Where Purity Is Not A Virtue (Revelation 16)

Iran to resume unlimited uranium enrichment in case of new sanctions

Iranian Centrifuge Surge

Jan 15 2015 | Zawya

If the west imposes new sanctions against Iran, the Islamic Republic will resume uranium enrichment at the levels over five percent, the Iranian parliament speaker, Ali Larijani said.

The Iranian MPs have a plan for enriching uranium in every level, which will come into force, if the western side takes new steps to impose sanctions, Larijani said, Iran ‘s Fars news agency reported Jan. 15.

“Our enemies should understand that they can not play political tricks against Iran,” Larijani said. “Iranian decision-makers are aware of the issues.”

Last January, Hossein Sheikholeslam, an advisor to Larijani on international affairs said that Iranian parliament has a trump card in case the US imposes new sanctions on Iran.

“The parliament of Iran has a plan to enrich uranium up to 60 percent, and until today, 218 members of the parliament have signed this document,” he said. “If new sanctions on Iran are issued, the parliament will approve the document.”

The Larijani’s new statement shows that the Islamic Republic continues to use the “trump card” against any possible new sanctions.

Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) reached a nuclear agreement on November 24, 2013 for providing Iran with some sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities including 20 percent uranium enrichment.

While commenting about the future of the nuclear talks, Larijani said the western side should avoid political bargaining and follow a realistic approach to achieve a final nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic.

Talks between Iran and the P5+1 group have been extended until July 1, 2015 to reach a comprehensive nuclear agreement.

Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif and his US counterpart, John Kerry held a meeting in Geneva on Jan. 14 aimed at accelerating pace of the new negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group.

A fresh round of the Iran-P5+1 nuclear talks is scheduled for Jan. 18 in Geneva.

© Trend News Agency 2015

Iran Stall In Order To Enrich More Uranium (Revelation 15:2)

Iran nuclear talks extended seven months after failing to meet deadline

By Louis Charbonneau and Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:47pm EST

(Reuters) – Iran and six powers failed on Monday for a second time this year to resolve their 12-year stand-off over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and gave themselves seven more months to clinch an historic deal.

Western officials said they were aiming to secure an agreement on the substance of a final accord by March but that more time would be needed to reach a consensus on the all-important technical details.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, trying to win relief from crippling international economic sanctions by patching up relations with the West, said the gap between the sides had narrowed at the latest round of talks in Vienna.

“It is true that we could not reach an agreement but we can still say that big steps have been taken,” he told state television.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave a more guarded assessment, saying “real and substantial progress had been made but adding that “some significant points of disagreement” remained.

“These talks are not going to get easier just because we extend them. They’re tough. They’ve been tough. And they’re going to stay tough,” he told reporters in the Austrian capital.

The cost of failure could be high. Iran’s regional foes Israel and Saudi Arabia fear a weak deal that fails to curtail Tehran’s potential to produce a nuclear weapon. A collapse of the talks would spur Iran to become a threshold nuclear weapon state, something arch-foe Israel has said it would never allow.

Under an interim deal reached by the six powers and Iran a year ago in Geneva, Tehran halted higher-level uranium enrichment in exchange for a limited easing of the financial and trade sanctions which have badly damaged its economy, including access to some frozen oil revenues abroad.

Monday marked the second time a self-imposed deadline for a final settlement has passed without any deal. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters that the target date had been extended to June 30, 2015.

“We remain convinced that, based on the progress made and on the new ideas which continue to be explored, there is a credible path through which a comprehensive solution can be reached,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union envoy Catherine Ashton, who coordinates the negotiations on behalf of the global powers, said in a joint statement.

“We intend to build on the current momentum in order to complete these negotiations within the shortest possible time.”

Tehran dismisses Western fears that its nuclear programme might have military aims, saying it is for peaceful energy only. However, the six powers – the United States, France, Germany, Russia, China and Britain – want to curb its uranium enrichment further to lengthen the time Iran would need to build a bomb.

PRESSURE AT HOME

“I am certain that we will reach the final accord, if not today, then tomorrow,” said Rouhani, who discussed the nuclear issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Monday.

A soft-spoken pragmatist, Rouhani won election by a landslide last year on promises to work to end Iran’s international isolation.

But he made clear that Tehran was taking a firm line at the talks. “There is no question the nuclear technology and facilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran will remain active and today the negotiating sides know that pressure and sanctions against Iran were futile,” he said.

Rouhani faces heavy pressure from hardline conservatives at home who have already blocked his drive to ease restrictions on Iranians’ individual freedom.

The U.S. administration of President Barack Obama must also overcome strong domestic misgivings.

Three influential Republican senators said the extension should be coupled with increased sanctions and a requirement that any final agreement be sent to Congress for approval.

The three – John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte – said in a statement that a “bad deal” with Iran would start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

As it appeared likely that no agreement was in the offing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

But Kerry defended the decision not to abandon the talks. “We would be fools,” he said, raising his voice, “to walk away from a situation where the breakout time (for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon) has already been expanded rather than narrowed, and the world is safer because this program is in place.”

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said imposing fresh sanctions now could be counterproductive.

“HEADLINE AGREEMENT”

Hammond said there was a clear target to reach a “headline agreement” of substance within the next three months and talks would resume in December, he said.

