Iran Talks Possible, New Letter From Tehran Says

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Iran, facing severe sanctions to bar it from exporting oil, has told world powers it wants to resume long-stalled talks quickly with "new initiatives" in hand, and France said Tehran may now be open to addressing concerns about its nuclear quest.

Tehran made the offer in a letter to the EU's foreign policy chief obtained by Reuters on Thursday, a day after it trumpeted several advances in nuclear know-how and sent oil prices upward with suggestions of economic retaliation in what may have been moves to boost its leverage before any fresh negotiations.

Iran's president vowed no retreat from its atomic path on Wednesday only for state television to announce the proposal to re-launch talks after a year's hiatus - mixed signals making it difficult to divine what Tehran's ultimate intentions were.

Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili's letter said he would have "new initiatives" but did not spell them out. He made one separate reference to "Iran's nuclear issue", without spelling out whether Tehran was prepared to negotiate on it.

But French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that while the letter was "ambiguous" it seemed to signal "the start of opening up from Iran" with respect to discussing its nuclear activity.

A Feb. 20-21 visit to Iran by top U.N. nuclear watchdog officials would help determine whether Tehran was serious about tackling international concerns, Juppe told reporters during a visit to Vienna.

The U.N. team, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency's chief inspector, will again try to extract Iranian explanations, after three years of stonewalling, for an IAEA investigation driven by intelligence reports that suggest Tehran has researched sophisticated ways to build atomic bombs.

Jalili's letter was a reply to one from Ashton in October in which she said the big powers could meet with Iran within weeks if it was ready to "engage seriously in meaningful discussions" tackling concerns about its nuclear programme.

Jalili said he welcomed an earlier statement by Ashton on respecting Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

"(A) constructive and positive attitude towards the Islamic Republic of Iran's new initiatives in this round of talks could open positive perspective for our negotiation," Jalili said in the brief English-language letter.

"Therefore...I propose to resume our talks in order to take fundamental steps for sustainable cooperation in the earliest possibility in a mutually agreed venue and time."

Jalili urged a focus "on a spectrum of various issues" to lay groundwork for "constructive, forward-looking cooperation".

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Comments

[zenju2]

05:56 AM on 02/20/2012

An idea, Teheran: Recognise Israel. Exchange ambassadors, engage in open dialogue. Cease from over 30 years of unrelenting hostility and incitement. Agree to disagree on whatever issues divide you.
That is, IF peace and stability and prosperity are what you truly wish.

[karim banned]

01:18 PM on 02/17/2012

"Don't Tell My Mother That I am in Iran "

http://chizomiz.biz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7468%3ADon-t-Tell-My-Mom-That-I-am-in-Iran&catid=110%3Adocumentaries&Itemid=149

This video shows that many misconceptions that West has about Iran.

It also shows how easy it is to talk to Iranians.
No politician in West has really tried to talk to Iranians. The real question is why?

[patani-muslim]

12:52 PM on 02/17/2012

this is not happening by accident you know.

they are obssesed with wanting to rule the world. their messiah cannot come untill there is a state of isreal. they must then get the jews to return to and get them to believe this is the holy state of isreal. they must then get this state to expand its borders from the nile to the euphrates, maybe egypt soon after iran and pakistan. Nato libya from the west, isreal from the east and maybe south sudan from the north, the noose is arround egypts neck. knock down al aqsa masjid and rebuild the temple. and cause this state to become the ruling state in the world. To do this you must first rule the arabs.

we believe we are at that moment in history when you will start to see a transfer of power from washington to jerusalem. an attack on iran is designed in part to deminish America by putting a final nail in the coffin of the dollar and the economy and getting it to suffer a military set back, to usher in the new world order. then maybe 20-30 years from now a jew, a powerfully built young man with curly hair will stand up in jerusalem and declare he is the Messiah (the christ). but he wont be the Messiah he will be the Anti Messiah the Anti Christ the Dajjal. As we Muslims now the Messiah is Jesus the son of the blessed virgin Mary

[thereal me]

10:12 AM on 02/18/2012

What gibberish.

[patani-muslim]

04:53 PM on 02/18/2012

what dont you understand

[Alexey Braguine]

06:46 AM on 02/17/2012

International pressure is mounting on Israel to dump the war rethoric. .
Yesterday, when testifying at Armed Services Commity, James clapper, Director of National Intelligence and Leon Panetta gave a sober analysis of the situation. Both indicated that Iran's actions have been reactive (non agressive.)

Interestingly enough both testimonies were in a agreement with an article in Foreign Afairs Magazine written by Irani diplomat Seyed Husein Mousavian on the steps needed to open discussions with the US.

It seems to me that some cool heads are prevailing in Washington.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to follow Sergei Lavrov's delicate maneuvering as a peace maker.

Considering the history of US-Irani non-relations it is too early to forecast talks, but a glimmer of light is on the horizon.

[Wisdo]

08:21 AM on 02/17/2012

If the Israelis don't get their war, they will do more than stamp their feet and hold their breaths.

[Alexey Braguine]

09:12 AM on 02/17/2012

You are right. While Israel, via IPAC, contols US Congress, this is very worrying.

[zenju2]

05:58 AM on 02/20/2012

Israel's "war rhetoric"?! How about over THREE DECADES of unrelenting hostility, hateful rhetoric and incitement by Teheran?

[HansB]

05:40 AM on 02/17/2012

It's looking more and more like there will be war, and it's looking more and more like this war - like so many others - will be caused simply by the fact that people on both sides have rhetorically boxed themselves in and can't negotiate in good faith without losing face.

Iran has never claimed the right to build a bomb, but it will not back down from its insistence on the right to develop nuclear energy subjet to no stricter restrictions than apply to other NPT-signatories. Israel will not accept any nuclear programme at all, and will not back down from that either. For both sides this is not about any important matter - let alone existential, as Israel claims. Both societies would be quite comfortable with a solution along the lines oft-proposed by Turkey and Brazil. All it wojld take is the willingness of their leaders to swallow hard and do what's best for their countries, not for themselves. Such willingness does not exist.

Thousands, perhaps millions, will be killed, the world economy will go into a tailspin, Israel may see itself once again surrounded by enemies as the Arab Spring turns against it in Egypt and Jordan, and for what?

Because a few middle-aged men cannot stand the idea of suffering a minor passing humiliation.

[eric14]

06:17 AM on 02/17/2012

Israel does not want Iran to have nuclear technologies. That in itself can cause war. Here on Huffpost we see comments daily ''Never again.'' There are many Zionists who want to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Also, they need a diversion from their illegal activities in the West Bank and yet another means to put off peace talks while they steal land, buildings, water. They want war.

The Iranians want to develop nuclear technology. They are surrounded by American bases. Israel and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Reactionary Arab states arm themselves to the teeth and closely align themselves with the USA. Internally, the liberals threaten the hold of the religious authoritarians. There is great reliance upon earnings from oil exports.

So, a confrontation over nuclear issues, unites the country (puts liberals in their place) increases the price of oil (and revenue) improves status with anti-Israel Muslims (from threat of war). The Iranian government likes being on the brink of war. Being paranoid, brinkmanship makes them feel secure. Without that high-level threat, sanity may return and they would be lost to the liberals and moderns.

It is to the benefit of many of these ''middle-aged men'' that the brinkmanship continues, and for some, war is welcome. War is impending because many want it.

[Wisdo]

08:22 AM on 02/17/2012

a cogent analysis. War is always more welcome among those who will never have to fight it.

[HansB]

09:47 AM on 02/17/2012

Pretty good analysis I must admit. For Iran's leaders this may indeed be a win-win situation, especially if they manage to export oil at inflated prices. For Israel, though, I think it's a lose-lose situation.

[muck-raker]

05:20 AM on 02/17/2012

Russia Stresses IAEA's Decisive Role in Settling Iran's N. Issue
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underlined the important and decisive role of the International Atomic Energy Agency in resolving Iran's nuclear issue, and asked the world powers not to undermine the IAEA's role.

Speaking at a press conference in The Hague on Wednesday, Lavrov said anything that might undermine cooperation between the IAEA and Iran, including sanctions, should be avoided.

"The important thing is that whatever is being announced and done in the nuclear area must have the full control of the IAEA," Lavrov noted.

The Russian official also expressed support for the resumption of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

"We would like to encourage the Iranians work with the agency, we encourage strongly for them to continue dialogue on specific suspicions," he said.

Iran's chief negotiator and Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Saeed Jalili sent a reply to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's letter about talks between Tehran and the six world powers, and welcomed resumption of negotiations between the two sides.
It was announced that the earlier talks with Iran by the IAEA resulted in a "good day". furthermore it was said that a full scale investigation of all facilities will take place Feb 23

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9010175014

[Little Princess]

05:50 AM on 02/17/2012

The IAEA said in its report that according to evidence they have a "military dimension" of the Iranian nuclear program "cannot be ruled out".

THAT can be said e.g. about Germany with its long standing research and nuclear power power technology. When will someone find evidence there is a "military dimension" to that research and technology? When it's convenient?!

[Ezra Benny Horowitz]

05:18 AM on 02/17/2012

Please fire whoever makes these stupid, childish head lines.

they seem to get worse on a daily basis.

[muck-raker]

05:17 AM on 02/17/2012

Tokyo Warns Israel to Drop War Rhetoric against Iran

- Japan urged Israel to drop its recently intensified war rhetoric against Tehran, warning that any aggression against Iran will deteriorate situation in the region.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda warned Israel against the ramifications of launching a military strike on Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.

