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Iranian Film ‘A Separation’ Wins Worldwide Acclaim

The World — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:30:33 +0000

The Iranian film, A Separation, has been racking up awards at film festivals around the world since its release last year, most recently garnering a Golden Globe. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Khatereh Sheibani, Professor of Persian Literature and culture at York University in Toronto, about the film success and how that success is viewed in the director’s home country, Iran.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: An Iranian film called “A Separation” is on the short list for a Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination, we’ll find out next Tuesday if it actually gets nominated, but the Iranian movie is already a winner. It bagged the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film last Sunday. The film is about a couple in Tehran who are about to separate because they can’t agree on where to live: the wife wants to leave Iran with the couple’s daughter, the husband wants to stay, to take care of his ailing father.

[Speaking Farsi]

Werman: Khatereh Sheibani is a professor of Persian Literature and Culture at York University in Toronto. She says the film was very successful in Iran as well.

Khatereh Sheibani: In fact, “The Separation” was the best-selling movie in the history of Iranian Cinema. So, at the box office it was a huge success before even winning any international awards.

Werman: Now, the film, “A Separation”, it’s about a couple that’s on the verge of separating, as we said earlier. And it’s a peek into Iranian society and tensions between a modern secular family and a more conservative and religious one. And the director Asghar Farhadi has been asked if his film should be viewed as a political statement, on Iranian society, and he had this to say:

[Speaking Farsi]

Interpreter: If what you mean by political film is a film that follows a certain ideology or works as a political manifesto or defends a certain group, then, no. But if what you mean by a political film is a film that has social roots and includes society and its issues, then yes, this could be a political film.

Werman: That’s Iranian director Asghar Farhadi speaking there, through an interpreter. Miss Sheibani, how do you react to his statement? Do you think he’s trying to be careful?

Sheibani: You know they have every right to be careful, if they are making this inside Iran. But this is not a film that promotes any particular ideology, any particular world view. In fact this film is about the relativity of truth. You can’t say which person is right, which world view is right.

Werman: The main characters in the movie are conflicted about where they should live: in Iran, or should they leave the country? How many Iranians have on their minds this question of “Do I stay or do I go?”

Sheibani: Unfortunately there are many, many people who have this question now, in their mind. As you know, right after the revolution, there was a huge immigration towards Western countries. Especially for the secular middle-class people this is a seminal question, whether to leave, or to stay in the country.

Werman: So, obviously a lot of people in Iran relate to Mr. Farhadi’s film. But how do you explain its popularity in the United States?

Sheibani: You know, there has been a lot of talking about Iran in [the] media for the past few years. So, in the absence of foreign journalists in Iran and in the absence of having a real image of Iran, they’re turning to movies to see how this country looks like. I even heard from some Westerner friends who told me, “We wanted to see how a middle-class household looks like in Iran”. So it could be one aspect of the film that Americans could relate to.

Werman: Khatereh Sheibani in Toronto, the author of The Poetics of Iranian Cinema. Thank you very much!

Sheibani: Thank you!

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Zahra’s Paradise: A Graphic Novel Explores Iran’s Political Problems

The World — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:35:53 +0000

Zahra’s Paradise is the new graphic novel by an Iranian-American author. For security reasons, he uses only his first name “Amir.” He tells host Marco Werman how he created a webstrip based on the images streaming out of the Iranian protests in 2009.

Read two chapters of Zahra’s Paradise

Marco Werman: Even if you set aside the lethal intrigue that surrounds its nuclear program, Iran remains a mystery to most Westerners. A new book titled “Zahra’s Paradise” offers readers a glimpse of life in the country. It’s a graphic novel by an Iranian-American author. For security reasons, he goes only by his first name, Amir. The book is set in Tehran during the disputed 2009 elections and the protests that followed. It centers around a mother’s quest to find her missing son. The author says the graphic novel’s title is a reference to a specific place in Iran.

Amir: “Zahra’s Paradise” is the name of the main cemetery. It’s a vast, vast space outside Tehran, and since the revolution of 1979, it has really been the place where Iranians have been burying their loved ones. This was, you know, both people who were killed during the revolution, after the revolution, all the victims of the Iran-Iraq war ended there. So in a sense, it’s the place where all Iranians come together and grieve together, and then you realize that in the religious context, you know, the cemetery is actually not just the place where you take the dead. It’s actually the entrance into the heavens. Zahra is the name of the prophet’s daughter. So there’s this tremendous irony that this paradise has come to represent, really, the grief of an entire nation.

Werman: Your book began as a web comic and has been serialized online in black and white strips three times a week, beginning in early 2010. Why did you use that format?

Amir: What the internet allowed us to do was to communicate in real time which meant that as my partner, Khalil, was doing the drawing, we were putting them up, and what that meant was that all the traditional barriers to publishing, which were sort of barriers of space and time and language, were gone. We were actually interacting with our audience live and that was a whole other way of really publishing and presenting the ideas.

Werman: The fact that it’s a comic and it’s literally in black and white, were you worried that it would turn the story into almost a polemic, you know, with good guys and bad guys and maybe less nuance you’d find in a novel?

Amir: Not really. I think one of the things that we’ve done in Zahra’s Paradise is to show the contradictions in people, to show the way in which people are forced, by circumstance and situation, into various political positions and then change those positions. So the black-and-whiteness of it actually allowed us to show it as a collage.

Werman: Who has seen this web comic around the globe, and do you have any sense of how many Iranians inside Iran have had access to it?

Amir: We could see through Google that we had readership in at least twenty different cities in Iran and we started getting feedback from people there. Around the world, Zahra’s Paradise has I think been read in about something like eighty to ninety countries. So the web made it really much more of a global phenomenon than anything else.

Werman: Is it risky for Iranians to look at Zahra’s Paradise in Iran on the internet?

Amir: You know, I don’t think they’re monitored at that level, but we started gettting notes from people inside Iran telling us to be careful. So I know that people were reading it there. I think, you know, they need to take precautions and things, but they were reading it.

Werman: Amir, let me ask you about two things in the book that I’m curious about. Some of the most riveting images are these public hangings that happen in Tehran using construction cranes. Now we see these images of bustling traffic in downtown Tehran and two men dangling from crane hooks. Why does the regime use cranes to hang people?

Amir: It’s a great question. How is it that the crane, which is something that’s supposedly for construction, become this instrument for hanging people? How did the crane become a symbol in a way like the hand of God that sort of yanks Iranians off the ground and hangs them? How did it become a symbol, really, or Iran and Islam. The crane, of course, is very, you know, it’s kind of like having mobile executioners and the idea is to strike fear in the populous. It’s to show how much more powerful the state is,a relative to the people.

Werman: Tell us what’s on the last thirteen pages of the book. It’s in the tiniest type imaginable. I had to put on my reading glasses and then use a magnifying glass. Visually, it packs quite a wallop.

Amir: That’s the list of sixteen thousand, nine hundred and one Iranians who have been killed since the revolution of 1979. Either assassinated or executed or vanished and it just tells you of how deep the damage that the Islamic Republic is inflicting on the Iranian people, but it’s also a way of telling people, “No. The struggle for Iran’s future is a struggle for memory, it’s a struggle for history, it’s a struggle for truth, it’s a struggle against lies.”

Werman: Amir is the Iranian-American author of the graphic novel “Zahra’s Paradise”. He and illustrator, Khalil, use only their first name for security reasons. Amir, very good to speak with you and meet you. Thank you.

Amir: Thank you very much, Marco.

Werman: Check out a few chapters from the graphic novel at theworld.org.

Iran’s beleaguered opposition

The World — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:25:02 +0000

What began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt may now be energizing the beleaguered opposition in Iran. Thousands of anti-government protesters rallied yesterday in central Tehran. It was the first major show of strength from Iran’s opposition in more than a year but hardline members of Iran’s parliament are determined to avoid a repeat of what happened in Egypt. On Tuesday, more than 200 Iranian lawmakers called for two leading opposition politicians to be tried and put to death. Karim Sadjadpour follows Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He tells anchor Lisa Mullins the regime’s resolve to crush the opposition is a short-term strategy. Download MP3

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. What began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt may be energizing the beleaguered opposition in Iran. Thousands of anti-government protesters rallied yesterday in central Tehran. It was the first major show of strength from Iran’s opposition in more than a year, but hardline members of Iran’s parliament are determined to avoid a repeat of what happened in Egypt. Today, more than 200 Iranian lawmakers called for two leading opposition politicians to be tried and put to death. You’re hearing the voices of those Iranian lawmakers right now. Karim Sadjadpour, Middle East Analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, I want you to weigh in on what you just heard. That sounds like quite a dramatic scene at the Iranian parliament where the lawmakers apparently, Iranian state television showed a senior cleric up on this platform before the assembly leading the chant with a clenched fist, calling for executions of the opposition. Is this fear or resolve that we’re seeing?

Karim Sadjadpour: I think they’re trying to create an atmosphere of fear and terror, Lisa, and what’s quite remarkable is that less than six, seven years ago, the individuals whom they are now calling for their execution today were in positions of leadership. Mohammad Khatami, today they were calling for death to Mohammad Khatami, was president of the Islamic Republic for eight years. So, you see how far right the political spectrum has shifted in Iran, and I don’t think they are going to pursue even the imprisonment of these opposition leaders because they recognize that will probably be like pouring gasoline on the fire and provoking the opposition, but certainly they do want to create an atmosphere of fear and terror, and I think that the advantage they have is that the international media is not there to bear witness.

Mullins: Not there to bear witness because they simply can’t get in? The government won’t let them in?

Sadjadpour: The Iranian regime has effectively imposed a media embargo. You don’t have the CNN’s and the Al Jazeera’s and the BBC’s reporting the events that are taking place in Iran, so that makes an enormous difference psychologically for the protesters. When there’s an effective media embargo, I think people fear that this regime can get away with doing a lot more without accountability.

Mullins: Well that seemed to be what President Barack Obama had in mind today. He held a news conference earlier this morning, in fact, and he addressed specifically what’s happening in the Middle East and he seemed to be directing comments specifically to Iran as well. Let’s hear.

Barack Obama: You can’t maintain power through coercion. At some level, in any society, there has to be consent, and that’s particularly true in this new era where people can communicate – not just through some centralized government or state-run TV – but they can get on a smart phone or a Twitter account and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people.

Mullins: That’s what we heard earlier today from President Obama. Now we, of course there was a mobilization through social networking in Egypt. Could that same thing happen in Iran and somehow overcome the media blackout that the Iranian government has imposed?

Sadjadpour: It’s difficult, Lisa. I mean, I agree with President Obama’s point in the longer term that the days of dictatorial regimes ruling by coercion is not what the future foretells, but I think in the short run, this lethal marriage which Iran has at its disposal, which is oil and Islam, is a very formidable combination; and the Iranian regime’s support – its popular support – may not be very wide, but what it lacks in width it makes up for in depth, meaning you still have a lot of hard-core supporters of this government in Iran who are willing to kill on their behalf. I’m talking about the Basij militants, the Revolutionary Guardsmen, and I think in the short term, social networks – Facebook, Twitter – are no match for those who are willing to inflict violence and create atmospheres of terror.

Mullins: Karim Sadjadpour, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, thank you very much.

Sadjadpour: My pleasure, Lisa.

Iran’s cyberwar

The World — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:20:15 +0000

Cartoon by Nikahang Kowsar

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced new initiatives to improve cyber-freedom in countries like Iran. Lisa Mullins speaks with Iranian cartoonist and editor Nikahang Kowsar of Khodnevis.org about what the best use of the money would be and how both Iranian online activists and Iranian authorities use social media to thwart each other. Download MP3

PBS Tehran Bureau
Nikahang Kowsar on twitter
balatrin.com (Persian)
Videos from Iran on homylafayette.com
Global Political Cartoons on The World

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that the United States is giving $25 million this year to help dissidents get around internet repression by autocratic regimes. But she said that governments’ misuse of the internet is only a symptom.

Hillary Clinton: Iran isn’t awful because the authorities used Facebook to shadow and capture members of the opposition; Iran is awful because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people.’

