Saturday, May 26, 2012

Iran Backs Away from Preliminary Agreement with IAEA on Site Inspection

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Director Fereydoun Abbasi said today in Tehran that IAEA’s insistence on visiting Parchin military complex is due to pressure from the West but Iran has not been convinced to arrange the visit.

“The IAEA is interested in visiting Parchin due to pressure from countries that want the agency to investigate the issue,” Abbasi said. “(But) Iran has not been convinced and no documents or reason has been presented to us (to persuade us) to arrange a visit to Parchin military site,” he added [Fars News Agency/Press TV, 26 May].

On Tuesday, a day prior to the start of the Baghdad Talks, IAEA Director Yukia Amano announced that an agreement in principle had been reached with Iran on inspecting the site which would be signed soon. Amano made the announcement after his visit to Tehran and meetings with senior Iranian officials, including Mr. Abbasi. Amano added that the Iranians had assured him that nothing will stand in the way of signing the deal.

Today’s comments by Abbasi on Parchin, if it is indeed the new official policy, reverses earlier decision to allow IAEA free access to the site.

With the expected agreement with the IAEA now in jeopardy and with Iran’s hesitance to come to any agreement with the major powers on the future of its 20-percent enrichment program, as was evident at Baghdad Talks, and reiterated by Abbasi, saying today that there were no reasons to halt the production of higher-purity uranium, a successful outcome at Moscow now seems unlikely and out of reach.  

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This isn't unexpected. The Iranians were attempting to make things easy for a potential Western diplomatic opening by accepting an IAEA visit to Parchin, even though such a visit is beyond the agency's mandate.

But since there was no true diplomacy involved at Baghdad by the West, at least from Iran's perspective, so the Parchin visit doesn't appear likely, as well.

A shame, really. If only Obama had the political backbone of Nixon, when he went to China in 1972. And if only Clinton was half the diplomat Kissinger was, back then. But then, the Taiwan lobby then, was nothing compared to the Israel lobby today.

Let's keep the hope alive for Moscow, shall we?

Anonymous said...

look at this story :
Iranian team to collaborate with US company on nuclear fusion project

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/25/iranian-team-collaborate-us-nuclear

Anonymous said...

Iran said it might if US would stop sanctioning Irans business poartners
instead the US made a new saction bill and you still are surprised why Iran backe off.
Its time US stand up to Israel and behave like a superpower and put Israel back on its place.

Unknown said...

And they wonder why they have no credibility!

The west will never remove sanctions until all terms and promises are fulfilled.
The west is not as stupid as Iran and north Korea this they are. They were enough broken promises from both countries for the IAEA and western governments to learn not trust any promises any more.
Deeds, not words!

Anonymous said...

Iran should avoid trusting the west no mater what the conditions are.

Iran should learn from the Arab fates around it.They are either getting screwed like the Persian gulf Arab tribes, or those who resisted were raped like Iraq, Lybia Syria and etc.
Iran should evelop itself by its own and find another way.
The westerners shall learn in a decade or more to finally get in terms and share ME with Iran.

Anonymous said...

Only a stupid ignorant person would believe that isolation works for any country.

Anonymous said...

The title of this article could've been worded differently.

As I correctly predicted, the US adopted the Israeli demands at the Baghdad talks, which was contrary to Russian 'step-by-step' constructive approach. So, the Iranians didn't have any choice but to rescind understandings with Amano. In fact, the unannounced visit by Amano was a way to send signals to Israel and jittery allies (Greece, Japan, Spain & Italy) that a settlement is nigh.

This caused the Israelites to denounce any prospective agreement with Iran, once again threatening to attack with or without an agreement. To appease Israel, the US had no choice but to scuttle the 'back-channel' understanding with the Supreme Leader at the start of the negotiation so as to not appear to be too eager (an election year bravado).

That's why the location of the next meeting is a powerful message to Israel! According to a senior US official: “This is a negotiation: We each want to get the most and give the least. That's how negotiations begin.” The joint press release after Baghdad said that future talks will be based on a “step-by-step approach and reciprocity.”

Let us not forget that Russia introduced such a proposal but US sided with Israel. It is no secret to anyone that the P5+1 are more afraid of Israel than Iran. For the next five months, they realize that they have given too much veto power to the Israelite.

What to watch for - Israel will likely announce its intentions a week prior to the Moscow talks. That's when we will know whether war is inevitable (US delegation went to Israel to debrief the PM but were rebuffed).

2Cold.

Nader Uskowi said...

Why am I not surprised by some of the comments here? If Iran had gone ahead and signed the agreement with the IAEA, the analysis would have been that this was in line with Iran’s insistence that it does not plan to build a nuclear weapon, as in Khamenei’s fatwa. Now that Iran had backtracked from its earlier position, we would say this was expected considering the behavior of the West at Baghdad Talks. But what about if Iran ends up signing the agreement in near future? I guess you need to prepare an effective spin on that as well.

Anonymous said...

Dear Nader,
If Iran should sign, it will only bring itself a gigantic step towards war and bombardments.
Have you forgotten what happened to the others ?

Anonymous said...

Baba,these people are not interested in constructive talks.They want to bake their uranium cake and eat it.

Anonymous said...

Actually its the West that is handicapped in the talks and not Iran

Befarma yellow cake !

"Baba"