WASHINGTON, Jan 20, (Agencies): The major powers seeking to negotiate an end to Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons are expected to issue documents on Friday laying out what Tehran would need to do to return to talks, a diplomat said.
A statement by Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States would be the latest signal the diplomatic path remains open to Iran despite tougher sanctions and renewed speculation of a military strike on its nuclear facilities.
The group also is expected to provide details of a letter that European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton sent Iran in October in an effort to bring Iranians back to the table, the diplomat said, saying the letter itself may be released.
The release of the statement, and perhaps the letter itself, are an effort to demonstrate that the major powers are willing to talk to Iran and reiterate their demands that Tehran must return to the table willing to talk about their nuclear program.
Western nations suspect Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons but Tehran says its nuclear program is for civilian energy purposes.
The diplomat said that Iran had been sending mixed signals about whether it might be willing to return to talks in the face of tighter US sanctions focused on its crude oil exports and the possibility of a European Union petroleum embargo.
“This is a way to ensure that our offer is absolutely clear,” said the diplomat, adding that the central points of the October letter were that “we are prepared to sit down with you if you are prepared to demonstrate serious intent.”
There have been signals in recent weeks that Iran might be willing to hold a new round of talks about its nuclear program.
Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, on Wednesday said during a visit to Turkey that “negotiations are going on about venue and date. We would like to have these negotiations.”
Officials from several of the major powers involved — Britain, China, France, the United States and Russia — denied that any such talks about talks were under way.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday time was running out to avoid a military intervention in Iran and he appealed to China and Russia to support new sanctions to force Tehran to negotiate over its uranium enrichment program.
Western officials say Iran has been asking for talks with major powers “without conditions” as a stalling tactic while refusing to put its nuclear programme on the table.
Friday’s expected statement follows pleas by Iran’s Arab neighbors for major powers to scale back an intensifying confrontation with Tehran that has raised fears of regional conflict.
Cautioned
Meanwhile, in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates cautioned against further escalation in tensions over Iran’s nuclear activity and welcomed remarks by Iran’s foreign minister, who on Thursday said regional “peace and tranquility” was in everyone’s interest.
Confrontation is brewing between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear work, which Washington and other powers say is aimed at developing atomic weapons but Iran says is peaceful.
Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which channels a third of the world’s seaborne oil, if pending Western moves to ban Iranian crude exports cripple its lifeblood energy sector, fanning fears of a slide into wider Middle East war.
“It’s important to get far away from any escalation and we stress the stability of the region. I welcome the comments of my colleague the Iranian foreign minister to create distance from any escalation,” UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan was quoted as saying by state news agency WAM on Friday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Thursday said regional “peace and tranquility” was in the interest of all but warned neighbouring states not to put themselves in a “dangerous position” by aligning themselves too closely with the United States.
Iran’s Arab neighbours are close allies of Washington, which maintains a big naval force in the Gulf and says it will not tolerate any move to close the Hormuz waterway.
“What matters to us is that stability prevail in the region. We don’t want anything to damage stability in the region and there is an effort from all to work towards stability,” Sheikh Abdullah said.
European Union foreign ministers are expected at a meeting on Monday to agree an oil embargo against Iran and a freeze on the assets of its central bank, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said, confirming diplomatic leaks.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s No. 1 oil exporter, has riled Iran by saying it could swiftly raise oil output for key customers if needed, a scenario that could transpire if Iranian exports were embargoed.
New US sanctions signed into law by President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve would make it impossible for most countries to pay for Iranian oil, if fully implemented in coming months. Countries that already buy Iranian oil can receive waivers from Washington but are expected to reduce their imports over time.
Senior officials from big Asian oil-buying countries have visited the Gulf in recent weeks, apparently seeking alternative supplies from Arab states to replace Iranian oil.
Co-ordinate
An ally of Iran’s supreme leader called on Friday for Israel to be “punished” for killing a nuclear scientist and the top US general urged his Israeli ally to coordinate with Washington as crisis builds in the Middle East.
Alarmed Arab neighbours in the Gulf made a plea to scale back confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme. France, calling on China and Russia to back Western sanctions, said time was running out for diplomacy to deflect Tehran from a course that Washington and Israel have threatened to stop by war.
An Iranian lawmaker, however, said there was no chance of resuming negotiations with world powers unless they agreed in advance to exclude the nuclear issue from the agenda - a vain hope, given the centrality of Western concerns that Iran is seeking atomic weapons to the diplomatic contacts.
After Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei paid his respects to the families of two scientists assassinated on what Tehran believes were Israel’s orders, one of them just last week, a close ally who is a former nuclear negotiator and currently speaker of parliament demanded retribution.
“Terrorism has a long history in some countries like the Zionist regime,” Ali Larijani said of nuclear-armed Israel, which views an atomic bomb in the hands of the Islamic Republic as a threat to the survival of the Jewish state.
“The Zionist regime should be punished in a way that it can not play such games with our country again.”
Such threats have been made before in Tehran and it is unclear how or when they might be carried out. Israel is on guard against attacks on its borders and within, notably by Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, which is supported by Iran.
Israeli officials have not commented on accusations that it deployed the hit squad which blew up Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan on a busy Tehran street last week. But it has a record of such attacks and is widely presumed by Western analysts to be engaged, along with allies, in a covert war against a nuclear development programme which Iran insists is entirely civilian.
