Iran Is Said to Ignore Effort to Salvage a Nuclear Deal

NY Times ^ | 11/8/2009 | David Sanger

[Saije]

The Obama administration, attempting to salvage a faltering nuclear deal with Iran, has told Iran’s leaders in back-channel messages that it is willing to allow the country to send its stockpile of enriched uranium to any of several nations, including Turkey, for temporary safekeeping, according to administration officials and diplomats involved in the exchanges.

But the overtures, made through the International Atomic Energy Agency over the past two weeks, have all been ignored, the officials said. Instead, they said, the Iranians have revived an old counterproposal: that international arms inspectors take custody of much of Iran’s fuel, but keep it on Kish, a Persian Gulf resort island that is part of Iran.

A senior Obama administration official said that proposal had been rejected because leaving the nuclear material on Iranian territory would allow for the possibility that the Iranians could evict the international inspectors at any moment. That happened in North Korea in 2003, and within months the country had converted its fuel into the material for several nuclear weapons.

The intermediary in the exchanges between Washington and Tehran has been Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the energy agency. He confirmed some of the proposals — including one to send Iran’s fuel to Turkey, which has nurtured close relations with Iran — in interviews in New York late last week.

But members of the Obama administration, in interviews over the weekend, said that they had now all but lost hope that Iran would follow through with an agreement reached in Geneva on Oct. 1 to send its fuel out of the country temporarily — buying some time for negotiations over its nuclear program.

[Saije]

Of course they're ignoring him. Why wouldn't they? It's hard to know whether we should laugh or cry. Obama is well on his way to being the most inept President ever.

[henkster]

“Obama is well on his way to being the most inept President ever.”

I’m gonna cry because that verdict will be delivered by Chinese historians 50 years from now when they write of the collapse of America, subtitled “What were the foolish Americans thinking?”

[Ben Ficklin]

Obama needs to invoke the “Axis of Evil” slogan that Bush and the Neocons used.

[aShepard]

............Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the energy agency...................

How does this muslim fool get to keep his job??

This idiot is like Baghdad Bob eating escagot in Paris, totally oblivious to his nuclear surroundings, his position, covering for his fellow muzzies.

?? How does the UN, (as worthless as it is) justify this partisan idiot to declare anything that may jeopardize the future of a civilized planet??

Madness!!