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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis April 13, 2012, 11:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

Watching the North Korean missile launch

In their different ways, the rulers of Iran, North Korea and Syria this week tried to throw US President Barack Obama off balance by exploiting the foreign policy balls he is juggling to win the November election – a combination of tough talk and  maneuvers to avoiding military confrontation.
Wednesday, April 11, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  chose Abu Musa island near the Strait of Hormuz to offer the Arab Gulf rulers a piece of advance:  “…they should take a look at the map of Iran so that they understand about which great and powerful country they are talking.”
Turning to threats, he said: “Some of these countries give their oil money to the arrogant powers so that it can be used against another country. But they must be aware that their days are numbers and one day, the oil money will be used against themselves.”
Was he setting the tone for the resumed nuclear talks opening in Istanbul Saturday, April 14, between his government and six world powers (US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany)?
Or reminding them that when sanctions were first imposed on Iran to counter its nuclear program oil sold at $25 the barrel whereas it has since soared to $110?

As for Iran’s Arab neighbors across the Gulf, Ahmadinejad was giving them an ominous geostrategic lesson:  Saudi Arabia was 1,034 kilometers away from Abu Musa and the Hormuz waterway which carried their oil to market, whereas Abu Musa was only 183.5 kilometers and bristling with a profusion of Iranian military hardware, notably sea-mines, explosives-packed speedboats and shore-to-sea missiles. They are all in position to block the Strait of Hormuz and strike at the lifelines of Gulf oil producers, their wells and infrastructure. No need to wage full-blown war on Saudi Arabia to bring disaster down on the world’s key oil-producing region.
Therefore, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remark Thursday, April 12, that Tehran has sent “mixed signals, hinting toward a compromise” hardly connects with reality, unless she was referring to signals filtered

through secret channels.
The Iranian president was obviously crowing over Tehran’s success in preserving Syrian President Bashar Assad in power and vowing to make Gulf nations pay for backing his enemies.
A large Saudi delegation headed by Defense Minister Prince Salman visited London and Washington this week. In addition to their top-level talks with President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron and their heads of defense, they also talked to British and US army chiefs dealing with the military side of the Persian Gulf. In London, Prince Salman had a long conversation with Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant and later in Washington with Gen. James Mattis and the president’s adviser on terror John O. Brennan.
Their focus of concern appeared to have shifted from a possible US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program and its consequences over to a potential clash between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
On Syria, Obama and Saudi King Abdullah are at odds. The former stands solidly against US military intervention against the Assad regime, whereas the latter is pressing for heightened Western and Arab military involvement in Syria including a supply of heavy weapons for the rebels fighting government forces. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was in Riyadh Wednesday but failed to convince the king to line up behind the Washington-Ankara policy on Syria.
With Iranian and Russian support, Assad has managed to turn the tables on Turkey. Friday’s Saudi newspaper Shawq al–Awsat mocked Ankara and its oft-repeated, never-fulfilled proposal to set up a buffer zone in Syria for refugees with a sarcastic headline: “Did al-Assad set up a buffer zone in Turkey?”
The first two days of the Syrian ceasefire, which was declared as part of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan, were encouraging in that the number of deaths from violence declined from the horrendous norm. At the same time, outbreaks here and there were still current and Syrian troops and heavy weapons remained in the cities.

The UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon and peace envoy Kofi Annan are convinced that rushing UN observers into Syria and getting them on the ground will stabilize the ceasefire. But most Syria watchers are skeptical. Assad is firm in the saddle.
As for the Istanbul talks, debkafile’s military sources report the conviction in the State Department that Iran is not coming to the table to resolve its nuclear dispute with the world, but rather as a toe in the water to gauge the strength of Obama’s resolve to terminate its nuclear program.  Iran’s resolve is unquestioned. As Ahmadinejad put it, “Iran will not retreat one iota from its nuclear rights.”

Like Syria and North Korea, Iran is gambling on Obama dropping back in time to avoid real confrontation with the Tehran-Moscow-Beijing line-up.

debkafile’s military sources report that North Korea is playing on the same pitch. Despite the breakup of the Unha-3 carrier rocket, supposedly to boost a satellite into orbit, shortly after takeoff from Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri Thursday, April 13, North Korea has established four facts:

1. It is very close to the capacity for building multistage intercontinental ballistic missiles and will keep on conducting tests until the technology is fully mastered:
2.  Pyongyang is set for its third nuclear test;
3. It is well on the way to an ICBM with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching Washington and not just Tokyo;
4.   As it forges ahead, North Korea displays extreme indifference to the threats of world powers, United Nations censure or even the cancellation of US food aid just announced.