Mullins: That’s Secretary Clinton earlier today. Thousands turned out in Teheran yesterday to protest their government. Nikahang Kowsar [SP] is an Iranian cartoonist in Washington. He moderates an online news site for Iranians who are in and outside of Iran. He has praise for another State Department initiative: a new twitter feed in Farsi.

Nikahang Kowsar: That possibly wouldn’t help exactly those people on the streets but it’s very encouraging and it shows the online activist inside and outside Iran that somebody is actually caring for what they’re doing. It’s very symbolic. Many people in Iran are connected through Facebook and they would like to actually post news materials, videos and everything that they get on Facebook to share. So there could be a lot of internet sources or internet material that could really help people inside Iran. Like for instance, yesterday I got three videos from one of the demonstrators and posted it possibly just half an hour after he had just shot those videos. By that so many people could see what was happening on the streets of Teheran. But through the website that I was working on it in the States and those people were in Iran. It’s a very weird connection and it’s working actually. But we have to find better ways to empower the people who are under a lot of pressure inside of Iran because of firewalls and also being tracked by the Revolutionary Guards and the administrative intelligence.

Mullins: In terms of the Iranian government itself, does it use social networking tools, Facebook, twitter, to its own end?

Kowsar: We’ve had reports that many members of the Basij or the Voluntary Militia and also the Revolutionary Guards are using fake names and appearing on Facebook, becoming members of different fan pages or becoming friends with activists. They try to actually give false information and even sometimes discourage people from going and acting on the streets or performing what they want to do. Or even they try to crack down smaller networks by entering these…I call them ‘viruses, human viruses’.

Mullins: Did any of that happen yesterday preceding or during the protest yesterday?

Kowsar: I’m not sure about that still but when I was posting a few notes on Facebook I got a few comments from members and they didn’t sound right. I felt that one of those people was trying to say that nothing is happening on the streets and people are just listening to the wrong wave. I just cut the guy off because I was actually witnessing what was happening through reliable sources. So I found out that these guys are really active in trying to discourage people.

Mullins: Can you tell who’s one step ahead? The government or the dissidents, the protesters?

Kowsar: There are times that let’s say the activists are saying, ‘We’re going to have this action next week on that very specific time,’ so then the government would be ahead. But on the other hand, when people are using fake identities, pseudonyms and the government cannot detect who’s who it’s working in a way. There are problems for many activists in Iran and they believe that probably the American government or other governments can help them pass through these firewalls and be protected from these human viruses or these hackers working for the government.

Mullins: Thank you very much. Nikahang Kowsar, an Iranian cartoonist and editor. He moderates the website havaees.org [SP]. We’ll make a link on our website, theworld.org. Thank you very much. By the way we also have a few of your own cartoons up there as well.

Kowsar: Thanks, thanks.

Iran cracks down on protesters

The World — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:15:49 +0000

Protests in Iran

Iranian security forces clubbed and tear-gassed demonstrators who marched today in Tehran and other major cities in Iran to protest against the regime. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with a protester who used the pseudonym “Behzad” about today’s events. Download MP3

This Youtube video shows protesters burning a picture of the late Ayatollah Khomeini
and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei.

Live Updates

Egypt sparks Iran to crack down on dissidents

The World — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:50:45 +0000

Iranian leaders have been responding to events in Egypt by cracking down on dissidents. Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at The Atlantic Council tells anchor Marco Werman that Iranians executed a record number of prisoners last months. She says it’s an effort to stifle opposition that might feel empowered after events in Tunisia and Egypt. Download MP3

Iran Cracks Down While Egypt Cracks Up

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman; this is The World. If the Egyptian protests force President Hosni Mubarak to step down, there could be celebrations in Iran, too. But different people there might celebrate for different reasons. Critics of the government there hope that a successful uprising in Egypt might re-ignite the protests of 2009. Iranian officials, on the other hand, say that the ouster of the Egyptian leader would echo the 1979 Islamic revolution. They are trying to ensure that’s the precedent that wins out. Barbara Slavin has written about Tehran’s recent moves in the new issue of foreign policy. She says that Iranian authorities are seizing the moment by cracking down on dissidents.

Barbara Slavin: They are executing a record number of people, including political prisoners, including dual-nationals, which is very unusual. Over the weekend they executed a Dutch-Iranian woman who had been picked up in protests in 2009, and they charged her with drug-trafficking, a charge that her family rejects. So the Iranians have now executed more than 80 people of January. This is a record and it puts Iran in a very uncomfortable category as the biggest executor of prisoners per capita in the world.

Werman: Well, two questions quickly. Why are they doing this? Isn’t that going to rile people up? And do you see any dots to be connected between these executions and what’s going on in Egypt right now?

Slavin: Yes, I do. I think they are both taking advantage of the media focus on Egypt, and at the same time they are trying to intimidate their own people so that there won’t be more demonstrations in Iran. We are now entering a ten-day period that’s called the â€œten days of dawnâ€ in Iran. This marks the anniversary of the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 revolution, to Iran, and then the fall on February 11, 1979, of the last government of the Shah. Iran normally has a lot of public demonstrations during this time period. It climaxes on February 11th; Revolution Day. It’s kind of like their Fourth of July. And last year they succeeded in flooding Tehran with security forces and with pro-government demonstrators. Obviously the regime wants to make sure that the Green Movement, the opposition movement, doesn’t get courageous and come out on the streets again on this February 11th. So this is going to be a very sensitive time, the next ten days in Iran.

Werman: And are you hearing or seeing any indications that this 32nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution could be a moment for anti-government protests?

Slavin: You know, the people in Iran are watching their televisions. They’re watching satellite television and they see what’s going on in Egypt. And Iranians are very proud of the fact that they are Persians, not Arabs. And the thought that somehow the Arabs are now besting them at something only Iran was able to do in the Middle East up until now â€“ have a real, popular, revolution â€“ I’m sure that this rankles. And I’m already seeing some calls on Facebook and elsewhere for people to come out and demonstrate again in Iran on February 11th.

Werman: Barbara, if Mubarak goes in Egypt and Egypt does not play out like Iran in 1979, Iran will find itself again the only theocracy in the region. How will Iran feel about that? How will its leaders react?

