Declaration on behalf of the European Union on Iran's Resumption of Activity at the Uranium Conversion Facility in Esfahan :

The EU calls on Iran to reconsider its decision to reject without discussion the proposals made by France, Germany and the UK, with the support of the EU High Representative. These offer the prospect of an improved relationship, on the basis of mutual co-operation
http://snipurl.com/h1uq


Russia: Iran nuclear development right must be recognized:

A high ranking Kremlin official emphasized Wednesday, "Iran's right to take advantage of nuclear power for peaceful purposes must be internationally recognized,"
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/...2005081839.html

http://snipurl.com/h1ur

IRAN: Tehran rebuffs US-EU nuclear provocation Green Left Weekly
Speaking four days after Iran reactivated its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, US President George Bush told Israeli state television on August 12 that the US was determined “to make sure that Iran does not have a [nuclear] weapon” and that if diplomacy failed, “All options are on the table”. Asked if this included the use of military force, Bush responded: “The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we’ve used force in the recent past to secure our country.” This was a clear reference to the March 2003 US invasion of Iran’s Arab neighbour Iraq — an invasion that Bush justified at the time by falsely claiming Iraq was secretly trying to build a nuclear weapon, in violation of its commitments under the nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Bush’s implicit threat to carry out an Iraq-style invasion of Iran came in the wake of the breakdown of negotiations between Iran and the European Union — represented by Britain, France and Germany, the so-called EU-3 — over Iran’s plans to develop the ability to enrich uranium, rather than having to rely on imported enriched uranium to fuel its nuclear power industry. Iran’s electricity needs are expected to double in the next 20 years to about 60,000 megawatts annually. However, Tehran wants to use these resources to maximise Iran’s export income, and is planning to generate about 7000 megawatts of electricity from nuclear power plants for Iran’s 68 million people. Iran has large oil reserves and the world’s largest reserves of natural gas after Russia. Prior to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-installed dictatorship of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Washington had urged Iran to maximise its ability to export oil and gas by embarking on a program of producing electricity from nuclear power plants. With Washington’s backing, the Shah’s government awarded a contract to Kraftwerk Union (a subsidiary of the German Siemens engineering firm) in 1974 to build two 1200-megawatt nuclear reactors at Bushehr, construction of which ceased when the Shah’s regime was overthrown. During its 1980-88 US-backed war against Iran, Iraq bombed the Bushehr plant six times. After the war ended, Tehran asked Kraftwerk Union to complete the Bushehr project. However, under US pressure, Kraftwerk Union refused. In March 1990, the Soviet Union signed an agreement with Tehran to complete the Bushehr project and build an additional two reactors in Iran. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia took over responsibility to complete the Bushehr project and to supply uranium to fuel the reactors. In 1985, however, Iran had discovered a deposit of 5000 tonnes of uranium ore. Rather than import enriched uranium, Tehran decided to build a plant, at Isfahan, to convert powderised uranium ore (“yellowcake”) into uranium hexafluoride gas, and a commercial-scale uranium enrichment facility, at Natanz, thus making the country self-sufficient in its nuclear fuel supply. The NPT allows Iran to legally build any nuclear facility intended solely for peaceful purposes, including one for uranium enrichment, so long as it is declared to, and safeguarded by, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. However, as part of laying the propaganda groundwork for a future Iraq-style invasion to restore a pro-US regime that will enable US corporations to take over Iran’s huge oil and gas resources, Washington claims that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program. IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei and his IAEA inspectors have been put into the same position as they — and Hans Blix’s UN biological and chemical weapons inspectors — were in the lead-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq — chasing down every detailed allegation and suspicion raised by US officials. Despite years of go-anywhere, see-anything inspections, ElBaradei has repeatedly told the 35-member-country IAEA board of governors that his inspectors have found nothing to indicate that Iran now has, or has ever had, or intends to have, a nuclear weapons program. Yet Washington has continued to attempt to get the IAEA board to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for alleged breaches of the NPT and the IAEA safeguards