Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




NUKEWARS
Iran praises milestone nuclear talks with big powers
by Staff Writers
Almaty, Kazakhstan (AFP) Feb 27, 2013


US lawmakers introduce new Iran sanctions bill
Washington (AFP) Feb 27, 2013 - US lawmakers were introducing legislation Wednesday that would tighten sanctions on Iran, even as Tehran agreed to future talks with world powers over its contested nuclear drive.

The bipartisan House bill would allow President Barack Obama to impose penalties on foreign entities that provide Iran with goods to help maintain its struggling economy.

The Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013 also would provide Obama with broader authority to target strategic imports, such as mining or power generating equipment that could help Iran with its nuclear program, which the West and Israel say is a front for weapons development.

"Iran's continued march toward nuclear weapons is the gravest threat facing the United States and our allies," said bill sponsor Ed Royce, Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Co-sponsor Eliot Engel, the committee's top Democrat, added that the bill aims to "tighten the screws on Iran until the regime abandons its nuclear weapons program.

"I hope this crisis can be resolved through diplomacy, but words cannot be a substitute for action, and the US must keep all options on the table," he added.

The bill would designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.

Such designations are made through the State Department, but the bill, should it pass Congress, would compel the secretary of state to determine whether the group should be placed on its list of foreign terrorist groups.

Such a listing would subject the IRGC to additional sanctions. The Revolutionary Guards are already subject to United Nations sanctions.

Similar language was inserted into Senate legislation in 2007, sparking intense debate, but the bill never became law.

The House legislation also provides for stiffer penalties for human rights violators by applying existing financial sanctions to transactions that involve such violators.

"This bipartisan legislation ramps up the pressure on Iran's regime, especially targeting those brutalizing the many Iranians demanding their human rights," Royce said.

Iran is already under the toughest sanctions regime ever devised, including four separate UN resolutions. The measures are aimed at forcing the country to rein in its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is purely peaceful.

The sanctions are biting hard, slashing oil revenue and pushing the country close to recession as it seeks ways such as bartering to stay afloat, a US Government Accountability Office report said Tuesday.

News of the proposed bill comes just as Iran concluded a key meeting in Kazakhstan with P5+1 powers -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- aimed at easing the nuclear standoff.

A revised P5+1 offer reportedly involves easing sanctions on Iran's gold and precious metals trade while simultaneously lifting some restrictions on its banking operations.

But they still want Iran to halt enriching uranium to 20 percent, which for the international community is the most worrisome part of Iran's activities.

"Things are taking a turning point and I think the Almaty meeting will be (seen as) a milestone," Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Vienna. The sides agreed to hold new talks in March and April.

Iran and world powers agreed Wednesday to hold new talks in March and April over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear drive, after negotiations in Kazakhstan which Tehran praised as a possible turning point in the decade-old dispute.

There was no sign of a major breakthrough over Iran's nuclear ambitions in the Kazakh city of Almaty but the agreement on new meetings suggested potential for progress.

The talks saw the five UN Security Council members and Germany offer Iran a softening of non-oil or financial sector-related sanctions in exchange for concessions over Tehran's sensitive uranium enrichment operations.

A senior US official said Iran "appeared to listen carefully to the offer" and its chief negotiator Saeed Jalili issued rare praise for the world powers' "positive" and "realistic" attitude.

Speaking in Vienna, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi went even further, saying he was "very optimistic about the outcome".

"Things are taking a turning point and I think the Almaty meeting will be (seen as) a milestone," Salehi said.

Jalili, seen as close to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was more circumspect, saying the world powers' proposals were "more realistic, compared to what they said in the past".

"We consider these talks as a positive step which could be completed by taking a positive and constructive approach and taking reciprocal steps," he told reporters in Almaty.

Uranium enrichment is the most sensitive part of the nuclear cycle as the process can be used to make both nuclear fuel and the explosive core of a nuclear bomb that the powers fear Iran wants to develop.

Officials said the sides would next meet at the level of senior civil servants on March 17-18 in Istanbul.

Talks involving Jalili and the six world powers represented by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton would then take place in Almaty on April 5-6.

-- 'We need to see confidence' --

In contrast to the more effusive Iranian response, Ashton refused to be drawn into a judgement of the talks' success.

