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Flawed Iran polls could jeopardise talks: EU

2.24.2004

BRUSSELS: The European Union on Monday denounced Iran’s parliamentary elections as undemocratic as ministers warned of a new chill on relations between Tehran and the West.

“It is plain for everybody to see that these were from the start flawed elections,” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said as he arrived for a meeting of his EU counterparts.

Conservatives claimed a majority in the Iranian parliament Monday after hard-liners barred more than 2,400 candidates, many of them reformers, from participating.

In a statement, the ministers expressed “deep regret and disappointment” at the exclusion of reformist candidates, saying it made “a genuine democratic choice by the Iranian people impossible.

“This interference was a setback for the democratic process in Iran,” it said, calling on Iran to “return to the path of reform and democratisation.”

The ministers made no mention of possible sanctions, but earlier German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Europe would “very carefully analyse” how it should now deal with Tehran.

The EU is eager to maintain what it calls a “constructive dialogue” with Iran to support reformers who want to push the Islamic state into adopting more democratic rights.

But talks launched in December 2002 to grant Iran greater access to EU markets in exchange for improvements in human rights have been frozen since June due to Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“We have to send a clear message that the European Union ... wants an opening up of the regime there,” Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said, adding that cooperation on nuclear issues was also important. “I urge the Iranian authorities to take account of this.”

The United States suspects Iran of conducting a secret program to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations and insists it seeks only energy-producing reactors. Straw said the elections “will obviously create a new environment for the discussions”.

Also on Monday’s agenda was the EU’s increasingly rocky relations with Russia, which worries about losing markets and travel rights in its former satellites after they join the western bloc this spring.

They also were to discuss Zimbabwe, days after agreeing to renew an asset freeze and travel ban on government ministers, as well as Cyprus and the Middle East.

Ministers opened their regular monthly session with financial issues - preparations for next month’s economic summit and proposals for the next EU budget cycle, 2007-2013 - both of which are already causing controversy.

Leaders of Europe’s big three - Germany, France and Britain - provoked angry jibes from smaller countries last week when they held a private pre-summit meeting to discuss ways to jump-start the continent’s sluggish growth.

The three also are leading the push for an EU budgetary spending freeze, drawing fire from European Commission President Romano Prodi, who was to present his proposals for increased expenditures to pay for new members and tasks.

Eight formerly communist countries in eastern Europe are among the 10 joining the EU on May 1. But Moscow has so far refused to agree to extend to them the “partnership and cooperation agreement” with the EU, which covers trade, travel and other issues. —AP

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_24-2-2004_pg7_40

The Region: Iran's no-win election

By BARRY RUBIN
Jerusalem Post
2.23.2004

The Iranian regime's handling of elections is a case study of Middle East politics second to none. An examination of the how and why behind the event will give a broad picture of the workings of this region.

In February 2004, Iran marked the 25th anniversary of the Iranian revolution. This is not only an important date for Iran; it should also show what happens when radical Islamism takes over a country, and whether it can deliver on its promises.

The basic outcome of this experiment is clear: The great enthusiasm of the revolutionary period has given way to a massive disillusionment. The great majority of Iranians opposes the regime and is quite willing to say so. In election after election it has voted overwhelmingly for moderate reform candidates.

Even the president was identified with this camp. The regime's electoral support was only at about 20 percent.

But two very important points should remain clear here. First, the regime has stayed in power. There was never any question but that the hard-line rulers (one could call them either "conservative" or "radical") have had their way on every issue. The reform-minded parliament and president have been unable to change a single feature of the system. This situation has prevailed for several reasons.

The regime, of course, retains control of the armed forces, courts, and other such institutions. In addition, it established structures allowing it to veto the desires of the popularly elected representatives. The Council of Guardians, appointed by the hard-line spiritual leader, has been the real agency controlling legislation.

Another important factor is the regime's control of the agenda and definition of politics. It was agreed that Iran would remain an Islamic republic following a certain general line. Like Arab regimes, it used the great scapegoats of the United States and Israel as the cause of all evils and the rationale for retaining its dictatorship.

Second, the regime used the limited degree of democracy as a safety valve. Dozens of independent newspapers were created, for example, and criticized the regime – which let them print their views, then closed them down and threw the editors in jail. A little while later, they were allowed to reopen under different names.

But people had a margin of freedom in their daily lives which made them tolerable. With some liberty, why should they launch a revolution which could lead to hundreds of thousands of dead and Iran's cities in ruins?
This was also enough to let most of the world – governments (especially European ones), academics, media – conclude that there was an important degree of progress in Iran.

Don't press the regime too hard, they said, or this will hurt the moderates. Wait patiently and things will change. Pretend that Iran isn't developing an atomic bomb. Use trade to moderate the situation.