It is unclear where next month’s meeting will take place, he said, noting that during the extension period, Tehran will be able to continue to access around $700 million per month in sanctions relief under an interim agreement reached a year ago.

Zarif told reporters: “Hard decisions need to be made, but I believe we can reach a solution … We don’t need to waste our time with this manufactured crisis.”

One senior Western diplomat expressed pessimism. ‎”It’s been 10 years that proposals and ideas have been put forward,” he said. “The Iranians are not moving.”

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Jonathan Allen, John Irish, Vladimir Soldatkin, Patricia Zengerle and Will Dunham; Editing by Giles Elgood and David Stamp/Mark Heinrich)

Iran Still Wants Purified Uranium (Daniel 8:3)

MP: Iran to Consider 60% Uranium Enrichment if Sanctions Intensified

 

September 06, 2014 – 12:20

Iranian Centrifuges

 

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Iranian Parliament will pass a bill under a double-urgency status authorizing the administration to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity level in case the US continues to impose sanctions against the country, an MP announced.Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency on Saturday, member of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Hassan Asafari criticized the US for slapping new sanctions on the Islamic republic.

“Impositions of the new sanctions indicates the lack of goodwill on part of the Americans,” Asafari said.

The Iranian lawmaker also warned that Tehran will have to take similar measures if Washington continues to maintain its negative approach towards the nuclear talks.

The new anti-Iran sanctions came amid the ongoing negotiations between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) for a final agreement on Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program and the removal of unjustified sanctions against Iran.

Asafari underscored that Iran will by no means make any more concessions to the US in the course of nuclear talks, stressing that Tehran will “seriously develop and speed up nuclear progress” if the US continues such behavior.

Iran and the sextet on November 24, 2013, signed an interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The Geneva deal (the Joint Plan of Action) was indeed an agreement for the strengthening of mutual confidence between Iran and six world powers and was designed to pave the way for a permanent, comprehensive accord to settle a decade-long standoff on Iran’s nuclear activities.

Based on the interim deal, the world powers agreed to suspend some non-essential sanctions and to impose no new nuclear-related bans in return for Tehran’s decision to freeze parts of its nuclear activities.

Report: Iran says entitled to enrich uranium at 90% weapons-grade level 

By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS
04/13/2014 19:18

 

Iran “Entitled” To Purify Uranium

Iran’s atomic energy chief said on Sunday that the Islamic Republic was entitled to enrich uranium to the weapons-grade level of 90%, and announced that Tehran was planning to construct four new nuclear plants with the help of Russia.

While Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), refrained from saying his country would implement plans to enrich uranium at the level needed to yield nuclear weapons material, he said Iran had the “right” to.

“Firstly, we believe that we are entitled to any right that any NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and (International Atomic Energy) Agency member has, which means that enrichment (of uranium) from 1% to 90% is our right,” Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

However, Salehi said Iran had agreed to limit its enrichment activities to the 5% level, under the terms of an interim deal reached between Tehran and the P5+1 world powers in November.

Salehi also said his country planned to build four new nuclear power plants in the coming years to accompany Iran’s sole nuclear power plant Bushehr. He said construction of what would be Iran’s second nuclear site was due to begin in the coming Iranian-calendar year. He added that construction of the next three plants would continue every other year following alongside Russian experts.

Iranian officials have previously stated that plans to build more nuclear reactors were underway.
On Wednesday, Iran and world power concluded two days of negotiations in Vienna.

Despite remaining gaps between the West and the Islamic Republic, the so-called P5+1 powers – the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China – were prepared to draft a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s expanisve nuclear program.

The stakes in a deal are high on both sides. Western powers, along with Russia and China, want to avert an escalation of tensions in the Middle East in the form of a new war or a regional nuclear arms race. Iran, for its part, is keen to be rid of international sanctions hobbling its oil-based economy.

Iran Continues To Purify Uranium

Tehran ‘won’t give up’ uranium enrichment

TEHRAN: President Hassan Rowhani insisted Wednesday that Iran would not abandon its enrichment of uranium, after US senators called for it to be denied any such right under a long-term nuclear deal.
“The world has admitted that Iran is, and will be, among the countries which have nuclear technology, including enrichment, and there is no doubt about this for anyone,” state media quoted Rowhani as telling a cabinet meeting.
His comment came after an overwhelming majority of US senators signed a bipartisan letter to President Barack Obama on Tuesday urging him to reject Iran’s claim to the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes in talks under way with the major powers.
“We believe that Iran has no inherent right to enrichment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” the letter signed by 83 of the 100 members of the US Senate said.
Rowhani said Iran was ready to be more transparent about its nuclear program to allay Western concerns about its ambitions.
“We do not want to make anybody worried… today we are negotiating for a final agreement which is reachable within six months,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iran is ready to pardon hundreds of members of an exiled Iranian opposition group based at a former military camp near Baghdad, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq told the Mehr news agency on Wednesday.
“After conducting investigations, 423 members (of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran — PMOI) who do not have any legal problems can return to Iran,” Hassan Danaeifar was quoted as saying.
The number represents about 14 percent of the estimated 3,000 members of the PMOI who are living in exile at Camp Liberty, near Baghdad airport.
“Iran is ready to pardon those members who did not kill anyone or do not have complaints against them,” he said, without elaborating.
Danaeifar added that a bid by “a considerable number of this group who wish to come back to Iran was blocked by their leaders.”
The leftwing PMOI was founded in the 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran.