Mogelijk nieuwe sancties tegen Iran vanwege atoomprogramma

 

Om eerlijk te zijn heb ik geen idee of Iran werkelijk uit is op het maken van kernwapens, maar rustig gaan slapen zou me behoorlijk naief overkomen, zeker voor een Joods buurlandje waar Achmadinejad en zijn consorten behoorlijk de pik op hebben, maar ook de andere buren voelen zich wel degelijk bedreigd door een nucleair Iran. Effectieve sancties zullen er waarschijnlijk niet komen, daarvoor hebben Rusland, China en andere -ook Westerse- landen teveel economische belangen in Iran, en bovendien zal een fanatiek land als Iran hier niet snel voor zwichten. Regime change zou een goede zaak zijn, maar kan alleen van de Iraanse bevolking zelf komen. Het regime lijkt hiervoor nog veel te stevig in het zadel te zitten.

Ik verwacht dus vroeg of laat toch een gerichte militaire aanval op nucleaire installaties. En dan maar hopen dat het niet escaleert...

 

Wouter

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Last update - 21:06 11/02/2010       
'Iran to initiate 2 new nuclear sites this year'
By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149045.html

 

Tehran atomic chief: We have the enrichment abilities, but we won't produce weapons grade uranium.
 

 

Iran will start building two new nuclear enrichment sites in the upcoming years, the Islamic Republic's Atomic Energy Organization chief told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

 

"Hopefully, in the upcoming Iranian year [starting in March], we will be starting construction of one or two sites," Ali Akbar Salehi said.

Iran has one enrichment plant in operation.
 
The Tehran nuclear chief also said that Iran's newly launched 20 percent nuclear fuel production was going "very well."

 

Salehi also said Iran had the capacity to enrich uranium up to a level of 100 percent -- above the level experts say is needed for a bomb -- but he said the country had no intention of refining the material to that level.

 

"There is no limit on enrichment. We can enrich up to 100 percent ... We have this capacity and capability. But we never had the intention and we do not have the intention to do so, unless we need [to]," Salehi said.

 

Salehi said Iran's production of 20 percent nuclear fuel, which it says started on Tuesday, would be limited to the needs of a Tehran medical reactor of around 1.5 kg per month.

 

He also said Iran will have "good news" on improved nuclear enrichment centrifuges in coming months, adding the construction of new enrichment sites would start from March.

 

Ahmadinejad told hundreds of thousands of cheering Iranians on the anniversary of the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic on Thursday that the country was now a nuclear state, but insisted that Iran had no intention to build nuclear weapons.

 

The United States and some of its allies accuse Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build nuclear weapons but Tehran denies the charge, saying its nuclear program is just geared towards generating electricity.

 

"I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the recently begun process of enriching Iran's uranium stockpile to higher levels.

 

Enriching uranium produces fuel for a nuclear power plants but can also be used to create material for atomic weapons if enriched further to 90 percent or more.

 

"We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent but we don't enrich (to this level) because we don't need it," the Iranian president said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

 

Iran angers World powers over uranium enrichment

 

Iran announced Tuesday it was beginning the process of enriching its uranium stockpile to a higher level. The international community reacted by starting the process to impose new sanctions on Iran.

 

Tehran has said it wants to further enrich the uranium - which is still substantially below the 90 percent plus level used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads - as a part of a plan to fuel its research reactor that provides medical isotopes to hundreds of thousands of Iranians undergoing cancer treatment.

 

But the West says Tehran is not capable of turning the material into the fuel rods needed by the reactor. Instead it fears that Iran wants to enrich the uranium to make nuclear weapons.

 

Ahmadinejad reiterated Iran's position that it was not seeking to build nuclear weapons.

 

"When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it, and we do not believe in manufacturing a bomb," he told the crowd. If we wanted to manufacture a bomb, we would announce it ... our nation has the courage to explicitly say it and build it and not fear you."

 

MK Tzachi Hangebi, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told U.S. officials in Washington that imposing sanctions on Iran isn't Israel's only option, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.

 

Hangebi also emphasized that the leaders in both the Israeli coalition and opposition have no difference of opinions regarding the Iranian issue.

Hangebi made the comments during the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee's meetings with White House officials in Washington.

 

In a telepone conversation on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told Syria's Bashar al-Assad that Israel should be resisted and finished off if it launched military action in the region, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Thursday.

 

"If the Zionist regime should repeat its mistakes and initiate a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all," he told Syria's Bashar al-Assad.

 

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Last update - 21:49 11/02/2010       
U.S.: Iran's nuclear efforts are anything but peaceful
By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149191.html

 

White House: Ahmadinejad has said many things, and many of them turn out to be untrue."
 

