Baghdad — that’s a strange choice of venue.
[Are we supposed to believe that Iran prefers Baghdad, because it's annoyed with Turkey?]

Here is a photo of Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili, speaking to the press after today’s talks. The photo was taken by Turkish journalist Mahir Zeynalov [@MahirZeynalov on Twitter], and posted here:

Zeynalov Tweeted that in the photo, “Jalili sticks large Iran map above Istanbul, with big “PERSIAN GULF,” assassinated scientists & message to Israel” —

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi wrote in an opinion piece published Friday in The Washington Post [see below] that “Despite sanctions, threats of war, assassinations of several of our scientists and other forms of terrorism, we have chosen to remain committed to dialogue”.

Persian Gulf is the official name, used by the UN, to refer to that body of water.

Scott Peterson wrote in the Christian Science Monitor that “Above a map of Iran was written a common official slogan: ‘Nuclear energy for all; nuclear weapons for none’….” — that slogan, in English,  is visible in the poster above.

Press TV noted here that in the talks, “The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, says Iran insists on the recognition of its rights as stipulated in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)”.

Another story by Press TV reported that “Sources close to the Iranian delegation said Iranian negotiators have rejected multiple requests from US for bilateral negotiations both after the first round of talks and before the beginning of the second round. Meanwhile, the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has met three times with Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili over the past 24 hours”.

Scott Peterson wrote in the Christian Science Monitor here that Jalili “described the talks as ‘successful’, and noted that Khamenei’s fatwa was ‘welcomed’ by the P5+1″. Peterson added that Jalili said the statement, “opposing the use and production of nuclear bombs, was highlighted by the other side … They consider it valuable and it creates an opportunity and capacity for cooperation on international disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation”,

Ashton’s role in these six-nation talks with Iran seems more high-profile than that of previous EU High Representatives.

Details of what went on in the series of bilateral and group meetings in Istanbul on Friday and Saturday are scarce, but comments from those involved suggest there might be small steps taken between now and the next round of talks on 23 May.

Zvi Bar’el reported in Haaretz here just after midnight that “Sources close to the talks told Haaretz that the Iranians are demanding an American and European commitment not to carry out a military attack on their country as long as the talks continue”…

And, as Haaretz noted in that piece, “The U.S. and Israel have not ruled out military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, former head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, who has often spoken of the ironies of the situation, wrote in an article published in The Washington Post on Friday 13 April that here that “Forty-five years ago, the United States sold my country a research reactor as well as weapons-grade uranium as its fuel. Not long afterward, America agreed to help Iran set up the full nuclear fuel cycle along with atomic power plants. The U.S. argument was that nuclear power would provide for the growing needs of our economy and free our remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals. That rationale has not changed. Still, after the Islamic Revolution in our country in 1979, all understandings with the United States in the nuclear field unraveled. Washington even cut off fuel deliveries to the very facility it supplied. To secure fuel from other sources, Iran was forced to modify the reactor to run on uranium enriched to around 20 percent. The Tehran Research Reactor still operates, supplying isotopes used in the medical treatment of 800,000 of my fellow Iranians every year. But getting to this point was not easy. In 2009, we put forward a request to the International Atomic Energy Agency for fuel for the reactor as its supply was running out, threatening the lives of many Iranians. When we agreed to exchange a major portion of our stock of low-enriched uranium for reactor fuel in 2010 — a proposal by the Obama administration — the response we got from the White House was a push for more U.N. Security Council sanctions … Thanks to the grace of God and the hard work of our committed and growing cadre of scientists, we managed to do something we had never done before: enrich uranium to the needed 20 percent and mold it into fuel plates for the reactor”.

The title of Salehi’s piece in the WPost is “Iran: We do not want nuclear weapons“.

In the same article, Salehi also wrote: “We have strongly marked our opposition to weapons of mass destruction on many occasions. Almost seven years ago, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a binding commitment. He issued a religious edict — a fatwa — forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. Our stance against weapons of mass destruction, which is far from new, has been put to the test. When Saddam Hussein attacked us with chemical arms in the 1980s, we did not retaliate with the same means”…

And now, Iran seems to want to have the resumed session of these talks in Baghdad — where people will not forget, just as those in Tehran during the same time will not forget either — the terror of the “war of the cities” when the two countries attacked each other’s capitals during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war… Baghdad is a very wierd choice of venue for the next meeting.

As to the issue of suspending its own 20% enrichment of uranium [which the U.S. made the centerpiece of the current talks with Iran], Cyrus Safdari wrote days ago on his Iran Affairs blog, here, that: “such a deal — if it happens — is merely tangential and would amount to little more than simply accepting an Iranian offer which was first proposed by Iran many years ago. Iranian Ambassador Javad Zarif explained some of the details of Iran’s proposals first made in 2005 … Iran already offered to cease 20% enrichment as long as Iran could have the reactor fuel necessary for the Tehran Research Reactor, which uses 20% enriched uranium in its fuel rods. Ahmadinejad himself personally came to New York in September 2011 and repeated the offer to cease making 20% enriched uranium. Of course this offer was naturally characterized as merely a ‘bluff’ … The real issue which would have to be addressed in any sort of real deal over the nuclear issue is the basic right of Iran to have the full fuel cycle and a robust nuclear program, akin to Germany or Japan or Argentina’s, in accordance with Iran’s ‘inalienable’ rights under the NPT”…

While that may be so, Iran has also raised questions about the unreliability due to possible interruption of supplies coming to Iran from outside, due to sanctions of the type that have been applied against Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After six-nation talks with Iran in Geneva in September 2009, Reuters reported here that “Western officials said Iran had agreed in principle at Thursday’s meeting in Geneva to a deal under which it would send most of its enriched uranium to Russia for further processing. France would then place the uranium in fuel assemblies which Iran would use, under safeguards, in a Tehran nuclear reactor which produces medical isotopes but is running low on fuel … But a senior Iranian official said the deal was preliminary and contested reports that Iran was ready to send 1.2 tons of its 1.5-tonne low-enriched uranium stockpile abroad for refining to the 20 percent purity needed for the Tehran reactor. ‘Whatever they’ve agreed (in Geneva) on 20 percent enrichment is just based on principles’, the official told Reuters. ‘We have not agreed on any amount or any numbers’…”.

The situation appears not to have moved much since then, at least, not publicly.

The last such talks, also held in Istanbul, ended without progress in January 2011.

UPDATE: After two sessions, it was agreed that further talks will be held on May 23 — in Baghdad. [For those of us with memories of the Iran-Iraq war, this is very wierd.]

Now, these talks are being held under the threat of a possible Israeli military attack to stop Iran before it develops nuclear weapons. Israeli officials have recently suggested, however, that a strike may not be needed before 2013.

The six nations facing Iran are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council [the U.S., Russia, China, France, and Britain, who are the only countries in the world with the veto power to stop any resolution at the UN Security Council, and who also just so happen to be the world's only officially recognized and "legitimate" nuclear powers, according to the NPT Treaty] — plus Germany. For this reason, the talks are often called “P5+1” talks with Iran.

The EU’s Catherine Ashton [white jacket] talking with Turkey’s FM Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul on Saturday morning as talks with Iran about its nuclear program got underway

Germany is included because of the great interest it showed for this process in the early 2000s, when one of Iran’s chief nuclear negotiators, Hossein Mousavian, was also Ambassador to Berlin.

European officials prefer to refer to these “P5+1” talks instead as “E3+3″ talks — meaning three European powers [Germany, France, and Britain] plus three others [U.S., Russia, China].

U.S. President Obama has also made Israeli officials happy recently by saying that he will not tolerate Iranian nuclear weaponization.

Over two years ago, Israeli analysts at the Tel Aviv-based INSS [Institute for National Security Studies] said that Iran would not pose an “existential threat” to Israel when it was on the threshold of being able to put a nuclear weapon together — as it apparently is now. Nor would Iran not be an “existential threat” when it had one nuclear weapon, or when it tested a nuclear weapon. Iran would need 4 to 8 nuclear weapons assembled and ready-to-use, the experts said, to be an “existential threat” — because it would need a second-strike capability. That means, if Iran fires first, and Israel retaliates, Iran would need to be able to hit back. Nuclear-weapon-armed submarines, capable of sailing far from their home bases, are one of the factors that show a second-strike capability”.

Iranian officials have said they have no intention of making or ever using nuclear weapons — which one senior cleric has called “satanic”.

The Iranian delegation that arrived in Istanbul yesterday said they hoped both sides would be prepared to present “new intitiatives”.

A U.S. Defense Official testified to the International Court of Justice in the mid-1990s, in a case brought against nuclear weapons, that contrary to the argument that nuclear weapons are too dangerous to use, America in fact uses its nuclear weapons every day, on a daily basis — as a deterrent to attack.

Though Iran has argued that it is developing its nuclear energy and medical capacity out of national necessity as well as its national, sovereign right to do so. However, having the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon, if it wanted, elevates Iran to the status of major regional power — and it also acts as a powerful deterrent to attacks.

Robert Nariman wrote in Huffington Post, here, that “There are four reasons for Iran to have a nuclear program, srtated and not-so-stated: [1] energy, [2] medical isotopes, [3] national prestige, and [4] deterring a U.S. or Israeli attack … In particular, a perverse benefit of all the warmongering against Iran is that every time U.S. officials counter the warmongering by saying that a military strike against Iran would be counterproductive because it would drive the Iranians towards nuclear weaponization, it underscores the fact that Iran derives important national security benefits from enrichment without ever needing to crack a textbook on weaponization, nor enrich to 20 percent, nor build a deeper tunnel. If I’m an official in Iran’s enrichment program, every time a U.S. official says that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear program would be counterproductive to U.S. interests, I get a little bit more convinced that I’m never going to need to try to build a nuclear weapon to protect my country from military attack”.

However, expectations are said to be low all around. Sanctions against Iran, imposed bilaterally in addition to three rounds agreed by the UN Security Council, will not be lifted anytime soon — unless Iran completely stops its uranium enrichment, which Iran has said it is unwilling to do.

The stated aim of the six-nations, as determined by leaks from American and European officals to major American media last weekend, might possibly be some temporary suspension of Iran’s 20% uranium enrichment program that produces nuclear fuel rods of the degree needed to run the Tehran Research Reactor in order to produce domestic medical isotopes for medical treatment including against cancer. Iran succeeded in successfully managing this 20%-enrichment technology in 2010. The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Program has suggested that this production could be suspended — but only once Iran’s “needs” are met.

But, Iranian officials have made it clear, for years, that they could nave no faith in international promises to supply enriched uranium for its nuclear reactors, in light of the 30-year history of freezing of assets, confiscation of aircraft and civilian aircraft parts, and other sanctions that have been imposed non-stop ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

Reuters reported here, ahead of Satuday’s opening session in Istanbul that “Iran’s deputy negotiator Ali Baqeri held separate talks with senior Chinese and Russian officials in Istanbul, while the six powers met separately to coordinate tactics. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman headed the U.S. delegation … Formal talks between Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, the powers’ main representative, will get under way on Saturday around 0700 GMT, but Ashton and Jalili also met over dinner on Friday”.

The New York Times’ Steven Erlanger reported here that the talks began with a plenary session on Saturday morning — “involving all delegates from 10 a.m. until lunch”.

[The Guardian later reported herethat the talks started an hour late, for an unknown reason.]

Ashton reportedly began the session by saying the six nations were hoping “to find ways in which we can build confidence between us and ways in which we can demonstrate that Iran is moving away from a nuclear weapons program”.

To be fair, Iran has always said it would never have a nuclear weapons program.

However, the technology that Iran has been mastering for uranium enrichment for energy generation purposes [at 3.5% enrichment level] or for medical purposes [at 20% enrichment level] is the same needed to produce the Highly-Enriched Uranium [90% level] needed for nuclear weapons.

But, highly-enriched uranium is not all that is needed to produce a usable nuclear weapon: explosive devices needed to detonate a weapon, and technology needed to deliver a nuclear weapon capable of striking a distant enemy-threat are also essential… [a nuclear strike near home would endanger one's own civilian population and infrastructure].

The New York Times piece by Steven Erlanger added that “diplomats suggested that a positive first step would be for Tehran to agree to allow the inspectors to visit all nuclear sites, including those Iran refused to show them in February. That would help restore confidence and could be enough by itself to open the way to further talks, diplomats said. Iran has fueled Western suspicious by denying the atomic energy agency access to the Parchin military base near Tehran, where the agency says Iran may have tested explosives for warhead research”.

Erlanger also noted, in his report, that Iranian Supreme Council leader “Ayatollah Khamenei has recently repeated his fatwa against acquiring nuclear weapons, saying that they are against Islam, which some Western experts see as a way to prepare the Iranian people for any concessions Tehran makes in these talks and those that may follow”.

Though this fatwa [a religious opinion or ruling] was issued in the early 2000s, some have said they never found evidence that it existed. But, Iran’s former Ambassador to the UN in New York, Javad Larijani, has written and spoken about this fatwa, and informed the UN about it, numerous times.
Perhaps, if there is a surprise and huge progress, the six-nations facing Iranian negotiators at the table today may agree that new sanctions against Iranian oil sales, scheduled to go into effect in June, may be frozen or suspended temporarily. The NYTimes piece suggests that American officials now accept that this fatwa does indeed exist.

A second piece in the NYTimes on Saturday, written by James Risen, and posted here, reports that Ayatollah Khamenei said in February that: “Iran is not seeking to have the atomic bomb, possession of which is pointless, dangerous and is a great sin from an intellectual and a religious point of view”. The NYTimes story added that more recently [last month, that is, in March] “Ayatollah Khamenei was reported to have said that ‘we do not possess a nuclear weapon, and we will not build one’. Ayatollah Khamenei has also issued a fatwa, an Islamic edict, against the acquisition of a nuclear bomb by Iran”.

It is interesting that these statements are being given more consideration now, after having been scoffed at, and dismissed contemptuously, earlier.

According to the James Risen piece in the NYTimes, the late Ayatollah Khomeni, the first leader of the Supreme Council established after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, at first ordered the disbandment of a nuclear program begun under the late Shah Reza Pahlavi [with American help, in the mid 1970s], then the reinstatement of the program in 1984 during the terrible Iran-Iraq war.

Then, Risen reports, “In 2003, probably in response to the American invasion of Iraq, which was originally justified by the Bush administration on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Ayatollah Khamenei ordered a suspension of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, although he has allowed uranium enrichment efforts to continue. At an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] in 2005, Iran’s nuclear negotiator described how Ayatollah Khamenei [n.b. - successor to Ayatollah Khomeni] had issued a fatwa declaring that ‘the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are all forbidden in Islam’, and noted that he had said that ‘Iran shall never acquire these weapons’. In the negotiations in Istanbul, American officials seem willing to use Ayatollah Khamenei’s most recent public statements as leverage, insisting publicly, at least, that they are taking him at his word. This month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Iran to back up its assertion that acquiring nuclear weapons would be a sin”…

This is, indeed, a major change in the U.S. official position.

Diplomats have said, however, that they would be encouraged if there would merely be an open discussion of all the issues involved, and if another meeting is scheduled in about a month’s time.

And, as Mousavian also noted, these talks also offer a chance for the US and Iran “to begin a serious dialogue to resolve more than three decades of hostilities, mistrust, and tension”.

But, many are voicing pessimism.

The U.S., Russia, China, France, and the U.K. — the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, who also happen to be, by the terms of the NPT Treaty, the world’s only legitimate nuclear powers — plus Germany, are all to meet this weekend with Iranian negotiators to discuss their high level of concern about Iranian nuclear intentions. The last P5+1 meeting with Iran was also in Istanbul, in January 2011.

Since then, there has been a constant stream of speculation about whether or not Israel will launch a military strike on Iran to stop any possible progress towards a nuclear weapon.

But, in the past week, a high ranking Israeli military official and a noted Iranian member of Parliament have both said that Iran already does have the capability, or the ability, to put together a nuclear warhead.

Cyrus Safdari has written a post on April 9 entitled “Why Iran nuclear talks will fail…again” on his Iran Affairs blog, here, that “There is a pattern here that just can’t be ignored, of the US deliberately raising the bar, moving goalposts, and imposing demandst that it knows will be rejected by Iran. The point, you see, is not to actually engage Iran in any sort of substantive dialog, but to give the US an opportunity to say ‘Hey we tried diplomacy and the Iranians ruined it’. So, as usuall, we have the US imposing demands on Iran even before any negotiations start, with no prospect that the US can ever provide anything in return as a quid-pro-quo. In fact, as I had explained before, the Obama administration is simply not ABLE to give anything back to Iran since US sanctions are imposed mainly by Congress, and Congress isn’t about to lift any sanctions in return for Iranian agreements to give up any part of their nuclear program. So, there will be some dickering in the media as usual but eventually the negotiations will fail and the US/Israeli will naturally blame Iran…So don’t hold your breath, these talks will also ‘fail’. The entire nuclear issue is, after all, just a pretext”.

In his previous post, here, Safdari wrote even if Iran were to agree to, say, a suspension or freeze [or even to a complete capitulation], “any move by Iran which actually reaches a compromise deal with the US as being merely a ‘tactical and temporary’ delay in Iran’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons. This is what the hawks will call any deal that is reached with Iran, if one is ever reached: a plot by the Iranians to ‘sow dissension’ in those opposed to them, so as to ‘buy time’ to make bombs”.

Trita Parsi, in a piece in the Huffington Post that Cyrus Safdari has criticized in his latest [April 9] post, wrote that “there are some indications that the next round of talks may differ little from previous failed discussions. Driven by limited political maneuverability at home, domestic pressure not to compromise, and a perception of strength that lures the parties to believe they can force on the other a fait accompli, the talks have often been about imposing terms of capitulation on the other. It has never succeeded”.

Parsi, who serves as President of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council, noted that “What remains unclear, however, is what Obama is willing to put on the table. Thus far, White House officials have only indicated that Iran would be given fuel pads to produce medical isotopes and a promise not to impose new UN sanctions on Tehran … There is a risk that Obama’s silence on the incentives side is motivated by the logic of the phased approach, that is, demands will be made throughout the talks but real incentives will only be offered in the final phase. But there is also a chance that the silence is a calculated move. While demands can be leaked to the US media, incentives will only be presented at the negotiating table once a diplomatic process has been put in place.  So far, both sides have shown a greater willingness to take a risk for escalation than a risk for peacemaking”.

The “phased approach”, as Parsi described it, is only about sanctions — international and bilateral.

There is currently no horizon for rolling back the sanctions already imposed on Iran — though Mousavian certainly advocates that possibility, for talks to succeed.  Instead, now, there is only the perspective of more and more “deeply-biting” sanctions coming into play, as soon as June if not earlier.

What is apparently at issue, in these upcoming talks, is  the matter of Iran’s project to enrich uranium up to a level of 20% — which is the quality of enrichment necessary for the Tehran Research Reactor to produce medical isotopes for uses such as cancer treatment.

The U.S. wants Iran to stop, immediately, and to close the Ferdow plant built deep underground near the city of Qom where this enrichment is taking place [which Obama brought to world public attention in his speech at the UNGA in September 2010], and then to send out of the country its entire stock of 20% enriched uranium — to be replaced by imported 20% enriched uranium.

Mousavian is one of those who have also advocated that Iran stop its 20% uranium enrichment: “it should stop producing 20 percent enriched uranium, which can be processed into weapons-grade fuel relatively easily. Simultaneously, the P5+1 should provide fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor, and the United States and EU should suspend sanctions on Iran’s oil and central bank”. Mousavian made this recommendation in his 31 March opinion piece published in the Boston Globe, here.

Indeed, Iran has just signalled that it will consider stopping this 20% enrichment — but only when it has domestically produced the quantity “needed” [for what, is not clear, but the implication is for the medical purposes Iran has described].

