WarSclerotic

UN Security Council unanimously agrees to deploy Syria cease-fire monitors – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

( 30 unarmed observers is the “civilized” world’s answer to Assad’s butchery of over 10,000 of his own civilians.  – JW )

Russia, China join other UNSC members to approve deployment of up to 30 unarmed observers who will monitor ceasfire in effect since Thursday; seventeen reportedly killed in Syria on Saturday.

By Reuters, DPA and Haaretz

The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously authorized the deployment of up to 30 unarmed observers to Syria to monitor the country’s fragile ceasefire, which came into effect Thursday.

Russia and China joined the other 13 council members and voted in favor of the Western-Arab draft resolution. Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, however, made clear that there were limits to the kind of UN action Moscow could support.

	A screen grab of a video Syrian opposition activists claim was filmed in Homs on Saturday, April 14, 2012.
	Photo by: AP

“Out of respect for the sovereignty of Syria we have cautioned against destructive attempts at external interference or imposing any kind of illusory fixes,” he said.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said on Saturday that Moscow was satisfied with the latest Western-Arab draft resolution authorizing the deployment of the first batch of unarmed UN observers to Syria to monitor its fragile truce.

“Having reported to our capital we are now satisfied we can vote on the resolution,” Churkin told reporters.”

Syrian forces shelled two central districts in the battered city of Homs throughout the night and into Saturday morning, a resident activist as well as a human rights group said, the first bombings since a ceasefire took hold on Thursday.

“There was shelling last night in the old part of the city, in Jouret al-Shiyah and al-Qaradis. And I have heard eight shells fall in the past hour,” Karm Abu Rabea, a resident activist who lives in an adjacent neighborhood, said on Saturday morning. Seventeen people were reportedly killed on Saturday.

An estimated 3,000 Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan since the ceasefire went into effect in Syria, according to Jordanian authorities and relief agencies. On Saturday alone some 1,000 Syrians crossed over into Jordan, said charitable associations, adding that they have witnessed a sudden rise in the number of refugees over the last three days.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report April 14, 2012, 6:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

Wendy Sherman leads US delegation at Istanbul

European diplomats close to the nuclear negotiations which Iran and six world powers launched in Istanbul Saturday, April 14 praised the first session as “constructive” because all the participants agreed that it laid the ground for a follow-up meeting in a month or six weeks. debkafile: For this modest “concession,” Tehran won its first advantage, time for advancing its nuclear weapons program and a substantial delay for any US or Israel military action to preempt this advance – up until mid-summer.
At around the same time, in July, President Barack Obama is committed to declare the next round of sanctions against Iran – a tight clampdown on its banks and oil exports.
It is doubtful if then Tehran will consent to go back to the “everything is on the table” policy it pursued surprisingly for the first time in Turkey. Until now, the Iranians refused to allow its nuclear activities, especially in the military field, to be aired at international forums.  Yet at the Saturday session, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator avoided mention of sanctions and, as debkafile predicted on April 11, did not demand the lifting of penalties as a precondition for negotiations.
His statement to the meeting was not released. European diplomatic sources only quoted him as saying generally that he was ready “to seriously engage on the Iranian nuclear issue.”
US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman is quoted as saying that “relations between Washington and Tehran need not be so bad.”
During the break for lunch, when informal meetings traditionally take place among the delegates, Sherman is reported by Western sources to have asked to talk to Jalili, but whether or not they met was not stated. Shortly after, sources in Tehran denied that the US and Iranian delegation leaders had met separately but later said Jalili had accepted her invitation.

Diplomatic circles in the West including Israel were surprised at the choice of Wendy Sherman as US delegation leader. She is reputed to be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest and most influential adviser. This is taken as a signal from Washington to Tehran that the Obama administration is more interested in improving the climate of relations with Iran at the diplomatic level than reaching understandings on the nuclear issue.
On April 7, debkafile’s Washington sources disclosed that this goal was underscored in the message from President Obama to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan delivered on March 29.

