Iran shifts billions from banks in Europe amid fears of UN sanctions : ·

Tehran's nuclear stand-off intensified by transfers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1691730,00.html


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Iran Denies Shifting Assets From Europe :

Iran on Saturday denied it has shifted funds out of Europe due to fears of economic sanctions over its nuclear program after a swirl of contradictory reports on whether such transfers had taken place
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1864047,00.html

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Hillary Outflanks W.on Iran--On the Right:

Ms. Clinton lambasted the Bush administration – not for its threats against Iran, but for weakness. In particular, she hit the administration for going along with the European-led negotiations over Iran’s nuclear research, accusing Bush of “outsourcing” U.S. Iran policy.
http://robertdreyfuss.com/blog/2006/01/hil...n_iranon_t.html

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Egypt: West ignores Israeli nukes:

Egypt told U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney it supported efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East but slammed the West for turning a blind eye to Israel's atomic program, one official said.
http://tinyurl.com/7eyps

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Iran and Israel: The Ambiguous Nuclear Weapons:

For more than fifty years Israel has been directly and illegitimately funded and aided in its nuclear weapons production by France, the United States, Britain, Germany and Norway yet maintaining "ambiguity". During that time, Israel has also refused to sign or negotiate any commitment against the use of biological weapons
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=012006234222

Al-Sadr vows to defend Iran

Monday 23 January 2006, 0:10 Makka Time, 21:10 GMT

The Iraqi cleric has a large following among the Shia


Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi cleric, has said his al-Mahdi Army would help to defend Iran if it is attacked.

Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with Ali Larijani, the senior Iranian nuclear negotiator, on Sunday, he said his militia was formed to defend Islam.

"The forces of Mahdi Army defend the interests of Iraq and Islamic countries," al-Sadr said. "If neighbouring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the target of attacks, we will support them.

"The Mahdi Army is beyond the Iraqi army. It was established to defend Islam."

Al-Sadr's comments could be seen as a message that Tehran has allies who could make things difficult for US forces in the region if Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked.

Popular cleric

Al-Sadr has a large following among Iraq's young and impoverished Shia community. His militia launched two uprisings against US troops in Iraq in 2004 but since the fighting ended he has transformed himself into a respectable political figure.


Al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army fought
US troops in Iraq in 2004


Al-Sadr's followers now hold 21 seats in the outgoing parliament as well as three cabinet posts.

Al-Sadr's backing of Iran, a Shia-majority nation, comes after a hint from Israel's defence minister that the Jewish state was preparing for military action to stop Iran's nuclear programme.

But Larijani said that Tehran was capable of defending itself. "I don't see any threat against Iran," he said after his meeting with al-Sadr. "Iran is big and strong and it is a hard target."

Defiant Iran

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said earlier on Sunday that Israel would be making a "fatal mistake" should it resort to military action. Iran has said that Israel was living in a "glass house" and was well within Iran's missile range.

"If neighbouring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the target of attacks, we will support them"

Muqtada al-Sadr,
Iraqi Shia cleric


An upgraded version of Iran's Shahab-3 missile has a range of over 2000km, keeping all US forces in the Middle East and Israel within its range.

Iran's resumption of its nuclear research programme earlier this month has caused an international standoff and a flurry of meetings.

Some Western nations fear that Iran is using its civilian nuclear programme as a cover to develop an atomic bomb. Iran says it is using it for peaceful energy purposes.


AP

Bid for nuclear venture

23jan06

IRAN is reportedly proposing to bring China into a joint uranium enrichment program.

The revelation came as Israel's Defence Minister hinted it was preparing for military action to stop Iran's nuclear program.
Der Spiegel reported today that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had received the proposal from Iranian leaders.

It follows a suggestion by Moscow, initially rejected by Iran, that enrichment be done on Russian territory in a joint-venture factory.

But Der Spiegel said it had since asked if China could be a party to the joint venture.

Uranium enrichment is needed to provide fuel for power generation, but can also produce weapons-grade uranium to make nuclear weapons.

Use of an external factory would enable activities to be verified.

Foreign Office officials in Berlin declined to comment on the report.

