NATO and Russia have made little progress in talks to cooperate on a US-led missile shield for Europe, and failing a deal may have to drop plans for a summit in May, NATO's secretary general said Thursday.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen held out hope that the former Cold War foes will reach agreement before the 28-nation alliance holds its own summit in Chicago on May 20-21.
"However, I also have to make it clear that we have not made much progress so far," he said.
"We have had a lot of talks. These talks will continue. Maybe we will not have a clarified situation until a few weeks before the summit," Rasmussen said.
"We still keep it as an option to have a NATO-Russia summit in Chicago, but if there's no deal, probably there will be no summit."
Russia has also raised doubts about joining the summit, with the deputy foreign minister saying a decision would be taken after March 4 presidential elections expected to return Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin.
NATO and Russia agreed to explore ways to cooperate at a previous summit in Lisbon in November 2010, but the two sides have struggled to reach a deal.
Russia wants a legally-binding pledge that the missile shield will not threaten its strategic deterrent, but the alliance has refused, with the United States insisting that the system is aimed at countering Iranian missile threats.
NATO has also rejected Russia's demand to create a common anti-missile system, insisting instead on keeping two separate operations.
Russia has threatened to deploy missiles on the European Union's borders, citing concerns over plans to station US interceptors in Poland.
"I do believe that the Russian leaders will realise that it's also in their interest to cooperate with NATO on missile defence," Rasmussen said.
In an interview on the Chris Matthews show on MSNBC, former CIA officer Robert Baer said that Israel is behind the string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. The latest victim of this terror campaign was 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan.
Baer said that Israel’s motive is to provoke Iran into a military response, which would force the United States of America to retaliate against Iran on the behalf of Israel. This narrative makes clear that America is the victim, not the fellow conspirator, of Israeli terrorism. But is this narrative true, or is this just a clever CIA psyop to make Israel take the blame for terrorist actions against Iran that were approved by the CIA and the White House in advance? The historical record and the facts show that the latter is the case.
It is naive and anti-historical to believe that the U.S. intelligence community is kept out of the loop of Israel’s policy towards Iran. We cannot give the CIA the benefit of the doubt in the murder of an Iranian nuclear scientist. Simply put, the CIA has no credibility.
Is the CIA capable of murdering Iranian scientists, or assisting in such an act? Yes. The CIA has a long track record of state-sponsored terrorism and political assassinations, including on American soil (JFK, 9/11, Oklahoma City Bombing).
Making Israel take the heat for a policy of assassinations against Iranian nuclear scientists that enjoys the approval of Washington is a clever way of twisting reality. But it is not plausible. The CIA does not have clean hands, especially when it comes to Iran.
As Richard Silverstein writes, “while the U.S. has denied participating in the sabotage campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, we know of it and approve it. We’ve compartmentalized our efforts so the U.S. puts the squeeze on economically and Israel does it militarily. But this is a coordinated program and we are willing participants in it. Whether or not we planted bombs in Teheran, we are accessories after the fact and share in the culpability for this egregious conduct.”
Both the CIA and Mossad are guilty of state terrorism from New York City to Tehran. Iranian nuclear scientists and American citizens were murdered by the same monsters. That is the truth. And that should not be news to anyone.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The American people, the Iranian people, and the Israeli people will ultimately pay the price for U.S.-Israeli state terrorism.
Even if intelligent and wise people in the CIA want America to separate itself from Israel, they can’t do it because the crime of 9/11 irreversibly linked the U.S. empire aka the Great Satan with the Zionist serpent in Tel Aviv. Their political fate and strategic success in the Middle East is interlinked. To suggest otherwise ignores the facts.
But that doesn’t mean that America and Israel have no choice but to continue down this destructive and criminal path. There is a better way to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the U.S.-Iranian conflict. But nothing will change for the better in the Middle East until there is regime change in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Worshippers carry the coffin of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, who was killed in a bomb blast in Tehran on Wednesday during his funeral after Friday prayers in Tehran. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubaz/Reuters
Iranian state television said today Tehran had evidence Washington was behind the latest assassination of one of its nuclear scientists.
In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.
The United States has denied involvement in the killing and condemned it. Israel has declined to comment.
"We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported.
"The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents."
The Swiss Embassy has represented US interests in Iran since Tehran and Washington cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
State TV said a "letter of condemnation" had also been sent to the British government, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists had "started exactly after the British official John Sawers declared the beginning of intelligence operations against Iran".
In 2010, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sawers said one of the agency's roles was to investigate efforts by states to build nuclear weapons in violation of their international legal obligations and identify ways to slow down their access to vital materials and technology.
Tehran has urged the UN Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the latest killing, which Tehran says is aimed at undermining its nuclear work, which the West and Israel say is aimed at building bombs. Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely civilian.
Tension has mounted between Iran and the West as the United States and European Union prepare measures aimed at imposing sanctions on the Iran's oil exports, its economic lifeblood.
The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.
