CAIRO — Iran’s foreign minister said this week that his government would not ship its stockpile of low-enriched uranium out of the country, making him the highest ranking official so far to declare that Iran would renege on a deal aimed at defusing a confrontation with the West over its nuclear program.
"We will definitely not send our 3.5-percent-enriched uranium out of the country," Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency in remarks reported Wednesday.
So after agreeing to this uranium deal last month - sending out of country about 75% of their LEU for reprocessing - Iran has now rejected it.... Apparently.... IAEA head El Baradei still refuses to call this rejection official because he has not received it in writing. But I'm surprised Iran didn't wait another two or three weeks till making this statement. The whole gambit from the gitgo has been about stalling and chewing up time while their nuclear program continues advancing unabated.
But the negotiating team that accepted the deal last month was led by Saeed Jalili, a hard-liner and Khamenei loyalist, making it highly unlikely the team had agreed without Ayatollah Khamenei’s approval. At the same time, Iranian critics of the deal, also considered Khamenei loyalists, were not likely to attack it without his approval, all of which has left competing views of Iran’s ultimate goal.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Yes, Iran sends out mixed signals by the bushel. I gather competing factions within Iran playing to domestic constituencies and guarding mega business interests play a part in that.
El Baradei, however, also stated that the ball is in the Iranian court:
Mr ElBaradei - who is standing down as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 1 December - spoke earlier in Berlin, saying Iran had "a unique opportunity to move from sanctions and confrontation to the process of building... trust".
"I believe frankly the ball is very much in the Iranian court," he added. "I hope they will not miss this unique but fleeting opportunity."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Obama responded to iran's apparent rejection of the deal:
On Thursday US President Barack Obama said Washington and its partners would discuss "a package of potential steps" they could take if Iran snubbed a uranium enrichment deal.
Mr Obama said Iran needed to get a "clear message" that, if it failed to take advantage of such opportunities, it was "making itself less secure".
Talks are under way between the United States and allied nations over levying additional sanctions against Iran for its continued nuclear intransigence, U.S. President Barack Obama said today (see GSN, Nov. 18).
Obama made his statement one day after Iran appeared to reject the latest plan for reducing tensions in the nuclear standoff, the Associated Press reported. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his nation would not agree to send any of its low-enriched uranium abroad for refinement in France and Russia. The material ultimately would be used to power a research reactor in Tehran.
"They have been unable to get to 'yes,' and so as a consequence, we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences," Obama said during a trip to South Korea.
He did not provide additional details of the possible sanctions beyond calling them a "package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran" (Jennifer Loven, Associated Press I/Time, Nov. 19).
http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.or...
Meanwhile Russia and China are still dodgy about committing to tough sanctions.
One senior Western diplomat said a new U.N. sanctions resolution could be expected to target "at least another bank, more individuals, more companies -- possibly a shipping company -- a tighter ban on arms, possibly political measures."
Another senior European diplomat told Reuters the Security Council could "never pass crippling sanctions against Iran's oil and gas businesses because Russia and China have a veto."
"Such sanctions will have to come from the European Union, or outside the U.N., and we hope to do that," he said.
A senior Western diplomat said the Western powers had other options independent of the United Nations. Those options would not be symbolic, he said.
He said that if European governments were to forbid Iranian banks from engaging in any transactions in euros, it would have "quite serious consequences" for Iran. Such a measure is both feasible and possible if the "political will" exists in Europe, he added.
Other diplomats said the West could prevent Iran from getting hold of the lucrative technology to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG). Tehran has been eager to acquire LNG technology for some time but has been unable to get top industry players to close deals with it.
http://www.reuters.com/...
swish