"I am fairly confident that there will be a diplomatic solution in the case of Iran," German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said yesterday.

Israel's Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, suggested that Israel was preparing for military action if the diplomatic efforts fail.

"Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability and it must have the capability to defend itself, with all that that implies -- and this we are preparing," he said.

Israeli officials

have denied having plans for a unilateral preventive strike.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last year that Israel should be "wiped off the map." – AP

© Herald and Weekly Times

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAF2B.htm

Article
20 January

Iran: an irrational war of words
The spat between the West and Iran highlights the dangers of making up foreign policy as you go along.

by Brendan O'Neill


Some scary words are being used to describe the spat between the West and Iran. Some are predicting 'World War III'. There is talk of another Holocaust against the Jews, following Iranian president Mahmoud Admadinejad's inflammatory remarks about wanting to wipe Israel off the map and his expressions of Holocaust denial. Others think there might be a 'nuclear stand-off' between an already nuked-up USA and an Iran that is keen (allegedly) to build the Bomb. On the anti-war side, the big word is 'Empire': it's argued that President George W Bush's administration is plotting a war on Iran in order to control its oil reserves (1).


What all of this doom-laden bluster overlooks is that Iran was, until quite recently, a supporter of America's war on terror, and was pretty much turned into a pariah by an American foreign policy initiative thought up on the hoof and scribbled down on a sheet of paper. Up to 2002 Iran had been making increasingly friendly gestures towards the West until it was labelled part of an 'axis of evil' by Bush as part of a new foreign policy conjured up in a smoky backroom with little consideration given to the consequences. Nuclear World Wars with Holocausts attached are not normally made of such stuff.


America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have not exactly been the best of friends since 1979. US hawks never forgave the Islamists for overthrowing 'our bastard', the Shah. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed as ruler of Iran in 1953 in a coup backed by the CIA and MI6 which deposed of the democratically elected prime minister, Dr Mohammad Mossadeq. From 1953 to 1979 the Shah was a loyal US ally in the Middle East. In the words of US foreign policy officials he maintained an 'island of stability' (2). Iran during that time was America's main customer for high-tech military hardware and its second-largest provider of fairly inexpensive oil; it was also, which seems strange now, Israel's most valuable ally in a hostile Muslim world. As notorious US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said in the Seventies, the Shah supported the US on 'virtually every major foreign policy issue', and in return the US gave him 'everything he wanted' (3).


So America's response to the Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini that got shot of the Shah was swift and unforgiving. Draconian economic sanctions were imposed, and Iran was denounced by Carter, Reagan, Bush Senior and Clinton as a 'rogue' or 'terrorist state'. The Iranian hostage crisis, during which Iran held captive 66 American diplomats and citizens for 444 days between late 1979 and 1981, was especially humiliating for US officials, and is said to have contributed to President Jimmy Carter's loss of the presidential election in 1980.


Yet behind America's harsh public denunciations of Iran various US presidents sought to improve relations. America had an ambivalent relationship with Iran, motivated by outrage over the Islamic revolution and memories of the hostage crisis but also by a desire to influence events there. Even President Ronald Reagan, in the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s, okayed the selling of arms to the Iranian mullahs. During the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, America gave the green light to Saddam Hussein to attack Iran but also armed and supported, at different times, the Iranian side too.


In the Nineties, under President Bill Clinton's administration, these various private attempts to build bridges with the mullahs became more public. Clinton stopped labelling Iran a rogue state and publicly admitted, for the first time, that the US 'orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister' in 1953 and that this had been a 'setback' for Iran (4). He relaxed economic sanctions. Iran assured Britain that it had 'no intention to threaten [Salman Rushdie]' - against whom Khomeini had issued a fatwa for his novel The Satanic Verses in 1989 - for which Britain repaid Iran by restoring full diplomatic relations. After 9/11 Iran publicly showed its willingness to do business with the US: it denounced the 'terrorist Taliban' and urged the Northern Alliance (whom it had armed) fully to cooperate with the Americans. As one Iranian official said, '[The Afghan war] provided the two countries a perfect opportunity for improved relations' (5).


