IRAN: The atomic cafe
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Tensions between Iran’s conservatives and ultra-conservatives appear to be heating up over the direction of Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
On Monday, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a fiery speech at a university in Tehran calling his domestic rivals ‘traitors’ and accusing them of pressuring a judge to release former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian from jail despite pending espionage charges.
Meanwhile, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president and chair of Iran’s Assembly of Experts and a challenger to Ahmadinejad’s powerful clique, stood by Mousavian at a news conference.
‘Criticism is contructive but not nastiness,’ Rafsanjani said in a veiled criticism of Ahmadinejad’s rough manner.
The longstanding fight between Ahmadinejad’s circle and that of more pragmatic politicians have heated up in the days before an International Atomic Energy Association report that could tilt the international community for or against another round of United Nations sanctions on Iran.
Hard-liners such as Ahmadinejad are demanding that Tehran make absolutely no compromise on the West’s demand that Iran slow down or halt its uranium enrichment program. Rafsanjani and others appear to be pushing for a less confrontational approach.
Iran’s nucelar program has been the subject of much worldwide consternation as IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei prepares to deliver his report, which will address lingering questions about Iran’s past nuclear experiments. The nuclear program has also been fodder for the U.S. presidential debates as well as material for late-night television (see below).
Today China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, arrived in Tehran to push Iran to take a less confrontational approach toward the West. China and Russia hope they can entice Iran to give up some aspects of its nuclear program, especially enrichment.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut