Emboldened by Iran Deal, North Korea May Have Restarted Nuclear Reactor

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By Frances Martel 

warnewsupdates.blogspot.com

It didn't take long for concerns that the Iranian nuclear deal could embolden other rogue nations to materialize. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced Thursday satellite footage strongly indicates that North Korea has restarted a formerly shut down plutonium plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which governs regulations for nuclear activity internationally and works with and under the United Nations, said Thursday that it has seen images showing steam, water, and other signs of life over the Yongbyon nuclear complex that had closed years ago, its cooling tower destroyed in 2008 as part of a multilateral deal to slow North Korea's nuclear development. "I remain seriously concerned," said IAEA head Yukiya Amano of the situation, noting that they have only overhead images as North Korea removed any UN inspectors from the country in 2009. 

North Korea had indicated it had intentions of restarting Yongbyon last April, but this is the first evidence that it is actively seeking to carry out that threat.

The restart of the Yongbyon complex is not the only post-Iran deal red flag from Pyongyang this week. The Johns Hopkins research institute specializing in U.S.-Korea relations published a report this week that overhead activity also indicated movements at an old missile launch control center in the Korean city of Tonghae. This news comes after yet another report this week shows evidence of Iran sending missile technicians to North Korea, which is especially alarming given that American intelligence indicates North Korea and Iran are both two years away from building a missile that could reach the United States.

North Korea's rhetoric has aligned with these increasingly belligerent actions. The communist state has also reacted belligerently to comments by U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Glyn Davies' comment that the rogue nation was "out of step" with the rest of the world on nuclear policy.

More than any other country on the globe, North Korea understands the benefits that come from haggling a sweet nuclear deal out of the West. From the 1990s through to the Obama administration, North Korea routinely signed onto and subsequently broke a number of agreements to stop its nuclear program in exchange for diminished sanctions and humanitarian aid. It milked the system to the best of its ability until, in 2009, it kicked UN inspectors out of the country and openly asserted its intention to develop nuclear weapons. 

Many have noticed the deal brokered with Iran bore some similarity to the deals with North Korea in the 1990s and have wondered whether Iran is following in North Korea's footsteps. It's possible, but what is irrefutable from the data on the table is that DPRK has taken the Iranian deal as a sign that it, too, can rekindle diplomatic fires long since diffused, restart nuclear plants, and ally with Iran to advance their agenda of mutually strengthening their military might against the West. 

The Iran deal did not just fail the West because of the impending threats to Israel's existence Benjamin Netanyahu so artfully articulated; it failed the civilized world because it expanded the scope of what is or isn't acceptable from unstable, aggressive states. It gave the green light to countries like North Korea to challenge the United States' authority on nuclear power and expect sanctions to be lowered and threats diminished if they agree to a meaningless diplomatic dance and ambiguous de-weaponization. 

That road is long, troubled, and riddled with danger for both negotiating Western nations and the neighboring states North Korea already has the technology to attack.

NKorea images suggest reactor testing: IAEA

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by Staff Writers Vienna (AFP) Nov 28, 2013

Activities observed at North Korea's Yongbyon site indicate testing ahead of a possible restart to a reactor that could provide it with weapons-grade plutonium, the UN atomic agency said Thursday.
"Activities have been observed at the site that are consistent with an effort to restart the... reactor," International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano told a closed-door regular meeting of the agency's board of governors.
He told the board the IAEA "continues to monitor developments at the Yongbyon site, mainly through satellite imagery".
At a later news conference Amano said the reactor activities included the release of steam from two vents and the apparent discharge of cooling water.
"As we do not have inspectors on the ground we cannot draw a conclusion," Amano said.
North Korea kicked out IAEA inspectors in 2009.
Since 2006 it has carried out three nuclear tests, the last, and most powerful, in February this year.
Two months later, it boasted that it would restart all facilities at Yongbyon to bolster its atomic arsenal.
South Korea's spy agency the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said on October 8 in a report to parliament that the reactor had resumed operations.
This followed the release of satellite imagery by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Science and International Security showing activity at the site.

Yongbyon was shut down in July 2007 and Pyongyang began disabling key plants there, publicly demolishing the plutonium reactor's cooling tower in 2008.

