Report: Iran FM says country won't talk to Israel
Source: AP via USA Today
Iran's foreign minister said Friday his country will not enter nuclear talks with its arch-enemy Israel, the country's official news agency reported.
A report by IRNA quoted Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying that Islamic Republic "would not attend a meeting in which the occupying regime participates." Iranian officials routinely refer to Israel that way because it controls territories claimed by Palestinians.
The report said Zarif's remarks were in response to possible Israeli participation in talks between Iran and six world powers over Tehran's nuclear program. It did not elaborate on source of the reports on Israel's possible presence.
"Such a thing will never happen and we definitely will not be in the room in which representatives from the Zionist regime will have presence," Zarif said.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/11/29/iran-nuclear-israel/3780895/
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Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Can't really blame the Iranians for being disinclined to talk to Netanyahu or his representatives.
Not that those guys would want to talk anyway, unless it involves dropping bombs in morse.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Israel is the rogue country in this case. Iran is working with the international community and Israel attempting to sabotage the deal.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)According the White House, Obama told Netanyahu that he wants Israel and the U.S. to begin consultations with regard to a permanent agreement with Iran.
"The two leaders reaffirmed their shared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," the statement read. "The president noted that the P5+1 will use the months ahead to pursue a lasting, peaceful, and comprehensive solution that would resolve the international community’s concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
"… the president told the prime minister that he wants the United States and Israel to begin consultations immediately regarding our efforts to negotiate a comprehensive solution," the statement continued. "The president underscored that the United States will remain firm in our commitment to Israel, which has good reason to be skeptical about Iran’s intentions."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.559977
iandhr
(6,852 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)That's from the President of Israel, less than a week ago.
Meanwhile, no Iranian leader can even bring themselves to utter the word "Israel".
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Now I'll grant, I can't read Peres' mind or anything. But his nation's policy doesn't back up the statement, and such statements are frequently precursors to killing a lot of people, in this region.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Like when the Iranian leadership says they have no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, perhaps?
Nuclear weapons are a sin, says Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
February 23, 2012
However, after meetings with Iranian nuclear scientists and officials, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not mention a visit to Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which said its experts had again failed to dent the country's refusal to cooperate in investigating allegations that Tehran covertly worked on an atomic arms programme.
Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran's policies would not change despite mounting international pressure against what the West says are Iran's plans to obtain nuclear bombs.
"With God's help, and without paying attention to propaganda, Iran's nuclear course should continue firmly and seriously," he said on state television.
Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/nuclear-weapons-are-a-sin-says-irans-ayatollah-ali-
Iran has signed the NPT, allowed inspections in and called for a nuclear-weapon free ME, as well as not having invaded another nation for over a century and a half.
Can you name the nations who've done the complete opposite?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)You don't get any more right wing than Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
If George W was full of shit, it only stands to reason that an even more extreme far-right conservative could be.
Also the things you say about Iran aren't true. They have been using proxies to invade other nations repeatedly since the revolution.
From the Obama administration report on the subject via the Pentagon:
"Iran plays a growing role outside of the Persian Gulf and Levant with a full spectrum of military capabilities that includes the use of non-state actors, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia groups and the Taliban."
polly7
(20,582 posts)Iran's leaders are worse? Why? It seems to me, if they'd wanted nuclear weapons they could have had them long, long ago. They've been working to attain nuclear capability since the 1950's for peaceful purposes.
Summer 1953: The CIA and British intelligence hatch a plot for a coup that overthrows a democratically elected government in Iran intent on nationalizing that country’s oil industry. In its place, they put an autocrat, the young Shah of Iran, and his soon-to-be feared secret police. He runs the country as his repressive fiefdom for a quarter-century, becoming Washington’s “bulwark” in the Persian Gulf -- until overthrown in 1979 by a home-grown revolutionary movement, which ushers in the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini and the mullahs. While Khomeini & Co. were hardly Washington’s men, thanks to that 1953 coup they were, in a sense, its own political offspring. In other words, the fatal decision to overthrow a popular democratic government shaped the Iranian world Washington now loathes, and even then oil was at the bottom of things.
1967: Under the U.S. “Atoms for Peace” program, started in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Shah is allowed to buy a 5-megawatt, light-water type research reactor for Tehran (which -- call it irony -- is still playing a role in the dispute over the Iranian nuclear program). Defense Department officials did worry at the time that the Shah might use the “peaceful atom” as a basis for a future weapons program or that nuclear materials might fall into the wrong hands. “An aggressive successor to the Shah,” went a 1974 Pentagon memo, “might consider nuclear weapons the final item needed to establish Iran’s complete military dominance of the region.” But that didn’t stop them from aiding and abetting the creation of an Iranian nuclear program..........."
http://www.alternet.org/story/153801/a_brief_history_of_america%27s_dumb_policies_towards_iran/
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/11/the-iran-accord-profoundly-and-primarily-symbolic/
Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium would be eliminated through conversion to fuel plates for use in a research reactor or oxidized. It could then not be further enriched or weaponized in any way. This seems like a major concession, but when one understands why Iran was enriching to the 20 percent level to begin with, it is less so.
Iran has a research reactor, the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) that produced medical isotopes for the treatment of cancer. The reactor had been supplied by the United States in 1967. The United States at that time provided weapons grade fuel for running the reactor. Iran was running out of 20 percent fuel, and was expected to deplete the supply entirely by 2011. Iran tried to broker a deal for more 20 percent fuel with the United States. A preliminary agreement was reached on October 1, 2010. The United States reneged on the agreement. Iran then began enriching its own uranium to the 19.75% level — technically below the high-enriched uranium threshold of 20%. After converting part of this this indigenously produced fuel into non-weaponizeable reactor plates, it was introduced into the TRR in February, 2012. The November 23 agreement will allow Iran to do what it was going to do anyway, and finish converting the rest of its 19.75 percent fuel into non-weaponizable reactor plates.
Even Israeli intelligence analysts agree that Iran is “not a danger” to Israel. Typical is ex-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy who said on March 16 this year that Iran “will not make it to the bomb,” and that Israel’s existence “is not in danger and shouldn’t be questioned.”
oberliner
(58,724 posts)You seem to have a lot of knowledge and source material about the recent history of Iran. I'm wondering what, if anything, you can share about the current Supreme Leader?
iandhr
(6,852 posts)... they would put out a statement in response like "we are willing to talk to all nations."
bemildred
(90,061 posts)That is interesting, if true.
jessie04
(1,528 posts)just great.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Nobody over there is allowed to say Israel in such a context.
cigsandcoffee
(2,300 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)And his minions.
hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)And they will be talking.
Less if Kerry can get the Israeli / Palestinian thing on track.
If you look at it, nearly all terrorist acts perpetrated on the west and in the middle east are Sunni attacking the West or the Shiites.
We really in a LOT of ways have more common cause as far as terrorisim with the Iranians and Iraqi's and Shiites in general than with the Saudis or other Sunni countries where the funding for a lot of these attacks come from.
If the US and Iran could get over the past, I can see how we have many common concerns. Also would lower the cost of oil probably.
With the US out of the way as far as "circling the wagons" I could see how the Iranians might be able to vote in a bit better government for themselves also.
DavidDvorkin
(19,481 posts)That happens often enough -- both sides posturing for public consumption while diplomatic contacts happen, either directly or indirectly.
