Re: Obama's Secret Iran Deal 2011

Admin Tue 11 Aug 2015, 11:23 am

Iran: Future US Presidents Can't Cancel Nuclear Deal
Iranian deputy FM says deal contains a clause forbidding future presidents from returning sanctions; 'no change after Obama leaves.'
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Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht Ravanchi stated on Sunday that the Iran nuclear deal sealed last month with world powers is final, and includes a clause stipulating sanctions cannot be returned in the future by presidents after US President Barack Obama.

"There is a paragraph in the agreement which requires the US administration to stop implementation of the sanctions constantly, and this means that there won't be a change once Obama leaves the office," Takht Ravanchi said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

Possibly fueling the statement were promises made by Republican presidential candidates last Thursday during a televised live debate, in which several vowed to cancel the Iran nuclear deal upon taking office.

Takht Ravanchi's claim of a clause banning the return of sanctions may possibly refer to a classified side deal. It has been revealed the nuclear deal includes such side deals that are not being shown to Congress, and among other things include stipulations that Iran will inspect its own covert nuclear sites where nuclear detonator testing has occurred.
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In his comments, made during a Tehran meeting concerning the nuclear deal, the Iranian official said that the US and other countries are unlikely to cancel the agreement - even as the US Congress is currently in a 60-day review period considering that very option.

Fars paraphrased the deputy foreign minister as calling a cancellation of the deal a "mistake" that "will put Washington against the UN and will isolate the US."

Takht Ravanchi's talk of sanctions relief being irreversible would seem to indicate there is language in the deal backing Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif's claim, in which he said last Monday that Obama's much touted sanctions "snap back" cannot happen.

"The structure of the sanctions that the US had built based on the UN Security Council's resolutions was destroyed, and like the 1990s when no other country complied with the US sanctions against Iran, no one will accept the return of the sanctions (in the future)," Zarif said.

There has been a push in Congress to block the deal, with a fight currently ongoing to reach a 2/3 majority that would be able to resist Obama's presidential veto. Recently a number of leading Democrats have come out against the deal.
Courtesy of israenatioanlnews.com

Admin Mon 10 Aug 2015, 9:11 pm

Misleading the nation: Obama Signed Off on Iran’s Right to Nuclear Program in Secret 2011 Talks
ByPAMELA GELLER on August 10, 2015
“At the time, a respected regional figure came to me as a mediator and explicitly said that U.S. President [Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present an American request for negotiations,” Khamenei disclosed. “The Americans told this mediator: ‘We want to solve the nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six months, while recognizing Iran as a nuclear power.’”
There is never any news that doesn’t expose Obama’s perfidy and contempt for the American people and our system of governance. Elected to serve, he has utterly inverted the concept. Obama believes that we serve him and his depraved “radical transformation” of the free world.
The world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism has no respect for this weak prig. Upon signing the nuclear pact, they have ginned up the anti-America rhetoric, repeatedly threatened Israel, and ratted out the rat in the White House.

