Israel Matzav

Nuke deal signed, Obama to threaten Netanyahu later today

Obama says he’ll be speaking with Netanyahu later today.
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) April 2, 2015

An agreement has been signed between Iran and the P 5+1, and President Hussein Obama is calling Prime Minister Netanyahu later today to make sure that Netanyahu will not take matters into his own hands (see the tweet above - what else could it mean? Obama detests Netanyahu...). Except that it's not much of an agreement, and Iran is laughing all the way to the bank.

After failing to meet a March 31 deadline for the announcement of a firm political agreement, Secretary of State John Kerry and Javad Zarif, his Iranian counterpart, said that the sides had agreed in principle to let Iran continue running major portions of its nuclear program.

Despite threats from Obama administration officials that the United States would abandon talks if Iran continued to demand greater concessions, Kerry extended his trip and conducted a series of meetings aimed at hashing out a statement of progress—a far cry from the detailed document officials vowed would be finalized by now.

The sides continue to disagree over Iranian demands that it be permitted to continue key nuclear research and granted the ability to ramp its program up to industrial capacity after a decade.

However, Zarif said many of these issues are closer to being resolved.

“None of those measures” that will move to scale back Iran’s program “include closing any of our facilities,” Zarif said. “We will continue enriching; we will continue research and development.”

“Our heavy water reactor will be modernized and we will continue the Fordow facility,” Zarif said. “We will have centrifuges installed in Fordow, but not enriching.”

...

Zarif said that once a final agreement is made, “all U.S. nuclear related secondary sanctions will be terminated,” he said. “This, I think, would be a major step forward.”

Zarif also revealed that Iran will be allowed to sell “enriched uranium” in the international market place and will be “hopefully making some money” from it.

...

The United Nations also will move to endorse the ongoing Joint Plan of Action interim deal and terminate all of its previous security council resolutions on Iran.

...

Zarif told reporters late Wednesday amid extensive meetings with the United States and other P5+1 one nations that he was “all smiles” after days of intensive talks in which Tehran has given little ground on American efforts to reduce the size of its nuclear program and uranium stockpiles.

Zarif emphasized that no progress could be made in the talks due to continued United States “pressure” and lack of respect.

Iran in recent days went back on earlier promises that it would export its stockpiles of enriched uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon. This requirement continues to remain one of the key sticking points to progress.

With the talks slated to continue through June, a majority of Americans say Congress “should be required” to approve the agreement, something the Obama administration has opposed.

Around 55 percent of those surveyed by Fox News said the United States cannot “trust anything” Iran promises on the nuclear front.

 What could go wrong?

Labels: Arak heavy water production plant, Barack Hussein Obama, Fordow nuclear plant, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Mohammad Javad Zarif, P 5+1, plutonium, uranium enrichment

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:49 PM