Iran ( remember when that was THE hot button subject in the Middle East ) ..... Bushehr to be handed over to Iran for full operational control - shortly .............Back and forth on Iran's nuclear program and talks related to same !

Bushehr to be fully placed in Iranian hands shortly.......

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920523000269

Wed Aug 14, 2013 10:50

Envoy: Russia to Hand over Full Operational Control of Bushehr N. Power Plant to Iran Soon

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TEHRAN (FNA)- Russian Ambassador to Tehran Levan Dzhagaryan underlined that Tehran will take the full operational control of the Bushehr nuclear power plant from Russia once safety tests by the Russian contractor are through in the next few weeks.

Dzhagaryan said that the Bushehr Nuclear Plant is functioning at 100% nominal capacity, reiterating, “Some final tests of this power plant are underway now, and after finishing them and making sure about the safe and sound functioning of the first unit, the Plant will be handed over to the Iranian side.”

“For Russia, at the present time, sustainable usage of the first unit of the Bushehr Nuclear Plant is a priority, and after that we can survey the perspective of future cooperation in this field,” the Russian diplomat added, the Islamic republic news agency reported.

In relevant remarks earlier this month, Head of the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko said that his company is ready to transfer the full operational control of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant to the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO).

“The state company (Rosatom) will soon sign the documents to transfer the full operational control of the Bushehr nuclear power plant to Iran,” Kiriyenko said.

The Russian official underlined that Bushehr nuclear power plant is currently operating at 100-percent capacity and the process of preparing it for transfer to the project originator (Iran) is concluding.

Rosatom's construction arm, Atomstroyeksport, took over construction of Bushehr nuclear power plant after a German company pulled out of the project after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

The Islamic Republic signed the Bushehr contract with Russia in 1995 and the nuclear power plant reached its full capacity by August 2012.

The Bushehr nuclear power plant is located about 18 kilometers South of the provincial capital.

Status of Iran's nuclear program....

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920525000276

Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:28

Ex-FM Salehi Returns to Atomic Energy Organization of Iran

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TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi as the new head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).

Salehi, who will replace the current AEOI Chief Fereidoun Abbasi, expressed the hope that he would be able to successfully continue the path of his predecessors and fulfill the “heavy responsibility” of serving the country’s national interests by further boosting the achievements of the AEOI.

“The organization’s main task will be to construct commercial nuclear plants to generate electricity and to build research reactors to produce radio medicines,” Salehi said.

He underlined that the activities of AEOI are completely peaceful and in line with the interests of the Iranian nation.

Salehi served as foreign minister under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from December 2010 to August 2013. He was also Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) between 1997 and 2005.

Moreover, he served as deputy secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) from 2007 to 2009 and head of the AEOI from 2009 to 2010.

Born in 1949, Salehi earned his PhD degree in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Iran-has-18000-centrifuges-10000-active-323398

Iran has 18,000 uranium centrifuges, says outgoing nuclear chief

By REUTERS

08/17/2013 22:40

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Salehi: Ahmadinejad "personally responsible for nuclear issue."

Ali Akbar Salehi. Photo: REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

DUBAI - Iran has installed 18,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges, the country's outgoing nuclear chief was quoted as saying by Iranian media on Saturday.

The US and its Western allies are pressing Iran to curb its uranium enrichment program, which they suspect is aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability, but Iran refuses and insists its nuclear activity is for purely peaceful purposes.

New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator who oversaw a previous deal to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment, has welcomed new talks with world powers over the program but has insisted on Iran's right to enrich uranium.

Iran has 17,000 older "first-generation" IR-1 centrifuges, of which 10,000 are operating and 7,000 are ready to start operations, the ISNA news agency quoted Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, outgoing head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), as saying.

A May report from the UN nuclear watchdog indicated that Iran had by then installed roughly 16,600 IR-1 machines in two separate facilities.

Abbasi-Davani also said there were 1,000 new, more advanced centrifuges ready to start operations, in a reference to IR-2m centrifuges, which once operational would allow Iran to enrich uranium several times faster than the IR-1 machine.

The IAEA in its last report in May said Iran had installed a total of 689 such centrifuges and empty centrifuge casings.

Rouhani on Friday appointed Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's previous foreign minister, to take over the AEOI. Salehi, who once headed the agency, is seen as a pragmatist, as opposed to the more hardline Abbasi-Davani.

« Breaking News »

Iran’s nuclear chief confirms Iran has 18,000 centrifuges 

DEBKAfile August 17, 2013, 11:01 PM (GMT+02:00)

Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, Iran’s outgoing atomic agency director, confirmed Saturday that from July 23, Iran’s nuclear program had 18,000 first generation centrifuges (for enriching uranium), with more than 10,000 active and 7,000 ready to start work. He spoke at the ceremony for handing over his job to Ali Akbar Salehi, the tough former senior Iranian negotiator with the world powers. DEBKAfile: These figures, which confirm the data released by the UN nuclear watchdog, mean that Iran has passed the red line posted by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last September.

Status of nuclear talks....Different perspectives , mutual distrust ....

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920526000367

Sat Aug 17, 2013 11:14

German FM Hopes for Immediate Iran-West N. Talks

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TEHRAN (FNA)- German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle expressed optimism about talks between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), and hoped that both sides can find a win-win solution to the standoff on Tehran's peaceful nuclear program.

In a telephone conversation with new Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Java Zarif on Friday, the German minister offered his congratulations to Zarif on his success to win the vote of confidence from the Iranian parliament, and hoped for taking practical steps towards settling Iran's nuclear standoff with the West through peaceful way.

Berlin hopes that constructive and substantial talks will be held for resolving Iran’s nuclear issue following the formation of the new Iranian administration, Westerwelle was quoted as saying by the German Foreign Ministry Spokesperson.

Iran and Germany have tried to expand their bilateral relations in recent years through reciprocal visits by the two countries' officials.

Washington and its western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.

Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/109980-kazakhstan-ready-to-again-host-iran-51-talks

Kazakhstan ready to again host Iran-5+1 talks

Political Desk On Line: 13 August 2013 16:22 In Print: Wednesday 14 August 2013

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TEHRAN – Kazakhstan has said it is again ready to host talks between Iran and world powers on Tehran’s nuclear energy program, Itar-Tass reported. Speaking at a press conference in Astana on Monday, Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Sarybai said that Kazakhstan intends to provide logistic services and if necessary it facilitates the negotiating process. He added that Iran had positively reacted to the proposal to hold a new round of talks with the P5+1 group, namely Russia, China, France, Germany, Britain and the United States. According to Itar-Tass, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev had also expressed readiness to host the talks during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani in Tehran.   Nazarbayev had traveled to Iran in order to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Rohani in the parliament on August 4, which was held in the presence of dignitaries of more than 50 countries and high ranking Iranian officials.   Last month senior diplomats from the six countries negotiating with Tehran met in Brussels to map out plans for diplomacy following the election of a new president in Iran. Negotiations have been on hold since a round of talks in April and the six nations are keen to get back to the table. The six powers have demanded that Tehran abandon 20 percent uranium enrichment. Tehran says it needs atomic power for energy generation and medical research. Other than a suspension of enrichment of uranium to 20 percent fissile purity, the six powers have asked Iran to ship out the existing stockpile of the material and close down a facility where such work is done. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/opinion/global/irans-clerics-remain-the-problem.html?ref=nuclearprogram&_r=0 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Iran's Clerics Remain the Problem By RAY TAKEYH Published: August 15, 2013 FACEBOOK TWITTER GOOGLE+ SAVE E-MAIL SHARE PRINT REPRINTS One of the enduring aspects of Washington’s Iran debate is its wild oscillations between the hysteria of war and the euphoria of reconciliation. Enlarge This Image Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, via Associated Press Hassan Rouhani being officially endorsed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a ceremony in Tehran in August. The Islamic Republic has a new president: He smiles and pledges soothing moderation. The jaded envoys who have been struggling with the Iran issue for the past decade — a period that included Hassan Rouhani’s stewardship of the nuclear file — are suddenly optimistic. It is important to remember, however, that the American diplomats dealing with Iran suffer from a fundamental confusion about the nature of the Islamist state. The United States is accustomed to dealing with opportunistic Arab rulers but not with clerics who take their ideologies seriously. At times, reasonable men have reached high office in the Persian theocratic state only to have their pragmatism numbed by its founding ideology. It remains to be seen whether Rouhani can transcend the obstacles that bedeviled his predecessors. The Arab world has seen many despotic rulers whose lust for power was expressed in language of ideologies they did not fully understand. Gamal Abdel Nasser spoke of Arab socialism, while the essence of his plan was the glorification of Egypt and himself as the region’s strongman. Saddam Hussein and both Assads unfurled the banner of Baathism to justify their blood-soaked regimes, even though there is scant evidence they had read the Baathists’ turgid tomes. Given these dictators’ shallow ideological commitments, their strategic alignments often proved fluid. All these rulers were willing to deal with the United States if it served their aims. But the Iranian revolution of 1979 introduced a regime unique in the modern Middle East. The Islamic Republic has a mission of redeeming the region for the forces of righteousness. Despite the costs and burdens, Persian Iran has struggled against a range of what it perceives to be iniquitous forces, particularly the United States and its allies. It sees itself as a vanguard state led by a dedicated cadre that will lead the subjugated masses toward justice and salvation. Anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism are the touchstones of its orthodoxy. And yet no country can live on ideology alone. Iran has had to operate its economy, deal with regional demands, and even transact unsavory bargains with adversaries. When granted the opportunity, Iran’s youth and middle class vote for politicians who promise relief. A segment of the theocracy has sought to smooth the hard edges of their creed and respond to the populace’s yearning for a normal life. Presidents ranging from the corrupt Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to the reformist Mohammad Khatami hoped to chart a new course and balance the revolution’s mandates with their constituents’ tangible concerns. All of them failed to square this circle. Enter Rouhani, the latest politician to undertake this most difficult of balancing acts. Unfortunately, his guile and initiatives are bound to be circumscribed by the regime’s ideology. One of the tragedies of the Islamic Republic is that its pragmatism often emanates from offices subordinate to the unelected power centers. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his Praetorian Guard continue to proclaim the virtues of resistance and are mindful of those who don’t share their zeal. Iran’s shattered economy and simmering discontent may have caused Khamenei to concede to Rouhani’s election. He may even offer him some leeway in mitigating the nuclear crisis. But the supreme leader will remain an important obstacle to the president’s designs. America is used to dealing with cynical Arab rulers who casually betray whatever principle they proclaim for their own benefit. As the saying goes, these are men one can do business with. Rather, it is the ideologues who have often puzzled Washington, for they seldom engage in judicious cost-benefit assessments. The Islamic Republic may not be the radical actor it was in the 1980s, but neither is it a state ruled by modest men who happen to drape themselves in clerical garb. In the coming months, Rouhani and his diplomats will inevitably profess their readiness to deal in earnest. The possibility of a limited deal addressing some of the more urgent aspects of Iran’s nuclear program should not be ruled out. If such a deal is done, then it must be welcomed. But standing behind these deliberations will be the untrusting Ayatollah Khamenei and his allies who will always need an American nemesis to justify their ideology to themselves. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/opinion/irans-plan-b-for-the-bomb.html?ref=nuclearprogram

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS

Iran’s Plan B for the Bomb

Mike McQuade

By AMOS YADLIN and AVNER GOLOV

Published: August 8, 2013 221 Comments

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TEL AVIV — IS Iran finally ready to talk? Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has said he’s ready for nuclear negotiations. And in recent weeks, the Iranian government has repeatedly expressed its desire to reach a deal on its uranium enrichment program.

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A few days after Mr. Rouhani’s election victory, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, stated that Iran was prepared to limit its enrichment to a level below 20 percent, which is the main goal of a future agreement between the West and Iran. And last month, Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, reportedly told the White House that Iran wanted to begin direct nuclear negotiations with the United States.

But it would be dangerous to think that Iran’s proposal for negotiations alone would pave the way for a deal. What matters is not the talks but the outcome.

Whoever negotiates with Iran must acknowledge that the enrichment of uranium from a low level (3.5 percent to 19.75 percent) to weapons-grade level (90 percent) is only one of three dimensions of Iran’s nuclear strategy. A second dimension is Iran’s progress toward a quick “breakout capability” through the stockpiling of large quantities of low-enriched uranium that could be further enriched rapidly to provide weapons-grade fuel. Third, Iran also appears to be pursuing a parallel track to a nuclear capability through the production of plutonium.

If there is going to be a nuclear deal with Iran, all three parts of its strategy must be addressed.

In the past year, Iran has installed thousands of centrifuges, including more than 1,000 advanced ones. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency states that Iran already has enough low-enriched uranium to produce several nuclear bombs if it chooses to further enrich the fuel. Iran has deliberately refrained from crossing what is perceived as Israel’s red line: 240 kilograms (about 530 pounds) of uranium enriched to a level of 19.75 percent.

Nonetheless, Western experts like Graham T. Allison Jr. and Olli Heinonen estimate that if Iran decided to develop a bomb today, it could do so within three to five months. That is assumed to be sufficient lead time for the West to detect and respond to an Iranian decision.

But a recent report from the Institute for Science and International Security estimates that at the current pace of installation, Iran could reduce its breakout time to just one month by the end of this year. The report also estimates that at that pace, by mid-2014 Iran could reduce the breakout time to less than two weeks.

Any agreement must ensure that an Iranian breakout is detected quickly enough to allow for a Western response — meaning that the international community must be able to uncover any concealed facilities and activities for the production of fissile material.

A solution will also have to address the potential for a plutonium bomb. In May, Iran announced that the heavy-water reactor in Arak would become operational early next year. Some American and European officials claim that Iran could produce weapons-grade plutonium next summer. These two announcements indicate that Iran is making progress on this alternative track. So far, the West has not paid much attention to the potential for a plutonium-fueled weapon. Now it must do so.

A functioning nuclear reactor in Arak could eventually allow Iran to produce sufficient quantities of plutonium for nuclear bombs. Although Iran would need to build a reprocessing facility to separate the plutonium from the uranium in order to produce a bomb, that should not be the West’s primary concern. Western negotiators should instead demand that Iran shut down the Arak reactor.

This is crucial because the West would likely seek to avoid an attack on a “hot” reactor, lest it cause widespread environmental damage. Once Arak is operational, it would effectively be immune from attack and the West would be deprived of its primary “stick” in its efforts to persuade Iran to forgo a military nuclear capability.

Of the three countries that have publicly crossed the nuclear threshold since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty entered into force in 1970, two — India and North Korea — did so via the plutonium track. In order to deny Iran this route, any agreement between the West and Iran must guarantee that Iran will not retain a breakout or “sneak out” plutonium-production capacity.

At the United Nations last September, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, focused only on uranium enrichment, reinforcing a one-dimensional perception of the Iranian nuclear program. This narrow perception is already widespread in the West and could enable Iran to attain a swift breakout capability using uranium or to build a plutonium bomb without detection.

Negotiations with Iran should resume, and the sooner the better. But Western leaders must maintain their current leverage — sanctions and a credible military threat — and ensure that any future agreement with Iran addresses all three dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. Moderate messages from Tehran should not be allowed to camouflage Iran’s continuing progress toward a bomb.

Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, is the director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, where Avner Golov is a researcher.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/world/middleeast/irans-new-president-says-nuclear-talks-could-succeed.html?ref=nuclearprogram

Iran’s New President Calls for Nuclear Talks Without Rejecting Direct U.S. Role

Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

At a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday, President Hassan Rouhani said the United States would have to initiate negotiations.