Obama Signed Off on Iran’s Right to Nuclear Program in Secret 2011 Talks,” MEMRI, August 10, 2015 (thanks to Washington Free Beacon):
Obama misled nation about secret deals with Iran
President Barack Obama approved of Iran’s right to operate a nuclear program in 2011 during secret meetings with Iranian officials, according to new disclosures by Iran’s Supreme Leader.
The comments, made earlier this year by Ali Khamenei, dispute claims by the Obama administration that it only began talking to Iran after the election of President Hassan Rouhani.
Khamenei revealed in a recent speech that talks began in secret with anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying former President Mahmoud Ahmadenejad. At this time, Obama told the Iranians he endorses Iran’s right to have a nuclear program.
“The issue of negotiating with the Americans is related to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks,” Khamenei said in a recent speech translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
“At the time, a respected regional figure came to me as a mediator and explicitly said that U.S. President [Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present an American request for negotiations,” Khamenei disclosed. “The Americans told this mediator: ‘We want to solve the nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six months, while recognizing Iran as a nuclear power.’”
“I told that mediator that I did not trust the Americans and their words, but after he insisted, I agreed to reexamine this topic, and negotiations began,” Khamenei added.
Other Iranian officials also have admitted that Obama’s goal from the get-go was to endorse Iran’s nuclear program and then lift economic sanctions on the country’s economy.
Secretary of State John Kerry sent a letter to Iran stating that the United States “recognizes Iran’s rights regarding” nuclear enrichment, according to another senior Iranian official, Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam.
“We came to the [secret] negotiations [with the United States] after Kerry wrote a letter and sent it to us via [mediator Omani Sultan Qaboos], stating that America officially recognizes Iran’s rights regarding the [nuclear fuel] enrichment cycle,” Al-Islam said in a recent interview with Iran’s Tasnim news agency, according to MEMRI.
“Then there were two meetings in Oman between the [Iranian and U.S.] deputy foreign ministers, and after those, Sultan Qaboos was dispatched by Obama to Khamenei with Kerry’s letter,” the official added.
Khamenei went on to tell him at the time: “‘I don’t trust them.’ Sultan Qaboos said: ‘Trust them one more time.’ On this basis the negotiations began, and not on the basis of sanctions, as they [the Americans] claim in their propaganda.”
This information has been confirmed by other senior Iranian officials, according to MEMRI.
Ali Akbar Salahi, the Iranian vice president and head of its Atomic Energy Organization, claimed in separate interviews this year that “the Americans initiated the secret talks with Iran in 2011-2012, and stressed his role in jumpstarting the process from the Iranian side,” according to MEMRI.
Here’s the whole report:
Iranian Senior Officials Disclose Confidential Details From Nuclear Negotiations: Already In 2011 We Received Letter From U.S. Administration Recognizing Iran’s Right To Enrich Uranium
Iranian officials recently began to reveal details from the nuclear negotiations with the U.S. since their early stages. Their statements indicate that the U.S. initiated secret negotiations with Iran not after President Hassan Rohani, of the pragmatic camp, was elected in 2013, but rather in 2011-2012, in the era of radical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[1] The disclosures also indicate that, already at that time, Iran received from the U.S. administration a letter recognizing its right to enrich uranium on its own soil. Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam, an advisor to the Majlis speaker, specified that the letter had come from John Kerry, then a senator and head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Iranian vice president and top negotiator Ali Akbar Salehi said that Kerry, while still a senator, had been appointed by President Obama to handle the nuclear contacts with Iran.
The following are initial details from these disclosures; a full translation is pending.
Khamenei: Bilateral Talks Began In 2011, Were Based On U.S. Recognition Of Nuclear Iran
In a speech he delivered on June 23, 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that the American administration had initiated the nuclear talks with Iran during Ahmadinejad’s term in office, based on a U.S. recognition of a nuclear Iran: “The issue of negotiating with the Americans is related to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks. At the time, a respected regional figure came to me as a mediator [referring to Omani Sultan Qaboos] and explicitly said that U.S. President [Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present an American request for negotiations. The Americans told this mediator: ‘We want to solve the nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six months, while recognizing Iran as a nuclear power.’ I told that mediator that I did not trust the Americans and their words, but after he insisted, I agreed to reexamine this topic, and negotiations began.”[2]
Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam: Kerry Sent Iran A Letter Via Oman Recognizing Iran’s Enrichment Rights
In an interview with the Tasnim news agency on July 7, 2015, Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam, an advisor to Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, said that John Kerry had relayed a letter to Tehran recognizing Iran’s enrichment rights: “We came to the [secret] negotiations [with the U.S.] after Kerry wrote a letter and sent it to us via Oman, stating that America officially recognizes Iran’s rights regarding the [nuclear fuel] enrichment cycle. Then there were two meetings in Oman between the [Iranian and U.S.] deputy foreign ministers, and after those, Sultan Qaboos was dispatched by Obama to Khamenei with Kerry’s letter. Khamenei told him: ‘I don’t trust them.’ Sultan Qaboos said: ‘Trust them one more time.’ On this basis the negotiations began, and not on the basis of sanctions, as they [the Americans] claim in their propaganda.”[3]
Salehi: Obama Appointed Senator Kerry To Handle The Nuclear Dossier Vis-à-vis Iran; Later He Was Appointed Secretary Of State
Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi and head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, who was restored to the nuclear negotiation team this year, served as Iran’s foreign minister in 2010-2013. In interviews he has given on Iranian media since April 2014, he too claimed that the Americans initiated the secret talks with Iran in 2011-2012, and stressed his role in jumpstarting the process from the Iranian side. In a comprehensive interview with the daily Iran on August 4, 2015, he elaborated on the secret contacts initiated by the Americans. The following are excerpts from the interview:
Interviewer: “Why was Oman chosen as a mediator [in the contacts with the U.S.]?”
