The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has told the BBC that he believes Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons.

Mr Erdogan said he was confident Iran’s nuclear programme was for civilian purposes only and described President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “friend”.

“I’ve told him I do not want to see nuclear weapons in the region” he said.

Meanwhile, a top US general has said intelligence suggests Iran will not be able to build a nuclear bomb this year.

Gen David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, said Tehran’s weapon development programme appeared to have suffered delays.

“It has, thankfully, slid to the right a bit and it is not this calendar year, I don’t think,” he told a Senate committee hearing, according to the Reuters news agency.
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Iran nuclear programme ‘solely civilian’ – Turkish PM

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s supreme leader accused the United States on Wednesday of war-mongering and of turning the Gulf into an “arms depot,” hitting back at U.S. accusations that the Islamic state was moving toward a military dictatorship.

The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were the latest sign of growing tensions between Tehran and Washington, which are embroiled in a long-running and escalating row over Iranian nuclear work the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.

The United States is leading a push for the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran, which says its nuclear program is solely to generate electricity so it can export more of its oil and gas.

Last month, U.S. officials said the United States had expanded land- and sea-based missile defense systems in and around the Gulf — a waterway crucial for global oil supplies — to counter what it sees as Iran’s growing missile threat.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday the United States believed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were driving the country toward military dictatorship and should be targeted in any new U.N. sanctions.

In an apparent reference to Clinton’s visit to the Middle East earlier this week, Khamenei said the Americans had dispatched “their agent” to the region to accuse Iran’s Islamic system of government.

“But no one believes these lies because they know that America is the real war-mongering state. They have turned the Persian Gulf into an arms depot,” Khamenei said.

“They invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and are now accusing the Islamic Republic. Everybody knows that the Islamic Republic is for peace and brotherhood among all Islamic states in the world,” Khamenei said, state television reported.

PUNCH IN THE MOUTH

Iran faces growing Western calls for a new round of targeted U.N. sanctions against it after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week ordered the start of higher-grade uranium production.

During her three-day visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Clinton denied the United States planned to attack Iran and said Washington wanted dialogue with Tehran but could not “stand idly by” while Iran pursued a suspected nuclear weapons program.

The West accuses Iran of covertly trying to build nuclear bombs. Iran, the world’s fifth-largest crude oil exporter, says its nuclear facilities are part of a peaceful energy program and it would retaliate for any attack on them.

Khamenei, Iran’s top authority, said the Iranian people had punched its enemies “in the mouth” by turning out in large numbers to rallies last week marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

On Thursday, Iranian state television said “tens of millions of people” rallied to support the revolution across the country of 70 million, which is facing its worst domestic crisis in three decades after a disputed presidential election last June.

An opposition website said security forces fired teargas at opposition supporters staging a Tehran counter-rally on the February 11 anniversary of the revolution that toppled the shah.

Khamenei, who like other Iranian leaders accused the West of stoking post-election unrest and meddling in Iran’s internal affairs, accused “arrogant powers” of opposing the Islamic Republic because of its call for justice in the world.

“We should mourn the day when the global imperialism praises us,” he said.

Source: yahoo buzz

Turkish Daily News:

The United States’ recent speeding up of arms sales with its Gulf allies has raised some eyebrows as these sales appear to be preparations for a potential clash with Iran. Although these contracts to sell warplanes and anti-missile systems actually started with the George W. Bush administration in 2005 to ally with Arab states and counter Iran’s growing influence in the region, accelerating it now increases the tension in an already tense Middle Eastern climate.
According to the Washington Post, arms sales, including a U.S.-backed plan to triple the size of a 10,000-man protection force in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, are leading a region-wide military buildup that has resulted in more than $25 billion in U.S. arms purchases in the past two years alone.
While we are getting closer to a period that seems to be generating a historic set of events in terms of the Iranian conundrum, there are two schools of thought emerging with two sundry arguments on the situation. There are those in Washington, including Seymour Hersh as well as Flynt and Hillary Mann Leveret, who think the U.S. must do more to bind Iran to multilateral negotiations. On the other hand, there are others who argue that Iran is not willing to negotiate at this time because it mainly does not see having close ties to the U.S. as beneficial to its national security interests.

I had a chance to listen to both Hersh, an investigative journalist with many links to the region, and talk to Ladan Yazdian, an Iranian-American security analyst in Washington D.C., on the Iranian nuclear question, in the interests of getting two different approaches on the issue.

According to Hersh, Iran has not been able to enrich the uranium it possesses more than 3 or 3.5 percent so far because of technical issues. This level of enrichment is much lower than 90 to 95 percent, a level which is considered to be needed for a nuclear weapon.

And Hersh defends the Iranian position by claiming that Iran has already accepted the West’s offer to send 20 percent of the 1300 or 1500 kilogram uranium, the amount that Iran is considered to possess currently, to Russia to be enriched by up to 20 percent. Subsequently, this uranium from Russia will be shipped to the French where it will be put into pallets that they can only be used for the medical purposes, which is what Iran claims the enriched uranium is necessary.