The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization has ruled out, however, shipping abroad any stockpile of Iran’s domestically-produced 20% enriched uranium.

Iran, which has been under bilateral and then broader Western sanctions since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, has said it simply cannot trust in any external source to provide on a continuous and long-term basis the enriched uranium it needs — because of the sanctions and more sanctions to which it has been subjected.

What is so important about stopping Iran’s 20% uranium enrichment effort?

As Parsi wrote, “This package is a non-starter to most observers – including to other P5+1 diplomats. The problem is not necessarily the demands, but the imbalance between what is demanded and what is offered. If Iran would agree to this, the US’s current conviction that Iran cannot dash for a bomb without getting caught would persist. Iran would need about a year to build a bomb, but would get caught within 30-60 days if it tried to build one, thanks to the current level of inspections. Iran’s activities at Fordo [Ferdow] and its growing stockpile of uranium enriched to 20%, however, reduces Iran’s dash-out time and it could make it more difficult for the inspectors to catch any Iranian foul play”…

Iran has not yet moved to the 90%+ level of enrichment necessary to build a nuclear weapon — but once Iran has mastered 20% uranium enrichment, it is only a matter of months to advance further.

Iran has a large stockpile of Low-Enriched Uranium, or LEU, needed to operate nuclear reactors used to generate power for civilian use [5,5 tons, as Israeli Maj-Gen (res) Amos Gilad said at a briefing in Jerusalem last week].  What is new about the upcoming talks is that this stockpile of LEU is not being treated as a very big deal — for the moment.

There is also relatively little talk, in advance of this weekend’s talks, about “regime change”, as both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. President Barack Obama face voters in the coming months.

But, the UN Security Council has already called for a total freeze in Iran’s enrichment program, and has voted for three-plus rounds of sanctions until Iran halts all its enrichment.

And, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson has just said that “We, naturally, insist on Iran’s full compliance with the UN Security Council, aimed at ruling out any possibility of Tehran’s program being used for military activity”.  This statment is reported here.

The “P5+1″ talks with Iran [or, as the Europeans prefer to call them, "P3+3"] countries — Germany, Britain, France, China, Russia, and the U.S. — will be held either on the 13th or the 14th, and apparently in Istanbul after all.

Whoever is responsible for the Twitter account of Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu sent out two Tweets this morning with a maximalist position that is a bit off-message, compared to the more nuanced positions that Israeli military and diplomatic sources have been explaining for days. Here are the two Tweets:

[The PM of Israel] @IsraeliPM: Iran must stop all enrichment of uranium, both 20% and 3% and move all enriched material out of its territory – [1/2]
[The PM of Israel] @IsraeliPM: It is possible to give Iran alternative material for peaceful purposes. It must also dismantle the illegal facility in Qom- [2/2]

The main Iranian concern, which has never been addressed in the negotiations over its nuclear program, is how it can believe, after thirty years of sanctions due to its Islamic Revolution that have only been increasingly tightened in recent years, it can ever have confidence that an external source of the enriched uranium it will need for its civilian nuclear energy program [and also for the Tehran Research Reactor that will produce domestically-needed medical isotopes to treat cancer, for example] will not be subject at some point to sanctions that will interrupt supplies of enriched uranium.

It is for this express reason that Iran says it has embarked on self-sufficiency for its nuclear program.

But, this concern has been consistently brushed aside, or addressed in the most minimal and condescending terms.

Iran’s behavior is regarded with suspicion in the West — and, importantly, by Israel, which is still contemplating possible military action to remove any Iranian nuclear capability that might be used to construct nuclear weapons.

Iran is suspected of trying to hide an intention to covertly develop of nuclear weapons.

An opinion piece in one Israeli newspaper suggested Sunday that it now appears, however, that Iran and Israel are indirectly negotiating… Amir Oren wrote in Haaretz that “Essentially, indirect negotiations are taking place between Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the one hand, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the other. In the absence of a direct channel of dialogue (as far as is known, and perhaps not all is known), the Israeli side’s negotiator is U.S. President Barack Obama … All of this is happening on the eve of elections, with Obama preventing Israel from acting until the negotiations are exhausted”. This is posted here.

According to Oren’s analysis, there are, going into the talks, two weaknesses in the American opening position, as it is known from the media [see our post yesterday]: “First, no side can expect to take away from the negotiations all of the things it sought at the beginning … [and, the related point that] the Iranians will present their own demands”.

Meanwhile, media reports from Iran indicate what used to be called “defiance”: AFP reported that the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi [Davani], has said that Iran would continue to produce uranium enriched to 20% [this is for medical purposes, but it can be more quickly enriched to the much higher grade, over 90%, needed for use in nuclear weapons[. But, Abbasi said Iran would not produce “more than we need, because it is not in our benefit to produce it and keep it”. At one time, Iranian officials spoke hypothetically about producing 20% uranium not only for domestic medical use but also for export.

On the other hand, Haaretz has reported Abbasi's remarks as hinting at a possible area of compromise: "Iran's nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi told state TV late Sunday that Tehran could stop its production of 20 percent enriched uranium needed for a research reactor, and continue enriching uranium to lower levels for power generation. This could take place once Iran has stock piled enough of the 20 percent enriched uranium, Abbasi said". This is reported here.

The same Haaretz article notes that "In two separate statements made on Sunday, Netanyahu and Barak presented what they described as 'Israel's position' on dialogue between Iran and the six superpowers. However, the statements contained several contradictions on core issues". [See our post yesterday for Barak's, or the Ministry of Defense's, views.]

Meahwhile, Iran’s politically-embattled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [referred to as a "big mouth" or a "loud mouth" in the recent Gunther Grass poem about the present situation, which has earned him a formal and pre-announced ban on entry into Israel -- allegedly because of his Nazi-related war-time military service, see here] has also contributed to the pre-talk positioning. Speaking on Sunday, Ahmadinejad reportedly said that: “Iran would continue on its nuclear path even if the whole world stands up to it, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported. Speaking at an event marking the country’s ‘Nuclear Technology Day’, Ahmadinejad said Iran would defend its dignity and not bow to enemy pressure, IRNA reported. He added that ‘enemies’ should not think assassinating nuclear scientists would block its nuclear progress”. This is reported here.

Hossein Mousavian — Iran’s former nuclear negotiator during a determinative period around 2003 — lost his position after Ahmadinejad was elected President in 2005, and was arrested in Iran in 2007 for his foreign contacts while abroad — has just written a piece for Foreign Affairs, published here, with his recommendations in the lead-up to the talks.

Mousavian — who is now living and teaching in the U.S. — writes that “despite what passes for debate in the international arena today”, what should happen at this juncture is that “Both capitals should also progressively reduce threat-making, hostile behavior, and punitive measures during engagement to prove that they seek a healthier relationship”.

In his piece, Mousavian gives an interesting account of past, failed, U.S.-Iranian contacts.

It would be reasonable to assume that Mousavian is being consulted from time to time, even if only informally, by members of the current U.S. administration.

He notes now that “It would be misguided for the United States to count on exploiting possible cleavages within the Iranian leadership. Iran’s prominent politicians have their differences — like those in all countries — but they will be united against foreign interference and aggression”.

About ten days earlier, Hossein Mosavian published an opinion piece in the Boston Globe, here, saying that the upcoming talks “provide the best opportunity to break the nine-year deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program. Going in, the P5+1 members need to know that war or coercion are not the only two options. A third, offered by President Obama, seeks to engage Tehran regarding its nuclear program. This could work – since 2003, Iran has been looking for a viable and durable solution to the diplomatic standoff”

But, Mousavian noted, “it is too late to demand that Iran suspend enrichment activities; it mastered enrichment technology and reached break-out capability in 2002 and continues to steadily improve its uranium enrichment capabilities”.

And, he concluded, “The nuclear issue is part of a broader dispute between Iran and the West. It is crucial for Washington and Tehran to begin a serious dialogue to resolve more than three decades of hostilities, mistrust, and tension, and usher in a new chapter in relations:.

Iran does “have the know-how to assemble a nuclear warhead, if they want to do it … it depends on their decision”, he said.

Gilad spoke on Tuesday 2 April to diplomats, military attaches, ranking UNTSO “blue beret” military observers, and journalists at a briefing at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs [JCPA].

He suggested in his talk that he is enjoying some sort of retirement [at least, from direct responsibility for intelligence, he implied] — but he is still described as the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs.

“I agree there’s no existential threat to Israel [now], but if Iran develops nuclear weapons, that could change. It [the threat to Israel from Iran] becomes serious”, Gilad said.

About Iran’s leadership, Gilad said, “We need to be humble. They are not stupid… Consider your enemy as more intelligent than you. If Israel tells them something, they will ignore it — unless they come to the same conclusion themselves. And [Iran knows] there is a consensus now”.

He said, “the moment they feel immune, they will [might] cross the Rubicon”. But, he noted, even if they do the opposite, and pull back from the brink, “they will keep the capability”.

Gilad spoke on Tuesday.

By Friday [allowing time for translations, reaction, and reportage], there appeared to be confirmation of this from Iran itself.

The Associated Press published a headline-making story, datelined Tehran, picked up by media from around the world, reporting that prominent Iranian parliamentarian Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam “said Iran can easily produce the highly enriched uranium that is used to build atomic bombs but it is not Tehran’s policy to go that route”. According to AP, Moghadam told icana.ir that “There is a possibility for Iran to easily achieve more than 90 (percent) enrichment”. One place this report was published was here.

But, the Iranian politician said more than that. He said that Iran can also actually produce a nuclear weapon — and that takes more than just highly-enriched uranium: “‘Iran has the scientific and technological capability to produce (a) nuclear weapon, but will never choose this path’, Moghadam told the parliament’s news website, icana.ir, late Friday”.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius [@IgnatiusPost on Twitter] reported that Obama sent message to Iran via Turkey last week [but "delicate issue" of enrichment not clear]. Ignatius’ WPost story [see below] is posted here.

