Iran Plans Military Drills to Guard Nuclear Sites



New York TimesSimulation EditionNovember 23, 2009Palestinians Aim to Secure U.N. Support For State By REUTERSRAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Palestinians plan to go to the U.N. Security Council in an effort to secure international support for an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, officials said on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against any "unilateral" moves by the Palestinians.Palestinians attributed the move to frustration at the lack of progress in peace talks with Israel, which have been stalled for a year. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said "When we are ready, we will go," he told Reuters. His remarks prompted a warning from Netanyahu, who said only peace negotiations with Israel would secure a Palestinian state. "There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral path will only unravel the framework of agreements between us and will only bring unilateral steps from Israel's side," Netanyahu said.Despite months of diplomacy, the United States has failed to broker a resumption of talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli government led by Netanyahu, who on Sunday repeated his call for a swift resumption of the talks. Abbas has stuck by his demand for a total halt to Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank before any return to peace talks. He has resisted recent U.S. pressure to resume negotiations right away. Head of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, Abbas aims to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in a 1967 war.Mohammed Dahlan, a senior official in Abbas's Fatah faction, told reporters that the diplomatic initiative would be "a real test of the intentions of the international community." Netanyahu reiterated his position that any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized and its borders must be monitored to prevent the smuggling of weapons.Perhaps to signal its intentions to both Arab states and the U.S., on Sunday Israeli aircraft attacked two suspected weapons-making factories and a smuggling tunnel in the Gaza Strip early Sunday in what the Israeli military said was retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel.In the event of failure at the Security Council, where the United States wields veto power, Dahlan said other options included a unilateral declaration of statehood and "popular, comprehensive resistance against settlement and the occupation."He did not spell out what that might entail. In the past two decades, the Palestinians have twice launched uprisings in the occupied territories.Fatal Blast Rocks Northeast IndiaAP (Wire) Three bombs exploded in India’s restive northeast Sunday, killing at least five people and wounding more than 25, police said. Indian intelligence sources suggest that the bombings were the product of actions by a fanatical Sunni terrorist organization, known as the AQP, operating out of Pakistan, and the one identified with hostile actions against Iranian (Shia) border officials who were killed in early November on the Pakistani-Iranian border.Iran Plans Military Drills to Guard Nuclear SitesBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESSTEHRAN (AP) —?Iran?is set to begin air defense war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from possible attack, Gen. Ahmad Mighani of the Iranian Air Force said Sunday. The drills reflect concern that Israel or the U.S. could make good on threats to strike militarily. The five-day exercise, to begin Tuesday, comes as a top clerical official renewed his threat to take aim at “the heart of Tel Aviv” should Israel attack Iran. As Iran has pressed forward with its nuclear program,?Israel has warned that it might take military action?to keep Tehran from obtaining?nuclear weapons. The United States also has not ruled out military action should diplomacy fail to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear work.Israeli military and government officials refused to comment on the planned war games.Nuclear Report on Iran Arouses New SuspicionsBy?DAVID E. SANGER?and?WILLIAM J. BROADWASHINGTON — International inspectors who gained access to?Iran’s newly revealed underground nuclear enrichment plant raised questions in a report released on Monday about whether the country may have also concealed other nuclear factories. So far Iran has denied that there are other hidden sites in addition to the one built deep underground on a military base north of the holy city of Qum. The inspectors were given access to the half-built plant late last month and reported that they had found it in “an advanced state” of construction, but that no centrifuges — the fast-spinning machines needed to make nuclear fuel – had yet been installed.They confirmed American and European intelligence reports that the site was built to house about 3,000 centrifuges, enough to produce enough material for one or two?nuclear weapons?a year. But that is too small to be useful in the production of fuel for civilian nuclear power, which is what Iran insists was the intended purpose of the site. The plant’s existence was revealed in September, as many as seven years after construction had begun.The report by the?International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors came just two days after?President Obama, expressing increasing impatience with Iran’s responses in nuclear negotiations, indicated that he would begin to plan for far more stringent economic sanctions against Tehran. He was joined during that announcement by President?Dmitri A. Medvedev?of Russia, but Mr. Medvedev was vague about whether Russia was now prepared to join in those sanctions. Mr. Obama also took up the issue with President?Hu Jintao?of China. China, like Russia, has historically resisted sanctions on Iran.In its report, the agency said that Iran’s belated “declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction, and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared to the agency.”Both I.A.E.A. officials and American and European diplomats and nuclear experts have argued that the existence of the hidden facility at Qum would make little sense unless there was a network of related facilities to feed it with raw nuclear fuel.Iran denied that it had any other facilities that it had failed to report to the agency. But in a letter to the nuclear inspectors, parts of which were quoted in the report to the board of the I.A.E.A., Iranian officials said they were motivated to build the underground plant because of “the threats of military attacks against Iran,” a reference to the assumption that Israel, the United States or other Western powers might take military action against its main plant for uranium enrichment, located at Natanz.The geopolitical significance of that timing is unclear. But in 2006, the Bush administration indicated a greater willingness to negotiate with Iran if it first complied with three?United Nations Security Council?resolutions to halt enrichment activity at Natanz. Iran refused, and the report indicated it now produced about 3,900 pounds of low-enriched uranium, enough for one to two weapons if it was further enriched.Because Iran continued to produce fuel, President Bush also authorized a covert program, focused on the Natanz site, that was intended to disrupt its enrichment activity, by attacking both the computer and electrical infrastructure around the plant. It is not clear that any of those actions have proven successful. But the construction of an alternative plant, protected by the Iranian?Revolutionary Guard?base adjacent to the plant, appeared to constitute an Iranian effort to have a backup plan in case it lost use of the Natanz facility.Iran insists that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.Israel PM Warns About Iran on Navy TourBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESSABOARD THE INS EILAT (AP) -- Underscoring Israel's military might, Israel's prime minister warned about the dangers of a nuclear Iran Tuesday after visiting a submarine believed equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles and a ship used to seize weapons Israel says were being sent to Lebanese foes by Iran.''The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East and the whole world,'' Netanyahu said aboard the missile ship INS Eilat. ''Without any doubt, we are the first target, but not the last,'' he said.Iran denies its nuclear program is designed to build bombs, but Israel and the West suspect that it is. Israeli leaders fear their country could be a target for an Iranian nuclear weapon and have not ruled out a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iranian President?Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?repeatedly has made references to Israel's destruction.The presence of Iranian proxies on Israel's northern and southern borders --?Hezbollah?in Lebanon and?Hamas?in the Gaza Strip -- have only expanded the threat from Tehran. Last month, the INS Eilat led a raid on a cargo vessel that Israel says was bound for Hezbollah with missiles, anti-tank weapons, grenades and ammunition. Hezbollah denied the arms were meant for them.The submarine that Netanyahu visited was one of three German-built, Dolphin-class vessels that foreign media reports have said can carry missiles with nuclear warheads. Israel has ordered two more such subs. Israel has never confirmed its submarines have nuclear capabilities, just as it never has confirmed media reports that it possesses a stockpile of nuclear bombs.E.U. Leaders Make Unity in the Bloc Their First JobBy STEPHEN CASTLEWith the European Union’s top new jobs going to two low-key bridge-builders, the bloc appears to have set its sights on smoothing over internal divisions before trying to construct a bigger global role.The combination of Belgium’s prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, for the bloc’s presidential post and Catherine Ashton, the European commissioner for trade, who is British, as foreign policy chief leaves the Union without the high-profile leadership for which many had yearned. The duo look set to tread a pragmatic path, and supporters said the bloc needed to walk before it could run on the international stage.“In some ways, the E.U. craving for star-quality leaders was like trying to cover the lack of substance with appearances,” said Adam Jasser in an analysis for demosEUROPA, a research institution based in Warsaw. “Whether Europe will be treated seriously or not by the outside world depends on its ability to speak with one voice and get its priorities sorted out.”Their appointments emerged in a deal designed to balance internal E.U. interests, giving the top post to the center-right Mr. Van Rompuy from a small nation and the other to Ms. Ashton, a center-left politician from a big nation.The announcement brought some stern criticism. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president who helped draw up the presidential job, described the appointment as evidence of Europe’s limited ambition. And Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Greens group in the European Parliament, said Europe was “sinking to a low.”After her appointment, Ms. Ashton said she was the right person for the job, pointing to her successful record as a trade negotiator. “Am I an ego on legs? No, I’m not,” she said late Thursday. “Judge me on what I do and I think you will be pleased and proud of me.”With the foreign policy job going to Britain, France is now in a good positioned to get the important economic portfolio inside the European Commission covering the internal market, which currently includes the sensitive issue of financial services regulation.As president of the European Council, Mr. Van Rompuy will seek to find agreement among 27 nations, a job for which he may be well-suited. The skills he deployed as prime