It is the irrationality of the Americans, and the West, that prevents this nuclear deal from happening, Hersh argues, and by asking Iran to ship all the uranium at once. Therefore, although Iran is doing nearly all it can do to solve the problem, it is this attitude of Western obstructionism that does not let this detail be overcame.

After listening to this perspective, I called up Yazdian, my Iranian-American friend, who was born and raised in Iran and follows the Iranian issues closely. I informed her of what Hersh had to say about the current state of the Iranian nuclear impasse and sought her opinion.

According to Yazdian, since President Barack Obama came to the office, he has been sincere and committed to unconditional negotiations with Iran. Despite three decades of distrust and conflict, Obama made an effort to offer a considerable package of incentives and start a new chapter in bilateral relationships as a part of his new foreign agenda to open up to rough regimes around the world.

A generous nuclear incentive package was offered to Iran during the past summer, which included a broader range of economic, political and energy incentives, improving Iran’s access to the global economy by promoting investment, membership in the World Trade Organization and the possible lifting of U.S. and European restrictions on the export of civilian aircraft and telecommunications equipment, as well as other diplomatic and cultural exchanges.

Yazdian said despite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s initial Sept. 23 proposal to buy enriched uranium from the U.S., and International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, efforts at multilateral negotiations, talks have come to a halt. She cited several factors for the regime’s unwillingness to respond to the international community and oblige it to keep its commitments.

These factors embody the internal divisions among the factions within the Iranian regime, lack of international pressure, and the anti-American nature of the Iranian regime that makes it impossible to explain changes of policy to its people after years of harsh rhetoric toward the U.S., especially during the post-election uprising. Yazdian said Iran has not shown a goodwill gesture and has bought time on numerous occasions, therefore pushing the international community toward tougher multilateral actions.

If the Iranian regime accepts the offer, it will appear weak at home and would lose its legitimacy. Yazdian recalled that there were similar debates during the Mohamed Khatami presidency, and when Khatami softened his tone toward the West, his administration was immediately criticized by hardliners who saw the reform movement as the tool of the West.

Since it was known that Iran was working on secret uranium enrichment programs, several estimates about Iran’s capability for a nuclear bomb have been put forward by various intelligence agencies. Despite the revelation of another nuclear facility near the city of Qom last fall, Iran’s nuclear capability remains mostly a guessing game according to Yazdian, as opposed to Hersh’s concrete assessments about Iran’s nuclear capability.

In the eyes of this latter approach, the current nuclear impasse between Iran and the West stems from the nature of the Iranian regime and that Iran sees no imminent danger except toothless sanctions coming from the West. Also, the Islamic regime considers negotiations as a “kiss of death” and instead has tried to close its doors to the outside world during the internal upheaval which it still is dealing with.

We might just find out whether Hersh, who has uncovered some of the darkest sides of the Bush’s global war on terror, just reactively views the West vs. Iran conflict or whether he does know things that other colossal intelligence agencies around the world could not piece together.

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Is Iran or the West to blame?

VIENNA — The Obama administration, hoping to persuade Tehran to curtail its nuclear program and initiate a dialogue that focuses on other issues, will have its first formal meeting since it took office with Iran on Oct. 1.
The four other United Nations Security Council permanent members — China, Russia, France, and the U.K. — along with Germany will participate in the meeting, which was brokered Monday in a call between Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, and Saeed Jalili, Iran’s main nuclear negotiator.

The event, whose location hasn’t been decided, won’t be a “formal negotiation,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Solana said. There will be no set agenda or specific goals. Instead, she said, it will serve as an opportunity to question Iran on a proposal it released last week calling for a discussion with the international community on a range of security and development issues.

Iranian officials said for the first time Monday that they would be willing to discuss elements of the country’s nuclear program as part of a broader dialogue aimed at ending the threat of nuclear weapons globally.

“We have always stated that we are [in favor of] dialogue, but of course unconditional dialogue,” the chief of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, told reporters in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual conference. “It seems now that the environment is conducive towards this issue and…we are very hopeful that the dialogue which is going to be held next month will pave the way further for the future.”
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Iran Agrees to Meeting on Nuclear Program

By BRIAN MURPHY (AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — There is no shortage of warnings that September could be a very bumpy month for Iran.

What is still missing, however, are clear signals from the U.S. and its European allies on what specific new sanctions they could seek if Iran snubs their deadline to begin talks over its nuclear program.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator on Tuesday offered some room for possible compromise. Saeed Jalili told reporters the Islamic regime was open to international dialogue, but gave no further details.

The comments were noted Wednesday during a six-nation meeting in Germany with envoys from the permanent U.N. Security Council nations — the U.S., France, Britain, Russia and China — to discuss Iran’s nuclear ambitions and possible strategies to make Tehran commit into talks.

But there will likely be no serious back peddling from sanction threats until it is clearer whether Iran is genuinely open for talks or just stalling as it struggles with deep internal upheaval after the disputed presidential elections in June.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner said Iran had not made any formal gestures to back up the nuclear negotiator’s openings for dialogue.

“Consequently … from our point of view nothing has changed,” Ploetner said.

He added that the meeting near Frankfurt was not expected to produce concrete strategies, but offered a chance to review “possible negotiating options in the coming months.”

