Envoys for the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany are expected to meet Thursday in Paris to discuss recent diplomatic efforts to address Iran’s disputed nuclear activities, the French Foreign Ministry said (see GSN, Nov. 10).
(Nov. 11) -
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has urged Iran to accept an offer to curb its nuclear program (John Thys/Getty Images).
The six nations have offered Iran diplomatic and financial benefits in exchange for halting uranium enrichment, a process that can yield a nuclear weapon ingredient. Tehran insists it intends only to generate nuclear power plant fuel and has refused to stop its activities (Agence France-Presse/NASDAQ, Nov. 11).
Iran yesterday said it does not expect a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward its nuclear work when President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
"We shouldn't expect basic changes in American policy,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi. “This is especially the case with the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Qashqavi added that Tehran’s strategic decisions are determined by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the desires of deceased government founder Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini and the Iranian constitution.
In response to Obama’s comment Friday that a nuclear-armed Iran would be “unacceptable,” Qashqavi said that atomic weapons have no role in Iran’s strategic policy.
Addressing domestic criticism of a letter sent to Obama last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Qashqavi said: "This letter, on the one hand, represents Iran's official position towards the U.S. presidential election and, on the other hand, this shows the active diplomatic capacity of Iran and Iran's president" (see GSN, Nov. 7; Xinhua News Agency, Nov. 10).
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has reaffirmed his call for Iran to accept a “freeze-for-freeze” arrangement, under which Tehran would suspend its enrichment program and the six world powers would not seek new economic penalties on the Middle Eastern state. That situation would be maintained while the sides negotiated a permanent end to Iranian uranium enrichment, an Iranian lawmaker said Sunday.
Iranian parliament member Kazem Jalali said that he and four other Iranian lawmakers recently attended a session of the EU Parliament’s foreign relations committee where Solana discussed the nuclear deadlock and urged Iran to accept the freeze proposal, the Tehran Times reported (Tehran Times, Nov. 10).
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has pressed U.S. Vice President-elect Joe Biden to maintain diplomatic pressure on Iran, AFP reported yesterday
"Iran, Hamas and other extremists are testing our attitude, and they must understand that the world will not be tolerant towards extremists and terrorism," Livni told Biden by telephone, according to the ministry. "It is of the utmost importance that we keep up our coordination against the Iranian threat because time is not on the side of the moderates” (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Nov. 10).
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has launched an international effort to stem the flow of Iranian weapon purchases that could assist the country’s nuclear program, Newsweek reported last month.
Some nations have refused to permit the extradition of alleged weapon merchants detained in U.S. sting operations.
One such case involved a senior Iranian air force official arrested in Thailand last September when U.S. officials accused him of seeking to purchase missile guidance systems. Thailand’s government eventually freed the official (Hosenball/Isikoff, Newsweek, Oct. 8).
Elsewhere, Russia said it did not plan to build nuclear power stations in Iran in addition to the facility now under construction at Bushehr, ITAR-Tass reported Saturday.
“No discussion is under way on that score,” Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Sergei Kiriyenko said. “Under the contracts that are effective today we are to finalize the Bushehr nuclear power plant. There is one more year for that under the contract. We shall finalize it. Everything proceeds in keeping with the schedule” (ITAR-Tass/Tehran Times, Nov. 8).