Slavin: Iran is in an interesting position right now. Things are going rather well for it outside, but not so well inside. If you look at the regional strategic lineup, there have been great victories for Iran, mostly due to the United States â€“ the removal of Saddam Hussein; the removal of the Taliban; the changes that we’ve seen in Lebanon where Hezbollah has become much more powerful. Egypt, whatever comes out of this, may not be such a loyal U.S. ally; may not be such a loyal Israeli partner. And that benefits Iran. But at the same time you have within Iran this tremendously restive population. You have economic problems which have been compounded by sanctions. Iran has recently lifted subsidies on key goods. We haven’t yet really seen the fallout from that. People have been given cash payments but those will run out. And a lot of people are predicting unrest this spring in Iran. So if I were Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I would not be feeling that confident.

Werman: Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. She is the author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation. Barbara, thanks a lot.

Slavin: My pleasure.

A Persian insult, an Inuit dialect, and Urdu directions

Patrick Cox — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:13:41 +0000

Iran’s leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Photo: Daniella Zalcman) is known for his fruity prose. This month he outdid himself with a new anti-American insult . In a speech to Iranian expats, he used the expression the bogeyman snatched the boob. It’s old Persian saying that mothers use when they’re trying to wean their babies off breast milk. But what’s acceptable for mothers to say in the privacy of their homes is considered über-coarse in a public setting. Some Iranians are astonished that their President would use the phrase. Their President, though, is a man who likes to show he has the common touch, especially when dissing the United States. He appeared quite full of himself too, in a recent interview with John Lee Anderson of the New Yorker.

Also, we hear from Cambridge University linguistic anthropologist Stephen Leonard who’s spending a year in Northwest Greenland, documenting the planet’s northernmost dialect. That dialect, or language — it’s been classified both ways — is called Inuktun, and it’s spoken by the Polar Inuit, or Inughuit of Northwest Greenland. Leonard doesn’t have much to go on. He speaks Danish and has been learning Standard West Greenlandic, both of which are understood by many of the Polar Inuit. But he only has a word list for Inuktun. The Inughuit’s way of life is severely threatened by global warming: the giant block of ice that recently broke off a glacier is close to their hunting grounds. As for cameraderie, this photo of a groups of Inuits near Cape Dorset, Canada (photo credit: Ansgar Walk) may paint too rosy a picture; also, people generally use snowmobiles these days, not dogsleds. Not many people. Not many dogs. Not much warmth. It may be a very long year.

Also in this week’s podcast, we have a report on how foreign language movies in the United States are seeking new ways of finding their audiences. And World in Words listener and self-professed language nerd Sofia Javed tells us about the difficulties of getting from Point A to Point B in Urdu, a language that has the same word for go straight and turn right.
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Iran to start another nuclear plant

The World — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:20:29 +0000

Iran's key nuclear sites

Iran said today it will begin construction of a third nuclear enrichment plant by March of next year. The Islamic republic already has a large enrichment site at Natanz and a smaller one near Qom. Today’s announcement referred to 10 new enrichment plants Iran plans to build. The US and its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charges. The World’s Katy Clark talks with Greg Thielmann who is an intelligence expert at the Arms Control Association in Washington. Download MP3

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

KATY CLARK: I’m Katy Clark and this is The World. Iran said today it will begin construction of a third nuclear enrichment plant by March of next year. The Islamic republic already has a large enrichment site at Natanz and a smaller one near Qom. Today’s announcement referred to 10 new enrichment plants Iran plans to build. The US and its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charges. Greg Thielmann is an intelligence expert at the Arms Control Association in Washington. Greg, some people may think that Iran already has nuclear weapons, but, technically at least, how far off are they?

GREG THIELMANN: Well, that is one of the questions of the moment, Katy. US Defense Secretary Gates says that Iran could have sufficient fissile material, or the ingredients of nuclear weapons, within a year, and within another year could have weaponized that material. But I’ve spent enough time in the intelligence community to pay very careful attention to words like “could.” We have not been able to document any Iranian production or enrichment of uranium above a 20% level. 90% is required for fissile material.

CLARK: Does the IAEA, though, have complete access to all of Iran’s facilities?

THIELMANN: It does not have complete access and that is exactly the rub. The issue is can the International Atomic Energy Agency assure the UN membership that Iran has no nuclear weapons program? So, right now we are in a dispute between the international community and Iran on making the Iranian nuclear program transparent enough to dispel suspicions that Iran has a parallel nuclear weapons program.

CLARK: Just how wide is the gap between Iran’s current lack of transparency and any perception that they want nuclear weapons? Is it one of these cases where Iran needs to prove that it doesn’t want it because people are just tending to think the worst at this point?

THIELMANN: I think the weight of expert opinion is that Iran, at the very least, wants to develop the capability to be able to acquire nuclear weapons rapidly. And also after the findings of, not just the US, but various foreign intelligence services, that Iran itself for some 18 years had a clandestine nuclear weapons program that was only halted, the US believes, in the fall of 2003. So, the current focus is on whether or not Iran has resumed that clandestine nuclear weapons program.

CLARK: So, I’m wondering then, bringing it back to the announcement today that Iran is going to begin construction on a third nuclear enrichment plant. Does that announcement only confirm assumptions that Iran wants a nuclear weapons program down the road?

THIELMANN: Well, it certainly does confirm it for many people. If the announcement were made in the way that announcements should be made, that is, information on where it planned to construct, providing the blueprints of that construction, an explanation that showed how this plan fitted in with Iran’s overall nuclear energy development program, that would be a major step toward addressing suspicions that these plants are going to be developed at clandestine locations and would be used to make highly-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons purposes.

CLARK: Greg Thielmann is a former director at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He’s now a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington. Good to speak with you.

THIELMANN: Thank you for the opportunity.