Noda told visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a meeting that an attack on Iran would be ''extremely dangerous'' and would ''escalate'' the situation in the region.

Earlier this month, Barak claimed that if the Western sanctions against Iran fail to stop its nuclear program, military action against the country must be placed on its agenda.

The US and its close ally Israel have recently intensified their war rhetoric against Iran. The two arch foes of the Islamic Republic accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Both Washington and Tel Aviv possess advanced weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads.

Iran vehemently denies the charges, insisting 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.

[zenju2]

06:00 AM on 02/20/2012

I urge Iran to cease from over three decades of incitement, hateful rhetoric and hostility against Israel. I urge Iran to do something boldly dramatic by recognising Israel and opening dialogue which will reduce tensions and promote peace.
Iran, the ball's in your court.

[muck-raker]

05:13 AM on 02/17/2012

Netanyahu made a two-fold calculation when he ordered Ahmadi-Roshan's murder. First, Iranians may react - or overreact - to the assassination. That would provide the US and the Israelis with the kind of flimsy political cover they require to attack. In anarchical world of inter-state competition, few states in the Middle East would actually object to a US attack, particularly if Iranians could be made to appear confrontational. Indeed, the Saudi Arabian leadership would like nothing better than for the US to contain Iran,

Second, should the Iranians react - by closing the Strait of Hormuz, - the subsequent damage to the global and US economies may aid in unseating the incumbent US president.

This is a point that bears emphasizing. For decades now, Israeli leaders have injected themselves into domestic US politics. Netanyahu especially has been an active lobbyist in Congress;

During President Clinton's Democratic administration, Netanyahu worked with then-Speaker of House Gingrich, a Republican, to antagonize the president. Now, as then, the Israeli prime minister has cultivated a poor relationship with US president. Barack Obama is not Netanyahu's preferred choice for US, despite his pliancy on the question of Israeli theft of Palestinian land.

, a confrontation with Iran could result in Republican presidency . Netanyahu believes that Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney - both ardent Zionists - would be more receptive to his views.

Barack Obama - who is a perhaps more skillful and wily politician than even Netanyahu - seems to understand the consequences of a

[muck-raker]

04:59 AM on 02/17/2012

The most popular refrain in Israel (and Congress) today is that Iran poses an existentia­l threat to small Jewish-maj­ority state. That is because Iran is apparently pursuing nuclear weapon. Once that supposed nuclear weapon has been manufactur­ed, Iranian mullahs will order that it be employed and await their own annihilati­on in rapturous, convulsive ecstasy (Israel possesses about 200 nuclear weapons).

In reality, , Israelis understand that Iran will not pursue anyone's eradicatio­n - their more honest leaders say so regularly. The two countries are engaged in kind of regional power struggle that has been preserve of insurgent powers for centuries now. The Israelis possess a qualitativ­e military advantage which Iranians seek to neutralise­. . Another way of shrinking Israeli advantage is by pursuing nuclear weapons.

To be sure, it is far from clear that Iranians are pursuing a nuclear weapon. Their nuclear enrichment programme is legal under terms of Nuclear Non-Prolif­eration treaty, which they have signed and ratified.

Netanyahu made a two-fold calculatio­n when he ordered Ahmadi-Ros­han's murder. First, the Iranians may react -- to the assassinat­ion. That would provide US and Israelis with kind of flimsy political cover they require to attack. In anarchical world of inter-stat­e competitio­n, few states in Middle East would actually object to US attack, particular­ly if Iranians could be made to appear confrontat­ional. Indeed, Saudi Arabian leadership would like nothing better than for US to contain Iran, a regional rival.

more: http://www­.aljazeera­.com/indep­th/opinion­/2012/01/2­0121219434­8390751.ht­ml”

[muck-raker]

04:57 AM on 02/17/2012

“Iran’s nuclear threat is a lie
John Pilger
\

\Obama's "showdown" with Iran has another agenda. The media have been tasked with preparing public for endless war
: the same syncopatio­n of government and media "revelatio­ns", the same manufactur­e of a sense of crisis. "Showdown looms with Iran over secret nuclear plant", . The clock ticking. Good versus evil. Add a smooth new US president who has "put paid to Bush years". Guardian front page : "Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq". Based on unsubstant­iated claims by the Pentagon, presented as fact an Iranian "plan" to wage war on, and defeat, US forces in Iraq - a demonstrab­le falsehood for which there has been no retraction­.

The official jargon for this kind of propaganda is psychologi­cal operations­. In Pentagon and Whitehall, it has become a critical component of diplomatic and military campaign to blockade, isolate and weaken Iran by hyping its “nuclear threat": a phrase now used incessantl­y by Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, and parroted by the BBC and other broadcaste­rs as ­objective news. And it is fake.