"I hope that the Iranian side are looking positively on the proposals we put forward," Ashton told reporters. "The proposals we put forward are designed to build in confidence and enable us to move forward.

"We approach this with the absolutely united view that we need to see international confidence in this (Iranian nuclear) programme."

The US official added that the meeting had been "useful".

"I wouldn't say it was positive or negative."

The offer reportedly involves easing sanctions on Iran's gold and precious metals trade and lifting some very small banking operations.

In return, it demands a tougher weapons inspection regime and the interruption of enrichment operations at the feared Fordo bunker facility where 20-percent enrichment goes on.

"This is interesting because what we are seeing is the start of a process," said Moscow-based PIR nuclear safety research institute analyst Andrei Baklitsky.

"The positions are slowly starting to merge. In other words, there are finally things there for them to discuss."

Iran, however, has always countered that its right to enrich uranium must be respected before negotiations can proceed.

The US official said this right is explicitly ruled out by UN Security Council sanctions punishing Iran for failing to cooperate with nuclear inspectors.

"There is a cost for Iran for every day we wait to solve the problem," the senior official said.

Iran has also stipulated that it would only consider giving up enrichment to 20 percent if all forms of sanctions against it were lifted -- a condition unpalatable to Washington.

The 20 percent level nears the "red line" degree of enrichment required for weapons-grade uranium.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on a visit to Berlin on Tuesday that he hoped "Iran itself will make its choice to move down the path of a diplomatic solution".

Israel -- the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear weapons power -- has never ruled out attacking Iran's nuclear sites and the diplomacy is essentially aimed at avoiding such an outcome which would send shock waves across the region.

Later Wednesday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran will face "military sanction" if it does not halt its nuclear program.

"Iran is continuing to defy the international community," he said.

"Like North Korea, it continues to defy all the international standards and I believe that this requires the international community to ratchet up its sanctions and make clear that if this continues there will be also a credible military sanction," he said.

The Kazakhstan talks also come as US lawmakers on Wednesday planneed to introduce a bill that would tighten sanctions no Iran.

The bipartisan House legislation, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, would allow President Barack Obama to impose penalties on foreign entities that provide Iran with goods that help maintain its struggling economy.

.


Related Links
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com
Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com
All about missiles at SpaceWar.com
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








NUKEWARS
Iran judge condemns American to death for spying
Tehran (AFP) Jan 9, 2012
An Iranian judge sentenced a US-Iranian man to death for spying for the CIA, media reported Monday, exacerbating high tensions in the face of Western sanctions on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme. Amir Mirzai Hekmati, a 28-year-old former Marine born in the United States to an Iranian family, was "sentenced to death for cooperating with a hostile nation, membership of the CIA and try ... read more


NUKEWARS
Water On The Moon: It's Been There All Along

Building a lunar base with 3D printing

US, Europe team up for moon fly-by

Russia to Launch Lunar Mission in 2015

NUKEWARS
Mars rover ingests rock powder for tests

Opportunity Is On A Rock Hunt

Big Nickel Rock Target Ahead

NASA Rover Confirms First Drilled Mars Rock Sample

NUKEWARS
U.S. research to be free online

NASA Creates Space Technology Mission Directorate

Educator Teams Fly On NASA Sofia Airborne Observatory

Choreographed to Perfection

NUKEWARS
Welcome Aboard Shenzhou 10

Reshuffle for Tiangong

China to launch 20 spacecrafts in 2013

Mr Xi in Space

NUKEWARS
Record Number of Students Control ISS Camera

NASA briefly loses contact with space station

Temporary Comm Loss Interrupts Crew's Day

Low-Gravity Flights Will Aid ISS Fluids and Combustion Experiments

NUKEWARS
The light-lift member of Arianespace's launcher family is readied for its second mission

SpaceX 2 Launch Set for March 1

NASA Releases Glory Taurus XL Launch Failure Report Summary

India's 102nd space mission lifts off successfully

NUKEWARS
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Tiny Planet System

Kepler helps astronomers find tiny exo planet

Searching for a Pale Blue SPHERE in the Universe

Earth-like planets are right next door

NUKEWARS
China overtakes Japan on IT spending: German trade body

Tokyo hotel shrinks in new-style urban demolition

Fluids in Space, Shaken Not Stirred

The world's most sensitive plasmon resonance sensor inspired by ancient Roman cup




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement