International Crisis Group

Defying History: How Kim Jong Un Could Hold Onto Power for Decades  |  The Atlantic

By Max Fisher

The world has been predicting North Korea’s imminent downfall for a generation now, and why shouldn’t we? The Stalinist, totalitarian nations of the world have collapsed so consistently and in such quick succession that this one, perhaps the faintest star in the Soviet constellation, seemed sure to follow. If the Soviet Union, for all its weapons and natural resources, couldn’t keep back the tides of history, how could impoverished little North Korea? If populous, powerful China felt it had no choice but to reform and open, wouldn’t its angry neighbor have to do the same?

FULL ARTICLE (The Atlantic)

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Analysis: U.N.’s Iran atom probe “hostage” to big power diplomacy | Reuters

By Fredrik Dahl

Offering immunity or an easing of the sanctions pressure may be the only way - if there is one at all - to coax Iran to end years of stonewalling a U.N. watchdog investigation into suspected nuclear weapons research in the Islamic state.

FULL ARTICLE (REUTERS)

Photo: openDemocracy/Flickr

The Process Trap | Gatestone Institute

By Shoshana Bryen

Few things ought to be as urgent as keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, yet the West – led from the front by the United States – has fallen into the “peace process” trap that considers talk to be progress and, once a conversation has begun, that there is nothing worse than stopping it. Iran understands this as a Western peculiarity, and has used it to cause a rift between Israel and the West; receive assurances that that military action is not in the offing; and begin a process that leaves the Islamic Republic in full control of its nuclear program for a negligible price.

Talk about your demands. Talk about what you’ve talked about. Talk about what you won’t talk about. Talk about talking again. Talk again. Repeat.

Several months ago, the media was ablaze with war talk -– a potential Israeli strike against Iran, of course, but also the war between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan. While the PM was working to keep the threat of military action on the Western agenda, Dagan was announcing to the world that military action was a choice to which he was opposed. Time Magazine put “King Bibi” on its cover and said he was “unlikely to forge a peaceful path.” Everyone seemed to know when Israel was going to “do it.”

In truth however, Dagan was not so much opposed to the military option as to its imminent exercise and its exercise by Israel. He told Lesley Stahl, “An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way to do it.”

FULL ARTICLE (Gatestone Institute)

Photo: U.S. Department of State/ Flickr

Iran, big powers agree to hold more nuclear talks in June | Reuters

By Andrew Quinn and Justyna Pawlak

Iran and world powers agreed to meet again in Moscow next month for more talks to try to end the long-running dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme, but there was scant progress to resolve the main sticking points between the two sides.

At the heart of the dispute is Iran’s insistence that it has the right to enrich uranium and that economic sanctions should be lifted before it stops activities that could lead to its achieving the capability to make nuclear weapons.

Western powers insist Tehran must first shut down enrichment activities before sanctions can be eased.

But both sides have powerful reasons not to abandon diplomacy. The powers want to avert the danger of a new Middle East war raised by Israeli threats to bomb Iran, while Tehran also wants to avoid a looming Western ban on its oil exports.

After discussions in Baghdad extended late into an unscheduled second day on Thursday between envoys from Iran and the six powers, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said it was clear both sides wanted progress and had some common ground, but significant differences remained.

“We will maintain intensive contacts with our Iranian counterparts to prepare a further meeting in Moscow,” she told a news conference in Baghdad.

The next meeting, the third in the latest round of talks that began in Istanbul last month, will be held in Moscow on June 18-19.

FULL ARTICLE (Reuters)

Photo: Freddy Moris/Wikimedia Commons

Iran Nuclear Crisis: What’s On The Table At The Baghdad Talks? | Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Charles Recknagel

World powers are meeting in Baghdad with Iran this week over the Islamic republic’s controversial nuclear program. Here are five things to know ahead of time. 

Who is meeting and why?

The five permanent Security Council members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — plus Germany (better known as the P5+1) are sitting down with Iran in the Iraqi capital on May 23 to discuss ways out of the Iran nuclear crisis. Western powers accuse Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program under the cover of its nuclear-energy activities. Iran denies the charges.

What’s on the agenda?

The most urgent item on the agenda is to convince Iran to give nuclear inspectors access to the Parchin military site near Tehran. Concerns over Iran’s nuclear intentions have increased since the UN nuclear-watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported in November that Iran has carried out past activities “relevant to the development of an explosive nuclear device.”

Western officials suspect Iran built a container at Parchin in 2000 for the probable testing of high explosives and want to know more about experiments there. They also accuse Iran of refusing to let UN inspectors inside Parchin until Tehran can remove incriminating evidence. Iran has dismissed the allegations as “ridiculous.”

Overall, the UN Security Council is demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and other activities they say could contribute to acquiring bomb-grade nuclear material until it proves its program is peaceful. Tehran says it has the right to enrich uranium as part of its nuclear energy program.

FULL ARTICLE (Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty)

Photo: AFP

U.N. nuclear chief holds talks in Tehran, hopes for deal | Reuters

By Fredrik Dahl and Marcus George

The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief held rare talks in Tehran on Monday after voicing hope for a deal to investigate suspected atomic bomb research - a gesture Iran might make to try to get international sanctions relaxed and deflect threats of war.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano began discussions with the head of Iran’s nuclear energy organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, a few hours after his pre-dawn arrival, according to ISNA news agency.

Amano, who was on his first trip to Iran since taking office in 2009, a period marked by rising tension between the IAEA and Tehran, was also due to meet Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Monday. There was no word on the course of the talks by mid-afternoon.