agreement. In an effort to see whether it could gain access to the EU’s nuclear energy technology, last November Iran agreed to talks with the EU-3 to find a “mutually acceptable long-term arrangement” that would provide “objective guarantees” to the EU that Iran’s nuclear program was exclusively for peaceful purposes, guarantee future EU-Iranian nuclear, technological and economic “cooperation”, and provide “firm commitments” by the EU to Iran “on security issues”. While the EU-Iran negotiating agreement reaffirmed Iran’s “inalienable right” under the NPT to acquire and operate — subject to the IAEA safeguards regime — any and all nuclear fuel-cycle facilities, Tehran agreed to suspend its uranium conversion activities, and invited the IAEA to verify that suspension, while the negotiations were being conducted. US officials declared that the US would “support” the EU-3's negotiations, but indicated that if they failed, Washington would expect the EU to support its attempts to get the IAEA board to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. In the negotiations, the EU-3 asked that Iran come up with a set of “objective guarantees” that went beyond the IAEA safeguards regime. Iran did so, asking an international team of experts, including, US scientists, to recommend such “objective guarantees”. On March 23, Iran offered a package of “objective guarantees” to the EU-3. The nine-page letter outlining this package was later posted, at Iran’s request, on the IAEA website. Included in the package was a proposal for an unprecedented “continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and enrichment facilities”. When the EU-3 failed to respond to Iran’s proposals, Tehran announced that it would resume its uranium conversion activities at Isfahan, and requested the IAEA “be prepared for the implementation of the safeguards-related activities in a timely manner prior to the resumption” of these activities. This announcement finally forced a response from the EU-3, which included an offer of an “assured supply of [nuclear] fuel over the coming years”. But in return, the EU demanded that Iran make “a binding commitment not to pursue fuel cycle activities other than the construction and operation of light water power and research reactors”, that is, to permanently renounce uranium conversion and enrichment. In an attempt to blackmail Iran into accepting the EU-3 demands, EU officials called for an emergency meeting of the IAEA. On August 3, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the world would face a “major international crisis” if Iran rejected the EU’s proposals. If Tehran didn’t, and resumed uranium conversion, “then it is certain that the international community will ask the Security Council to intervene”. As it did prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the US corporate media has parroted the lies about Iran’s nuclear program peddled by US officials. The August 9 New York Times, for example, reported that “Iran has admitted to deceiving inspectors for 17 years about many of its activities, and the United States argues that those deceptions effectively negate its right to a full nuclear program and that they provide a basis for international sanctions”. Iran, however, has made no such “admission” — it has only admitted to having disagreements with the IAEA on what the safeguards agreement required it to report to the IAEA. The same day’s Washington Post went further, running an editorial arguing that Iran’s rejection of the EU-3 demands that Iran give up uranium conversion and enrichment proved that its aim is to build nuclear weapons: “Now there is no further room for obfuscation, and no further reason to give Iranians the benefit of the doubt: The real aim of the Iranian nuclear program is nuclear weapons, not electric power. Those in Washington and elsewhere who have always believed that the Iranians want nuclear weapons have a right to feel that their skepticism was justified ... Now, any steps taken to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons will have international credibility.” On the eve of the IAEA emergency board meeting, both EU and US officials had told reporters that their dispute with Iran could be taken to the UN Security Council, where international sanctions could be imposed on Tehran as punishment. This, of course, was sheer bluster, since nothing Tehran had done breached the IAEA safeguards agreement. Indeed, last November the IAEA board had adopted a resolution recognising that Iran’s suspension of uranium conversion activities was “not a legally binding obligation”. As a result, the most that the EU and the US could get from the emergency IAEA board meeting on August 11 was a resolution that expressed “serious concern” about Tehran’s decision to resume uranium conversion activities, but contained no reference to a possible transfer of the issue to the UN Security Council.
Iranian president slams Iran's trading partners Xinhua
Ahmadinejad Criticizes European Nations Guardian Unlimited
Chicago Tribune - IranMania News - Daily Telegraph - Iran Focus - all 249 related »