The president expressed the hope that Iranian leaders would abandon their hostile rhetoric and stop referring to the United States as their enemy. Erdogan was directed to inform the supreme leader that statements from Tehran crediting Obama’s policy for this improvement in tone would be welcomed, for example, Khamenei’s remark on March 8 in which he welcomed comments by US President Barack for “for pushing forward diplomacy and not war as a solution to Tehran’s nuclear ambition.”
This initial US approach and the absence from the American delegation of any important expert on Iran’s nuclear program have raised concern among some of America’s Western allies as well as Israel about the prospects of the Istanbul talks getting anywhere in their avowed objective of reining in Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

Iranian double agent working for Israel planted Stuxnet in nuclear facility, report says — Government Computer News.

• By Kevin McCaney
• Apr 13, 2012

An Iranian double agent working for Israel used a memory stick to plant the Stuxnet virus that disrupted Iran’s nuclear program, according to a published report quoting current and former U.S. intelligence officials.

Richard Sale, writing for ISSSource, said the agent, probably a member of an Iranian dissident group, used a corrupt memory stick.32 to implant the virus at the Natanz nuclear facility, according to the sources.

Iranian proxies, dissidents acting as double agents, also have been involved in assassinating Iran’s nuclear scientists, the sources reportedly told Sale.

Stuxnet, likely the first example of weaponized malware, was already known to have spread via memory sticks, or key drives. Introduced in late 2009, it spread quickly to systems around the world, although it was designed for only one purpose: to attack a specific version of a Siemens programmable logic controller (PLC) that was used in centrifuges for uranium enrichment at Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The worm, which used four zero-day exploits in its attacks, disrupted the rotational frequency of the centrifuges, and ultimately damaged Iran’s nuclear program, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency report.

Uranium enrichment at the Natanz plant was shut down for seven days in November 2010. Reuters reported in February that engineers had finally succeeded in scrubbing Stuxnet from their systems.

Because of its complexity and its specific target, Stuxnet has been thought to be the work of a nation-state, and the United States and Israel have often been mentioned as possibly being behind it. ISSSource — or Industrial Safety and Security Source, a site that reports on manufacturing security and safety issues — has reported that Stuxnet was part of a joint U.S.-Israeli effort aimed at Iran. (The sources who told Sale about the assassination of Iranian scientists said, however, that the United States was unaware of those operations.)

Stuxnet’s success in disrupting nuclear processing in Iran has raised fears about what similarly designed malware could do if it attacked facilities in the United States and elsewhere.

In January, Kaspersky Labs said its researchers determined that Stuxnet and Duqu, a close variant that has been found gathering information on industrial systems in Europe, are likely part of a much larger family of malware, and that future Stuxnet-style attacks are likely.

That type of malware could be used to attack power grids, water processing plants and other critical infrastructure facilities. The Homeland Security Department in November confirmed earlier research showing that prisons, which use PLCs to control doors, video systems, alarms and intercoms, are vulnerable to a Stuxnet-like worm.

The fact that much of the infrastructure in the United States in privately owned, rather than government-owned as in Iran, also could complicate the response to such attacks.

About the Author

Kevin McCaney is the managing editor of Government Computer News.

EU calls initial nuke talks with… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo: REUTERS/Tolga Adanali/Pool

ISTANBUL – World powers and Iran held talks on Tehran’s nuclear program in Istanbul on Saturday in a “constructive atmosphere”, a European Union spokesman said after the first session.

The six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain – met senior Iranian officials for the first time in 15 months for talks aimed at calming deepening tensions over Tehran’s nuclear work.

“They met in a constructive atmosphere,” said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the powers in dealings with Iran. “We had a positive feeling that they did want to engage.”

A second session of talks was scheduled later in the day. Diplomats expect Tehran to lay out “new initiatives” to push forward negotiations.