Amos Gilad [IDF Maj-Gen res] said Iran has 5,5 tons of Lightly Enriched Uranium and is “dealing with” 20% enrichment [warheads need higher, over 90% enrichment].

Iran’s stock of Lightly Enriched Uranium at 3-4% is the degree used to run civilian nuclear power plants, as Iran says it’s preparing to do.

It seems that this Iranian claim now being accepted … or, at least, it is not considered as alarming as it previously was, in recent years.

But 20% enrichment of uranium [Iran has experimented with at least two different technologies to arrive at this level] is another matter. Iran has explained that its 20% enriched uranium is for medical usage [in a research reactor that will produce medical isotopes to treat cancer, etc.]

Amos Gilad [IDF Maj-Gen res] furrowed his brow and shook his head, when he spoke about Iran’s uranium enrichment program…

Apparently, 20% enrichment is too much — perhaps because once there’s capability to enrich uranium to 20% level, it becomes possible to do more or less the same to arrive at military grade +90%.

UPDATE: Haaretz is now reporting that “Israel has signaled it would accept, as a first priority, world powers focusing on persuading Iran to stop higher-level uranium enrichment when they resume stalled nuclear negotiations this week with Tehran … ‘We told our American friends, as well as the Europeans, that we would have expected the threshold for successful negotiations to be clear, namely that the P5+1 will demand clearly that – no more enrichment to 20 percent’, [Israel's Defense Minister Ehud] Barak said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS to be aired on Sunday. Iran’s stocks of 20 percent-pure uranium should be removed ‘to a neighboring, trusted country’, Barak said, according to an advance transcript of the interview … Asked about Barak’s comments to CNN, another Israeli official confirmed that the Netanyahu government was focusing lobbying efforts on Iran’s 20-percent pure uranium but said the long-term goal remained the ending all of its enrichment work. ‘The understanding that has emerged in our contacts with the powers is that there should be a staggered approach’, the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Western diplomats have similarly stressed that an initial focus on 20 percent enrichment should not be seen as ‘legitimizing’ lower-level work as the UN Security Council has demanded a full suspension”. This is reported here.

Amos Gilad said at the JCPA briefing last Tuesday: “Obama is talking about nuclear missile = nuclear weapon. We are talking about capability”.

“The President of the U.S., in September 2010 at the UN, exposed the Iranian’s top secret project of Qum”, Gilad said, referring to the 20% enrichment effort. Now, Gilad added, “the [American] President has upgraded to saying he will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. He said it publicly in a very serious way. He’s committed not to us, but to the whole world”.

He added: “I try to be very simple: I think a nuclear Iran is not tolerable for Israel, for the U.S., and for the West … [and even if you analyze the Chinese position] … Does this oblige Iran? [Ayatollah] Khamene’i can do whatever he wants. History will then judge him”, Gilad said.

Gilad said that Turkey’s position was interesting: “If Iran gets nuclear weapon, Turkey – to be very gentle – will be very upset”.

According to David Ignatius’ report Friday in the Washington Post, published here, “President Obama has signaled Iran that the United States would accept an Iranian civilian nuclear program if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent public claim that his nation ‘will never pursue nuclear weapons’ … The statement highlighted by Obama as a potential starting point was made on state television in February. Khamenei said: ‘The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons … Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous’. … Obama didn’t specify whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium domestically as part of the civilian program the United States would endorse. That delicate issue evidently would be left for the negotiations that are supposed to start April 13, at a venue yet to be decided … As Iran’s leadership debates its negotiating stance, the squeeze of Western sanctions is becoming tighter. Nat Kern, the editor of Foreign Reports, a leading oil newsletter, forecasts that Iran will lose about a third of its oil exports by mid-summer. It may get even worse for Iran after July 1 if China and the European Union follow through on recent warnings that they might stop insuring tankers carrying Iranian crude”.

On Saturday, The New York Times published an article by David Sanger and Steven Erlanger, posted here, which reported that “In interviews, administration officials said their ‘urgent priority’ was to get Iran to give up — and ship out of the country — its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, and to get Tehran to close Fordo. Dismantlement, they said, would come in a second stage. So far Iran has produced only about 100 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium — less than it would need to produce a single nuclear weapon — but it has announced plans to increase production sharply in coming months. It is unclear whether that is possible: sanctions, embargos on crucial parts and Western sabotage have all delayed the program. But because that fuel could be so quickly converted to highly enriched uranium for a bomb, the American and European strategy is to eliminate that stockpile, leaving time to negotiate on the fate of lower-enriched uranium. Uranium enriched to about 5 percent does not pose as imminent a risk, but the United Nations Security Council has required that Iran halt all enrichment … Others, however, are more willing to allow Iran some enrichment capabilities. ‘What we are looking for is a way to acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich, but only at levels that would give us plenty of warning if they moved toward a weapon’, one European diplomat familiar with the internal debates said”.

It is worth noting that European officials participating in the series of negotiations with Iran that have gone on for nearly a decade do not refer to these talks as “P5+1″ [meaning, Germany plus the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, who are also the world's only "official"/or legitimate nuclear weapons state, as defined in the 1967 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].

No.

The Europeans call these negotiations the “P3+3″ talks [meaning, Germany plus France and the UK, who are the two European Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, along with the other three Permanent Members of the UNSC, who are the US, Russia, and China].

As the NYTimes story stated, “the United Nations Security Council has required that Iran halt all enrichment”.

The NYTimes report noted that “While the six nations in the talks — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — are prepared to allow Iran to have a nuclear power program, they say Iran must first restore its credibility and prove that it does not in fact have a military nuclear program. It can do so, they say, by allowing agency inspectors full access to all Iranian sites … The Western negotiators all agree that in the first round of talks, Iran must prove its willingness to discuss its nuclear program without preconditions. In the last talks in January 2011, Tehran demanded that the six first lift all sanctions against Iran and recognize what Iran says is its ‘right to enrich’. Last week, apparently in preparation for the meeting, Mr. Obama delivered a message to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, through an intermediary: Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr. Erdogan met Mr. Obama during a summit meeting in Seoul late last month and then went directly to northeastern Iran. The message, American officials said, was that ‘there is great urgency’ that Iran seriously negotiate now”.

The Washington Post and the New York Times stories were serious signals about the American negotiating aims.

UPDATE: Another NYTimes story published today [about drones collecting evidence over Iran for some three years, until one "crashed" inside Iran in December] reported this: “The expanded espionage effort has confirmed the consensus view expressed by the U.S. intelligence community in a controversial estimate released publicly in 2007. That estimate concluded that while Iran remains resolutely committed to assembling key building blocks for a nuclear weapons program, particularly enriched uranium, the nation’s leaders have opted for now against taking the crucial final step: designing a nuclear warhead. ‘It isn’t the absence of evidence, it’s the evidence of an absence’, said one former intelligence official briefed on the findings. ‘Certain things are not being done’.” This is published here.

Israeli position was explained, with somewhat less nuance than expressed by Amos Gilad a few days earlier, in a couple of stories last week in the Jerusalem Post.

On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Post reported here that “Israel and the US share almost all of their intelligence assessments regarding Iran and, for example, share the opinion that Iran has yet to make the decision to begin enriching uranium to higher military-grade levels and begin building a bomb.
Barak admitted, however, that there were differences between Israel and the US over his claim that Iran was moving into an ‘immunity zone’ and that if Israel waits too long its military option might not be viable past the end of the year. ‘This is part of the difference between us and the Americans’, the defense minister said.”

The same article, written by the well-briefed JPost Defense Correspondent Yaakov Katz, says that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave a “rare” briefing to military correspondents in which he “revealed what Israel’s goals are for the talks:
1) transfer of all uranium enriched to 20 percent – approximately 120 kg. – out of Iran to a third party country;
2) the transfer of the majority of the 5 tons of uranium enriched to 3.5% out of Iran, leaving just enough needed for energy purposes;
3) the closure of the Fordow enrichment facility, buried under a mountain near the city of Qom;
4) the transfer of fuel rods from a third party country to Iran for the purpose of activating the Tehran Research Reactor”.

In a new article published in the JPost heretoday [Easter Sunday, 8 April], Katz wrote that Defense Minister Barak just said that “Iran must open all of its nuclear facilities to the IAEA, and disclose its entire history of activity related to the allegation of developing a nuclear weapon, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday. Barak added this new stipulation to previous conditions he laid out last week, which he reiterated Sunday in light of a New York Times report that laid out the United States’ list of demands for Iran over its nuclear program … The Times article, which was published on Saturday, said the US would demand at upcoming P5+1 talks with Iran that Tehran close its underground nuclear facility at Fordow, and transfer out of the country uranium fuel that has been enriched to weapons-grade level. The US reiterated its acceptance of a civilian nuclear program, which Iran is allowed to pursue under its acceptance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. The Obama administration and its European allies also will call for a halt in the production of higher-level enrichment of uranium fuel, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of Iran, the newspaper said, citing US and European diplomats … Diplomats told the Times that they could not imagine any agreement that left Iran with a stockpile of fuel, enriched to 20 percent purity, that could be converted to the grade needed to make an atomic bomb in a matter of months … Defense Ministry Diplomatic-Security Bureau Head Amos Gilad Maj.-Gen. (res.) also responded to the Times article on Sunday morning, saying the most important part of the report is the US’s insistence that Iran not be allowed to acquire a nuclear bomb. ‘The US’s unequivocal commitment that it won’t allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon is the most important part’ of the Times report, Gilad told Army Radio”.

And, why do veteran combat journalsts working for major news organizations trust Avaaz with their lives in getting into, and when inside, the Baba Amr quarter of Homs, Syria, which has been beseiged by the Syrian army on a mission to exterminate “Islamist terrorism”?

Ahvaaz [Avaaz]:
The name of an organization [a "global advocacy group", The Telegraph coyly calls them] called Avaaz, has been mentioned as cooridinating closely with journalists covering the Syrian uprising, and in connection with their arrivals in besieged places like Baba Amr.

