France amazed its fellow five powers and Iran by sticking to its guns to the last. They never imagined French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius would go so far as to scupper the Geneva nuclear conference, which came closer than ever before to a joint accord. The intense pressure the US beamed at Jerusalem turns now to Paris. The conference reconvenes on Nov. 20. But meanwhile, President Barack Obama and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, have suffered a stinging setback, after long secret negotiations.
November 10, 2013 Briefs
Iranian Dep. Minister assassinated in Tehran
Deputy Minister of industry, mines and commerce Safdar Rahmat-Abadi was shot dead in his private car in Tehran Sunday. According to Gulf sources, two professional assassins shot the deputy minister at close range in cold blood.
Netanyahu hardens tone on nuclear Iran
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Sunday warned that Israel’s response to anyone challenging its security would be tough and painful. US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, head of the American team of negotiations in Geneva, has arrived in Israel to brief the prime minister on those talks. Secretary of State John Kerry answered Israel’s charges in an NBC interview by saying: “We are not blind and I don’t think we’re stupid. I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe. Nobody has talked about getting rid of the current architecture of sanctions. The pressure on Iran will remain.”
Netanyahu: I have no illusions about the Iranian nuclear deal
Opening the weekly cabinet session Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said: “I have no illusions. The agreement between the six powers and Iran will be signed. It allows Iran to avoid any commitment to dismantle a single centrifuge.
The cabinet met at Negev Kibbutz Sde Boker for a session to commemorate Israel’s first and founding prime minister David Ben Gurion on the 40th anniversary of his death.
West offered Iran $20bn worth of sanctions relief in Geneva
Secretary of State John Kerry offered Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif the immediate release of $3bn of the $50 bn worth of Iranian assets frozen in Western banks, and another $ 16.5 in sanctions relief on gold, petrochemicals and cars, as an incentive to signing a deal for its nuclear program at the Geneva conference, which ended inconclusively Saturday night.
Iran: Our right to enrichment is a red line
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that its "rights to enrichment" of uranium were "red lines" that would not be crossed. In his first comment of the Geneva conference’s failure to push through the first interim international accord for Iran’s nuclear program, Rouhani said: The Islamic Republic has not and will not bow its head to threats from any authority.
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