Skip to main content

Iran rejects inclusion of ballistic missiles in nuclear talks

Iran, for now, has fended off an attempt by the United States to include Tehran's ballistic missiles within the ambit of an on-going nuclear dialogue, signaling a tussle between the two countries to draw maximum political advantage out of the talks.

Iran's deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, declared on Monday that his country's ballistic missile programme would not be discussed during Tehran's nuclear dialogue with the six global powers.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran's defensive issues are neither negotiable nor subject to compromise, and they (defensive issues) will be definitely among our red lines in any negotiation," said Mr. Araqchi, during a television talk show on Sunday night.

A nuclear deal, signed in November, resulted in the commencement of a dialogue between Iran and its interlocutors--United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — which envisions lifting of all sanctions

against Tehran within six months, provided it could be verifiably ascertained that Iran was not in pursuit of atomic weapons.

Ballistic missiles can be used for delivering nuclear warheads. But Iran insists that its missile programme does not have a nuclear dimension as it is not developing atomic weapons. Iran has developed a series of missiles, some of which may have a range above 2,000 kilometers.

Mr. Araqchi's remarks follow an assertion by Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. nuclear negotiator at the talks with Tehran, during a Senate hearing, that Iran's ballistic missile programme would be addressed as

part of a comprehensive nuclear deal.

Analysts say that Iran is adopting a tough posture, but, which, at the same time, is finely calibrated to ensure that there is no breakdown in talks.

The delicate balancing act was evident on Sunday when Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reached a seven point agreement entailing practical steps that Tehran would undertake prior to May 15, in order to build confidence about its nuclear intentions.

But the Iranians have insisted that access to the Parchin military facility, which the IAEA has been seeking in the past, will not be granted. "Inspection of Parchin is not within the framework of these seven steps," said Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI), in Tehran on Sunday.

On its part, the IAEA acknowledged that "everything has gone as planned". Yet, IAEA's Deputy Director General for Safeguards Tero Tapio Varjoranta stressed that the seven-step plan is "the first step

that is taking place now". He added: "There are still a lot of outstanding issues."

Reinforcing his country's finely tuned line, the head of the AEOI, Ali Akbar Salehi warned that in case the six global powers failed to abide by their commitments under the Geneva nuclear deal, Iran could return to its original nuclear activities "in a matter of hours."

Nevertheless, the Iranians couched their hardline stance in language that suggested that they were ready for a bargain. Mr. Araqchi roundly criticised the U.S. decision of February 6 to blacklist nearly three

dozen companies and individuals for evading anti-Iran sanctions. These included entities operating in Turkey, Spain, Germany, Georgia, Afghanistan, Iran, Liechtenstein and the United Arab Emirates. But the Iranian diplomat also added that caveat that the US administration might have adopted these measures due to "domestic pressure" seeking additional unilateral sanctions against Tehran.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SC asks Centre to strike a balance on Rohingya issue (.hindu)

Supreme Court orally indicates that the government should not deport Rohingya “now” as the Centre prevails over it to not record any such views in its formal order, citing “international ramifications”. The Supreme Court on Friday came close to ordering the government not to deport the Rohingya. It finally settled on merely observing that a balance should be struck between humanitarian concern for the community and the country's national security and economic interests. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions, one filed by persons within the Rohingya community, against a proposed move to deport over 40,000 Rohingya refugees. A three-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, began by orally indicating that the government should not deport Rohingya “now”, but the government prevailed on the court to not pass any formal order, citing “international ramifications”. With this, the status quo continues even though the court gave the community liberty to approach i...
3 comments
Click Here To Read more »

What's ailing Namami Gange programme?(DTE)

Winters are extremely hectic for Sushma Patel, a vegetable grower in Uttar Pradesh’s Chunar town. Her farm is in the fertile plains of Ganga where people grow three crops a year. But this is the only season when she can grow vegetables. And before that, she needs to manually dig out shreds of plastic and wrappers from her one-hectare (ha) farm. “This is all because of the nullah,” she says, pointing at an open drain that runs through her field, carrying sewage from the neighbourhood to the Ganga. “Every monsoon, the drain overflows and inundates the field with a thick, black sludge and plastic debris. We cannot even go near the field as the stench of sewage fills the air,” she says. But Patel has no one to complain to as this is the way of life for most people in this ancient town. About 70 per cent of the people in Chunar depend on toilets that have on-site sanitation, such as septic tanks and pits. In the absence of a proper disposal or management system, people simply dump the faec...
3 comments
Click Here To Read more »

"ISRO has capabilities to build geostationary satellites for air quality monitoring” (downtoearth)

Pawan Gupta's findings on trans-boundary movement of pollution (Punjab to Delhi) from biomass burning in 2015 spurred debates. He participated in discussions with Indian regulators early September at the Better Air Quality Conference in Busan on the advantages of using satellite data for air quality monitoring. He explains to Down to Earth how air quality monitoring is done using satellite data. How is satellite data used to measure air pollution? Satellites that provide information on atmospheric pollutants are normally (not always) in the low earth orbits (400-1000 km above the Earth’s surface). A single satellite can carry one or more remote sensing instruments onboard that look down to earth and obtain information about the object in the field of view of satellite sensor. The Earth receives electromagnetic radiation from the sun, which travels through space and reaches the earth-atmosphere system. The radiation then interacts with the Earth’s atmosphere and the surface...
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »