Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Iran Not Seeking Nuclear Weapons

This is the REAL face of Iran… any questions? Don’t buy into rightwing lies… what they really want to do is to destroy a non-capitalist state… think on that. Iranians aren’t monsters… they’re human beings…

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On Saturday, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei said that Iran isn’t seeking to develop nuclear weapons. He posted on his website, “We believe that nuclear weapons must be eliminated. We don’t want to build atomic weapons. However, if we didn’t believe so and intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us”. On 14 February, talks between Iran and the IAEA failed to produce a deal on granting IAEA inspectors access to the Parchin facility, which they suspect Iran could use to produce nuclear weapons.

Moscow doesn’t see enough signs that Iran is ready to meet UN and IAEA demands concerning Iran’s nuclear programme. This came in a statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in the run-up to the six international mediators’ talks with Iran in the Kazakh city of Almaty on 26 February. The six mediators are known as P5+1, or the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. According to Rybakov, the demands on Tehran, including the one that it stop enriching uranium to 20 percent, are still in force. He pointed up that we’re approaching a time when we should make specific decisions.

Iran will never renounce its right to develop nuclear energy for a variety of peaceful needs. It also urges the Western powers raising concerns over its nuclear energy programme to resolve their disagreements with it through talks. On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke about this in Teheran at the start of yet another round of negotiations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported no breakthrough at the nuclear talks with Tehran. According to the UN body’s chief inspector, Herman Nackaerts, the IAEA is ready to continue negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme. However, he added that the atomic watchdog needed more time to move the debate.

16 February 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_16/Iran-not-seeking-nuclear-weapons-Khamenei/

Russia Warns Against Military Strike on Iran

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Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin warned that a military attack on Iran would only strengthen the resolve and grass-root support of nuclear bomb proponents there, saying in an interview, “I share the opinion that a strike [against Iran] would only play into the hands of those vying for the creation of a nuclear bomb. It’d be rather an irrational and dangerous step”. Churkin said that he hoped that common sense would prevent the USA from attacking Iran. He emphasised that none of the P5+1 group members believed that Tehran had made a final decision to build a nuclear bomb, noting, “As long as the decision isn’t final, there remains a leeway for political dialogue. A military attack would torpedo talks with Iran, and it’d nullify the possibility for the renewal of political negotiations”.

Churkin also said that claims that the USA is providing Syrian insurgents only with so-called “non-lethal” weapons don’t relieve Washington of any responsibility for murders carried out by armed anti-Assad fighters. Churkin emphasised that the USA is an extremely powerful state, which enjoys enormous authority in such countries as Qatar, the chief arms supplier of the Syrian opposition. He added that if the USA wants to remain consistent in its policy, it should restrain those countries providing Syrian rebels with deadly weapons. Churkin voiced Moscow’s concern over rumours of a chemical threat in Syria, observing, “We believe there’s been too much scaremongering… which makes you feel that someone is looking for a pretext to invade Syria. We’re afraid the opposition may be tempted to use chemical weapons in their interests”.

11 February 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_11/Russia-warns-against-military-strike-on-Iran/

Editor’s Note:

“Non-lethal weapons”… that’s oxymoronic. The Syrian rebels aren’t cops using water cannons and rubber bullets. The USA was caught with its hand in the cookie jar and it’s trying to brazen its way out. Victoria Nuland should be ashamed of herself (as should all of her staff)… but she won’t be. She makes a good living lying for the aggressors… and so do all her staff. Makes ya wonder about our country’s priorities… we can’t “afford” to have universal health insurance but there’s plenty of money to hire soulless PR flacks to spin aggression in foreign parts. There are also oodles of money to provide comprehensive health coverage for wealthy rightwing pols that attack state-provided healthcare for the rest of us (do you see the contradiction in that?). I don’t want to follow the money in this case… it leads to Shit Brook USA. God do help us…

BMD

USA Riled by Russian Strategies

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Nowadays, political strategies and show biz have become so intertwined that it’s hard to tell the former from the latter, and vice versa. For Washington and Moscow… two old-time friends and rivals… the year 2012 ended with the announcement of the arrival of a new period of confrontation, which one observes at the parliamentary level now, but it could grow into something much more serious. Having shaken off the “archival dust” of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the USA quickly replaced that obsolete document with the Magnitsky Act. Russia responded with a blacklist of Americans that it’ll deny Russian visas to and imposed a ban on the adoption of Russian children by US citizens. Like in chess, the game between Moscow and Washington is developing on the basis of a logical scenario.

