West 'humiliating' Iran, says Hans Blix
I wonder how much money Blix is being paid by Iran..IDIOT
Former UN weapons inspector slams US and Europe over 'humiliating neo-colonial' attitude to Iran. 'People have their own pride whether you like them or don't,' he adds, urging use of economic incentives for better diplomacy
Associated Press Published: 02.26.07, 23:29 / Israel News
Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday the United States, Europe and the UN Security Council are ''humiliating'' Iran by demanding that it suspend uranium enrichment before any negotiations and then dictating its rewards.
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He said the package of economic and political incentives put forward in June 2006 by the US and key European countries, which was later endorsed by the council, did not mention the key issue of security guarantees for Iran or adequately address the possibility of US diplomatic recognition if Tehran renounces enrichment.
''The first incentive, I think, is to sit down with them in a direct talk rather than saying to them 'you do this, thereafter we will sit down at a table and tell you what you get for it,''' Blix said. ''That's getting away from a humiliating neo-colonial attitude to a more normal (one).''
''People have their own pride whether you like them or don't,'' he told a media briefing ahead of a daylong conference on ''Weapons Threats and International Security'' organized by The Century Foundation, a Washington-based research institute on domestic and international challenges.
By contrast, Blix said the six-party negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program in Beijing have focused on negotiations and recently addressed the country's security concerns and issues of the country's status and diplomatic relations with the United States - ''regrettably far too late.
''It could have been done much earlier. Years have been lost and plutonium has been gained in (North) Korea,'' Blix said, noting the country's nuclear test in October.
More carrots needed
In the case of Iran, however, Blix said, the international community has taken a completely different approach to negotiations.
Initially, the Europeans put a lot of carrots on the table without much American support. Gradually, there was more US backing including support for Iran's entry into the World Trade Organization, for spare parts for US-made aircraft, and facilitating investment if it gives up enrichment, he said.
''But we haven't heard anything about offers concerning guarantees for security in case they will go along with a renunciation of enrichment, nor much regarding recognition,'' Blix said.
''It's the US that can deliver assurances about security, and the US that can deliver recognition or normalization of relations,'' he said.
Blix criticized the demand first by the Europeans, then the US, and now by the Security Council, that first Iran must suspend enrichment and then there will be talks where ''they will explain what the Iranians will be given.''
''This is in a way like telling a child, first you will behave and thereafter you will be given your rewards,'' Blix said. ''And this, I think, is humiliating. The Iranians have resisted all the time saying, no, we are willing to talk, we are willing to talk about the suspension of enrichment, but we are not for suspension before the talks.''
''I would be surprised if a poker player would toss away his trump card before he sits down at the table. Who does that?'' he asked.
The rest of this stupid article........
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...370155,00.html
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."
Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)
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