Its rulers are bucked up by the information reaching them about the mood in Washington – not from Chinese intelligence but American mainstream media. They agree that President Obama aims to woo the American voter by sounding tough but staying clear of military confrontations with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Bashar Assad and Kim Jong-un.
This posture was summed up succinctly by Leslie H. Gelb in the Daily Beast: “Typically, Mr. Obama is reacting like almost all his predecessors in presidential-election years: he is trying to simultaneously show strength and avoid war. He is walking the familiar tightrope…”

Going into critical talks in Istanbul Saturday with a tough customer like Iran on a tightrope, the US president wobbles over dangerous waters, say DEBKAfle’s sources:  A misjudgment could suddenly make him lose his balance; Iran, Syria or North Korea may push him off-balance; in his anxiety to avoid war, he may, as is often the case, cause one – maybe without American involvement but most certainly one that sets up high turbulence across the entire Middle East.

Fars News Agency :: Iranian Negotiator: Iran, World Powers to Wrap Up Talks on Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Member of the Iranian team of negotiators and Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Undersecretary Ali Baqeri informed that the talks between Tehran and the six world powers in Istanbul Turkey will last for one day.

“The talks will be held in one day and will not continue for a second day,” Baqeri told reporters in Istanbul Friday evening and after meeting the head of the Russian delegation to the talks Sergey Ryabkov at Iran’s consulate office.

Baqeri and the EU foreign policy deputy chief were in charge of discussions over the date and venue of the talks.

On Friday and prior to his remarks to the reporters, Baqeri met with the heads of the Chinese and Russian delegations.

During the first meeting, Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and head of Beijing’s delegation to the Istanbul talks Ma Zhaoxu underlined the necessity for a lesser hostile attitude by the West towards Iran.

The Chinese official also presented some offers on how to move forward, and noted, “The first round of talks should focus on determining the general principles and objectives of the talks in a bid to guarantee a calm start for the trend of the negotiations.”

Baqeri, for his part, said that Iran has entered the talks with new initiatives and with a constructive attitude.

Also, Head of the Russian delegation Sergey Ryabkov told reporters before his meeting with Baqeri that there is no shred of evidence to indicate that Iran is running a military nuclear activity.

“I have never witnessed any proof or document indicating that Iran’s nuclear activity is military,” Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, told reporters at Iran’s consulate office in Istanbul on Friday.

“I believe that we should be seeking agreements, instead of magnifying differences, in order to resolve the issue,” he added.

Asked to comment on Iran’s right to enrich uranium, the Russian diplomat said, “According to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the Islamic Republic of Iran is entitled to the right to make use of the nuclear energy, but this right is accompanied by some responsibilities.”

After a year of stalled talks, Iran and the G5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) eventually accepted to resume their negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 14 and in case of good progress hold a second round of talks in Iraq’s capital city, Baghdad.

The last meeting between the two sides took place in Istanbul in January 2011. Iran and the G5+1 had also held two rounds of multifaceted talks in Geneva in December 2010.

The Iranian team of negotiators is led by Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili, while delegations of the six world powers are headed by EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton.

Salehi: Iran seeks dialogue, tru… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By REUTERS

04/13/2012 07:02

Iranian FM pens opinion piece in ‘Washington Post’ saying both sides must be willing to give and take without preconditions.

Photo: REUTERS

WASHINGTON – Iran hopes all sides in upcoming talks on its nuclear program will commit to comprehensive dialogue and that negotiators make “genuine efforts to reestablish confidence and trust,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Friday.

Salehi said that to “solve the nuclear issue,” the scope of talks this weekend in Istanbul between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany must address the concerns of all sides.

“Complex matters that have been left unaddressed for decades cannot be solved overnight,” Salehi said. “Another sign of mutual respect is a willingness and readiness to both give and take, without preconditions.”

Salehi said dialogue “must be seen as a process” and not an event.

“If the intention of dialogue is merely to prevent cold conflict from turning hot, rather than to resolve differences, suspicion will linger. Trust will not be established,” Salehi said.

The P5+1 group – Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany – will meet with Iran for the first time in more than a year, hoping Tehran will give enough ground on its nuclear program to extend negotiations and avert the possibility of an Israeli or US military strike on Iran.

Salehi said Iran had many times “marked our opposition to weapons of mass destruction.”

Tehran says it is refining uranium solely for electricity and medical treatments. Western states do not believe that.

Major powers want the Iranians to outline steps to show that they have abandoned any pursuit of nuclear arms, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.

