Iran, NATO in first talks in 30 years: NATO

NUKEWARS

No Clinton plans to meet Iranians at The Hague talks
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has no plans to hold bilateral talks with Iranian officials on the sidelines of an international conference on Afghanistan next week, the State Department said Thursday. The United States welcomed Iran's announcement earlier Thursday that it was sending a delegation to the March 31 meeting in The Hague, a gesture that could lower tensions between the two longtime adversaries. But neither Clinton, nor special envoy Richard Holbrooke, nor any other senior US official would meet separately with the Iranians, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said. "No substantive meetings are planned with Iranian officials at this time," he said. However, he added that Iran's decision to attend was "a welcome move, because we do want this conference to be a regional conference. A regional conference would be incomplete without Iran." "The Iranians have not always played a helpful role in Afghanistan. We are hoping that their attendance here is a demonstration that they are planning to play a positive role in regards to Afghanistan," he said. The meeting in The Hague on Tuesday follows the completion of a major US review of its strategy in Afghanistan, which is to be made public on Friday, and comes amid new efforts by Washington to reach out to Tehran. Duguid said US interactions with the Iranians in The Hague would be limited to the multilateral conference setting. "The Iranians will be around the table. They will speak; we will listen to them. We will hear their points of view, and they will also hear our points of view in a discussion about Afghanistan," he said.

Britain urges Iran to grasp Obama 'opportunity'
US President Barack Obama's olive branch to Iran is a one-off opportunity for Tehran to re-engage with the international community, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday. But Miliband said Iran must address the West's "lack of confidence" in its nuclear programme, which he said "stems from the very real evidence and facts of Iranian misleading information and secret behaviour before 2003." "I believe that there will never be a better opportunity than that created by President Obama's election and his commitments and his recent outreach to the people and government of Iran to move towards a position where Iran exercises its rights in the international community but also, critically, fulfils its responsibilities," he said at the launch of a human rights report. Miliband denied Britain was seeking to oust President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying: "We are not seeking regime change in Iran, we are seeking a change in behaviour as it affects the rest of the world." Obama on March 20 proposed an end to three decades of animosity in a message for the Iranian New Year, in a marked departure from the line adopted by his predecessor George W. Bush. But Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani has said Obama's "fine words" were insufficient to repair the damage of three decades of troubled Tehran-Washington ties. The United States and Iran severed diplomatic relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran that overthrew its pro-Western shah. Western countries spearheaded by the United States believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, a claim rejected by Tehran. The UN Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions against Iran for defying calls for it to halt the enrichment of uranium. In the British Foreign Office's annual report on human rights around the world, it criticises Iran for its "continued disinclination to engage constructively with the international community to address human rights concerns."

by Staff Writers
Brussels (AFP) March 26, 2009
Iran and NATO have held their first talks since the Iranian revolution 30 years ago, officials at the military alliance said Thursday, in a new sign of a thaw in Tehran's ties with the West.

At allied headquarters in Brussels last week, an Iranian diplomat and a senior NATO official had an "informal contact" focused on Iran's neighbour Afghanistan, where the alliance is battling a stiff Taliban-led insurgency.

"The diplomat met with Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy Martin Erdmann," chief NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

"It was a first informal contact about the subject of Afghanistan," he said, adding: "We have not yet programmed a second meeting."

A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the talks, said the visit by the diplomat, who was not identified, was the first "since the regime of the Shah" of Iran, which collapsed in 1979.

He noted that "the Iranians are interested in possible cooperation on Afghanistan" to better confront the problems posed by opium production there and an influx of Afghan refugees across their border.

A second NATO official said: "There were exploratory contacts recently. Nothing of substance was discussed. It was a first informal contact between an Iranian diplomat and a representative of the secretary general."

Earlier Thursday, Iran confirmed that it would attend a major international meeting on Afghanistan in The Hague in the Netherlands next week.

The meeting on Tuesday comes as the United States undertakes a vast review of its strategy in Afghanistan, to be made public Friday, and amid new efforts by Washington to reach out to Tehran.

The review puts all of Afghanistan's neighbours, notably Pakistan, at the heart of a solution to choke off the Taliban-led insurgency, which has dented NATO's efforts to spread democracy and foster reconstruction.

"The fact that Iran has accepted to go to the conference in The Hague is good news and constitutes a new step in the regionalisation of the Afghan issue," Appathurai said.

Iran has close ethnic and religious ties with Afghanistan, but the Islamic republic has suffered badly from the effects of surging opium production, with cheap and readily available heroin fuelling a sharp rise in drug use.

A spokesman at the Iranian embassy in Brussels declined to comment immediately on the visit last week.

In a video message to Iranian leaders marking the Persian New Year, US President Barack Obama called for a "new beginning" in ties between Washington and Tehran.

They have had no diplomatic relations since the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Yet both share an interest in restoring stability to Afghanistan, where a US-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001 for harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Obama has given the conflict top foreign policy priority since coming to power, above the war in Iraq which divided NATO allies.

While Washington welcomed Iran's participation in next week's conference, a spokesman said neither Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor any other senior US official would hold bilateral talks with the Iranians in The Hague.

State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said Iran's decision to attend was "a welcome move, because we do want this conference to be a regional conference. A regional conference would be incomplete without Iran."

But US interactions with the Iranians in The Hague would be limited to the multilateral conference setting, he said.

"The Iranians will be around the table. They will speak; we will listen to them. We will hear their points of view, and they will also hear our points of view in a discussion about Afghanistan," he said.

The Hague conference is officially being co-hosted by Afghanistan, the United Nations and the Dutch government. It will be opened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

About 80 countries and 20 organisations and observers have been invited.

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NUKEWARS

Iran able to build nuclear bomb in year: Israel

Jerusalem (AFP) March 25, 2009
Iran will have the capacity to build a nuclear bomb within a year but is not rushing into production, the head of Israel's military intelligence claimed on Wednesday.

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