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Iran playing games over venue for talks

Tehran dismayed at Turkey's Syria stance

By Jumana Al Tamimi, Associate Editor
Published: 00:00 April 5, 2012

Dubai: Iran, preparing to hold new talks with world powers over its controversial nuclear programme later this month, is "sending messages" to Turkey and the West by trying to change the meeting venue, according to political experts.

The talks are due to take place in Istanbul, but Tehran has suggested a number of other options including Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus or even China.

The move is designed to show dismay at Ankara's position towards the situation in Syria, and to show the West the growing Iranian influence on the region, political experts in both Turkey and Iran said.

Apart from trying to "blackmail" Turkey, Iran is also attempting to win some time by creating a debate over the venue of the talks, the experts added.

Both Turkey and western powers have lacked balance in their views on several issues, including Syria, said Mohammad Sadeq Hussaini, a veteran Iranian expert.

"The Turks have shown an imbalance, confusion and hastiness towards the Syrian file, which is a sensitive one and of importance to all the people of the region and to Syria's neighbours," he told Gulf News, in reference to the solid opposition of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad in dealing with the protests. Iran is among few supporters of the Syrian regime, along with Russia and China.
"The West also, by insisting on holding the talks in Europe or in a European ally, is also taking an imbalanced [position]," Hussaini said.

On Tuesday evening, a statement posted on the Iraqi Foreign Ministry website said an "Iranian delegation expressed the desire for Iraq to host the international meeting on the Iranian nuclear file of the five permanent members of the [UN] Security Council plus Germany].

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari "confirmed that he will undertake the necessary contacts with the relevant parties on the proposal", the statement added.

Change still on table

But yesterday, Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Istanbul was Iran's first choice, but kept the possibility of changing the location on the table.

"Holding talks in Baghdad, and also China, as venue has been out there," Salehi was quoted as saying after a cabinet meeting in Tehran.

"This is a course that both sides need to agree on."

US secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced recently that the talks were due to take place on April 13 and 14 in Istanbul.

But both European and Russian officials cautioned that the venue has not been definitely set, and a Turkish diplomat was quoted as saying no formal request had been received.

Meanwhile, Mohsin Rezai, former chief of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggested Lebanon or Syria as possible venues.

The conflicting statements reflect divisions within Iran, said Ali Bakeer, a researcher at the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organisation, a Turkish think tank. "Holding the talks in Istanbul is considered a plus to the Turkish diplomacy. There are people in Iran who don't want to give Turkey this gain for free," Bakeer told Gulf News.

Moreover, the main element among the suggested venues in the region is prominent Iranian influence in these places.

“Therefore, any talks being held on the territories of any of the three places will be according to Iranian schedule and under Iranian conditions,” Bakeer said, adding that the Iranians are trying to include the Syrian case on the discussion table with the western powers. However, disagreement will surface on the venue in the coming days, and “we will witness a procrastination game, and time will be wasted.”

© Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2011

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/iran/iran-playing-games-over-venue-for-talks-1.1004350


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Iran seeks a change of venue for nuclear talks

April 4, 2012 | 7:43 am

REPORTING FROM TEHRAN AND BEIRUT -- Talks between Iran and six world powers over the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear program have hit a new snag as Tehran is seeking to change the venue for next week's opening negotiations.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced last week that talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany would be held in Istanbul on April 13 and 14.

But Iran does not appear enthusiastic about the site, spurring calls from Iranian officials to find an alternate venue and a debate on other potential host cities. Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's foreign minister, said at the end of a Cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday that Istanbul remains a suitable site but that the Islamic Republic is looking for other locations, Iranian state television reported.

Iran's relationship with Turkey has become increasingly strained in the past year due to Turkish criticism of Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran.

Mohsen Rezai, the secretary-general of Iran's influential Expediency Council, which advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said this week that it would be better to hold the talks "in another friendly country," according to a report by the Iranian Labor News Agency, or ILNA.

He suggested that Baghdad, Damascus or Beirut would be more "appropriate locations" than Turkey.