No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program

By Dafna Linzer

Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Iran's uranium is linked to Pakistan The Standard
Iranian students burn US and French flags in Tehran as part of a demonstration in support of Iran's nuclear programs. Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and is not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of US government experts and other international scientists has determined. "The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions,'' said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings. Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to US and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium - a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon - with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan. Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients. The conclusions will be shared with IAEA board members in a report due out the first week in September, according to US and European officials. The report ``will say the contamination issue is resolved,'' a Western diplomat said. American officials have privately acknowledged for months that they were losing confidence that the uranium traces would turn out to be evidence of a nuclear weapons program. A recent US intelligence estimate found that Iran is further away from making bomb-grade uranium than previously thought. The IAEA findings come as European efforts to negotiate with Iran on the future of its nuclear program have faltered and could complicate a renewed push by the Bush administration to increase pressure on Tehran. Washington officials, eager to move the Iran issue to the UN Security Council - which has the authority to impose sanctions - have begun a new round of briefings for allies designed to convince them that Iran's real intention is to use its energy program as a cover for bomb building. The briefings will focus on the White House's belief that a country with as much oil as Iran would not need an energy program on the scale it is planning. France, Britain and Germany have been trying for two years to convince Iran that it could avoid Security Council action if it gives up sensitive aspects of its nuclear energy program that could be diverted for weapons work. Iran has said it has no intention of making nuclear weapons and will not give up its right to nuclear energy. Iran has offered to put the entire program under IAEA monitoring as a way of alleviating international concerns. But European and American officials have rejected that offer as it would still allow Iran access to bomb-making capabilities. Iran built its nuclear program in secret over 18 years with the help of Abdul Qadeer Khan, a top Pakistani official and nuclear scientist who sold spare parts from his country's own weapons program to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan's black-market dealings were uncovered in 2003. He confessed on Pakistan television, was swiftly pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf, and is under house arrest. Pakistan has denied IAEA inspectors access to Khan and to the country's nuclear facilities, but earlier this year it agreed to share data and some equipment with the inspectors to expedite the Iran investigation. Among the equipment were discarded centrifuge parts that match those Khan sold to Iran. John Bolton, now US ambassador to the UN who served as the administration's point man on nuclear issues, suggested during congressional testimony in June 2004 that the Iranians were lying about the contamination. The IAEA, in its third year of an investigation in Iran, has not found proof of a weapons program. But a few serious questions, some connected to Iran's involvement with Khan, remain unanswered. While the investigation has been under way, Iran and the three European countries have been trying to reach a diplomatic accommodation. Their negotiations fell apart earlier this month and Iran resumed some nuclear work it had put on hold during the talks.
No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program Washington Post
'Experts find no evidence of Iran nuclear programme' Ireland Online
Voice of America - Rediff - Webindia123 - Daily Times - all 116 related »

U.N.: Uranium Brought To, Not Made in Iran :

Iran claimed vindication Tuesday after the U.N. nuclear agency concluded that traces of highly enriched uranium found on centrifuge parts entered this country on imported equipment and did not result from Iranian enrichment activities.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9944.htm

http://snipurl.com/h73f


US: Iran cannot be let off hook over nuclear charges :

The United States said that Iran should not be let off the hook although an independent probe has reportedly showed no evidence of clandestine atomic weapons activities in the Islamic republic.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9955.htm

http://snipurl.com/h742



Iran: Tough talk and temptresses:

"The uranium we enrich in the fuel cycle is only 3% to 4% rich while for an atomic bomb it should be enriched up to 99%. - We want our own fuel production for our nuclear plant but they [the West] tell us to purchase fuel from them so that we would eventually become dependent on them."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9947.htm

http://snipurl.com/h743



Iran in the Crosshairs:

Iran's danger to America is not its nuclear program but its plan to introduce a euro-based energy exchange.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9936.htm

http://snipurl.com/h744

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GH26Dj01.html
SPEAKING FREELY
Killing the dollar in Iran
By Toni Straka

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

Could the proposed Iranian oil bourse (IOB) become the catalyst for a significant blow to the influential position the US dollar enjoys? Manifold supply fears have driven the price of crude oil to its recent high of US$67.10 - only a notch below its highest price in inflation-adjusted dollar terms. With the world facing a daily bill of roughly $5.5 billion for crude oil at current price levels, it becomes apparent that sellers and purchasers of the black gold are looking into all ways that could lead to a financial improvement on their respective sides.

