RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/iran-nuclear-weapons-program/

 Samples recently collected by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors at two Iranian sites showed traces of radioactivity. Tehran had not reported any nuclear activity at these sites and denied IAEA inspectors access to them until just a few months ago. The findings suggest that Iran, in violation of the JCPOA nuclear agreement it signed in July 2015, has continued to conduct activities related to nuclear military development.

Samples collected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed traces of radioactivity at two Iranian sites where Tehran has not reported any nuclear activity. Although the IAEA refrained from naming the sites in its quarterly report of June 5, 2020, they were identified last year by the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. The identification of the sites was based on information extracted from the Iranian nuclear archive smuggled out of Tehran and into Israel in January 2018.

The first site visited by IAEA inspectors in August 2020 was a pilot plant for uranium conversion with an emphasis on the production of UF6 (uranium hexafluoride, a uranium compound which, in its gas phase, enables the enrichment of uranium by centrifuges). This site, located about 75 km southeast of Tehran, operated under the aegis of the Amad military nuclear program. In documents from the Iranian nuclear archive, this location is referred to as the “Tehran Site.” The facility was dismantled in 2004.

The other site was Marivan, located near the town of Abadeh in central Iran. This facility, also part of the Amad program, was designed to conduct “cold tests” of nuclear weapons (that is, to simulate activation of a nuclear explosive device using natural uranium rather than nuclear weapons grade uranium). This included operating a multipoint explosive system for the activation of a nuclear weapon as well as the development of its neutron initiator.

According to satellite imagery published by the Institute for Science and International Security, the Iranian authorities razed part of the Marivan facility in July 2019, more than a year before they allowed IAEA inspectors access to the facility. It is likely that this was done to prevent exposure of nuclear activities that had taken place there in the past. (This was not the first time the Islamic regime had razed nuclear sites: it did so at the Lavizan-Shian facility in Tehran in 2004 and the Parchin facility in 2012.) It is possible that the traces of radioactive materials found in samples taken by IAEA inspectors in August 2020 indicate renewed efforts to develop a neutron initiator for nuclear weapons previously conducted at the Marivan site.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17009/turkey-ravages-cyprus

Six years after Turkey invaded Cyprus, another military coup d’état, in 1980 in Turkey, would destroy whatever crumbs of freedoms remained. According to US secret diplomatic documents, at least 650,000 people were detained. Many were tortured and hundreds died in custody.

“There is a rule in the [Turkish] Special Warfare: To increase the strength of the people, some of their values must be sabotaged as if [the sabotage were conducted] by the enemy. [For example], a mosque can be burned. We burned a mosque in Cyprus.” — Turkish General Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, Habertürk, September 23, 2010.

In addition to Greek Cypriots, Armenian, Maronite, and other non-Muslim Cypriots were also forcibly displaced. The result was that Turkey effectively crushed the Christian population.

Today Turkey still calls the atrocities it committed in Cyprus in 1974 “a peace operation.”

The international community may be unaware of it, but Europe includes a ghost town located in the Republic of Cyprus. Since 1974, it has been under Turkish occupation, which has looted and ethnically cleansed its indigenous population.

Designated a military zone by the Turkish army 46 years ago, when Greek Cypriots were forced to flee invading Turkish forces, a part of the Cypriot district of Famagusta has remained deserted.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in October 2020:

“[T]he two main streets and the coast in the ‘Maraş region’ [Famagusta in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus], which were closed since the 1974 peace operation, have recently been opened to the use of the Cypriot people….. The closed Maraş region belongs to the Turkish Cypriots; it should be known this way…

“I call out to our fellow Turks in northern Cyprus, to my Turkish brothers. This land is yours. You have to lay claim to these lands. You also need to protect the political will that lays claim to these lands. If we can put this out fully, I believe that the future in Cyprus will be very different.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17088/iran-mediation

First, he must persuade Tehran to treat Iraq as an independent nation-state, not a glacis for the Islamic Republic in its campaign to “export revolution.”

Revival of the 1977 trade accord could help end the current chaos and enable Tehran and Baghdad to secure income from tariffs and taxation. Setting mutually accepted rules on charities could also help both curb money laundering and tax evasion through fake religious charities linked to crime syndicates and security services.

The big enchilada in al-Hakim’s imaginary mediation would be the reopening of Shatt al-Arab, the border waterway closed and clogged during the war. Re-opened, the Shatt could ensure the revival of Basra in Iraq and Khorramshahr in Iran which were the region’s largest ports for centuries. Dredging and remodeling the waterway could cost some $20 billion, worth considering if both sides created a joint navigation management agency.

Ah, we dropped the word “normalization”…. If the Islamic Republic can’t normalize relations even with Iraq, how could it normalize with the American “Great Satan”?

If wise al-Hakim wants to mediate, let him start with his two homelands.

With Donald Trump out of the White House, wannabe do-gooders have thrown their hats, or turbans, into the ring as mediators between Tehran and Washington.

First, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was ready to seize the opportunity of Joe Biden’s victory to build a bridge with Iran. Then it was the turn of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to don the mantle of honest broker. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has also made musings about mediation.