Iran Has 24 Hours To Avoid “Inevitable” U.N. Sanctions
BRUSSELS, Nov 29 (AFP) Nov 29, 2007
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will cast final judgement Friday on whether Iran might be willing to suspend sensitive nuclear activities, with new UN sanctions seeming all but inevitable.
Solana is to meet Iran’s top nuclear envoy, Saeed Jalili, in London to hear the Islamic republic’s case just hours before reporting to major world powers on what little progress he has made in almost 18 months of contacts.
Ahead of the meeting, which the EU’s top diplomat had insisted should have taken place far earlier in the month, Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said that Jalili “will present new ideas and initiatives”.
Normally extremely optimistic, Solana has appeared increasingly frustrated as time has slipped away for him to make his evaluation to the UN Security Council by the November 30 deadline.
“I hope that they will find time in their calendar to meet this week,” he said on November 19. According to one diplomat in Brussels, an effort to set a meeting up was cancelled due to an Iran official’s “diplomatic sickness”.
Iran insists that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes, but its past obstruction of the UN’s atomic watchdog has fuelled fears that Tehran is trying to covertly develop the bomb; a charge it firmly denies.
Tehran is under two sets of UN Security Council sanctions, as well as unilateral US sanctions, for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, which can fuel a nuclear reactor or, at highly refined levels, be used to build an atomic weapon.
Solana has been trying to create the conditions for broader negotiations in which Tehran would halt nuclear enrichment in exchange for a package of political, economic and trade incentives.
“What we are waiting for (from the talks) is, once again, to create the appropriate framework for the formal negotiations to begin,” his spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said.
The catch is whether Iran should suspend enrichment before they start.
“Suspension is a step backward and is not on the agenda of the talks,” the Iranian government spokesman reaffirmed Tuesday.
Such comments have convinced many western countries that Iran will only continue the diplomatic brinksmanship that western officials claim has marked negotiations over its nuclear programme.
Tehran has played off the five permanent security council members plus Germany — the six powers involved in the dossier — counting on China and Russia to block further sanctions demanded by the United States.
The EU too has been talking up the possibility of its own sanctions, but Germany, and to a lesser extent Italy, has massive business interests in Iran and wants to keep the sanction process at UN headquarters in New York.
And Iran may count on those differences working in its favour again.
On September 28, the six decided to wait until the end of November before making their final decision on the need for new sanctions.
They called for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei to report on Iran’s cooperation and Solana to inform them whether there was still life in the diplomatic track.
ElBaradei said last week that, even after four years of investigations, his agency still cannot say once and for all that Iran’s nuclear drive is entirely peaceful.
But his report was subject to different interpretations by the six powers, placing extra weight on Solana’s evaluation.
Once Friday’s talks — scheduled to start at 10:00 am (1000 GMT) — are over, the EU’s top diplomat is expected to contact the six powers, possibly by telephone or by letter.
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The only thing the mullahs will understand is the end of a hangmans noose. There is no negotiating with megalomaniacs. They only understand overwhelming force.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:12 pmTedders
I don’t believe that will work in this case.
I don’t believe the Iranians are megalomaniacs.
I do believe that they are shrewder politically than you think.
Anyway,
The US hasn’t attacked because they are going to let Israel attack first
November 29th, 2007 at 1:17 pmThe criminal Persian crusaders need a trip to the woodshed.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:40 pmRe: the picture displayed …
Is that the promo poster for “Sister Act 3″, and which one is Whoopi Goldberg?
November 29th, 2007 at 2:12 pmThe Air Force should be sent in to take that country back to the stone age.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:42 pmThe way I see it, either the US or Israel will bomb the shit out of the nuke sites (at least the ones we know about), along with all the Revolutionary Guard and the mullahs’ infrastructure. Then, one of three things will happen:
A: The people of Iran revolt, overthrow the theocracy, and form a stable, rational (by MidEast standards) government. No occupation necessary.
B: The people of Iran revolt, overthrow the theocracy, and the nation descends into anarchy and civil war. We would be forced to invade and restore order, but hopefully the lessons learned in Iraq, both by us and the Iranians who don’t want to go through the years of bloody mayhem their neighbors suffered, will mean that things settle down relatively quickly.
C: The people of Iran revolt, and are crushed by the Revolutionary Guard. Unlikely, since, at the very least, I’m sure we’d have SOCOM and Close Air Support helping the rebels, as in the beginning of the Afgan War (Operation Infinite Justice; when the changed the name to ‘appease’ muj sensebilities, I knew we were in trouble). Even if they somehow manage to win, the mullahs will be too busy trying to save their skins to rebuild their Manhattan Project.
Failing that, we can do nothing, and wait for an American or Israeli city to be obliterated. If we get hit, I excect Iran to cease to exist. If Israel gets hit, I expect the Middle East to cease to exist.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:20 pm0543 hrs, 11/30/07-
24 hrs are up -
Take two steps backward–re-draw a line in the sand–
Now by gawd, you muzzies better shape up, or else, were the the UN, and by gawd we mean it this time.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:57 am