Mothers continue fight for release of Iran hikers

The World — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:20:37 +0000

Nora Shourd (left) and Cindy Hickey in our London studio (Photo: Alex Collins)

Nora Shourd and Cindy Hickey are two women who up until a year ago barely knew each other. And they had no idea how closely their lives would become connected. Shourd and Hickey are the mothers of Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, two of the three American hikers who are being held in Evin prison in Tehran. The three hikers were arrested along the Iran/Iraq border. They’ve been jailed in Iran since last July and have yet to be brought to trial or charged with a crime. The mothers are asking the U.S. government to help secure the release of their children. Marco Werman talks with Nora Shourd and Cindy Hickey. Download MP3

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Last July three American hikers were detained in Iran. They were accused of illegally entering the country from Iraq. The hikers have yet to be brought to trial. A year later, the three are still being held by Iranian authorities at the infamous Evin prison in Tehran. That’s the same jail where Iranian political prisoners are held. The hikers’ mothers travelled to Iran in May to ask Iranian officials to release their children. They were able to meet their children, but their request has so far been ignored. Two of the women, Nora Shourd and Cindy Hickey, join us from our studio in London. They are the mothers of Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer, respectively. The third American being held is Josh Fattal. Nora and Cindy, welcome to you both. For our listeners who may not remember the details of this story, Nora Shourd, what happened? Did they cross the border illegally?

NORA SHOURD: The three of them were living in Damascus, Syria. They’d been there for a year. They went on a little vacation for a week. Sarah had a break from her teaching job. They had been hiking near a waterfall that was a tourist destination well known to people who live in the Middle East, promoted by the Kurdistan government as being a safe area. It’s not real clear what happened, but apparently they were close to the border, were not aware of it, and more than likely either they were taken over the border by the Iranian’s or strayed over the border. We’re not sure. We won’t know all the details till they come out.

WERMAN: Now, Cindy Hickey, you and Nora managed to visit your children back in May. Describe what that was like.

CINDY HICKEY: Well, it was very emotional. We waited for a long time to have our Visa’s granted so we were very grateful for the opportunity to see them. It was very helpful, I believe, for us to fill them with hope. We described what’s being done and let them know that we’re working as hard as we can to get them out. It was very, very difficult to leave there. My last vision of Shane was him put on an elevator and the doors closing and not knowing when I would be able to see him again, so it was very bittersweet. And of course we didn’t bring them home and at this point, the fact that they’re being held without charge, have no access to their lawyer, their lawyer’s never seen them. The Swiss, our protecting power, have not been allowed in again, is totally ridiculous.

WERMAN: How old are Sarah and Shane? Are they in good health? Did they seem to be in good mental health as well?

HICKEY: Actually, Shane just turned 28 on July 13^th. Sarah is 31. Josh is 28. They’ve all had birthdays in Evin prison. As far as their health, they’re in prison. You know they’re okay, but very pale, dark rings under their eyes, they’ve all lost a lot of weight and the emotional strain is extreme for them.

WERMAN: Nora, I understand that Sarah, your daughter, is being kept in isolation. Is that right?

SHOURD: Yeah, that’s the hard part for me. She’s been in solitary confinement for a year. I especially want people to understand what this means. This young woman who has not committed any crime is by herself every day in this prison. She’s very, very lonely. It’s affecting her psychologically. When I saw her I was immediately aware that she was incredibly depressed. I would say clinically depressed. She’s highly anxious and she’s scared. You know, her whole mood is different. It’s difficult for her to cope with this. This is inhumane treatment, this is psychological torture. If you look at the international laws about ways to keep prisoners, this is an extreme measure for someone who has not committed any crime.

WERMAN: Cindy Hickey, what kind of things are you and Nora doing to try and secure the release of Sarah, Shane, and Josh?

HICKEY: Well, our days are filled with many things. I actually have closed my business to attend to this on a full-time basis. You know, right now we’re here actually in the UK building awareness. We want our voices to be heard. We want other people to hear us so they can raise their voices. This is a terrible situation and it needs to end. So our goal right now is to get the word out as loud and clear as possible so we can gather support from around the world to apply pressure to releases these three.

WERMAN: And who do you hope is listening? Like this interview, who do you hope is listening here in the United States?

HICKEY: We hope that everyone is listening in the United States and around the world. We need support from, in a popular way, from the people of the United States, the people of the world. We need support from governments around the world. We need high-level intervention. We need whatever help we can get to get these kids out. This has been going on far too long.

WERMAN: How high have you been able to go in terms of intervention?

HICKEY: I’m not sure how to answer that. I mean we have contacts within our government, but at this point we need more than that. We need more than that. We need other governments to speak up. We need more done. If enough was being done at this point, our kids would be home with us and they’re not.

WERMAN: Shahram Amiri, the Iranian nuclear scientist who returned to Tehran last week after charging that he had been held by the CIA for more than a year, has said that US agents pressed him to agree to be exchanged in a spy swap for your children, the three American hikers in Evin prison. Was there a point recently when you believe that Mr. Amiri could be swapped for your kids?

HICKEY: We don’t have the back channel information. We’re actually not privileged to any of that information. The reports we heard were the same reports that were heard around the world via the media. So, of course, we were happy to see him return to his family. What the circumstances are, I don’t know. It definitely gave me some hope that possibly a release of our three would be soon, but we’ve heard this for a year that things would happen soon. They would be in trial soon. They would be released soon. That word “soon” is getting really hard for us to hear because “soon” is not happening.

WERMAN: You know, in the past couple of years there have been high profile arrests and releases not dissimilar to your kids. I mean the two Asian-American journalists who wandered into North Korea and who’s release was negotiated by former president Bill Clinton, Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist who was also in Evin prison, but for a hundred days. You must think about those cases and wonder why after a year these three young people are out of those countries and your children are still in prison in Iran.

HICKEY: Whatever it takes to get our kids out, we welcome that kind of opportunity or intervention from whoever that person may be. You know, at this point it’s become obviously clear to us and to the entire world that our kids are being used for political motives. They’re pawns in a game between two countries. We want this to end because there’s no legal basis for this case. It’s only political.

WERMAN: Nora and Cindy, you’re both kind of waging this campaign yourselves right now. How well did the two of you know each other before the arrest of Shane and Sarah?

HICKEY: Actually, Shane and Sarah have been together for at least three years if not more. They’re a couple. They’re actually engaged at this point. So, I had met Nora visiting Shane and Sarah in the San Francisco Bay area. I met her once. So I knew her, but I didn’t know her as well as I do now. We know each other very well right now and we actually lean on each other for support and we run things by each other. It really helps to have many people working on this and it’s all three families and not only the mothers, but many family members that are involved in this campaign.

