EU official: Israel out of the loop on Iran talks
Top U.S. official: Washington updates Israel on every detail of ongoing dialogue on near-daily basis.
By Yossi Melman and Barak Ravid Tags: Ehud Barak Iran EU Israel newsA senior European Union official told Israeli officials this week that Israel is not privy to the details of the exchanges between Iran and the Western countries regarding its nuclear program. "You do not understand the extent to which you are not in the picture. You do not know how much you do not know and what is happening in Iran," he said.
Accordingly, a number of senior Israeli officials backed the European official's statements by saying that the release of the draft of an agreement with Iran caught Israel by surprise.
However, a senior official in the U.S. administration told Haaretz Thursday that from the minute the talks began on a deal over the uranium enrichment program of Iran, Israel was updated on every detail by the United States, and was given detailed reports on the talks with the Iranians and the ongoing dialogue on a nearly daily basis.
The Prime Minister's Bureau refused to comment.
Barak slams Iran nuclear deal Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke out Thursday against the draft agreement on Iran's nuclear program, under which most of its enriched uranium will be exported abroad for processing into a form usable in its research reactor.
"Iran received legitimization for enriching uranium for civilian purposes on its soil, contrary to the understanding that those negotiating with it have about its real plans - obtaining nuclear [weapons] capability," Barak said.
He acknowledged that the deal, if signed, would significantly reduce Iran's stock of enriched uranium, but said what is needed is a complete halt to its enrichment program.
"The talks [with Iran] must be of short, limited duration," he added. "The principle we are recommending to all the players is not, under any circumstances, to remove any option from the table."
Iran is slated to sign the agreement Friday, along with the United States, France, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency. And while the Iranians might try to wrest some last-minute concessions from their interlocutors, most analysts expect that they will ultimately sign, despite objections from some Iranian parliamentarians who say it infringes on the country's sovereignty.
Many details of the agreement have not yet been published, but the bits released to the public call for Iran to transfer about 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium - about 75 percent of its known stock - to Russia. There, it will be enriched to a level of 20 percent and then transferred to France, where it will be processed into nuclear fuel and returned to Tehran for use in its research reactor, which makes medical isotopes. The entire process will take about 18 months.
This would leave Iran with only some 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, which is enough to make only about 6 kilograms of bomb-grade uranium. Since a nuclear weapon requires 25 to 30 kilograms of high-enriched uranium, that means Iran would lack the means to produce a bomb in the next year or so whatever its intentions.
Nevertheless, the deal completely ignores repeated UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Tehran stop enrichment. Instead, it effectively legitimizes Iranian enrichment and allows it to continue.
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Israel exists. And the whole world, including the Palestinian people, recognizes the reality of that existence. However, the mere existence of a State, or any other political entity, doesn?t confer legitimacy, especially moral legitimacy. This is why the concept of ?moral legitimacy,? otherwise dubbed as ?right to exist,? doesn?t exist in international law. Indeed, if the mere existence of a State confers moral legitimacy, then Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa, to mention just two examples, should have acquired moral legitimacy and ?a right to exist.? But Israel is not a State like any other State. Israel is even more than a fruit of an adulterous relationship; it is an enduring crime against humanity, just as Nazi Germany was a crime against humanity. Israel has been a criminal entity from day-1, since its very existence came at the expense of the existence of another people, another nation, namely the Palestinian people.
I think most of the UN members feel like the rest of the world in that there is no evidence whatsoever that Israel has at any time in the past six decades sincerely pursued peace with its neighbors. It is an endless process of no peace due to the endless lies of Israel 'all schizophrenic talk' and abusive conduct that is not conducive to making peace with a pet rock. Their possible attempt to whack the Islamic leader of an alleged friend (Turkey) because he was really offended at what the Goldstone Report disclosed might have influenced how the world sees the Terrorist Zionist state of Israel right now. Frankly, Israel has few friends and for that they have only themselves to blame. They have nations that they blackmail and extort, but friends are not to be found for this bunch of whining, schizophrenic, belligerent, threatening bunch of self-serving war criminals in the Knesset.