What went wrong? How has Iran gone from being a supporter of America's war on terror in 2001 to an apparently grave threat to America and Israel today, and the potential author of a new World War? It wasn't Iran that changed, where, if anything, there have been liberalising reforms in recent years and the growth of a student movement for more democracy; Iran is ruled by reformers and conservatives, and the reformers had been making headway since the Nineties. Rather, Iran was catapulted into its current pariah status by a Bush administration seeking some kind of enemy against which it could posture - not by a US determined to 'do another Shah', but by a US which decided, virtually out of the blue, to label Iran as 'evil' to demonstrate that it still has some clout and purpose in the world.


In 2002, Bush gave his now famous (or perhaps infamous) State of the Union address in which he denounced Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an 'axis of evil'. Far from being the product of a carefully thought-out plan to rattle and threaten Iran, the axis of evil thesis seems to have been made up on the hoof. As Ervand Abrahamian points out in his contribution to the very good book Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria (following the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Syria has been namechecked as the latest member of the axis of evil), this sudden demonisation of Iran will have come as a 'bolt out of the blue sky…for the average Iranian', who had seen 'relations between Iran and America gradually but markedly improve in the course of the previous five years' (6).


It was rhetoric, not realpolitik, that stoked this stand-off

Even leading US officials were taken aback by Bush's speech. As Abrahamian notes, 'Colin Powell [then secretary of state] and the State Department had not been consulted about the speech, neither about its general thrust nor about the inclusion of Iran'. State Department officials privately complained that the speech would 'undermine their long-standing policy of rapprochement with Iranian reformers'. Abrahamian's book points out 'how arbitrary [the] trinity was': 'Consensus held that three countries sounded better than two....' (7)


Bush's speech demonstrated the extent to which US officials make up foreign policy as they go along these days. It was reportedly written at the last minute, and it would seem that little thought was given to the consequences of labelling three states as evil opponents. The fact that leading Bushies did not know about the content of the speech shows how little overarching coherence there is to US foreign policy. The creation of the axis of evil was not guided by a clear vision or strategy, but rather by stalemate within the war on terror. The Americans had been fighting in Afghanistan for four months at the time of Bush's speech and though the Taliban had been easily toppled, the main targets of the war - Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar - had proved infuriatingly elusive. America had gone to Afghanistan not only in search of bin Laden, but also in search of itself, of a mission that could define what America is for and against today. When that didn't come off, it conjured up three new evil spectres against which it might define itself, most likely in some meeting room in the Pentagon.


America's support for the Shah for close to 30 years was driven by realpolitik, by a clear sense of America's interests in the Middle East. The consequence was a denial of democracy for Iranians. Its covert arming of Iran at various times in the 1980s was motivated by a desire to have some influence on the mullahs. The consequence was a drawn-out and bloody war between Iran and Iraq.


America's kneejerk denunciation of Iran in 2002 was motivated by the absence of a clear sense of America's interests or mission; it was a quickly thought-up pose which, it was hoped, would make the US appear serious and impressive at a time when its war on terror was faltering. The consequence has been an increasingly tense situation, as both US and Iranian officials have upped the rhetoric between 2002 and today: US officials in order to take the heat off their disastrous wars on terror and Iraq, and Iranian officials in an attempt to appease and appear committed to the Iranian masses.


It was rhetoric, not realpolitik, that stoked the stand-off between the West and Iran. The tensions are not the result of design, whether of an American elite hell-bent on taking over Iran or of Iranian leaders who have decided politically to oppose the USA; they are the product of a US foreign policy that is driven more by emotional kneejerk reactions than by a coherent strategy. It is the irrationalism of US foreign policy today, rather than its cunning or ambition, that heightened tensions with Iran. This episode shows, not so much that America is greedily pursuing its own interests in foreign fields (which would be nothing new), but that its foreign policy is now so changeable and opportunistic that it can easily act against its own interests in its various foreign ventures.


It demonstrates that moral posturing in international affairs can sometimes be as dangerous as an old-style military mission. It is highly unlikely to lead to a new World War. But it has made international affairs a volatile and unpredictable realm.


Visit Brendan O'Neill's website here.





(1) Oil, geopolitics and the coming war with Iran, Global Policy Forum, 11 April 2005

(2) Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria, Ervand Abrahamian et al, The New Press, 2004

(3) Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria, Ervand Abrahamian et al, The New Press, 2004

(4) Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria, Ervand Abrahamian et al, The New Press, 2004

(5) Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria, Ervand Abrahamian et al, The New Press, 2004

(6) Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria, Ervand Abrahamian et al, The New Press, 2004

(7) Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria, Ervand Abrahamian et al, The New Press, 2004

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2006/0.../ap2467049.html

Associated Press
Iran Sanctions Could Drive Oil Past $100
By BRAD FOSS and GEORGE JAHN , 01.22.2006, 02:46 PM


A surge in oil prices last week to almost $70 a barrel on concerns about the restart of Iran's nuclear program only hints at what may lie ahead. Prices could soar past $100 a barrel, experts say, if the U.N. Security Council authorizes trade sanctions against the Middle Eastern nation, which the West accuses of trying to make nuclear bombs, and Iran curbs oil exports in retaliation. A sharp global economic slowdown could follow.

That's the dilemma the United States and European nations face as they decide whether to act. But Iran would also pay a hefty price if the petro-dollars that now represent 80 percent of export revenues are reduced, potentially stirring civil unrest in a nation with a 14 percent unemployment rate.

"They would shoot themselves in the foot," said Mustafa Alani, director of national security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. "It's one thing to test the market psychology, it's another to take the actual step and stop oil exports."

Bracing for sanctions - U.N. or otherwise - Iran's central bank said on Friday that it is moving its foreign currency reserves out of European banks as a pre-emptive measure.

Iran, the second-largest oil producer within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, exports roughly 2.5 million barrels per day - 1 million barrels more than current excess production capacity worldwide. It also controls the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane in the Middle East.

"Even if Iran pulled a small amount of its oil off the market, say it pulled a half million barrels a day, I could see oil prices literally jumping over the $100 per barrel mark," said James Bartis, a senior researcher at Rand Corp.

But other oil analysts say prices would likely not climb much higher than $75 a barrel before strategic reserves would be released and demand would begin to taper off as economic activity slowed around the world.

So who would be hurt more? The United States and other nations say it would be Tehran and argue against succumbing to economic blackmail in any case. "We cannot be intimidated by economic threats from their side," Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss, told CNN.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that oil exports finance about half of the Iranian government's budget. And while high oil prices have boosted the annual growth rate to about 5 percent, Iran has never really recovered from its 1980-1988 war against Iraq and trade restrictions on sensitive technologies. The Iran Nonproliferation Act, which the U.S. Congress passed in 2000, deters international support for Iran to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and missile-delivery systems.

For weeks, Iran's state television has sought to show a people united behind the leadership, showing passer-by on Tehran city streets expressing their support for the country's strivings for nuclear independence.

Still, Alani of the Gulf Research Center questioned "whether the ordinary citizens will be willing to risk sanctions and endure a lot of suffering like the Iraqis suffered for 13 years" under U.N. sanctions.

Oil consuming nations, meanwhile, have at least one ace up their sleeves - crude reserves. The United States and other members of the International Energy Agency have a combined 1.48 billion barrels of oil in their emergency stocks. That's equivalent to about 600 days of Iran's net oil exports of 2.4 million barrels per day.

OPEC might be able to add 1.5 million barrels per day to world production, mostly from Saudi Arabia. And oil analyst Fadel Gheit at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York said Russia might be able to crank up exports by about 500,000 barrels once its domestic home-heating demand eases.

Gregory L. Schulte, chief U.S. delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, accused Iran last week of deceiving the world about its atomic program, declaring that moves to haul it before the U.N. Security Council were meant to deny "the most deadly of weapons to the most dangerous of countries."

His comments were part of increasing international pressure on Iran since it removed seals from uranium enrichment equipment earlier in the month and said it would start small scale work on the process that can make both fuel and the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

"It's a very difficult situation where you don't know which side is going to blink first," said Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Monterey Institute of International Studies' Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

It's also not clear the United States could win a referral on sanctions at the Security Council, where members Russia and China are Iran's main allies. Both have strong economic and strategic ties to Iran, with China a large oil consumer and drilling partner and Russia a key supplier of arms and nuclear technology and services for what Tehran says is a peaceful program. Additionally, oil-rich Russia would benefit from higher prices and increased demand for its crude if Iran's oil were off the market.

