Iran fuel deal would not fix nuclear issue-France | Reuters.

PARIS, May 17 (Reuters) – A Turkish-Brazilian deal to help Iran swap nuclear fuel might boost international trust in Tehran, but it would do nothing to resolve problems over Iran’s nuclear programme, the French Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said France wanted to see details of the accord, announced earlier on Monday, before judging its merits.

“However, let us not deceive ourselves, a solution to the (fuel) question, if it happens, would do nothing to settle the problem posed by the Iranian nuclear programme,” he said in a statement. (Reporting by Crispian Balmer)

FOXNews.com – Iran’s Latest Game of Charades.

Iran has just announced it will ship uranium to Turkey, to be enriched and returned as fuel for Iran’s nuclear energy plants. Sounds good right?

Wrong. Iran is shipping only part of its uranium — the rest is staying put at the covert enrichment plant at Qom, where it’s an integral part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

So why bother? Because Iran doesn’t want to give the U.S. or Israel an excuse to attack its nuclear sites. It doesn’t want the UN, especially U.N. Security Council members Russia and China, to impose severe economic and gasoline sanctions for being non-compliant on nuclear enrichment. Those trading partners don’t want to be dragged into sanctions either – they don’t see Iran’s nuclear weapons program presenting a threat to their security. So the deal announced today gives them all an excuse to ease off on sanctions, while allowing Iran to continue secretly enriching uranium to weapons grade quality.

The deal Iran has just announced is mostly a charade. The country is pretending to halt its nuclear enrichment program in hopes that we pretend to believe them. Meanwhile, the world is edging closer and closer to a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the world.

Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com’s DefCon 3. She is a Distinguished Adviser to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. She wrote Secretary of Defense Weinberger’s November 1984 “Principles of War Speech” which laid out the Weinberger Doctrine. Be sure to watch “K.T.” and Mike Baker every Monday at 10 a.m. on FoxNews.com’s “DefCon3” already one of the Web’s most watched national security programs.

‘Nuclear swap deal may not be enough’.

White House: Iran still must prove its nuclear program is peaceful – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran vows to continue high-grade nuclear fuel enrichment despite swap deal; Russia: Iran nuclear fuel swap deal may not allay world fears.

By News Agencies and Shlomo Shamir Tags: Israel news Iran nuclear Brazil Turkey

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, flashes a victory sign before signing an agreement with Turkey and Brazil to send low-grade nuclear fuel abroad, on May 17, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

The White House said Monday that Washington and its international partners remained seriously concerned about Tehran’s nuclear program, but that it would be a positive step for Iran to transfer low-enriched uranium off of its soil as it agreed to do in October.

“Iran must take the steps necessary to assure the international community that its nuclear program is intended exclusively for peaceful purposes,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

Gibbs acknowledged efforts made by Turkey and Brazil, and said the proposal must “be conveyed clearly and authoritatively” to the International Atomic Energy Agency before it can be considered by the international community.

“Given Iran’s repeated failure to live up to its own commitments and the need to address fundamental issues related to Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and international community continue to have serious concerns,” Gibbs said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier Monday cautiously welcomed the Iranian fuel swap deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey, but said that questions remained that may fail to allay international fears over Tehran’s contentious nuclear program.

“One question is: will Iran itself enrich uranium? As far as I understand from officials of that state, such work will be continued. In this case, of course, those concerns that the international community had before could remain,” Medvedev said.

Iran agreed with Brazil and Turkey on Monday that it would send some of its uranium abroad, abruptly ending its refusal to countenance such a deal just as the United Nations Security Council readied tougher sanctions.

“The question arises – is the level of this swap operation sufficient? Will all members of the international community be satisfied? I don’t know,” Medvedev said. “We need to see what follows this declaration.”

Medvedev said consultations were needed with Iran and all major powers involved in the negotiations about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

“After this, we need to decide what to do: Are those proposals sufficient or is something else needed? So I think a small pause on this problem would not do any harm,” he said.

He said he would speak later in the day to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to discuss the issue.

Medvedev’s fears were voiced just hours after an Iranian official vowed that Tehran would continue its uranium enrichment activities, including production of 20 percent enriched uranium even after signing the nuclear fuel swap deal.

“There is no relation between the swap deal and our enrichment activities … We will continue our 20 percent uranium enrichment work,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

Iran signed an agreement late Sunday with mediators Brazil and Turkey for a nuclear fuel swap designed to allay international concern over the Islamic Republic’s atomic ambitions and avert fresh sanctions on Tehran.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said after the deal was signed that he saw no need for the West to pursue harsher United Nations Security Council sanctions.

U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, called the deal a “potentially good development,” describing it as: “an example of what we all hope for, which is a diplomatic system that encourages good behavior on the part of the Iranian regime.”

But he added: “Obviously we have a million miles to go.”

Iran said it had agreed to swap 1,200 kg of its low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched nuclear fuel, to be used in a medical research reactor. The exchange would take place in Turkey, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

Iran, which rejects Western accusations it is seeking to develop nuclear bombs, had earlier insisted such a swap must take place on its territory.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on six world powers, which have been discussing further UN sanctions on the major oil producer, for fresh talks on Iran’s nuclear program after the fuel exchange agreement.

“Following the signing of the nuclear fuel swap deal, it is time for 5+1 countries to enter talks with Iran based on honesty, justice and mutual respect,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany.

There was no immediate comment from Washington, which has been leading a Western push to impose additional punitive measures on Tehran.

Turkey and Brazil, both non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, had offered to mediate to find a resolution to the impasse. It was seen as the last chance to avoid a fourth round of UN sanctions.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan discussed the deal with Ahmadinejad in Tehran, Iranian state media reported.

“The swap will take place in Turkey,” Mehmanparast told reporters, shortly before the agreement was signed by ministers in front of reporters.

Mehmanparast said Iran would send low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month and that it would be under the supervision of the UN nuclear agency, state Press TV reported.

Major world powers had urged Iran to accept a months-old International Atomic Energy Agency plan to ship 1,200 kg (2,646 lb) of its low-enriched uranium – enough for a single bomb if purified to a high enough level – abroad for transformation into fuel for a medical research reactor.

The proposal, backed by the United States, Russia and France, was aimed at giving time for diplomatic talks with Iran.

Tehran agreed in principle to the deal in October but then demanded changes such as a simultaneous swap on Iranian soil, conditions other parties in the deal said were unacceptable.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Turkey would be obliged to return Iran’s LEU “immediately and unconditionally” if Monday’s agreement between Iran, Brazil and Turkey was not implemented.

“Based on the agreement signed this morning, if the swap does not take place, then Turkey will be obliged to send back our dispatched uranium immediately and unconditionally,” Mottaki said.

Trita Parsi, director of Washington-based National Iranian American Council, said a potential breakthrough had been made in the long-running dispute, saying Turkey and Brazil had succeeded in filling a “trust gap”.

“But will the deal be satisfactory to the U.S.? With the details remaining unknown, it’s impossible to speculate,” Parsi said in an e-mail comment.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Celebration in Tehran

Iran can keep its nuclear program afloat with a quiet mind and without fear of international harassment, thanks to the intercession of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva “Lula” and Turkish prime minister Reccep Erdogan. They clinched a deal in Tehran Monday, May 17, for Iran to export some 1,200 kilograms of its lightly enriched uranium to Turkey for reprocessing to 19.5 percent grade.
The two leaders mounted their initiative on behalf of the nascent anti-American bloc also backed by Russia, as well as Iran’s close allies Syria, Hizballah and Hamas.

There was no immediate response from Washington.
From a wide range of data, debkafile‘s military sources confirm the deal is wholly fraudulent and no more than a piece of diplomatic trickery.
1. Turkey does not possess the facilities for reprocessing enriched uranium to a higher level, unlike Russia and France, which also have the technology to block its further enrichment to weapons-grade and whose services Tehran rejected.
2. The deal legitimizes Iran’s right to enriched uranium of a higher grade, which can be converted in short order to fuel for a nuclear bomb. Tehran has now gained an international seal for going up to weapons grade.

3.  Given the close bonds unfolding between Turkey, Iran and Syria, no independent agency can expect a chance to monitor the transaction or find out the actual quantity of enriched uranium Tehran is in fact exporting to Turkey.
4.  The Six-Power group’s compromise proposition for the export of 1.200 kilograms of low-enriched Iranian uranium was put forward more than a year ago and left hanging. There is no telling how much enriched uranium Tehran has produced in the interim period. Therefore, the quantity Iran has agreed to send to Turkey may be a drop in the ocean. In any case, the deal leaves Tehran with all the necessary infrastructure for continuing to build up its stocks of enriched uranium – and at a higher grade.
5. US president Barack Obama’s insistence on engaging Iran in diplomacy and concentrating the effort on curbing Iran’s product of enriched uranium has led up a blind alley after being outmaneuvered by Tehran and its backers.
The Iranians can use the phony deal pulled off by Lula and Erdogan as a recipe for putting paid to all hopes of the UN Security Council uniting behind a resolution for reining in their drive for a nuclear bomb. It has stripped the United States of levers for controlling the most dangerous peril besetting Middle East stability in the immediate future.
The Brazilian and Turkish rulers were not alone; they maintained constant communication with Moscow in the last ten days, during which Russian president Dmitry Medvedev made trips to Damascus and Ankara, the Brazilian president’s stopped over in Moscow on his way to Tehran Sunday, May 16, and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin kept an open line to the prime movers in the anti-US group’s scheme to get Tehran off the nuclear hook.

