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21/10/2009 | Iran Attends Second Round of Nuclear Talks, Blames Foreign Powers for Baluch Bombing

Global Insight Staff

The second round of nuclear talks between Iran and world powers began yesterday amid Iranian allegations that foreign powers, including the United States and Pakistan, had a hand in the deadly bombings which killed over 40 people, including members of the Revolutionary Guard, in Sistan-Baluchestan over the weekend.

 

IHS Global Insight Perspective

 

Significance: Sunday's bombings were the most severe incident in the restive south-eastern Sistan-Baluchestan province in recent times—23 people were killed in an attack in the provincial capital, Zahedan, in May—highlighting the potential for growing instability in the region.

Implications: Iran's allegations that Pakistan is sheltering the leader of the Baluch rebel group, Jundallah, and is supporting the group in other ways, threaten to complicate relations with the neighbour, and claims that the United States and the United Kingdom are also involved come at a sensitive time, as the two western countries meet imminently with other partners for the second round of nuclear talks in Vienna, Austria.

Outlook: Iran had signalled a somewhat uncompromising stance ahead of the nuclear talks, raising the possibility that the second round of talks could result in reversing the limited progress achieved so far. Meanwhile, we can expect Iranian authorities to tighten their grip in the restive Sistan-Baluchestan province and ramp up its rhetoric with regards to foreign involvement in the country.

Jundallah Attacks

Forty-two people are said to have been killed in two separate attacks in Pisheen, a town in the restive Sistan-Baluchestan province near Iran's border with Pakistan. According to Iran's state broadcaster today, 15 of those killed were members of the elite paramilitary Revolutionary Guards corps, which have a growing presence in the Baluch-majority province. A high-casualty attack targeted a meeting between members of the Revolutionary Guards and tribal leaders that had gathered in Pisheen. Statements by a senior Iranian judiciary in Sistan-Baluchestan, Hojatoleslam Ebhraim Hamidi, relayed by Agence France-Presse (AFP) said that 30 local tribal chiefs were among the dead. A second attack targeted a Revolutionary Guards vehicle. The attacks are by far the most serious to have hit the already restive province, home to Iran's sizeable Baluch Sunni Muslim population, which are ethnically and religiously distinct from Iran's Shi'a Persian majority population. In May this year, a suicide bomber targeted a Shi'a mosque in the provincial capital, Zahedan, killing 23 people. Then, as now, the attacks were claimed by the Baluchi Jundallah rebel group, led by the elusive Abdolmalek Rigi, who is currently believed to be based in neighbouring Pakistan. In a statement published by U.S.-based SITE Intelligence, relayed by news agencies, Jundallah took responsibility for the attack, saying it was avenging "the wounds of the Baluch people which have been bleeding for years without end", adding that the Tehran regime was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Baluch youths.

The May attack highlighted what appears to be a significant shift in tactics by Jundallah—a group which in the past has tended to focus exclusively on the Revolutionary Guards and on Iranian government symbols, mainly carrying out kidnappings and assassinations on members of the security forces. Before that attack, the rebel group rarely instigated al-Qaida-style suicide bombings. A December 2008 suicide car bombing targeting the police headquarters in the city of Saravan, close to the Pakistani border, and another bomb attack in 2007 also targeting members of the Revolutionary Guards were relatively low-scale attacks. They did signal a growing tendency towards bombings, however, as the group is accused of having forged links to al-Qaida and with Pakistani-based Baluch rebels. Although the ethnic Baluch—divided across the borders of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan—have retained significant ethnic and tribal loyalties across frontiers and have traditionally been reluctant to support, in Iran's, case, the government in Tehran—it is nevertheless unclear to what degree there is a structural and organisational affinity between Baluchi operatives in Pakistan and their kinsmen in Iran.

