Iran Denies Offering "Nine-Step Plan" to EU

Local Editor

Iran’s Chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili denied on Saturday that the Islamic republic had offered a "nine-step plan" to Europe to resolve its nuclear standoff, Press TV reported. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Iran had proposed a "nine-step plan" to the European Union to resolve its nuclear issue which would require the West to lift oil and economic sanctions and in return Tehran would suspend uranium enrichment. The report claimed that Iranian officials offered the proposal during a visit to the recent UN General Assembly and tried to gain support for it, Xinhua news agency reported. Moreover, on Friday, other reports went on to claim that the United States rejected the plan and asked Iran to stop uranium enrichment, close down some of its enrichment facilities and send out its enriched uranium stockpile. "No new proposal has been made outside of negotiations with the P5+1 -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany -- during the recent UN General Assembly session," Jalili was quoted as saying by Press TV. Jalili added that claims made by a number of American media with regards to this issue are "baseless." \ The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions outside of the United Nations despite Tehran's insistence on the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

Source: Agencies

The steel magnolias of insensitivity!

 

Just as Madeleine Albright before her (The Guardian details here)

"... Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it...."

Today, Clinton was all warm & fuzzy when she blamed the victims for their own ills:

"... Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made it clear that the United States had no intention of relaxing the sanctions — particularly now, just as they show the first sign of forcing Iran’s leaders to rethink the costs of their nuclear program.

“We have always said that we had a dual-track approach to this, and one track was trying to put pressure on the Iranian government to come to the negotiating table,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters. But she said it was Iran’s own mismanagement of its economy, more than the sanctions, that deserved “responsibility for what is going on inside Iran.”
“And that is who should be held accountable,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And I think that they have made their own government decisions, having nothing to do with the sanctions that have had an impact on the economic conditions inside the country...."