US now indicates Iran interim deal wasn’t quite finalized

[Mosby]

Source: Times of Israel

WASHINGTON — Iran is currently enjoying a “window” of time before the six-month deal signed in Geneva early Sunday goes into effect, during which it is not bound to take any credible steps toward disabling its ability to produce a nuclear weapon, the State Department acknowledged Tuesday.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the six-month interim period, during which Iran would take steps to rein in its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, has not yet begun. Furthermore, there are still a number of details to be worked out, she said, without specifying what points had yet to be finalized.

Her comments created confusion as to whether the much-touted interim deal, supposedly reached by P5+1 powers and Iran in Geneva in the early hours of Sunday morning, had actually been completed as claimed. Iran on Tuesday accused the US of publishing an inaccurate account of what had been agreed. And its Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an address to the Iranian parliament Wednesday that Iran would continue construction on the Arak heavy water plant, in an apparent breach of the ostensibly agreed terms.

“The next step here is a continuation of technical discussions at a working level so that we can essentially tee up the implementation of the agreement,” Psaki told reporters Tuesday. “Obviously, once that’s — those technical discussions are worked through, I guess the clock would start. Obviously, there’ll also be a reconvening of the political track with the P5+1, which Under Secretary Sherman will continue to be our lead negotiator on.”



Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-enjoying-pre-implementation-window/

[Mosby]

1. Iran rejects US’s ‘one-sided’ version of nuclear deal

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday firmly criticized the White House for publishing what it said was a false version of the interim nuclear agreement reached early Sunday between Iran and the six world powers.

“What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action, and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” said a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-rejects-uss-one-sided-version-of-nuclear-deal/

[dipsydoodle]

5. Since the farcical UN resolution on Libya,

with clever ? wording by the US others have leaned to read "what is meant" in exact depth and fuck the interpretation.

That was also the background to both Russia and China rejecting any such resolutions on Libya.

[Roland99]

6. The right-wingnuts are on fire today w/that.

Love how they've been calling Iran liars for years and now all of a sudden believe anything Iran says because it makes the White House look bad.

[Mosby]

2. President Rouhani interview

Last edited Wed Nov 27, 2013, 05:12 PM - Edit history (1)

President Rouhani said in an live interview on television that Iran has a right to enrichment and will never surrender this right.

“Enrichment, which is one part of our nuclear right, will continue, it is continuing today and it will continue tomorrow and our enrichment will never stop and this is our redline,” Rouhani said during the address to mark his 100th day in office.

He pointed to the recent agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), and said that this agreement has broken the structure of sanctions.

Rouhani said that his government wants to end sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council and individual countries, adding that those enemies that tried to spread Iranophobia across the world are isolated more than ever.

“Many were trying to isolate Iran, but who is isolated today? Our enemies are in fact isolated,” Rouhani added.

http://www.tasnimnews.com/English/Home/Single/204511

[loudsue]

4. A former IAEA inspector told NPR yesterday that Iran can still enrich Uranium for electricity

and that THAT was approved in the agreement. Israel is trying to stir up the tea party and the republicans yet again. The lower level enrichment is not bomb grade, and the council of nations agreed to it.

[Mosby]

7. Low level enrichment has never been the issue

The issue has always been and continues to be IAEA inspector access to their nuclear program components. It is suspicious though that they claim to need to enrich to 20%.

I posted Rouhani's interview to highlight the way he is framing the negotiations as a zero sum game, them vs. Israel.

[loudsue]

8. They don't claim that.

According to the deal, Iran will stop enriching uranium beyond 5% and neutralize its stockpile of uranium enriched beyond this point. It will also allow greater access to inspectors including daily access at Natanz and Fordow, two of Iran's key nuclear sites, while agreeing to stop construction work at Arak heavy-water research reactor."

Israel is misrepresenting the whole thing, and the rightwing are eating it up.

[Mosby]

9. They can enrich uranium up to 5%.

[quadrature]

13. Iran is, and will be, violating UNSCR 1737, if they continue ...nt

[cheapdate]

3. Sounds like The Times of Israel is squarely opposed to the Geneva agreement with Iran.

Here's how they frame the agreement in their opening paragraph:

"...during which it is not bound to take any credible steps toward disabling its ability to produce a nuclear weapon"

From what I've read about the agreement, the provisions that apply to Iran are more than sufficient to ensure that any activity that might lead to weapons grade material will be halted. They agreed to freeze the number of centrifuges and cancel future planned units, to suspend all work on the heavy water reactor at Arak, to blend down all uranium above 5%, etc. etc.

I'm happy with the agreement, even if The Times of Israel isn't.