Experts say there are several points where the West could particularly sting Tehran, including expanding the travel bans on officials, cutting off exports of gas station-ready fuel and targeting more of the overseas links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

It is still too early for any clear plans to emerge.

President Barack Obama and key European allies have given Iran until this month to open negotiations on its uranium enrichment program and other aspects of the nuclear program. Western nations and others worry Iran could move toward development of nuclear arms. Iran’s leaders, however, insist they seek only energy-producing reactors.

Germany and France — both important trade partners with Iran — have recently become far more forceful in their threats of possible sanctions.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stood alongside French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday in a show of unity with Washington that was clearly aimed at getting Iran’s attention.

“Germany and France will be united in calling for a strengthening of sanctions” if Iran stonewalls the West, said Sarkozy. Added Merkel: “Iran should know that we mean this very seriously.”

The only hints about the direction of possible new measures has come from Merkel, who spoke of stiffer restrictions in the “energy, financial and other important sectors.”

Sarkozy said Monday there were “many ideas” on potential sanctions, but stressed the “whole international community” should back any further crackdowns on Iran.

This could prove difficult.

China and Russia — members of the U.N. Security Council — are unlikely to back harsh steps against Iran because of deep interests. Russia built Iran’s first nuclear reactor, which is scheduled to begin operations later this year. And China desperately wants Iranian oil and gas to fuel its growth.

Iran has faced a near blanket U.S. economic freeze since shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. U.N.-imposed sanctions also have banned exports of nuclear-related technology and froze assets of top companies and officials, including some linked to the Revolutionary Guard such as foreign branches of Bank Sepah.

Iran has managed to ride out the restrictions without serious hardships, although lack of significant foreign investment has left the economy stuck in low gear for years. Iranian leaders — particularly President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — have repeated insisted that Iran would never abandon its ability to make its own nuclear fuel.

This crucial point was not addressed in the statement by the nuclear negotiator Jalili.

“Iran has prepared to present its revised package of proposals … and is ready to hold talks with world powers … in order to ease common concerns in the international arena,” the state TV quoted Jalili as saying.

The head of the U.N. nuclear agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, urged for a possible lowering of the rhetoric from the West.

ElBaradei said he believes the immediate threat from a possible Iranian nuclear arsenal has been “hyped” and suggested there was cause for concern — but not panic.

“We have not seen concrete evidence that Tehran has an ongoing nuclear weapons program,” the International Atomic Energy Agency chief was quoted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in its September/October issue.

The U.N. Security Council plus Germany offered Iran a host of economic incentives in 2008 in exchange for suspending uranium enrichment. The proposals failed to sway Iranian leaders. But now they face a far more complicated setting — embattled and weakened after massive protests over claims that Ahmadinejad stole re-election through vote fraud.

“The regime is in an uneasy position now,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of regional politics at Emirates University. “It’s not the time to talk about tougher sanctions. It’s best for the West to let the dust settle in Tehran. Then they can raise the ante if Iran is still resisting.”

One of Iran’s weakest points is its dependence on fuel imports. Despite its vast oil resources, it lacks the refinery capacity to meet its own demand and must buy vast quantities of commerical-ready fuel on the open market.
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Tough talk toward Iran as deadline month begins

In what appears to be an effort to compel Tehran to join the negotiating table, the Obama administration threatens to choke off Iranian gas imports.

The New York Times reported Monday that President Barack Obama has considered imposing tough sanctions on oil companies dealing with Iran, should the country ignore the September deadline for talks on its nuclear issue.

Iran is the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter but, according to US estimates, the country relies on gasoline imports to meet 40 percent of its domestic demand.

The newly-introduced legislation would target foreign fuel suppliers to Iran, and would freeze the financing or shipping insurance of any company that sells or delivers gasoline to Iran.

By cutting off Iran’s import of gasoline and other oil products, Obama believes the country would be forced to negotiate on its low-level nuclear activities, US officials said on conditions of anonymity.

According to the US officials, the issue of the gas sanctions has been privately discussed with the Congress and government officials in Europe and Israel. he White House has so far refused to comment in this regard, but the officials said that the issue was discussed between National Security Adviser, James L. Jones and Israeli officials in Tel Aviv last week.

However, the officials acknowledge that enforcing sanctions on Iran’s gas imports would be no easy task, as it would most certainly require the participation of Russia and China — who have refused to hard-hitting trade embargoes on Tehran.

Suzanne Maloney, a senior Iran expert at the Brookings Institution, warned that the oil cutoff could make matters even worst.

“The Iranians are not terribly good at capitulation,” Maloney said. “This is a regime that tends to believe the best defense is a good offense.”
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Obama plays gas card to force Iran into talks

With the US Defence Secretary standing at his side, Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, today warned Iran that a military strike on its nuclear facilities was still an option.

“We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table. This is our policy. We mean it. We recommend to others to take the same position but we cannot dictate it to anyone,” Mr Barak said at a press conference with Robert Gates in Jerusalem.
Times Online

Ehud Barak warns Iran of possible Israeli strike on nuclear facilities