Their website is available in 14 or 15 languages at www.avaaz.org, here, they are on Twitter [@avaaz], and also Facebook — and they are interested in global matters — the oceans, the Amazon, the internet, and now Syria — identifying themselves as “a campaigning community” with 13 million members.

Their website says: “Avaaz—meaning ‘voice’ in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want … Where other global civil society groups are composed of issue-specific networks of national chapters, each with its own staff, budget, and decision-making structure, Avaaz has a single, global team with a mandate to work on any issue of public concern–allowing campaigns of extraordinary nimbleness, flexibility, focus, and scale. Avaaz’s online community can act like a megaphone to call attention to new issues; a lightning rod to channel broad public concern into a specific, targeted campaign; a fire truck to rush an effective response to a sudden, urgent emergency; and a stem cell that grows into whatever form of advocacy or work is best suited to meet an urgent need”…

UPDATE: Julian Borger reported here in The Guardian on Tuesday night [28 February] that Avaaz was founded in 2007.

Borger adds that Avaaz “emerged out of activist groups in the US and Australia, including ResPublica, GetUp! and MoveOn.org. Its founding president is Ricken Patel, a Canadian-British veteran of the International Crisis Group, a global thinktank, and MoveOn.org, a progressive American group. He runs a team of campaigners around the world, with offices in New York, Rio, Delhi, Madrid and Sydney”.

And, Borger added. Avaaz “has taken on a prominent and more physically risky role in the Arab spring, providing satellite phones and other communication equipment to pro-democracy groups in Libya, Egypt and Syria … Amid the bloodshed of Syria, the organisation’s commitment is less likely to be queried. The question its critics are raising now is whether a group that started out in the high-tech safety of the internet has found itself out of its depth in a brutal conflict in the real world”.

While the first time I recall hearing the name Ahvaaz was in connection with an “uprising” against the Islamic Republic regime installed in Tehran that the Iranian authorities strongly believe was coordinated with the American CIA + British secret services, they also seemed to have some kind of association with the MEK — or, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq = a supposedly “leftist’ movement that was part of the resistance to the Shah of Iran prior to the Iranian revolution, but was then persecuted, and took up arms against the Islamic Republic, when they found an ally in Saddam Hussein who offered them shelter and a base came which they are now evacuating for relocation as refugees around the world, under great pressure.

Ahvaaz, if I am not mistaken [will check] is the Persian version of the name of [CORR: the capital city of Khuzestan, the] Arabic-speaking province [Ahwaz] in south-western Iran, bordering Iraq, the Shatt al-Arab, and the north-western shore of Iran along the Persian Gulf.  It was in the Ahvaaz province that the first clashes in the terrible Iran-Iraq war [end 1979 to August 1989] took place, between the freshly-installed Islamic Republic and a Saddam Hussein backed by the U.S., by all Arab states [officially, at least] and by all the “civilized world”.

Ahvaaz came in big, internationally, in social media more recently at a late phase of the Tahrir Square protests — and though nobody knew who they were, exactly, many otherwise savvy people were enthusiastic to support, if not join, their calls for signing petitions, etc., in support of the Tahrir movement.

Like the MEK, Avaaz seems to be very media-savvy, and have expertise in modern technology.

But, Avaaz is functioning differently than the MEK at the height of its influence. Avaaz is concentrating on social media, and video postings on the internet, as well as their new role of helping “smuggle” journalists into battle zones in closed Syria via routes they have access to in neighboring countries [Lebanon, and possibly Turkey -- the Israel government is surely aware of this, but keeping a judicious quiet].

The Avaaz website explains this under the heading, Breaking the Middle East Black-out:

“Funded by donations from almost 30,000 Avaazers, an Avaaz team is working closely with the leadership of democracy movements in Syria, Yemen, Libya and more to get them high-tech phones and satellite internet modems, connect them to the world’s top media outlets, and provide communications advice. We’ve seen the power of this engagement — where our support to activists has created global media cycles with footage and eyewitness accounts that our team helps distribute to CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others. The courage of these activists is unbelievable — a skype message read ‘state security searching the house, my laptop battery dying, if not online tomorrow I’m dead or arrested’. He’s ok, and together we’re helping to get his and many other voices out to the world”

But, in Syria, things are not ok.

[Due to the dire situation, presumably, there is no particular information about Syria, at the moment, on the Avaaz website... UPDATE Yet, Avaaz states, here, that it "has been working with activists on the Syrian Spring since it started, setting up a network of over 400 Citizen Journalists across the country, smuggling in medicines and international journalists to report on the unfolding story and campaigning to ensure that sanctions and political pressure are applied on the Assad regime. The organisation is entirely funded by small donations from its members".

UPDATE: An article published on The Guardian website last July, here, reports that "Since 2009, Avaaz has not taken donations from foundations or corporations, nor has it accepted payments of more than $5,000. Instead, it relies simply on the generosity of individual members, who have now raised over $20m. Much of this money goes towards specific campaigns. This year, $1.5m was raised to supply cameras to citizen journalists throughout the Arab world; as a result, much of the footage currently coming out of Syria was filmed on equipment provided by Avaaz". The BBC picked up and rewrote this today, reporting rather lazily, here, that "Avaaz says it is independent and accountable because since 2009 it has been wholly member-funded".]

Why should journalists trust Avaaz with their lives, as Marie Colvin did?

And, why are French photographers and filmmakers working so closely with Avaaz? [Are French photographers just more passionate and curious about the world? Or, do they have some kind of official backing?...]

If Avaaz is behind the recent quantum leap in improvement in the filming and video streaming of protests throughout Syria — particularly the dancing protests highlighted in our previous post — they deserve a lot of credit for their skills.

By comparison, the MEK, before it was labelled by the US as “terrorist organization”, a label which they have been fighting, used to function less as “local fixers” who can boost a foreign correspondent’s impact and reach, and more as an effective pressure group which was in regular contact with members of Congress and other governments, as well as everyone’s editors — and if a journalist didn’t seem enthusiastic about publishing their news, they would threaten to go to one’s editors. They implied that they could promote journalists’ careers — or of having them black-listed, and fired … Like other powerful and effective lobbies, the MEK traded in influence, and was feared.

More to follow later…

The IAEA report suggested that there was no way to understand parts of Iran’s nuclear research other than to believe there was an aim to study how a nuclear weapon might be developed.

The IAEA 35-member Board of Governors adopted the resolution — which expressed “deep and increasing concern about the unresolved issues regarding the Iranian nuclear program, including those which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions” — on Friday 18 November.

The resolution also expressed the Board’s “continuing support for a diplomatic solution”. It called on Iran to implement an additional IAEA inspection protocol which is purely voluntary for other countries — Iran has been ordered to do so by a series of resolutions in the UN Security Council.

And the IAEA Board resolution also called on Iran “to engage seriously and without preconditions in talks aimed at restoring international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program, while respecting the legitimate right to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy consistent with the NPT”.

According to a report in the New York Times, “the global powers meeting in Vienna criticized Tehran on Friday over suspicions that it is building a nuclear weapon. The rebuke, however, fell far short of threatening further pressure or actions to curb Iran’s contentious uranium enrichment program”. This was attributed in part to objections from Russia and China. The NYTimes article can be read in full here.

The NYTimes report added that the Iranian representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, “accused the nuclear agency of endangering the lives of Iranian scientists by releasing their names in an annex to last week’s report about the suspicions of nuclear weapons work. ‘The release of the names of the Iranian nuclear scientists by the agency has made them targets for assassination by terrorist groups as well as the Israeli regime and the U.S. intelligence services’, he said in a letter to the body’s director general, Yukiya Amano. Parts of the letter were published by Iran’s state-financed Press TV satellite broadcaster, which noted that several Iranian nuclear scientists had been killed in episodes attributed by Iran to Israeli, British and American intelligence services. Mr. Soltanieh contended that disclosing the names of Iranian experts represented a violation of the agency’s rules and said Tehran reserved the right to seek damages from the agency for any harm to its personnel or property as a result of the report — a possible reference to Tehran’s frequently voiced fears of an Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities”….

In a separate, but possibly related, matter, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is due to meet Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Canada on the sidelines of a larger meeting.

Apparently, Ambassador Soltanieh said that as a result of today’s vote, Iran had decided not to attend an upcoming IAEA meeting on establishing a nuclear-weapons-free-zone in the Middle East.

The publication of the IAEA report [which was leaked to the press within minutes of its distribution to the Board of Governors] has also been criticized by Seyed Hossein Mousavian, whose remarks are reported in an interview published by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, here. The Bulletin describes Mousavian as “a lecturer and research scholar at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is the highest-ranking member of Iran’s political elite living in the United States”. Here is an excerpt of the Q+A:

Q [Ali Vaez]:…Back in 2008, Iran addressed most of these allegations in a 117-page response to the IAEA. Wouldn’t publication of this response be a more constructive move than taking umbrage at the IAEA?

Mousavian: The IAEA has, unfortunately, broken the rules of the game. Iran does not want to commit the same mistake. The issues between the agency and member states should remain confidential. Iran respects the rules and does not disclose its communications with the agency. Yet, the content of the IAEA reports on Iran are leaked to the media ahead of their distribution among the agency’s member states. This is highly unprofessional and against the statute of the agency. Such behavior is highly damaging to the credibility of the IAEA, as an impartial international body. It also clearly demonstrates that the information is dictated to the agency from somewhere else in order to make the case for ratcheting up pressure on Iran. The publication of these allegations was a significant step backward.

…

[Mousavian continued:]

The recent developments constitute another chapter in the long tale of Western miscalculations about Iran. The West has constantly resorted to escalating pressure on Tehran, without pondering about the resulting backlash. After the 1979 revolution, Iran sought to shrink the nuclear program and had no intention to have indigenous uranium enrichment. Nevertheless, the Germans, the French, and the Americans refused to respect their contractual commitments, abandoned our unfinished nuclear projects, rebuffed our demands for compensation, and denied us nuclear fuel. Therefore, Iran had no other option than to take matters into its own hands and aim at self-sufficiency. This was in no way a unique venture. The West provided Saddam Hussein with chemical and biological weapons, which he used against Iranians with impunity. As the first victims of weapons of mass destruction since the Second World War, Iran felt compelled to develop chemical and biological deterrence capabilities. The same logic applies to Iran’s ballistic missile program, which was created to counter Iraq’s Western-supplied long-range missiles. Therefore, you can trace back the root of Iran’s current deterrence capabilities to the sense of solitude that Tehran experienced during the Iran-Iraq War.

…

Vaez: You were part of the team of Iranian negotiators that in 2003 reached a deal with the EU-3 (France, Britain and Germany) that reduced the tension between Iran and the West and brought about the implementation of the Additional Protocol (for enhanced IAEA safeguards) and suspension of uranium enrichment in Iran. Is a similar diplomatic breakthrough attainable at this juncture?

Mousavian: When the question of suspension came up in 2003, there were two schools of thought in Iran. One group advocated engagement with the West, while others were proponents of resistance. The majority was with the advocates of reaching a negotiated compromise with the West. Consequently, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei consented to a temporary suspension as a non-legally binding confidence-building measure. He was, however, suspicious of Western intentions and remained skeptical about the ability of European countries to fulfill their end of the bargain. Still, we went even beyond suspension and voluntarily signed and implemented the Additional Protocol and the subsidiary agreements, and provided the IAEA with unprecedented access to our nuclear facilities and even military sites. After two years of Tehran’s full cooperation and transparency efforts, the Europeans failed to deliver on their promises because of American obstructionism. As a result of this deadlock, the Supreme Leader decided to turn the table. The ruling apparatus prepared the country for crippling sanctions and even war, and then Iran suspended the implementation of the Additional Protocol, broke the IAEA seals, and restarted our uranium refinement activities. It is important to note that Iran resumed some activities — i.e. at the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, during the presidency of [reformist] President Mohammad Khatami — and restarted other programs, i.e. uranium enrichment in Natanz, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration. Since then, there has been no confidence-building measure from the West, and thus Iran sees no reason to alter its policy.

Vaez: This blame game is a two-way street. Not only does the Iranian government refuse to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions, it employs an empty rhetoric to brag about its nuclear achievements. Why the bluster about building 10 new enrichment facilities, when they can’t even maintain the production rate of their current centrifuges?

Mousavian: I agree that it takes two to tango. But let us review the events of the last three months to better understand the posturing of both sides. First, Iran allowed an IAEA team led by deputy director general Herman Nackaerts to visit Iran’s heavy water facilities and centrifuge production and R&D centers. This initiative goes even beyond the Additional Protocol. During this visit, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi, personally apprised Nackaerts of Iran’s receptiveness to put the country’s nuclear program under ‘full IAEA supervision’ for five years, provided that sanctions against Iran are lifted. The second development was Ahmadinejad’s offer during his trip to New York to attend the annual UN General Assembly meeting. He signaled Iran’s readiness to immediately stop uranium enrichment to 20 percent level, if Iran is given fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. This was an immensely important move to demonstrate that Iran is not seeking highly enriched uranium. Iran’s ambassador at the IAEA and the foreign minister reiterated the offer numerous times in the ensuing weeks. Finally, Iran’s third goodwill gesture was the release of two American hikers, accused of espionage, after two years imprisonment in Iran. It is essential to note that none of these initiatives could have seen the light of the day if the Supreme Leader had not given the green light for their implementation. Now, let’s analyze the reaction of the West to these overtures from Iran. The United States accused Iran of plotting to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, based on flimsy evidence. The European Union expanded its Iran sanctions list to include 29 officials accused of ‘human rights violations’. The US Congress proposed new bills that would impose more unilateral sanctions on Iran and prohibit US diplomats from communicating with their Iranian counterparts. And finally, the IAEA released its most damning report on the alleged military dimension of Iran’s nuclear activities amid international media’s hysteria. Given these dynamics, is it realistic to expect that Iranian decision makers should trust the Western countries and their intentions? In reality, the West is pushing Iran to close the door on nuclear diplomacy, in the fear that it is a guise for regime change. This path will, regrettably, lead to confrontation…

…

Mousavian: Despite all the disappointments, Iran has never closed the door to diplomacy. Even under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his controversial holocaust-denial narrative, Iran has offered several overtures to the West. President Ahmadinejad wrote official letters to Presidents Bush and Obama, but received no response. In 2007, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, signed a modality agreement with the IAEA’s [then-] director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, under which Iran clarified all the remaining issues, including the alleged studies on nuclear arms. Regardless of Iran’s level of cooperation and overtures, however, Tehran’s efforts have never been sufficient for Washington. I believe that there should be a two-pronged approach to diplomacy. Two packages should be prepared in parallel. The first package should be negotiated between Iran and the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, or P5+1, to resolve the nuclear issue. The following essential criteria should be considered for the success of these negotiations: First, the end game should be clear from the beginning. For Iran, that optimal outcome is Western recognition of Iran’s right to uranium enrichment under the NPT. For the West, the outcome should be maximum transparency and cooperation from Iran, according to the NPT. If suspension of enrichment is the Western goal, the impasse will persist. Nearly 8,000 centrifuges are now spinning in Iran. It is unrealistic to expect the Iranians to close down their facilities and ask thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians to sit idle. The West should come to terms with the fact that the horse of enrichment has left the barn. If non-diversion is the goal, diplomacy can succeed. The second package should be a comprehensive package, to be discussed between Tehran and Washington directly. The nuclear issue would never be resolved unless Iran and the United States start to simultaneously address their long list of grievances. Only then could a face-saving solution be within reach”…

The Wall Street Journal reported from the IAEA Board of Governor’s meeting in Vienna, additionally, that in direct response to the latest IAEA report “The Obama administration pressed Iran to account for a discrepancy of nearly 20 kilograms in its reporting to the United Nations’ nuclear agency on how much natural uranium metal it has in its stockpile … Natural uranium metal can specifically be utilized as a surrogate material to conduct simulated tests of nuclear detonations, according to U.S. officials. It can also be used to produce high-explosive weapons, such as armor-piercing rockets. The IAEA calculated 20 kilos more than Iran had reported … ‘This in many ways could prove the most direct link between Iran’s military activities and its stockpile of nuclear materials’, said an American official. Nuclear experts said the IAEA has differed with Iran before about the amounts of nuclear materials it possesses. It some cases, they said, Tehran has even overestimated the amount of enriched uranium it has produced. But the agency and Iran have in the past worked to resolve their differences. The IAEA’s report said the agency believes Iran has conducted some simulated tests of nuclear detonations. Natural uranium metals, these experts said, have many of the same properties as the highly enriched uranium used in a nuclear bomb, but without the fissile reaction”.

The WSJ story says that the IAEA “study concluded that Iran has worked to develop nuclear-tipped midrange missiles and bomb-triggering systems. It also cited the discrepancy between Iran’s reporting of its natural uranium metal stockpile and what IAEA inspectors have verified”.  This WSJ report can be read in full here.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting here that the U.S. will, however, unilaterally implement additional sanctions against Iran that will target the “petrochemical sector”.

A  Reuters “Exclusive” reports that “sources said Washington wanted to send a strong signal after the U.N. nuclear watchdog issued a November 8 report saying Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be secretly carrying out related research. The sources, who spoke on condition that they not be named, said the sanctions could be unveiled as early as Monday. They said the United States was looking to find a way to bar foreign companies from aiding Iran’s petrochemical industry with the threat of depriving them access to the U.S. market”.  This Reuters “Exclusive” is posted here.

The WSJ noted, however, that “The U.S. isn’t expected to directly sanction Iran’s central bank, as many on Capitol Hill have demanded”…

A CHANGE AT THE TOP

Yesterday, the IAEA Director-General, Yukiya Amano, told journalists that “It is clear that Iran has a case to answer … We have to alert the world before nuclear proliferation actually takes place”. This is reported by Reuters, here.

UPDATE: Seymour Hersh wrote a comment in The New Yorker, here, on 18 November that:

“I’ve been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeatedly inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran. The goal of the high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical—a ‘smoking calutron’, as a knowledgeable official once told me—to show the world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclosed site, to make the evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site. But how definitive, or transformative, were the findings [in the new report] ? The IAEA said it had continued in recent years ‘to receive, collect and evaluate information relevant to possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program’ and, as a result, it has been able ‘to refine its analysis’. The net effect has been to create ‘more concern’. But Robert Kelley, a retired IAEA director and nuclear engineer who previously spent more than thirty years with the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons program, told me that he could find very little new information in the IAEA report. He noted that hundreds of pages of material appears to come from a single source: a laptop computer, allegedly supplied to the IAEA by a Western intelligence agency, whose provenance could not be established. Those materials, and others, ‘were old news’, Kelley said, and known to many journalists. ‘I wonder why this same stuff is now considered “new information” by the same reporters’ … The report did note that its on-site camera inspection process of Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment facilities—mandated under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory—’continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material’. In other words, all of the low enriched uranium now known to be produced inside Iran is accounted for; if highly enriched uranium is being used for the manufacture of a bomb, it would have to have another, unknown source. The shift in tone at the IAEA seems linked to a change at the top. The IAEA’s report had extra weight because the Agency has had a reputation for years as a reliable arbiter on Iran. Mohammed ElBaradei, who retired as the IAEA’s Director General two years ago, was viewed internationally, although not always in Washington, as an honest broker—a view that lead to the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. ElBaradei’s replacement is Yukiya Amano of Japan. Late last year, a classified U.S. Embassy cable from Vienna, the site of the I.A.E.A. headquarters, described Amano as being ‘ready for prime time’. According to the cable, which was obtained by WikiLeaks, in a meeting in September, 2009, with Glyn Davies, the American permanent representative to the IAEA, said, ‘Amano reminded Ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the group of developing countries], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program’. The cable added that Amano’s ‘willingness to speak candidly with U.S. interlocutors on his strategy … bodes well for our future relationship’. It is possible, of course, that Iran has simply circumvented the reconnaissance efforts of America and the IAEA, perhaps even building Dick Cheney’s nightmare: a hidden underground nuclear-weapons fabrication facility. Iran’s track record with the IAEA has been far from good: its leadership began construction of its initial uranium facilities in the nineteen-eighties without informing the Agency, in violation of the nonproliferation treaty. Over the next decade and a half, under prodding from ElBaradei and the West, the Iranians began acknowledging their deceit and opened their enrichment facilities, and their records, to IAEA inspectors. The new report, therefore, leaves us where we’ve been since 2002, when George Bush declared Iran to be a member of the Axis of Evil—with lots of belligerent talk but no definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons program”.

