Israel Matzav

ElBaradei's parting gift to Iran?

The Iranian media is playing the country's meeting with the P 5 + 1 powers in Geneva as an Iranian victory. For example, the Tehran Times reports that

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, has said that in the Geneva talks on Thursday, the 5+1 group did not raise the issue of uranium enrichment suspension, as has been demanded by the recent United Nations Security Council resolutions.

...

And Iran’s proposals were the focus of the negotiations, he noted.

Commenting on the country’s new nuclear fuel enrichment plant, he said Iranian negotiators told the 5+1 group diplomats that while the Natanz facility is operated under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and it is the country’s inalienable right to have such a facility, certain countries dare to threaten Iran with military action, and therefore Iran decided to build a more secure plant.

And that is why the Islamic Republic decided to construct the Fordoo nuclear facility, he explained.

But of course that's why they built it. Gee, why didn't I think of that?

But if there's anything to this report, we have another problem on our hands.

State television on Monday quoted Iran’s atomic chief Ali-Akbar Salehi as saying that both inspection of the new site and exchange of uranium were covered under an agreement between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog.

Salehi said he would go to Vienna on October 19 to discuss with the US, Russia and France the new Iranian initiative to enricht 3.5-per-cent-enriched uranium from the Natanz plant in central Iran to 20 per cent through foreign countries.

The 20-per-cent-enriched uranium is supposed to be used for the Tehran reactor, which is a basic research reactor producing medical isotopes.

Salehi said he hoped ElBaradei’s November report on Iran would normalize the Iranian nuclear dossier.

Iran has several times demanded a return of its dossier from the UN Security Council in New York to Vienna, as well as the end to financial sanctions against the Islamic state for having defied UN resolutions on suspending uranium enrichment.

Could Mohamed ElBaradei be preparing a departing gift for his 'Iranian brothers' before his term of office expires in December: The 'normalization' of the Iranian nuclear file?

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:18 PM