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LAT:
"Talks over Iran's nuclear program are bogging down because Tehran's
negotiators are reluctant to put in writing previous concessions that may
be deeply unpopular at home, current and former diplomats said Tuesday.
With the negotiations' June 30 deadline about a month away, the Iranian
team is balking at important decisions, saying it wants to leave them for
top officials who are to arrive just before the deadline, Gerard Araud,
the French ambassador to the United States, said on a panel at the
Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. As a result, it is now 'very
likely' that deal won't be completed until early July, Araud said. If an
agreement is reached, additional time may be required to put the general
terms of the deal into specific technical language, he said. 'It's going
to be extremely complicated,' he said. 'We could have a sort of fuzzy end
to the negotiations.' ... Peter Wittig, Germany's ambassador to the
United States, who also appeared at the Atlantic Council, also noted the
slowdown in the talks, saying they had been proceeding 'at a rather slow
pace on the expert level.' 'The most difficult path may lie ahead of us,'
he said." http://t.uani.com/1HLr0sn
Reuters:
"A self-imposed deadline of June 30 for Iran and six major powers to
reach a final nuclear deal to resolve a decade-long standoff may be
extended, Iran's state TV reported... 'The deadline might be extended and
the talks might continue after the June 30 (deadline),' Iranian senior
nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi was quoted as saying. 'We are not bound
to a specific time. We want a good deal that covers our demands.' ...
'The talks are serious, complicated and detailed. The pace of talks is
slow as we have entered final stages,' Araqchi said upon his arrival in
Vienna, state TV reported." http://t.uani.com/1Qa4BqG
FP:
"Gerard Araud, the French ambassador to the United States, says an
emerging nuclear deal with Iran will impose tough restrictions on the
Islamic Republic and improve regional security across the Middle East.
But on Tuesday, Araud acknowledged that it could also pose a potential
risk: spurring an array Arab countries to develop their own civilian
nuclear programs. 'For me, that's one of the major weak points of the
agreement we are negotiating because let's be frank: the agreement is not
perfect,' Araud said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington. 'It's a
compromise. Any agreement is a compromise.' Araud, joined by his British
and German counterparts, insisted that Western negotiators in Switzerland
wrested the maximum amount of concessions from Iran as possible. Their
joint appearance was the latest indication that a final nuclear deal with
Tehran is likely to happen this summer, though perhaps not by the June 30
deadline." http://t.uani.com/1Qa2mDH
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Reuters:
"France's foreign minister said on Wednesday his country would not
back any nuclear deal with Iran unless it provided full access to all installations,
including military sites. 'France will not accept (a deal) if it is not
clear that inspections can be done at all Iranian installations,
including military sites,' Laurent Fabius told lawmakers. Iran's supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week ruled out international
inspection of Iran's military sites or access to nuclear scientists under
any nuclear agreement. Iran's military leaders echoed his remarks. Fabius
said he wanted other countries negotiating with Iran in the framework of the
so-called P5+1 - also including Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the
United States - to adopt France's position." http://t.uani.com/1J5ote6
AP:
"Moscow and Washington are close to agreement on a formula that
bridges differences over U.S. demands to quickly re-impose U.N. sanctions
on Iran if Tehran violates its commitments under a nuclear deal,
officials told The Associated Press Tuesday. Such an understanding would
resolve a U.S.-Russian dispute that threatened to scuttle an agreement
meant to impose long term cuts on Iran's nuclear programs in exchange for
sanctions relief. Washington sees a 'snap-back' mechanism that allows
previously lifted sanctions to be quickly reinstated as a cornerstone of
any deal. Ben Rhodes, U.S. President Barack Obama's deputy national
security adviser, told reporters last week that such a concept remained
'the basic premise of our approach to sanctions.' ... Comments by
France's ambassador to Washington Tuesday hinted at the possible
compromise being worked on. Gerard Araud said no structure was yet in
place for snapping back sanctions but the basic premise would entail a
majority vote of the five permanent Security Council members - the U.S.,
Russia, China, Britain and France. That would be at variance with the
usual rule of consensus. Still, it could ease Russian and Chinese
opposition to the 'snap-back' principle." http://t.uani.com/1Rnzc6B
Bloomberg:
"Sanctions against Iran's economy are likely to erode if talks to
curb Iran's nuclear program fail or U.S. lawmakers try to block an
international agreement, according to the U.K. and German envoys to
Washington. 'You're already seeing a number of countries which of course
don't respect the embargo on oil,' U.K. Ambassador Peter Westmacott said
Tuesday, referring to half a dozen economies with an exemption from U.S.
sanctions that lets them import Iranian crude, as well as companies that
have sought to evade bans on trade... Sanctions on Iran have probably
reached 'the high water mark,' the British envoy said. 'You would
probably see more sanctions erosion' if the talks collapse, unless the
failure were 'clearly, incontrovertibly' Iran's fault. 'If diplomacy
fails, then the sanctions regime might unravel,' German Ambassador Peter
Wittig said. 'It depends on who's to blame if there's no deal.' Some
would view a move by the U.S. Congress 'blocking this deal' as a
'trigger' to stop observing sanctions, he warned." http://t.uani.com/1PNdeMU
Al-Monitor:
"Iranian parliament members who attended a closed-door session with
Iranian negotiators say Iran has accepted 'managed inspections' of
military sites. While the negotiators have denied it, some Iranian media
commentators remain unconvinced. Javad Karimi-Ghodousi, a member of
parliament's influential National Security and Foreign Policy Committee,
told Fars News Agency on May 24 that Iranian nuclear negotiator and
Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi said, 'Inspections of
military sites within the Additional Protocols has been accepted, but
these inspections will be managed and this management will be conducted
with seriousness.' ... A number of other Iranian parliament members also
said that Araghchi made similar comments, forcing Iran's Foreign Ministry
- which is responsible for the nuclear negotiations - to release a
statement May 24 regarding reports about Iran having accepted inspections
at nuclear sites. The statement read, 'At the closed-door session, [Foreign
Minister] Mohammad Javad Zarif and I emphasized our opposition to
inspections or visits of any military site or interviews with nuclear
scientists, and explained that during the entirety of the negotiations
essentially any path to abuse has been closed.' The statement continued,
'The procedures for work within the Additional Protocols for managed
access to nuclear sites was described,' going on to add that comments
attributed to him about the inspections of military sites were
'incorrect.'" http://t.uani.com/1AtHZQ8
AP:
"Iranians have been captivated by a video circulating on social
media this week that shows a hard-line lawmaker trading barbs with the
country's foreign minister over the ongoing nuclear negotiations with
world powers. The video, which surfaced Monday, shows Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif and hard-line lawmaker Mahdi Kouchakzadeh in a
heated exchange, apparently at the end of a closed session of parliament.
The hard-liner calls Zarif a 'traitor,' claiming he speaks for Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which then prompts an angry reaction from
the minister, who becomes obviously upset and chastises the lawmaker
saying he has no right to speak for the country's top leader." http://t.uani.com/1SBWEOZ
AFP:
"Russia on Tuesday confirmed its decision to deliver S-300 air
defence missile systems to Iran, but said it could not yet announce a
date. 'The decision on delivering S-300 to Iran has been taken but the
realisation of the project will take some time,' Yevgeny Lukyanov, deputy
head of Russia's security council, was quoted by Russian agencies as
saying. 'As I understand, the time of delivery has not come yet,' he
said. Talks on the controversial deal, which has been frozen since 2010,
finished Monday with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein
Amir-Abdollahian pronouncing them a 'success'... The decision sparked
condemnation from Israel and concern from Washington, as it came before
the lifting of the sanctions by the UN Security Council, which originally
caused Moscow to freeze the deal. Now Russia is arguing that the missile
system is exclusively defensive and does not even fall under the
sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1LJ1F3A
AP:
"A senior U.S. official has joined nuclear talks between Iran and
six world powers with little more than a month until the deadline for a
deal. The talks resumed in Vienna Wednesday, with negotiators working on
a main document and technical annexes outlining how it will be
implemented. Most recent meetings have involved technical experts rather
than diplomats. But U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman has joined
two Iranian deputy foreign ministers and a senior European Union official
for this round as the talks move into the final stretch." http://t.uani.com/1BoZ1d4
Tehran Times:
"President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday draw an analogy between the
Iranian nuclear negotiators and fighters who liberated the city of
Khorramshahr in 1982, saying there are 'new Khorramshahrs' to be
liberated by the Iranian 'political commanders'. He made the remarks during
a ceremony in Tehran to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of
Khorramshahr... The president also described the Western-led sanctions
against Iran as a kind of 'economic' and 'scientific' occupation. 'We
should liberate all of our occupied economic and scientific lands from
the enemy as new Khorramshahrs and cities of blood,' he stated. There are