Non-US-dollar holders so far have been the victim of additional transaction costs in the oil trade. The necessary conversion of local currencies into oil-buying greenbacks can be considered a hidden tax, charged and enjoyed by the international banking sector. The IOB, by eliminating this transaction cost, will become



a factor that could unsettle the dollar's dominant position. While the worldwide bottleneck of inadequate refining facilities and partly dramatic declines in production - for example in the North Sea - are two factors that cannot be eliminated in the short term, there is one area left which could result in smiling faces of oil producers as well as most buyers.

Oil consumers are entangled in a web of supply fears that span the globe. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez threatens to divert oil supplies from the US to China, which faces severe gasoline and diesel shortages these days. Attacks on Iraqi oil installations have slowed exports there. Ecuador's oil industry is still recovering from a strike, while Nigerian oil companies are in the middle of efforts to avoid a strike there.

Until now, oil has been solely priced, traded and paid for in the greenback on markets in both London and New York. But monthly worldwide oil revenues of over $110 billion (on a 20-trading-day basis) - a third of which ends up with OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) members - raise the question of what happens to these cash mountains. According to the most recent data from the US Treasury Department, OPEC members have parked only a skimpy $120 billion in direct dollar holdings, which are almost equally split between equities and American debt paper. This is a clear indication that oil producers are investing their windfalls elsewhere. The yield spread between US and EU debt papers in favor of the EU is another hint where the petrodollars might be heading.

Especially in the case of Iran, it does not make sense to accept dollars only for its much-desired commodity. Given that Iran is seen as a hostile country by the current US administration for its intention to build its own nuclear reactors, one wonders whether the new IOB will not try to attract buyers other than Americans. Iran has recently announced that the new oil exchange will start up its computers in March 2006.

The proposal to set up a petroleum bourse was first voiced in Iran's development plan for 2000-2005. Last July, Heydar Mostakhdemin-Hosseini, who heads the board of directors of the Iranian Stock Exchange council, said authorities had agreed in principle to the establishment of the IOB, where petrochemicals, crude oil and oil and gas products will be traded. The oil exchange would strive to make Iran the main hub for oil deals in the region and most deals will be conducted via the Internet. Experts from London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) have reportedly confirmed the feasibility of the project.

The IOB can count on two sharp arrows in its holster. It can - and probably will - lure European buyers with oil prices quoted in euros, saving them dollar transaction costs. And it can strike barter deals with oil-hungry giants like China and India who have a lot of products and commodities to offer. One doubts whether American hamburgers and legal services will be considered adequate collateral for the world's most after-sought resource.

Worse than an Iranian nuclear attack?
Weaned off the almighty commodity, the US dollar can have a deeper impact on the US economy than a direct nuclear attack by Iran. The permanent demand for dollar-denominated paper stems substantially from the fact that until now almost all resources of the world are quoted in it. While this led to the eurodollar (US dollar-denominated deposits at foreign banks or foreign branches of American banks) market in the 1970s, the new terms of trade could ring in the demise of the dollar as the premier reserve currency.

With the world economy depending so much on oil, the black gold itself can be seen as a reserve currency that will be handed out against only the best collateral in the future. Last month, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published a paper about the progress of the diversification of central banks' reserves around the world. It concluded that the dollar's position is on the decline in many countries. China, the new industrial giant, has officially declared that it will diversify a part of its forex holdings into oil by building a strategic petroleum reserve. Construction of storage tanks has begun this year and will take several years until completion. China has not yet said how many barrels of oil it wants to store. The implications for the oil market can only be guessed as China wants to use its future reserves to smooth out spikes in oil price.

Iran holds a strong hand as the No 2 producer of crude behind Saudi Arabia, pumping 5% of the world's oil demand. Politicians there will also keep in mind that dollar deposits might become a burden in the future, if the US steps up its current war of words to the level of economic sanctions in the attempt to halt construction of Iran's nuclear power plants. Money in the bank does not help when you have no access to it. Substituting Iran's domestic oil demand partly with nuclear power will place the country in a win-win situation. Cheaper nuclear energy and increases in oil exports from the current level of roughly 2.5 million barrels a day will result in a profitable equation for Iran.

Only one major actor stands to lose from a change in the current status quo: the US, which with less than 5% of the global population, consumes roughly one third of global oil production. Oil in euros would benefit millions more in the EU and its trading partners, though. And it would loosen the grip the US has on OPEC members. Thinking of the rapid growth of hostilities between the US and Arab nations in recent years, a renunciation of the dollar appears to be more than just an Arab daydream.

As this development poses a very real danger to the superior status of the greenback and the interests of the US, the "president of war" can be expected to take a strong line against the winds blowing from the Middle East. One may be reminded that Saddam Hussein had entered into discreet talks with the EU, proposing to sell his oil for euros. That was in the year before the first oil war of this century.

The IOB could help the euro to become the interim primary reserve currency before China and India rise to the first two slots in the global economic ranking in the next few decades. A decline of the dollar's position in oil trading might also open the floodgates in other commodity markets where the dollar is the medium of exchange but where the US has only a minority market share. A global economy driven by tough efficiency demands in the light of thin profit margins almost everywhere is a good primer for accounting changes in other commodity markets as well. This process could begin in resources like steel and energy and spread to all other resources that are marketed globally. The world outside the US has a lot to gain from it.

Toni Straka is a Vienna, Austria-based independent financial analyst and portfolio manager, who worked as a financial journalist for over 15 years and now evaluates global market trends. He runs a blog, The Prudent Investor, where this piece first appeared.

(Copyright 2005 Toni Straka)

Israel Wants Iran Expelled From U.N.

Updated 7:42 AM ET October 27, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8dgbqm80&src=ap

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's vice prime minister said Iran should be expelled from the United Nations after its new president said Israel should be "wiped off the map," and Britain summoned an Iranian diplomat Thursday to protest the remarks.

Italy on Thursday also condemned the words of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, telling the Iranian ambassador the comments were "unacceptable" and that they confirm worries over the political positions _ and nuclear intentions _ of Iran's new leadership.

Shimon Peres, Israel's vice prime minister and a Nobel peace laureate, said it was "impossible to ignore" Ahmadinejad's comments.

"Since the United Nations was established in 1945, there has never been a head of state that is a U.N. member state that publicly called for the elimination of another U.N. member state," Shimon Peres told Israel Radio.

In a speech Wednesday in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said "there is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world."

Ahmadinejad spoke during a conference called "The World without Zionism."

His comments drew widespread international condemnations.

Britain's Foreign Office said Thursday it intended to summon Iran's charge d'affaires to protest Ahmadinejad's remarks, calling them "deeply disturbing and sickening."

Other world governments on Wednesday issued statements criticizing the Iranian's remarks, including Britain, Canada and Germany.

In Madrid, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos summoned Iran's ambassador to protest Ahmadinejad's comments. French Foreign Minister Jean-Baptiste Mattei also condemned the remarks "with the utmost firmness."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Israel protested Iran's comments Wednesday at the United Nations but has not decided whether to ask officially for Iran's removal.

Peres said he would discuss the Iranian threat with Russia's visiting foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on Thursday.

Israel accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons and wants the U.N. Security Council to consider sanctions against the Tehran government. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

Lavrov on Wednesday brushed off Israel's calls for Security Council action, saying the matter is "too serious to be guided by politics." Lavrov said that Russia will follow the lead of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the Iranian nuclear program, and believes that talk of sanctions is premature.

Russia is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, with veto power over all resolutions considered by the body.