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Pedro Gonçalves

Russia, rest of G8 clash on approach to Iran | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSLP729363

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Russia Sergei Lavrov

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear that Russia was not prepared to sign up to a G8 statement condemning Iran's handling of the election. "No one is willing to condemn the election process, because it's an exercise in democracy," Lavrov told reporters.
  • "We agreed that we will develop a language which would allow us to concentrate on the main task -- to move toward resolving the issues of the Iranian nuclear programme...," Lavrov said after separate talks with Frattini. "Isolation is the wrong approach ... Engagement is the key word," he said.
Pedro Gonçalves

Russia backs EU, not U.S., role in Georgia | International | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE5741LC20090805

Georgia Abkhazia Ossetia Russia EU US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Moscow welcomes the work of EU monitors in Georgia, deployed in the Caucasus state a year ago after the Russian invasion, but is opposed to the United States having a role, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
  • Under a peace deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the European Union has sent 240 unarmed monitors to Georgia to oversee a fragile ceasefire. Georgia now wants the United States to join the monitoring. "The presence of EU monitors on Georgian territories bordering South Ossetia and Abkhazia is an important stabilizing factor and we support such a presence," Lavrov told state-run television channel Vesti-24.
  • Georgia, keen to get Western support in its stand-off with Russia, asked the United States last month to join the EU monitoring mission -- although the EU itself has not made any such request to Washington. Lavrov said the Georgian request was part of a plan to drag the United States into a confrontation. "The idea is absolutely clear and we honestly told this to our U.S. colleagues," Lavrov said. "This is all about dragging Americans into Georgia and pitching them against the Russian military." "After that, the Georgian masters of provocation... will try doing their traditional job," he added. "The risks of this are clear, Europe and the United States understand them."
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Europe - G8 'deplores' Iran poll violence - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...200962692754365719.html

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Russia Sergei Lavrov G8

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister said that Russia was not prepared to sign up to a G8 statement condemning the election itself. "No one is willing to condemn the election process, because it's an exercise in democracy," he said.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea 'is producing plutonium' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8017898.stm

North Korea Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Weapons Russia Sergei Lavrov UN

shared by Argos Media on 25 Apr 09 - Cached
  • North Korea has started to reprocess spent fuel rods at its nuclear plant, says the country's state media. The reprocessing is a possible move towards producing weapons grade plutonium and comes after Pyongyang's launch of a long-range rocket in April.
  • "The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the Foreign Ministry statement dated 14 April," North Korea's Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying.
  • The official said the reprocessing would "contribute to bolstering the nuclear deterrence for self-defence in every way to cope with the increasing military threats from the hostile forces".
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  • Pyongyang's announcement came only hours after the UN imposed sanctions on three companies it said had supported North Korea's controversial rocket launch, as well as updating the list of goods and technologies already banned.
  • The country is already thought to possess enough reprocessed plutonium for between six and eight nuclear weapons - so in the immediate term the announcement does not significantly alter the strategic balance, our correspondent says.
  • North Korea had already partially dismantled its nuclear reactor - the source of material for a 2006 atomic test. But it now says it is reprocessing remaining spent fuel rods, which experts say could provide material for at least one more nuclear bomb.
  • The sanctions mark the first concrete steps against Pyongyang since the UN officially condemned the launch.
  • North Korea's Deputy UN Ambassador Pak Tok Hun said the decision was "a wanton violation of the United Nations charter". "It is the inalienable right of every nation and country to make peaceful use of outer space," he said. "That is why we totally reject and do not recognise any sort of decision which has been made in the Security Council."
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has been in Pyongyang in an attempt to persuade the North to return to the nuclear talks, said earlier that sanctions were "not constructive".
  • The UN Security Council council unanimously condemned North Korea's rocket launch on 13 April, saying it was a cover for a long-range missile test and as such contravened a 2006 resolution banning such tests.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Iran's supreme leader denies nuclear report claims - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8523340.stm

