Uncooperative Radio: NIE Report on Iran

I ran is still a threat...

From NYT:

Israel today took a darker view of Iran’s nuclear ambitions than the assessment released by United States intelligence agencies yesterday, saying it was convinced that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons.

It said Iran had probably resumed the nuclear weapons program the American report said was stopped in the fall of 2003. “It is apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program for a certain period of time,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio. “But in our estimation, since then it is apparently continuing with its program to produce a nuclear weapon.” [snip...]

The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna said the new assessment should now help ease the international confrontation with Iran and prompt it to cooperate fully with the United Nations nuclear watchdog. The agency had been criticized in the past by the Bush administration for not pressing Iran hard enough on its nuclear intentions.

“This new assessment by the U.S. should help to defuse the current crisis,” the atomic energy agency’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in a statement.

“At the same time, it should prompt Iran to work actively with the I.A.E.A. to clarify specific aspects of its past and present nuclear program as outlined in the work plan and through the implementation of the additional protocol.”

But the United States, Britain and France urged the international community to maintain pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activities despite the new assessment.

“We think the report’s conclusions justify the actions already taken by the international community to both show the extent of and try to restrict Iran’s nuclear program and to increase pressure on the regime to stop its enrichment and reprocessing activities,” a spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quoted by Reuters as saying.

“It confirms we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons and shows that the sanctions program and international pressure were having an effect,” he said.

France expressed a similar opinion. “It appears that Iran is not respecting its international obligations,” a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman was quoted by Reuters as saying.

“We must keep up the pressure on Iran,” the spokeswoman said, adding that France will continue “to work on the introduction of restrictive measures in the framework of the United Nations.”

At a meeting with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, today in Moscow, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Iran should ensure its nuclear activities were “open and transparent,” Bloomberg reported. Mr. Putin’s spokesman said Russia was offering to supply Iran fuel for the Russian-built nuclear power plant at Bushehr, in southern Iran, with the intention of persuading Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, Bloomberg reported.

“The sooner we ship it, the less they will have a need for their own program,” the spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, was quoted as saying.

From IC:

"If anything the new national estimates validate the administration's strategy to bring diplomatic and economic pressure on the Iranian government's nuclear policy," Gates said during a visit to Afghanistan.

A US National Intelligence Estimate released on Monday said that Iran halted its nuclear weapons drive in 2003.

From Voice of America:

Iran's president is calling for the creation of an international Islamic court to try war criminals and other human rights violators. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raised the idea Tuesday during a speech to judiciary chiefs from Islamic countries at a conference in Tehran. He did not give any details about who might be tried under an international Islamic court or how it would operate. The international community already has two courts -- one to deal with criminals and another that handles disputes between states. Both are based in The Hague. In his speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad said that some international organizations such as the U.N. Security Council have not been founded on the basis of justice.

From Financial Times:

The United Arab Emirates has impounded the cargo of a vessel bound for Iran after discovering that “hazardous materials” aboard contravened UN sanctions placed on the Islamic republic to curtail its nuclear development programme.

In a further ratcheting up of the UAE’s determination to curb misuse of its ports, an official there confirmed that the cargo, detained for testing last month, contained materials banned by UN Security Council resolutions 1737 and 1747, while the purchaser of the materials had also been barred by the same resolutions.

From Islamic Republic News Agency:

Iran-Sweden-Ahmadinejad
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here on Tuesday warned certain countries that if they do not change their behaviors, the Iranian nation will never hesitate to do so.

According to Presidential Office, President Ahmadinejad made the remark in a meeting with the new Swedish ambassador to Tehran Nagnus Vernstedt.

Certain countries still continue to exert pressure on Iran despite recent report by IAEA, he underlined.[snip...]

The US and its allies should admit Iran's peaceful nuclear rights, he said, adding that there is no alternative to this end.

Iran is independent and never needs these powers or countries, he underlined.