minister were honed over a lifetime in the divisive, back-biting world of Belgian politics.The real test of these movements however will be at the next meeting of the Security Council. It remains to be seen whether or not the UK, France, Germany, and smaller countries such as Hungary will seek to coordinate their foreign policies or pursue independent policies, as they have in the past, in response to the vital issues pending on the Security Council’s agenda. Issues particularly about Israel and the Palestinians, responses to terrorism, nuclear proliferation on the part of Iran and others, have separated more than united these states. Equally important are individual versus EU relations with key countries such as China and Russia. Vital national interests vie against the broader interest of creating commonality and a larger political role for the EU as a whole, and through it all looms the shadow of the future of the alliance system likely to be carved out as a result.Azeri president threatens Armenia(BBC) President Ilham Aliyev has warned he is ready to use force to wrest control of a disputed enclave from Armenia if last-ditch peace talks fail. He said talks starting on Sunday in Munich were the final hope of settling the Nagorno Karabakh issue peacefully.A fragile ceasefire has been in place in the region since it was the scene of a brutal war between the two countries in the 1990s. Both nations lay claim to the enclave, currently under Armenian control.In comments broadcast on Azeri TV on Saturday, President Aliyev said that if the Munich talks failed to reach agreement he would be "left with no other option". "We have the full right to liberate our land by military means," he said. Western diplomats attending the talks, the latest in a round of internationally mediated meetings on the dispute, have said they hope the situation will not reach that point. Some 30,000 people died in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, which erupted after the mountainous region declared independence in 1991.The region and seven surrounding Azeri district have been under Armenian control since the Russian-brokered ceasefire in 1994. Azerbaijan has never ruled out military action to take back the land and has spent billions on dollars on building up its military. The BBC's Tom Esslemont, in the South Caucuses region, says Mr Aliyev is using stronger language than ever before because the talks come at a critical time. The meeting will be the first since Armenia and Turkey - an ally of Azerbaijan - normalised diplomatic relations after a century of hostility. That move has left Azerbaijan feeling isolated.The outcome of this conflict may be of crucial importance to Russia, whose decision makers have sought to create order in the post-Soviet space vacated by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, including reducing the influence of western states, and of Turkey. Yet, they have to be careful to maintain security in the region and balance against possible costs such as deteriorating relations with Middle Eastern States. BACKGROUND: Iran’s Nuclear ProgramThe Latest on Iran's Nuclear ProgramSubscribe RSSNOV. 16, 2009?4:03 PM EST?Nuclear report on Iran?arouses new suspicions?about whether the country may have also concealed other nuclear factories.NOV. 12, 2009?The time lines and design features associated with construction of?Iran's once secret facility near Qom, intended for uranium enrichment, will afford the IAEA ample lines of inquiry. The key question is: how will Tehran respond??—William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International AffairsNOV. 11, 2009?Nuclear negotiations with Iran appear to be headed toward?the equivalent of trench warfare?with virtually every detail of even an interim agreement manifestly in Tehran’s interest an opportunity for haggling.—William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International AffairsNOV. 10, 2009?Iran's refusal to send its enriched uranium to Russia?risks uniting the major powers?against it.—?Deepti Choubey,?deputy director, nonproliferation program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Iran's nuclear program is one of the most polarizing issues in one of the world's most polarized regions. While American and European officials believe Tehran is planning to build nuclear weapons, Iran's leadership says that its goal in developing a nuclear program is the ability to generate electricity without dipping into the oil suppy it prefers to sell abroad.After a long-running clandestine nuclear program was uncovered in 2003, Iran suspended the program, allowed international inspectors in and began negotiations with Britain, France and Germany. But after hardliners solidified their power with the election of?President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?in 2005, Iran has taken an increasingly confrontational line, restarting its enrichment program and ignoring demands from the United Nations Security Council to stop.American officials and international inspectors are concerned that Iran seems to have made significant progress in the three technologies necessary to field an effective nuclear weapon: enriching uranium to weapons grade; developing a missile capable of reaching Israel and parts of Western Europe; and designing a warhead that will fit on the missile. And in late September 2009, Iran said that its Revolutionary Guards test-fired missiles with sufficient range to strike Israel, parts of Europe and American bases in the Persian Gulf.President Obama broke with President George W. Bush's policy by offering to negotiate directly with Tehran, but he continued to call the program a threat to the region. And like Mr. Bush, he found it difficult to persuade Russia and China to consider imposing tough sanctions on Iran if the talks failed.On Sept. 25, 2009,?President Obama?and leaders of Britain and France accused?Iran?of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying the country has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years.In talks with the United States and other major powers on Oct.1, the first such discussions in which the United States has participated fully, Iran agreed to open the newly revealed plant to international inspection within two weeks. It also agreed to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium outside Iran to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes. American officials welcomed the agreement, but remained skeptical about whether Iran would follow through, and many suspected that other secret sites remain hidden.In the weeks that followed, Iran sent a string of mixed messages on whether it would follow through on the deal. On Oct. 29, it told the U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector?that it would not accept it, even as Mr. Ahmadinejad hailed the accord as a victory.Iran's Nuclear HistoryIran's first nuclear program began in the 1960s under the shah. It made little progress, and was abandoned after the 1979 revolution, which brought to power the hard-line Islamic regime. In the mid-1990s, a new effort began, raising suspicions in Washington and elsewhere. Iran insisted that it was living up to its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but in 2002, an exile group obtained documents revealing a clandestine program. Faced with the likelihood of international sanctions, the government of Mohammad Khatami agreed in 2003 to suspend work on uranium enrichment and allow a stepped-up level of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Association while continuing negotiations with Britain, France and Germany.In August 2005, Mr. Khatami, a relative moderate, was succeeded as president by Mr. Ahmadinejad, a hard-line conservative. Five months later, Iran announced that it was resuming work on turning uranium into a gaseous form, the first step in the so-called fuel cycle. The following January, Iran announced that it would resume enrichment work, leading the three European nations to break off their long-running talks. Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium, but the atomic energy association called for the program to be halted until questions about the earlier, secret program were resolved.The United Nations Security Council voted in December 2006 to impose sanctions on Iran for failing to heed calls for a suspension. Iranian scientists continued the work of building a series of centrifuges that concentrate uranium by spinning the gas at very high speeds.In Washington, administration hawks, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, were reported to favor consideration of more aggressive measures, including possible air strikes, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed for more diplomacy.The situation was muddied in December 2007 when American intelligence agencies issued a new National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that the weapons portion of the Iranian nuclear program remained on hold. Contradicting the assessment made in 2005, the report stated that the Iranian government did not appear determined to obtain nuclear weapons, although it said Iran's intentions were unclear, and that the country probably could not produce a bomb until the middle of the next decade.The Role of IsraelIn 2008, President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.The White House denied Israel's request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran's major nuclear complex at Natanz, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran's nuclear infrastructure.Obama and NegotiationsMr. Obama first made waves with his views on Iran policy back in 2007, when he said during a Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C., that he would, as president, be willing to meet without preconditions with Iran's leaders, and that the notion of not talking to one's foes was "ridiculous."Since becoming president, though, Mr. Obama's stance has become more confrontational.On Sept. 9, 2009, it was revealed that American intelligence agencies had concluded that?Iran?had created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.On Sept. 25, Mr. Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, revealed the existence of the secret underground plant. American officials said they had been tracking the project for years, but that the president decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered that the secrecy surrounding the project had been breached.Several days before the announcement, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a "pilot plant" under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.Iran claims that its continuing enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, that the uranium is solely for electric power and that its scientists have never researched weapons design, but Mr. Obama said that the size and type of the secret facility undermines that assertion.On Oct. 1, 2009, talks were held between Iran and the five permanent members of the?United Nations Security Council?- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - as well as Germany, and led by the?European Union's foreign policy chief,?Javier Solana.Iran's agreement in principle to export most of its enriched uranium for processing, if it occurs, would represent a major accomplishment for the West, reducing Iran's ability to make a nuclear weapon quickly and buying more time for negotiations to bear fruit. If Iran has secret stockpiles of enriched uranium, however, the accomplishment would be hollow.The news raised a tumult in Iran, with conservative politicians arguing that the West could not be trusted to return the uranium. Shortly after the accord was announced, Iran began raising objections and backtracking. On Oct. 29 it told the U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector that it was rejecting the deal. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download