Iran Nuclear Deal Causing Global Strife

 
Israeli PM Says Arab Leaders Also Weary of Iran Nuclear Deal

By IAN DEITCH
 Jun 9, 2015, 3:27 PM
The Associated Press

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister said Tuesday that Arab leaders agree with him that an emerging nuclear deal with Iran won’t stop Tehran from getting atomic weapons.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks come as Tehran and the six world powers negotiating with Iran face a June 30 target date for a comprehensive deal on curbing Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions’ relief.

Netanyahu told the prestigious Herzliya conference, an annual gathering that draws speakers from around the world, that he is not the only voice in the Middle East against the deal.

“I am often portrayed as the nuclear party pooper,” Netanyahu said. “But I speak with quite a few of our neighbors, more than you think, and I want to tell you that nobody in this region believes this deal will block Iran’s path to the bomb.”

Most of the region does not have official ties with Israel and Netanyahu did not name the leaders he spoke with or the circumstances of the discussions. He spoke in Herzliya, in central Israel, just days after a close confidant, Dore Gold, met publicly with a Saudi Arabian general to discuss Iran.

“It’s worth noting that nobody from this region except Iran is at the negotiating table,” Netanyahu added.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes but Israel fears it could still allow Tehran to build nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu also warned the deal would spark a nuclear arms race that will see the region “crisscrossed with nuclear trip wires as other states nuclearize” in fear of Iran. He said lifting the sanctions rewards Iran with “prosperity at home” while allowing it to continue “aggression abroad.”
Israel has long claimed a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten world peace and security, and views a nuclear-armed Tehran as a threat to its very existence, citing Iran’s repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, its long-range missile program and its support for militant groups like Lebanese Hezbollah or the Palestinian Hamas.

There was no immediate comment from Arab states on Netanyahu’s remarks.

Australia States The Obvious (Dan 8:3)

Iran ‘can not be trusted’ in nuclear talks with West, Australian lawmaker warns


NCRI Iran News
Monday, 25 May 2015 15:26

Iran supports Hezbollah terrorists and Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria and the regime cannot be trusted in nuclear talks with the West, a leading Australian lawmaker has warned.

Federal member Michael Danby said concessions from the West in negotiations would not be returned in kind by the rulers in Tehran.

He wrote in The Australia newspaper: “Iran has shown repeatedly that it will pursue its perceived interests regardless of the consequences.

“Iran’s principal aims are to undermine the Middle East’s US-backed Sunni-led status quo and to replace the US as the regional hegemonic power.

“Tehran also persists with the apparently unchanged ideology of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to destroy Israel.”

Mr Danby also said ‘no one should doubt’ Iran’s commitment to its client, Hezbollah, and its support for Assad’s brutal regime in Syria.

He added: “Iran’s direct regional aggression continues all the while. Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels captured Yemen’s capital. General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, acts as a Persian viceroy, dominating Iraq’s government and Shi’ite militias.

“So alarmed is America’s chief Middle East ally, Saudi Arabia, that Prince Turki bin Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, said in February, ‘Whatever the Iranians have, we will have too’.”

He went on: “Of course, Iran’s nuclear program is the focus of international concern. Tehran is negotiating only because international sanctions were crippling its economy. UN sanctions were placed on Iran only after several secret uranium enrichment sites were uncovered. (not by inspectors but by a dissident group).”

And he quoted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as saying recently: “We will never yield to pressure. Iran will not give access to its nuclear scientists. We will not allow the privacy of our nuclear scientists or any other important issue to be violated.”

Mr Danby added: “The Saudis, Turks, Qataris and Israelis, like the French socialist government and Democrats in the US Congress, sense increased Iranian power in the Middle East. Direct Saudi intervention in the region is a function of a perceived decrease of US influence in the Middle East. The Saudis traditionally have relied on the US to maintain regional stability.

“But a series of US decisions — such as the prospective nuclear deal, military co-operation between US and Iranian ground forces in Iraq, allowing Assad in Syria to cross chemical weapons ‘red lines’, and distancing itself from Israel and Egypt — has convinced Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Qatar that the US is lessening its involvement in the region.

“When Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Iran last month, she was the first high-ranking Western minister to visit the Islamic Republic since the initialling of the Lausanne framework. The significance of Bishop’s visit is that it marks Iran’s continuing passage from pariah to accepted member of the international community.

“Western countries are hustling to be at the front of the queue when sanctions are officially dropped. Western diplomats including Bishop are lauding ‘a change in Iranian attitudes’, despite no evidence of that.

“They’re also lauding Iran’s acceptance of nuclear understandings despite revelations to the contrary and responsible actions in the region, despite Iran actively undermining regional governments from Beirut to Baghdad and beyond, as well as prolonging Syria’s civil war.

