Iran Ends Voluntary Cooperation With IAEA

[laheina]

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago



TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Sunday it has ended all voluntary cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog but would still hold talks with Moscow on a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, reversing an earlier decision to abandon those talks.

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Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran had implemented the president's orders to end voluntary cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered the move Saturday in response to the U.N. agency decision to refer Iran to the Security Council over fears the country is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. It means Iran will resume uranium enrichment and will no longer allow snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities — voluntary measures it had allowed in recent years in a gesture to build trust.

"We ended all the voluntary cooperation we have been extending to the IAEA in the past two-and-a-half to three years, on the basis of the president's order," Mottaki said. "We do not have any obligation toward the additional protocol (anymore)."

The action was required under a law passed last year.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will continue to honor its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but that it has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program.

"Adoption of the policy of resistance doesn't mean we are on non-speaking terms or noncooperative," Mottaki said. "Yesterday we had two options. One was the option of resistance and the other was surrender. We chose resistance."
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear;_ylt=AjfGnv3QtypNBGQ9jl4_bQys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[patdem]

1. I heard on WJ blurb that Iran is going to ACCEPT Russia's offer

to enrich uranium in Russia. But nothing on the American press, but look at all the eastern press regarding this..a google search : http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Iran+accepting+Russia%27s+offer&num=10&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

And Khaleej Times, Islamonline would not come up for me. : http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayArticle.asp?col=§ion=middleeast&xfile=data/middleeast/2006/February/middleeast_February55.xml

This will take the wind out of the war mongers. (Hopefully)

[laheina]

2. Let's hope.

Oringinally, iirc, they were saying that if the UN started proceedings that they wouldn't take Russia's offer; however, it seems to be in their best interest to do so.

Maybe that will kill some of the steam that the neocons are trying to build up. :)

[UpInArms]

3. from Reuters

http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=uri:2006-02-05T123842Z_01_L02734082_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN.xml

Iran has warned that any sanctions against it would send oil prices beyond a level industrialized economies could manage.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Sunday doubted that sanctions would have much effect on Iran.

Russia is helping build Iran's only nuclear power station and Russia's LUKOIL is investing in an Iranian oilfield. China gets 12 percent of its oil imports from the Islamic Republic.

Abdolrahim Moussavi, head of Iran's joint chiefs of staff, warned that any military strike against Iran's atomic facilities would be useless.

"We are not seeking a military confrontation, but if that happens we will give the enemy a lesson that will be remembered throughout history," he was quoted as saying by the ISNA students news agency.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a news conference on Sunday that Iran was keeping diplomatic options with Russia open.

Asefi said Tehran would have talks with Moscow on February 16, but added that a Russian proposal that Moscow enrich Iran's uranium would have to be "adjusted in the current situation".

[tatertop]

6. I think Iran is about to teach us a lesson

Too bad bush will profit wildly in the process

[TheVirginian]

4. They accepted Russia's offer before the IAEA referred them.

After that happened (yesterday afternoon), they rejected the plan.

[bemildred]

5. Iran MP: Could Disrupt Gulf Oil Flow If Sanctions -Report

TEHRAN -(Dow Jones)- Iran could disrupt the flow of crude oil out of the Persian Gulf waterway if its oil exports are subjected to economic sanctions as a punitive measure over its nuclear program, said an Iranian lawmaker Saturday.

The U.N. nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, decided Saturday to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over suspicions about its nuclear program. The decision sets the stage for possible future political and economic sanctions by the U.N. body.

The semi-official Mehrnews quoted Soleiman Jaffar-zadeh, a member of the conservative Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Relations Committee, as saying political and economic sanctions against Iran would be ineffective and useless.

He warned oil producing countries in the Gulf region, particularly Saudi Arabia, that any sanctions on the export of Iranian oil would also negatively affect the oil exports out of the waterway by other producers. "Countries such as Saudi Arabia which play mischief these days and claim they would compensate for the oil market shortage and prevent a rise in its price with increased oil production in case of Iran's sanction must know that under those conditions there would be no oil tanker leaving the Persian Gulf intact," Jaffar-zadeh said.

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2006020413500000&Take=1

[daleo]

7. I think they know they are now in Bush's gunsights

So it doesn't matter how they deal with the IAEA. Bush is bent on a military strike of some type, just like he was bent on the Iraq invasion. All this is just theater.