THE IAEA RESOLUTION WAS MILD — BUT THE PRESSURE ON IRAN WILL RACHET UP

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement from Washington after the IAEA vote in Vienna that:

“The world has sent a clear and unified message to Tehran that it is deeply troubled by the evidence revealed in last week’s report by Director General Amano. This report supplied the clearest confirmation of what the United States has long believed – that, despite its constant denials, Iran’s government has pursued technologies and equipment that could only be applied to a nuclear weapons program. Iran has said that it seeks nuclear power solely for peaceful purposes. However, the Director General’s report and today’s action by the IAEA Board of Governors underscore that the international community does not find Iran’s claims credible. The P5+1 countries have affirmed Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program but make clear that with that right comes responsibilities – responsibilities Iran has yet to fulfill. The P5+1 remains ready to engage with Iran if Iran is genuinely prepared to engage in serious negotiations, where Iran can choose to rebuild international confidence in the nature of its nuclear program”.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly has passed a resolution condemning an alleged plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington. The UNGA resolution doesn’t specifically name Iran, but the U.S. accused Iran of being behind the plot — an accusation which has met considerable scepticism. Still, the resolution — which was co-sponsored by Saudi Arabia + others — called on Iran “to comply with all of its obligations under international law”.

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, told the UNGA that:

“last month the United States disrupted a terrorist plot to assassinate the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States. This plot did more than just target the ambassador of a single country. It struck at one of the most sacred principles governing relations among states: the safety and protection of diplomats. Every single member of the international community has an interest in forcefully condemning such heinous acts. Given the nature of this plot, it cannot be seen as just a simple criminal act. Attacks on internationally protected persons have long been understood as emblematic acts of international terrorism. The United States therefore strongly supports and cosponsors Saudi Arabia’s draft resolution to deplore this plot. This resolution will send the message that attacks on internationally protected persons are unacceptable. While this resolution expresses our collective abhorrence at the known details of the plot, it also restates and reinforces principles that are essential to the functioning of diplomacy. It is a measured and appropriate response. A fair and transparent judicial process is now underway in the United States to prosecute one person arrested in connection with this plot. If adopted, this resolution will directly support that process by promoting international cooperation to bring to justice all those who are responsible. In the meantime, we cannot let this plot go unanswered. To do so would suggest that acts like these are within the bounds of acceptable behavior to resolve international conflicts“.

Ambassador Rice’s remarks are posted here. She did not mention Iran by name…

U.S. Politician “Mitt Romney: IF WE REELECT BARACK OBAMA, IRAN WILL HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON”

But, in Washington after the UNGA vote, the White House Press Secretary said “The widespread support for this resolution, which was co-sponsored by UN members from all regions of the world, sends a strong message to the Iranian government that the international community will not tolerate the targeting of diplomats. We will continue to work closely with our allies and partners around the world to ensure that Iran understands that such outrageous acts only deepen Iran’s isolation”. This statement is posted here.

UPDATE: In his comment in The New Yorker on 18 November, Seymour Hersh reported on a public American political debate in which “Iran figured prominently.  Hersh wrote that: Mitt Romney called the state of Iran’s nuclear program Obama’s ‘greatest failing, from a foreign-policy standpoint’ and added, ‘Look, one thing you can know … and that is if we reëlect Barack Obama Iran will have a nuclear weapon’.”

Whatever that means…[it is ambiguous, no?]

Meanwhile, Matthew Lee of Inner City Press [@innercitypress] has Tweeted that “At #UN As US @AmbassadorRice Lauds #Saudi Plot GA Vote, Not Only the Veto but Abstentions by #IBSA [India, Brazil, South Africa] Blocked #UNSC Action”

He has written a blog post about this, published here, in which he argues that “While 106 countries voted in favor, 40 abstained, including Security Council members India, Brazil and South Africa, and the nine voting no connoted a veto in the Security Council. Considering these votes of major nations, the vote was not as ‘overwhelming’ as the resolution’s proponents made out. It seems to explain why they went to the General Assembly and not the Security Council”.

What does it say?

It can be read in full here: here.

It starts right out with this statement, rebuffing Iran’s efforts to negotiate or wheedle an arrangement [it's been called "buying time"] to get a better deal, rather than a new [this would be the 7th] round of sanctions either through the UN Security Council, or enacted unilaterally by those states who feel the strongest about this matter:
“The Security Council has affirmed that the steps required by the Board of Governors in its resolutions are binding on Iran. The relevant provisions of the aforementioned Security Council resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, and are mandatory, in accordance with the terms of those resolutions”.

Here’s the immediate diplomatic deal — all of this is spelled right up front in the IAEA report”
“In a letter dated 26 May 2011, H.E. Dr Fereydoun Abbasi, Vice President of Iran and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), informed the Director General that Iran would be prepared to receive relevant questions from the Agency on its nuclear activities after a declaration by the Agency that the work plan (INFCIRC/711) had been fully implemented and that the Agency would thereafter implement safeguards in Iran in a routine manner. In his reply of 3 June 2011, the Director General
informed Dr Abbasi that the Agency was neither in a position to make such a declaration, nor to conduct safeguards in Iran in a routine manner, in light of concerns about the existence in Iran of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. On 19 September 2011, the Director General met Dr Abbasi in Vienna, and discussed issues related to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement and other relevant obligations. In a letter dated 30 September 2011, the Agency reiterated its invitation to Iran to reengage with the Agency on the outstanding issues related to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme and the actions required of Iran to resolve those issues. In a letter dated 30 October 2011, Dr Abbasi referred to his previous discussions with the Director General and expressed the will of Iran ‘to remove ambiguities, if any‘, suggesting that the Deputy Director General for Safeguards (DDG-SG), should visit Iran for discussions. In his reply, dated 2 November 2011, the Director General indicated his preparedness to send the DDG-SG to ‘discuss the issues identified’ in his forthcoming report to the Board“…

The IAEA has expressed somewhat more concern than before — but they’re not hysterical with worry. They gave greater details about some of the allegations contained in earlier IAEA reports on Iran’s nuclear program up to 2003 [when the U.S. invaded neighboring Iraq], at which point Iran was believed to have largely stopped it. But, Iran has apparently maintained some kind of program to continue to monitor the results of its earlier research.

The report says “Since 2002, the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, about which the Agency has regularly received new information”.

It also says that “While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs [locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used + a footnote tells us that "All of the LOFs are situated within hospitals".] declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement, as Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol, the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities. The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing. Given the concerns identified above, Iran is requested to engage substantively with the Agency
without delay for the purpose of providing clarifications regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme as identified in the Annex to this report.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The IAEA report complains that “The Agency is still awaiting a substantive response from Iran to Agency requests for further
information in relation to announcements made by Iran concerning the construction of ten new uranium enrichment facilities, the sites for five of which, according to Iran, have been decided, and the construction of one of which was to have begun by the end of the last Iranian year (20 March 2011) or the start of this Iranian year. In August 2011, Dr Abbasi was reported as having said that Iran did not need to build new enrichment facilities during the next two years.25 Iran has not provided information, as requested by the Agency in its letter of 18 August 2010, in connection with its announcement on 7 February 2010 that it possessed laser enrichment technology”.

It also complains that “Contrary to the relevant resolutions of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, Iran has not
suspended work on all heavy water related projects, including the construction of the heavy water moderated research reactor, the Iran Nuclear Research Reactor (IR-40 Reactor), which is subject to Agency safeguards”.

[A footnote tell us that: "The United Nations Security Council has adopted the following resolutions on Iran: 1696 (2006); 1737 (2006); 1747 (2007); 1803 (2008); 1835 (2008); and 1929 (2010)".]

__________________________________________________________________________________

An important annex discusses “Possible Military Dimensions to Iran’s Nuclear Program” … which we will look at in another post.

The choice, for our Quote of the Day series, however, will go to his remarks explicitly saying that “several Palestinian terrorists” are responsible — though no one has yet been charged, much less tried or convicted — for the bloody murders, a week ago, of five members of a Israeli settler family in their home in the Itamar settlement in the northern West Bank, not far from Nablus.

It was the first time that Netanyahu — or any Israeli government official, for that matter — had made such a specific accusation, though in the media and among the general population, this was the immediate and enduring assumption.

Netanyahu’s explanation segues into an argument about the settlements, and about who wants peace more…

Here are the exact words, from the CNN transcript, posted :

“MORGAN: Prime Minister, there was a horrific murder of the Fogel family last week. The details of which are chilling to read. What was your reaction to that, and where are you with the investigation into the perpetrators?

NETANYAHU: This was horrific. It was savagery. I mean, several Palestinian terrorists came into the home of this Jewish family in the West Bank. They stabbed a three-month old baby girl in the heart, cut her throat. They stabbed her four-year old brother in the heart, cut him in the throat. They stabbed the father with another child and stabbed the mother and left them dying in their blood. And then I visited the family and I saw the 12-year-old girl, a sister who came home and saw this unbelievable massacre. So obviously the first response is sheer horror. And my second response was to send a message to the settlers to contain their rage and not respond because we’d have a cycle of reprisals so I asked them to – not to take the law in their own hands, not to have vigilante actions because this would – could generate a blood bath. I thought that was important to stop that. But we’re now looking for the killers. We’ll find them.

