Nuclear Talks With Iran

A source at IAEA headquarters in Vienna confided that International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano's talks with the Iranian  chief nuclear negotiator Said Jalili had been 'good'.  Further discussions are feasible, he said.  But he also cautioned, unlike the trumpeting of the Iranian media of "progress" and "a positive effect", that no breakthrough had been achieved.


They did not, in other words, quite see eye-to-eye.  the problem is Iran's eye is on the intractable irritation of the sanctions that have been so provocatively deleterious to its financial well-being.  And oh, yes, to its sense of dignity. 

Although Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, after having met personally with IAEA chief Amano "expressed satisfaction over the opening of a new constructive path in Iran-agency co-operation" which he claims to "emanates from mutual trust and understanding", no such thing occurred.


Dodgily, cagily, what Mr. Salehi is anticipating is to achieve the perception that the IAEA's inspection requirements have been made by the accommodating regime of the Islamic Republic.  And in return, the courtesy of lifting, or at least hugely alleviating the sanctions should counter that courtesy.


Mr. Amano discussed nuclear disarmament, halting nuclear weapons proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.  All reflective of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  The IAEA chief was not enamoured of the Republic's insistence of the necessity of a "road map" to be established.

"I will not get into details.  The agency has its own view and Iran has its own", he said tersely.


The sticking point?  The military  installation, Parchin, located outside Tehran, is not a designated nuclear site, claims Tehran.  And therefore there is no obligation on the part of Iran to permit its inspection.  Despite that the IAEA has good reason to suspect explosives tests for nuclear warheads have been conducted there in a specially-built metal-impact container.


But of course, Iran has no intention, no plans and no interest in achieving nuclear weaponry.  To even suggest that might be the case is risible, an injurious slander, and not to be tolerated.  Its plans are for civil use, for the production of medical isotopes.


Predictably Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave grave warning about the injurious effect of potential concessions.  Insisting that world powers must make "clear and unequivocal demands" for Iran to halt all of its nuclear enrichment activity.  "Iran wants to destroy Israel and it is developing nuclear weapons to fulfill that goal", he warned.


Sounds like paranoia.  Where in the world would Israel get that impression?  Oh well, possibly from Iran.  Didn't Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad state just that right in the hallowed halls of the United Nations and not a whisper of condemnation followed?  And haven't many follow-up statements been uttered by, for example, the Grand Ayatollah?


Well, it seems that Fars, the Revolutionary Guards Corps. news agency reported that on the very day IAEA chief Yukiya Amano met with his Iranian counterpart, the Islamic regime's military chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi addressed a defence gathering in Tehran.  "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full annihilation of Israel."