International Grandmaster Aleksei Kuzmin thought, “The methods the two countries resort to aren’t important, after all, as the relations between the two countries were destined to deteriorate anyway. The political duel between the USA and Russia will assume yet more threatening proportions in 2013. Given that the two sides exhausted all their arguments concerning a European missile defence system, Iran, Syria and the evergreen issue of a Middle East settlement, there are practically no chances for striking an easy deal. In chess, a player often confronts difficult choices, where he has to decide whether the oncoming worsening of his position is beneficial. Every grandmaster knows how to provoke their opponent into making a move that could seem dangerous, but yields good fruit in the long run. A provocation that fails to hit its target makes your position weaker”.

International Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev noted, “Whatever moves Russia and the USA choose to make, they’re unlikely to grow into a full-fledged conflict. No high-profile moves, like the Magnitsky and Dima Yakovlev Lists, the creation of new missile defence systems, or support of one of the parties to the Syrian conflict, can spoil relations between Russia and the USA. As always, the USA is feigning interest in what Russia has to say, but it does as it pleases. It reserves the right to set its own rules of conduct. Like in a game of chess, Washington controls the key fields of the chessboard while feeling free to decide whether to exchange pieces or launch a direct attack against the king”.

According to Aleksei Kuzmin, “The recently signed Dima Yakovlev Bill and the law that bans corrupt American officials from opening accounts in Russian banks or entering Russia are strategic moves designed to provoke the opponent into taking symmetrical measures, which in turn could strengthen President Putin’s positions on the ‘domestic policy section’ of the chessboard”. On the other hand, Vladislav Tkachiev observed, “All these moves are but red herrings, whilst Moscow consistently pursues its agenda, moving slowly, but surely, towards the ‘main target’. This is what’s bothering Washington”. In general, Russia is against “blacklist wars” or games for raising stakes. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said a few days ago that the only reasonable way of handling international relations is a dialogue. However, a dialogue presupposes two parties.

29 December 2012

Igor Siletsky

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_12_29/US-riled-by-Russian-strategies/

Iran Claims it Captured US Drone

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On Tuesday, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said that they’d captured an American drone, the third reported incident involving Iranian forces and American unmanned aircraft in the past 12 months. The Revolutionary Guard naval commander, General Ali Fadavi, told Iranian state media that the ScanEagle drone was gathering data over the Persian Gulf. However, he gave no indication of when his forces captured the drone, saying, “The American drone, which was on a reconnaissance flight gathering data over the Persian Gulf in the past few days, was captured by the Guard’s naval air defence unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace. Such drones usually take off from large warships”. US Navy officials claimed that all their drones are accounted for.

Last month, the Pentagon said that Iranian forces fired at one of its Predator drones in international airspace. Iran said that the drone violated its airspace. The incident highlighted continuing tensions between the USA and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at creating atomic weapons. Iran says the program is civilian, aimed at energy production. In December 2011, Iran said that it’d captured a CIA spy drone that entered its airspace. Iran claimed to have extracted top-secret data from the stealth-technology equipped RQ-170 Sentinel drone.

4 December 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20121204/177907904.html

Editor’s Note:

To be clear, Iran has support from Russia and China… and these countries are monitoring the spent fuel from the Iranian reactors. The charges against Iran are lunatic rightwing moonshine from the USA and Israel, ginned up by the likes of Fox News, Bibi Netanyahu, and Rush Limboob. The American obsession with this is purely political, to assuage the ego of the Israel Lobby (such does exist… it’s one of the ugliest facets of American Jewry… and I speak as a determined foe of anti-Semitism). Besides that, the Americans have a mania with the notion that they’re invincible, and the fact that the Iranians can defeat their “advanced” technology annoys them to no end. That’s why the Iranians have such glee in making such announcements.

In short, nothing much is going to happen. It’s the same ol’ same ol’… do pass me the jug.

BMD