'new Khorramshahrs' that the Iranian people are determined to liberate,
he reiterated." http://t.uani.com/1J5nlHf
AP:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday that a
nuclear-armed Iran would be 'a thousand times more dangerous and more
destructive' than the Islamic State group, his office said. 'As horrific
as ISIS is, once Iran, the preeminent terrorist state of our time,
acquires nuclear weapons, it will be a hundred times more dangerous, a
thousand times more dangerous and more destructive than ISIS,' Netanyahu
said, referring to IS... 'As we are meeting, the P5+1 talks are
reconvening, and I'm afraid they're rushing to what I consider is a very
bad deal,' Netanyahu told US Senator Bill Cassidy, in remarks relayed by
the Israeli premier's office. 'I see no reason to rush to a deal and
certainly not a bad deal that paves Iran's path to the bomb, but also
fills Iran's coffers with tens of billions of dollars to pursue its
aggression throughout the Middle East and around Israel's borders,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/1evu0zv
Sanctions Relief
Press TV (Iran):
"The official's comments came as Iran is getting ready to host the
biggest international conference on mines and mineral industries to be
attended by companies from 27 countries. The event dubbed 'Iran Mines and
Mining Industries Summit (IMIS 2015),' will be held from May 31 to June
1, 2015, in the Iranian capital city of Tehran. On May 13, deputy
minister of industry, mine and trade, Mehdi Karbasian, said 284 domestic
companies will be also present in the conference, during which more than
200 mineral projects ready for investment will be presented. Karbasian,
who also heads the board of Iranian Mines and Mining Industries
Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), added that the
conference will be attended by foreign companies from 27 countries,
including Germany, Sweden, Finland, China, India, Japan and Canada."
http://t.uani.com/1JVlIwF
Yemen Crisis
Reuters:
"Iran's foreign minister urged rival Saudi Arabia to end its
military campaign in Yemen, saying the war would 'bring harm' to the
kingdom, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday. Iran has
repeatedly condemned a Saudi-led air offensive against Yemen's Houthi
movement, launched in March after the Tehran-allied fighters began
battling forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi for
control of the country. Zarif's remarks from Kuwait, where he was
attending a meeting of the Islamic Organisation Conference (IOC), was one
of Tehran's most direct attempts yet to engage Gulf Arab countries on the
crisis in Yemen. 'We say to our Saudi brothers that we want a brighter
future for all countries in the region, and what they are doing in Yemen
will end up harming them,' Zarif was quoted as saying... In an open
letter published in Kuwaiti newspapers, Zarif called for dialogue between
Tehran and its Arab neighbors to resolve the region's crises." http://t.uani.com/1evs4qz
Free Beacon:
"Iran has dispatched additional paramilitary forces to Yemen to aid
pro-Tehran rebels seeking to take control of the strategic southern
Arabian state, according to recent U.S. intelligence reports. The Iranian
leadership earlier this month ordered militants from the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps' (IRGC) Quds Force, along with Lebanese
Hezbollah fighters, to Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab
states are seeking to defeat an insurgency led by Houthi rebels that currently
control large parts of the country. The influx of Iranian forces was
outlined in several classified intelligence reports circulated within
government over the past two weeks, said U.S. officials familiar with the
reports... Estimates put the number of both Iranian and Iraqi Shi'ite
forces helping the Houthis in Yemen at around 5,000 people. The number of
Lebanese Hezbollah members in Yemen is not known. On Sunday, Quds Force
Deputy Commander, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghani was quoted as confirming the
fact that the IRGC is training Yemenis... 'The defenders of Yemen have
been trained under the banner of the Islamic Republic and the enemies
cannot deal with Yemeni fighters.' It was the first official reference to
Iran's training of the Houthis in Yemen." http://t.uani.com/1AxOocQ
Human Rights
WashPost:
"Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian went on trial Tuesday on
espionage and other charges in a closed Tehran courtroom more than 10
months after he was imprisoned, but the proceedings were adjourned
without any indication of when they would resume. The state-run Islamic
Republic News Agency reported that Abolghassem Salavati, a judge known
for draconian sentences, read the four-count indictment in a two-hour
session in Tehran's Revolutionary Court. The semiofficial Mehr News
Agency said Rezaian roundly denied having done anything outside the
normal activities of a news reporter. 'I am a journalist, and all of my
activities have been conducted as a journalist, and all were legal,' Mehr
quoted him as saying when the judge asked about his contacts with U.S.
