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Iran: Only removal of all sanctions will provide hope for successful nuke talks
Iranian parliamentarian says “crucial” for world powers to recognize Tehran’s “enrichment right”; second lawmaker says Iran should not be first to take confidence building measures.
Delegations from Iran, other world powers during closed-door nuclear talks on October 15, 2013. Photo: REUTERS
Iran views the West’s removal of punitive measures as the sole signifier of progress in talks with world powers on its nuclear issue, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said Saturday.
“(Only) the removal of all sanctions can be a sign of practical step (by the West), otherwise we cannot be hopeful about the results of the talks,” Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency quoted Boroujerdi as saying.
Related:
- Iran offers concessions in Geneva talks, hints it will allow ‘snap’ visits to nuclear sites
- Russia on Iran nuclear talks: ‘Very tough’ but ‘quite promising’
Iranian negotiators met with Russia, the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany in Geneva for two days of nuclear talks on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Islamic Republic has reportedly signaled its willingness to curb parts of its nuclear program to secure urgent sanction relief.
“The crucially important point in the negotiations is the recognition of Iran’s enrichment right,” he stressed.
On Wednesday, another Iranian lawmaker reiterated Tehran’s skepticism of world powers and said the West must take confidence building measures before the Islamic Republic ratifies the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iranian Parliamentarian Seyed Baqer Hosseini told Fars that Iran should not be first to take such confidence building steps as world powers aim to prevent Tehran from producing nuclear weapons.
“Our (nuclear) activities have not faced any problem until now and all of them have been within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and inspected by IAEA inspectors,” Fars quoted Hosseini as saying.
On Thursday, The New York Times quoted a senior Obama administration official as saying the US was weighing the possibility of unfreezing billions of dollars of Iranian assets in response to potential concessions by Tehran on its nuclear program discussed at the recently concluded nuclear talks in Geneva.
The move would allow Washington to give Iran some economic relief gradually without dismantling the sanctions regime which has been built internationally in the face of the Islamic Republic’s failure to comply with Western demands regarding its controversial nuclear program.
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Chinese Christians Wave Israeli Flag on Temple Mount For First Time Since ’67 By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
Chinese Tourists on Temple Mount with Israeli Flag (Photo via Facebook Stand With Us)
The last time the Israeli flag flew on the Temple Mount was for a very brief time after the IDF conquered the site in the 1967 Six Day War, but on Wednesday, a group of Chinese Christian tourists posed with a flag on the steps leading up to the Dome of the Rock.
On Wednesday, Stand With Us, a non-profit pro-Israel education and advocacy organization based in Los Angeles posted the photo on their Facebook page, saying:
UN Ambassadors Join ‘March of the Living’ at Auschwitz
Delegation of UN ambassadors joining the 30th ‘March of the Living’ Pilgrimage at the Auschwitz-Buchenau concentration camp. (Courtesy: American Zionist Movement)
Thirteen ambassadors to the United Nations from Africa, Europe and Latin America visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camps in Poland today on Yom Hashoah (Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day), as part of the 30th annual “March of the Living.”
The delegation organized by the American Zionist Movement, in conjunction with Ambassador Danny Danon, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, will visit Israel next week for Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) celebrations following their visit to Poland. They will be joined by an additional 27 U.N. ambassadors.
Israel fears Trump may see job as done in Syria, leave Israel alone to face Iran
Though strongly backing US-led airstrikes, Jerusalem also reportedly worried Putin may now supply Assad with advanced air-defense systems, reducing Israel’s air supremacy
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and US President Donald Trump in the White House Oval Office, March 5, 2018 (Haim Tzach/GPO)
While Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu firmly backed the US-led airstrikes on Syria in the wake of its use of chemical weapons, Israeli security chiefs made clear on Saturday night that Israel fears the Trump Administration will now consider that its work in Syria is done, and leave Israel alone to face the dangers posed by Iran’s growing military presence in Syria.