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement that the country has succeeded at creating higher levels of uranium enrichment shows its nuclear intentions are "anything but peaceful," the U.S. State Department said Thursday.

 

Ahmadinejad said scientists had succeeded at producing a batch of uranium enrichment at a much higher level that it had previously accomplished. The amount was sufficient for running in nuclear power reactors, but still well below the levels needed for weapons grade uranium.

 

But Iran's nuclear ambitions continue to draw concerns from the United States and European allies who fear Iran is seeking the capability to build nuclear weapons. Iran has rebuffed diplomatic overtures to resolve the issue and is in defiance of UN Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.
 
"Should Iran continue down the wrongful course that it's on there will be consequences," State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said.

 

Crowley also said he was skeptical as to the accuracy of Iran's claims of nuclear enrichment capabilities.

 

"I'm not a scientists but I think there are questions about what Iran's true capability is," Crowley said, adding that Iran has "been boasting number of things for a couple of years, but we are taking their words seriously. It seems as a violation of the UN Security Council resolution."

"It appears that they've attempted a nearly total information blockade - it's an unprecedented attempt to intimidate their own people and it's clear they fear their own people," Crowley said.

 

"I think we have strong indications that Iran has tried to restrict access to the Internet, and it's not about what the outsiders are doing, but about the fundamental relationship between Iranian government and their people. Iranian people are continuing to protest for their rights.

This continuing intimidation by the Iranian government is a great concern to us, and it shows the increasing bankruptcy of the Iranian regime."

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs also referred to Iran's claims of its nuclear capabilities, saying the Iranian president Ahmadinejad had said "many things, and many of them turn out to be untrue."

 

"We do not believe they have the capability to enrich which they claim they have," Gibbs added, saying the actions of Iran have led to the world to be more unified" by defying international obligations.

 

The comments by U.S. officials came after earlier Thursday British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the international community was moving closer to imposing sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program.

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Thursday that Iran was capable of enriching uranium to more than 80 percent purity, coming close to levels experts say would be needed for a nuclear bomb, although he said that was not the country's intention.

 

"I believe the mood around the world is now increasingly one where, patience not being inexhaustible, people are turning to look at the specific sanctions we can plan on Iran," Brown told BBC.

 

Officials: UN set to pass tighter Iran sanctions

 

Senior United Nations officials told Haaretz that a Security Council resolution tightening the sanctions on Iran has become more likely, and that the resolution is probably going to be approved.

 

Observers in both New York and Washington estimate that China will think twice about using its veto on a resolution after Russia recently threw its support behind a move against Iran. A veto could expose Beijing as isolated and out of touch with its fellow Security Council members.

 

China could also abstain from voting and allow the decision to be made by a simple majority. However, the sources told Haaretz, the United States is still trying to obtain Chinese support for the sanctions.

 

Ahead of its push for international sanctions at the UN, the U.S. sought on Wednesday to ratchet up pressure on Iran by imposing its own sanctions on elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Western intelligence officials believe is spearheading Iran's nuclear program.

 

The Treasury Department said it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

 

U.S. officials said the measures were intended as a model for wider action at the UN.

 

"The United States is seeking to reach a consensus between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council on the sanctions issue," one of the sources said. "This would allow it to present the five superpowers as a united coalition, which would increase the impact of the sanctions."

 

According to estimates in Washington and New York, a first American draft for the new resolution will be circulated among Security Council members in early March at the latest, and the vote will take place at the end of the month.

 

"To be honest, nobody knows for certain at the moment what China is going to do," a senior official in New York told Haaretz. "But at the end of the day, China is sensitive about its position as a superpower, and will not be able to ignore the position of other superpowers, including Russia, who support tightening the sanctions. It's not going to go against them by undermining the resolution."

 

The New York Times on Wednesday quoted officials in the Obama administration who said the U.S. president has been applying the same persuasion tack with China he earlier successfully used with Russian president Medvedev. According to the daily, Obama has placed sanctions on Iran at the top of his priorities in recent contacts with Beijing.

 

Experts, however, warned that the same tactics that brought success with Russia may not work with China. A scheduled White House visit by the Dalai Lama has infuriated the Chinese, as did a recent arms deal between the United States and Taiwan.

 

The Americans had earlier planned to begin promoting the resolution in February. France, which supports a tough line on Iran, is this month's president of the Security Council.

 

""This is a critical time for Iran's relationship with the rest of the world."

 

Brown said the international community did not want to impose sanctions but would do so if Iran did not cooperate more fully over its nuclear plans