China and Iran warm to Russian nuclear proposal

By Lindsay Beck and Ben Blanchard Thu Jan 26 - China and Iran expressed support on Thursday for a Russian proposal to resolve Tehran's standoff with Western governments which suspect it of secretly planning to build a nuclear bomb.

Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, on a one-day trip to Beijing to seek China's support, said the Russian proposal -- that Iran's uranium fuel be enriched on Russian soil rather than in Iran -- needed further discussion. Tehran has previously shown little interest in the idea, intended to ensure it does not covertly divert enriched fuel toward a weapons program. It has repeatedly insisted it has no plans to build bombs but has the right to enrich uranium fuel on its territory for nuclear power generation.

"The Russian suggestion is a useful one, but needs to be discussed further," Larijani told a Beijing news conference. He later told Reuters Iran was willing to show flexibility but rejected the "language of force," an apparent reference to the threat of U.N. sanctions.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a news conference earlier that China wanted other countries to consider Moscow's proposal. "We think the Russian proposal is a good attempt to break this stalemate," he said.

Earlier this month Iran removed U.N. seals on enrichment equipment and announced it would resume nuclear fuel research. The United States and its European Union allies say the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should turn Iran over to the United Nations Security Council.

But China said U.N. sanctions would only complicate matters. "We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems," Kong said.

The comments seemed to contradict the message China gave U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who left China on Wednesday after a three-day visit. Zoellick said Washington and Beijing had no major differences on the issue. Kong, the Chinese spokesman, declined to directly endorse that assessment.

URANIUM ENRICHMENT

In Moscow on Wednesday, Larijani said referring Iran's nuclear activities to the U.N. Security Council would prompt Tehran to start uranium enrichment. But he also signaled interest in the Russian plan. In Beijing, Larijani held talks with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and met State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan.

Russia and China wield veto power in the U.N. Security Council along with the three other permanent members -- the United States, Britain and France. Analysts say China would be more likely to abstain from a vote than use its veto. But Kong said Iran should have the right to peaceful nuclear power.

"All Non-Proliferation Treaty countries' rights to peacefully use nuclear power should be respected, but we must emphasize that these countries should also strictly abide by the relevant regulations," he said.

Chinese officials said all countries involved should intensify efforts to broker a solution before the IAEA meets on February 2 to debate sending Iran to the Security Council. The Council's veto-wielding permanent members, plus Germany, meet in London on Monday to try to resolve differences on Iran.

German Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said Berlin welcomed signs Iran was considering the Russian proposal. "Iran initially rejected this but since yesterday it looks as if this window could be reopening," he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush described how the arrangement would work: "The material used to power the plant would be manufactured in Russia, delivered under IAEA inspectors to Iran, to be used in that plant, the waste of which will be picked up by the Russians and returned to Russia. "I think that is a good plan," Bush told a news conference. "The Russians came up with the idea and I support it." But he said Iran had shown by its actions that it wanted a nuclear weapon. "And it's not in the world's interests that they have a weapon," he added.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said that if sent to the Security Council, Iran will end voluntary dealings with the IAEA, which include snap checks on its atomic sites.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday a Security Council referral would not close diplomatic options. The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei said Moscow's plan could offer "the beginning of a solution."

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley, Mark Trevelyan, William Schomberg, Louis Charbonneau and Patricia Wilson) - news.yahoo.com

Force against Iran seen as perilous last resort

By Mark Trevelyan DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) 29th Jan 2006 -

The United States should reserve the option of bombing Iran's nuclear program into oblivion, but it would be a massive military venture that would invite heavy retribution from Tehran. That seemed to be the prevailing view from four days of debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Iran was absent from the line-up of leaders and ministers but figured high on the agenda.

Its nuclear program, which Tehran says is for generating electricity but the United States sees as a front for building an atomic bomb, ranked with the shock outcome of the Palestinian election as the main topic of international concern.

"We have to keep the military option as the last option but not take it off the table," said U.S. Senator John McCain, a leading Republican presidential contender for the 2008 election.

Other leaders attending the forum, including British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, stressed the need for caution and diplomacy. Kenneth Pollack, an expert on Iran at the Brookings Institution, a U.S. think-tank, said the military option was "sub-optimal," but not impossible.

Although Israel has reserved the option of military force, Pollack said the United States would be the only country with the air power to carry out the "hundreds of sorties a day" required, possibly for weeks, to knock out Iran's air defenses and destroy anywhere between several dozen and several hundred facilities linked to its nuclear program.

"It would mean going to war with Iran and I think it's fair to figure that the Iranians would not sit by idly," he said. "We've had some Iranian leaders say very explicitly that they would strike back...at a time and place of their own choosing, and that time and place would likely be soonish in Iraq and Afghanistan. "If you think it's bad now (in Iraq), imagine 6,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards and intelligence agents joining in the insurgency."

