End Of Days News
Grave concern was voiced in Jerusalem over the upbeat accounts appearing
Thursday, Feb. 28 of the six-power talks with Iran which ended Wednesday in
Almati, Kazakhstan. A Western diplomat described the nuclear talks as “more
constructive and positive than in the past.” For the first time, said the
diplomat, “they were really focusing on the proposal on the table” although he
admitted that Iran’s willingness to negotiate seriously will not become clear
until an April meeting.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi chimed in
buoyantly that the talks had reached “a turning point” this week and “a
breakthrough was within reach.”
Intelligence sources following the Kazakhstan negotiations told debkafile that all this optimism is
far from representing the true content of the session and no practical
discussion took place on “proposals on the table.” The participants did not
delude themselves that the next round of nuclear talks with Iran scheduled for
April would achieve any more progress on the disposal of Iran’s nuclear program
than the current session. In any case, Tehran is determined not to budge from
its hard and fast position on this issue – if ever – before the Iranian
presidential election in the coming June.
The sudden outburst of Western-Iranian optimism is seen in Jerusalem as part
of a US administration effort to soften Israel’s resistance to the continued
operation of the underground plant at Fordo which is turning out 20-percent
enriched uranium that is easily converted to weapons grade material.
A softer Israeli approach would lighten the nuclear cloud hanging over the
meetings Barack Obama is scheduled to hold with Israeli leaders during his visit
to Jerusalem on March 20.
Israel’s categorical demand is for the immediate
closure of the Fordo plant.
But this is not what the US delegation put before
the Iranian negotiators in Kazakhstan. Instead of demanding the plant’s
shutdown, the American proposal was for Iran to suspend 20 percent uranium
enrichment in a way that “constrains the ability to quickly resume operations”
there.
This is a major letdown for Israel’s expectations and for Binyamin
Netanyahu. No wonder the Iranian foreign minister was upbeat.
Showing posts with label Talks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Talks. Show all posts
Friday, March 1, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Syrian government ready to talk to all parties
End Of Days News
The Assad regime took another big step towards talks for ending the Syrian war
Monday when Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said in Moscow: The Syrian regime
is ready for dialogue with all who want dialogue including those who bear arms.”
DEBKAfile: Damascus is ready for the first time to talk to all the rebel
factions, without barring the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, the best-armed
and most effective rebel arm. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added there
was no alternative to a political solution for the two-year conflict but through
talks.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
World powers resume nuclear talks with Iran Feb. 28
End Of Days News
It was agreed that the talks would open in Kazakhstan. DEBKAfile: No progress is
expected this time any more than all the previous rounds of nuclear negotiations
with Iran. Their real purpose is to save the US and Western powers from having
to make good on their promise to exercise their military option for preventing
Israel acquiring a nuclear capability and Iran from interruptions in its drive
for a nuke..
Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Saleh said Monday he was optimistic.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Abbas and Meshaal in Cairo for talks
The leaders of Fatah and Hamas are scheduled to meet in Cairo with the Egyptian president in the latest round of reconciliation talks between their long-divided factions.
A spokesman for Mohamed Morsi's office said the Egyptian leader will mediate Wednesday's talks between Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president, and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal.
The two factions signed a reconciliation deal in Cairo in mid-2011, but the main points of the agreement have not been implemented.
Officials from Hamas and Fatah said Wednesday's talks would focus on setting up a unity government, which would pave the way for long-overdue parliamentary and presidential elections.
The parties have been at odds since 2006, when Hamas won a majority of seats in legislative elections. Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Ties have slowly begun to improve, with Hamas recently allowing Fatah to start holding rallies in Gaza, and PA allowing Hamas supporters to do the same in the West Bank, which they control.
It is too early to say whether the modest concessions foreshadow more meaningful political reconciliation.
The Hamas delegation will also meet with Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Egypt negotiated the truce that ended an eight-day Israeli military offensive in November in the Gaza Strip, which left more than 150 Palestinians and six Israelis dead.
This will be the first time Morsi hosts a meeting between the two Palestinian leaders.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
IDF and Syrian rebel officers meet clandestinely in Jordan
Israeli officials have been holding talks in Jordan with Syrian opposition
officials “in advance of a possible Israeli-U.S. operation in Syria to protect
the Golan Heights,” Western intelligence sources reported Tuesday, Jan. 1. There
was no further information about this operation or how rebel commanders were
involved in military plans “to protect the Golan Heights.”
Altogether, the goings-on on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria are in deep hush. But European intelligence sources, some of them French and Russian, reveal nightly clashes taking place between US, Jordanian, Israeli special forces and Syrian rebels, on the one hand, and Syrian special forces, on the other. debkafile’s military sources disclose what they are fighting for:
1. Each of the four is jockeying both for control of the buffer strips along those borders and for keeping their opposite numbers from establishing intelligence-gathering posts there. US forces, the IDF and the Jordanian army have a major tactical interest in keeping Syrian observation posts from settling in the border sectors, where they would be in position to mark out military and civilian targets if the Syrian conflict spilled over.
