Iran to Kerry: We Don't Want Your Nuclear Fuel

[DC09]

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday rebuffed a proposal by U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry who has suggested supplying the Islamic state with nuclear fuel for power reactors if Tehran agrees to give up its own fuel-making capability.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said it would be “irrational” for Iran to put its nuclear program in jeopardy by relying on supplies from abroad.

“We have the technology (to make nuclear fuel) and there is no need for us to beg from others,” Asefi told a weekly news conference. ...

But Kerry says he would put Iran’s intentions to the test by agreeing to supply it with nuclear fuel for its power reactors provided Tehran stopped efforts to make its own fuel and returned the spent fuel after use.

Iran has rejected repeated efforts by European countries to get it to scrap its nuclear fuel-cycle activities — which could be used to make atomic bombs.

Asefi said Iran could not trust any deal from the West to supply it with reactor fuel.

“What guarantees are there? Will they supply us one day and then, if they want to, stop supplying us on another day?” he said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, in comments published in Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday, stressed the Bush administration's tough line on Iran.

"We are not considering any military intervention at the moment. But our position is that we should not exclude any option from the start. Iran must understand that our policy red line is the acquisition of nuclear weapons," he said.

"The most important thing at the moment is to get Iran on to the agenda of the U.N. Security Council to demonstrate that the international community won't accept it acquiring nuclear status," he added.

Article

[Babs]

Holy ****. Kerry's starting trouble already.

[wunarmdscissor]

Yeah by coming up with ways of avoiding war and not telling them hes gonna blow the crap outta them.

Yeah sounds like hes starting all sorts of trouble.

[Stellar]

Yeah by coming up with ways of avoiding war and not telling them hes gonna blow the crap outta them.

Yeah sounds like hes starting all sorts of trouble.

289007[/snapback]

And as you see, they say no, so maybe threatening to blow the crap out of them might affect them more...?

Edited October 3, 2004 by Stellar

[Celumnaz]

Reading that, I went to go see what was said about Iran and this fuel thing at the debate:

LEHRER: New question, Mr. President. Do you believe that diplomacy and sanctions can resolve the nuclear problems with North Korea and Iran? Take them in any order you would like.

BUSH: North Korea, first, I do. Let me say -- I certainly hope so. Before I was sworn in, the policy of this government was to have bilateral negotiations with North Korea.

And we signed an agreement with North Korea that my administration found out that was not being honored by the North Koreans.

And so I decided that a better way to approach the issue was to get other nations involved, just besides us. And in Crawford, Texas, Jiang Zemin and I agreed that the nuclear-weapons-free peninsula, Korean Peninsula, was in his interest and our interest and the world's interest.

And so we began a new dialogue with North Korea, one that included not only the United States, but now China. And China's a got a lot of influence over North Korea, some ways more than we do.

As well, we included South Korea, Japan and Russia. So now there are five voices speaking to Kim Jong Il, not just one.

And so if Kim Jong Il decides again to not honor an agreement, he's not only doing injustice to America, he'd be doing injustice to China, as well.

BUSH: And I think this will work. It's not going to work if we open up a dialogue with Kim Jong Il. He wants to unravel the six- party talks, or the five-nation coalition that's sending him a clear message.

On Iran, I hope we can do the same thing, continue to work with the world to convince the Iranian mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions.

We worked very closely with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain, who have been the folks delivering the message to the mullahs that if you expect to be part of the world of nations, get rid of your nuclear programs.

The IAEA is involved. There's a special protocol recently been passed that allows for inspections.

I hope we can do it. And we've got a good strategy.

To me, looks like his position is when we try to do it ourselves people want to butt heads with us, so we try to get other nations and coalitions involved. Even when a country breaks an agreement, an alternate form of diplomacy is tried fist. And knowing about that Arabic summit with I think it's Powell in charge of it, he tries to get countries in the region involved more than countries far away.

LEHRER: Senator Kerry, 90 seconds.

KERRY: With respect to Iran, the British, French, and Germans were the ones who initiated an effort without the United States, regrettably, to begin to try to move to curb the nuclear possibilities in Iran. I believe we could have done better.