MISSILE Defense

The commander in chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Yahya Rahim Safavi, said on Saturday: "If we come under a military attack, we will respond with our very effective missile defense."

Military experts say Iran's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of about 2,000 km (1,250 miles), meaning Israel, U.S. bases in Iraq and foreign troops in Iraq lie within striking distance.

Even if successful, U.S. 'preventive strikes' might set back Iran's nuclear program only by two to four years, Pollack said, given the know-how it had already acquired.

A panel on Iran at the Davos forum identified three other options: diplomacy, Iraq-style "regime change," and doing nothing and hoping for the best. Straw dismissed the latter as irresponsible and stressed the diplomatic option, "to secure a bargain which would not involve humiliation of either side."

U.S. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said it was possible to imagine the U.S. choosing force, but only at the head of a broad international coalition and after diplomacy was exhausted.

"There...would have to be a large consensus, I think, before any military action would be forthcoming," said Chambliss, a member of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees. "We're not at the point today that I could feel the least bit comfortable thinking that America would be willing to do that without a large coalition of partners, hopefully inside the Arab world as well as outside."

The debate took place against a background of pressure from the United States and the European Union to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council.

The Council could ultimately impose sanctions, but only if Russia and China -- both with significant economic ties to Tehran and both wary of U.S. motives -- refrain from exercising their vetoes.

"Whether we want in fact to impose sanctions on Iran or not, if they think the world community is willing to do it, it would have a huge impact" on Tehran's willingness to compromise, former U.S. President Bill Clinton said.

"But as long as they think that countries that want their oil would not vote for that...then they have more room to be belligerent." - news.yahoo.com

Iran warns of missile strike

Revolutionary Guard general puts West on notice not to interfere as Tehran presses ahead with nuclear power programme

Jason Burke, Sunday January 29, 2006 - The Observer

Senior Iranian officials further raised tensions with the West yesterday, implicitly warning that Tehran would use missiles to strike Israel or Western forces stationed in the Gulf if attacked. The statements came as world leaders met at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, with the Middle East high on the agenda. The hardline Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has pressed ahead with a controversial nuclear programme since his election last year.

'The world knows Iran has a ballistic missile power with a range of 2,000km (1,300 miles),' General Yahya Rahim Safavi said on state-run television. 'We have no intention to invade any country [but] we will take effective defence measures if attacked.'

Though world leaders agreed that strong measures were necessary to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapon capacity, there was little consensus this weekend as to what those measures should be. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday conceded that Britain and the US were divided over using military force.

Responding to comments by US politicians stressing the 'leverage' the military option allowed, Straw said such action was not under discussion. 'I understand that's the American position. Our position is different ... There isn't a military option. And no one is talking about it.'

Britain, along with most EU states, has been pursuing a policy of 'engagement' with the Iranians. Straw was speaking ahead of talks with Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Tehran's continuing defiance of the international pressure has led to growing pressure to refer Iran to the UN security council. Such calls became more urgent after Iran said it was resuming work at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Tehran has always said the facility is to provide energy but Straw said there had to be 'objective guarantees' that their nuclear power programme could not lead to a nuclear weapons capability because of their 'unquestionable record of deceit in the past'.

Moscow has suggested that uranium for Iranian reactors could be prepared in Russia, a process that would in theory ensure that the fuel is not enriched to a level that would permit military use. Tehran claims its nuclear programme is designed only for civilian purposes.

Britain is expected to lead calls for UN censure of Iran at an emergency meeting in Vienna this week. The UK is backed by France, Germany and the US. Iran has sought to split the international community, offering economic incentives to India, China and Russia, all of which have strong commercial links with the oil-rich state.

For the moment, Iran's most powerful weapon is the Shahab-3 missile, which can strike more than 2,000km from their launch site, putting Israel and American forces in the Middle East in easy range. The Revolutionary Guard was equipped with the missiles in July 2003.

'We are producing these missiles and don't need foreign technology for that,' Safavi said pointedly in his speech to the nation. Iran announced last year that it had developed solid-fuel technology for missiles, a major breakthrough that increases their accuracy.

Safavi also accused US and British intelligence services of provoking unrest in south-west Iran and providing bomb materials to Iranian dissidents. He said the US and Britain were behind bombings on 21January that killed at least nine people in Ahvaz, near the southern border with Iraq, where 8,500 British soldiers are based around Basra.

'Foreign forces based in Iraq, especially southern Iraq, direct Iranian agents and give them bomb materials,' he said. Iran was monitoring dissidents and their alleged links with the US and British forces.

'We are aware of their meetings in Kuwait and Iraq,' he said. 'We warn them [the US and Britain], especially the MI6 and CIA, that they refrain from interfering in Iran's affairs.' - guardian

Iran nuclear row escalates after London meeting

By FT reporters Published: January 30 2006

Iran warned on Tuesday that a decision to refer its nuclear programme to the United Nations Security Council would spell the end of diplomacy on the issue, but ruled out using oil as a weapon. This followed a decision by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the UN's nuclear watchdog should report to the council this week on what Iran must do to co-operate with the agency.

