WarSclerotic

EU moves towards agreement on de… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    BRUSSELS – European Union states drawing up details of an oil embargo on Iran have given wide backing to a proposal to allow European entities to continue to receive repayments in oil for debts they are currently owed by Iranian firms, EU diplomats said.

The 27 states are also working towards a phased implementation of a ban on imports of oil and petrochemical products from Iran. One diplomat said a consensus was emerging that the oil import ban should come into force after six months and the petrochemical product ban after three – similar to provisions in US legislation.

The EU said it brought forward by a week, to Jan. 23, a meeting at which foreign ministers from the bloc, rivaling China as Iran’s biggest customer for crude, are expected to confirm an embargo on oil purchases.

Though officially a mere administrative shift to avoid a diary clash with a meeting of EU leaders on Jan. 30, bringing the foreign ministers’ meeting forward could increase the pace of implementation of sanctions, following US President Barack Obama’s move on New Year’s Eve to stop payments to Iran for oil.

Earlier Thursday, Japan pledged to take concrete action to cut Iranian oil imports in response to an appeal for support from visiting US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as Washington steps up efforts to sanction Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.

Geithner welcomed Tokyo’s cooperation, an encouraging sign for US foreign policy after China rebuffed US sanctions aimed at starving Iran of the oil revenues that provide the country of 74 million people with a vital economic support.

Iran faces the prospects of cutbacks in oil sales to China, Japan and India, its top three buyers who together take more than 40 percent of its crude exports. The European Union, a major buyer, has committed to banning imports of Iranian oil.

Japan Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Iranian crude makes up 10 percent of Japan’s overall oil imports.

“We would like to take action concretely to further reduce (that) in a planned manner,” he said after meeting Geithner.

“On the other hand, we need some time in non-crude oil related areas, so I asked the Secretary to take Japan’s situation into consideration.”

Cutting Iranian crude imports would not be without risks for Japan. The country relies on imports for its energy needs and has to import more fuel to make up for waning use of nuclear power following last year’s nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

Japan took precautions in case it joins an international embargo on buying Iranian crude by asking Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to help it make up any shortfall.

Iran’s envoy to the UN nuclear body, the International Atomic Energy Agency, was scathing about reactions to Monday’s news, confirmed by the IAEA, that the Fordow site was enriching uranium – something Western powers say is aimed at developing nuclear arms, rather than the civilian uses that Iran asserts.

Noting that Fordow had been monitored by the IAEA for two years, Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Iran’s ISNA news agency that Western reaction had “political purposes.” The clerical leadership in Tehran, under pressure from sanctions that are disrupting the economy ahead of a parliamentary election, often accuses Western powers of seeking to overthrow it.

The Islamic Republic’s decision to carry out enrichment work deep underground at Fordow could eventually make it much harder for US or Israeli forces to carry out veiled threats to use force against Iranian nuclear facilities. That in turn could narrow a time window for diplomacy to avert any attack.

The US State Department on Monday called uranium enrichment at Fordow a “further escalation” of Iran’s “ongoing violations” of UN resolutions.

France called for measures of “unprecedented scale and severity” against Tehran. Germany and Britain also condemned it. Others, including Greece and Italy, which are bigger customers for Iranian oil, are seeking delays before cutting off imports.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 12, 2012, 10:46 AM (GMT+02:00)

Turkish FM Davutoglu with Iranian President Ahmadinejad

When IDF Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi accused Iran and Hizballah Wednesday, Jan. 11of directly helping Bashar Assad repress the uprising against him with arms, Turkey had just taken a stand against the Iranian corridor running weapons to Syria via its territory, debkafile‘s military sources report.
Earlier this week, Ankara reported halting five Iranian trucks loaded with weapons for Syria at the Killis Turkish-Syrian border crossing and impounding its freight. According to our intelligence sources, the Iranian convoy was not really stopped at Killis but at the eastern Turkish Dobubayazit border crossing with Iran, near Mount Ararat. This supply route for Syria had been going strong for months. Ankara’s decision to suspend it has reduced its volume by 60 percent.

The Turks kept very quiet about the Dogubayazit route because disclosure would have exposed them as working two sides of the Syrian conflict – letting Tehran set up a clandestine arms route for helping the Assad regime crack down on protest, while publicly posing as the leading champions of the Syrian protest movement – even to providing the Free Syria Army with bases and training facilities.

The influx of Iranian arms supplies via Turkey gave the Syrian army a major boost in quelling the uprising especially in the restive towns of Hama, Homs and Idlib, where demonstrations have dwindled. Now Ankara is worried about the consequences. Thursday, President Abdullah Gul raised fears of the Syrian uprising mutating into civil war. Our sources report that Ankara is concerned that sectarian conflict in Syria could spill over into Turkey.

In fact, as debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report exclusively, Ankara changed course against Iran after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Tehran on Jan. 5. His mission was to warn Iranian leaders including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom he met that Turkey will not stand for Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb and would act to disrupt its program.
Although his visit was officially presented as an effort to broker the resumption of long-stalled nuclear talks between Tehran and the five world powers plus Germany (P5+1), Davutoglu in fact informed Ahmadinejad in no-nonsense terms, “Turkey can’t live between two nuclear powers, one to the north (Russia) and one to the east (Iran).” The minister warned that if Tehran goes into production of a nuclear weapon, Ankara’s first step would be to open the door for NATO forces to deploy along its border with Iran.

According to debkafile sources, Davutoglu gave Ahmadinejad a week to clarify the information reaching the West that Tehran had already begun assembling a nuclear weapon, so belying the persistent Iranian claim that its nuclear program is peaceful. After that, he said, Ankara would embark on progressively tougher counter-action.

And indeed, when clarifications from Tehran had not been received by Tuesday, Jan. 10, Turkey went into action to halt the Iranian weapons convoy to Syria.

Taking advantage of the new opportunities presented by the US military departure from Iraq last month, Iranian officials the next day, Wednesday, Jan. 11, ordered Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to shut the Iraqi-Jordanian border to convoys carrying Turkish export goods to Persian Gulf destinations.
The following day, Thursday, Iran’s Speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani, turned up in Ankara to try and sort things out between Iran and Turkey before they got out of hand.