Iran Strongly Rejects Obama Interpretation of Nuclear Deal

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By Ben Shapiro 

On Tuesday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard news agency FARS released a statement from the Foreign Ministry denouncing the version of the Iranian nuclear deal released by the Obama administration on Sunday. “What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action (the title of the Iran-powers deal), and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” said Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham.

Afkham said that the negotiations between the White House, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany were lengthy and rigorous due to disputes over wording – and she added that the deal points explanation released by the White House was inaccurate. FARS released its own version of the agreement, which matched the text released to the press over the weekend.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry did not state what in the White House explanation of the deal it found objectionable, but its opposition to the White House’s version of the deal demonstrates that Iran is already working to undermine the supposed freeze on its nuclear program.

Iran also recognizes that it now has the White House boxed in, since President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have been so adamant in pushing the Iranian deal; reinterpreting the deal by Iran puts both Obama and Kerry in the unpalatable position of having to disown a deal that was supposedly designed to buy time to come up with further negotiation points with Iran.

Valerie Jarrett, Chicago, and the Iran Deal

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By Joel B. Pollak 

www.trevorloudon.com

Last week, the Times of Israel reported that senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett had been leading talks with Iran in secret for a year before the formal negotiations in Geneva this month. While the White House denied the report "100 percent," the existence of back-channel talks has been confirmed by other reporting. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that President Barack Obama had "personally overseen" the talks.

Almost anything "personally overseen" by the President Obama is likely to bear the heavy stamp of Ms. Jarrett, who is the president's closest adviser, despite a shocking track record of failure. In foreign policy, her most important mistake was her effort to dissuade the president from proceeding with the raid on Osama bin Laden. It was one of the few times that President Obama overruled her counsel--and one of his few successes.

Jarrett's involvement in Iran is cause for concern for three additional reasons--two minor and one major. One minor reason is that she was born there. That should not automatically disqualify anyone, of course, any more than being born in the Soviet Union would have disqualified an anti-Soviet dissident. But Jarrett was born in 1956 to American expatriates in the aftermath of the CIA-assisted coup that deposed Mohammad Mossadegh.

The Iranian regime remains obsessed with the Mossadegh coup as proof of America's innate evil--and for decades, some Americans have felt a sense of post-colonial guilt about it. That feeling may be particularly acute for an American born in the shadow of that event. The temptation to show contrition by acceding to Iran's goals, as a kind of restorative justice, could well shape Jarrett's involvement, and Obama's approach.

The second minor reason to worry about Jarrett's involvement in Iran is her political background. Her entrée into the world of left-wing politics in Chicago was through her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, a journalist with somewhat radical views. Jarrett spoke out against antisemitism in the black community, for example, but also took anti-Israel stands, accusing pro-Israel Jews of "support of genocide" in the Lebanon War, for example.

These two reasons for concern are fairly minor, because they are based on mere speculation, and would have to be balanced out by other factors, such as Ms. Jarrett's personal associations with leaders of the pro-Israel community in Chicago. But the major reason for concern about her role is simply that Jarrett has banished, and repulsed, most of the Obama administration's most competent appointees from the White House.

One of the most important departures was that of Dennis Ross, who was brought into the White House early in the Obama presidency to advise the president on the Middle East. Ross, who advocated a tough approach to Iran, is widely thought to have been marginalized by the president's inner circle. He left the White House in 2011, ostensibly because he had only promised to serve two years, but likely because he was not being utilized.

Finally, it is worth noting that Jarrett, despite her expatriate origins, has little experience in international affairs, and is said to manage Obama's policies through a domestic political lens. If she was as involved in the talks as reports suggest, that could be a major reason for the president's eagerness to sign almost any deal, even one the French rejected as too weak. In any other administration, she likely would have been ignored.

Behind the Scenes of the Geneva Accord with Iran

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..Not only in Israel, but among Arab allies of the U.S., the belief that America is no longer a reliable partner in the Middle East is gaining momentum. After the failures of American plans in Iraq and Afghanistan, the countries of the region have reason to doubt the ability of the U.S. to guarantee a predictable outcome in the Middle East. Now it is unclear how the situation in Egypt will play out, what awaits the region in connection with the nascent revival of relations between America and Iran, how...