Iran IAEA

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 19 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Iran's supreme leader has denied it is developing nuclear weapons, after a new report from the UN atomic watchdog, the IAEA, sparked an international outcry.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said any fears were "baseless" as Iranians' beliefs "bar us from using such weapons".
  • Russia said it was "very alarmed" over the report while the US warned Iran it faced consequences if it failed to meet international responsibilities.
  • According to the unusually forthright report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran's level of co-operation with the agency was decreasing, adding to concerns about "possible military dimensions" to its nuclear programme.
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  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a radio interview: "We are very alarmed and we cannot accept this, that Iran is refusing to co-operate with the IAEA."
  • But Ayatollah Khamenei countered: "The West's accusations are baseless because our religious beliefs bar us from using such weapons. "We do not believe in atomic weapons and are not seeking that," he was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
  • The report says its information was "consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the timeframe in which the activities were conducted and the people and organisations involved". It says: "Altogether this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile." The report also urges Iran co-operates with IAEA investigators "without further delay" as its resistance added to concerns "about possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear programme".
Argos Media

U.S., Russian Scientists Say Missile Shield Wouldn't Protect Europe From Iran - washing... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009051803055.html

US Iran Russia Missile Defense Shield

shared by Argos Media on 20 May 09 - Cached
  • A planned U.S. missile shield to protect Europe from a possible Iranian attack would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy, according to a joint analysis by top U.S. and Russian scientists.
  • The U.S.-Russian team also judged that it would be more than five years before Iran is capable of building both a nuclear warhead and a missile capable of carrying it over long distances. And if Iran attempted such an attack, the experts say, it would ensure its own destruction.
  • "The missile threat from Iran to Europe is thus not imminent," the 12-member technical panel concludes in a report produced by the EastWest Institute, an independent think tank based in Moscow, New York and Belgium.
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  • The year-long study brought together six senior technical experts from both the United States and Russia to assess the military threat to Europe from Iran's nuclear and missile programs. The report's conclusions were reviewed by former defense secretary William J. Perry, among others, before being presented to national security adviser James L. Jones and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
  • The report acknowledges dramatic technological gains by Iran, and it predicts that the country could probably build a simple nuclear device in one to three years, if it kicked out U.N. inspectors and retooled its uranium-processing plants to make weapons-grade enriched uranium. Another five years would be needed to build a warhead that would fit on one of Iran's missiles, the panel says. U.S. intelligence agencies have made similar predictions; Israel maintains that Iran could build a bomb in as little as eight months.
  • The U.S.-Russian experts say Iran faces limits in developing ballistic missiles that could someday carry nuclear warheads. Its current arsenal is derived from relatively unsophisticated North Korean missiles, which in turn are modified versions of a Russian submarine-launched missile that dates from the 1950s. "We believe that these components were likely transferred to North Korea illegally in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Russia was experiencing major political and economic chaos," one of the U.S. team members said in a separate commentary.
  • the country lacks "the infrastructure of research institutions, industrial plants, or the scientists and engineers that are needed to make substantial improvements."
  • They conclude that it would take Iran at least another six to eight years to produce a missile with enough range to reach Southern Europe and that only illicit foreign assistance or a concerted and highly visible, decade-long effort might produce the breakthroughs needed for a nuclear-tipped missile to threaten the United States.
  • Moreover, if Iran were to build a nuclear-capable missile that could strike Europe, the defense shield proposed by the United States "could not engage that missile," the report says. The missile interceptors could also be easily fooled by decoys and other simple countermeasures, the report concludes.
Argos Media

EU seeks greater links with ex-Soviet states - The Irish Times - Fri, May 08, 2009 - 0 views

www.irishtimes.com/...1224246132063.html

Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus EU Eastern Europe Europe Frederik Reinfeldt Georgia Moldova Reinfeldt Russia Ukraine