"(Ministers) agreed that this week's extraordinary International Atomic Energy Agency Board meeting should report to the Security Council its decision on the steps required of Iran," they said in a joint statement after meeting in London.

Russia and China agreed with Europe and the US at the overnight meeting to wait until the IAEA board meeting in March, however, before making any decision on referring Iran's nuclear programme to the council. This would allow for further diplomatic moves to try to resolve the dispute, which could eventually lead to the imposition of sanctions on Iran.

Russian and Chinese diplomats will visit Tehran soon to urge Iran to co-operate with the IAEA, Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

"I expect representatives of the leadership of the Russian foreign ministry with Chinese colleagues to visit Tehran to explain the agreements adopted in London and to urge Iran to give precise answers to the questions that the IAEA has presented," RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mr Lavrov as saying.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator on Tuesday made clear that a referral to the council would mean "the end of diplomacy".

"We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as the end of diplomacy," Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said.

But Iran made clear that the escalating dispute would not affect its oil policy and ruled out using oil as a weapon. "We are not mixing politics with the economic decisions on this issue. We are not mixing oil with politics," Kazem Vaziri, oil minister, said on Tuesday.

The US and EU have worked hard for months to persuade Russia and China, which both have commercial interests in Iran, to back the referral. The agreement didn't specify what action the two countries will support at the UN.

Tuesday's agreement came hours after meetings between the Europeans and Iranian diplomats, in which Iran offered to slow down its nuclear programme in a last-ditch attempt to avoid being reported to the Security Council. But European diplomats dismissed its proposal as containing nothing new.

Javad Vaeedi, one of Iran's top nuclear negotiators, suggested to diplomats from France, the UK and Germany that Tehran could impose a moratorium on enriching uranium on an industrial scale - a process that can create weapons grade material.

Meanwhile at the meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna, Iran's oil minister said Tehran would not halt its oil exports because of growing tensions over its nuclear programme.

Opec had earlier rejected Iranian proposals to cut the cartel's oil production, opting instead to sustain current production levels amid continuing nuclear uncertainty. Some diplomats and analysts had interpreted Tehran's call for a cut in production as a political message, aimed at warning the west that Iran would be willing to use oil production as a weapon in the battle over its nuclear programme. But Opec watchers cautioned that the call for a production cut reflected Iran's usual hawkish stance of aggressively protecting oil prices. Opec, which controls 40 per cent of the world's oil supplies, confirmed a rollover of its current 28m barrel a day production at Monday's ministerial meeting in Vienna. Iran's proposal 10 days ago for Opec to reduce production by 1m barrels a day - or nearly 4 per cent - pushed oil prices close to $70 a barrel.

Edmund Daukoru, Opec president and Nigeria's energy minister, on Monday refused to consider the Iranian proposal to cut output, saying: "That's a diplomatic question, I'd rather talk about oil and prices."

Iran is Opec's second largest oil producer, pumping 4m barrels a day and exporting 2.5m of them. A halt in its output would send international oil prices to more than $100 barrels a day, analysts predict. - ft.com

World gives Iran 'final chance'

Ahmadinejad rejects international pressure, hits out at Bush

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The international community has given Iran a "final opportunity" to meet its nuclear obligations, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said. Straw met with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki for more than an hour Wednesday. The pair also met Tuesday at a conference on Afghanistan in London.

"He (Mottaki) really needs to see this agreed position by the leaders of the international community, not as a threat but as an opportunity ... a final opportunity for Iran to put itself back on track," Straw told BBC radio. "Mottaki was warned not to walk away from the IAEA additional protocol or to make threats," a British Foreign Office spokesman said, referring to demands by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. "This was not in Iran's interest."

Later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons that it was important to "send a signal of strength" to Iran. "It is important that they understand ... that we are united in determining that they should not be able to carry on flouting their international obligations," he told MPs.

Meanwhile envoys from China and Russia were in Tehran trying "to make one last effort to reach an agreement" over Iran's nuclear program, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.

Wednesday's moves came after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad angrily rejected international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions as U.S. President George W. Bush vowed to keep it from making an atomic bomb.

On Tuesday, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Russia, China, Britain, France and the United States -- asked the IAEA to report Iran to the full Security Council. The move was endorsed by Germany and the European Union and comes ahead of an IAEA board meeting Thursday in Vienna. The final text of the resolution, Reuters said, asks the IAEA's governing board to agree at its meeting on Thursday to "convey" to the council key IAEA reports raising doubts about the nature of Iran's nuclear work. It calls on Iran to restore confidence in its intentions by re-suspending all nuclear-fuel research and uranium enrichment-related work and implementing transparency measures by halting restrictions on access for IAEA investigators, Reuters said.

