Iran says it will comply with UN protocol on access
MICHAEL WILNER/J.Post/07/02/2015
VIENNA — The foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and the European Union all said on Thursday that a final nuclear agreement with Iran is not yet guaranteed, with some key political questions still unanswered. But speaking to Western journalists here in the Austrian capital, a senior Iranian diplomat said that significant progress had been made on issues that were considered sticking points only days ago.
Iran is willing to grant the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, access to the “people and places” it seeks to verify the correctness and completeness of Iran’s future nuclear declarations, he said. So far in the talks, “managed access” has been a term with varying definitions— too opaque for a final text of a nuclear deal. Western powers seek to achieve the access required by the IAEA to complete its job, while Iran has publicly ruled out any inspections of its military installations.
But Tehran seemed to walk that line back on Thursday, for the first time saying that its real priority is to maintain the secrecy of Iran’s conventional military capabilities.
The IAEA seeks to find a balance in its inspections of conventional military sites across the territories of over 120 signatory nations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Those nations have also agreed to participate in the group’s additional protocols, which call for such access.
Asked by The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday whether the US seeks an explicit acknowledgement from Iran that the IAEA’s protocols grant it access to its military sites, a senior US administration official suggested world powers had worked out a mechanism. “We have worked out a process that we believe will ensure that the IAEA has the access it needs,” the official said.
The two-year diplomatic effort has entered its endgame, now two days past a self-imposed deadline for world powers and Iran to reach a comprehensive accord. The deal, if adopted, will govern Iran’s nuclear work for over a decade. In turn, Iran will receive over $100 billion in sanctions relief.
The arrival of Europe’s ministers in Vienna, where US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have been for days, coincided with a critical meeting in Tehran between the head of the IAEA and Iran’s president. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said he believes the UN watchdog is a partisan agent of Western governments.
EU high representative on foreign affairs Federica Mogherini called the IAEA meeting in Iran “very important.”
“The effort of all parties to reach success is genuine,” Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said. “The open question, which I cannot answer you yet, is whether the will and courage will be sufficient among all at the end.” China’s foreign minister arrived on Thursday and said that he believed a final deal could be reached by July 7, when an interim nuclear deal— the Joint Plan of Action— is scheduled to expire. France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, left Vienna on Thursday after a day of meetings. He said he would return on Sunday, hopefully to close the deal, strongly suggesting the talks will marathon through the weekend.
“We are not at the end of the negotiations,” Fabius said upon his departure. “I hope that at that stage we will be in a situation to move, perhaps, and I hope so, to find a definitive solution that will enable a robust agreement.” And Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, confirmed to the press there would be movement over several days. “The work goes on,” Hammond said. “You are going to see ministers coming and going to maintain the momentum of these discussions. I don’t think we’re at any kind of breakthrough moment yet and we will do whatever we need to do to keep the momentum.”
Netanyahu: ISIS brutality will seem like nothing compared with a nuclear-armed Iran
By HERB KEINON/J.Post/07/02/2015
If the world thinks Islamic State is savage, it should just wait until the Islamic Republic of Iran gets its hands on nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. Netanyahu’s warning, made during a tour of the country’s cyber park in Beersheba, comes as the nuclear negotiations between the western powers and Iran in Vienna remain deadlocked.
People were skeptical up until a few months ago when Israel said that Islamic State was operating on its borders, “and now we are seeing Islamic State acting with unusual cruelty on both our northern and southern borders,” Netanyahu said. After sending condolences to the Egyptian people for the losses sustained in the ISIS attack there on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that Islamic State’s actions are “nothing” compared to the capabilities being built by the Iranian regime.
“Obviously no one thinking with a clear mind would consider giving Islamic State nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. “But in the negotiations taking place now with Iran, this extreme state that spreads terrorism around the world is being given the ability to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal with many nuclear bombs, together with the means to deliver them.” The world is facing two major threats, he said, the Islamic State threat, and the Iranian threat. “We should not strengthen one at the expense of the other,” he said, “we need to weaken both and prevent the aggression and military buildup of both of them.”
