposed the latest round of United Nations sanctions on Iran, upset the Obama administration this year when it and Brazil cut a deal with Tehran to send about half of Iran’s nuclear fuel supply to Turkey in exchange for plates to power an ailing Iranian medical reactor. U.S. officials accused Turkey and Brazil of undermining the American- and European-led attempt to present a united international diplomatic front against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Also, relations between Turkey and U.S. ally Israel, which considers the Iranian nuclear program its top security challenge, have recently reached a new low. Ankara recently added Israel to its list of strategic threats, according to a document leaked to the Turkish media.

Talks between Iran and world powers stalled more than a year ago after Iran did not agree to a plan to send more than half its nuclear fuel supply to Russia and then France in exchange for medical-reactor fuel.

The Obama administration rallied a skeptical Russia and China into supporting a fresh round of international sanctions on Iran, then pressed countries in Europe and other developed nations to impose even harsher unilateral restrictions on trade with Iran.

But the Islamic Republic continued to enrich uranium, even producing some fuel at 20% rates of purity, suitable for the medical reactor but worrisome to arms-control experts. Uranium enriched at higher levels can be used to arm an atomic bomb.

The U.S. and world powers are reportedly planning to offer Iran a proposal similar to the reactor deal offered last year, but with larger quantities and with a stipulation that Iran stop producing the 20%-enriched uranium.

Western diplomats long struggling with Iran over its nuclear program are skeptical that the impending round of talks will succeed. Iranian officials have already begun accusing world powers of stacking the deck against them by complicating the terms of negotiations and putting forth multiple proposals.

“Tehran should pay attention to the fact that we cannot enter negotiations based on different proposals presented by the West,” the Mehr news agency quoted Iranian lawmaker Javad Jahangirzadeh as saying.

daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Meris Lutz in Beirut contributed to this report.

via Iran nuclear talks: Iran pushes for nuclear talks in Turkey – chicagotribune.com.

November 9, 2010
MacKay: Turkey has the ability to reach out to Tehran

Situated in a challenging neighborhood, Turkey has a wealth of experience to bring to NATO as it has the ability to reach out to Tehran and speak to the Muslim world, said. Canadian National Defense Minister Peter MacKay, who hosted the participants of the Halifax International Security Forum.

“Turkey has very good credibility and connectivity to the West but also the ability to reach out to Tehran and speak to the Muslim world with clarity and perspective that we could gain from,” he told Today’s Zaman in an exclusive interview.

Noting that he became good friends with Turkish President Abdullah Gül during their time as foreign ministers, MacKay said there is a “strength and kindred spirit” between Canada and Turkey. “We recognize that we can fight when we have to, but we also have a skill set when it comes to diplomacy that allows us to talk with reason, to talk about difficult issues in a way that brings people together collaboratively,” he said, and added that there is further potential for Canada and Turkey to work together in that regard.

Regarding Iran, MacKay said Turkey’s voice is “very relevant” in the current discussion about Iran. As NATO leaders are soon going to meet in Lisbon to discuss the future of the organization and missile defense, there is debate over whether the organization will single out Iran as a threat, an idea that Turkey is opposed to.

MacKay also said the missile defense system should be a NATO initiative rather than one by the US. “It’s a European missile defense, after all. NATO is a more appropriate venue to support it,” he said. The Canadian defense minister also mentioned that Turkey is influential among Muslim countries in the region and that those countries take their signals from the relationship that Turkey has with Israel. Therefore, he said, Turkey’s normalized relations with Israel would be important.

08 November 2010, Monday

YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN HALIFAX

ZAMAN

November 9, 2010