“Iran and the US,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Veronica Rueckert, Wisconsin Public Radio, July 29, 2014. (Audio)
Interviews
An Insider’s View to the Failed Iran-U.S. Relationship (Audio)
“An Insider’s View to the Failed Iran-U.S. Relationship,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Brian Lehrer, All Things Considered [WNYC Radio], July 21, 2014. (Audio)
Iran’s Nuclear Program: What’s at Stake as the Deadline Nears (Audio)
“Iran’s Nuclear Program: What’s at Stake as the Deadline Nears,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, John Hockenberry, The Take Away [WNYC Radio], July 16, 2014. (Audio)
Streitkräfte und Strategien (German) (Audio)
“Streitkräfte und Strategien,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Norddeutscher Rundfunk-Info, July 12, 2014. (German) (Audio)
Any conflict between Iran and West will be detrimental to all: ex-nuclear negotiator
Hossein Mousavian says since the situation in the region is very volatile, it is neither in the interests of Iran nor the West to engage in a confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear program.
In an interview with the Shargh newspaper published on Saturday, Mousavian said if Iran and the world powers fail to secure a nuclear deal, the confrontation between the two sides would blow up the entire region and its fire would consume all Western and Eastern powers.
Elsewhere in his remarks, he said that Iran and the world powers face many serious threats, such as the emergence of extremist Takfiri groups in the Middle East, production and smuggling of illegal drugs, and instability in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, he said, Iran and the West share many interests in common. Such common threats and interests can help reduce mutual mistrust between Iran and the world powers, he noted.
He went on to say that in the process of talks between Iran and the six world powers, Tehran can accept to sign the Additional Protocol to the NPT provided that it is reciprocated in terms of easing the sanctions and opening the doors for peaceful nuclear cooperation with Iran.
“Any conflict between Iran and West will be detrimental to all: ex-nuclear negotiator,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Shargh Newspaper [English synopsis in Tehran Times], July 5, 2014.
Former Iranian diplomat Seyed Hossein Mousavian on Iran’s growing influence (Video)
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former top diplomat of Iran says, “The U.S. had the wrong assessment about the status of the Iraqi army before departing Iraq. The U.S. spent billions of dollars to create a new army, but it failed as we see today, this is the failure of U.S. policy.” CCTV’s Asieh Namdar reports.
“We need a collective cooperation between regional powers and international powers to fight this type of terror, which to my understanding the most dangerous version of terrorism in the history of mankind.” Says former Iranian diplomat Seyed Hossein Mousavian speaking on the dangerous and fast-moving advance of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, who’ve seized large sections of northern and western Iraq in the past three weeks. The militants have threatened to march on to Baghdad.
“Former Iranian diplomat Seyed Hossein Mousavian on Iran’s growing influence,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Asieh Namdar, CCTV America, July 1, 2014. (Video)
Inside view of Iran, Iraq, & US relationship (Video)
To understand the questions of the present, we have to look to the answers of the past. U.S. relations with Iran carry a long and complex narrative that is overflowing from decades before.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian served in Iran’s Foreign Ministry, was an advisor for their national security council, and worked with current Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. His extensive knowledge of the area and their foreign relations with the U.S. led to his latest work, Iran and the United States: An insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace.
MSNBC sat down with the ambassador to discuss the path for a peaceful relationship between the superpowers.
“Inside view of Iran, Iraq, & US relationship,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Krystal Ball, MSNBC, June 25, 2014. (Video)
Do Iran and US have mutual interests in Iraq? (Video)
“Do Iran and US have mutual interests in Iraq?” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Krystal Ball, MSNBC, June 25, 2014. (Video)
A compromise proposal for nuclear talks with Iran
As American and Iranian officials meet in Geneva to try to find a way through the impasse holding up a comprehensive multilateral deal onIran‘s nuclear programme, a group of Princeton University academics have sent them a proposed road-map on how to get around the blockage.
The Princeton report, published on the Arms Control Today website, focuses on the core issue that has proved most problematic in the four months of talks so far – Iran’s future capacity for enriching uranium. This has hitherto been such a gap to bridge because Iran and the West come at it from entirely different perspectives.
The Princeton compromise is a two-stage approach, allowing a very limited enrichment capacity for the existing research reactor in Tehran in the short term, but with the flexibility to expand that capacity to keep pace with the construction of future nuclear power stations in the long term. The existing contract for Russian nuclear fuel rods for Bushehr expires in 2021. If Tehran decides it wants to use it own rods after that, then its enrichment capacity would be stepped up as that deadline approaches, but not before 2019.
In the intervening five years, Iran would focus on modernising its enrichment plant, replacing the now ancient and inefficient IR-1 centrifuges, based on half-century old technology, with a new generation of IR-2m centrifuges, with about five times the capacity. As the new machines were installed in this first phase, total capacity would remain the same. Even more advanced centrifuges would be developed with an eye to the future.
“A compromise proposal for nuclear talks with Iran,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Julian Borger, The Guardian, June 9, 2014.
Princeton experts propose possible solution on Iran centrifuges
As American and Iranian officials meet June 9 in Geneva, a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiators, Seyyed Hossein Mousavian, and several physicists at Princeton are proposing a possible solution to the dispute over how many centrifuges Iran can retain under a long-term nuclear agreement.
Their draft proposal, prepared for publication by the magazine Arms Control Today and made available to Al-Monitor, would permit Iran to transition from the rudimentary machines it currently employs to enrich uranium to more-advanced centrifuges over the course of five years. This would reduce the numbers of centrifuges Iran would require to meet the needs of even an expanded civilian reactor program, but it still raises concerns about Iran’s ability to “break out” and produce fuel for nuclear weapons.
To deal with these concerns, the authors — Mousavian, Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian and Frank von Hippel — suggest that Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, the P5+1 nations, explore creating a multilateral uranium enrichment facility that could supply Iran and other countries in the region with nuclear fuel. Such an arrangement, they say, “could provide a long-term solution to the proliferation concerns raised by national enrichment plants in the Middle East and elsewhere.”
With the interim agreement due to expire July 20, there is mounting pressure on all sides to resolve disputes over the scope of Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions relief. If no deal is reached, the interim agreement can be renewed for six months, but political and bureaucratic realities argue for resolution by this fall, when the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns are due to retire and Americans will vote in congressional elections that could flip control of the Senate to the Republicans. Without a deal, pressure is sure to increase in the US Congress for more sanctions legislation against Iran, which could embolden Iranian hard-liners.
“Princeton experts propose possible solution on Iran centrifuges,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Barbara Slavin, Al-Monitor, June 9, 2014.