And if the Iranians sponsor terrorism more than any country and rave about wiping Israel from the map, well, excuses can be found.

THEN COMES the 2004 election. The regime has tired of the game. This time it bans 2,000 proposed parliamentary candidates, 80 of them people already serving in parliament. This is very regrettable, says the supreme leader, but the election must go on as scheduled. Few reform supporters, or at least well-known ones, are left on the ballot.

The opposition tries to fight back, but picks a very bad method: boycott. More than 130 deputies in the 290-seat parliament resign, while another 679 candidates who are permitted to run pull out of the race. Many members of parliament write a letter to the supreme leader complaining: "You lead a system in which legitimate freedoms and the rights of the people are being trampled on in the name of Islam."

Predictably, of course, the election is held and the regime wins by an overwhelming majority. Despite the fact that the turnout is low, the rulers lie, claiming it is high. The people have spoken, they insist, and the regime remains in power.

But how does the regime try to justify itself to the masses at home and to the gullible part of the world? By using, albeit with less success, the same methods that work in the Arab world.
And so the supreme leader explains that reformers are traitors ("against the Iranian nation and the revolution") while the regime must act in the way it does to battle demonic foreign enemies ("The loser of this election is the United States [and] Zionism.")
Each ballot cast for his supporters, he explains, is "a bullet into the heart of President George Bush."

The opposition must thus prove that it is not a pawn of America and Israel and not an enemy of Islamist revolution and Iran (a safer route but unlikely to lead anywhere, as the experience of recent years shows). Or it can challenge the whole system.

Mohammed Reza Khatami, the president's younger, tougher brother, and one of the parliamentarians denied the chance to run for reelection, has now said it is time for Iran to become a secular republic.
The reformists have a tough battle ahead, should they choose to fight it. Their eventual victory may seem likely, but how many more decades will it take?

The writer is a former Fulbright scholar, director of the GLORIA Center, and co-author of the recently published Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1077532078457

Another Nuclear Program Found in Iran

February 23, 2004
The Washington Post
Karl Vick

TEHRAN -- International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have discovered that Iran produced and experimented with polonium, an element useful in initiating the chain reaction that produces a nuclear explosion, according to two people familiar with a report the inspectors will submit to the United Nations this week.

Iran reportedly acknowledged the experiments but offered an explanation involving another of polonium's possible uses, which include power generation. The IAEA noted the explanation and left the issue "hanging there," said one person familiar with the matter. The experiments were described by this person as occurring "some time ago."

The discovery is the latest example of a nuclear activity that Iran had not previously disclosed. Earlier, it was revealed that Iran had obtained plans and parts for a nuclear centrifuge, a sophisticated machine used to enrich uranium for use in power plants, as well as in nuclear weapons. Iran insists it always intended its nuclear program to be used only to supply electrical power.

Polonium is a radioactive, silvery-gray or black metallic element. The most common natural isotope is polonium-210. It has some industrial purposes, but can also be utilized, in combination with beryllium, to make sure that the chain reaction leading to a nuclear explosion is initiated at precisely the right moment.

"It does heighten suspicions because polonium-210 is so linked to a certain type of neutron-initiator," said David Albright, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the Institute for Science and International Security. "But it's not an ideal neutron-initiator. It doesn't last long, so you've got to keep producing it."

Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days. Experts say research on polonium would be done early in a weapons program. "It's quite clear they were trying to make an explosive device," said one person with knowledge of the polonium discovery. "But they hadn't gotten far enough. No one will find a smoking gun because they weren't able to make a gun."

The disclosures present an unwelcome political challenge for Iran, which was hoping to put the nuclear issue behind it before March 8, when the full board of the IAEA convenes in Vienna. Instead, diplomats said, Iranian officials were bracing for a report raising enough questions to keep the nuclear issue alive.

"They are going to be facing this problem for a while," said one diplomat.

"We remain committed to our obligations under the International Atomic Energy Agency," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday, while acknowledging to reporters that Iran had acquired nuclear equipment from "middlemen" representing a Pakistani nuclear scientist. "We've never pursued nuclear arms and will never do so," he said.

The disclosures come as Iran is undergoing fresh inspections by the IAEA, the U.N. body charged with enforcing the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran was facing a deadline for disclosing its nuclear activities late last year when three European countries persuaded its government to accede to international pressure to open its nuclear program. Iran agreed to permit more rigorous inspections, suspend uranium enrichment and make a full accounting of nuclear programs it had kept largely secret for 18 years.

Inspections appear to have gone smoothly. Iran's state-controlled media make no mention of the presence of the foreign inspectors. And though one foreign official said the IAEA would prefer that Iranian officials be "more pro-active" in revealing previously hidden elements, Iranian officials have made no effort to block the inspectors when they follow leads they generate themselves.

On the other hand, their discoveries corrode Iran's already fragile credibility. Neither the polonium work nor plans for a P-2 centrifuge were mentioned in Iran's earlier "comprehensive" summary. Discovery of the P-2 centrifuge design and components -- revealed after Libya exposed a black market in nuclear programs run out of Pakistan -- was especially damaging to trust, officials said.

"They say it was an oversight. The IAEA people don't think it was an oversight," said one analyst here. "You have forces that want to keep things secret."

Albright, who has written extensively on Iran's nuclear program, said, "The Libyan bomb design looks like what China gave Pakistan, and why wouldn't have Iran gotten it?

"There's a lot of pressure on Iran," he said. "And I don't think it's credible that Iran says it never had a military nuclear program. To me, it's not so much a suspicion, it's more of an assessment that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program."

Privately, many foreign and Iranian analysts agree. "The intention is clear from the fact they had a clandestine program," said one analyst, who would not be identified by nationality or position.

Begun by Iran's own accounting at the height of its 1980-88 war with Iraq, the nuclear program is believed to have been chiefly under the control of the hard-line Islamic Revolution Guard Corps. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons on the front line, and Iran was internationally isolated.

One Iranian political figure said powerful players in Iran's religious government -- who diplomats said agreed only reluctantly to the agreement brokered by Britain, France and Germany -- rebuffed the pleas of some inside the government to reveal the military side of the atomic program at the time, when it might have done so without penalty.

"I think it was because they wanted to conclude things in a way that it did not look like they had been totally defeated," he said.

In fact, no firm proof of a weapons program has emerged from Iran's far-ranging nuclear activities. But several analysts said they expect more evidence trails to emerge from a prodigious record that Iranian officials have pleaded they have trouble sorting through themselves.

By the time a working gas centrifuge and other advanced components of the clandestine program began coming to light a year ago, outside experts were stunned to see Iran had set out to produce enriched uranium by four distinct methods. The end product could be used either for generating power or, if enriched to weapons grade, for making warheads.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=02&d=24&a=3

Atom Bomb Spotlight on Iran

February 24, 2004
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau

TRIPOLI -- The U.N. nuclear watchdog says it expects Libya's nuclear weapons programme to be dismantled by June while suspicions deepen that Iran has a similar covert atom bomb programme.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Monday urged countries suspected of having similar projects, such as Iran and North Korea, to follow in Libya's footsteps.

"What I preach everywhere I go is full transparency, full cooperation," ElBaradei told reporters, adding senior Libyan officials had reaffirmed their commitment to disarming.

ElBaradei said he hoped to put a full stop behind Tripoli's nuclear weapons, currently being dismantled, by June.

"We will make every effort to come to a closure on this issue hopefully by June," ElBaradei told reporters after meeting Libya's deputy prime minister in charge of the nuclear programme, Matoug M. Matoug.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that IAEA inspectors in Iran had found a substance, polonium, that could be used to initiate a chain reaction for a nuclear explosion. It said Iran had experimented with polonium "some time ago".

Coupled with the recent discovery of designs, components and few fully assembled "P2" centrifuges, which can be used to produce weapons-grade uranium, the discovery of the polonium would appear to cast doubt on Iran's statements that it had never sought nuclear weapons.

Diplomats in Vienna have told Reuters that Iranian officials have been lobbying envoys on the IAEA's governing board -- which meets on March 8 to discuss Iran and Libya -- to remove Tehran's nuclear programme from the agenda by the board's June meeting.

"This is absurd," a non-aligned diplomat told Reuters.

LIBYA GOOD, IRAN BAD?

ElBaradei was due to meet Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam on Tuesday to discuss further disarmament steps before returning to IAEA headquarters in Vienna.

Several Western diplomats said Libya's openness with the U.N. watchdog contrast sharply with Tehran's reluctant cooperation since an exiled opposition group broke the news Iran was hiding a massive underground uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz.

"We would like to see Iran showing the same kind of active cooperation that Libya has shown," a diplomat said.

The IAEA will release a report on Iran's nuclear programme this week. Diplomats said it would list numerous failures by Iran to disclose sensitive nuclear technology and research that could be related to a weapons programme.

The IAEA began inspections of Libya's nuclear programme in December after Tripoli agreed to renounce its covert nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.

Last week the IAEA issued a report saying Libya had begun trying to develop nuclear arms as far back as the early 1980s, and the programme was much bigger than previously thought.

Several Western diplomats have expressed concern Libya wants to keep a research reactor and a uranium conversion plant, despite Washington seeking the removal of all such technology.

Diplomats said Libya's attempt to keep the conversion plant was now half-hearted and expected Tripoli to agree to its dismantling by U.S. and British experts.

ElBaradei said he was not concerned about the reactor or Libya's desire to keep "peaceful-use" nuclear technology.

But he said discussions were under way to convert the reactor, which uses weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium, to one using low-enriched fuel.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=463350&section=news

The Iranian Deception

February 24, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Ootlook

Now is precisely the time for Mr. Bush to show solidarity with the majority of Iranians who want greater freedom, just as Ronald Reagan spoke up for the people of Poland in the early 1980s. The only way to stop Iran's despotic regime from getting nuclear weapons is to help Iranians change the regime.

So when are President Bush's critics, including those in his own State Department, going to concede that he was right all along to include Iran in the "axis of evil"?

Now would seem to be an apt moment, after last Friday's sham election in which Tehran's ruling clerics bullied their way to a majority in what passes for a parliament. The mullahs also fessed up over the weekend to yet another instance of deceiving U.N. nuclear inspectors, conveniently ahead of a report this week from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohammed El Baradei.

The most logical interpretation of all this is that Iran's junta is betting its survival on a crash program to build a nuclear bomb. By the way, does Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage still think Iran is operating a "democracy," as he noted not long ago? Just checking.

The Iranian nuclear revelations are the latest fruit of the exercise in non-proliferation known as the Iraq war. Saddam's fate convinced Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi that WMD production was a bad career move, which in turn led to the unraveling of a nuclear proliferation network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan.

Earlier this month Mr. Khan confessed to supplying Iran with nuclear parts, and last week a Malaysian police report said a middleman in the Khan network had confessed to selling Iran nuclear equipment for $3 million in cash. "We purchased some parts from some dealers," an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman conceded Sunday.

That admission comes on the heels of the reported discovery by the IAEA of uranium-enrichment equipment at a military airbase in Iran. The P-2 centrifuge parts are said to be far more sophisticated than anything the Iranians had admitted to having, and would seem to lend credence to reports that the mullahs are operating multiple, simultaneous enrichment programs lest international inspectors shut any one of them down. Iran has still not adequately explained a prior discovery of centrifuge parts contaminated with highly enriched uranium.

Iran has no need to enrich uranium if its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes, as it claims. Russia has agreed to supply the fuel. These latest deceptions occur, moreover, even as Iran is being given a chance to come clean to the IAEA as part of an October agreement following the discovery of two previously undeclared nuclear sites.

As for the elections, they ought to mark the end of President Mohammad Khatami as a repository of Western and Iranian hopes for reform. Mr. Khatami won a resounding victory in 1997 as the more liberal of the candidates the unelected Guardian Council had deemed to be acceptable protectors of the Islamic Revolution. In 2000 Iranians chose a relatively liberal majority from a carefully screened list of candidates for the country's parliament, or majlis. But Mr. Khatami backed off on threats to resign as laws curbing the power of the Guardian Council and the judiciary were vetoed. His credibility never recovered.

This time around the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, decided the appearance of democracy was not worth the risk of another showdown. The list of thousands of disqualified candidates included more than 80 sitting members of parliament. Internet providers were ordered to restrict access to potentially subversive sites.

Publication of an election-eve letter of protest from more than 100 MPs resulted in closure of the country's last two significant reformist newspapers. Iran's hardliners now say they're plotting a crackdown on satellite dishes, and word is they're preparing Hassan Rohani -- their point man with the IAEA -- to "run" for President when Mr. Khatami's term expires in 2005.

Even the cynical, oil-driven countries of Old Europe recognize the significance of the coup that's just happened -- at least as a public relations blow to their policy of "constructive engagement." The mullahs made "a genuine democratic choice by the Iranian people impossible," read a joint statement from EU foreign ministers. As ever, France's Dominique de Villepin isn't quite ready to write off a planned trade deal: "We have to wait and see how things emerge."

No doubt forgiveness will be the temptation in Washington too. With the U.S. already committed in Iraq, Mr. Armitage and his allies will tempt Mr. Bush with the offer that he can win new concessions on WMD if he keeps quiet about elections and human rights. In addition, the Iranian regime has been signaling it may turn over the al Qaeda members in its custody, or at least not make too much trouble for U.S. troops next door.

We should have learned by now this is a fool's game, entirely at odds with Mr. Bush's "forward strategy of freedom" in the Middle East. Now is precisely the time for Mr. Bush to show solidarity with the majority of Iranians who want greater freedom, just as Ronald Reagan spoke up for the people of Poland in the early 1980s. The only way to stop Iran's despotic regime from getting nuclear weapons is to help Iranians change the regime.

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004022401020013&Take=1

Iran's Conservatives Turn Friendlier Face to the West

February 23, 2004
Stratfor
Stratfor.com

Officials in Tehran said Feb. 23 they do not object to U.S. companies investing in oil and gas projects in Iran. This indicates the clerics feel their post-election grip on power is secure. The announcement sends a message to United States that Tehran is ready to publicly do business -- and perhaps even more.

Analysis

Conservatives in Iran are on their way to retaking control of the Majlis, or parliament. They won 149 of 290 seats in the Feb. 20 elections; reformists and independents clinched a meager 65 seats in the unicameral legislative body. Following the victory, the clerical regime is trying to attract U.S. companies to invest in business ventures entailing 25 years' worth of commitment -- showing that the conservative powerbrokers in the Islamist republic have consolidated their position in Tehran.

These statements indicate that the conservative-controlled government finally is ready to take its secret relationship with the United States to the next level without risking embarrassment.

The conservatives long have subtly signaled that they would be willing to gradually resume relations with the United States, but only on their own terms. Until now, the Iranian legislature -- and consequently the executive branch -- has not been fully under conservative control, which prevented the hard-liners from comfortably moving toward détente with the United States. The parliament and cabinet have been dominated by liberal, modernist clerics since the landslide victory in 1997 that brought President Mohammed Khatami to power.

Reformists and conservatives, however, certainly recognize the overarching geopolitical reality that dealing with Washington could give Iran an upper hand in Iraq. Although this would benefit the conservatives, they worry that should the reformists be allowed access to this process, potential advantages gained from a relationship with the United States could be squandered -- or at least not carefully controlled and cultivated.

The working relationship between Khatami and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei kept the two sides from destroying the Islamist political system, and both sides were able to agree on almost all foreign policy matters -- except the issue of seeking détente with the United States.

If it were up to Khatami and the reformist camp, U.S.-Iranian relations now would be overt and public. The conservatives -- with their careful constitutional engineering -- have circumscribed the president and his cabinet in areas in which the conservatives felt threatened.

The conservatives know well that they eventually would be ousted if they let Iran's relations take their own course. The unelected clerics know that Washington's dealings with elected officials could strengthen the reformists, who in time could effect a coup.

Conservatives likely gained confidence from dealing with Washington and Europe -- over Iraq, the Iranian nuclear program and al Qaeda -- that the West would look the other way if the reformists were ousted. The United States and Europe have criticized the Iranian elections, but the relatively mild tone of officials' statements indicates that the West is willing to ignore Tehran's manipulation of the electoral process for the sake of larger interests.

The United States and Europe are much more interested in securing cooperation on the aforementioned issues from Tehran than squabbling over election practices. Dealing with a unified government firmly controlled by those who exercise ultimate authority is the best way to realize this objective. Divisions among the reformists and their inability to command much public support also gave the green light to conservatives to go ahead with their plans.

As a result, they easily took control of unstable government institutions by barring their opponents from contesting the polls. The conservatives' overwhelming victory has allowed them carte blanche to forge relations with the United States as they wish.

The conservatives have won this round and even are beginning to turn a friendlier face to the West, but they will have to act soon. The clock is ticking -- in both Baghdad and Washington.

http://www.stratfor.com/corporate/index.neo?page=center&storyId=228423

The Internet Under Surveillance

February 24, 2004
Reporters Without Borders
RSF

Conservatives muzzle the Internet during elections

Judge Said Mortazavi signals closure of pro-reformist news web site www.emrooz.ws

Iranian authorities have followed official harassment of pro-reformist newspapers with an attack against online news publications, said Reporters Without Borders, which protested at the latest development.

Judge Said Mortazavi announced on 23 February that he would shortly shut down the pro-reformist web site www.emrooz.ws

Calling for the site to be made available again in Iran, the international press freedom organisation said, "The Internet is now regularly used by Iranians to access independent news, despite controls put in place by the authorities.

"We call on conservative judges to halt their ideological censorship of the net, which has clearly intensified during this electoral period."

Emrooz has been blocked in Iran since the start of the year but remains accessible from abroad. The decision announced by Judge Mortazavi will shortly mean a complete shutdown of the news site, viewed as "damaging to the security" of Iran.

The independent online news site www.gooyaa.com, popular with Iranian Internet-users, was also added to the "black list" at the start of the year. Reporters Without Borders has information that this order has since been lifted.

Weblogs - personal or collective pages in which Internet users make their own comments about the news - are also subjected to censorship by the conservatives. Among the 50 or so bloggers commenting on the Iranian elections are: http://sobhaneh.com and a collective weblog "news about the boycott" (http://home.c2i.net/hasanagha/tahrim/tahrimmajles01.htm).

The authorities have also stepped up harassment of the news site www.rouydad.ws which has been the target of technical strikes that made it inaccessible for several days. Rouydad.ws has officially been blocked from 18 February onward and may be soon closed down by the authorities.

Finally, the Reporters Without Borders site www.rsf.org (available in Farsi), has recently been added to the list of filtered sites and is therefore now unavailable in Iran.