The atmosphere at the opening session of Saturday’s nuclear talks was “completely different” from that of previous meetings, a diplomat said, describing it as “a good morning”.

The diplomat said Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili had not stated the kind of preconditions that he had in the last meeting in early 2011, when the two sides failed to agree even on an agenda.

“He seems to have come with an objective to get into a process which is a serious process, which is about what we want to talk about,” said the envoy, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I would say it has been a useful morning’s work.”

The diplomat suggested the Iranian side had signaled a readiness to enter a serious engagement on the dispute over its nuclear program and that this could pave the way for a second meeting.

Western diplomats and officials had said in the run-up to the meeting in Istanbul that they hoped for enough progress to be able to schedule a new round of negotiations, perhaps in Baghdad next month.

But, the diplomat cautioned: “We could go backwards this afternoon.” He said he did not expect serious negotiations to take place already during Saturday’s talks, for example on the West’s demand that Tehran cease higher-grade uranium enrichment.

But the diplomat added that Iran had indicated “openness on all those issues”, in contrast to the last time when Iran refused to talk about its nuclear program, which it says is peaceful but the West suspects has military links.

“Not only are the atmospherics and the atmosphere completely different from what they were previously but more importantly he (Jalili) is not coming with the same preconditions and what we would consider obstacles that we saw previously,” the diplomat said.

He said Jalili’s tone in his opening statement was “calm and constructive”, even though there had been elements of “defiance and disagreement” in a second intervention during the talks with the six powers and their main representative, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

‘Vessel carrying Iranian arms se… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

04/14/2012 13:41

According to ‘Der Spiegel’ report, ship was carrying arms destined for Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Photo: Francisco Bonilla / Reuters

A German vessel carrying Iranian weapons was stopped in the Mediterranean while en route to Syria, Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

The ship, which had been chartered by a Ukrainian shipping company, was delivering weapons to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has been coping with 11-month-long mass protests against his rule. According to the report, the German government’s economic ministry has announce that it will investigate any and all smuggling attempts.

The ship was initially identified by Syrian defectors who alerted the German company of the illegal cargo aboard, the report stated.

This is not the first time a German vessel has been used to smuggle Iranian arms. In March 2011, the Israeli navy seized the Victoria cargo ship as it was sailing off Israel’s coast on its way to Egypt while flying a Liberian flag. The ship was carrying 50 tons of weaponry destined for Hamas, including advanced Iranian-made radar-guided anti-ship missiles.

The Iranian regime does not confine its weapons smuggling to German vessels. In November 2009, Israel also intercepted the Francop ship, which was sailing near Cyprus on its way to Syria. Flying an Antiguan flag, the vessel was found to be carrying around 500 tons of weaponry, including long-range Katyusha rockets.

In January, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said he was working to recruit countries from around the world to help combat what he called the “transatlantic smuggling” of weaponry from Iran to its terror proxies in the region.

Yaakov Katz contributed to this report.

‘Syrian forces shell Homs, breaking ceasef… JPost – Middle East.

By REUTERS

04/14/2012 10:13

In first bombings since tenuous truce takes hold, President Assad’s forces attack two central districts in Homs.

Photo: REUTERS

BEIRUT – Syrian forces shelled two central districts in the battered city of Homs throughout the night and into Saturday morning, a resident activist and a human rights group said, the first bombings since a ceasefire took hold on Thursday.

“There was shelling last night in the old part of the city, in Jouret al-Shiyah and al-Qaradis. And I have heard eight shells fall in the past hour,” Karm Abu Rabea, a resident activist who lives in an adjacent neighborhood, said on Saturday morning.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that shelling had wounded several people overnight.

On Friday, Syrian forces shot dead five protesters after prayers, activists reported, while the government said an army officer was killed.

Syrians took to the streets across the country in small demonstrations, trusting that the two-day-old truce that is meant to lead to political dialogue would protect them from the army bullets that have frightened off peaceful protesters for months.

Activists said security forces came out in strength in many cities to prevent protesters mounting major rallies against Assad, even though the plan of UN-Arab League envoy Annan says the government should have pulled its troops back.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the anti-Assad Local Coordination Committees said two people were killed as marchers tried to converge on a central square in the city of Hama.

Soldiers also shot one person dead as worshipers left a mosque in Nawa in the southern province of Deraa, where the uprising began in March 2011. Security forces killed a fourth in the town of Salqeen in the northwestern province of Idlib, opposition activists said, and a fifth was killed in Deraya, Damascus province.

However, Syria’s state news agency SANA blamed two of the deaths on the opposition, saying an “armed terrorist group” shot dead the man in Salqeen and attributing the death of one Hama protester to a shot fired by a fellow demonstrator.

SANA also said “terrorists” shot an army major dead as he drove to work. Armed groups were seeking to “destroy any effort to find a political solution to the crisis” in Syria, it said.

International community attempts to save Syria truce

At the United Nations, Russia said it was not satisfied with a Western-Arab draft resolution authorizing an advance UN team to monitor the fragile ceasefire which aims to end 13 months of bloodshed during the uprising against Assad, an ally of Moscow.

The council is tentatively scheduled to vote on the draft on Saturday if Russia can be persuaded to support it.

International pressure has grown for Syria to fulfill all its commitments to the former UN chief by withdrawing troops and heavy weapons, permitting humanitarian and media access, releasing prisoners and discussing a political transition.

At the Security Council, a US-drafted resolution called for an initial deployment of up to 30 unarmed UN observers.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters after an inconclusive Security Council meeting on the draft resolution that “we need to cut off all the things which are not really necessary for this particular purpose.”

In addition to authorizing UN observers, the draft criticizes Damascus for human rights violations and hints at the possibility of further action by the 15-nation council. The US and European delegations will revise it later on Friday in the hope of securing Russian support, council diplomats said.

Russia and China have vetoed two resolutions condemning Assad’s assault on anti-government protesters.

The United Nations estimates that Assad’s forces have killed more than 9,000 people since the uprising began. Authorities blame the violence on foreign-backed militants who they say have killed more than 2,500 soldiers and police.

So many Syrians have fled the violence that neighboring Turkey has begun accepting international aid to help share the cost of the caring for the nearly 25,000 refugees, including rebel fighters, who have crossed the border.Jordan is also housing almost 100,000 Syrian refugees, many more than the UN refugee agency UNHCR has registered, the foreign ministers of Turkey and Jordan told a joint news conference in Istanbul.

Israel Hayom | Arming Iraq is a mistake.

