Word: nuclear
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...past, they said that we had to halt our nuclear activities," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday, hailing what he called the new "cooperative" stance of the West. "But today they say, 'Come consult about finding solutions for world problems,' and they want to cooperate for the exchange of fuel and development of nuclear technology and establishing a nuclear plant." He reiterated that Iran has no intention of relinquishing its "nuclear rights," typically a reference to uranium enrichment...
Israel, which has threatened military action if Iran's nuclear program is not stopped, has been increasingly critical of the Vienna deal for the very reasons that Tehran welcomes it. "[The agreement] means that [the U.S., Russia and France] recognize that Iran is enriching uranium and that helps [Iran] with their argument that they are enriching uranium for peaceful purposes," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday. "It is important to insist on an end to enrichment in Iran...
...Tehran's goal is to develop the full nuclear-energy fuel cycle, which includes enriching uranium. While legitimate under the NPT as long as it is subject to IAEA monitoring, such a program would nonetheless give Iran the capacity to move relatively quickly to build a bomb, which is why Western leaders have argued that Iran can't be trusted to maintain an enrichment capability even as part of its nuclear-energy program. (See a graphic of the nuclear-armed world...
...Given the two sides' sharply different ideas on the end point of their mutual journey, it's not easy to agree even on substantial "confidence building" measures. Iran appears to be open to greater safeguards and oversight of its ongoing nuclear work, like opening its hitherto secret enrichment facility under construction at Qum to inspection for the first time on Oct. 25. But at the same time, it is expected to push back against some provisions of the Vienna deal...
...more focused on how its response is received by China and Russia. After all, the threat of sanctions that hangs over Iran for non-compliance is considerably diminished without their support. And while Moscow and Beijing may support efforts to press Tehran for greater transparency on its nuclear intentions (and while they have backed the Vienna deal), they don't share the Western powers' assessment that Iran's enriched-uranium stockpile represents an imminent bomb threat. That's why an even more challenging response for the U.S. and its allies than a simple "No" is an ambiguous...