Newsweek disclosed that major US intelligen­ce agencies had reported to White House that Iran's "nuclear status" had not changed since the National Intelligen­ce Estimate of November 2007, which stated with "high confidence­" that Iran had halted in 2003 the programme it was alleged to have developed. The Internatio­nal Atomic Energy Agency has backed this, time and again.

[muck-raker]

04:55 AM on 02/17/2012

“Iran and the I.A.E.A.
Posted by Seymour M. Hersh

I’ve been reporting on Iran for The New Yorker for past decade, with focus on repeated inability of the best of Joint Special Operations to find definitive evidence of nuclear-we­apons production program in Iran. The goal of high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical—a “smoking caldron,” —to show world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclose­d site, to make evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site.

“There is troubling evidence suggesting that studies are still going on, but there is nothing that indicates that Iran is really building a bomb.” “Those who want to drum up support for a bombing attack on Iran sort of aggressive­ly misreprese­nted the report.”

The report did note that its on-site camera inspection process of Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment facilities­—mandated under Nuclear Non-Prolif­eration Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory—­“continues to verify the non-divers­ion of declared nuclear material.” all of the low enriched uranium now known to be produced inside Iran is accounted for;

, , the Iranians began acknowledg­ing their deceit and opened their enrichment facilities­, and their records, to I.A.E.A. inspectors­.

The new report, therefore, leaves us where we’ve been since 2002, —with lots of belligeren­t talk but no definitive evidence of a nuclear-we­apons program.

[Fireslayer]

04:28 AM on 02/17/2012

So talk to these guys! What can it hurt?

[any mouse]

08:30 AM on 02/17/2012

Talking can not hurt a thing except Israeli pride and arrogance.

If the US wants to stop a needless war, it will have to muzzle Israel (by force if necessary).

[TeeSC]

10:02 AM on 02/17/2012

The regime uses the carrot and stick tactic just as well as everyone else does.  Tell the world they want to resume negotiati>
And you're going to see much more of that in the coming days.  Iran has an election next year too and after the crimes committed in 2008, it's going to be harder for them to fake this election.  

I do agree with the muzzling Israel though.  They are on the opposite side.  They want something to happen before the elections too... but for a different reason.

[Nick Montana]

03:32 AM on 02/17/2012

Ahmadinejad has no real power and absolutely zero say on the nuclear issue. The media knows this but doesn't mention it. The ultimate and final authority is Supreme Leader Khamenei.

Iran has been offering negotiations with the West for years but have been ignored. The issue of nuclear weapons is a red herring. War with Iran is about many things, but the most important factors have been Iran pursuing the Euro as the dominant oil trading currency instead of the USD, because if the dollar wasn't the reserve oil currency, we could not maintain our high deficits and our economic dominance would be knocked off. Gadhafi pursued the identical means with the Dinar and it played a large part in the illegal overthrow of Libya even though his central bank issued debt-free currency.

If Iran uses nuclear energy, the surplus oil would instead be sold to China, India, and Japan, and this would afford Iran enormous economic influence in the region against the US-backed Arab gulf states and Israel. Iran has no nuke program and no shred of evidence of one against years of espionage and covert war by the CIA and Mossad. The CIA and Mossad have also been arming and financing designated terrorist groups like MEK and Jundallah to commit bombings, targeted killing, and murdering civilian scientists committing terrorism in Iran on top of other means. Find a map of Iran and our encircling military bases and explain how we are not a threat to them.

[muck-raker]

05:02 AM on 02/17/2012

excellent post. obviously you are a reader and a critical thinker..but take a look at the post following yours. one wonders were these people have hatched from. no knowledge of any kind on anything...just frothing at the mouth. paid posters?

[Wise Old Guy]

03:09 AM on 02/17/2012

What Iran needs is regime change! Period! How do we get regime change? Piss off the Iranian people. With all of their oil, Iran has to import a vast majority of their gasoline, because they have no refineries. Shut down their gasoline supply, and the Iranian people will rise up. And when they do, give them ALL the assistance they need. And if another regime turns out just as bad, repeat until the mission is accomplished! Either that, or just nuke em now, and get it over with!

[Roelvdwegen]

05:07 AM on 02/17/2012

Any outside interference will always be seen as American imperialism which it is.

[MolliBlum]

05:57 AM on 02/17/2012

Yes. That kind of outside pressure would surely have the opposite effect, causing the people of Iran to rally around their regime, no matter how unpopular it may be, rather than be subjected yet again to imperialist intervention.

[Wisdo]

08:27 AM on 02/17/2012

Its like Marvin the Martian is writing posts on huffpo.