Just talking, or making progress? Illustrative. Photo Courtesy of UN Photo/Evan Schneider
Two of the most powerful Iranian military groups reaffirmed over the weekend that the United States remains the top enemy to Iran, according to the Fars News Agency. And one of those groups, the very powerful paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), didn’t stop there.
“The US is still the great Satan and the number one enemy of the (Islamic) revolution and the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation,” Fars quoted the IRGC statement as saying. The IRGC went so far as to accuse the US as “the house of the world’s plots and corruption that never intends to compromise and have real friendship with” Iran. The comments come amidst renewed concerns from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Iran’s nuclear program.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, Yukiya Amano, said in a speech posted to his agency’s website that while the IAEA has not yet reached conclusions regarding Iran’s suspected work on nuclear weapons, “we cannot provide assurance that all [nuclear] material in Iran is in peaceful purposes.”
He noted that despite promises and plans for Iran to come clean regarding evidence they conducted nuclear bomb-related work, progress toward that goal is not where it should be. Amano said that initially Iran cooperated “fairly well,” but that progress on implementing the cooperation agreement had been “limited” since this past summer.
“Two important practical measures, which should have been implemented two months ago, have still not been implemented. The Agency invited Iran to propose new practical measures for the next step of our cooperation, but it has not done so.”
Amano further noted that “clarifying issues relating to possible military dimensions is not an endless process. It could be done within a reasonable timeline, but, how far and how fast we can go depends very much on Iran’s cooperation.”
With another deadline approaching for the Iranian discussions with the major world powers over the Iranian nuclear program, Amano’s comments come at a poignant time. So do the Iranian Defense Ministry’s reminder that the US is still enemy number one for Iran.
Said the Defense Ministry’s statement in the Fars report, “The Iranian nation does not allow the arrogant front and the enemies of the Islamic Republic to make any (hostile) move by maintaining its unity, national integrity and empathy as well as supporting active, wise and revolutionary diplomacy, and it will give a hard and repenting lesson to them in case they (the enemies) make any miscalculations.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themidastupdate.com, November 2, 2014)