As the organisation revealed in its previous report on free expression on the Internet (available on www.internet.rsf.org) Iran is very repressive towards the Internet and managers of online publications. Censorship, which is officially said to protect people against immoral content, quickly extended to political news. It is moreover now easier to access pornographic sites on the Internet in Iran than those of censored pro-reformist publications.

According to information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, Iranian delegations are currently in France and Germany with the aim of updating technical means for the Islamic Republic of Iran to control the Internet.

http://www.rsf.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=20

Nuclear Substance Found in Iran

February 24, 2004
BBC News
Jonathan Marcus, BBC Defence Correspondent

International inspectors have found that Iran has produced and experimented with polonium, a radioactive element that can help trigger a nuclear blast. Western diplomatic sources told the BBC that while Iran still insists it had no clandestine weapons programme, the discovery does raise new questions.

Iran was previously forced to concede it had not disclosed full details of its centrifuge technology.

Centrifuges have a vital role in the uranium enrichment process.

Polonium-210 is a radioactive metallic substance that does indeed have a number of industrial uses.

The discovery that Iran has both produced and experimented with the substance has nonetheless caught the attention of nuclear weapons experts.

This is just the latest example of a nuclear activity which Iran has failed to declare to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.

Polonium can be used in conjunction with another metal - beryllium - to ensure that the chain reaction leading to a nuclear explosion is initiated at the correct moment.

Worrying questions

In itself, this does not prove one way or another that Iran has or had a nuclear weapons programme.

But it does raise some worrying questions in the minds of inspectors.

And, according to western diplomats, it underlines the need for Iran to make a full disclosure of its past nuclear activities.

The Iranian government agreed to do this late last year.

But this most recent disclosure will have increased the pressure on the Iranian authorities to explain themselves more fully.

Inspectors are not just seeking information from Iran.

Libya has agreed to give up all of its nuclear weapons-related activities.

In the process, western intelligence agencies and the IAEA have been able to lift the veil on the shadowy nuclear export operation run from Pakistan by the scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Some experts believe there could be links between his operation and Iran, in which case the Iranian authorities could have more embarrassing nuclear questions to answer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3517139.stm

IAEA Says Hard to Tell if Iran Told All

February 24, 2004
Reuters
Francois Murphy

VIENNA -- The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday it still had questions about Iran's nuclear program despite what Tehran called a full disclosure last October, and diplomats said Iran was being difficult.

Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report Iran had agreed at the last minute to freeze more activities related to enriching uranium but said several questions remained open.

Those open questions included why Iran had not declared its possession of designs for advanced P2 enrichment centrifuges and its past experiments aimed at creating polonium, a substance used to initiate a chain reaction in nuclear explosions.

The IAEA report, sent to the IAEA board and obtained by Reuters, also said a combination of highly enriched and low-enriched uranium had been found at two sites in Iran and had not yet been fully explained.

The mixed contamination was a "major outstanding issue," the IAEA said.

"Until this matter is satisfactorily resolved, it will be very difficult for the agency to confirm that there has not been any undeclared nuclear material or activities," the report said.

Iran has explained uranium traces found by IAEA inspectors as the result of contaminated centrifuges it bought on the black market.

"If it was all imported from one place, why are there different types of contamination at Kalaye and Natanz?" asked one Vienna-based diplomat who follows the IAEA.

The IAEA said Iran's failure to acknowledge that it had designs for the P2 centrifuge was "a matter of serious concern."

Centrifuges are used in uranium enrichment, a process of purifying uranium for use in weapons or to make nuclear fuel for power plants.

FULL DISCLOSURE?

Under international pressure, Iran gave the IAEA last October what Tehran called a full declaration of all its nuclear activities.

The United States says Iran's nuclear program is a front for building nuclear weapons. Tehran says it is aimed solely at peaceful production of electricity.

A State Department official, who asked not to be named, said Iran's latest agreement was simply its late declaration of a commitment the West believed it had won from Tehran last year.

He also criticized Iran's compliance, complaining recent revelations of its activities showed it had not taken a strategic decision to give up nuclear activities in the way, for example, Libya had.

"Their pattern of behavior is cause for concern. They are only as forthcoming as they are forced to be," he said. "But you have to wonder what other surprises there are and why all this hiding if their nuclear activities are peaceful as they say."

The IAEA report said Iran had just agreed Tuesday to suspend "remaining enrichment activities."

As of early March, it would "suspend the assembly and testing of centrifuges, and suspend the domestic manufacture of centrifuge components, including those relating to existing contracts, to the furthest extent possible," the report said.

The IAEA welcomed the move and said it would "contribute to confidence building."

Iran agreed to suspend all uranium enrichment activities in November last year, but failed to agree with the IAEA on a definition of what exactly that meant.

The IAEA report said Iran has continued to assemble centrifuges and manufacture centrifuge components domestically since November. Washington had called for a comprehensive suspension, including the assembly of centrifuges.

Another diplomat in Vienna familiar with the IAEA said the fact Iran had not disclosed having the P2 centrifuge designs or its past experiments on polonium was quite serious.

"It reveals that Iran is a difficult country. They give concessions only at the last minute, like enlarging the suspension of enrichment," the diplomat added.

"These are the things that raise doubts that more things will come up in the future.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040224_317.html

Iran Conservatives Blast EU "Enemies" For Poll Criticism

February 24, 2004
Dow Jones Newswires
The Associated Press

TEHRAN -- Leaders of Iran's new conservative majority in parliament on Tuesday blasted criticism of their election victory by European Union "enemies" and cautioned the West not to be hasty in judging their policies.

The leaders' harsh words directed at the E.U., which called the disputed elections a step backward for democracy, perhaps set the tone for the next period of conservative domination.

"We don't think much of the words of enemies," said Ahmad Tavakkoli, of the conservative party Abadgaran Iran-e-Islami, or Developers of Islamic Iran, who was the number two vote-getter in Tehran.

With nearly all the ballots counted from Friday's elections that were boycotted by most reformers, Interior Ministry figures showed conservative candidates on the way to a comfortable majority in the 290-seat legislature.

The winner in the Iranian capital - philosophy professor Gholamali Haddadadel - Tuesday urged the E.U. not to "take one side."

"We expect them not to make a hasty judgment," said Haddadadel, who leads the Developers of Islamic Iran party that is expected to set the tone for the new parliament, which will be seated in June.

Monday, the E.U.'s 15 foreign ministers and their counterparts from the 10 countries joining in May called the elections a "setback for the democratic process in Iran."

Iran's its relations with the E.U. are considered crucial for improving its economy and seeking foreign investment and trade in the light of U.S. sanctions.

Talks launched in December 2002 to grant Iran greater access to E.U. markets in exchange for improvements in human rights have been frozen since June due to Western concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The election swung the parliament back to the control of hard-liners and others loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all key decisions.

The conservative victory denies liberals an important forum to challenge hard-liners' policies and appointees who have final say in almost all affairs. It also leaves reformist President Mohammad Khatami without a key source of support in his foundering drive to ease social and political restrictions.

In a news conference Tuesday, the two conservative leaders defended Iran's right to peaceful nuclear development and repeated that the U.S. needs to acknowledge the legitimacy of Islamic-ruled Iran as a precursor to any chance for a diplomatic thaw.

Haddadadel urged the White House to "understand the Islamic Revolution and its message of independence."

The immediate concern for conservatives, however, is calming the tensions over the elections. A debate in parliament Monday degenerated into a shouting match after one reformist lawmaker called the vote a "historic fiasco."

Reformers had boycotted the vote after more than 2,400 candidates were banned from running by the ruling Islamic establishment. Reformers had counted on a boycott to score a moral victory.

The nationwide turnout stood at slightly more than 50%, a noticeable drop from the 67.2% in the last parliamentary elections in 2000. In Tehran, the Iranian capital and the country's biggest city, just 33% of voters turned out, the Interior Ministry said.

About 130 reformist lawmakers resigned earlier this month to protest the mass disqualification of the liberal candidates. Resignations now must be debated one by one in the parliament and need a majority vote to take effect. One resignation was accepted Monday.

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Bush Denounces Iran Elections

February 24, 2004
Reuters
Reuters.com

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Tuesday denounced Iran's parliamentary elections and said Tehran leaders stifled freedom of expression.

In Friday's election, an unelected hard-line clerical watchdog barred some 2,500 reformist candidates, some of whom have been key interlocutors with the European Union in its dialogue with Iran.

"I am very disappointed in the recently disputed parliamentary elections in Iran," Bush said in a statement read by his spokesman, Scott McClellan.

The United States is locked in a test of wills over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is for energy production but which Washington fears could be used to make a bomb.

Bush said the disqualification of the candidates "deprived many Iranians of the opportunity to freely choose their representatives."

"I join many in Iran and around the world in condemning the Iranian regime's efforts to stifle freedom of expression, including the closing of two leading reformist newspapers in the run-up to the elections. Such measures undermine the rule of law and are clear attempts to deny the Iranian people's desire to freely choose their leaders," Bush said.