Allegations of Foreign Involvement

For the Iranian authorities, the link appears to be clear cut. Shortly after Sunday's attacks, a number of Iranian officials pointed the finger of blame at Pakistan's harbouring of Jundallah rebels. General Mohammed Ali Jafari, the Revolutionary Guards' chief, said yesterday that Tehran had "proof" that Abdolmalik Rigi was supported by Pakistan, adding also that Iran would be sending a delegation to Pakistan to deliver the evidence. The Tehran authorities were also quick to signal protest by summoning a senior Pakistani diplomat in Iran. Today, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki escalated the allegations against Pakistan, stating, according to AFP, that the rebels responsible for attacks are based in Pakistan and "cross into Iran illegally". There has been concern that relations with Pakistan will take a significant turn for the worse, and that a gas pipeline deal between the neighbouring states will suffer if Baluch restiveness worsens. The Iranian tirade against Pakistan was accompanied by allegations against the United States and the United Kingdom, with a number of high-level officials—including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—who reportedly spoke to his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari today to communicate Iran's fury—and Jafari all claiming western states had a hand in the attacks. Jafari went as far as saying that Rigi's group "has direct contact with the U.S. and British intelligence services". Iran regularly accuses western states—particularly the United States and United Kingdom—of supporting Jundallah and other regime opponents.

Exporting Nuclear Fuel?

The allegations have been vehemently refuted by Pakistani, U.S., and British authorities alike, but are nevertheless unfortunate for the latter two, which yesterday commenced the second round of nuclear talks with Iran along with their fellow so-called "P5+1" states—Russia, China, France, and Germany. The talks appear to have begun cautiously after Iran had signalled reluctance to follow through on pledges made during the previous round. Those pledges required Iran export its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, at 3-5%, for enrichment to a high level by a second and third country (Russia and France), to the 20% necessary for feeding a small nuclear research reactor in Tehran .

The agreement was welcomed internationally as a possible way of breaking the deadlock on the nuclear issue, as in theory it would allow greater international oversight into Iran's activities and ensure that Iran was not itself enriching its stockpile of uranium to high levels. The fear, of course, is that Iran would enrich uranium to the 93% necessary to build a nuclear bomb. Iran is believed to have produced enough low-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb if made highly enriched (weapons grade). Ominously, Iran had stepped up its rhetoric ahead of the talks, with the spokesperson for the Iran Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Shirzadian, saying that "if the negotiations do not yield the desired results, Iran will start enriching uranium to the 20% level for its Tehran reactor. It will never give up this right". Iran was also reported to have avoided direct talks with France, apparently irked by the European country and signalling that it would be unwilling to send its uranium stocks to France. Indeed, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki today said in statements to the press that the United States could present an alternative to France as a destination for the country's fuel.

Outlook and Implications

The uranium export agreement in itself is an extremely limited success, but at this point it represents the only ray of light in an otherwise pitch-dark saga. In effect, it would merely buy the international community time, while Tehran would continue running its centrifuges at home, accumulating fresh stocks of low-enriched uranium, while presumably continuing to make progress on the technological front. However, time is a crucial commodity for western states, particularly as the U.S. administration is increasingly under pressure, both domestically and from Israel, to take a tougher line with Iran. At this point, the impetus appears to be on ensuring that talks do not backtrack.

Meanwhile, the potential for political turbulence in Iran is evident once again after the attacks in Sistan-Baluchestan. The restive region has long eluded the full control of the central government and Tehran has yet to secure the loyalty of its inhabitants. Now, the province has become a centre for cross-border illicit drugs and weapons trade, and is highly susceptible to influence and political instability from neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan. Notwithstanding the potential for external influence—and keeping in mind the porous borders between the three countries—Tehran's attempts to blame the province's unrest on foreign influence does not veil the domestic dynamics that have long-fomented Baluch discontent. Marginalised, partly militarised, and deprived of much of the country's oil wealth, the Sunni Baluch minority form one of the significant political challenges facing the Iranian state, which only a few months ago was rocked by the most severe domestic unrest since the inception of the Islamic Republic three decades ago.

Global Insight (Reino Unido)

 


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