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Today's Top News
Iran Sends Mixed Signals on Quitting Nuclear Curb Pact
Tehran caused an international outcry on Sunday when it announced plans to build 10 more uranium enrichment sites in retaliation for a rebuke by the U.N. nuclear agency for covering up an enrichment project for at least two years.
Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani speaks during a news conference in Baghdad November 4 ,2009. Ali Larijani said on Monday Iran saw little benefit from its membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a day after Tehran announced plans to build 10 uranium enrichment plants. (REUTERS/Saad Shalash/Files) Russia said it was "seriously concerned" by Iran's gambit to massively expand enrichment, criticism that could raise Western hopes for Russian backing for harsher sanctions against Tehran.
Washington condemned the plans as a serious violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said there was little point in Iran staying in the treaty if it was liable to be reprimanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency for exercising its right to develop peaceful nuclear energy.
"I believe that their moves are harming the NPT the most ... Now, whether you are a member of the NPT, or pull out of it, makes no difference," Larijani told a news conference.
However, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's atomic energy agency and seen as a relative moderate, told Reuters later Tehran had no wish to leave the NPT.
"Our spiritual leader says that to obtain nuclear weapons is a sin -- if we wanted to obtain nuclear weapons we would leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty," he said through an interpreter.
"We are naturally enduring a lot of pressure but we will remain in the treaty."
TENETS OF ISLAM
Iranian officials have previously said Iran had no intention of leaving the NPT, under which its nuclear sites are subject to IAEA inspections, or to use enrichment to produce fuel for nuclear weapons, which it says violate the tenets of Islam.
Analysts believe Iran would think twice before quitting the NPT since this would betray weapons ambitions and could provoke a pre-emptive attack by Israel and possibly the United States.
It could take Iran many years to equip and operate 10 new enrichment plants.
Iran dismissed skepticism voiced by some Western analysts about its ability to execute the plan. "They will see in the future that what we have said is no bluff," First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told Fars news agency.
If Iran expands enrichment as it says, suspicions that it plans to develop nuclear weapons will grow since it lacks the technology needed to convert low-enriched uranium (LEU) it is making into fuel for civilian nuclear power plants.
Such technology is not needed to refine LEU into the fissile material used for nuclear warheads.
Larijani said there was still room for diplomacy.
Referring to the six world powers pressing Iran for steps to prove it does not seek nuclear weapons, he said: "It would be useful for them also to use this diplomatic opportunity to let Iran work in the framework of the IAEA and international supervision to assure them that Iran's activities are peaceful.
"Of course they are free to choose another method and Iran will act accordingly."
The IAEA board angered Iran when it censured it for covertly building a second uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom, in addition to its main IAEA-monitored one at Natanz, and calling for a halt to construction.
"STRONG MESSAGE"
Salehi, quoted by state broadcaster IRIB, said the decision to go ahead with 10 new enrichment sites was spurred by the IAEA resolution, adding: "Iran's government sent a strong message."
Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Iran's plans were unacceptable and might lead to increased pressure on Tehran to comply with U.N. resolutions.
"We view the Iranian announcement, if it is in fact accurate and implemented, that they intend to build 10 additional facilities as completely inappropriate and further isolating Iran from the international community," she told reporters.
Russia, which has so far refused publicly to support U.S. suggestions that broader economic sanctions may be needed to restrain Iran, said it was "seriously concerned by the latest statements of the Iranian leadership."
France said Iran should be given a "last chance" in talks over its atomic program and it must heed IAEA warnings.
"The fact that Iran persists in ignoring the demands of a big independent agency like the IAEA, that's very dangerous," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Iran's announcement "clearly goes in the wrong direction. Iran is urged to cooperate with the IAEA without ifs and buts ... It is clear that if Iran rejects the outstretched hand of the international community, it must expect further sanctions."
(Additional reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Vladimir Soldatkin in Iran, Paul Carrel in Berlin, Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow, Sophie Hardach in Paris, Mark Heinrich in Vienna, David Brunnstrom in Brussels; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
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17 Comments so far
Show AllStrategic analysts also believe Iran would think twice before quitting the NPT since such a move would betray nuclear weapons ambitions and could provoke pre-emptive attack by Israel and possibly the United States.
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By Israel?
A country that never signed the NNPT and has hundreds of nuclear weapons is going to punish a country that simply wants to conduct their affairs in the exact same manner?
Huh?
Those are my thoughts.