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Netanyahu: Iran 'Gets A Hell Of A Lot' In Nuke Deal

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France Tougher Than U.S. on Iran >>

World powers, Iran seek nuclear deal despite Israeli opposition

Talks between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's nuclear program entered their third day in Geneva on Friday, despite fierce opposition from Israel over negotiations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls the ‘deal of the century’ for Iran.

Secretary of State John Kerry and counterparts from Britain, France and Germany negotiating with Iran consulted on how to resolve the obstacles at the talks, including differences on ways to reduce Tehran's ability to make atomic weapons using plutonium and enriched uranium

Keep reading on Fox News >>

Britannica Classic Videos: Atomic Alert (1951)

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Iran wants the bomb — and sanctions relief - TWP

By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA’s Clandestine Service is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mark Dubowitz is the foundation’s executive director and heads its project on Iran sanctions.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is lying when he says the Islamic Republic has never had any intention of building an atomic weapon. Defecting Iranian nuclear engineers told U.S. officials in the late 1980s that the mullahs’ program, then hidden, was designed exclusively for such arms. Everything Western intelligence services have tracked since then matches those early revelations.
U.S. participation in the upcoming negotiations doesn’t appear to be premised on an expectation of Iranian veracity. If it were, President Obama wouldn’t send his secretary of state until Tehran had come clean about its past deceits. The exemplary behavior of South Africa’s often-mendacious apartheid government when it decided to go non-nuclear — total transparency about the militarization of its atomic program — isn’t expected from Iran. The clerical regime has already dropped the bar through its “facts on the ground” intransigence: more than 19,000 centrifuges built and a heavy-water plant nearing completion. Washington doesn’t want to go to war again in the Middle East, and the Iranians know it.

Keep reading on The Washington Post >>

Air Force general in charge of nuclear weapons removed for lack of trust: defense officials

removing top military officer, hum? it's required a full explanation!

--------------------- 

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Maj. Gen. Michael Carey/ www.minot.af.mil

By Jim Miklaszewski and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News

A top general in charge of the U.S. Air Force's arsenal of nuclear ballistic missiles has been relieved of his command due to loss of trust, defense officials told NBC News.

Air Force officials said Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was fired for “personal misbehavior” while on temporary duty at an unspecified location outside his usual command. The officials would not describe the behavior, other than to say that it did not involve any sexual improprieties, drug use, gambling, or criminal conduct.

Carey oversaw the 20th Air Force, with a total of 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles at three locations across the U.S.

An Air Force statement said that Carey was relieved from command “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment.” The statement goes on to say that “the allegations are not related to operational readiness, inspection results, nor do they involve sexual misconduct.”

Gen. James Kowalski, the commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, made the decision to relieve Carey of his command. The firing came after a months-long investigation by the Air Force Inspector General into reports of personal misbehavior by the major general. A separate Air Force investigation into Carey continues, and will determine whether he should be disciplined or forced out of the service.

“20th AF continues to execute its mission of around-the-clock nuclear deterrence in a safe, secure and effective manner,” Kowalski said in an Air Force statement. “It’s unfortunate that I’ve had to relieve an otherwise distinctive career spanning 35 years of commendable service.”

Regarding Carey’s position in charge of nuclear weaponry, a senior Air Force official said: “It’s a job that demands great trust and responsibility, and personal behavior is vital to that.”

Carey enlisted in the Air Force in 1978, according to his official biography, and attended the University of Central Florida, where he graduated in 1982 with a degree in history.

He was promoted to the rank of major general in Nov. 2011, according to his Air Force bio, and served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

It is the second firing of a top-ranking commander with authority over nuclear weapons in the past week. Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina was demoted to the from the three-star rank to two and relieved of his post as second in command of U.S. nuclear forces at U.S. Strategic Command amidst a gambling investigation, the Associated Press reported.

The United States has an estimated 2,150 deployed nuclear warheads, according to a recent estimate published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Intercontinental ballistic missiles are capable of carrying multiple warheads.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Exclusive–Bolton: Iran Nuclear Proposal 'Complete Bullsh--'

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By Joel B. Pollak 

www.greenewave.com

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton told Breitbart News late Tuesday evening that the new nuclear proposal being offered by the Iranian regime is "complete bullsh--" and "pure propaganda" to buy time. 

Under the proposal, according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran would stop enriching uranium to 20% levels, but would continue enriching uranium up to 5% levels. It would also consider closing its Fordow enrichment facility, buried deep inside a mountain near the city of Qom, which was kept secret from the world until 2009, and would permit international inspectors to conduct more extensive examinations of nuclear sites.

In return, the international community would agree to lift economic sanctions that are hurting Iran's economy. The UN Security Council powers, plus Germany (the P+5 group), made a similar offer in April.

Bolton dismissed the proposal as a ploy to allow Iran to reach the threshold of a nuclear weapon, which it could cross at will. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News in New York, he said: "This Iran deal is complete bullshit. Pure propaganda. The time it takes to go from 20% enrichment to full weaponization is two weeks. They are not supposed to do any enrichment, but Obama already conceded that."

The proposal is could also divide the U.S. and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has objected to any enrichment of uranium by Iran, in accord with UN Security Council resolutions. He has also cast doubt on Iran's diplomatic offensive, and told the UN on Oct. 1 that Israel reserved the right to act alone. President Barack Obama has led global efforts to improve relations with the Iranian regime.

Iran’s president Rouhani: We will never develop nuclear weapons

 

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Putin to visit Iran for nuclear talks: report

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By Staff Writers

Moscow (AFP) July 24, 2013

President Vladimir Putin is to visit Iran in August to try to restart talks on Tehran's controversial nuclnegocear drive, a Russian newspaper reported Wednesday.
Putin's visit is planned for mid-August, shortly after Iran's moderate new president Hassan Rowhani takes office on August 3, Kommersant reported, citing sources in the Kremlin and the Iranian foreign ministry.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP: "I cannot so far confirm this".
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi told the ISNA news agency: "I do not confirm the report regarding Putin's visit," which would be his first to Iran since 2007.
Moscow hopes the visit will provide impetus to restart the currently stalled talks on Iran's nuclear programme, Kommersant reported.
It cited a source in the Iranian foreign ministry as saying the trip would take place August 12-13. It said a Kremlin source confirmed the trip, but said it was not yet decided whether it would last one or two days.
Western governments have expressed cautious hopes for a change in tone in talks after the June election of Rowhani, a centrist cleric who has vowed to engage constructively with the international community in a bid to ease the burden of EU and US sanctions on Iran's economy.
Russia is a member of the so-called P5+1 group made up of the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany that has for years been engaged in talks with Iran to try to persuade it to curb sensitive nuclear activities.
After the last round in Almaty in April, the talks were put on hold as Iran prepared to choose a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad's eight-year term was marked by a defiant expansion of the Iranian nuclear programme, which fuelled Western suspicions that it masked a drive for a weapons capability.
Both the European Union and the United States slapped tough sanctions on Iran's key oil and banking sectors which have taken a heavy toll on the economy.
During his election campaign, Rowhani hit out at the "sloganising" of the Ahmadinejad regime, which he said had unnecessarily aggravated the sanctions, and promised a more conciliatory approach in a bid to get them eased.
Following Rowhani's election, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on the West to consider relaxing the sanctions, saying Tehran was ready to make a major concession.

Ex-Pentagon general target of leak investigation, sources say

 

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Iran: The doomsday counter

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Obama proposes reductions to Cold War-era nuclear arsenal

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Iranian Nuclear Program Progresses with Activation of Plutonium Facility

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By AWR Hawkins

On June 8, Iran inaugurated the main nuclear fission container at the country's heavy water reactor in Arak, part of Iran's plutonium production facility. Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) director Fereydoon Abbasi called the inauguration of this container, "an important step in the advancement of the project."

According to The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), this development has "several ramifications" for Tehran and the international community:

1. It will force the international community to recognize Iran as a nuclear power. 
2. It shows that Tehran has decided to break through the deadlock in the nuclear talks by shifting the focus to plutonium enrichment while moving uranium enrichment to the back burner. 
3. The plutonium plant theoretically provides Iran with some protection against being attacked "because attacking a plutonium reactor that has been activated and is operating will have, inter alia, very grave environmental consequences."

Tehran claims the purposed of the heavy water reactor is "to produce Isotopes for medical purposes." 

However, MEMRI cites an article on the Iranian website Irannuc.ir, which claims "a heavy water reactor could be the easiest path to weapons grade plutonium."

Pentagon: North Korea moving closer to developing nuke that can hit U.S.

NBC News

Jon Chol Jin / AP

A man walks by a poster reading "Severe punishment to the U.S. and their followers" in the central district of Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday, May 2, 2013.

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

North Korean advances in nuclear technology are moving the country closer to its goal of being able to strike the United States with an atomic weapon, according to a new Pentagon report submitted to Congress on Thursday.

Though the unclassifed version of the report gave no timetable for when North Korea may have the ability to hit North American soil with a weapon, it did say recent progress is in line with the country's desires to soon be able to carry out such an attack. 

"These advances in ballistic-missile delivery systems, coupled with developments in nuclear technology ... are in line with North Korea's stated objective of being able to strike the U.S. homeland," the report said. 

The report added: "North Korea will move closer to this goal, as well as increase the threat it poses to U.S. forces and allies in the region, if it continues testing and devoting scarce regime resources to these programs."

The Pentagon assessment to lawmakers is required by law and comes after a period of escalating tensions between the two countries. The report calls North Korea one of America's "most critical security challenges" in the region because of its pursuit of nuclear weapons coincides with "provocative and destabilizing behavior."

Washington and Pyongyang began 2013 in a standoff after the North launched of a satellite into space last December, which the report cites as a major contributor to the country's long-range capabilities. That was followed by a nuclear test in February of 2013, which led to sanctions from the United Nations that only brought more threats from the cantankerous country.

Still, the report also noted that North Korea has yet to complete some of the necessary steps required for the country to develop a weapon that can reach the U.S.  It stated that they have not yet tested a re-entry vehicle necessary for a warhead to get back inside the Earth's atmosphere and hit a target.

The report also indicates that newly minted leader Kim Jong Un will follow in his father's footsteps in practicing "coercive diplomacy" and development of military capabilities to deter outside attacks.

U.S. delivers strong warning to Israel

U.S. delivers strong warning to Israel

Aaron Klein

TEL AVIV – According to informed Middle Eastern security officials, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered a strongly worded message to Israel – do not attack Iran.

The officials told WND that Hagel informed the Israeli government the Obama administration will not accept any unilateral Israeli attack against Iran and that Israel must not strike Tehran without coordination with the U.S.

Hagel further told Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot decide alone whether Iran has crossed the nuclear threshold, or the so-called Red Line previously outlined by the Israeli leader.

In a speech at the United Nations in September, Netanyahu drew a red line on a drawing of a bomb, depicting the point where he said Iran will have enough medium-enriched uranium to move rapidly toward building a nuclear bomb.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu draws a red line on the image of a bomb at the U.N. Sept. 27, 2012.

Netanyahu said at the U.N. that Iran could reach that point this spring or summer. By contrast, Obama has resisted setting any such deadlines.

Last week, Israel’s former military intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, said, “If Iran continues to enrich uranium at its current rate, toward the end of the year it will cross the red line in a clear manner.”

The information comes after a former International Atomic Energy Agency senior nuclear inspector warned that Iran has discovered a way to circumvent Israel’s red line and that the red line may have already been passed.

Last fall, an IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program showed a dip in the amount of 20 percent enriched uranium. Commenting on the report, the former deputy director-general for safeguards at the IAEA and senior nuclear inspector Olli Heinonen explained in a recent opinion article how this decrease is likely a gimmick.

He wrote that Iran has the capability to reconvert the uranium material back to the gas needed for its nuclear program. The converted 20 percent enriched uranium, now in a less worrisome oxide form, can “be converted back into centrifuge feedstock within a week.”

Heinonen warned that Iran may be able to convert the uranium without risk of detection.

If, through this process, Iran can disguise the quantity of enriched uranium it actually possesses, then Israel’s so-called red line may be artificial.

Heinonen further argued Iran has already passed Netanyahu’s red line of 250 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, estimating Tehran possess as much as 280 kilograms, excluding any material that has already gone through the conversion process.

NKorean Website Threatens Nuclear Attacks on LA, DC, NY, And... Arkansas

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