Thursday, October 01, 2009

'Iran will let UN check its nuke plan'

This is a deceptive headline and story that follows-the devil is always in the details.

ap , THE JERUSALEM POST

Iran and six world powers ended a landmark meeting Thursday with an agreement to take a new stab at overcoming years of mistrust generated by Teheran's nuclear program and meet again this month for wide-ranging discussions on the two sides' concerns. In addition, diplomats said Iran will open its newly disclosed nuclear plant to UN inspectors, probably within a few weeks.

Adding to the optimism generated by the decision to hold follow-up talks was a rare bilateral meeting between the senior US and Iranian delegates to the meeting.

Confirming that the seven nations planned to meet again, senior EU envoy Javier Solana said Iran had pledged to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection soon.

Iran's disclosure of the new plant had threatened to poison the atmosphere of the talks, with the West saying Teheran only revealed it because it feared it would found out. Uranium enrichment can make both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

Solana said Iran had pledged to "cooperate fully and immediately with the IAEA" and said he expected Teheran to invite agency inspectors looking for signs of covert nuclear weapons activity to visit "in the next couple of weeks."

At the United Nations, the Iranian Foreign Minister suggested his country's talks with the US and five other world powers could be expanded to the "summit" level.

Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran was willing to discuss a variety of security, economic and political issues, although he did not specifically refer to nuclear issues, which the six powers consider the most critical topic.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - plus Germany hope to persuade Teheran to freeze the enrichment program.

Going into Thursday's talks, one of the top US goals was to get the Iranians to commit to a second round of talks within a couple of weeks in order to keep the dialogue in a compact timeframe. The US assumption was that if Iran was willing to engage seriously on the nuclear issue, a positive sign would be its agreement to have a second meeting shortly.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1254383196080&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Comment: "Iran will allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its heretofore secret enrichment site near Qom within two weeks. This is not much of a concession. As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is treaty-bound to allow such inspections (just as all other signatories, including the United States and Russia, are)" This according to Stratfor. So, Iran is obligated to allow this yesterday but the media plays it as a concession-wrong! Wait it gets better-"In exchange, the P-5+1 powers agreed to allow Iran to transfer small amounts of low-enriched uranium — typically enriched to 3-5 percent so that it can be used in a nuclear power reactor — to a third country for additional enrichment to the approximately 20 percent fissile mix required for the creation of medical isotopes." (Stratfor).The end result is that the international community has just given Iran permission to enrich uranium. With ongoing stalling techniques now accepted by the West, one need not be a political scientist to know what is going to happen next. Courage is only a word in our dictionaries, it is not a behavior exhibited by anyone in the West.

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