He said Washington supports the Iranian people's aspirations "to live in freedom, enjoy their God-given rights and determine their own destiny."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4427605

Solidarity With Iran

Free people are the only real stability.
Wall Street Journal
02/23/2004
MICHAEL MCFAUL AND ABBAS MILANI

On Friday, there was a coup d'Ã©tat in Iran. By preventing thousands of democratic candidates from participating in the parliamentary elections, the clerics eliminated yet another relatively independent institution of political power. Their next target is the presidency. If President Mohammad Khatami is replaced in 2005 through a similar faux electoral process, then the concentration of monopoly power in the hands of a clique of despotic clerics will be complete.
Contrary to common perception, Iranian society is today one of the most pluralist, and the Islamic regime one of the most fragile, in the region. Even after the election, the prospects for a democratic breakthrough are greater there than elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran occupies the same place in its neighborhood as Poland did in communist Europe in the 1980s. Like Poland then, Iranian society is organized, hostile to the regime, pro-democratic and pro-American, while Iran's rulers--like their Polish counterparts 20 years ago--have no legitimacy, are deeply corrupt, and seem ready to use any means necessary to survive. At the risk of stretching the analogy, last Friday's "coup" in Iran is the equivalent of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski's crackdown against Solidarity. Just as in Poland after December 1981, inside Iran the era of compromise and negotiation is now over.

However, the coup in Iran today and the one in Poland are different in one critical respect: the West's reaction. In contrast to the concerted efforts in the '80s to aid Solidarity, few in the West--including the Bush administration--have shown much solidarity with Iran's democrats. This policy, or the lack of one, needs to change.

The first step in executing a new strategy is to clarify whose side we are on. President Bush must make clear, ideally in a major speech devoted to Iran, that the U.S. has no intention of pursuing closer ties with the autocratic clerics as a reward for dismantling their nuclear weapons program; and that it is not a patron of any Ã©migrÃ© candidate for leading a future democratic Iran. Many in Iran doubt President Bush's promises about democracy in the Middle East. Instead they see Washington focused on immediate goals--such as arresting terrorists and eliminating WMDs--that have led to cooperation with autocrats like Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and now, perhaps, the clerics in Iran.

For years, the "spiritual leader" Ayatollah Khamenei and his minions thwarted any effort to seek better relations with the U.S. In the wake of Saddam Hussein's ouster, however, the nervous mullahs changed their tactics, but not their goals. They were suddenly more willing to negotiate with Western states, particularly on international controls over their nuclear program. After saber-rattling against any new protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the surprisingly timid mullahs suddenly agreed last October to allow vigorous inspections of all their facilities. The message to the world, and to the U.S. in particular, seemed clear: If agreements are to be made with Iran, it is the conservatives, and not the elected president, who must be partners to the deal. Buoyed by Col. Gadhafi's recent rapprochement with the U.S., they have pursued private talks with American counterparts, and have allegedly outlined in a secret letter the path to the resumption of full diplomatic relations. As a sweetener for the deal, conservatives hint that they can keep the Iraqi Shiites quiet. But their posture is a combination of bluff and deception.

The Bush administration and our European allies cannot be tempted into an agreement with Khamenei or his surrogates. If the past is any indication, the clerics will break any agreement they have signed out of expedience. Already there are signs of their bad faith on their promise to come clean on the extent of their nuclear program. There is even a theological concept--Tagiye--to justify such double-dealings with the "infidels." Nor can they help in Iraq, where Iran's mullahs have in fact little influence over clerics such as Ayatollah Sistani. The only way they can influence events in Iraq is through the thousands of agents they have sent over the borders.

Most importantly, signals of rapprochement would send a demoralizing signal to Iran's democratic forces. Negotiations over weapons inspectors are absolutely necessary, but the interlocutors in such discussions must be elected officials, not unelected clerics. Beyond this limited engagement, President Bush must initiate a more sophisticated strategy for engaging Iranian society--without appearing to legitimize the regime. He must make public statements to assure democratic forces inside Iran that the U.S. is still on their side. President Bush should meet publicly with Iran's genuine democratic leaders, while avoiding imposters claiming to represent the Iranian people. American NGOs must engage more directly with Iranian civil society. Iranian students, scholars and entrepreneurs must be allowed greater interaction with American counterparts. Iran's democratic movement would benefit from contact with the West--with Western societies, ideas and economies. The same strategy and organizations that helped support Polish society in the dark days after December 1981 must be deployed in Iran.

The future of Iran, and of its potential democracy, must be determined inside Iran. But the U.S. can play a crucial role by making clear that democracy is the paramount foreign policy goal in Iran. Arms control negotiations with the mullahs may serve American short-term interests, but at the expense of more lasting gains. If Iran becomes a liberal democracy, surely the Iranian nuclear threat to the U.S. will disappear definitively. After all, did not Poland's Solidarity ultimately do more to end the Cold War than any Soviet-American arms control agreement?

Messrs. McFaul and Milani, fellows at the Hoover Institution, teach political science at Stanford.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1083864/posts