Consulate officials in Dubai, where Rezaian's family says he was seeking
a visa for his Iranian-born wife." http://t.uani.com/1AtKdPG
NYT:
"But with the espionage trial now underway in a closed Tehran court
against Jason Rezaian - The Washington Post's Iran correspondent, who has
been imprisoned since July- speculation has intensified that the facts of
the case, or lack of them, will have little bearing on the outcome. Iran
has many laws that are written so vaguely they can be applied to almost
any situation, and it remains possible that Mr. Rezaian did,
intentionally or not, violate some aspect of Iran's legal code simply by
gathering information - doing his job as a journalist. Yet if history is
a guide, his fate may be tied to Iranian political tensions and
calculations in the estranged relations between Iran and the United
States that may have nothing to do with the accusations, according to
political experts, relatives of prisoners and former prisoners." http://t.uani.com/1Ko4xlp
IranWire:
"The Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Unit obtained a forced
confession from Jason Rezaian under duress in September 2014. An Iranian
security official who withheld his name due to the sensitivity of the
case told IranWire that the Guards pushed Rezaian to confess in order to
'influence Iran's nuclear negotiations with Western powers, including the
United States.' Maziar Bahari's 2012 film Forced Confessions pulls the
mask off a regime that brutally extracts lies from its citizens - not
criminals, but writers, journalists, and scholars. Bahari, who was forced
to confess following his arrest in 2009, tells the story of the Iranian
regime's attempt to legitimize its rule through force. And, as the case
of Jason Rezaian highlights, the regime continues to use this tactic to
intimidate and isolate journalists for simply reporting the truth." http://t.uani.com/1FgbykF
Foreign Affairs
AFP:
"Iran said on Tuesday it had foiled a cyber-attack on the Islamic
republic's oil ministry, and that those behind the hacking attempt were
based in the United States. The Fars news agency cited Brigadier General
Kamal Hadianfar, head of the cyber police, as saying the unit had
thwarted 'the hackers' attack on the oil ministry'. He said the source of
the attempt was in the United States, and that the US authorities had
been informed. 'The IP address for these hackers was in America,' he
said, adding that 'an international judicial order' had been sent to the
United States, without elaborating. Hadianfar said the hacking attempt
took place over a four-day period at the start of the new Iranian year
which began on March 20." http://t.uani.com/1J5cA7S
Opinion &
Analysis
Samuel Berger,
Stephen Hadley, James Jeffrey, Dennis Ross & Robert Satloff in
Politico: "There are two main external threats to
the Middle East state system. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,
also known as ISIS or the Islamic State, embodies the most direct threat,
particularly with its declaration of a caliphate designed to replace
existing states. The Islamic Republic of Iran also constitutes a threat,
perhaps not as blatant in its assault but no less real. It uses its
militia proxies to undermine states and deny them authority throughout
their territory, a process that has already given Tehran leverage over
four Arab capitals - Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa... On ISIL,
President Barack Obama has made clear that the challenge is more than a
military one, although providing military support to governments fighting
ISIL on the ground is critical. But military action is only one
dimension; ISIL cannot be defeated unless it is also discredited. Only
Muslims can undermine ISIL's fanatical ideology, and they must take the
lead in doing so. Ultimately, U.S. strategy depends on inflicting
setbacks on ISIL while building a broad coalition of partners in support
of Arab-based efforts to defeat it. The loss of Ramadi, the capital of
Iraq's Anbar province, underscores the enormity and the urgency of this
challenge. Some see such a coalition as offering the possibility of
bringing the Iranians and the Saudis together in their common enmity
toward ISIL. Although the traditional view that 'the enemy of my enemy is
my friend' might apply to Sunni readiness to cooperate covertly with Israel,
it does not work for the Saudis, Emiratis, Bahrainis and others when it
comes to the Iranians. They see their struggle against Iran in
existential terms, and the more the Iranians seem to be intent on
encircling Saudi Arabia, the more the Saudis and other Arabs will
position themselves to counter Tehran. This objective is so fundamental
to them that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others have now agreed to mobilize
an Arab force - not to fight Israel but to counter Iran-backed militias
and, perhaps, jihadi forces. We, too, have to judge the Iranians based on
their behavior. Iran will surely fight to prevent ISIL's domination in
Syria and Iraq, an arena in which our objectives converge and our
operations may sometimes run in parallel. But while tactical points of
convergence are possible, the Iranian strategic view of the region is
fundamentally at odds with ours. Perhaps this outlook could be different
if economic integration with the outside world and internal aspirations
cause Iran to alter its strategic objectives in the region. But we need
to judge Iran on how it acts. The most powerful elements in Iran today
still see the United States as their enemy. This is not simply because of
a conspiratorial mind-set about American determination to subvert the
Islamic Republic, but also because they see America as the main
impediment to their domination of the region. Even if the U.S. seeks to
reassure them about its aims, they are highly unlikely to believe it
unless the U.S. is prepared to acquiesce in their regional hegemony. The
combination of their interest in weakening the state structures of their
Sunni adversaries and the belief of our traditional friends that they are
locked in an existential conflict with Iran should give us pause about
partnering with the Iranians and the Iran-backed Shiite militias in the
fight against ISIL. Ultimately, if the U.S. hopes to mobilize Sunni Arab
populations of Iraq and Syria in opposition to ISIL - an essential
element to marginalizing it - Iran cannot be seen as a presumed ally.
