The Latest from Iran: Nuclear Talks Resume With IAEA

See also The Latest from Iran (23 August): Arrested...for Helping Earthquake Victims

---

1944 GMT: Economy Watch. "Hard-line" MP Hossein Garrousi has offered an illuminating response to criticism of the Government for declaring a five-day holiday next week during the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement: "Iran's industry has been on vacation for a long time, it's not the fault of the NAM summit."

1936 GMT: Nuclear Watch. Talks between Iranian officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have not resolved outstanding issues over inspection and supervision.

"The discussions today were intensive but important differences remain between Iran and the U.N. that prevented agreement," Herman Nackaerts, the IAEA's chief inspector, said after about seven hours of talks. "At the moment we have no plans for another meeting."

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, was more upbeat: "Undoubtedly some progress [was made]....I have to say that we are moving forward...and we are going to continue this process so that we at the end of the day will have a framework agreed by both sides."

Soltanieh rationalised the failure to get an agreement today, "Because it is a very complex issue...Issues related to national security of a member state are something very delicate."

1434 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update. Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddigi does the honours today and his message is a straightforward exaltation of how the Islamic Republic leads the world: “Iran's hosting of the NAM [Non-Aligned Movement] summit is a turning point and a practical and visible response to the global arrogance whose weapon is rusty and whose claims are baseless."

Seddiqi explained that Iran's enemies "did not spare any treachery or cruelty" to prevent this display of leadership, "but Iran is once again rising and glowing across the world".

1431 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has declared that Tehran will put forward a plan to resolve the Syrian conflict at next week's Non-Aligned Movement summit: “We believe that the proposal is acceptable, rational and principled and will include all parties. It will be very difficult to oppose it.”

1411 GMT: Mousavi Watch. Senior reformist Ali Shakouri-Rad has said that opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi has left hospital after 24-hour supervision for a heart condition. He said Mousavi is back in his home, where he is under strict house arrest, after a stent was placed in a blocked heart vein.

Shakouri-Rad added that authorities need to relax the house arrest and allow Mousavi to have his own doctor.

The Young Journalists Club site, linked to the regime, has a different twist on the news, claiming it is "very bad news for the counter-revolution" who wanted to play up an imminent threat to Mousavi's life.

1055 GMT: Mousavi Watch. Iran Green Voice reports that detained opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi, hospitalised on Thursday with a heart problem, is in "reasonable" condition. The site says he has been allowed a rare visit with his daughters.

The 2009 Presidential candidate has been under strict house arrest since February 2011.

1048 GMT: So Much for Sedition is Dead. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami has said that the "subversives" of "fitna" after the 2009 Presidential election will aim at disrupting the Iranian system during the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran next week.

Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran correspondent of The New York Times, wrote this morning, "Had to pass 3 checkpoints last nite in Tehran before getting home, security unprecedented for upcoming NAM conference."

1040 GMT: Better Late Than Never. President Ahmadinejad has finally visited villages in East Azerbaijan hit by an earthquake on 11 August.

Ahmadinejad has been criticised by some Iranians for not going to the site of the disaster, instead attending a summit in Saudi Arabia, and for giving condolences to the people of Sierra Leone but not those in East Azerbaijan, where at least 238 people died.

An EA correspondent notes that the trip comes a day after the Supreme Leader met the President and his Cabinet to discuss the performance of the Government.

0930 GMT: Iranian officials will resume talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency today in Vienna over oversight of the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme, two months after the last high-level discussions between Tehran and the 5+1 Powers (US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China).

The parallel discussions with the IAEA have provided, but never delivered, the possibility of an agreement to pave the way for a resolution between Iran and the "West". In May, IAEA Secretary-General Yukiya Amano was optimistic that a deal was close on the arrangements for Agency inspection and verification of Iran's uranium enrichment; however, the optimism was overtaken by stalemate days later at the Iran-5+1 meeting in Baghdad.

On cue, Western diplomats have previewed today's encounter by warning of Iranian perfidy and dishonesty. On cue, David Sanger of The New York Times serves as spokesman:

International nuclear inspectors will soon report that Iran has installed hundreds of new centrifuges in recent months and may also be speeding up production of nuclear fuel while negotiations with the United States and its allies have ground to a near halt, according to diplomats and experts briefed on the findings.

Almost all of the new equipment is being installed in a deep underground site on a military base near Qum that is considered virtually invulnerable to military attack. It would suggest that a boast by senior Iranian leaders late last month — that the country had added upward of 1,000 new machines to its installation despite Western sabotage — may be true.

The report will also indicate, according to the officials familiar with its contents, that Iran is increasingly focused on enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent — a purity that it says it needs for a specialty nuclear reactor that it insists is used only for medical purposes, but that outside experts say gets it most of the way to the level needed to produce a workable nuclear bomb.