The EU/ECB survives solely on financing from the US Treasury. The EU will do exactly what the US wants despite what EU officials say or think if they are capable of thinking at all.
And neither will the EU be privvy to Israels plans in dealing with Iran .
How can western countries talk and make agreements with a fasist countrie like Iran. Ask one EU official how many gays are convicted by irans law and killed by the iran state. Ask the dutch "freedom" figthers Greta Duisenberg who likes to visit her beloved friends in iran, if she protested against the killings of gays by the iran state ? The question is not who knows what, today there are not a lot of secrets... The question is who cares and who don't...
Israeli is not a signatory to the NPT and thus is irrelevant in regards to the talks currently ongoing. Iran has a right under the NPT to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and as long as they continue to work under NPT guidelines, Israel has no say in the matter as it refuses to sign the NPT itself, and is known to be in possession of nuclear weapons that it itself developed in secret. For a county with a rouge nuclear weapons program that has refused to sign the NPT to point fingers at Iran without a shred of proof that Iran has intentions of mimicking its own clandestine program is preposterous, and paints Israel once again as the epitome of hypocrisy.
Israel has no right to sit in on sensitive and serious negotiations, because it refuses to sign the NPT. Your leaders are belligerent and only know one solution, war and would probably just be an massive impediment to the process.
believes it is more important within the International Community than it actually is. Couple that with the fact that it chose the right wing neo fascist Lieberman as it's foreign minister. It is not surprising that Israelis are kept out of the decision making process. Surprising that Israel was surprised by the Uranium enrichment deal though. I thought Israel was playing catch up yesterday. I wonder if the statement from the US about settlements also had anything to do about it as well.
A stable nuclear balance of power/balance of terror in the Middle East would be out of the question (nuclear proliferation in the M.E. could never create the same sort of stable equilibrium that was once obtained between the USA and USSR). ISRAEL MUST REMAIN THE REGION?S ONLY NUCLEAR POWER. Moreover, Iran?s program should not become a powerful proliferation driver, building on regional rivalry security concerns and one-upmanship. More at : http://xrl.us/bemedo
barking when the world is simply not interested in hearing Israel's redundantly alarmist views? What Israel thinks about Iran's legal and open nuclear program is irrelevant.
we are not one bit surprised. we remember that during to yom kippur war, when the u.s. was sending weapons to israel who was fighting for her survival, europe, including the uk, france and germany refused overflight rights to american cargo planes, with the exception of portugal. we never expect europe to be an ally to israel. indeed, at this point in time, we hardly expect much from the u.s. administration despite juniper-cobra.
So what's the name of the "senior official" ? Oh, well. Who cares? As much as it slams Israel in some way. "You do not understand the extent to which you are not in the picture" is the typical venom-filled line that I'm getting used to read in articles like this.
The US is disclosing on a limited access basis. But the Israeli interlocutor is keeping distribution limited. That is an internal matter inside the Israeli government. Not everybody inside the US government has the same security clearances either. A Want to know is not a Need to know.
The loops that the EU are left out of following their snubbing of Israel might prove to be more substantively consequential than those loops bypassing Israel.
so, Ehud says. Don't you just love it? But what if the "Principle" that old Ehud is talking about means horse manure to the people who are actually talking to the Iranians? What then? Ehud will dismiss the class? Boy, oh, boy. Ehud, like so many of his compatriots are living in Fantasy Land. The'd be better off living in Disneyland.
Iran will receive it's low grade enriched Uranium from Russia, and will simply continue enriching it in another secret location. It's a win win situation for Iran. Being able to produce "en masse" elsewhere will allow it to be done extensively, effectively, faster, at lower cost and when receiving the already enriched Uranium, part of it will go to display in front of the monitors. The other part will be taken for further enrichement, with the grand majority done elsewhere already.
These talks are going in the same direction as the talks with N Korea: allowing the fascists to attain the WMDs while engaging "plausible deniability." What it means: "No real intent on keeping nukes from Iran, just the ability to claim they did!" Can anyone say 1939 Europe and Chamberlain?