shared by Argos Media on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • THE EU has invited six former Soviet republics to join an eastern partnership initiative promising closer ties amid growing fears of serious economic and political upheaval in the region.
  • At a summit yesterday, the union offered the prospect of free trade, additional economic aid, a gradual relaxation in visa restrictions and integration into the European single market. But the initiative stops short of offering the prospect of future EU membership to any of the participants and commits them to respect human rights and democracy.
  • “If we don’t export stability to this region, we will import instability,” said Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt who, along with Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, co-developed the eastern partnership plan in an attempt to stabilise eastern Europe.
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  • Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and the 27 EU states signed up to a declaration promising a “more ambitious partnership”. The EU is also planning to boost the amount of aid it provides to the region to about €600 billion and provide technical assistance to the six states.
  • Moscow rejects European accusations of meddling in the region and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov criticised the proposed partnership when he met his European counterparts, telling them it should “not get in the way of the post-Soviet era”.
  • EU diplomats attempted to soothe Russian concerns to prevent tensions between Nato and Russia worsening. “This is not anti-Russian,” said Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. “They are our close eastern neighbours and we have a vital interest in their stability and prosperity. This is an offer, not an EU projection of force.”
  • However, the commitment of EU states to the eastern partnership initiative came under question, with several high-profile EU leaders staying away. British prime minister Gordon Brown, French prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spanish prime minister José Luís Zapatero did not attend.
  • Polish hopes that the partnership may be used to give countries such as Ukraine the chance to apply for EU membership face opposition from Germany and the Netherlands. Diplomats from both states insisted on watering down the declaration, which initially referred to the states as “European countries”. Instead, they were described as “partners” and promises of fast-track visa liberalisation were deleted.
Argos Media

France 24 | EU offers partnership to former Soviet states | France 24 - 0 views

www.france24.com/...et-states-summit-prague-russia

Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus EU Eastern Europe Europe Georgia Moldova Russia Ukraine

shared by Argos Media on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • European Union nations gathered for landmark talks Thursday with six former Soviet states, aiming to foster stability without angering Moscow or offering anyone the hope of eventual EU membership.     The main goal of the new Eastern Partnership is to "accelerate political association and further economic integration" between the 27 EU nations and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, according to a draft summit statement.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday warned against the creation of "new dividing lines" in Europe.     However EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana assured in Prague that the Eastern partnership "is not against Russia with whom we also have a partnership".
  • Brussels says the new scheme is designed to foster stability in the region and is not handing out the carrot of eventual EU partnership.     "This is not about building spheres of influence, this is not about building competition, this is a language that belongs to the past," EU commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said.
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  • The project was the initiative of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency till the end of next month.
  • Prague was unable to convince key EU leaders to attend -- with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi among the no-shows.
  • Overall the meeting was turned into something of a semi-summit, with just over half of the 27 EU nations represented by their heads of state or government.     A senior European Commission official said the absences increase the danger of "policy for the East made by countries from the East (of the EU), and a policy for the Mediterranean made by Mediterranean countries".
  • The draft shows some of the tensions over the eastward rapprochement, with subtle but key text changes in the final version reflecting the wishes of western Europe -- France, Germany and the Benelux countries in particular -- not to go too far with the project.     The six partner nations are clearly referred to as "Eastern European Partners" whereas the Czechs wanted to drop the "Eastern" tag.
  • The reference "long-term goal" was also added to a paragraph on visa liberalisation.
  • No mention of EU membership goals for the six is made, with several EU nations feeling they have enough on their hands with the European aspirations of the Balkan nations.
  • The Eastern Partnership was promoted by Czech, Polish and Swedish concerns that the EU's political focus had moved to areas where it had little real influence rather than stay on more "European" states.
Pedro Gonçalves

Authorities Rule Iran Election 'Healthy' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...27iran.html

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Iran Guardian Council G8 Ayatollah Shirazi

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Despite new international criticism, the Iranian authorities showed no sign Friday of bending to domestic or foreign pressure, insisting that the disputed presidential vote on June 12 was the “healthiest” in three decades.
  • The uncompromising words emerged as the Group of Eight countries, including the United States, mounted a fresh broadside Friday saying they “deplored” the post-election violence and demanding that the “the will of the Iranian people is reflected in the electoral process.”
  • At Friday prayers at Tehran university, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami referred to the demonstrators as rioters and declared, “I want the judiciary to punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson.” Reuters quoted him as saying demonstrators should be tried for waging war against God. The punishment for such offenses under Islamic law is death, Reuters said.
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  • Ayatollah Khatami is not regarded as a high-profile figure, so it was not clear how much weight his words carried.
  • However, he is a member of the influential Assembly of Experts and his threats seemed likely to further intimidate protesters whose presence on the streets has dwindled in the face of the deployment of security forces in large numbers.
  • The authorities have repeatedly dismissed the opposition complaints. In remarks quoted on the official IRNA news agency on Friday , Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, a spokesman for the 12-member Guardian Council charged with vetting elections, said the panel had “almost finished reviewing defeated candidates’ election complaints” which the council said earlier numbered in excess of 600.“The reviews showed that the election was the healthiest since the revolution,” Mr. Kadkhodaei said. “There were no major violations in the election.”
  • on Friday, at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Eight in Trieste, Italy, a joint statement said they “deployed post-electoral violence which led to the loss of lives of Iranian civilians” and urged Iran to respect human rights, including freedom of expression.” Along with Japan and Russia, the G-8 includes the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Britain.It called on Iran to “guarantee that the will of the Iranian people is reflected in the electoral process” but it said the door must remain open to dialogue with Tehran in its contentious nuclear program, news reports said.
  • The joint statement was a compromise between some European countries seeking a hard line, and Russia, whose foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, was quoted as telling a news conference in Trieste that while Moscow wanted to express its “most serious concern” over use of force in Iran, “we will not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs.”
  • In another indication of the depth of divisions that remain, a senior cleric, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, called for “national conciliation.” “Definitively, something must be done to ensure that there are no embers burning under the ashes, and that hostilities, antagonism and rivalries are transformed into amity and cooperation among all parties,” he said in comments posted on the state-run Press TV Web site.
Argos Media

'Twitter Revolution': Fearing Uprising, Russia Backs Moldova's Communists - SPIEGEL ONL... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,618563,00.html

Moldova Chisinau Romania Transnistria Russia

shared by Argos Media on 11 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Monday's Twitter-organized student protest brought some 10,000 people to Chisinau's main square, who accused the government of rigging Sunday's vote. The protest turned violent on Tuesday, with some demonstrators throwing rocks and storming the Moldovan parliament.
  • Moldova's current president, Vladimir Voronin, has belittled the protests and accused neighboring Romania of organizing a coup. He even expelled Romania's ambassador on Wednesday. "When the flag of Romania was raised on state buildings, the attempts of the opposition to carry out a coup became clear," he said. "We will not allow this."
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lined up behind Voronin on Thursday and described the protesters who ransacked the parliament as "pogrom-makers" bent on destroying the country.
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  • However, the Communist (and anti-Romanian) influence also has passionate defenders in Moldova, since Romanian troops allied with Nazis had a cruel record in Moldova during World War II. Russia is seen as a protective big brother against the Romanian influence in parts of Moldova -- especially Transnistria, a breakaway region with many Russian speakers and its own, but still internationally unrecognized, president.
  • some of the anti-Communist opposition parties in Moldova want to join the EU, if possible by reunifying with Romania. The two nations were unified for a while before World War II, and about two-thirds of Moldovans claim Romanian descent. Reunification was a campaign issue in Sunday's election.
  • "If Romanians and Moldovans decide in favor of a union," one European diplomat said in last week's run-up to the vote, "the EU will not oppose them."
  • "The Moscow authorities are afraid of spontaneous mass protests in the regions … and, for this reason, Russian television is showing what is happening in an exclusively negative light," Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst, told Reuters. "It is beneficial for the Kremlin to show the consequences of peoples' protests to justify why it needs to be tough."
  • Russian troops have kept the peace in Transnistria since 1992, and Russian support for the region has been compared to Russian support for breakaway regions in Georgia and Ukraine.
  • a large protest in the capital was brewing on Friday -- organized on a Twitter stream tagged #pman, which stands for the initials of Chisinau's biggest square-- with protesters claiming the government would use the threat of a Romanian coup as a reason to arrest people illegally.
  • The violence on Tuesday was a setback for the protesters' cause even within Moldova's anti-Communist community, and some experts wondered if it wasn't orchestrated.
  • "The protests were initially very peaceful, but then a small group, which seemed to be very well-organized, started these violent riots," Igor Munteanu, who runs a think tank in Chisinau called Viitorul, told Britain's Independent newspaper. "My suspicion is that this was provoked and directed from within. Elements of the Communist leadership do not want closer relations with the EU, as it will mean loosening their grip on power. They know that if they provoke a crisis with Romania and the EU, and improve relations with Moscow, they will be able to continue running the country as they please."
  • Some Russian analysts on Wednesday were blaming President Barack Obama for the Moldovan unrest, saying American's interest is to hem in Russia.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran opens nuclear fuel facility - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7991282.stm