A top Iranian diplomat Tuesday warned that the recommendation to report Iran to the Security Council would be "the end of the road for diplomacy." Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Wednesday his country would stop intrusive U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities if it is taken before the Security Council. However, he said his country remained committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty despite calls from hard-line newspapers for Iran to withdraw from the agreement. Many countries have been concerned that Iran has intended to use its nuclear program to develop weaponry. But Iran says its program is solely for peaceful purposes. Months of talks with European nations did not make headway in settling the issue, and discussions recently ended. Iran recently broke IAEA seals on its nuclear facilities, raising concerns in the West.

Straw said international pressure on Iran appeared to be having no direct effect on Iran's president, at least "in terms of rhetoric."

Ahmadinejad, addressing a crowd of thousands in the Gulf port city of Bushehr, lost no time in hitting back at Bush's remarks on Iran in his State of the Union address. "I am telling those fake superpowers that the Iranian nation became independent 27 years ago and ... on the nuclear case it will resist until fully achieving its rights," Reuters quoted him as saying.

Iran's parliament issued a statement Wednesday reminding the government that, under a law approved last year, it must halt snap U.N. inspections of its atomic facilities and resume uranium enrichment -- a process that can yield bomb-grade material -- if its case is referred to the Security Council.

Bush said the world must act together to prevent Iran joining the list of nuclear-armed nations. "The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions -- and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," Bush said in his Tuesday night speech. "America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats."

Oil price fear

Meanwhile, deputy foreign ministers from Russia and China headed to Iran on Wednesday to inform it of "the concerns of the international community" about the removal of U.N. seals this month at a uranium enrichment facility, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported. On Tuesday, oil ministers from the OPEC cartel warned that sending Iran's case to the Security Council could cause a spike in already sizzling oil prices. But Iran eased concerns it could use its status as the world's fourth biggest crude oil producer as a weapon in the dispute by curtailing its exports. Also Tuesday, the IAEA said in a confidential report that Iran had already begun preparing for uranium enrichment and continued to hinder the U.N. watchdog's inquiries into its atomic activities. A senior U.S. State Department official gave a briefing on how Tehran had stepped up its preparations to enrich uranium.

Four years ago Bush used his State of the Union address to name Iran with North Korea and Iraq as nations that "constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world". With all sides engaged in high-stakes negotiations, he avoided such language on Tuesday, although he described Iran as "a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people."

Ahmadinejad fired back that Bush himself was a criminal. "Those whose arms are stained up to the elbow with the blood of other nations are now accusing us of violating human rights and freedoms. God willing, we shall drag you to trial," he said. - CNN

Iran 'hands over guide' to making nuclear bomb parts

IAEA's report indicates several areas where Iran is suspected of doing nuclear work that could be military related.

By Michael Adler - VIENNA 2006-02-01

The Iranian government has handed over to the International Atomic Energy Agency a document whose only use would be in making nuclear weapons, the IAEA said Tuesday in a confidential report. The report - for an emergency IAEA meeting Thursday that is to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its disputed nuclear program -- indicates several areas where Tehran is suspected of doing nuclear work that could be military related. It also confirms that Iran has begun research relating to enriching uranium as it prepares to actually make nuclear reactor fuel that can also be atom bomb material.

Iran's breaking of a suspension of nuclear fuel work is one of the main reasons the United States and the four other permanent Security Council members agreed Monday to ask the IAEA to take Tehran to the council in a move to pressure Iran.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brushed aside speculation that US efforts to formally refer the matter to the council had been watered down to a simple "report" to the world body to please the Russians and Chinese.

"This is the referral that we were seeking, a formal step to report a dossier to the UN," Rice told reporters on her way home from London after a 36-hour diplomatic marathon.

Meanwhile US President George W. Bush on Tuesday exhorted the Iranian people to assert their freedom against Tehran's clerical regime and offered close US ties with "a free and democratic Iran." In his State of the Union address in Washington, Bush called the Islamic republic "a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people."

Iran claims it is cooperating fully with an IAEA investigation of its nuclear program. But the update report by IAEA director of safeguards Olli Heinonen shows Tehran refusing to give agency inspectors all the information or interviews they want despite having cooperated by allowing a visit to the former Lavizan military site. For instance, Iranian authorities refused to let the Vienna-based IAEA copy the document on weapons parts, only allowing the agency to place it under IAEA seal in Iran. The 15-page document describes "the procedures for the reduction of UF6 (uranium hexafluoride gas) to metal in small quantities, and the casting of enriched and depleted uranium metal into hemispheres, related to the fabrication of nuclear weapons components," the report said.