WERMAN: Nora Shourd and Cindy Hickey are the mothers of Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer. Two of the three American hikers who are being held in Evin prison in Tehran. Thank you very much for your time indeed.

HICKEY: You’re welcome. Bye bye.

SHOURD: Thank you.

Iran’s failed revolution – one year on

The World — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:19:28 +0000

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A year ago Iran was in political upheaval. Now Iranians are wondering what became of the Internet-fueled revolution that brought thousands to the streets of Tehran. Cyrus Farivar has some thoughts from Iranians, both at home and abroad. (flickr image: Hamed Saber)

MARCO WERMAN: Tomorrow marks one year since the controversial re-election of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That sent tens of thousands of Iranians out into the streets in what came to be known as the Green Revolution. But it wasn’t really a revolution and it’s still not clear how many Iranians actually supported it. One thing that is clear, one year on, is a sense of how little has changed. Cyrus Farivar reports.

CYRUS FARIVAR: It’s difficult to get a sense of what life is like for ordinary Iranians in Iran today. Most foreign journalists are barred from operating inside the country. And many of those I contacted didn’t want to be interviewed, even anonymously. Still, the BBC did speak by phone to a young man in Tehran. Hamid didn’t give his last name. He says he’s largely given up hope of meaningful change in Iran.

HAMID: There’s no chance. You can’t fight bullets with good intentions and sincere heart. They’d just beat you. But there’s no fighting them, that’s what I think. We lost it. We went to the street, our friends got killed, we got beaten and now we’re back. I think it’s lost.

FARIVAR: Over the past 12 months, many reformist leaders, including a former Vice President, have been arrested and some were even executed. Still, for many Iranians, the political woes are dwarfed by the country’s economic ones. Iran’s official inflation rate was 9.9% last month. Though many observers say it’s likely twice that figure, the government has drastically cut subsidies on gasoline and food, while unemployment continues to rise. One 25-year-old man from the northern Iranian city of Sari says many of his relatives are unemployed. I spoke to him through an interpreter.

INTERPRETER: The rate of unemployment is highest now. And among my relatives there are a lot of contractors and the government should pay them. But the government is facing a deficit and so they can’t pay them what they are owed.

FARIVAR: This man supported Iran’s Green Revolution. And he still has hope that things will change despite the government’s intimidation. Another person who remains optimistic is Mohammed Sadeghi. He’s an Iranian German living in Aachen, Germany. He runs the Facebook page of the former reformist presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi. Sadeghi says you can’t be totally discouraged if you think of the Green Movement not as a political movement, but as a social one.

MOHAMMED SADEGHI: There’s a whole new social identity now, the Green identity, which includes a very broad range of Iranians from all around the world who even might not be politically oriented before.

FARIVAR: Sadeghi describes the Green Movement as part of a larger struggle, going back a century, of how to integrate traditional Islamic values with liberalism, secularism and urbanism. He says that means Ahmadinejad, much less the Islamic Republic, won’t be overturned any time soon. But seeds have been planted across the country.

SADEGHI: The big deal is the social identity which is there and which is going to be further developed and which is going to lead to great changes.

FARIVAR: Still, he concedes those changes could take a long time. Mousavi, via his Facebook page, famously called for his supporters to shout “Allah wa Akbar”, or God is great from their rooftops in the days after the June 12th election. An Iranians in and outside the country have received numerous messages of support through Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter. But Golnaz Esfandiari points all that online buzz hasn’t translated into any meaningful political change. She is an Iranian born reporters who covers Iran for Radio Free Europe in Prague.

GOLNAZ ESFANDIARI: I think the problem with the Green Movement is, I don’t know what’s the strategy. I don’t see any strategy. Even their goals are not clear. Mousavi said in one of his interviews, maybe two months ago, I don’t know exactly, he said like the goal is to raise the awareness about the Green Movement in the society. But how do they want to do that and what is the strategy for moving forward this goal? I don’t know.

FARIVAR: Indeed, getting the word out may be even harder now that Mousavi and another reformist leader, Mehdi Karroubi, have called off a major protest slated for tomorrow, the anniversary of the election. They said in a statement on Thursday that the protest would be canceled because they couldn’t get government permission. For The World, I’m Cyrus Farivar in Bonn, Germany.

Iran’s nuclear defiance

The World — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:15:21 +0000

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Iran’s tough stance on its nuclear program got a little tougher today. Iran’s President said today his country will not agree to talks on the issue if the UN Security Council imposes new sanctions. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also warned that a nuclear fuel deal that Turkey and Brazil brokered was a one-time opportunity that it would not be repeated. Stephen Kinzer was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for many years. His latest book is Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future. Marco Werman talks with him. Download MP3

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Stephen Kinzer on Iran, Turkey and the U.S. (Feb)
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. Iran’s tough stance on its nuclear program got tougher today. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country won’t agree to talks on the issue if the U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions. Then, the Council announced it will vote on fresh sanctions tomorrow. They’d include tighter financial restrictions and the expansion of a limited arms embargo. Stephen Kinzer was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for many years. His latest book is “Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future”. Mr. Kinzer joins us in our studio. Do you think that there’s a risk that there’s maybe too much attention paid to what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says. Sometimes it feels like this is just pro forma trash talk like in game three or four of the Lakers-Celtics series.

STEPHEN KINZER: You’re exactly and I’d even go a step further. I think that Ahmadinejad is very aware that many Iranians don’t like him and that he’s unpopular in the Middle East as well. He knows that there is one thing that could make him a hero to all Iranians, and that would be to be attacked by Israel or the United States. That would then turn him into the ultimate martyr. And I think he’s calculating what I can do, what can I say to be as outrageous as possible and see if I can provoke someone to bomb me. That’s the way the entire nation of Iran will gather behind me. There’s no other way. And I think Ahmadinejad is calculating this very carefully. We are playing into his hands by reporting every wink of his eyebrows and trying to play him up as this ultimate demon and I think in the long run Iran’s strategic interests actually coincide more with America’s than they conflict with America’s. And in addition, Iranian society, which is very vibrant and very open and democratic, has much more in common with American society than the societies of any of the countries with which we are now aligned.

