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NUKEWARS
Iran slams US as 'obsessed' with sanctions as talks resume
by Staff Writers
New York (AFP) Sept 18, 2014


US urges Iran to cooperate in UN nuke probe
Vienna (AFP) Sept 18, 2014 - Washington urged Iran Thursday to engage with a stalled UN nuclear probe, saying it was crucial to a major accord under discussion between Iran and world powers this week in New York.

Laura Kennedy, the US representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Washington was "concerned... by the pace of progress" in the Vienna body's investigation.

"Concerns about the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme must be addressed as part of any comprehensive" deal between Iran and world powers, Kennedy said.

"Only when this happens will it be possible to have confidence that Iran's nuclear programme is and will remain exclusively peaceful," she told reporters at a meeting of the IAEA.

The IAEA regularly inspects Iran's nuclear facilities, but it also suspects that Tehran's programme had "possible military dimensions" before 2003 and possibly since.

Iran denies this, telling the IAEA in a letter in August that "most of the issues" in its probe are "mere allegations and do not merit consideration", according to the agency.

Iran agreed in May to provide information on two out of 12 suspect areas but it failed to do so by a mutually-agreed deadline of August 25. It also stopped short of proposing new measures by September 2 as requested, the IAEA says.

Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, said however Thursday that Tehran had already told the watchdog that the deadline would not be met due to the "complexity", "invalidity of the agency's information... and lack of substantiated evidence".

"We plan to have a meeting very soon (with the IAEA) on the two practical measures (the two areas), and as soon as these issues are clarified and closed we can start to implement new practical measures," Najafi told reporters.

Iran has long complained that the allegations are based on faulty intelligence provided by the likes of the Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Mossad -- intelligence that it says it has not been allowed to study.

Some analysts have also questioned the validity of some of the claims, which the IAEA called "overall, credible" in a 2011 assessment.

The comments came a day before the resumption of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany in New York.

Under their mooted agreement, the powers want Tehran to scale down its nuclear programme to ease fears it might get the bomb after 12 years of rising tensions.

The Islamic republic, which says its nuclear programme is to generate electricity and treat cancer patients, wants relief from painful sanctions. The deadline to reach a deal is November 24.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday accused Washington of being "obsessed" with sanctions as a new round of high-stakes bilateral nuclear negotiations opened in New York.

"We are committed to resolving this issue," Zarif told a US think-tank, as a State Department official confirmed to AFP that the two sides had resumed talks here late Wednesday.

But Zarif argued part of the problem blocking a deal was the US "infatuation" with sanctions.

"This deal would require the United States to lift the sanctions, and the reason Congress is objecting to this is that it wants to keep these sanctions," Zarif told the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Sanctions have become an end in themselves. Sanctions do not serve any purpose," he argued, saying during the time that the Iranian economy has been slapped with Western measures the number of the country's centrifuges has soared from 200 to 20,000.

"So sanctions have produced, just in normal calculus, 18,800 centrifuges," he said, joking it was "simple maths."

- 'Safer world' -

US Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers the aim was to reach a deal under which "any pathway to a bomb will be eliminated" and "we have the ability to come to you and say the world is safer, our allies in the region are safer."

"That's the goal. We're not there yet. I don't know if we can get there," said Kerry, who has insisted that military action against Iran's suspect nuclear facilities has not been ruled out.

The two sides missed a July target date for a deal following an interim deal under which Iran agreed to freeze its uranium enrichment in return for access to some about $7 billion in oil revenues frozen in bank accounts around the world.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany -- known as the P5+1 -- are returning to the negotiating table with Iran seeking to reach a deal to scale back Tehran's nuclear activities by a new November 24 deadline.

In return, Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, wants UN and Western sanctions lifted, and is pushing for the right to enrich uranium, a process which can produce material for a bomb.

Zarif, who met Wednesday for a working lunch with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, argued: "Iran has shown that we will live up to every agreement that we have."

A senior State Department official said the bilateral Iranian-US talks would resume again Thursday in New York before the full P5+1 plenary session on Friday.

The talks are expected to last throughout next week on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, and will be joined at some point by foreign ministers.

Defending the interim deal, Kerry said Iran's program "has been halted where it was when we began and they have reduced their stockpile of 20 percent going down to zero. That's an extraordinary thing."

US officials have stressed the November deadline will not be extended, and US lawmakers are already drawing up new legislation to impose even greater sanctions should the talks fail.

- Deep mistrust -

A new poll released Wednesday found 79 percent of over 1,000 Iranians surveyed said they would back a deal which even included Iranian assurances never to produce an atomic bomb, but a large majority admitted demands such as dismantling half of Iran's centrifuges and limiting its nuclear research would be unacceptable.

The poll also revealed deep Iranian skepticism that the West will keep promises to lift the sanctions.

Three-quarters of those surveyed said they believed the US would find some other excuse to impose sanctions, fearing the United States is out to dominate Iran or block its development.

"While the Iranian public is ready to accept taking some confidence building steps, there are obviously some clear limits," said Ebrahim Mohseni, a senior analyst at the University of Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani "is likely to face a political backlash if he goes farther than the public is ready to support," he warned.

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NUKEWARS
Iranians back nuclear deal, fear tough demands: poll
Washington (AFP) Sept 17, 2014
As Iran and world powers prepare to resume nuclear talks, a new poll Wednesday revealed most Iranians back a deal but consider unacceptable some of the toughest demands to rein in their atomic program. About 94 percent of Iranians said their country needed a nuclear energy program and seven in ten insisted that it was for peaceful purposes only. While 79 percent of those surveyed said th ... read more


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