After the signing, the Brazilian, Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers announced they expected by the Six Power Group led by the United States to approve the deal within a week and  delivery of Iranian enriched uranium to Turkey a month later.

Turkish foreign minister Ahmed Davutoglu said he saw no need for further sanctions against Iran, even though the foreign ministry spokesman in Tehran said the deal brokered between the three powers would not prevent Iran from continuing to enrich uranium up to 20 percent inside the country.

For now, stay ambiguous – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

By Yossi Melman

Determining the real threat to peace in the Middle East | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

As Israel marked its 62nd anniversary on May 15, a familiar rift was occurring with a U.S. administration over the settlements issue. This time, the matter involved Jerusalem, specifically Israel’s expansion of existing settlement in the Old City.

Most Americans may be forgiven for wondering why Israel’s people should be told where they can or cannot build in their own ancient capital. They would also be surprised to learn that Washington doesn’t recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s modern capital. While the U.S. has long been Israel’s most steadfast ally, when it comes to Jerusalem, America stands with most nations in declining to locate its embassy there.

The rationale for this refrain is this: East Jerusalem was part of the real estate taken by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. Like other territory gained in that conflict, it is viewed as an obstacle to peace so long as Israel holds it.

Is it?

One way to find out is to look at the pre-1967 Middle East. Even a cursory examination suggests that the problem isn’t Israel’s reluctance to relinquish land, but her enemies’ refusal to recognize a Jewish state on any land, no matter how minuscule.

Unfortunately, this was true from the beginning. In 1917, Britain’s Balfour Declaration declared the right of the Jews to a homeland in what was then called Palestine. When the Arabs protested, London considered abandoning the Declaration. In 1922, it broke off nearly 80 percent of Palestine, setting it aside as a new Arab homeland called Transjordan. Jewish settlement there was banned.

This left the Jews with only 20 percent of original Palestine. Yet they accepted this outcome, while the Arabs did not. The massacre of Jewish civilians in Hebron in 1929 was a grisly display of the refusal to countenance Zionist settlement in what was left of Palestine. This readiness to endorse mass violence was embodied by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, an Arab Muslim leader in Palestine who spent World War II in Nazi Germany cheerleading the Holocaust and urging its extension into the Middle East.

After World War II, in 1947, the United Nations voted for a Partition Plan that took part of the 20 percent and gave it to the Arabs. Once again, the Jews embraced the plan, while the Arabs rejected it.

In his book, “The Cause for Peace,” Trygve Lie, the UN Secretary General, wrote that having opposed the Partition Plan, the Arabs “seemed determined to drive that point home by assaults upon the Jewish community of Palestine.” Some of these assaults included bombing apartment buildings in Jerusalem, killing students at Hebrew University near Jerusalem, and massacring 78 Jewish doctors, scientists, and nurses on the road to Hadassah Hospital.

Arab leaders did not dispute this charge. In April 1948, Jamal Husseini told the U.N. Security Council that in response to the charge that the Arabs had begun the fighting, “we did not deny this. We told the whole world we were going to fight.”

On May 15, 1948, the State of Israel was declared. The Arabs’ response was to try to strangle it in its cradle. Armies from six Arab nations invaded. That same day, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, proclaimed, “This will be a war of extermination…”

It wasn’t. Israel prevailed, repelling the invasions.

This was the first of many times in which the Jewish state’s foes launched a “heads-we-win-tails-you lose” campaign. From direct wars on Israel to terrorist strikes against its populace, Israel’s enemies knew that if they won, Israel would be destroyed but that if Israel prevailed, the international community would make sure there would be no price to pay.

That changed with the 1967 war.