“This is short termism at its worst and ignores the Khamenei regime’s actual policies and nature.
A nuclear-armed Iran in 10 years, free of sanctions, with $180 billion of reserves now freed up and with unchanged policies of regional hegemony and support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah, is not in the interests of world peace, regional stability or even faraway Australia.”

More Stipulations On The Iran Deal (Dan 8)

 Iran’s Khamenei rules out interviews with nuclear scientists
Wed May 20, 2015 8:26pm BST
By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Tehran would not accept “unreasonable demands” by world powers over its disputed nuclear programme and ruled out letting inspectors interview its atomic scientists.

The comments, broadcast live on state TV, were the latest in a series of forthright statements on inspections in the countdown to a June 30 deadline to resolve a decade-old standoff over Iran’s nuclear work.

“We will never yield to pressure … We will not accept unreasonable demands … Iran will not give access to its (nuclear) scientists,” Khamenei said.

“We will not allow the privacy of our nuclear scientists or any other important issue to be violated.”

Khamenei, who has the final say for Iran on any deal, last month ruled out any “extraordinary supervision measures” over nuclear activities and said military sites could not be inspected.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been trying to investigate Western allegations that Iran has worked on designing a nuclear warhead. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it is working with the IAEA to clear up any suspicions.

U.N. inspectors regularly monitor Iran’s declared nuclear facilities, but the IAEA has complained for years of a lack of access to sites, equipment, documents and people relevant to its probe.

Western officials say Iran must step up cooperation with the IAEA if it wants to reach a broader diplomatic deal with world powers that would gradually end crippling financial and other sanctions on the oil producer.

“They say we should let them interview our nuclear scientists. This means interrogation,” Khamenei said.

“I will not let foreigners talk to our scientists and to interrogate our dear children … who brought us this extensive (nuclear) knowledge.”

Iran has yet to answer questions about two areas of the investigation into alleged research activities that could be applicable to any attempt to make nuclear bombs – explosives testing and neutron calculations.

Iran reached a tentative deal with the powers on April 2 to allow U.N. inspectors to carry out more intrusive, short-notice inspections under an “Additional Protocol” to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But there have been sharply differing interpretations from both sides on the details of that access.

When asked whether there had been some progress since April, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who has been perceived as the most demanding in the talks, said the negotiations now had to discuss the deal’s annexes, which was not the case yet.

He said Iran also had to offer real transparency in its military activities as part of the deal, including rapid access to IAEA inspectors to all sites.

“What happens if Iran doesn’t comply. How much time will we have to check? In the current text, it’s 24 days, but in 24 days a lot of things can disappear,” Fabius said. 

Negotiators from Iran and the powers met in Vienna on Wednesday to try to iron out remaining differences, including the timing of sanctions relief and the future of Iran’s atomic research and development programme.

“There has to be concrete commitments on the enrichment activities allowed for length of the accord, including a phased reduction in the number of centrifuges at the underground site of Fordow and an efficient mechanism to restore sanctions if Iran does not respect its commitments,” Fabius said.

Talks between EU political director Helga Schmid and Iranian negotiators Abbas Araqchi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi will run until Friday, with technical experts meeting in parallel, the EU said in a statement. 

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in Brussels; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Tom Heneghan)

Iran Continues To Evade Framework Deal (Daniel 8:3)

Iran’s Leader Khamenei Vows To Resist ‘Excessive Demands’ As Nuclear Talks Resume

AP | By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Posted: 05/20/2015 8:31 am EDT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader vowed Wednesday he will not allow international inspection of Iran’s military sites or access to Iranian scientists under any nuclear agreement with world powers.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told military commanders Wednesday that Iran will resist “coercion and excessive demands” from America and other world powers.

Negotiators from Iran and a six nation group — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — have launched a new round of talks in Vienna focused on reaching a final deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions. The two sides reached a framework agreement in March and hope to strike a final deal by June 30.

A fact sheet on the framework accord issued by the U.S. State Department said Iran would be required to grant the U.N. nuclear agency access to any “suspicious sites.”

But Khamenei indicated that the Americans are increasing their demands that international inspection of Iran’s military sites and interviews with Iranian scientists be included in the final deal.

“The impudent and brazen enemy expects that we allow them talk to our scientists and researchers about a fundamental local achievement but no such permission will be allowed,” Khamenei told military commanders in Tehran Wednesday, in remarks broadcast on state TV. “No inspection of any military site or interview with nuclear scientists will be allowed.”

Khamenei said interviewing Iranian nuclear scientists would be an affront to Iran’s dignity.
“I will not allow foreigners to interview — which is tantamount to interrogation — the prominent beloved scientists and sons of this nation,” he said.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Khamenei, was quoted by Iranian media this week as accusing the Americans of changing their position and toughening their stance as the deadline approaches.

“They insist on crossing (our) red lines. This turns into an obstacle,” Velayati was quoted as saying.