Next Round of Iran Talks Scheduled

July 10, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Leah Fae Cochran

Next round - The next round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program are set for July 24th. The talks in Istanbul will be between Helga Schmid, the deputy EU foreign policy chief and Ali Bagheri, Iran’s deputy chief negotiator.

--“The objective for the meeting of Schmid and Bagheri is to look further at how existing gaps in positions could be narrowed and how the process could be moved forward,” Michael Mann, an EU spokesman, said in an emailed statement. Al-Monitor has the story. http://bit.ly/OR7foX

Tweet - @CarnegieNPP: The complete set of PowerPoint slides that Iran used during a meeting with world powers are now public. http://bit.ly/MfdMv1

Maintenance - Iran has begun “maintenance” on many of its oilfields, which looks curiously like it is curbing production in the face of the new sanctions implemented at the beginning of the month. Oil exports have been reduced 20-30 percent and Iran is running out of storage for the excess.

--”It's a step that could make Tehran look as if it is caving in to the West and, in any case, leaves it trailing former rival Iraq in the ranks of the world's top oil producers. And if a big volume of oil is closed down, it will be difficult to bring it back online when it's needed, say Western oil experts.” Reuters has the story. http://reut.rs/MUKNMK

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Megatons -> Megawatts - NNSA has monitored the elimination of 450 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium under the landmark 1993 U.S.-Russia HEU Purchase Agreement. The HEU was downblended and sold to the U.S. for use in nuclear reactors. The last 50 MT of HEU will be downblended by the end of 2013. NNSA press release here. http://bit.ly/Ni3GXg

The real debate - The headlines have been dominated by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but William Hartung points out that a broader demand for nuclear disarmament is largely missing from the public debate, despite the resilience of Cold War-era nuclear postures.

--”The only way to be safe from nuclear weapons is to get rid of them -- not just the Iranian one that doesn’t yet exist, but all of them. It’s a daunting task. It’s also a subject that’s out of the news and off anyone’s agenda at the moment, but if it is ever to be achieved, we at least need to start talking about it. Soon,” writes Hartung in The Huffington Post. Read the full post here. http://huff.to/MRzogp

Testing - This month marks 67 years after “Trinity”, the first U.S. nuclear test in the atmosphere, and Fern Katz renews the call to get the CTBT ratified in the U.S.

--”We, as a nation, cannot allow this treaty to be brushed under the rug of Washington politics. We must continue to advocate for a world in which it is no longer acceptable for any country to conduct nuclear test explosions. We cannot wait any longer to ratify the CTBT,” Katz writes. Read the full post here. http://bit.ly/LYPcwh

Mersheimer vs. Zakheim - Would a nuclear Iran bring stability to the Middle East, as Kenneth Waltz argued in Foreign Affairs? Political scientist John Mersheimer and former Pentagon official Dov Zakheim square off on PBS Newshour. Spoiler alert: Mersheimer largely agrees with Waltz, while Zakheim thinks a nuclear Iran would prompt a nuclear arms race in the region. http://to.pbs.org/L5OV6s

Tweet - @ColinKahl: Romney adviser Bolton: Iran sanc & diplo have failed, no civil nuke prog w/out regime change, and time to attack. http://bit.ly/NFEfxG

Buchanan on Iran - Pakistan is a much greater nuclear threat than Iran, yet the political push for war with Iran saturates the media. ”Are we Americans headed for yet another unnecessary war?” asks conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan in Real Clear Politics. http://bit.ly/MV57gU

Mickey in DPRK - A Sky News clip of Kim Jung-Un’s personal “Disney” show.http://bit.ly/NiIkZN