Sharp US disavowal of American involvement in the killing have drawn some analysts to see it as a form of rebuke to Israel, amid speculation that President Barack Obama is wary, while he campaigns for re-election in November, that Israel could launch unilateral action that might inflame the region.
Obama’s top military official, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, paid a brief visit to Israel and was quoted by its defence ministry as telling officials there that Washington was keen to coordinate on strategy.
“We have many interests in common in the region in this very dynamic time and the more we can continue to engage each other, the better off we’ll all be,” Dempsey was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Israeli defence ministry.
The United States has led Western pressure on Tehran to curb uranium enrichment that might provide material for weapons. In November Dempsey said he did not know whether Israel would give him advance warning if it decided to strike Iran.
Dan Shapiro, the US ambassador to Israel, was quoted as saying on Thursday that the Obama administration would be ready to move beyond sanctions against Iran if they fail to curb the Islamic Republic’s suspected nuclear weapons ambitions.
“We know that the sanctions on Iran might fail to work, and therefore we are leaving all the options on the table, as the president has said explicitly, and has instructed the top military officers to do everything necessary to be prepared for any action at any stage,” Shapiro said in remarks at Haifa University that were relayed by a member of the audience.
Shapiro later told reporters that consultations were intended to “coordinate efforts ... toward the goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Tighten
Meanwhile, Iran would not try to block the Strait of Hormuz unless a foreign power seeks to “tighten the noose” in a growing nuclear showdown with the West, Tehran’s UN envoy said Thursday.
“All the options are or would be on the table,” if Iran is threatened, ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said on US television, referring to the strategic shipping route, which is a chokepoint for one fifth of the world’s traded oil.
“There is no decision to block and close the Strait of Hormuz unless Iran is threatened seriously and somebody wants to tighten the noose,” Khazaee said on the Charlie Rose show.
“We believe that the Strait of Hormuz should be the strait of peace and stability,” the envoy added. “But if foreign powers want to create trouble in the Persian Gulf, of course it would be the right of Iran as well as the rest of the countries in the region to try to defend themselves.”
Amid growing speculation of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Khazaee said the growing tensions should be end through “peace, dialogue and stability.”
Iran has accused Israel of involvement in the killings of its nuclear scientists. But the ambassador said he did not think Israel would try to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. “There are enough wise politicians around the world to advise them in case if they want to do that not to do it,” he said.
In Tokyo, Japanese Trade Minister Yukio Edano said on Friday that government officials told visiting US counterparts that Japan’s imports of Iranian crude oil are on the decline and the trend will continue.
US Treasury and State Department officials held meetings with Japanese officials in Tokyo this week to explain a US law imposing sanctions on countries that trade with Iran to curb its ability to build a nuclear weapon.
Like other Asian buyers of Iranian oil, Japan is under pressure to cut imports from the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter to secure a waiver from the sanctions.
Edano said Japanese officials told US counterparts that the country’s imports of Iranian crude have fallen by about 40 percent in the past five years, a fact that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda pointed out at a news conference last week.
“We also told them our understanding is that this trend is set to continue,” Edano told a news conference on Friday.
“Having said that, we asked US officials to consider the Japanese situation in a flexible manner, including the consideration of a waiver from the US law on sanctions. And I understand that negotiations will continue,” Edano said.
Iranian crude makes up 10 percent of Japan’s overall oil imports and some in Japan are concerned the new sanctions could drive up oil prices, dealing a blow to its economy, which is recovering from last year’s earthquake and nuclear power disaster.
The head of the country’s oil industry body said on Thursday that Japanese buyers are likely to cut Iranian crude purchases in about three months.
The next working-level meeting may be held sooner rather than later, a government official who attended the meetings told Reuters on Thursday.
In Brussels, EU foreign ministers will assure Greece on Monday that it will still be able to buy oil on reasonable terms after the introduction of a planned EU ban on Iranian crude, a senior Brussels official said.
But he added that ministers, who plan to announce the embargo at a meeting on Monday, will not come out with a detailed plan that same day on how to maintain supplies to Greece, which sources around 23 percent of crude imports from Iran.
Sales
Meanwhile, Iran is being paid for oil sales to India through a Turkish bank, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company said Friday on Mehr news agency.
“There is no problem with exports to India and money continues to be transferred through a Turkish bank,” said Mohsen Ghamsari.
That bank, however, has warned Iranian authorities that it will not take on new clients making money transfers to pay for Iran’s oil exports, Ghamsari was quoted as saying.
India, which buys about 400,000 barrels per day from Iran, had expressed concern that this channel could no longer be used to make payments.
Ghamsari said that “part of the money owed to Iran by India was transferred through Turkey” after noting that the Iranian central bank also had “other channels” to receive its oil revenues.
India announced on Tuesday it would continue buying Iranian oil despite mounting US and EU pressure on the Islamic republic’s clients to limit their purchases as long as Iran pursues its controversial nuclear programme.
Iran is India’s second-largest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia, providing around 12 percent of the fast-growing country’s needs at an annual cost of around $12 billion.
China, another major client, has also rejected Western sanctions on Iran, while Japan and South Korea have expressed reservations over the consequences such sanctions could have on their economies.
Turkey, which opposes unilateral sanctions against Iran, is also a major client, purchasing gas in addition to oil. Iranian exports to Turkey, mostly from its energy sector, were worth over $12 billion in 2011, according to Iran’s media.