Iran claims not to have used the information for weapons work as it says it was given the document without asking for it by an international nuclear smuggling network which offered it technology and parts in 1987 and the mid-1990s. The report said the information on making uranium metal hemispheres, which would be the central "pits" of nuclear bombs, "did not, however, include dimensions or other specifications for machined pieces for such components."

Heinonen's report said the IAEA still needed more information on Iran's contacts with the nuclear black market run by disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, including "the timing and purpose of certain trips" taken by Iranian nuclear officials in the mid-1990s.

The IAEA has also "shared with Iran" new information it has that Iran may have taken deliveries of sophisticated P-2 centrifuges, despite Tehran saying this is not true. Centrifuges enrich uranium into what can be fuel for nuclear power reactors or bomb material. Iran claims that its nuclear program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity but the United States charges this is a cover for secret development of atomic weapons.

Diplomats said that the IAEA had recently been given US intelligence on alleged P-2 deliveries as well as on alleged Iranian work in adapting missiles to carry payloads that could only be designed for nuclear weapons and on studies to build a uranium conversion site that might have military rather than civilian purposes. Iran has cooperated in some areas, such as allowing Heinonen to last week visit sites related to the former Lavizan military site in Tehran, sites where there is equipment with both civilian and military applications, the report said. But Iran "declined" to let Heinonen interview the head of the military Physics Research Center which was at Lavizan before it was razed by Iranian authorities in 2003 after suspicions were raised about it. - middle-east-online

Defiant to the pressure Iran poised to retaliate against UN referral

Ahmadinejad vows his country will continue on the road to victory, labels Bush warmonger who should be put on trial.

By Stefan Smith - TEHRAN 2006-02-01

Iran said Wednesday it was poised to retaliate against the reporting of its disputed nuclear programme to the Security Council by kick-starting sensitive fuel work and blocking UN inspections. In a barrage of threats that raise the stakes in the long-running dispute, firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also vowed his country would "continue on the road to victory" and labelled US President George W. Bush a warmonger who should be put on trial.

"If Iran's case is referred or reported to the Security Council ... Iran's cooperation will decrease," top national security official Ali Larijani told a news conference. "The government will be obliged to remove suspensions, which includes industrial-scale enrichment, and it will do so," he said, asserting that a massive enrichment plant at Natanz in central Iran was "ready for operation". "Inspections will be restricted. They will not have the right to go to military sites which we had so far allowed them to go to. Some of their cameras will be taken down," Larijani said of the now three-year-old International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation of the country.

Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel, but the process can be extended to make weapons-grade material. Tehran prompted the current crisis by resuming enrichment research on January 10. The warnings came as world powers including Russia agreed on a draft IAEA resolution that would report Iran to the Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.

The Vienna-based IAEA's 35-nation board is to consider the resolution on Thursday.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iran should "see this agreed position by the leaders of the international community not as a threat but as ... a final opportunity for Iran to put itself back on track".

But Larijani said Iran "does not see any rationale to stop nuclear fuel research, even for one day" -- ruling out the one move that could save it from ending up in New York.

"Those who possess stocks of nuclear arms meet together and take decisions and think that the Iranian people will submit to their decisions," Ahmadinejad fumed earlier in a speech in the south of the country. "Our people will not bow to a few tyrannical countries who think they are the whole world," said Ahmadinejad, accusing world powers of treating Iranians like "a second-rate people with no culture". He also lashed out at US President George W. Bush, who in his State of the Union address branded the Islamic republic "a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people". "You who support the Zionist puppet regime, you who support the destruction of Palestinian homes, you have no right to talk about liberty or human rights," shouted Ahmadinejad, who has already called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" or moved as far away as Alaska.

"God willing, in the near future we will judge you in a people's tribunal," he said of Bush.

Larijani also appeared to be bracing for an escalation of the crisis, saying Iran was no longer even insisting on having more time for negotiation "because we have prepared ourselves for another scenario".

He said his talks earlier Wednesday with Russian and Chinese deputy foreign ministers also failed to bear fruit: "They had a point of view on solving the issue, but we had a different point of view." "The last time they talked of sanctions, the price of oil increased," he said of the threat of tough UN action, adding: "Do not play with the national pride of Iranians. The situation will change and your interests in the region will be in danger."

In recent weeks Iran has been brandishing its close links with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and firebrand Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr. "Any aggression against Iran's peaceful nuclear installations will receive an extremely quick and destructive response from the armed forces," Iran's Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar also warned. The warning came just days after the head of the Revolutionary Guards also issued a reminder that Iran had ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel and US bases in the region.

Iran claims it is cooperating fully with an IAEA investigation, although the latest IAEA report shows Tehran refusing to give agency inspectors all the information or interviews they want and possessing a document whose only use would be in making nuclear weapons.

