Iran prepares to launch nuclear plant

The reassurance comes as Iran said it will press ahead with its controversial uranium enrichment programme in order to provide fuel for the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant due to go online on Saturday. Iran announced earlier this week the building of 10 new uranium enrichment plants, due to start in March.

Israel, widely believed to have its own atomic arsenal, has previously hinted at military strikes, as a last resort, to deny Iran the means to make a nuclear bomb. But Gary Samore, President Barack Obama’s top adviser on nuclear issues, believes that Iran has “roughly a year dash time” - referring to the shortest time Tehran would take to convert existing stocks of low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material.

“A year is a very long period of time,” Mr Samore said.

He said the United States believed international inspectors would detect such a move by Iran, which has been hit by sanctions over its nuclear programme, within weeks, leaving a considerable amount of time for Washington and Israel to consider military strikes, according to The New York Times.

US officials cited “evidence of continued troubles inside Iran’s nuclear programme” as the basis for the new assessment of how long it would take Teheran to build a nuclear weapon.

“Either they don’t have the machines, or they have real questions about their technical competence,” Mr Samore said.

Mr Samore’s comments were followed by an announcement from the Iranian Defence Minister that the Islamic republic had test fired a surface-to-surface missile.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has said the Islamic republic is ready to return to stalled talks with world powers without conditions over the plan to swap nuclear material for fuel.

ANALYSIS / Netanyahu has won, for now

After a year and a half of political stagnation and Israel's increasing international isolation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can claim his first diplomatic achievement - even if it is a modest one.

Direct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, which are set to re-launch on September 2 in Washington, will begin in accordance with the conditions on which Netanyahu insisted. However, the talks themselves will be Netanyahu's real challenge, when he will be required to make decisions regarding core issues. Netanyahu's big achievement of the past few months has been his ability to re-direct American pressure: After more than a year of President Barack Obama leveraging heavy pressure on Netanyahu, the U.S. president has begun to apply pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to submit to direct peace talks.

With the help of this pressure from Obama, who has been desperate to achieve a diplomatic victory in the Middle East, Netanyahu got his wish – an American declaration of direct talks with no preconditions. This declaration, as announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, put an end to the Palestinian demand that negotiations be conducted on the condition that a Palestinian state would be established with 1967 borders.

Senior officials in Jerusalem said Netanyahu had clarified to the Americans that his demand for negotiations without preconditions wasn’t only a political stance; it was also a political necessity that would enable him to keep his coalition government intact. Netanyahu had previously agreed with his partners on the right – Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as well as Minister Benny Begin and Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon – that negotiations would restart with no preconditions. Netanyahu even reiterated this stance in the decision from the forum of seven senior cabinet ministers earlier this week regarding the resumption of peace talks.

With the help of American pressure, Netanyahu also succeeded in rendering essentially meaningless the announcement Friday from the Quartet, which reaffirmed its support for the resolution of all final-status issues. The Palestinians had hoped the European Union, the UN and Russia would be able to hand them a victory by calling for a complete Israeli settlement freeze, but that also did not happen in the end.

The Americans vetoed that demand and clarified that such an announcement would back Netanyahu into a corner and torpedo the negotiations. In the end, the Quartet announcement turned into another international document that lacked bite.

Netanyahu agreed to compromise on one issue – the timetable for negotiations – which also gave the Palestinians something of an achievement. They had demanded a certain timetable in order to bridge their lack of trust regarding Netanyahu's intentions for the peace process. The Israeli premier, who for a year and a half has been trying to prove to the international community that he is a partner for peace, himself recently told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that he believes peace can be achieved within one year. As such, Netanyahu had no problem compromising on the timetable.

Netanyahu's diplomatic victory, however, is a temporary one. U.S. envoy George Mitchell acquiesced to another of Netanyahu's requests – that talks take place with no American mediator in the room – but the administration plans to be especially active in the process. If Mitchell sees that talks stagnating or foot-dragging on Netanyahu's part, he won't hesitate to put American proposals on the table.

In addition, after the celebratory ceremony in Washington, when the essential and Sisyphean talks begin, Netanyahu will be forced to present his first stances on such issues as borders for a future Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and the future of the settlements. Until now, no Likud prime minister has conducted peace talks to reach a final-status agreement with the Palestinian Authority and has, therefore, never been required to seriously deal with these issues. When this moment arrives, the internal differences of opinion, in all their might, and the tension with the American administration will bubble up to the surface and may even intensify. That moment will be Netanyahu's true test.

U.S.: Iran's nuclear power plant bears no 'proliferation risk'

The United States does not see the fueling of Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr as a “proliferation risk," State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said Saturday.

The United States does not see the fueling of Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr as a “proliferation risk," State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said Saturday.
A nuclear reactor in Bushehr

A nuclear reactor in Bushehr, Iran.
Photo by: Bloomberg

“We recognize that the Bushehr reactor is designed to provide civilian nuclear power and do not view it as a proliferation risk,” Holladay said, adding that “It will be under IAEA safeguards and Russia is providing the fuel and talking back the spit nuclear fuel, which would be the principal source of proliferation concerns."