Influential India, which imports 75 percent of the crude it consumes, some from Iran, is a wild card in the referral struggle.

It joined the U.S., Britain, France and Germany in September to back an IAEA resolution that set the stage for reporting Iran for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But pressure is building on the Indian government not to vote against Iran when the 35-nation IAEA board meets Feb. 2 to consider actual referral.

"India must not allow itself to be dragooned into joining the Washington-led nuclear lynch mob against Iran," The Hindu, one of India's most influential newspapers, cautioned Thursday. "Aside from the lack of any legal basis for threatening Iran with sanctions, India should consider what the U.S. pressure on Tehran will do to international oil prices as well as to the overall security scenario in West Asia."

The United States and its allies are thought to have the majority behind them on any vote for referral. Still they would like to see India, China and Russia on board - all three countries carry weight among other IAEA board nations, and Moscow and Beijing have a vote on the Security Council on what to do about Iran, once it is referred.



Associated Press Writers Alex Nicholson in Moscow, Constant Brand in Brussels, Laurence Frost in Paris, Nirmala George in New Delhi and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran contributed to this report. Brad Foss reported from Washington, George Jahn from Vienna, Austria.



Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

What's he thinking?
The U.S. invasion of non-nuclear Iraq showed Iran it needed a bomb to stay safe

BY SAID AMIR ARJOMAND
Said Amir Arjomand is professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, and president of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies.

January 22, 2006

President George W. Bush's unprincipled linking of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in his open-ended war on terror, and the justification of the invasion of Iraq on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, have had at least one unnoted disastrous consequence. The Iranians, in a state of heightened alert for their national security, drew the only conclusion that was rational: The United States invaded Iraq because it knew Saddam did not have any weapons of mass destruction and therefore seemed an easy target. For its own preservation, Iran had to have the nuclear bomb.

Hardliners in the Iranian military and security apparatus had always argued that Iran needed the bomb for national security, and they initiated a secret nuclear program in the 1990s. But they were reined in by Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, the supreme leader, and in 2003, with the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami in power, Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment activities and sign the additional protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But once the urbane Khatami was toppled by the unsavory Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the presidential elections of 2005, the hardliners, who daily had been increasing their influence and involvement in the politics of Iraq, regained the upper hand in Iran itself. The decision to resume Iran's nuclear fuel program followed naturally, leaving permanent members of the UN Security Council scrambling to find a way to stop it. Last week French, German and British negotiators, with U.S. backing, rejected Iran's call for talks.

Bush warns that a nuclear-armed Iran would be "a grave threat to the security of the world," but there is a good deal of method in President Ahmadinejad's perceived madness. Unlike his obsession with the return of the Mahdi - the Shia Muslim version of the Messiah - which does not strike a popular chord - his insistence on Iran's nuclear "rights" is popular with the Iranian masses. This is the one factor that unfortunately makes the nuclear issue especially intractable.



Ahmadinejad's policy of championing Iran's national right to nuclear energy (for peaceful purposes), carefully promoted by government-controlled television and other media, comes close to a stroke of evil genius. It serves to divert attention from the regime's violations of human rights and civil liberties by appealing to long frustrated nationalist sentiment - at a time of widespread disillusionment with Islam, revolution and reform. Nationwide enthusiasm for the reform movement had gradually eroded under President Khatami because of his unwillingness to stand up to the supreme leader and prevent the repeated closure of reformist newspapers, violent repression of student protests and jailing of reformist deputies.

Now, the portrayal of Iran being bullied by an America armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and threatening to invade it while preventing its development of nuclear energy, has been quite effective in arousing popular indignation and demands for the assertion of Iran's national rights and dignity. Iranians were scared by Bush's "axis of evil" State of the Union speech in 2002 and haven't forgotten it, even though Iraq was the country picked for invasion.