Larijani played down the importance of the document, saying it "can be found on the Internet". - middle-east

IAEA Report Shows Iran Intent On Developing Nukes Says US

"This report ... raises questions about machining the uranium into hemispheres," McCormack said.

by Staff Writers Washington (AFP) Feb 01, 2006

A report by the UN nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear program indicates that the Islamic republic is intent on developing a nuclear weapon, a US State Department spokesman said Wednesday.

"I think that, at this point, there are a lot of questions that remain to be answered," spokesman Sean McCormack said. "But those questions point in one direction, and that is that Iran is working to develop a nuclear weapon." McCormack said the report - submitted by the International Atomic Energy Agency to the 35 members of its board of governors who will be holding an emergency meeting Thursday - "raises a number of very troubling issues that Iran has yet to address".

The report, based on a document handed over by Iranian authorities, indicates several areas where Tehran is suspected of doing nuclear work that could be military related. It also confirms that Iran has begun research relating to enriching uranium as it prepares to actually make nuclear reactor fuel that can also be atom bomb material.

"This report ... raises questions about machining the uranium into hemispheres," McCormack said. "There's only one reason why you would try to machine uranium - highly enriched uranium - into hemispheres. You do that because you want to create a nuclear weapon." - spacewar.com

IAEA Reports Iran to U.N. Security Council

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer 26 minutes ago The U.N. nuclear watchdog Saturday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council in a resolution expressing concern that Tehran's nuclear program may not be "exclusively for peaceful purposes." Iran retaliated immediately, saying it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia. The landmark decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board sets the stage for future action by the top U.N. body, which has the authority to impose economic and political sanctions. Still, any such moves were weeks if not months away. Two permanent council members, Russia and China, agreed to referral only on condition the council take no action before March. Twenty-seven nations supported the resolution, which was sponsored by three European powers - Britain, France and Germany - and backed by the United States. Cuba, Syria and Venezuela were the only nations to vote against. Five others - Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa - abstained, a milder form of showing opposition. Those backing the referral included India, a nation with great weight in the developing world whose stance was unclear until the vote.

Iran reacted immediately, saying a proposal by Moscow to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia was dead.

"Commercial scale uranium enrichment will be resumed in Natanz in accordance with the law passed by the parliament," Javad Vaeidi, deputy head of the powerful National Security Council, told Iran state television in a telephone interview from Vienna.

Iran removed some U.N. seals from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, central Iran, on Jan. 10 and resumed research on nuclear fuel - including small-scale enrichment - after a 2 1/2-year freeze. Full-scale uranium enrichment can produce the fissile core of nuclear warheads. The Kremlin had proposed that Iran shift its large-scale enrichment of uranium to Russian territory to allay world suspicions that Iran might use the process to develop a nuclear bomb.

Vaeidi also said that after approval by the Iranian council, Iran would stop honoring an agreement with the IAEA allowing its inspectors broad powers to monitor and probe Tehran's nuclear activities. Iran says it wants to enrich only to make nuclear fuel, but concerns that it might misuse the technology accelerated the chain of events that led to Saturday's Security Council referral. The IAEA resolution refers to Iran's breaches of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and lack of confidence that it is not trying to make weapons.

It expresses "serious concerns about Iran's nuclear program." It recalls "Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations" to the nonproliferation treaty, and it expresses "the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes." It requests IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to "report to the Security Council" steps Iran needs to take to dispel suspicions about its nuclear ambitions.

The resolution calls on Iran to:

_Reestablish a freeze on uranium enrichment and related activities.

_Consider whether to stop construction of a heavy water reactor that could be the source of plutonium for weapons.

_Formally ratify an agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority and continue honoring the agreement before it is ratified.

_Give the IAEA additional power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program, including "access to individuals" for interviews and to documentation on its black-market nuclear purchases, equipment that could be used for nuclear and non-nuclear purposes and "certain military-owned workshops" where nuclear activities might be going on.

The draft also asks ElBaradei to "convey ... to the Security Council" his report to the next board session in March along with any resolution that meeting might approve. Agreement on the final wording of the text was reached just hours before Saturday's meeting convened, after Washington compromised on Egypt's demand that the resolution include support for the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. Egypt and other Arab states have long linked the two issues of Iran's atomic ambitions and Israel's nuclear weapons status.

The resolution recognized "that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and ... the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery."

