Clinton announces multi-party nuclear talks with Iran to resume in April

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

In a joint press conference with the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the next round of talks between Iran and six major world powers will resume on April 13-14.

These talks, to be held between Iran and the so-called “P5+1,” meaning China, Russia, Britain, France and the United States plus Germany, will be in Turkey.

It will be interesting to see how the Israeli government reacts to this announcement, given that their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken quite a hard line on the issue, even going as far as to call renewed nuclear talks with Iran a “trap.”

Furthermore, he claimed that the only viable solution would be to completely remove any and all nuclear materials from Iran, which is hardly justified seeing as they are not even pursuing military applications for their nuclear technology.

Recently the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh stated in an interview with Fox News that Iran has “has not been pursuing a nuclear weapon” and that Iran “will never, ever suspend our activities, including [uranium] enrichment,” according to Press TV.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi first announced that these talks would occur on March 28, although at that time he only announced that they would happen on April 13. At the time, he would not confirm where the talks were to be held.

“Istanbul has expressed its readiness to host these talks… but making the decision on this matter is the responsibility of Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Mr. Saeed Jalili,” Salehi stated.

There have been two previous rounds of talks held with the P5+1 and Iran. One was in December of 2010, held in Geneva, while the latest was in January of 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey’s capital.

The Iranian government has said that they are willing and ready to continue these talks based on common grounds, according to Iran’s Press TV, while also emphasizing that they will not give up any of their rights, which is exactly what Israel appears to think is the only solution.

The antagonistic approach that Israel has taken on this issue, and more generally when it comes to anything to do with Iran, is in no way conducive to a peaceful resolution of this disagreement.

There appears to be very little progress when it comes to Iran, given that the West constantly insists that they are pursuing nuclear weapons (even when U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has debunked this claim) while Iran continues to deny the accusations across the board.

With the Obama administration pushing forward with sanctions, even going as far as to threaten any foreign bank or financial institution in any nation which deals in Iranian crude oil (which China has already rightly voiced opposition to), the stakes just continue to get higher.

Unfortunately, the only logical conclusion I seem to be able to come to is that the West, but especially the United States and Israel, has decided that the sole solution is to totally dismantle the entire Iranian nuclear program, even though there is no evidence of military applications.

Furthermore, Iran has every right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology, just as any sovereign nation does.

However, Iran seems to be treated differently than other nations as highlighted by former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani and other prominent former U.S. officials who are openly supporting terrorism targeting Iran.

There have also been recent reports of Israeli commandos actually already conducting operations in Iran in an attempt to find (or create) a smoking gun to justify an overt strike. That being said, it is worth pointing out that those reports could easily be a psychological operation indeed to turn the Iranian military on itself and breed a pervasive, crippling paranoia.

However, U.S. officials did confirm that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has been training, funding and running terrorist operations in Iran, so it is not too much of a leap of faith.

It remains to be seen if these talks will result in any positive outcome and how Israel will react to them since they have been so incredibly opposed to any meaningful discussion with Iran.

This article first appeared at EndtheLie.com. Read other contributed articles by Madison Ruppert here.