LATEST
- Regime Continues Wargames Propaganda: “Our Mines Are Hidden and Your Warships Are Useless”
- Iranian Mission to UN: Claims of New Underground Nuclear Facility Are “Baseless” and “Fake”
THURSDAY FEATURES
Analysis: How Israel’s Military Stopped Netanyahu’s Airstrikes
Rafsanjani Makes His Political Move….By Attacking Ahmadinejad For Corruption and Economic Problems
The Rouhani Government has effectively acknowledged that the US has moved the deadline for a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran from July 1 to March 31.
Last November, Iran and the 5+1 Powers (US, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia) agreed a further — and, according to both sides, final — extension of negotiations to July 1.
However, amid protracted talks since January, a dispute between the US and Iran arose over the process. Washington said an agreement on General Principles could be reached by March 31, with the final agreement to follow by July 1. Iran — fearing that US-led sanctions would remain in place over years — said that the settlement must be a one-stage, full and final deal lifting sanctions within six months.
On Wednesday, President Rouhani’s senior advisor, Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht effectively acknowledged after a Cabinet meeting that Iran could not persaude the Americans to back down. So, instead, “we are constrained by time to reach a final deal with the 5+1 Powers by March 31”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry are scheduled to meet again on Monday.
The two sides have said there are still “significant gaps” over key issues such as Iran’s level and number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the US-led sanctions, and the duration of an agreement.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader’s office have restated his official stance against acquisition of a nuclear weapon:
Arrogants’ spy agencies know that we’re not after nukes;states who oppose Iran are fully aware of it.2/22/12 #Mossad #CIA
#Irantalks
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) February 26, 2015
Arrogants know they’re lying when they say #Iran is after #nukes;they want to prevent an indep country from having new technologies.2/17/08
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) February 26, 2015
Regime Continues Wargames Propaganda: “Our Mines Are Hidden and Your Warships Are Useless”
Iranian politicians and commanders have continued their declarations on strength of the second day of the “Great Prophet 9” naval exercises in the Straits of Hormuz.
Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani told reporters, “The big powers should know that they cannot change the conditions of the region by increasing the number of their warships….There is no need to the presence of other countries in the region.”
He added an offer of Iran’s support to allies in the region, “Iran’s technology can be provided to other countries and they can count on Iran as a regional military power.”
The Revolutionary Guards’ naval commander, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, boasted of hi-tech mines that “the US would never imagine even in its worst dreams”.
He added ominously that, if Iran closed the “19 corridors” from the northern to southern Persian Gulf, “no one can traverse” and that 15 of 22 damaged US military vessels have been hit by sea mines: “[The Revolutionary Guards] targeted and damaged 12 US vessels, including a warship while they were escorted by 84 minesweeping vessels [during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war].”
On Wednesday, the naval exercise staged a gunboat and missile attack on a mock “US warship”.
The commander of the Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, asserted, “The message of these wargames is that others should pay good heed to the point that they should not take any action near the Islamic Republic’s security circle.”
Iranian Mission to UN: Claims of New Underground Nuclear Facility Are “Baseless” and “Fake”
Iran’s mission to the UN has rejected claims, circulated in mainstream US media, of a new underground nuclear research center in north Tehran.
The Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), which has pursued the overthrow of the regime since 1979, made the claims at the National Press Club in Washington. They were reproduced in outlets such as The Washington Post.
The Iranian mission said, “It is regrettable that the newspaper [the Post] has released false and repeated claims of a terrorist grouplet whose anti-human nature is evident to all.”
The MKO — listed as a terrorist group by the US Government until 2012 — claimed the “Lavizan-3” site has been producing enriched uranium since 2008.
A blogger at The Daily Kos claims that part of the MKO’s “proof” is actually a photo from an Iranian company that makes safes.