Iran began fueling its first nuclear power plant on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb.

"Russia’s support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability as its intentions are purely peaceful," Holladay said. "Russia’s supply of fuel to Iran is the model we and our P5+1 partner have offered to Iran. It is important to remember that the IAEA access to Bushehr is separate from and should not be confused with Iran’s broader obligations to the IAEA. On this score as the IAEA has consistently reported Iran remains in serious violation of its obligations.‬"

Iranian television showed live pictures of Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart watching a fuel rod assembly being prepared for insertion into the reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr.

"Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," Salehi told a news conference afterwards.

Iranian officials said it would take two to three months before the plant starts producing electricity and would generate 1,000 megawatts, a small proportion of the nation's 41,000 megawatt electricity demand recorded last month.

Russia designed, built and will supply fuel for Bushehr, taking back spent rods which could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium in order to ease nuclear proliferation concerns.

Saturday's ceremony comes after decades of delays building the plant, work on which was initially started by German company Siemens in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic Revolution.

The United States criticized Moscow earlier this year for pushing ahead with Bushehr given persistent Iranian defiance over its nuclear program.

Moscow supported the latest UN Security Council resolution in June which imposed a fourth round of sanctions and called for Iran to stop uranium enrichment which, some countries fear, could lead it to obtain nuclear weapons.

"The construction of the nuclear plant at Bushehr is a clear example showing that any country, if it abides by existing international legislation and provides effective, open interaction with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), should have the opportunity to access peaceful use of the atom," Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, told the news conference.

The fuelling of Bushehr is a milestone in Iran's path to harness technology which it says will reduce consumption of its abundant fossil fuels, allowing it to export more oil and gas and to prepare for the day when the minerals riches dry up.

Following the ceremony, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the country's semi-official Fars news agency that his country would continue to enrich its own uranium.

Iran's neighbours, some of whom are also seeking nuclear power, are wary of Tehran's nuclear ambitions and its growing influence in the region, notably in Iraq where fellow Shi'ites now dominate and Lebanon, where it is a backer of Hezbollah.

While most nuclear analysts say Bushehr does not add to any proliferation risk, many countries remain deeply concerned about Iran's uranium enrichment.

Barak to U.S., France: Take steps to stop Lebanese flotilla

Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke on Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, U.S. National Security Adviser General Jim Jones, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, and asked them to act to prevent the launch of the Lebanese flotilla setting for Gaza.The Defense Minister emphasized that Israel permits the import of civilian materials into Gaza after it is checked at the port of Ashdod. Therefore, he said, "The flotilla's attempt to reach Gaza is a needless provocation."

Earlier in the day, the organizers of the women's flotilla from Lebanon to Gaza announced that the ships would not set sail on Sunday. Apparently, the reason for the delay is Cyprus's refusal to allow the ships to pass through its territorial waters or to drop anchor in one of its ports.

"We will not set sail tomorrow," Samar Al Haj, one of the flotilla organizers, said to the Reuters news agency. "We have encountered difficulties. We will try to set sail from another port, we won't give up so easily."

On Thursday, the Israeli delegation to the United Nations submitted a complaint to the general secretary of the organization and to the head of its security council. The complaint stated that the flotilla is a needless provocation, and that there are acceptable ways of transferring aid to Gaza.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that all of the other states in the region, including those that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, understand that any such flotilla will only cause damage to the whole region. "We hope that this understanding will lead to cooperation to prevent the provocations," Lieberman said.

Earlier Friday, Defense Minister Barak said that the women's flotilla intends to aid terror groups. "The flotilla planning to set sail from Lebanon has nothing to do with humanitarian goals, it is a hostile irritation," he said in a Defense Ministry statement.

UN chief: Direct peace talks 'must not be wasted'

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Saturday that upcoming direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians "must not be wasted." In a statement issued after the announcement that direct talks would take place in Washington on September 2, Ban said he "welcomes the decision by both Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to begin direct negotiations, following the statement of the Quartet and at the invitation of the U.S. government." Negotiations are the only way for the parties to resolve all final status issues and he [Ban] calls upon both sides to show leadership courage, and responsibility to realize the aspirations of both peoples," the statement read. "We should all be aware that this is an opportunity that must not be wasted."

Israel and the Palestinians accepted on Friday an invitation by the United States and other powers to restart direct talks on Sept. 2 in a modest step toward forging a peace deal within 12 months to create a Palestinian state and peacefully end one of the world's most intractable conflicts.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with President Barack Obama on Sept. 1, before formally resuming direct negotiations the following day at the State Department in Washington.

However, the al-Sharq al-Awsat report Saturday stated that the Palestinians will opt out of direct negotiations if Israel would not extend its present freeze on West Bank settlement construction beyond its September 26 expiration date.