Middle East
Publisher: NYTimes
16 Dec 2014
Iran’s President Pledges to Face Down Forces Opposing a Nuclear Deal
Risking his political standing, Iran s president stressed on Monday that he was determined to cinch a nuclear deal and prepared to take on the conservative forces who would prefer not to see an agreement with the West, even if that means continued economic sanctions on Iran. "Some people may not like to see the sanctions lifted," the president, Hassan Rouhani, said as Iranian negotiators and their United States counterparts resumed talks in Geneva. "Their numbers are few, and they want to muddy the waters."
Publisher: Al Jazeera
26 Nov 2014
Iran will not sink ‘to knees’ on nuclear deal
In his first remarks since the extension of the deadline, Khamenei said: "On the nuclear issue, the United States and European colonialist countries gathered and applied their entire efforts to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees, but they could not and they will not," Khamenei made the remarks to a group of clerics, according to his website. In a nationwide broadcast on Monday, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani told the nation that it "has achieved a significant victory" and "negotiations will lead to a deal, sooner or later".
Publisher: Al Jazeera
25 Nov 2014
Iran nuclear talks extended till July 2015
Negotiators have extended talks on Iran's nuclear programme for a comprehensive agreement until July 2015 after failing to meet a Monday deadline, diplomats said. Iran and six powers - the US, China, Russia, Britain, France plus Germany (P5 1) - have been negotiating for six days in the Austrian capital Vienna to turn an interim accord reached with the Islamic Republic a year ago into a lasting agreement. The six nations want Tehran to scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.
Publisher: NYTimes
21 Nov 2014
Beyond Iran Nuclear Talks, Real Hurdles May Be in Tehran
Iran s hard-liners, powerful but largely unknown in the West, organized one of several recent meetings criticizing a potential agreement. The target of their worries, as they put it, were those advocating a deal. My brothers, we are in danger, one of the conference organizers, Ali Hassanzadeh, told an audience of conservative lawmakers, activists and hundreds of their most loyal supporters. A video was played portraying the moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, and his negotiators as gullible and conned by the United States. A bad deal will be unacceptable, Mr. Hassanzadeh concluded
Publisher: The Guardian
18 Nov 2014
Iran and US close in on historic nuclear deal at Vienna talks
Some diplomats describe their work as 95% done, pending political decisions to be made in national capitals over Iran's capacity to enrich uranium over the next few years, and the sequence in which international sanctions are lifted. Several leading arms-control experts have argued that the residual obstacles are more political than substantial, determined by the need of President Barack Obama's administration and President Hassan Rouhani's reformist government in Iran to reassure conservatives at home, rather than by the actual requirements of Iran's nuclear energy programme or genuine nonproliferation concerns.
Publisher: The Guardian
13 Nov 2014
Stop making “excessive demands” of Iran in nuclear talks, Rouhani tells US
Iran s president, Hassan Rouhani, has asked the US to stop making "excessive demands" in the negotiations over the country's nuclear programme, saying Tehran had already made enough compromises to reach a permanent settlement with the west when the two sides meet next week. Rouhani told his cabinet on Wednesday that the Iranian team would not retreat from the "people's rights" when it travelled to Vienna to meet with diplomats from six major powers for what many see as a make-or-break moment
Publisher: Bloomberg
12 Nov 2014
Iran Signs Russia Reactor Deal as Nuclear Talks Falter
Iran signed an agreement with Russia to obtain as many as eight new reactors, as world powers struggle to reach an accord capping the Islamic Republic s nuclear program. The deal was signed in Moscow yesterday by Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran s Atomic Energy Organization, and Sergei Kiriyenko, the chief executive of Rosatom Corp.
Publisher: The Guardian
11 Nov 2014
Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia
Obama administration wants Tehran to come to heel over its nuclear programme. It wants Vladimir Putin to back off in eastern Ukraine. But after recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House has no desire to put American boots on the ground. Instead, with the help of its Saudi ally, Washington is trying to drive down the oil price by flooding an already weak market with crude. As the Russians and the Iranians are heavily dependent on oil exports, the assumption is that they will become easier to deal with.
Publisher: IranPressNews
10 Nov 2014
Weak Iran economy adds to pressure on leaders over nuclear deal
Iran s rulers are under growing pressure to secure a nuclear deal with world powers to help ease the plight of the country s economy, which has been buffeted by international sanctions and falling oil prices that threaten to derail economic reforms. Weak demand and oversupply have sent oil prices plunging more than 25 per cent, since the middle of June, to a four-year low.
Publisher: WSJ
7 Nov 2014
Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State
President Barack Obama secretly wrote to Iran s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence. The letter appeared aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State and nudging Iran s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal.
Publisher: Economist
1 Nov 2014
The Revolution is over
Changes in Iran make a nuclear deal more likely - not this month, perhaps, but eventually. Much that Iran does is wrong. It finances terrorists and militias in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and backs the murderous regime of Bashar Assad in Syria. Its politicians routinely deny Israel s right to exist. They treat opponents at home with cruelty and injustice. However Iran is not a straightforward dictatorship. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the last word. But his role is to adjudicate between the claims of an elite made up of thousands of politicians, clerics, generals, academics and business people.
Publisher: UT SanDiego
Author: David Ignatius
31 Oct 2014
A new voice in Iranian nuclear talks
An intriguing new figure is gaining prominence in the Iranian government just as regional conflicts in Iraq and Syria intensify and nuclear talks with the West move toward a Nov. 24 deadline. The newly prominent official is Ali Shamkhani, the head of Iran's national security council. "In contrast to Iranian foreign ministry officials, Shamkhani is a former Revolutionary Guard [IRGC] commander who has the clout to challenge his former comrades," argues Karim Sadjadpour, a leading Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A European intelligence official agrees that Shamkhani may be "an honest broker" between Rouhani and Khamenei.
Publisher: NYTimes
28 Oct 2014
Economic Pain Looms Large for Iranians in Nuclear Negotiations
With oil prices projected to fall even further, the oil-dependent government of Iran faces growing pressure to settle the nuclear standoff. "This is a new wild card, and we don't know how it will play out," one of the senior Western negotiators said the other day, as officials mapped out a strategy that they hope can achieve a deal in less than a month's time.
Publisher: NYTimes
19 Oct 2014
Obama Sees an Iran Deal That Could Avoid Congress
Even while negotiators argue over the number of centrifuges Iran would be allowed to spin and where inspectors could roam, the Iranians have signaled that they would accept, at least temporarily, a suspension of the stringent sanctions that have drastically cut their oil revenues and terminated their banking relationships with the West, according to American and Iranian officials. The Treasury Department, in a detailed study it declined to make public, has concluded Mr. Obama has the authority to suspend the vast majority of those sanctions without seeking a vote by Congress, officials say.
Publisher: Quartz
17 Oct 2014
Low oil prices won’t make Iran more conciliatory
The plunge in global oil prices isn't likely to drive Iran to strike a nuclear deal with the West by next month s deadline despite Tehran's added economic difficulties, experts say. They will only push Iran into greater compromise if the talks are extended and the low prices persist. In Vienna, where two days of resumed talks broke up yesterday, diplomats told the Wall Street Journal that prices - which have plunged by 25% since last summer - could make Iran more conciliatory.
Publisher: Haaretz
16 Oct 2014
U.S. proposes Iran keep nuclear infrastructure but reduce ability to make bomb
Iran is considering a U.S. proposal at nuclear talks that would allow it to keep more of its nuclear infrastructure intact while still reducing its ability to make an atomic bomb, two diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday. At issue is Iran's uranium enrichment program, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of nuclear arms. Tehran insists the program is only for future energy needs.
Publisher: The Guardian
2 Oct 2014
Iran nuclear talks: why Tehran must be brought in from the Cold
Iran is more secure than its neighboring countries. Rouhani the new president has used the momentum generated by the modest sanctions relief to cut inflation from 45% to 20% and stabilise the rial currency after it lost more than 80% of its value. Human rights in Iran remain wretched as exemplified by the continued incarceration of Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian woman who was arrested this summer after trying to enter an all-male sports arena, and is now charged with "propagandising against the regime." The US and its allies have not enjoyed much recent success in influencing internal Iranian politics, but they should be aware that Rouhani s continued political prosperity, and that of the more hopeful Iran he represents, is dependent in large measure on success in the current negotiations.
Publisher: NYTimes
24 Sep 2014
Iranian President Praises Cooperation in New York
In two days of back-to-back interviews, speeches and meetings in New York this week, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran has gone to some lengths to sound much like President Obama in describing the need to defeat Islamic radicals and to seize what may well be a last opportunity over the next two months to reach an accord with the West over Iran s nuclear program.
Publisher: Fox News
22 Sep 2014
Concern over US concessions as Iran seeks to leverage ISIS issue in nuke talks
Republican lawmakers are raising alarm that Secretary of State John Kerry is putting too much on the table in talks over Iran's nuclear program -- as Tehran reportedly tries to leverage its cooperation in the Islamic State crisis in return for nuclear concessions from the U.S. and its allies. The White House denies that any such trade-off is in the works.