“I really think this is the right time to reach agreement. Nothing is certain but I stay positive,” Amano, a veteran Japanese diplomat with long experience in nuclear proliferation and disarmament affairs, said before departure from Vienna airport. He added that “good progress” had already been made.

But while Amano scheduled Monday’s talks with Iran at such short notice that diplomats said a deal on improved IAEA access in Iran seemed near, few see Tehran going far enough to convince the West to roll back swiftly on punitive sanctions when its negotiators meet global power envoys in Baghdad on Wednesday.

FULL ARTICLE (Reuters)

Photo: Leohnard Foeger/Reuters

The Korea Times | Seoul dismisses US push for tactical nuclear deployment

By Kim Young-jin

Seoul is rejecting a push by U.S. lawmakers to redeploy U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. 

“We have not discussed the matter,” a senior defense official said Monday on condition of anonymity. “South Korea is a country making efforts for non-proliferation and as such it would not be appropriate to do so.”

An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade added that neither South Korea nor the U.S. administration of Barack Obama have changed their stances on the issue and that Seoul was “watching” how the debate would unfold in Washington. 

The debate heated up last week when the Republican-dominated House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Bill calling for the reintroduction. That was echoed here by conservative heavyweight Chung Mong-joon, who is bidding to become the ruling Saenuri Party’s presidential nominee. 

The U.S. lawmakers cited the failure of China, the North’s main ally, to convince Pyongyang to stand down as a reason for the redeployment, as well as Beijing’s “selling (of) nuclear components to North Korea.” A missile launch vehicle suspected to be of Chinese origin was spotted at a military parade in Pyongyang last month. 

But the calls have been met with skepticism as some believe the move would do little to bolster the allies’ capabilities and may increase risks during conflict. 

Baek Sung-joo, a military analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said Seoul’s 1991 deal to denuclearize the peninsula - after which Washington pulled its forward-based nuclear weapons off the peninsula - made the move politically difficult. 

FULL ARTICLE (The Korea Times)

Photo: Presidential Press and Information Office

The Washington Times | North Korean general boasts of defeating U.S. with ‘single blow’

SEOUL — North Korea’s top general warned Wednesday that his army holds weapons that can defeat the United States — a threat that regional experts dismissed as face-saving rhetoric.

“The [North] Korean People’s Army is armed with powerful modern weapons [that can defeat the United States] at a single blow,” Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, chief of the General Staff, told a meeting attended by new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Vice Marshal Ri added that his army would “cut the throats” of anyone who defamed North Korean leaders.

The address, reported by North Korean state media, commemorated the 80th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean People’s Army, and followed the totalitarian regime’s failed rocket launch earlier this month intended to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung.

On Monday, North Korean army units warned, via state media, that they were planning unspecified special operations against South Korea’s conservative government.

And North Korea is believed to be preparing a nuclear test — its third, after previous detonation following failed missile launches in 2006 and 2009.

Regional experts said the North Korean military’s recent bellicosity could be an effort by the regime to mask failed economic policies, influence the South Korean electorate or demonstrate the army’s loyalty of the powerful army to the country’s young new leader, who succeeded his father Kim Jong-il in January.

North Korea is not believed to possess a missile that reach the U.S. or have the capability of creating a nuclear warhead, the experts noted.

“I think it is bluster, it is kind of absurd,” Dan Pinkston, who heads the International Crisis Group’s Seoul office, said of Vice Marshal Ri’s threat. “The U.S. has robust second-strike capabilities. If they had a war with the U.S., they would cease to exist.”

FULL ARTICLE (Washington Times)

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McClatchy Newspapers | Did U.S. miss 2010 chance for Iran nuke deal? Turkey says yes

ISTANBUL, Turkey — The United States missed an opportunity to ease concerns about Iran’s nuclear program nearly two years ago when it rejected a carefully negotiated deal that would have allowed Western powers to provide Iran uranium for its nuclear reactors, interviews and new research suggest.

The deal, known as the Tehran declaration, had been put together by the presidents of Brazil and Turkey, whose diplomats devoted enormous energies persuading power brokers in the Iranian government to accept it.

But the U.S. and other powers rejected it because they feared Iran had agreed to its terms only to undercut a U.N. Security Council resolution that imposed new sanctions on the government in Tehran.

The rejection of the Tehran declaration takes on new relevancy as the United States and five other major powers sit down with Iran here Saturday in hopes of reviving negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

No one expects a major advance, with the best outcome, diplomats say, an agreement that lays out an agenda for extensive negotiations and improves the atmosphere with the help of “confidence-building” measures by both sides.

One such measure might be an interim “freeze for a freeze,” in which Iran would halt uranium enrichment if the United States and the European Union suspend Europe’s ban on purchases of Iranian oil, due to start in July.

The alternative to near-term progress is a collision course that might start with an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities but could well drag the U.S. and Gulf oil-producing states into war against a well-armed nation of 77 million. Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as a mortal threat. President Barack Obama has refused to rule out the use of military force, although he has committed the United States to find a diplomatic resolution.

A Turkish official familiar with the details of the negotiations and the deal told McClatchy in an interview this week that the situation didn’t need to reach its current impasse.

“We believe that the Tehran declaration was a missed opportunity,” the official said. “Iran signed a document that is perhaps the first substantive breakthrough in negotiations in the last 10 years.” The official asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

In the nearly two years since the deal’s rejection, Iran has sped up its enrichment of nuclear material, expanding its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to 5,450 kilograms from 2,000 and has produced 100 kilograms of mid-enriched uranium. Weapons require highly enriched uranium with a purity of 90 percent. It’s also pressed forward with construction of an underground facility at Fordow outside Qom and has begun enrichment there.

FULL ARTICLE (McClatchy)

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