Ahmadinejad's nuclear policy also serves the professional interests of an influential segment of the Iranian educated middle class - a highly privileged group of scientists who are flush with money for computers and sophisticated equipment. This powerful elite is behind the nuclear policy and significantly broadens the base of the president's support beyond the urban poor and the revolutionary veterans who overthrew the shah and took Americans hostage.

With all this steam behind him, can Ahmadinejad be stopped? Parliament has little power against the clerical establishment. The only one who can stop him - and relatively easily since his authority does not depend on the nationalist sentiment that Ahmadinejad appeals to - is the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Khamenei, not satisfied with his enormous constitutional authority - which includes command of the armed forces and the power to dismiss the president - has been augmenting his extra-constitutional powers by promoting the hardliners, who had positions in the security and military apparatus but no social base. He considered them his men and gave them sensitive appointments or facilitated their election, to create a system of personal power against the clerical establishment. He knows, however, that he cannot weaken the clerics without eroding the foundations of the regime, which is a theocracy after all.



If Khamanei decides that the balance of power has tilted too much in favor of the president's security-military faction and against the clerical establishment, he can act on the nuclear issue and reach an agreement with the UN and International Atomic Energy Agency.

On Jan. 18, the ayatollah stated, "The West knows very well that we are not seeking to build nuclear weapons," which are "against our political and economic interests and Islamic beliefs." An optimist can only hope that the supreme religious leader means what he says.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

Iran defies nuclear pressure, brandishes Iraq influence Sun Jan 22, 1:09 PM ET

Iran said it was not worried if the crisis over its disputed nuclear drive ended up at the Security Council, and brandished its influence in Iraq in the form of support from radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

"We are not worried by the Security Council, but it is the wrong method," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. "An emergency meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency is not necessary. It is a political act."

Iran faces the threat of being hauled to New York for resuming sensitive nuclear fuel research work that the Western powers and Israel fear would give the clerical regime the know-how to build a bomb.

Tehran insists such work is legal given it has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has branded atomic weapons "un-Islamic" -- but a lengthy IAEA probe has yet to confirm the claimed civilian nature of the programme and has uncovered suspect activities.

Britain, France and Germany have called an urgent meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board for February 2, and are confident of getting a referral even though they are still struggling to get Russia and China on board.

"It is clear in advance that the result of a meeting that takes place under the pressure of certain countries will be political," Asefi said.

The West wants Iran to voluntarily limit its fuel cycle work so that enrichment does not take place in the country. Uranium enrichment can make reactor fuel, but the technology is dual-use and would give Iran the strategic option to enrich to levels required for making the core of a weapon.

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already vowed his country would not back down, even if ordered to do so by the Security Council.

The country has been brandishing its oil wealth and influence in the already troubled region in what some Western diplomats have described as a concerted effort to dissuade countries from siding with the US hard line.

Radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr -- a key opponent of US forces -- said on a visit to Tehran that his Mehdi Army militia would "support" any neighbouring country if they were attacked.

In December, the radical Palestinian group Hamas also vowed to step up attacks against Israel if the Jewish state takes military action against Iran and said it and the Islamic republic formed a "united front".

The prospect of military action against Iran has been evoked in Israel, which has come to view the Islamic republic as its number one enemy. Its fears were heightened in October when Ahmadinejad called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map."

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear armed power in the Middle East, although it has never confirmed or denied having a nuclear arsenal.

And on Thursday, President Jacques Chirac warned that France could use nuclear weapons against state sponsors of terrorism -- although he did not single out any country.

Iran, however, was been quick to blast Chirac's remarks as "shameful" and "unacceptable".

Iran also gave a fresh show of its determination, enrolling some 1,000 athletes to form a human shield in front of a key nuclear facility near the historic central city of Isfahan.

"Since we have reached this technology indigenously and with our own scientists, we will safeguard it at any cost," the director of the facility, Behrouz Samani, said at the event.

Still seen by Moscow as a way out of the impasse is a proposal for Iran to enrich uranium on Russian soil, something which Iran has implicitly rejected but not totally ruled out.

"The Russian plan should be taken as a complimenting enrichment inside the country (Iran)," Asefi said, again insisting on Iran's wish to master the fuel cycle on its own soil.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani also said he would be heading to Moscow to further discuss the proposal, but did not give a date.