2. The Assad regime has two special interests in gaining a foothold in Jordan’s border area.
The first is to block the path of Syrian rebels heading back into the country and joining the various warfronts. At least five military facilities in Jordan are training special units of the Syrian opposition. They are managed by American, British, French, Czech and Polish military instructors. They are imparting tactics for capturing Syrian military chemical weapons caches and combating Syrian units armed with chemical or biological weapons.
Some of the rebel trainees return to Syria when they graduate; others are attached to units standing by in Jordan in case the Syrian conflict slides into hostilities with Israel and Jordan.
The second is back-up for the spy and sabotage networks the Assad government is running in Jordan’s refugee camps – just as they are in Turkey. Jordan houses some 60,000 Syrian refugees, most of them in the big Zaatari camp on the Syrian border. To facilitate communication with its undercover networks and the free passage of information, instructions and funds, Syria needs control over both sides of the common border.
Monday, Jordan imposed a blackout on the capture of four Syrian soldiers in the zone between the two countries. The security spokesman in Amman revealed only that they were unarmed and being interrogated - but not whether they were entering the kingdom or on their way out. Earlier that day, a senior Jordanian military spokesman warned of an attempt to expand the Syrian war into Jordan. He did not attribute the attempt to any party.
Military sources in Moscow are more forthcoming about happenings on Syria’s southern borders. Tuesday, Jan. 1, those sources reported that the Syrian army had repulsed a Syrian rebel assault from Jordan. They added that “Syrian border police had also seized a large pile of weapons, some of them Israeli-made, designated for the Free Syrian Army in the southern city of Deraa.
3. Extensive preparations are secretly afoot by US special forces, the IDF and the Turkish and Jordanian armies ready for President Bashar Assad to hand down the order to his army chiefs to launch a chemical war offensive on the military concentrations of Syrian rebels and their allies in the lands neighboring on Syria. Jordan’s training facilities for rebels are seen as likely to be Assad’s initial targets. Western military sources explain that, for this purpose, the Syrian ruler requires maximum control of Jordan’s borders, including the section abutting the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
Altogether, the goings-on on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria are in deep hush. But European intelligence sources, some of them French and Russian, reveal nightly clashes taking place between US, Jordanian, Israeli special forces and Syrian rebels, on the one hand, and Syrian special forces, on the other. debkafile’s military sources disclose what they are fighting for:
1. Each of the four is jockeying both for control of the buffer strips along those borders and for keeping their opposite numbers from establishing intelligence-gathering posts there. US forces, the IDF and the Jordanian army have a major tactical interest in keeping Syrian observation posts from settling in the border sectors, where they would be in position to mark out military and civilian targets if the Syrian conflict spilled over.
2. The Assad regime has two special interests in gaining a foothold in Jordan’s border area.
The first is to block the path of Syrian rebels heading back into the country and joining the various warfronts. At least five military facilities in Jordan are training special units of the Syrian opposition. They are managed by American, British, French, Czech and Polish military instructors. They are imparting tactics for capturing Syrian military chemical weapons caches and combating Syrian units armed with chemical or biological weapons.
Some of the rebel trainees return to Syria when they graduate; others are attached to units standing by in Jordan in case the Syrian conflict slides into hostilities with Israel and Jordan.
The second is back-up for the spy and sabotage networks the Assad government is running in Jordan’s refugee camps – just as they are in Turkey. Jordan houses some 60,000 Syrian refugees, most of them in the big Zaatari camp on the Syrian border. To facilitate communication with its undercover networks and the free passage of information, instructions and funds, Syria needs control over both sides of the common border.
Monday, Jordan imposed a blackout on the capture of four Syrian soldiers in the zone between the two countries. The security spokesman in Amman revealed only that they were unarmed and being interrogated - but not whether they were entering the kingdom or on their way out. Earlier that day, a senior Jordanian military spokesman warned of an attempt to expand the Syrian war into Jordan. He did not attribute the attempt to any party.
Military sources in Moscow are more forthcoming about happenings on Syria’s southern borders. Tuesday, Jan. 1, those sources reported that the Syrian army had repulsed a Syrian rebel assault from Jordan. They added that “Syrian border police had also seized a large pile of weapons, some of them Israeli-made, designated for the Free Syrian Army in the southern city of Deraa.
3. Extensive preparations are secretly afoot by US special forces, the IDF and the Turkish and Jordanian armies ready for President Bashar Assad to hand down the order to his army chiefs to launch a chemical war offensive on the military concentrations of Syrian rebels and their allies in the lands neighboring on Syria. Jordan’s training facilities for rebels are seen as likely to be Assad’s initial targets. Western military sources explain that, for this purpose, the Syrian ruler requires maximum control of Jordan’s borders, including the section abutting the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
The London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported that, when Israel
officials met Syrian opposition commanders in Jordan this week, they asked for
help to locate the remains of Eli Cohen, one of Israel’s most celebrated spies.
He was caught and publicly hanged on May 18, 1965 after an epic career. For
years, Cohen, posing as a wealthy Arab businessman, gained the confidence of
Syrian officials at the highest levels of government and managed to obtain its
secret war and political plans.
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