... and be attacked by the only two countries that never signed the NPT!
Bill the USA has signed the treaty. The Nuclear powers that haven't are India Pakistan and israel. Korea signed and then dropped out.
Korea did exactly what Iran threatens to do and Korea had nukes whereas Iran does not.
India Pakistan and Israel all have nukes and are not signatories to NPT.
Only a month or so ago israel placed a nuke armed missile cruiser and sub off the Iranian coast.
I see deliberate provocation by israel and USA to war on Iran.
"I see deliberate provocation by israel and USA to war on Iran."
yes and very prominent war games by Iran too.
The chips are being put on the table, so to speak. Do you know poker? Sometimes you get to the point where you have to go "all in" even with a losing hand. I'm not saying either side has a losing hand, I think there will be many losers if it comes to a real war. I can understand the Iranian thinking though. They have no faith in western promises or guarantees, not that any credible ones have been offered. And on the US/Israeli side, their actions are consistent with those taken over the last eight, nine years, fifty years.
I have sympathy though for those who in Iran want democratic reform and who are stymied by external existential threats. I also have sympathy for those in the US who want peace, but can't bring themselves to vote for it.
I believe the overwhelming majority of the fools who voted for Obama did so precisely because they wanted peace and thought they were voting for it.
The disadvantage of poker is that it is a game of incomplete information.
I hope they are playing chess, but then governments can again lie to (play poker with) their population.
"India Pakistan and Israel all have nukes and are not signatories to NPT."
But all are recipients of nuclear technology transfer from the USA, abrogating the NPT.
And israel got some of the technology and plutonium through stealing from the USA.
Larijani says: "I believe that their moves are harming the NPT the most ... Now whether you are a member of the NPT or pull out of it has no difference." This, of course, is true, but I still think it would be a mistake for Iran to pull out of the NPT, since this would play directly into Israel's hands. The mainstream media are so exercised over the non-issue of Iran that such a move would result in a propaganda coup for the Israel-US-Western Europe axis.
"The mainstream media are so exercised over the non-issue of Iran that such a move would result in a propaganda coup for the Israel-US-Western Europe axis."
Iran declaring that it was pulling out of the npt, would be one story the US media would bother to report acurately, wouldn't it be?
But ultimately Iran has no control over US propaganda. Most statements by Iran's leaders are, quite naturally, not reported or are misinterpreted by CNN and co.
And the npt, like the torture treaty, the abm treaty, the geneva conventions, the UN treaty prohibition on wars of aggression etc, they are now quite openly for American soldiers and drones to enforce, and for the US government to violate.
Iran is not building any nuclear weapons. If there was a single shred of evidence, Israel and the USA would jump in immediately.
So the accusations fly until we can come up with a believable cover story for the upcoming war crime. The accusations are baseless, but it gets the public thinking in that direction.
All the leaders of the global nations know that the USA is falsely accusing Iran, they just don't have the guts to say a word. They stand and stare wide-eyed at the neighborhood bully, glad they they aren't the ones being picked on.
Iran is calling the bluff by withdrawing from the NPT. They aren't, won't, nor have they ever designed or planned to design nuclear weapons.
Lorax: "All the leaders of the global nations know that the USA is falsely accusing Iran, they just don't have the guts to say a word."
This is basically true, though several European leaders, like France's Sarkozy, Germany's Merkel, and Italy's Berlusconi, are joining the lie-fest. Theirs is more than a simply passive role in this latest hoax.
Democratic Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel at an early debate (April 2007) almost yelling at Senator Obama:
“You know who the biggest violator of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is? The United States of America! We signed a pledge that we would begin to disarm and we’re not doing it. We’re expanding our nukes. Who the hell are we going to nuke?
He continued:
"...Tell me, Barack who do you want to nuke?"
"Iran Threatens to Pull Out of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty"
The same NP treaty that the US has abrogated at least twice?
Whats good for the goose, ....
Also alot of this saber rattling is diversion from the horror Obomber is perpetrating in Afghanistan.
This is the thanks Iran gets for helping topple the Taliban and capturing Islamists for the USA.
I don't understand why the Russians and the Chinese don't simply put an end to this nonsense in the Security Council. They know damn well that Iran is not doing anything illegal. The crime here is the US and Israel constantly threatening to attack Iran. "All options are on the table", they say. That is a direct threat to attack another country with nuclear weapons. Such a threat is a flagrant crime against peace, but no corporate media outlet will ever tell you that.