A Western diplomat at the meeting said the United States felt strongly about not linking Israel to nuclear concerns in the Middle East when it considers Iran the real threat. But the Americans relented in the face of overwhelming European support for such a clause. Support for Iran shrank after Russia and China lined up behind the United States, France and Britain - the other three permanent Security Council members - earlier in the week. - news.yahoo.com

On Saturday 4th Feb 2006 Angela Merkel, German chancellor, likened Iran's atomic programme to the threat posed by Germany in the 1930s, "when national socialism was on the rise". She said Mr Ahmadi-Nejad had crossed a red line by doubting the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" - which he did last year. "We have learnt from our history,"

Merkyl was placed in power under agreement from the shadowy Bilderberg group

Danny Estulin wrote in May 2005 - "...the Bilderbergers discussed how to dust off a "boring" image of Angela Merkel, Germany's future leader. A short, over-sized male Bilderberger offered an opinion that in order for the widest cross-section of the German public to accept Merkel, the leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union, as chancellor, it would be important to give a new definition to the term "family values." German Bilderbergers well-versed in conservative Bavarian collective psyche believe that Merkel´s image, a divorcee with a doctorate degree in physics, isn't considered "reliable" to attract sufficient votes in this staunchly conservative area of the country. The idea, according to people within ear shot of the discussion "in the up-coming campaign would be to stress the importance of families rather than marriage as an institution." Bilderbergers pushing Schroeder aside in favour of a new candidate could very well signify that after three years of strife between American and European Bilderbergers over the war in Iraq, the secret society is ready to move forward with a much revised and cohesive policy.

Scotsman report 6th Feb 2006 - - Use of force against Iran is on agenda, warns bullish Rumsfeld

"All options - including the military one - are on the table," Rumsfeld told a German newspaper. "Any government that says Israel has no right to exist is making a statement about its possible behaviour in the future." At the conference, Mr Rumsfeld accused Tehran of being behind international terrorism. "Iran is the main sponsor of terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas,"

His belligerent tone was echoed by Abdolrahim Moussavi, the Iranian head of the joint chiefs of staff, who told Iranian troops yesterday: "We are not seeking a military confrontation, but if that happens we will give the enemy a lesson that will be remembered throughout history. "This nation has proved its will many times to its enemies. Why do they want to test this great nation once again?"

same hymnsheet:

6th Feb 2006 - Robert Joseph, undersecretary of state for arms control, took a tough line with the Iranians two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to report Tehran to the UN Security Council for its nuclear work.

"I would say that Iran does have the capability to develop nuclear weapons and the delivery means for those weapons," Joseph told a news conference at the Foreign Press Center here. Asked about the next steps with Iran, he said, "No options are off the table. We cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, but we are giving every chance for diplomacy to work and again we've entered the next level of diplomacy. "What is necessary to stop Iran is a firm indication that the international community not only will speak to this issue but will take whatever measures are necessary to convince Iran that it is in its interest to forego a nuclear weapons capability."

The top U.S. government official in charge of arms control advocates the offensive use of nuclear weapons and has deep roots in the neoconservative political camp . Moving into John Bolton's old job, Robert G. Joseph is the right-wing's advance man for counterproliferation as the conceptual core of a new U.S. military policy. Within the administration, he leads a band of counterproliferationists who—working closely with such militarist policy institutes as the National Institute for Public Policy and the Center for Security Policy—have placed preemptive attacks and weapons of mass destruction at the center of U.S. national security strategy.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad Angers Russia

The Iranian President's statement was diplomatically inappropriate. If he was referring to Russia, he questioned Russia's reliability, if not its integrity, as a business partner.

by Pyotr Goncharov - UPI Outside View Commentator - Moscow (UPI) Feb 07, 2006

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has dismissed as immaterial the objections of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Russian proposal to enrich Iranian uranium on Russian territory. The Iranian President's statement was diplomatically inappropriate. If he was referring to Russia, he questioned Russia's reliability, if not its integrity, as a business partner.

"Are you offering us to upgrade uranium abroad, as if you are dealing with a medieval country? If we agree, what are we going to do if one day you fail to get us nuclear fuel?" he said at a rally during his trip to the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which is being built by Russian specialists.

Saying "you", Ahmadinejad was addressing the United States, and another negotiator, the European Union Three, comprised of Britain, France and Germany, which can accept as the only option for Iran uranium enrichment with participation of Iranian experts -- not in Iran, but at a joint venture and on the condition that nuclear waste must be retrieved by this venture.

But the matter deals with the Russian proposal to upgrade Iranian nuclear fuel outside Iran as the only remaining option for breaking the deadlock. This idea currently being reviewed by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the EU3 is Moscow's offer to Tehran to set up a joint venture on Russian territory. Ahmadinejad was bound to know that the Russian proposal was the basis for all recent consultations on the Iranian nuclear program.

"The foes are trying to deprive Iran of its legal rights so as to later on sell it nuclear energy at high prices," he said at the same rally. Russia also falls under the "foes", at least indirectly. It is Russia who has committed herself to supplying Iran with nuclear fuel if it accepts its proposal on a joint venture. There are no other proposals in the IAEA.

"It is meaningless to cast doubt over Russia's honest proposal to Iran," said Sergei Lavrov.

The Russian Foreign Minister gave a diplomatic reply, which is understandable. He has no doubt that Tehran does not in fact consider Russia its "foe," or the "Small Satan" (as it dubbed the Soviet Union), as distinct from the Big Satan, the United States. But the phrase "...what are we going to do if one day you fail to get us nuclear fuel?" may apply to Russia as well.