Tabnak, an Iranian news website close to Rezai, reported Thursday that Tehran had "officially" requested neighboring Iraq, which like Iran has a Shiite Muslim-dominated government, to play host for the talks, quoting a top Iraqi official.

China was also suggested as an alternate host, according to Iranian media reports.

Rezai stressed the importance of the location of the negotiations, saying "a wrong signal" should not be given to the six world powers and that the group should not be under the impression that Iran is in "a weak position", according to ILNA. Some observers suggested Iran was seeking to flex its muscles by backtracking on the proposed venue at the last minute.

This month's planned round of talks would represent the first between the Islamic Republic and the six world powers -- the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany -- in over a year.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stressed the importance of the talks going ahead.

"The situation is very complicated and could get worse," he was quoted [ http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gmGxkMbko-gx-_kQ8eSEZcbC9ZRw?docId=CNG.d3426359c7bf8d0824de3e71ac0df446.6f1 ; http://www.emirates247.com/news/no-date-place-yet-for-iran-nuclear-talks-russia-2012-04-03-1.451931 ] as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency. "We can't wait any more."

The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons but Iran insists its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.

-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut and Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

Copyright 2012, Los Angeles Times

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/04/iran-p51-nuclear-talks-west-controversial-russia-us-germany-.html [no comments yet]


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Iran’s Dangerous Game

By Laurence Norman
April 4, 2012, 12:15 PM

What do Baghdad, Beijing and Istanbul have in common? They have all, at various points in the last few weeks, been Iran’s preferred location to hold upcoming talks on its nuclear program.

While Iran has fussed over the location of previous talks, this time is different: European diplomats say the government is lending strength to skeptics in the West who believe Iran is using negotiations to buy time for its uranium enrichment program. That’s a dangerous game to be playing in an environment of heightened military tension between Israel and Iran, diplomats say.

More than a week ago now, EU diplomats signaled they had a deal with the team of Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to hold talks in Istanbul in mid-April. The EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was leading the negotiations with Iran.

But in recent days, Tehran seems to be unpicking that deal.

On Wednesday, Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Baghdad was now his government’s preferred choice for talks – likely to start with a dinner on April 13 and formal negotiations the next day. The negotiations will be the first between Iran and six major powers – the U.S., France Germany, the U.K., China and Russia – since January 2011.

“Holding negotiations in Istanbul was our preliminary suggestion, which the Europeans first rejected and later accepted. But by that time we had other countries in mind,” Salehi was quoted saying by the website of Iranian state television, according to AFP.

As Salehi said, Istanbul was Iran’s first pick. The Europeans were initially unenthusiastic. Istanbul was the setting for the January 2011 talks, which quickly ended in failure; the optics of returning there to start all over again are bad. But once Ashton said yes, Iran was eyeing alternatives.

Tehran’s next pick was China, the country seen as least supportive of ramping up pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions. But Beijing quashed the plan, concerned that hosting talks would make them appear too close to Tehran, EU diplomats said.

Then came Baghdad. The advantages for Iran are easy to see. There’s proximity. Talks in Baghdad also underscore the close ties between Baghdad and Tehran these days – a major shift in the region’s balance of power. And the Iranians feel the Iraqi backdrop would remind many in the region of American unilateral adventurism.

The location game isn’t new. It happened before previous rounds of talks, and few in Brussels were surprised there was some jockeying this time round.

Yet some warn that Tehran’s traditional games may be more dangerous this time. There are many voices of skepticism in the West about how seriously Iran intends to engage in the talks.

Some believe Tehran will exploit negotiations to frustrate plans for military action, allowing them more time to keep enriching uranium and move closer to a nuclear weapon. Tehran has consistently denied it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran’s window of time to show they are serious about the talks will not “remain open forever.”

“So far they have given little reason for confidence,” she said.

By vacillating over process questions like where to meet for talks, Tehran may harden the views of skeptics and frustrate those – not least in Europe – who are desperately keen to see negotiations succeed and military conflict averted.

Copyright ©2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2012/04/04/irans-dangerous-game/ [with comments]