Gotta correct to feel superior, even when you're wrong. And that's a slap in the face to the British, French, and Germans saying they can't do it witout big daddy US, even if it were true. Saying you could have done better is easy Kerry, you say it alot. I could have wrote this post better. I could have done the debate better than you, it's easy to say Kerry.

I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together. The president did nothing.

That's what the article's about.

With respect to North Korea, the real story: We had inspectors and television cameras in the nuclear reactor in North Korea. Secretary Bill Perry negotiated that under President Clinton. And we knew where the fuel rods were. And we knew the limits on their nuclear power.

Colin Powell, our secretary of state, announced one day that we were going to continue the dialog of working with the North Koreans. The president reversed it publicly while the president of South Korea was here.

KERRY: And the president of South Korea went back to South Korea bewildered and embarrassed because it went against his policy. And for two years, this administration didn't talk at all to North Korea.

While they didn't talk at all, the fuel rods came out, the inspectors were kicked out, the television cameras were kicked out. And today, there are four to seven nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea.

That happened on this president's watch.

Now, that, I think, is one of the most serious, sort of, reversals or mixed messages that you could possibly send.

Well, the post is about Iran. There's a load in that "the real story". But this post would be way long and it's alot of hard work finding all the raw data without someone's bias. I just left it in because that's what Kerry said and even though there's so many lies in there it leads to the rest of that part of the debate.

LEHRER: I want to make sure -- yes, sir -- but in this one minute, I want to make sure that we understand -- the people watching understand the differences between the two of you on this.

You want to continue the multinational talks, correct?

BUSH: Right.

LEHRER: And you're willing to do it...

KERRY: Both. I want bilateral talks which put all of the issues, from the armistice of 1952, the economic issues, the human rights issues, the artillery disposal issues, the DMZ issues and the nuclear issues on the table.

LEHRER: And you're opposed to that. Right?

BUSH: The minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind. That's exactly what Kim Jong Il wants. And by the way, the breach on the agreement was not through plutonium. The breach on the agreement is highly enriched uranium. That's what we caught him doing. That's where he was breaking the agreement.

Secondly, he said -- my opponent said where he worked to put sanctions on Iran -- we've already sanctioned Iran. We can't sanction them any more. There are sanctions in place on Iran.

And finally, we were a party to the convention -- to working with Germany, France and Great Britain to send their foreign ministers into Iran.

Kerry want's it both ways, heh. So, Bush want's many nations, Kerry wants to grandstand. Bush made a mistake though frustrated with the lies Kerry was telling, he corrected Kerry with the uranium thing, and then the sanctions. The sanctions gave Kerry that opening on the next question, he has to get back at Bush. He's superior after all.

LEHRER: New question, two minutes.

Senator Kerry, you mentioned Darfur, the Darfur region of Sudan. Fifty thousand people have already died in that area. More than a million are homeless. And it's been labeled an act of ongoing genocide. Yet neither one of you or anyone else connected with your campaigns or your administration that I can find has discussed the possibility of sending in troops.

LEHRER: Why not?

KERRY: Well, I'll tell you exactly why not, but I first want to say something about those sanctions on Iran.

Of course. Sure. Structured debate. Given, I haven't read the rules myself so I don't know.

Only the United States put the sanctions on alone, and that's exactly what I'm talking about.

In order for the sanctions to be effective, we should have been working with the British, French and Germans and other countries. And that's the difference between the president and me.

Didn't he say

KERRY: With respect to Iran, the British, French, and Germans were the ones who initiated an effort without the United States, regrettably, to begin to try to move to curb the nuclear possibilities in Iran. I believe we could have done better.

You could have done better, how? Like Iran's response shows us? Like the bilateral talks with N. Korea showed us? I could have done it better too, yey.

So now, just going by the debate, the British, French and Germans initiated an effort in Iran, without the US. Because they didn't have the US they fail of course.

So, the US imposes sanctions which I guess is not an effort, but the British, French and Germans are not making sanctions, so I guess that's an effort?

The British, French and Germans are making efforts not including sanctions, but the US is not making efforts?

That's what Kerry's saying.