WERMAN: What’s the primary way you think Iran’s interests coincide with American’s interests?

KINZER: The most important goal for Iran is a stable neighborhood. That should also be the most important goal for Israel. These are two countries, that in that sense are parallel and they are also parallel in the sense that they have a lot of enemies in the neighborhood and a lot of enemies in the world. Nonetheless, it’s wrong to push these countries into a corner and stigmatize them and make them feel friendless and angry. Somehow they need to be brought in to a kind of new regional security architecture in which stability in the region, which is the ultimate goal both of those countries in the United States, could possibly be assured.

WERMAN: Well one area where the world seemed to kind of pump helium into Ahmadinejad was just after last year’s contested Presidential election in Iran. When you were in Iran recently, Stephen Kinzer, did you get a sense that the day of this anniversary, this coming Saturday, is going to be marked by protest?

KINZER: I think there will be protests, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the momentum of the green movement, as the protests were called, has definitely slowed down. I talked to dozens of ordinary Iranians on the street and the sense I got from all of them was, we tried something last year, it didn’t work, and now we’re just going to go on with our lives. There’s no point in us getting arrested and beaten, that’s what’s going to happen if we go out and protest. There will be change, but it’s not going to come soon. Now in a country with 25 centuries of history, which is ten times more than the United States has, that’s a very understandable attitude. Nonetheless, in a way it kind of conflicts with the American attitude. We have the sense that everything has to happen right away. We also have a sense in America that all problems ultimately have a solution, even if they’re complex. You just break them down into pieces and you can find a way out. Iranians have a different approach to life. They would say that many problems don’t have quick solutions and some problems have no solutions at all. So there’s a psychological as well as a political gap here.

WERMAN: Now Iran may have a role in the latest crisis with the flotilla of activists headed for Gaza, this boat that Israel took over last week killing nine activists. The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said this past weekend that Iran could use its Navy to send humanitarian assistance to Gaza. What do you make of that?

KINZER: I don’t take it too seriously. I think right now the Egyptians have opened up their own crossing into Gaza. They are allowing a lot of relief supplies in. That takes some of the pressure off and therefore the theater of flotillas trying to land in occupied Gaza has diminished in the impact and importance that it has. I think the flotilla incident, I think it really was a reaction what was happening particularly in Gaza. When you’re sitting in that part of the world, and you are watching on television every single day, as we in the west do not, what is going on in Gaza? And every episode is replayed a hundred times in your mind and on your TV screens, naturally anger builds up and that was what was behind Prime Minister Erdogan’s blow up in Davos earlier this year. That friction between Turkey and Israel has been largely focused on Gaza. So I don’t think this is necessarily a problem that’s afflicting the entire policy apparatus in that region. I think it’s more about Gaza and if the Gaza situation can somehow be eased, I think some of this tension we’re seeing in recent weeks will also ease.

WERMAN: Stephen Kinzer’s latest books is “Rest: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future”. Stephen thanks so much for coming in.

KINZER: Great to be with you.

Iran signs nuclear fuel deal with Turkey

The World — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:39:37 +0000

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Years of diplomatic deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program may have reached a breakthrough. Iran says it will ship low-enriched uranium to Turkey. In return, higher-enriched uranium will be sent back to Iran. The proposal is being met with applause and skepticism. The World’s Jason Margolis will have more in today’s show.

BBC coverage
Ahmadinejad speaks at UN nuclear conference
Iran and the nuclear issue

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. Years of diplomatic deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program may have reached a breakthrough today. Iran says it will ship low enriched uranium to Turkey. In return, Iran will receive higher enriched uranium to use in a medical research reactor in Tehran. That fuel would still be enriched well below the level needed to manufacture a nuclear weapon. The deal was brokered after 18 hours of negotiations between leaders from Iran, Turkey and Brazil. But it’s far from certain that the deal will satisfy the international community. The World’s Jason Margolis has more.

JASON MARGOLIS: The question is why now? Why is Iran agreeing to this deal? That’s what the west is wondering. After all, the agreement announced today mirrors a deal negotiated in Geneva last fall. President Obama endorsed that plan, but Iran backed away from the proposal. Brazil’s President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva suggested a deal is being reached now because of the people doing the negotiating.

INTERPRETER: We’ve established a relationship of trust. Politics isn’t possible without trust. I think we have secured a great achievement that was a great victory for diplomacy.

MARGOLIS: That’s high faluting talk for a bad deal, argues Nicolas Burns at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He says Brazil and Turkey have negotiated an agreement contrary to the interests of the United States, Europe and even Russia.

NICOLAS BURNS: This proposal does not address the real concern about Iran. It’s still enriching uranium without the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

MARGOLIS: As to the question why now? Burns argues that the game has changed since a deal was proposed last fall. Iran has more raw materials.

BURNS: President Obama and President Sarkozy had announced last autumn an arrangement with Iran whereby up to 70% of Iran’s low enriched uranium would be shipped out of Iran. That would have made it impossible for Iran to have continued to enrich sufficient material to produce a nuclear weapon. This agreement, as far as the press reports are concerned, and I’m just looking at the press reports, would only take about 50% of the low enriched uranium out of Iran leaving a lot of material in the country to potentially enrich to a weapons grade level, and to give Iran the prospect of continuing its nuclear program.

MARGOLIS: Iran’s foreign minister said this new deal should lead to cooperation and avoid confrontation. In other words, Iran should not be subject to further U.N. sanctions. The President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy said the new deal does not change Europe’s position about Iran’s nuclear program.

HERMAN VAN ROMPUY: Iran has so far refused to engage in serious discussions on reasonable concerns related to its nuclear program. Iran needs to reassure the international community about the intentions behind its nuclear program.

MARGOLIS: Critics of today’s deal say Iran is simply stalling, trying to avoid sanctions while also attempting to win propaganda points. Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister, Matan Vilnai, cut to the chase. He said Iran is intent on getting nuclear weapons. That Iran is taking steps that are far from benign as the President of Brazil tells it. Iran is supposed to send details of today’s proposal to the IAEA within a week. The White House is taking a wait and see approach, but stressed today that Iran has repeatedly failed to live up to its own commitments. For The World, I’m Jason Margolis.