MORGAN: Are you making progress?

NETANYAHU: Some. Some. I think we’ll find them.

MORGAN: There was – to put it mildly – a raised eyebrow collectively around the world. First, of the horrifying nature of this attack, but secondly at your response. The premise of, they murder, we build. You ordered the building of 500 more building settlements. It’s a strange moral equivalence, Prime Minister. I mean, part of the problem that you face now in Israel is perception around the world. Your PR is not good, as you know. When people heard about what happened, I think the international community completely on
your side and the people of Israel. When they see you immediately ordering more settlements, I’m sure you did it to calm down the people as you say, a lot of that sympathy erode. People think, come on, there’s got to be a better way of responding to this kind of thing than doing that.

NETANYAHU: Well I wanted to send three messages. The first one I told you about, that is a message of restraint to the settlers. The second is a message to the terrorists. I was telling them, I know you think you’re going to uproot us with this savagery, with the violence, with terror. You’re not going to uproot us. So you kill us, you want to drive us into the sea, that’s not going to happen. You only way we’ll have a settlement is through peaceful negotiations. So you kill, we’ll build. But coincidentally I chose to build in the large populated areas that are going to stay in Israel anyway. And not 500 new settlements but 500 apartments, which is very different. And third, I wanted to send a message to the international community. I said to the international community that rushes to condemn Israel for every building that is build. You know, a Jew builds an apartment in the Jewish homeland. What a terrible crime. But they seldom go and condemn this kind of savagery without any ands, ifs and buts and I wanted that condemnation. I was glad to see –
…
MORGAN: But is that true? I mean, does the international community really not just condemn that kind of outrage out of hand? Because I read that they did. And the point about the settlements is surely that you are trying to get a peace process to work. You’re trying to get to some settlement. The Middle East quartet only yesterday said they’ve almost given up hope that peace is achievable at the moment…
…

MORGAN: But doesn’t history need people to be courageous?

NETANYAHU: Yes. Yes, it does. But peace requires two to tango. And what I’m – what I said – suggested the simplest thing is exactly what you’re said. I said to Abu Mazen who was flying around in the world – the Palestinian president – I said, don’t fly around the world. You want to make peace? Ramallah, where you said, is 10 minutes away from Jerusalem where we’re sitting right now. I’m willing to come to you. You can come here. Let’s sit down, shut the room, you know, basically sit down until smoke comes out. That’s the way you make peace. That’s how we made peace with Egypt. That’s how we made peace with Jordan.

MORGAN: Why isn’t it happening?

NETANYAHU: Because I think the Palestinian society is split into two – those who are openly calling for Israel’s destruction like Hamas, and those who are not calling openly for Israel’s destruction but refuse to confront those who do. And that’s the Palestinian Authority. I think they’re timid, I think they’re afraid to actually stand up to these killers. And I think that they’re afraid, maybe for their own sake, for their own political hides (ph), sometimes for their own physical safety. And they don’t take that necessary plunge…
…
NETANYAHU: Well the legacy I want is that I hope secure the life the Jewish state and its future. We did have – we did act precipitously. We walked out of Gaza. We uprooted. Talk about concessions. We uprooted 10,000 Israelis out of Gaza, just eliminated the settlements that were supposed to be the obstacle to peace. We walked out, Iran walked in. We didn’t get peace. We walked out of Lebanon, every last inch. We walked out, Iran walked in. From Lebanon they fired 6,000 rockets at us. This is a country the size of New Jersey. From Gaza, after we walked out, they fired 6,000 rockets at us. Now, they say, ‘Just walk out of the West Bank. Make the concession. Come on, do it again, a third time’. We could be in a position where we can’t live. So my concern is, I want peace for Israel but I want a peace that we can defend and I want a peace that will hold. And I know that that’s peace with security. I know that’s what we have to insist – and I insist – unabashedly so – on peace with strong security arrangements. One of the leading European statesmen told me the other day – I was sitting where you are – well in that couch. He said, you know, three months ago when you said in the context of a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians that you would need to stay along the Jordan River because you never know what would happen on the other side. The Jordan River, mind you, is all of the distance of the Washington beltway, greater Paris from here. Nearby. So we’d have to have some line on the Jordan River to prevent Iran from penetrating into Israel and placing another 100,000 rockets aimed at our cities. He said, people didn’t understand what you’re talking about. He said, now after the convulsions, this earthquake people understand your insistence of security a lot better. So I would say the first condition of peace, we’ll make concessions, obviously. We’ll have to make territorial concessions and that’s hard. This is our ancestral homeland. This is the land of the bible…
…
In the case of the Palestinian society, Hamas openly declares that it wants to wipe out not the heads of the Israeli government, but every Israeli. Wipe away the Jewish state. They openly say so. Their constitution –
…
MORGAN: But isn’t this a good – ironically we’re sitting here now with this part of the region being one of the calmer places. Isn’t that the perfect time to make this happen?

NETANYAHU: If you can be sure of who your partner will be tomorrow. You’re not even sure of that. You want to make sure that you have solid (INAUDIBLE) of security and you also want mutual reconciliation.
…
We recognize the rights of the Palestinians for a state of their own. Even though they’re sitting in part of our ancestral homeland, it’s very painful to do that. But I’ve been doing it. I’ve been saying it. But they refuse to say that they recognize a Jewish state, a nation state for the Jewish people. I’m talking about – I’m not talking about the Hamas, I’m talking about the Palestinian authority that should confront Hamas and confront their own people and say, hey, it’s over. We give up the ghost of dismantling Israel or dissolving Israel or flooding it with refugees. It’s over. No more war, no more bloodshed. Just as Sadat said. I want to hear that clear statement but I’m willing, I’ve already made those statements. And so the problem you have in the international community is that the Palestinians do not want to put a finality to the conflict, do not want to say that a Palestinian state will be an end to a conflict and not a stage in the dissolution of Israel. Now, they speak peace to the outside but not to their own people. To their own people – on the day that these people – this family was savagely brutalized – brutally murdered – babies were stabbed – on that day, the Palestinian authority had a square called al-Bireh, which is a suburb of Ramallah, in name of a terrorist who murdered 37 Israelis on a bus, including 12 children. To the outside world they speak peace. Internally they foster a culture of hate…
…
NETANYAHU: If I sign a peace, people of Israel will follow me. But you’ve got to give us the two elements of peace that are required to
have a real peace, not a fake peace. The real peace requires security and the real peace requires that you actually reconcile yourself to a Jewish state here, permanently. This is what we want…
…
The Palestinian economy has been growing at 10 percent … Gaza is growing now at 17 percent because we lifted all the restrictions…

MORGAN: Yes, but you wouldn’t want your family living there, would you?

NETANYAHU: No, of course not. But certainly I think the people of Gaza would like to be relieved of this Hamas tyranny and this medievalism. But as far as the West Bank, I changed the policy. In fact, (INAUDIBLE) what you say. I thought that it’s important to add, in addition to security and recognition, to have prosperity as a third pillar of peace. So I’ve been – I removed hundreds of road blocks, check points and so on and the result is that the Palestinian economy and the West Bank has grown at 10 percent, which is – which for me is very hopeful because I like to see apartment towers sprout out of the soil of the West Bank of Ramallah and not missiles. And I think this is an important component of peace. But the economic peace is not a substitute for political
negotiations. And on day one of forming my government, I called on President Abbas and Abu Mazen to come here and talk people [should this read, "peace"?]. The second step that I took, it’s a tough decision, I froze construction in the settlement. I know this is not the issue, I know construction in the settlements are not a real issue, they’re an artificial issue. The settlements cover only one or two percent of the territory of the West Bank and a few hundred apartments in this one percent is meaningless. But it’s become an issue. I said, all right. You know, if it makes it easier for you, I’ll freeze construction for 10 months. They didn’t come. And when they finally came, they bolted after two weeks. I recognize the principle of two states for two people. I agreed to another extension, three months. I did all these things. And what do I find? That the Palestinians can walk away from the negotiations, make pre-conditions, call public square in honor of terrorists and now they’re talking about a national unity with Hamas that calls for our destruction. How can you be for peace with Israel and peace with Hamas that calls for our destruction? … It’s one or the other. Not both.
…
NETANYAHU: You can make peace with an enemy, if the enemy abandons the idea of destroying you. That is the critical test. Democracies fail to understand what I just said. In the 1930s, with Hitler, they failed to recognize that. He said, well, I’m willing to sign this, or that, document. But in reality they could ascertain easily that he was dead set on conquest and annihilation. I think we face, in the Middle East, an ideology that is absolutely-absolutely opposed to peace and coexistence, and that is Hamas …
… if Hamas has a constitution, if it tore it up, and if the constitution calls for the annihilation of Israel, not only that but the expansion of radical Islam throughout the region and the world,if they got rid of that, yes, I could contemplate that. If they stopped firing rockets, or importing now, rockets to launch on our cities. They just intercepted some Iranian rockets yesterday that were intended for Hamas. If they stopped terrorism, if they stopped calling for our eradication, yes, of course, we would be happy to talk with them. But the fact is that Hamas has not stopped being Hamas. Hamas continues to call for our liquidation. So what am I going to negotiate with them? The method of our decapitation? The method of their exterminating us? Of course not. Any country would take a stand against somebody that is completely committed to its obliteration. And that was not the case in Northern Ireland, because the IRA never wanted to exterminate Britain…”

OK.

So, now, after all that, who murdered the five members of the Fogel family in Itamar? And, why?

The Swiss Government refers to these talks in the European fashion: E3+3, rather than P5+1.

The Swiss announcement said that “The E3+3 delegation will be led by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton. The Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, will head the Iranian delegation.
Switzerland also organized the last talks that took place in Geneva on 1 October 2009. Switzerland has always advocated a diplomatic
solution to the Iranian nuclear question”. Switzerland also hosted Iran talks in Geneva in July 2007.