[Mosby]

10. Is Time on Iran's Side?

Diplomacy, unlike sex, lends itself poorly to sensationalism. The agreement with Iran reached by the foreign ministers of six countries (or, in the diplomatic jargon, P5+1, the European Union being not quite a country and not quite a union) in Geneva at 3 a.m. on Sunday is neither a beginning of a new era, a major step forward “to a final, comprehensive solution,” nor a new Munich. It is neither a “historic achievement,” as the White House seems to suggest, nor a “historic mistake,” as Benjamin Netanyahu asserts. It is something in between, too transient to be historic. It is hard to read the agreement as anything but a stopgap measure, an expression of a stalemate between the real but cunning determination of the Iranian theocracy to make itself, its ideology, and its designs abroad immune to any external threat and the equally real but half-hearted desire of the West to prevent this from happening. Other things staying equal, six months hence the agreement will bring us to roughly the same spot where we are now, except that other things have a tendency of not staying the same.

Because of the existential nature of the nuclear issue, much has been already written on the risks of the agreement, so it is perhaps fair to try to look for the bright side first. If it is possible to look at the deal as the first chink in the armor of Western determination, it is possible to do the same for Iran. The sweet taste of incentives contained in the agreement might quite possibly whet the Iranian appetite for more. The very fact of talking to the Great Satan might conceivably make him look less satanic as time goes by. In short, people and their views of each other can change.

There is, on the other hand, much to militate against holding one’s breath in such expectations. Of the two sides, Iran is the more compact and rigid one, and less prone to change. It is united both by a clear ideology and a clear ambition of where it wants to go, and ruled over in a strict authoritarian way. The “West,” including Russia in this case, no longer thinks in terms of shared ideas, loyalties, and alliances. Nonproliferation is a worthy goal but a feeble battle cry.

It is possible but unlikely that Iran’s red lines will have changed in six months. On the other hand, it might see the new status quo as quite satisfactory for its own purposes. What, then, will be the West’s strategy? Are we going to re-impose sanctions if Iran refuses to go any further? Or will the current temporary arrangement acquire a semi-permanent character? And if the latter, cui bono?

http://worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-zantovsky/time-irans-side

[Mosby]

11. Iranian Oil Industry Set for Boom as Markets Re-Open; India Ready to Order 21 Million Tons

The Iranian oil industry was already gearing up for a boom on Wednesday, as the deal with the world powers at the weekend allows Iranian crude to — at least temporarily — return to the global market, Deputy Oil Minister Kazzem Vaziri-Hamaneh said, semi-official state news agency FARS reported.

According to the U.S.-brokered deal reached at the weekend, the oil industry will see a six-month reprieve, along with other areas that have strangled the Iranian economy, including a ban on importing parts for cars and civilian aircraft and trading precious metals, plus access to some $7 billion frozen in international accounts. However, if Iran doesn’t live up to its commitments, U.S President Barack Obama promised to come down on the Islamic Republic with even harsher sanctions.

“Giant international firms are perceived to return to Iran’s oil and gas industries upon the complete removal of sanctions,” Vaziri-Hamaneh told reporters in Tehran. “Certainly, the annulment of sanctions will facilitate and accelerate exports operations and supply of Iranian oil to the global market.”

Vaziri-Hamaneh said that, with the removal of sanctions, the Iranian oil industry can return to some normalcy, albeit for the next six months included in the deal, with its customers buying and transporting crude from Iran with their own insurance and by their own tankers.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/11/27/iranian-oil-industry-set-for-boom-as-markets-re-open-india-ready-to-order-21-million-tons/

[okaawhatever]

12. I'm not overly concerned with a report from the Times of Israel. Most of the world news sources

reported stories that lined up with what Obama and others have said.

[Mosby]

14. IAEA says may need more money to help implement Iran nuclear deal

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. atomic watchdog will probably need more money to verify the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, its chief said on Thursday, and it would take some time to prepare for the task.

Yukiya Amano also said Iran has invited the agency to visit the Arak heavy-water production plant on December 8, the first concrete step under a new cooperation pact aimed at clarifying concerns about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

-snip-

...Western officials and experts caution that finding a permanent solution to the Iranian nuclear issue will probably be an uphill struggle, with the two sides still far apart on the final scope and capacity of the Iranian nuclear program.

The Islamic Republic says it is a peaceful energy project but the United States and its allies suspect it has been aimed at developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons.

Iran agreed on Sunday to stop its most sensitive nuclear work - uranium enrichment to a higher fissile concentration of 20 percent - and cap other parts of its activities in exchange for limited sanctions relief.

Refined uranium can fuel nuclear power plants but also the fissile core of a bomb if processed to a high degree.

"The IAEA inspectors are able to give an early warning if Iran does not comply at these locations with its undertakings," former IAEA chief inspector Olli Heinonen said. "In verification work, the devil is in the detail."

The IAEA's visit in 10 days' time to the heavy water production plant near the town of Arak is part of a separate agreement signed this month between the U.N. agency and Iran.

Inspectors have not been there since August 2011, despite repeated requests. But Iran agreed on November 11 to grant access to this site and to a uranium mine within three months.

http://news.yahoo.com/iran-invites-u-n-watchdog-visit-nuclear-linked-100839063.html