On May 15, 1967, the forces of Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdul Nasser moved into the Sinai. On May 17, Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs proclaimed, “All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel.” The following day, it promised “the extermination of Zionist existence.” On May 20, Syria’s Defense Minister and its future leader, Hafez Assad, proclaimed that “the time has come to enter into the battle of liberation.” On May 27, Nasser proclaimed, “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel.” The following day, he said there would be no “co-existence with Israel.” adding that “the war with Israel has been in effect since 1948.” Then on May 30, Jordan, formerly Transjordan, signed a military pact with Nasser.

Rather than wait to absorb the impending attack, Israel struck first, defeating its would-be invaders. This time, a cost was extracted from her enemies. Israel took territory, including the Golan Heights from Syria, which had been used to fire on Israelis, the Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan.

Both Egypt and Jordan eventually decided to recognize Israel and received land back in return. Moreover, Israel has unilaterally left Gaza.

As for the long-standing issue of Arabs displaced during the 1948 war, Israel offered Yasir Arafat a Palestinian state in 2000 in return for full recognition of its right to exist. Arafat responded by launching a multi-year terror campaign against Israel’s civilians.

In short, history dispels the notion that Israel’s occupation of additional land since the 1967 war is the cause of Arab/Israel hostilities. Rather, it is the refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist that drives the conflict. Were it not so, there would have been no conflict before 1967.

Indeed, it is ironic that as the world remains fixated on a mythical obstacle to peace, the prospect of real and unprecedented war looms as Iran, another foe of Israel and opponent of the West, moves closer to realizing its nuclear ambitions. This would be the culmination of nearly three decades of its regime’s fanning terrorism’s flames, from its role in the creation and support of Hezbollah in Lebanon to its actively aiding Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza.

Which is the real threat to peace: Israelis building houses or Iranian mullahs building a bomb? That is the question for today.

Paul Liben has worked in New York City and Washington, DC as a speechwriter for the past 15 years.   He served as a speechwriter for New York Governor George Pataki and then as director of speechwriting for U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.   A published writer, he has written op-eds for more than 100 publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer and Houston Chronicle.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Emanuel Netanyau Obama

The start of a new friendship?

After more than a year, US president Barack Obama has suddenly stepped back form his icy treatment of Israel and its prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, debkafile‘s Washington sources report. In an effort to make amends, he sent his top advisers, including his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, with a public apology (of a kind) to leading American rabbis.
Our sources add that under new White House guidelines, US Middle East envoy George Mitchell should not try and extract from Israel more concessions that it is willing to offer, when he leads the proximity talks with the Palestinians starting this week.
The Obama U-turn dashes Palestinian hopes of the US president holding his own solution ready to impose on Israel in the event of the talks foundering or winding down in September without progress.
Political and Jewish circles see the change as an attempt win back Jewish voter support for the Democrats, eroded over the downturn in US-Israel relations, for the forthcoming midterm elections.
debkafile‘s Washington sources stress that the context is a lot wider. The US president knows the time has come to count his assets in the face of the dramatic big power realignment in the Middle East and the diplomatic impasse over Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb.
After fourteen months in the White House, Barack Obama has suddenly discovered that he has no other strategic ally in the region to rely on except for Israel.
Netanyahu may be justified in crowing over his critics at home. His decision to stand up to the US president’s cold shoulder, insults and pressure, has been vindicated, whereas defense minister Ehud Barak and opposition leader Tzipi Liivni have been confounded in their dire warnings that refusal to surrender in a big way to the Palestinians would gravely jeopardize US-Israel relations.
A senior source in Washington told debkafile Sunday, May 16, that the Israeli prime minister has chalked up an impressive achievement; he can expect warmth and friendship from the administration in the foreseeable future in place of the coolness hitherto.

This does not mean Obama has given up on his objective of a two-state solution of the conflict with the Palestinians, but the arm-twisting tactics have been set aside for now.

Obama’s new look on Israel was manifested in the words of Rahm Emanuel, when he met a carefully selected  group of 15 rabbis from across the United States Thursday, May 13 along with fellow White House officials, including Dennis Ross, senior presidential adviser on Iran and Dan Shapiro, head of Middle East desk at the National Security Council.
Emanuel was the most outspoken when he said the Obama administration had “screwed up the messaging” about his support for Israel over the past 14 months. He promised the White House would work to undo the damage, but said it would take “more than one month to make up for 14 months.”

Whether or not the Netanyahu government will be satisfied with this crudely-worded White House “apology” -addressed to American Jewish rabbis rather than Jerusalem – remains to be seen. Much will depend on the actions the Obama administration takes to undo the damage to which it has now owned up.

Iran agrees to uranium exchange.

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Emanuel to rabbis: US ‘screwed up’.