Dore Gold

Arming Iraq is a mistake As Tehran became increasingly frustrated with Turkey earlier in the week, and Iran was looking for alternative locations, besides Istanbul, to hold its nuclear talks with the West, one of the options that came up was Baghdad. It appears that since the U.S. completed the withdrawal of troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, Iran has grown increasingly comfortable, in the diplomatic sense, in the Iraqi capital. There are multiple signs indicating that Iraq is increasingly becoming a satellite state of Iran. To begin with, there is a considerable Iranian military presence within Iraq, which commands significant political influence. In January 2012, the commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, General Qassem Sulemani, was widely quoted by the Arab press as boasting that Iran today is in control of Southern Lebanon as well as Iraq. Dr. Amal al-Hazani, a professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, wrote in al-Sharq al-Awsat on January 28, 2012, that “even Sunni politicians in Iraq confessed meekly that the Quds Force is the absolute master of Iraqi affairs.” If that is the present state of affairs, then U.S. plans to build up the new Iraqi Air Force are particularly troubling. A senior IDF officer told Yaakov Katz, the Jerusalem Post’s military correspondent and defense analyst, that Israel is increasingly concerned with intelligence reports that the Revolutionary Guards are solidifying their presence in Iraq. The context of the Israeli concern is the Obama administration’s decision to go ahead with the sale of 36 advanced F-16 Block 52 fighters, which have the same capabilities as the F-16 fighter jets sold to Israel. Iraq is expected to need a total of six fighter squadrons to defend its airspace, which could lead to a force of up to 96 aircraft. At this time, the commander of the Iraqi Air Force doesn’t expect the F-16s to be operational until 2015, but Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Malaki, is pressing for accelerated delivery by 2013. There are reports that the Iraqi F-16 weapons systems, like its air-to-air missiles, will have “slight downgrades,” but these can be easily fixed. With the Iranian penetration of Iraq continuing, no one should be surprised if there are reports in the future that Iranian pilots are inspecting the Iraqi F-16s in order to develop their own countermeasures to Western aircraft and weapons systems. If the administration is equipping Iraq to be a counterweight to Iran, then somebody in Washington is making a big mistake. Arms sales to the Iraqi Air Force present a difficult dilemma for the U.S. On the one hand, arms sales are one of the oldest methods employed by the U.S. to develop pro-American attitudes among the officer corps of Arab military establishments. Early this year, Iraqi pilots arrived at an airbase in Tucson, Arizona to begin learning how to fly the F-16. They will develop relationships with their American trainers. Today in Egypt, with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the time the U.S. has invested in training, equipping and exercising with the Egyptian Army undoubtedly has helped preserve its pro-Western orientation. On the other hand, building close ties with the officers of Arab air forces does not guarantee the political orientation of their country in the future. In Iran, after the fall of the Shah, Ayatollah Khomeini purged the officer corps of the Iranian armed forces. In Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered the arrest of dozens of Turkish officers who he suspects might plot a coup against his Islamist government. In Iraq, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are right there on the ground, while the U.S. is thousands of miles away with only an embassy, which has been reduced in size, in Baghdad. Israel is not the only country which should be raising its eyebrows at the prospect of a U.S.-equipped Iraqi Air Force emerging in the years ahead. Saudi Arabia should also be concerned with the Iraqi military buildup. Politically, the two countries belong to competing axes in the Arab world. Iraq is not only pro-Iranian, it also backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Indeed, when the U.S. asked Prime Minister al-Maliki to close off Iraqi air space to Iranian aircraft resupplying Assad, he refused and opted to help Iran instead. Many forget that al-Maliki lived in exile in Iran for eight years; his party, al-Dawa, was close with Hezbollah. The Iraqi prime minister’s recent actions will undoubtedly reconfirm the suspicions of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who once called al-Maliki “an Iranian agent,” according to a March 2009 Wikileaks cable that was noted on an earlier occasion in this column. Now the “Iranian agent” will be getting state-of-the-art American aircraft. It should be recalled that Saudi Arabia is Iran’s main adversary in the Arab world and it is a leading opponent of the Assad regime. Indeed, right after the recent Arab summit in Baghdad, al-Maliki launched a verbal tirade criticizing Saudi Arabia and Qatar for their hostile attitude toward the Assad regime. Along with its growing political differences with Baghdad, Saudi Arabia will have to face new Iraqi military capabilities along its northern border, which it hasn’t had to deal with since 1990. The new situation will allow Iran to encircle Saudi Arabia with pressures on three fronts: Bahrain in the east, Yemen in the south, and Iraq in the north. Israel will need to carefully monitor political and military developments in Iraq. It is imperative that Israel raise this sale with Washington when the issue of Israel’s qualitative military edge is raised. Iraq has been absent from the strategic balance in the Middle East for two decades. Besides investing in its air force, the Iraqi government hopes to build a land army of 14 divisions. It is also buying Abrams tanks from the U.S. But as much as Washington will still try to control events in a country where its army once ruled, it will have to recognize that, unfortunately, Iran, at present, is emerging as the dominant power in Baghdad, which will ultimately influence what strategic objectives the Iraqi Army will serve along Israel’s eastern front.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

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.