Larijani also denied allegations the Islamic republic had acquired advanced centrifuges on the black market for its nuclear programme.



Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Israel warns Iran of 'destruction'
By Martin Walker
UPI Editor
Published January 22, 2006


HERZLIYA, Israel -- Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned the Iranian people Saturday that they faced "destruction" unless they managed to restrain their new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Look at the fate of others who sought the destruction of the Jewish people. They only brought havoc and destruction to the own people," Mofaz said.


"I know that a large part of the people of Iran do not support his policies but his despicable acts could bring destruction to all of you. You understand what must be done to prevent this," Mofaz added, directly addressing the Iranian people.

It was the toughest statement of Israel's determination to block Iran's nuclear ambitions since the stroke that felled Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon two weeks ago, and it came just two days before the next scheduled international inspection of Iran's nuclear research facilities.

Mofaz's speech to an international conference of security experts in Herzliya, an exclusive resort just north of Tel Aviv, contained a clear warning that Israel if the United Nations and the international community failed to act, Israel would do so.

"Israel has to be able to defend itself," Mofaz said. "This we can do, and we are working on it now."

The Mofaz speech was intended not only for Iran and an international audience but also for Israeli voters, who go to the polls in March in a general election that seems likely to elect a new government led by the new Kadima party, founded by Sharon, to which Mofaz has rallied along with the acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. With the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran looming heavily over the Israeli elections, Mofaz's speech was aimed to reassure the voters that Israel's security would be safe in Kadima's hands.

Iran's nuclear development program is "an existential risk to the entire world, not just Israel," Mofaz went on, and said that Ahmadinejad led "an extremist regime that denies the existence of Israel and calls for its obliteration."

"I believe everyone present here understands the extent to which the combination of an extremist regime with long-range ballistic capability, ongoing effort to obtain nuclear weapons and support in terror constitutes a danger not only to Israel, but to the entire world," Mofaz added.

Mofaz, formerly chief of staff of Israeli defense forces, told the annual Herzliya Conference on the Israel's national security that in addition to Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Iran was directly sponsoring the Hizbollah terrorist organization to the tune of $100 million a year.

"Money is the fuel for terror," Mofaz said. "The financial assistance Iran transfers to Hizbollah totals some 100 million dollars each year. Some of these funds are funneled from Hizbollah to Palestinian terror groups. In addition, Iran is the main sponsor of the Islamic Jihad, which carried out most suicide attacks in Israel last year, including the attack in Tel Aviv's central bus station."

He added that Islamic Jihad cells in the West Bank received about 10 million dollars from Hizbullah in 2005, compared to just 5 million dollars in 2004.

In his combative speech, Mofaz described last week's Damascus meeting between Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad as "the summit of terror," and called the two leaders "representatives of the past."

But Mofaz made it clear that while Israel could act alone of it had to, the Jewish state was also wary of being isolated diplomatically, and would work hard to build regional alliances and cooperate with the international community.

"In the coming years we need to boost the strategic coordination with the U.S. and Europe, as well as with the peaceful countries Egypt and Jordan. Jihad draws near to us, and so we must combine efforts with the countries of the West," the defense minister said.

"Syria is under international pressure, while we have peace agreements with Arab states and the reality does not allow for the formation of an Arab coalition against Israel. The strength of the peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt contributes to stability in the region, which is why they must continue to be nurtured," Mofaz concluded.

Bush says sees risk of Iranian nuclear blackmail Reuters
US President George W. Bush said on Monday he was concerned a future nuclear-armed Iran could blackmail the world. But in a setback for US-European Union efforts to crack down on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief ruled out advancing a wide-ranging report on the issue in time for a February 2 crisis meeting of his agency. In remarks at Kansas State University, Bush cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's expressed wish for Israel to be wiped off the map as a sign that Iran sought a nuclear arsenal. "The world cannot be put in a position where we can be blackmailed by a nuclear weapon," he said.
Why US doesn't trust Iran on nukes Christian Science Monitor
Iran Says It Welcomes Diplomacy CBS News
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