Posts tagged: nuclear talks

Detente on ice (Source: Washington Post)

By , October 22, 2009 9:42 am

The editors of The Washington Post are calling on President Obama to “speak up” about Kian’s case and others like it:

“Does an Iran that sentences an innocent American scholar to prison really want ‘engagement’?

THERE WERE hints of progress in the nuclear talks with Iran on Wednesday as Iranian negotiators in Vienna accepted for consideration a plan under which Iran would ship most of its current stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country. But there also was a contrary signal from Tehran about the desire of its extremist regime for detente with the West. That was the reported sentencing of Iranian American academic Kian Tajbakhsh to 15 years in prison on a blatantly bogus charge of espionage.

Mr. Tajbakhsh, a well-known expert on urban planning, had no role in the protests that erupted after Iran’s fraudulent presidential election in June. He told friends that he was “keeping his head down.” In fact he was preparing to begin a teaching appointment at Columbia University this fall. But Mr. Tajbakhsh, who was educated in Britain and the United States but has lived in Iran since 1999, was a convenient pawn for the regime’s hard-liners. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard are trying to prove that the vast opposition movement against them is the product of a conspiracy by Western intelligence agencies and nongovernmental organizations such as the Open Society Institute, for which Mr. Tajbakhsh once worked as an adviser.

The arrest and trial of Mr. Tajbakhsh and more than 140 other people, including a number of opposition leaders, constitute a key element in the coup that the regime’s hard-liners have staged against more moderate elements — including those who genuinely favor rapprochement with the West. The tactical concessions that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government is hinting at in Vienna complement the crackdown: By striking deals with Western leaders, the ruling clique seeks to legitimize itself at home. If it wins the domestic power struggle, there is no chance that it will retreat from its attempt to acquire nuclear weapons or to gain influence over the Middle East through terrorism and militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Obama administration and other Western governments say that they are cognizant of the danger of strengthening Mr. Ahmadinejad and his superior, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But they have been cautious about following the advice of Iranians such as Nobel Peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who is urging the administration to talk as much about the treatment of people such as Mr. Tajbakhsh as it does about Iran’s nuclear program. To be sure, White House and State Department spokesmen protested Mr. Tajbakhsh’s sentence; the White House statement said that he “embodies what is possible between our two countries.” We hope that President Obama himself will see fit to speak up about Mr. Tajbakhsh’s case and others like it. The fact that Tehran is imprisoning the very people capable of building bridges between Iran and the United States is a clear message to the president about how the regime regards his “engagement” policy.”

[Link to editorial]

Obama demands action from Iran after nuclear talks (Source: AFP)

By , October 2, 2009 5:32 pm

An article by Agence France Press notes that US officials meeting with their Iranian counterparts officially for the first time in nearly 30 years called on Iran to release Kian and other Amerian detainees:

“WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama Thursday demanded swift and “constructive” action from Iran following crucial nuclear talks, and warned that his patience for dialogue with the arch-US foe was limited.
Obama said the meeting between world powers and Tehran in Geneva, which included the highest-level direct talks between the United States and Iran in three decades, was a “constructive” start to defusing a nuclear standoff…

US negotiator [Undersecretary of State] William Burns and Iran’s top atomic point-man Saeed Jalili held a landmark private meeting on the sidelines of the talks — the biggest test yet of Obama’s pro-engagement strategy.

Officials said the discussions centered on the nuclear issue and human rights, and called the talks “frank” and “very straightforward.”

“This all sounds like diplomatic parlance but it was pretty direct and candid on a range of issues,” a senior US administration official said.

The State Department said Burns asked the Iranians to urgently act on the cases of a number of Americans detained in Iran.

“We stressed that the detention of these American citizens is an urgent matter that must be resolved as soon as possible,” spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

The detained Americans have been identified as: Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh; retired Iranian-American businessman Reza Taghavi; and American hikers Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd…”

[Full article]

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