Iran has voiced these apprehensions more than once. But while they were a general statement in the past, now they sound like a verdict pronounced by the president in the context of the Russian proposal. "Iran will continue following its road, and will not give up its legal right under any circumstances." The Iranian president expressed this position not only for the current emergency meeting of IAEA managing directors in Vienna, but also with a view to March 6 when a new, planned session at the same level will take place to decide on the referral of the Iranian nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council.

What stands behind this? Apparently, Tehran does not want its nuclear programs to be under tough IAEA control. A recent Five-Plus-One group joint resolution (adopted by Russia, the United States, China, Britain and France as Security Council permanent members, and Germany as part of the EU3 at the talks with Iran) instructs the IAEA to report to the Security Council in detail about checkups of Iranian nuclear facilities. In effect, it does not leave Iran any freedom of maneuver. Iran can only avoid the referral of its nuclear file to the Security Council, if it goes for close cooperation with the IAEA, which is strongly recommended by Moscow and Beijing.

Obviously, Tehran does not like the idea, and it is trying to break the rigid framework of the resolution. A recently published statement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry sounds like an ultimatum: If the Iranian file is sent to the U.N. Security Council, Iran will stop its cooperation with the IAEA.

"In conditions when the Islamic Republic of Iran allows the IAEA to control its entire nuclear activities of its own free will, certain countries are trying to stop this process by reporting the problem to the Security Council, and compelling the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop such voluntary cooperation in compliance with a resolution by the Majlis of the Iranian Council," reads the statement.

Tehran has never gone this far before.

- via spacewar

February 7, 2006 - Questions on Iran

Mr Blair is asked what measures are needed to tackle the threat from Iran follwing its being reported to the United Nations security council last week.

Military action is not on the agenda. he says. "I think it can be dealt with through peaceful and diplomatic means and that is what we are looking to do but it is interesting that in the past few months there has been a change in mood both in Europe and the US and there is certainly a degree of concern and unity about it."

Mr Blair goes on to discuss the "inflammatory" remarks made by the Iranian president as a symptom of a wider malaise sweeping the world. "There is a virus of extremism and fanaticism that come out of religious fanaticsm, political repression in the Midde East that has been imported to other parts of the world. You can see its effects even in this country... we will only secure our own future if we deal with every aspect of this problem."

This means making clear to Iran what is acceptable and not acceptable, and finding the two-state solution to the Palestine issue.

Frank Doran, Labour MP for Aberdeen North and chair of the administration committee, asks is this a domino solution to the problem? If we resolve the problem in Iran, are we well on the way to resolving the Middle East problem? Mr Blair thinks so.

What is mportant is that countries work together, whether economic sanctions are the answer or not, says the PM. "The interesting thing about this is that there is a greater degree of transatlantic cooperation than there has been for some time," he adds.

But he adds a little later on: "We are not at the stage where we have agreed what we might do."

Labour MP Andrew Miller, chair of the regulatory reform committee, asks how long it would take Iran to develop a nuclear weapon with their current technology. Mr Blair claims he is not expert, and moreover the problem is that no one knows what stage Iran is at. But there is an export market in this so we have to be careful about that as well, he warns.

An unstable regime such as Iran, "which has made some pretty extraordinary comments about Israel, your long term stability is when you have a regime that is accountable to its people", he adds.

Mohammad Sarwar, Labour chair of the Scottish affrairs committee, asks Mr Blair to comment on the Hamas electoral win in Palestine. "We have said we won't be able to have contact with a Hamas-led government unless it is clear that they are prepared to forswear that part of their constitution that says they want to get rid of the state of Israel and are prepared to embrace democratic means. If we don't have that it will stand in the way of us being able to help."

WIthout engaging with the Palestinian government, we are saying we don't respect the democratic will of the people. What message are we sending? asks Mr Sarwar. If they want our help, both financial and otherwise, than the premise has to be a commitment to a two-state solution, explains Blair.

Mr Blair is challenged by Mike Gapes, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, on whether important issues such as military action should be brought to parliament for a vote.

On the recent protests by Muslims over the controversial Danish cartoon, Mr Blair applauds the response from Muslim leaders. "There is a real sense of outrage," he says about the weekend excesses. "What is more healthy about this situaton and its important we emphasise the whole time is that sense of outrage stretches across all communities."

Back to Iran, Alan williams tries to draw Mr Blair on what would happen if the situation with Iran took a dramatic turn for the worse. Unluckily for Mr Williams, keen to know the worst-case scenario, Mr Blair refuses to give him a categorical answer as he knows his grilling is coming to a close. Thus ends the first of Mr Blair's twice-yearly sessions with the liaison committee. - guardian.co.uk/