“We are receiving signals that they are bringing ideas to the table,” Clinton told reporters. “We want them to demonstrate, clearly, in the actions they propose that they have truly abandoned any nuclear weapons ambition.”

“We are looking for concrete results. And of course, in a negotiation, we understand that the Iranians will be asking for assurances or actions from us and we will certainly take those under consideration,” Clinton said, without providing details.

Iran ships ‘off radar’ as Tehran… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo: Francisco Bonilla / Reuters

LONDON – Iran is concealing the destination of its oil sales by disabling tracking systems aboard its tanker fleet, making it difficult to assess how much crude Tehran is exporting as it seeks to counter Western sanctions aimed at cutting its oil revenues.

Most of Iran’s 39-strong fleet of tankers is now “off-radar” after Tehran ordered captains in the National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) to switch off the black box transponders that are used in the shipping industry to monitor vessel movements, oil industry, trading and shipping sources said.

“Iran, helped by its customers, is trying to obfuscate as much as possible,” said a senior executive at a national oil company that has done business with Iran.

And Iran may have countered a reported reduction in its oil sales in March by offering big discounts in the form of free freight, finance and insurance and generous credit terms, the sources said.

Europe’s July 1 oil embargo, and US and European financial sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program have seen Tehran’s oil sales drop to most Western destinations and drawn promises from some Asian buyers that they will cut pruchases.

But cheap, covert sales may have curbed or even reversed the reduction in shipments, the sources say.

Discretion is paramount.

Ship captains steering NITC supertankers have switched off recognition systems and customers are keeping business strictly under wraps.

“People are being very secretive right now. They are not talking about this on email, Yahoo or mobile,” said the head of a crude oil desk at a top oil trading houses.

A Reuters’ survey of the Iranian fleet via the ship tracking system AIS (Automatic Identification System) Live shows only seven of its 25 very large crude carriers are still operating on-board transponders, allowing computers to track vessels.

Only two of NITC’s nine smaller Suezmax size tankers now have their tracking systems in operation, shipping sources say.

“NITC oil tankers are going to operate in stealth mode,” said a shipping official, who declined to be identified.

Under normal circumstances, tankers would generally not turn off their tracking systems, which were introduced to improve safety at sea and allow marine authorities to locate vessels.

Ships are obliged by international law to have a satellite tracking device on board when traveling at sea. However, a ships’ master has the discretion to turn off the device on safety grounds with the permission on the vessel’s flag state.

Some tankers turned off their trackers to avoid detection last year during the Libyan civil war in order to trade with the Gaddafi government.

As sanctions make it harder to pay for and ship oil from Iran, it is increasingly difficult to gauge how much is moving out of the country’s main terminal at Kharg Island.

Iran’s Oil Minister, Rostam Qasemi, has said Tehran’s crude exports are steady at last year’s rate of 2.2 million barrels per day. But that has been hard to square with tanker tracker data and market intelligence.

Expert opinion is that Iran’s visible crude oil sales fell to about 1.9 million bpd in March.

These calculations are backed by some of the best oil industry forecasters in the business including the International Energy Agency and Geneva-based Petrologistics, the respected tanker tracking consultant which monitors global oil shipments.

New estimates for April put Iranian exports down by as much as 500,000 bpd from last year.

The trouble is there is no hard evidence that Iran’s oil production has actually fallen or that it is going into storage.

Millions of barrels of Iranian oil that were in storage in Iranian tankers a few weeks ago now seem to have disappeared, ship tracking data shows.

So where is it going? Has it been re-routed, has production been shut in or is the oil being stored somewhere else? Is it all being stored at sea?

“It’s the million-dollar question – the billion-dollar question even,” a senior executive in Asia at a large oil trading house said.

The hunt is getting more complicated as OPEC’s second biggest producer comes up with a range of tactics to avoid scrutiny.

“Some big Asian companies may be taking oil on Iranian ships provided they switch off the transponders,” said another European shipping industry source.

A trader in Singapore said Iran has managed to sell all the crude stored on half a dozen vessels floating off Singapore earlier in the year. The buyers were mainly Chinese and South Korean.

Given the lack of visibility of NITC’s fleet, it will become increasingly difficult to measure floating storage. Industry sources say parts of the fleet were storing up to 12 million barrels of crude in March. That has now disappeared.

An NITC official, contacted by Reuters, declined to comment. NITC have declined to give press interviews for several weeks.

Tehran is about to have greater flexibility in disguising the locations for oil sales. NITC will take delivery of the first of 12 new supertankers to be delivered from China in May.