Publisher: Radio Liberty
11 Aug 2014
Iran’s president lashes out at Nuclear critics
Publisher: National Post
27 Jul 2014
Jonathan Kay: Ending Iran’s support of Hamas must be part of any final P5+1 nuclear deal
Iran s efforts to supply Hamas with missiles and supporting technology has fuelled the current conflict and it would be unconscionable for Western leaders to ignore the blood on Tehran s hands to sign a (flawed) nuclear deal. Any final agreement with Iran should require that regime not only agree to stringent and verifiable controls on its nuclear development, but also end to its logistical support of terrorists in Gaza and elsewhere. Iran is likely to balk at such conditions, of course. But better no deal than one that effectively gives an international imprimatur to Iran s destructive role in the Middle East.
Publisher: The Guardian
18 Jul 2014
Iran nuclear talks gaps remain as deadline approaches
Nuclear negotiations with Iran in Vienna stalled in recent weeks following disagreements over limits on Iran's enrichment capacity and how long those limits should last. All sides at the talks are prepared to extend them beyond Sunday's deadline, but an extension faces significant opposition in the US Congress.
Publisher: The Guardian
13 Jul 2014
Iran nuclear talks deadline nears as foreign ministers gather in Vienna
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, and European foreign ministers have arrived in Vienna to try to galvanise talks on Iran's nuclear programme, amid increasing fears that agreement cannot be reached before a deadline of 20 July. US officials are refusing to discuss the option of an extension of a few months, for fear of lessening the pressure on negotiators to make concessions in the last week of talks, but there is still a considerable distance between the negotiating positions of the Iranians and a six-nation group representing the international community.
Publisher: Rooz Online
19 May 2014
Annual Loss of Nuclear Program $160 Billion Dollars
As the fourth round of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 major world powers stalled in Vienna last week, the White House issued a warning that time was not limitless and a senior cabinet minister in Ahmadinejad s administration revealed that the nuclear program cost the country some $160 billion Dollars annually. These and other developments have cast a shadow of doubt on the success of the talks and informed sources have leaked that the differences are over Iran s military programs.
Publisher: The Guardian
19 May 2014
Iran is at breaking point under US sanctions – and its leaders feel the heat
On the streets of Tehran, and in the capital's shops, garages, markets, businesses and private homes, the story is that Iran Isolated and ostracised to an unusual degree is a nation under appalling stress. The strains are telling. The ties that bind are fraying. The leadership is feeling the heat. And if relief, in the form of a comprehensive nuclear deal with the west and a consequent lifting of sanctions, does not come soon, the political and social consequences may be far-reaching.
Publisher: Before its news
16 May 2014
No, Sanctions Didn’t Force Iran to Make a Deal
Sanctions are neither the reason for the breakthrough, nor the impetus behind the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani s openness to talks. They also did not get Rouhani elected. The idea that the United States has the ability to engineer the outcome of elections in a country that is thousands of miles away, with which it has no trade, where it has had no diplomatic presence for 35 years, and where only a handful of current U.S. diplomats have ever served or even visited, expands the concept of arrogance to new and exciting frontiers.
Publisher: The Guardian
12 May 2014
Sanctions against Russia boost Iran’s standing before nuclear talks restart
Publisher: The Guardian
5 May 2014
Hassan Rouhani faces growing criticism in Iran over nuclear talks
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is facing growing criticism from a broad array of political hardliners and rightwing opponents who say his government is being duped by the US in an over-hasty attempt to clinch a nuclear deal with the west and end economic sanctions. At a meeting at the former American embassy building in central Tehran on Saturday, a newly formed group of MPs and rightwing activists calling itself "We're Worried" claimed Iran's negotiating team was ignoring national interests in the nuclear talks, which resume on 13 May in Vienna.
Publisher: The Guardian
2 May 2014
Approaching a tipping point in nuclear talks with Iran
There is growing optimism that the huge, sprawling compromises required, considered fanciful not long ago, are perhaps within reach. As experts from Iran and the six-nation negotiating group (US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia) convene in New York on Monday to chip away at the unresolved issues, they do so in an increasingly upbeat atmosphere.
Publisher: Blacklisted News
28 Apr 2014
US and Gulf states plan missile defence system to counter Iran
A senior US official on Sunday signalled optimism about a possible resolution of the Iranian nuclear dispute, but said Washington remained concerned that Iran's ballistic missiles threatened Gulf Arab states. Frank Rose, US deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defence policy, said Washington was "acutely" aware of Gulf Arab states' anxieties about Iran and wanted to help them launch a Gulf-wide co-ordinated missile defence capability.
Publisher: WSJ
26 Apr 2014
Can a regime that brutalizes poltical dissidents be trusted?
Western governments have treated President Rouhani as the great moderate hope - an Iranian version of China's Deng Xiaoping. They forget that Mr. Rouhani has been a lifelong security apparatchik, having helped engineer the regime's bloody 1999 crackdown on Iran's student movement. His government also bans Twitter (except for public officials) and is setting modern records for the number of public executions. And unlike Deng, whom Mao purged, Mr. Rouhani has always been part of the regime's inner circle. Perhaps a regime, and a president, that can brutalize political dissidents as a matter of routine can prove reasonable at the nuclear negotiating table. We wouldn't count on it, and neither should the West.
Publisher: OK24 News
16 Apr 2014
AP NewsBreak: Iran cuts nuke weapons ability
The United Nations will release a report this week certifying that Iran's ability to make a nuclear bomb has been greatly reduced because it has diluted half of its material that can be turned most quickly into weapons-grade uranium, diplomats said Tuesday. The move is part of Iran's commitments under a deal with six world powers in effect since January that mandates some nuclear concessions on the part of Tehran in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions crippling its economy.
Publisher: Reuters
15 Apr 2014
Israel Says Kerry Remarks on Iran Nuclear Threshold ‘Not Acceptable’
Israel described as "unacceptable" on Monday remarks by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting cautious openness to negotiating a nuclear deal that would keep Iran six to 12 months away from bomb-making capability. "In the past, and also recently, what we heard from the Americans, including publicly, and from the Europeans and even from the Russians, was that Iran must be distanced years - not months but years - from nuclear weaponry," said Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli cabinet minister in charge of nuclear affairs.
Publisher: xystwhat
24 Mar 2014
Israelis allocate $3 billion of defense budget for strikes on Iran
For months, President Obama has been secretly telling the Israelis that his accord between six world powers and Iran would work out. Now Israel has broken with the agreement and are literally fending for themselves, unable to trust the president s plan. Netanyahu in fact is again making implied threats about a possible unilateral Israeli strike.
Publisher: NYTimes
22 Mar 2014
Russia Hints at Using Iran Talks as Leverage
Despite public assurances by Western officials, concern is growing that the escalating animosity between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine crisis could have a corrosive effect on the nuclear talks with Iran. Even before the Obama administration expanded the scope of sanctions on Thursday over Russia s annexation of Ukraine s Crimean Peninsula, the Russians had sent signals that their retaliatory tools might include an altered position regarding the Iran talks, in which Russia and the United States are colleagues in the six-nation group negotiating with the Iranians.
Publisher: The Washington Post
18 Feb 2014
Iran’s leader doubts nuclear talks will succeed
"The nuclear issue is an excuse," Khamenei said in a speech broadcast on state TV. "Even if one day, against all the odds it is solved based on the Americans expectations, then Americans will seek another issue to follow it. Just pay attention to the spokespersons of the U.S. government, who have also raised the issue of human rights, missiles and arms." said Khamenei.
Publisher: The Guardian
12 Feb 2014
Rouhani critics step up opposition to Iranian nuclear deal
Publisher: EA WorldView
11 Feb 2014
Nuclear Discussions Approach Despite Tehran’s Tough Talk
The week in Iran was marked by the contrast of advance toward talks on a comprehensive nuclear agreement and Tehran's tough talk denouncing US dishonesty and claiming the Islamic Republic s triumph over American weakness. Both Iran and the 5+1 Powers confirmed that opening discussing on a comprehensive deal, following November s interim agreement, will begin on February 18 in Vienna.
Publisher: NYTimes
3 Feb 2014
Kerry and Iran Minister Confer on Nuclear Issue
Iran s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, met for an hour on Sunday with Secretary of State John Kerry, another sign of serious efforts to solve the crisis around Iran s nuclear program. The two met on the margins of the Munich Security Conference here, and Mr. Zarif later said on a public panel that Iran "will go to those negotiations with the political will and good faith to reach an agreement."
Publisher: Al Jazeera
21 Jan 2014
Iran, world powers begin interim phase of nuclear agreement
Five years after President Barack Obama came into office pledging to reach out to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the combination of painstaking backchannel talks and formal negotiations are yielding their first concrete results: Monday sees implementation of the interim deal signed Nov. 24 in Geneva, which caps Iranian uranium enrichment and stockpiles of fissile material that could allow Tehran to quickly build a bomb.
Publisher: The Hill
12 Jan 2014
Schumer pushes against Obama on Iran
Publisher: Spiegel Online
3 Jan 2014
Geneva Deal Sparks New International Investor Interest in Iran
Rohani needs economic success stories. He has to sweep aside the sanctions but, more importantly, move faster than inflation, which is eating away at the already meager income earned by millions of Iranians. The monthly minimum wage is only 140 ($190). Iranians are suffering under the embargo, and they are not just holding the Americans responsible for this. The price of gasoline has multiplied; milk and cheese now cost three times as much as they did two years ago. But it looks like the nuclear negotiations could spark an economic upswing in Iran. Although none of the sanctions have been lifted, droves of Western business people are already flocking to Tehran. Iran has the world's fourth-largest known oil reserves, and the second-largest gas reserves. Business deals worth billions of euros can be made here.