Europeans call off nuclear talks with Iran-France

[maddezmom]

PARIS (Reuters) - European powers have called off August 31 talks with Iran on proposed incentives to persuade it to give up nuclear activities the West suspects may be preliminary steps toward making atomic weapons, France said on Tuesday.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said talks on a formal European proposal made earlier this month would not now go ahead because Iran had resumed certain nuclear work in breach of a promise to freeze it while talks lasted.

"There will, in fact, be no negotiations meeting on August 31 since the Iranians have decided to suspend application of the Paris Agreement," Mattei told a regular news briefing.

"So by common accord between the three Europeans it is clear that there will be no negotiations meeting ... as long as the Iranians remain outside the Paris Agreement."

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050823/ts_nm/iran_nuclear_dc

[Kagemusha]

1. Some pieces of the puzzle fit together for me re: Iran today.

Piece 1: The report that scientists (i.e. REAL scientists, not faith based ones) have discovered that Iran has been telling the truth about contamination of centrifuges that it received from Pakistan. The traces of uranium enrichment found in 2003 were from the Pakistani nuclear program, not the Iranian one.

Piece 2: The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran shifted the estimated time Iran would require to become a nuclear power from 5 years to 10 years, prompting loud outrage from the anti-Iran crowd saying that this ignored evidence gathered by Iranian dissidents, primarily a group which brought the world's attention to Iran's nuclear program being far more advanced than anyone suspected some 2 years ago, though the group has spread a great deal of information that could NOT be independently confirmed whatsoever.

Piece 3: The information provided from these Iranian dissidents seems to be that concerning the traces indicating that Iran's centrifuges had been used for Iranian enrichment, re: Piece 1 above.

So, the Iran-bashers jumped on the CIA for acting like it knew something they didn't (in spite of that being the CIA's, um, job). Now we know what the CIA had been told: Science says that Iran's version of the story was correct through forensic comparison of Iran's centrifuge traces with equipment provided by Pakistan for comparison.

Conclusion: Iran really is considerably further away from becoming a nuclear power than Washington hawks have been led to believe because the basis of that belief has been proven to be scientifically false.

Corollary: Israel IS NOT in danger of being nuked by Iran anytime soon.

Corollary: Put the bombing talk away, hawks.