U.S. Agrees To Iran Enrichment

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The United States has agreed to Iran’s demand to continue uranium enrichment, a report said.

The Middle East Media Research Institute determined that Washington has moved away from its NATO and Arab allies on the issue of Iranian uranium enrichment. In a report, the institute said President Barack Obama has signaled to Teheran that the United States would no longer oppose Iran’s uranium enrichment program, deemed a leading element in the nuclear weapons effort by the Middle East power.

“While President Obama’s overall policy since taking office has been to rely on international consensus — such as in the Syria crisis — in the matter of Iran he seems to be promoting a bilateral agenda while disregarding the international community’s opposition to a nuclear Iran,” the report, titled “The Iranian Regime Signals It Will Agree To A Deal With The U.S.,” said.

Authored by institute head Yigal Carmon, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer and A. Savyon, the report analyzed recent statements by Obama, who in October conducted a 15-minute telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rowhani. Obama was said to have launched a campaign to end Iran’s “ideological enmity” towards the United States.

“The Obama administration’s ‘limited uranium enrichment’ card is its enticement for bringing Iran to abandon its decades-old antagonism towards the U.S.,” the report, dated Oct. 9, said.

The tacit U.S. agreement on Iranian uranium enrichment marks a departure from NATO as well as Arab allies of Washington. The report said the Obama administration, as early as 2009, was also willing to pressure European Union states to recognize Iran’s right to “low-level uranium enrichment for civilian purposes on its own soil with various restrictions, chief among them obstacles to its ability to develop nuclear weapons.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency has long protested Iran’s enrichment program. Over the last decade, the United Nations agency argued that a uranium enrichment program would enable Iran or up to 40 other countries to assemble nuclear weapons within several months.

“Iran is demanding the right to enrich uranium on its soil because recognition of this right will make it a nuclear power, and a member of the global nuclear club,” the report said. “Even if it does not develop nuclear weapons, either right away or at any point thereafter, as a ‘threshold state,’ it will still be capable of doing so if it so desires.”

The report was issued ahead of nuclear talks with Iran on Oct. 15 in Geneva, Switzerland. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was appointed to represent Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

The report said the Obama administration, which urged Congress not to impose additional sanctions, has signaled its agreement for Iranian uranium enrichment to a level of five percent, suitable for nuclear energy reactors. Since Sept. 29, senior officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that Iran could “cease voluntarily to take enrichment above a certain level, keep it at a very low level because there’s no need to have it at a higher level for a peaceful program.”

“By this, he [Kerry] implied that a voluntary Iranian halt to enriching uranium to 20 percent while continuing its enrichment of uranium up to five percent would be viewed by the U.S. as a positive step,” the report said.