Salehi: “We have very good relations with Oman. When [Supreme Leader] Khamenei recently mentioned ‘a respected regional figure,’ he was obviously referring to the Omani leader. Oman is also respected by the West, and it had mediated between America and Iran on several previous occasions, for instance in the affair of the American mountain climbers who were arrested in Iran [in 2009]… When [Iranian deputy Foreign Minister] Qashqavi was there [in Oman], an Omani official gave him a letter in which he announced that the Americans were willing to hold negotiations with Iran and that they were very interested in solving the challenging [crisis] between Tehran and Washington. We [Iranians] were willing to help facilitate the process, and it looked like a good opportunity had come up. The 2012 U.S. elections had not yet started back then, but Obama had already launched his reelection campaign. The Omani message came just as [Obama and Romney] were starting their race in the U.S. elections, but there was still time before the elections [themselves]. At that stage I did not take the letter seriously.”
Interviewer: “Why didn’t you take it seriously? Because it was delivered by a mid-level Omani official?”
Salehi: “Yes. This fact concerned us, because the letter was hand-written and back then I was not familiar with that official. After a while, Mr. Souri, who was the CEO of an Iranian shipping [company], visited Oman to promote various shipping interests and talk with Omani officials.”
Interviewer: “This was how long after the delivery of the letter?”
Salehi: “He came to me about a month or two after the first letter was delivered, and said to me: ‘Mr. Salehi, I visited Oman to promote shipping interests, and an Omani official conveyed to me that the Americans were willing to enter secret bilateral negotiations on the nuclear dossier.’ It was clear that they wanted to launch negotiations…”
“The Omani official whose message Souri was relaying was one Isma’il, who had just been appointed an advisor to the Omani leader and who still holds a position in the Omani foreign ministry. He had good relations with the Americans, and Omani officials trusted him [too]. I said to Souri: ‘We are not at all certain to what extent the Americans are serious, but I’ll give you a note. Go tell them that these are our demands. Deliver [the note] during your next visit to Oman.’ On a piece of paper I wrote down four clearly-stated points, one of which was [the demand for] official recognition of the right to enrich uranium. I thought that, if the Americans were sincere in their proposal, they had to accept these four demands of ours. Mr. Souri delivered this short letter to the mediator, stressing that this was the list of Iran’s demands, [and that], if the Americans wanted to resolve the issue, they were welcome to do so [on our terms], otherwise addressing the White House proposals to Iran would be pointless and unjustified.
“All the demands presented in this letter were related to the nuclear challenge. [They were] issues we had always come up against, like the closing of the nuclear dossier, official recognition of [the right to] enrichment, and resolving the issue of Iran’s past activities under the PMD [possible military dimensions] heading. After receiving the letter, the Americans said, ‘We are definitely and sincerely willing, and we can resolve the issues that Iran mentioned.'”
Interviewer: “With whom did the Americans hold contacts?”
Salehi: “They were in contact with Omani officials, including the relevant figure in the Omani administration. He was a friend of U.S. Secretary of State [John Kerry]. Back then Kerry was not yet secretary of state, he acted as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In any case, we received from the Americans a positive response and message. We came to the conclusion that we could prepare [to take] further steps on this issue. That’s why I asked the Omanis to relay to Iran an official letter that I could present to the officials in Iran. I assessed we had a good opportunity and that we could take advantage of it… They did so, and I presented the official letter that was received to the regime officials and went to the [Supreme] Leader to detail to him the process that had been conducted…
Interviewer: “What was the American position in the first meetings that took place between Iran and the P5+1 during Rohani’s presidency?”
Salehi: “After Rohani’s government began working [in August 2013] – this was during Obama’s second term in office – a new [round of] negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 was launched. By this time, Kerry was no longer a senator but had been appointed secretary of state. [But even] before this, when he was still senator, he had already been appointed by Obama to handle the nuclear dossier [vis-à-vis Iran] and later [in December 2012] he was appointed secretary of state. Before this, the Omani mediator, who was in close touch with Kerry, told us that Kerry would soon be appointed secretary of state. In the period of the secret negotiations with the Americans in Oman, there was a more convenient atmosphere for obtaining concessions from the Americans. After the advent of the Rohani government and the American administration [i.e., after the start of Obama’s second term in office], and with Kerry as secretary of state, the Americans expressed a more forceful position. They no longer displayed the same eagerness to advance the negotiations. Their position became more rigid and the threshold of their demands higher. But the situation on the Iranian side changed too, since a very professional team was placed in charge of the negotiations with the P5+1…”[4]
‘Nuclear Iran’ Website: Three Rounds Of Talks With The U.S. Took Place Before Iran’s 2013 Elections
The “Nuclear Iran” website, which is affiliated with Iran’s former nuclear negotiation team and which supports the ideological camp, reported on April 20, 2014 that “Two additional conditions, out of the four conditions [set out by Khamenei], were that foreign minister [Salehi] himself not take part in the talks, and that the negotiations yield tangible results at an early [stage]. The policy for these negotiations was set out by a committee of three figures, [all of them] senior government officials, though Ahmadinejad himself did not have much of a role in it. The main strategy in these negotiations was [handing] America an ultimatum and exposing its insincerity and untrustworthiness. Before the 2013 presidential elections, three rounds of talks took place in Oman, and at these talks the Americans officially recognized Iran’s [right] to enrich [uranium]…”[5]

Endnotes:
[1] This is in contrast to what was implied by U.S. President Obama on July 14, 2015, when he announced the nuclear deal with Iran in a speech that began with the words “After two years of negotiations…” Whitehouse.gov, July 14, 2015.
[2] Leader.ir, June 23, 2015. Ahmad Khorshidi, a relative of Ahmadinejad’s, told the website Entekhab in 2014 that negotiations between Tehran and Washington did not start during President Rohani’s term. He said that during the Ahmadinejad period, there were three rounds of talks between the sides, which were also attended by then-foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Entekhab.ir, June 11, 2014.
[3] Tasnim (Iran), July 7, 2015.
[4] Iran (Iran), August 4, 2015.
[5] Irannuc.ir, April 20, 2014.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/08/misleading-the-nation-obama-signed-off-on-irans-right-to-nuclear-program-in-secret-2011-talks.html/#sthash.7VMd0dz9.dpuf