Global Security Newswire

The United States yesterday indicated that Iran still had the option to accept a U.N. plan for enriching Iranian uranium in other countries, even though Washington had pressed Tehran to adopt the proposal before the end of 2009, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 4).

Iran has rejected key terms of the U.N. plan, which sought to forestall the nation's ability to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon by refining a large portion of its low-enriched uranium in other countries for use at a medical research reactor in Tehran. The Middle Eastern state, which has insisted its nuclear program has no military component, has only offered to give up small quantities of its low-enriched uranium at a time in simultaneous exchanges for pre-enriched medical reactor fuel.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned Saturday that Iran would domestically enrich its uranium to the higher level required for the medical reactor if the international community failed to accept adjustments to the U.N. plan.

"The door is of course still open for Iran to do the right thing and live up to its international obligations," White House spokesman Bill Burton said. "We'll be going through the appropriate process to try to get them to the table and do exactly what they're supposed to do."

President Barack Obama is expected to meet this week with White House national security officials and senior advisers to discuss "what the next steps are," Burton said.

"We have begun discussions with our partners and like-minded nations about pressure and sanctions," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Our goal is to pressure the Iranian government, particularly the Revolutionary Guard elements without contributing to the suffering of ordinary (Iranians) who deserve better than what they are currently receiving" (Christophe Schmidt, Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Jan. 4).

"We've avoided using the term deadline ourselves ... because we want to keep the door to dialogue open," she added. "But we've also made it clear that we can't continue to wait. We cannot ... stand by when the Iranians themselves talk about increasing their production of high-enriched uranium"

New U.S. economic penalties would be expected to involve additional travel bans and other punitive measures on people and organizations linked to the Revolutionary Guard and Iranian leaders, Reuters reported (Arshad Mohammed, Reuters I, Jan. 4).

Tehran responded today to Clinton's remarks, the Associated Press reported.

"We share the same idea with her. Deadlines are meaningless," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast. "We hope other countries return to their natural path, too" (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/Washington Post, Jan. 5).

Mehmanparast yesterday said Tehran could gradually exchange its uranium for medical reactor material in Brazil, Japan or Turkey, the Tehran Times reported. Iran had previously only expressed willingness to carry out such trade within its own borders (Tehran Times, Jan. 5).

"If the other side expresses readiness for the gradual and staged swap, we will discuss the details," Mehmanparast said, according to AFP.

He added: "Either we buy the fuel, or cooperate for swap or if they do not prepare grounds for these, we will pursue our own fuel production plan" (Agence France-Presse II/Middle East Online, Jan. 5).

The spokesman added today that "we do not consider sanctions, threats and such kind of wrong actions to be useful," the Xinhua News Agency reported (Xinhua News Agency/China View, Jan. 5).

One analyst, though, suggested that recent developments might be making Iran more susceptible to economic pressure, the Christian Science Monitor reported yesterday.

Due to the political unrest that has swept through Iran since the nation's disputed presidential election last June, a "significant" number of Iranians "are likely to blame the regime for sanctions which are not so broad as to hurt everybody,” said Shahram Chubin, an Iran analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard has rapidly expanded its role in the nation's economy in recent months, completing billions of dollars in new contracts and procurements that have made the organization a “bigger target" that could "presumably ... be targeted relatively accurately,” Chubin said.

However, he expressed doubt that such economic penalties would make Iranian leaders “more vulnerable in the sense that tomorrow they are going to stop the (nuclear) program” (Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 4).

Meanwhile, a panel of Iranian lawmakers has rejected a request by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to travel to Iran, Iranian state media reported.

It was uncertain, though, whether the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee had the final word on whether Kerry would be allowed to enter the country, according to CNN (CNN, Jan. 5).

The intentions behind Kerry's request were also unclear, the Boston Globe reported. The lawmaker -- who would be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution -- might only have wanted the release of three U.S. hikers detained in Iran, but he might also have sought a breakthrough in nuclear talks with the Middle Eastern state, said former State Department official Suzanne Maloney.

“The administration was clearly giving Kerry some leeway to pursue this,’’ said Maloney, now a Brookings Institution scholar.

"You could imagine a kind of a win-win, where the Iranians would appear to be magnanimous and hand over these three American young people and the U.S. would be able to establish some kind of footing with Tehran," she said. "But given how belligerent the regime has been, I don’t see how he could make it a success, either for himself or for American diplomacy" (Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, Jan. 5).

Elsewhere, Tehran yesterday delayed a European Parliament delegation's scheduled visit to Iran, Reuters reported. Officials in Brussels said the trip had already been canceled as the delegates would not be allowed to meet with Iranian opposition figures (Reuters II, Jan. 4).