Iran Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Power US

shared by Argos Media on 09 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has opened the country's first nuclear fuel production plant.
  • Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran was open to an offer of fresh talks with world powers if they were based on "justice" and "respect".
  • Mr Ahmadinejad also announced that Iran had tested two new types of centrifuge with higher capacities at a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Meanwhile, nuclear chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh says Iran has increased the number of centrifuges it is running at the plant to 7,000. In February, Iran said it had 6,000 centrifuges running.
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  • While most international attention is focussed on Iran's uranium enrichment activities, the inauguration of the new plant in Isfahan shifts attention to a parallel programme that also has outside observers worried, BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus reports. Once it is fully operational it could produce sufficient plutonium for two nuclear weapons a year, should Iran choose to separate the plutonium from the reactor's spent fuel, he says.
  • The newly-opened plant will produce pellets of uranium oxide that could be used to fuel a heavy-water reactor in Arak expected to be completed some time between 2011 and 2013.
  • It signals Iran has reached the final stage in the nuclear fuel cycle, analysts say.
  • "The Iranian nation has from the beginning been after logic and negotiations, but negotiations based on justice and complete respect for rights and regulations," Mr Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Thursday. "One-sided negotiations, conditional negotiations, negotiations in an atmosphere of threat are not something that any free person would accept," he said.
  • Iran needs to "convince us all of the exclusively peaceful character of its nuclear programme", Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. On Wednesday, the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany said they would ask EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to approach Iran with the talks offer.
  • Signalling a policy shift, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US would be a "full participant" in talks. "Obviously we believe that pursuing very careful engagement on a range of issues that affect our interests and the interests of the world with Iran makes senses," she said. "There is nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon."
Argos Media

Russia Keeps Troops in Georgia, Defying Deal - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...03georgia.html

Russia Georgia Europe US South Ossetia

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Nearly eight months after the war between Russia and Georgia, Russian troops continue to hold Georgian territory that the Kremlin agreed to vacate as part of a formal cease-fire, leaving a basic condition of that agreement unfulfilled.
  • It also underscores the strength of Russia’s military position in the southern Caucasus and its enduring confidence in undermining President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and standing up to the West, even as Mr. Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia have signaled an intention to improve relations. Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev met on Wednesday, and exchanged warm remarks and pledges to cooperate, raising questions in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, about whether the United States would push to have the cease-fire plan fully honored.
  • Under the conditions of the cease-fire, the armed forces of all sides were to return to the positions they held before the war, which erupted Aug. 7. The agreement required a cessation of fighting, corridors for aid delivery and no use of force. It also granted Russia a loosely defined permission to take further security measures while waiting for international monitors.
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  • But even though European monitors have long been on the ground, Russia still holds large areas that had irrefutably been under Georgian control, and thousands of Georgians have not been allowed free access to homes far from the disputed territory where the war began.
  • Several areas under Russian control are at odds with the terms of the cease-fire plan. The most obvious examples are in the Kodori Gorge and the agricultural valley outside the town of Akhalgori
  • Gilles Janvier, deputy head of the European monitoring mission, said in an interview that Russia had told diplomats that it had entered its own military agreement with the two breakaway regions in Georgia, which the Kremlin recognizes as independent states, and that these newer arrangements rendered the troop withdrawal component of the cease-fire plan obsolete.
  • “They say there is now a new bilateral agreement between them and South Ossetian and Abkhaz forces that lets them station troops,” Mr. Janvier said.
  • A senior American official said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the subject in her meeting in early March with Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, to no apparent effect.
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