That would pre-empt any serious Sunni effort to delegitimize ISIL, put
the Sunni states on the defensive and, worst of all, increase the
prospect that ISIL will present itself as the only real protector of the
Sunnis. To be sure, the Saudis have a history of playing a negative role
in proselytizing the ideology of Sunni extremism. Today, however, they
recognize they have a stake in combating its most radical elements. And
unlike the Iranians, the Saudis also see the danger of undermining the
state system in the Middle East." http://t.uani.com/1Bp3UTJ
Michael Tomlinson
in The Daily Caller: "In Las Vegas earlier this
month, the 'Fight of the Century' took place with Floyd Mayweather
winning the welterweight championship over Manny Pacquiao with a display
of his textbook defensive boxing skills that kept his aggressive opponent
at bay, earning him the unified title. While Mayweather raked in a
reported $200 million for a night's work, Trita Parsi, the head of the
National Iranian-American Council, was also hard at work playing defense,
earning his money protecting the Iranian regime's façade of 'moderation'.
In Politico, Parsi was ducking questions over some rather bizarre
comments made in Iranian state media, including the whopper that Sen.
John McCain (R-AZ) was caught meeting with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the
founder and self-declared caliph of ISIS. The photo used by Tehran to
'prove' its ludicrous charge was so clearly doctored it would be
laughable were it not part of a recurring pattern of propaganda efforts
by the regime to portray Iran as aggrieved, threatened, and beset upon by
the U.S. Such a posture gives Iran the ability to take actions -
propaganda and otherwise - in the name of defending the Islamic nation
from its enemies, real or imagined. In an even more bizarre twist, after
months of dithering the Iranian regime finally accused imprisoned
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian of espionage, but ironically
charged him with working with the NIAC as proof of his spying. The regime
claimed conversations Rezaian had with Parsi through Twitter was evidence
enough. Parsi was left in the uncomfortable situation of having to deny
that Rezaian was working with the NIAC, while at the same time correcting
the New York Times characterization of the NIAC as being 'supportive of
Iran' on all issues. Mayweather has nothing on this guy. Granted it's
been a tough year for Parsi and company. They had a defamation suit they
filed to combat charges that they colluded with the Iranian regime thrown
out of court. Parsi was sanctioned for $183,000 for misconduct during the
trial, including withholding key pieces of evidence. Parsi has long been
a stooge of Tehran. In the summer of 2007, Parsi embarked on a campaign
to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the State
Department's terrorist list. The designation of Iran's Guards Corp was in
response to Iranian infiltration in Iraq, and in particular their direct
role in killing hundreds of American soldiers by supplying Shia
extremists with improvised explosive devices (IED). Parsi argued:
'The White House's decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Corps as a terrorist organization could deal a double blow to efforts to
utilize diplomacy with Iran to stabilize Iraq. Not only does the
designation risk undermining the important yet limited talks between the
United States and Iran in Baghdad, but it may also negatively impact the
next U.S. president's ability to seek diplomacy with Iran by further
entrenching U.S.-Iran relations in a paradigm of enmity.'" http://t.uani.com/1FYABi1
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