Iran’s state-run press accuses Netanyahu of “bullying” P5+1, speculates on proposals to be offered by West in Baghdad.
With talks between Iran and the P5 +1 group countries – China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US – regarding Iran’s nuclear program set to resume in Baghdad on Wednesday, Iran’s state-run press moved late on Tuesday to emphasize the country’s claims of “peaceful” nuclear energy.
Late Tuesday evening, the Islamic Republic Broadcasting Agency reported that Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) had announced its nuclear experts had successfully supplied the country’s Tehran-based research reactor with “two batches of homemade fuel”.
According to IRIB, the process “aims to ensure continued production of radiopharmaceuticals and radioisotopes for the Tehran research reactor”, and IAEO said it aimed to continue to deliver two packages monthly.
Throughout Tuesday, the Iranian media had focused on Israel’s pre-summit stance, on reports that Russia and Western European countries might offer different proposals at the talks, and IAEA chief Yukiya Amano’s announcement that a deal with Iran over inspections was close.
Iran’s state-owned Press TV accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of “bullying” the P5 +1 countries when he declared on Monday that Israel would only accept a total halt of Iranian nuclear enrichment. The Tehran-based news outlet slammed Netanyahu’s position, and said Israel possessed “up to 400 nuclear warheads”.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon Iran’s semi-official Fars News said Michael Mann, spokesman for the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told its reporters on Tuesday that there were likely to be two proposals offered at the Baghdad talks.
According to Fars, Western European states planned to present a “new package” to Iran, different from that proposed by Russia, which it said indicated that P5 +1 members are divided on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue.
While Fars’s Persian site said the content of the two different proposals remained unclear, its English-language portal noted that Russia had previously called for a “step by step” resolution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear enrichment. Under a proposal put forward by Russia in February, Moscow suggested that Iran freeze the number of centrifuges for enrichment at current levels and place restrictions on centrifuge use, Fars said.
Both Press TV and the Revolutionary Guards-linked Mashregh News reported a speech by Iranian parliamentary chairman Ali Larijani, in which he called on the P5 + 1 countries to “change their policies” toward Iran during the Baghdad nuclear talks, and to “shun double-dealing”.
Meanwhile, Mashregh reported that Defense Minister Ehud Barak – whom the Revolutionary Guard-linked news outlet refers to as the “Zionist Regime’s Minister of War” – had said Israel was willing to accept an Iranian reduction in nuclear enrichment to 3.5%.
Israel’s official position has always been that the Islamic Republic must end all its enrichment activities, a stance Mashregh slammed as “irrational”.
Mashregh said it had taken Barak’s comments from Israel’s Hebrew-language news site Ynet and that the defense minister’s statements could be interpreted as a compromise or as a new policy to justify military action against Iran.
“The regime could claim that its efforts to achieve a deal [with Iran] have been exhausted, and now military action is inevitable,” Mashregh said.
Iran’s Tabnak website, which is closely associated with Mohsen Rezaee, secretary general of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, cited Rezaee as saying the P5+1 countries are prepared to give “concessions” to Iran, and while those concessions may not be great, they would be the “first step in the right direction”.
A former chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Rezaee is currently on Interpol’s wanted list for his alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.
In Tuesday’s article, Rezaee said the “steadfastness” of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Iranian people are “bearing fruit” and that with “careful negotiations”, Iran’s negotiators in Baghdad “can start to reap the first fruits of that steadfastness”.
Meanwhile, Mashregh said Rezaee had warned of “troublemakers” who are trying to score points on the eve of the Baghdad talks.
Israel is trying to make trouble ahead of the talks, Rezaee said, “however, the ground has been laid for Iran to gain points in the meeting, and we won’t give any excuse not to achieve a positive outcome in the Baghdad talks.”
In a separate story, Tabnak said International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, who returned from Tehran on Tuesday, had announced that a deal with Iran was close.
The deal would unfreeze an investigation into suspicions that Iran is working towards building nuclear weapons.
According to Tabnak, Amano said IAEA inspectors’ access to the Parchin military complex would be addressed as part of that new deal.
The Parchin site, 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran, is an Iranian military complex.
Iran claims that because Parchin is not an officially designated nuclear site, it does not have to allow IAEA inspectors inside the facility.
The Islamic Republic has rejected Western allegations that it has removed evidence from the Parchin site. Washington DC-based think tank The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said earlier this month that it had acquired satellite imagery showing new activity outside a building at Parchin, suspected to contain an explosive chamber for nuclear weapons testing. Also this month, the Associated Press(AP) reported it had received a document with a diagram of Parchin.
Last week, Tabnak claimed AP’s release of that document had been a deliberate ploy by the West, aimed at influencing the upcoming nuclear talks.
Significantly, in a separate Tabnak article on Tuesday, Expediency Discernment Council secretary Reznaee used the anniversary of Iran’s 1982 liberation of the city of Khorramshahr from Iraq to criticize Israel and the West and shore up public opinion on the eve of the nuclear talks.
Coincidentally, May 23 – the date of the nuclear talks in Baghdad – is also a highly significant date in the history of the Islamic Republic. On that day 30 years ago, Iranian forces tasted their first victory in their war with Iraq when they retook Khorramshahar using waves of Revolutionary Guards and Basij fighters, in an operation dubbed ‘Beit al-Moqaddas’ (‘Jerusalem’).
Reznaee said Iran’s enemies wanted war, and to take Iran’s “confidence and dignity”.
“Our enemies wanted to crush and humiliate us, but Khorramshahar’s liberation destroyed their hopes,” he said, according to Tabnak.
Reznaee made his remarks as the Iranian army prepares to stage extensive war-games on Wednesday, to mark Khorramshahr’s liberation and to practice new asymmetric war tactics, according to Iran’s army commander Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan.
Rezanee also posed the rhetorical question of whether “the Islamic Republic is more dangerous than tens of US and Soviet nuclear bombs”, and said some countries, especially Israel, wanted to upset Iran’s national resistance.
Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, which is controlled by the country’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, was upbeat about the upcoming Baghdad talks in reports on Tuesday, but focused on issues around the summit.
IRNA focused on Iraq’s role in the talks, and said Baghdad would play a “major role in resolving regional issues”.
The news agency cited Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) secretary and chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who arrived in Iraq Monday night, as saying that holding the talks in Iraq indicted the country’s “peace, stability and security”.
IRNA reported that Jalili had held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on both regional and international matters.
IRNA also noted the dust storm that closed Baghdad airport on Tuesday, which it said could delay the nuclear talks.