Israel’s defense chiefs are also reportedly worried that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, seeing Syria under US-led attack, may provide President Bashar Assad with more advanced air defense systems — which could reduce Israel’s air supremacy in the skies of Syria and Lebanon. A Russian general indicated such an arms supply was possible in comments on Saturday.
Israel’s Netanyahu Voices ‘Full Support’ for US Strikes on Syria Weapons Facilities by Benjamin Kerstein
The remains of the Syrian regime’s Scientific Research Centre in Damascus following coalition airstrikes, April 14, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Omar Sanadiki.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday declared Israel’s “full support” for Friday’s US-led air strikes in Syria.
The US, allied with France and Britain, struck targets in and around Damascus in response to the Syrian regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons against rebel-held targets in the town of Douma. The Douma attack killed over 40 people, with hundreds wounded by exposure to chemical agents. The coalition strikes reportedly caused heavy damage to Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure.
Preserving Jewish History in Mexico City By Alan Grabinsky
Monica Unikel has been leading tours for 23 years. But she’s also helped to create a cultural center inside one of the oldest synagogues in the Mexican capital.
Monica Unikel has been leading tours for 23 years. But she’s also helped to create a cultural center inside one of the oldest synagogues in the Mexican capital.
To mark Day of the Dead on Nov. 1, thousands of Mexican families will flock to the Pantheon of Dolores, one of Mexico City’s biggest cemeteries, to light candles, play mariachi songs, and eat food on the graves of their dead relatives. Right across the street, in the smaller Ashkenazi cemetery, Monica Unikel will be leading an exclusive tour to make up for the lack of Jewish-Mexican rituals to mark the day
New column!
Shoshana Bryen : Syria: Fighting Over the Corpse
The Syrian government’s chemical attack on civilians in the rebel-held suburb of Douma this weekend is the complete responsibility of the war criminal Bashar Assad, his Russian bedfellows, and his Iranian bankers. However, the fact that President Trump had announced that the U.S. is nearly finished its mission to defeat ISIS (which is questionable) and wants to leave Syria quickly may have encouraged the others to speed up their efforts to divide Syria’s corpse.
Jonathan Feldstein : The Holocaust For the Next Generation
It’s safe to say that every year since the Holocaust ended, one could safely say Holocaust commemoration and education has never been more important. That’s especially in the past generation as survivors, whose first hand testimony to the unspeakable horrors they suffered, during which six million Jews were murdered, age and die.
Yet, as much as it’s been incredibly important every year to remember and educate about the Holocaust, this year it is in fact more important than ever.
Ben-Dror Yemini: World’s Silence on Syria is a License to Kill
We know the world is hypocritical, but if we needed further proof that the human rights discourse and the rights organizations have nothing to do with human ethics, the past few days have provided that proof.
The volume of criticism against Israel over the casualties of the “March of Return” is larger than the volume of criticism against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ongoing massacre of his own citizens. And in general, there are more international demands for an investigation against Israel than demands for an investigation against the butcher of Damascus.
Earl Cox : Replace Incitement with Sound Government
The public record is clear: Terrorist group Hamas started this fight. The “March of Return,” deceptively billed as a “peaceful and nonviolent” protest along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, turned violent from day one, as armed terrorists mingled with women and children, and several militants tried to breach the border of the sovereign nation of Israel.
Hamas is desperately trying to pick a fight with Israel that results in civilian casualties among the very people they claim to represent. While proclaiming over loudspeakers “we are with you,” they rally women, children and the elderly to the border and mix them lethally with armed militants.
Mazal Mualem: Disgraced former Israeli PM drums up support for unlikely pardon
In a conversation with several of his acquaintances on the eve of the Passover holiday, former Minister Rafi Eitan revealed that he planned to approach President Reuven Rivlin with a request to pardon former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert so that his criminal record be expunged. Olmert was released from prison last year after serving 16 months for “disgraceful” — ethical — offenses. A person convicted of such crimes is ineligible for several public offices, including the premiership