Two pieces of news today could be harbingers of a major change in MidEast nuclear tensions.
1. Iran's negotiating minister has accepted a plan whereby Iran would ship a major portion of its enriched uranium to another country for conversion into peaceful energy use. This would reduce their stockpile and buy at least a year's time before Iran could build a bomb, thus allowing for more definitive negotiations. It has yet to be ratified by Iran's leaders, and they could derail it; but it's a lot further down the road than anything the Bush administration even tried to obtain.
2. Haaertz.com, a reliable Israeli news source, is reporting a secret meeting in Cairo in late September between a representative of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and a senior Iranian official. Iran has denied it. But Haaertz's information gives details of the meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Cairo under the auspices of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
Also participating were representatives of the Arab League, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, along with European and American officials.
We don't know how much Obama directly brought about these two promising events, but he has certainly made a major about face in the U.S. position in this part of the world, which is undoubtedly a necessary step for such movements toward peace to occur.
Ralph
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I wonder if Israel's participation in such a negotiation is an acknowledgement on their part that they do, in fact, possess a nuclear weapons stockpile?
ReplyDeleteThat, in itself, would be a major step forward, IMHO.