By THOMAS ERDBRINK

Published: August 6, 2013

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TEHRAN — Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, on Tuesday used his first news conference to call for serious negotiations to solve the decade-long dispute over the country’s nuclear program, and he repeatedly suggested openness to direct talks with the United States, an idea that until recently had been unthinkable for many years.

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At the same time, Mr. Rouhani said Americans needed to take the first step in the stalled nuclear negotiations, and he would not specify what his country would be prepared to do, if anything, to make those negotiations advance. While the tone of Mr. Rouhani’s remarks appeared more accommodating than that of his predecessor, he broke no new ground on Iran’s position regarding the nuclear dispute, the most serious international issue confronting the country.

“As the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I state that the Islamic republic system is very seriously determined to solve the nuclear issue. It will defend its people’s rights and at the same time will remove the concerns of the other party,” Mr. Rouhani said.

“What matters to us is a practical response from the U.S. government, not statements,” he said. “If we feel that the Americans are truly serious about resolving problems, Iran is serious in its will to resolve problems and dismiss worries. If they are serious, too, naturally things will go ahead, and we will see practical results.”

Numerous times during the question-and-answer session, Mr. Rouhani referred to unspecified “warmongering pressure groups” that he accused of confusing the White House at the behest of an unidentified country.

Mr. Rouhani apparently was referring to pro-Israel advocates of strong sanctions against Iran that have publicly praised Congress in recent days for advancing legislation that would greatly intensify the economic consequences on Iran unless it halts uranium enrichment.

Israel’s government, which regards Iran as an existential threat, has accused the Iranians of working toward production of a nuclear weapon, an accusation they have repeatedly denied. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has described Mr. Rouhani as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and has asserted that Mr. Rouhani’s election on June 14 did not portend a policy change.

Mr. Rouhani never made any explicit reference to Israel at his news conference. But he said that the interests of “one foreign country” had been imposed on Congress, and that “even the interests of the U.S. are not considered in such actions.”

Mr. Rouhani also said, “We advise that the White House come out of its current confusion, see the realities and make decisions based on them.”

The State Department responded to Mr. Rouhani’s remarks by reiterating its position that Iran is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions requesting a halt to the uranium enrichment.

“We’ve also expressed an openness to having direct discussions with Iran,” a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, told reporters at a daily news briefing. “But the ball is in their court. We still feel that they need to take steps to abide by their international obligations, and we’re not at that point.”

Mr. Rouhani’s repeated mention of direct negotiations with the United States made clear that Iran is no longer ideologically opposed to such talks, ending a period of more than three decades in which the subject was a political taboo.

On Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated that he was not opposed to talks over certain issues, but warned Mr. Rouhani that some of Iran’s enemies “do not speak our language of wisdom.”

The new president’s choice for foreign minister, Javad Zarif, said in a statement to Parliament that managing relations with the United States would be one of his tasks. Mr. Zarif was educated in the United States, where he spent many years, and is widely seen as Mr. Rouhani’s main adviser on foreign policy. His confirmation is expected.

Mr. Rouhani, who presents himself as a moderate within Iran’s political system, has been involved in most of Iran’s important foreign policy dossiers. He faces enormous problems, many related to the economy’s weakness and the international sanctions.

In a new twist for an Iranian president, Mr. Rouhani’s social media aides sent English-language Twitter messages about his news conference as he conducted it, even using American-style colloquial shorthand common among Twitter users. “Provided that our natl interests are met, we have no problems w negotiations w any1 w good intentions, incl US,” read one posting.

But he gave no indication at the news conference that the uranium enrichment would be compromised.

One Iranian journalist, from the reformist Etemad newspaper, asked how Mr. Rouhani would handle the nuclear issue compared with his predecessors, arguing that the enrichment centrifuges were not worth the economic cost. Mr. Rouhani countered that the program had strong popular domestic support.

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.