Ahmadinejad speaks at UN nuclear conference

The World — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:52:00 +0000

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Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke today in New York at a United Nations conference on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. His appearance prompted walkouts by US, French and British delegates. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Jim Walsh of the MIT Securities Studies Program. He recently attended a nuclear meeting hosted by Tehran.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepped to the podium today at New York at a U.N. conference on nuclear non-proliferation and he proceeded to blast away at his usual suspects, including Israel.

INTERPRETER: Although, for example, the Zionist regime stockpiles hundreds of nuclear warheads, wages numerous wars in the Middle East region, and continues to threaten the people and nations . . .

WERMAN: Ahmadinejad criticized countries that have nuclear weapons. Delegates from three of those countries, the U.S. Britain and France walked out of his speech. The Iranian leader did not mention his nation’s controversial nuclear program, one that has prompted U.N. sanctions. Jim Walsh is with the Security Studies program at MIT. Jim, Ahmadinejad called again today for a world free of nuclear weapons and reaffirmed the line that Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons. Why did western delegates walk out then?

JIM WALSH: Well, I guess there’s a lot of doubt and suspicion. But if you ask me, I think it’s good every time an official from Iran says we don’t want nuclear weapons, we support the NPT. And recently the Supreme Leader at a conference in Tehran said that nuclear weapons are haram, or forbidden. Now, that’s not going to bind them and keep them from pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but I think it acts as a constraint. It makes it more difficult if you’re a religious regime to come out and fully say that these things are illegal and irreligious and then turn around and do the opposite.

WERMAN: And anticipating potential military action, Mr. Ahmadinejad said any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities must be immediately condemned by the U.N. Is there really a possibility that this dispute could come to blows like that?

WALSH: Oh yeah, absolutely. The Israelis talk about it. There are people here in the U.S. who are promoting that as an alternative. I think we’re some distance from that and the reason why is structural. The uniformed military in the United States has made clear that they don’t want any attacks while we still have 100,000 troops in Iraq and 40,000 in Afghanistan. But we are winding down our troops in Iraq. And so my own view is there may be a window late in Obama’s term where this becomes a live issue. I hope that’s not where it gets. I think history shows that if you bomb countries to get them out of the nuclear weapons business, they in fact do the opposite. They become more determined to become nuclear weapon states.

WERMAN: Now Jim you’re heading to the New York conference tomorrow. Who are you going to be meeting with?

WALSH: Well I’ll have a chance to talk to delegates from various governments and I also hope to have a chance to meet with Iranian colleagues.

WERMAN: What are you going to be talking about?

WALSH: Well, you know one of the funny things here, and it’s true for both the American side and the Iranian side, is that there really are often differences between the public position and the private position. So we heard sort of harsh rhetoric from President Ahmadinejad today, focused really on the United States, saying that it’s the first one to have used nuclear weapons, to have killed people with nuclear weapons and then Hillary Clinton has said some tough things about Iran. But behind closed doors, you get a somewhat different line. The Iranian officials that I’ve spoken with recently still hold out the hope for some negotiated settlement here. They say they haven’t given up on Obama. And the American officials, Obama’s Iran team, have not ruled out negotiation, although they’re more skeptical than they were. So in some ways, despite the hot rhetoric, the fact that everyone is going to be in the same place actually provides an opportunity, if people want to take advantage of it, to try to sit down, talk, and move this thing along.

WERMAN: Jim Walsh with the MIT Security Studies Program thanks for coming in.

WALSH: Thank you.

Iran’s underground music scene

The World — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:21:45 +0000

There's a thriving underground music scene in Tehran. A new feature film takes us there. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the Director of "No One Knows About Persian Cats." A musician from an Iranian rock band also joins in on the conversation. Download MP3

Iran’s nuclear conference

The World — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:58:25 +0000

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Leaders from more than 40 countries are gathering in Washington for a summit called by President Barack Obama to look at measures to improve nuclear security. It is a major plank of Mr Obama’s nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agenda. Neither North Korea nor Iran, two states with disputed nuclear ambitions, have been invited to the summit. In fact, Iran is hosting its own nuclear conference this week. Jim Walsh is an expert in international security and a Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. As you just heard, world leaders have gathered in Washington for a summit on nuclear security. President Obama called the conference to address the threat of groups such as Al Qaeda obtaining nuclear materials. Iran was not invited, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is holding his own nuclear summit in Tehran this weekend. Jim Walsh will be there. He is a research associate at MIT’s Securities Studies Program. He says the conferences in Washington and Tehran will both address nuclear issues, but not the same ones.

JIM WALSH: I think President Ahmadinejad is confused on this because the conference in Washington is about nuclear material, not about nuclear weapons. It’s about taking measures to prevent that material from falling into the hands of terrorists. The conference in Tehran is going to be on nuclear power and nuclear weapons or disarmament. And the reason, I think, why they would have this conference is because next month in May there’s going to be the meeting of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. That’s a meeting that happens once every five years and typically at these meetings Iran ends up being a focal point. So this is a chance for Iran to sort of get ahead of the curve, come up with a message to try to get its act together for the NPT meeting.

WERMAN: And why are you going Jim? What’s interesting in this particular conference for you?

WALSH: Well the topic, I work on nuclear issues, and frankly, if Iran wants to say that it’s in favor of civilian nuclear energy but is against nuclear weapons, then I think that’s great. I think that’s what the world wants and it’s a question of making that happen and having confidence that it’s true. But the more you have officials saying that line; I think the more it’s a constraint on any weapons activities they might have in the future.

WERMAN: Isn’t this what Iran has always said though, we want nuclear power, we don’t want nuclear weapons?

WALSH: They have always said it. The problem of course is that there continues to be concern and suspicion. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA has gone through rounds of investigations and has said that while Iran apparently is not diverting material from any of its plants to a weapons program, there are other activities that are of concern and they continue to have questions that they feel are unanswered.

WERMAN: And who is invited to the Iran conference and, more to the point, who is attending?

WALSH: Well these conferences are typically large conferences involving many nations. But I would expect you’ll see people from China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Central Asia, European states and I think there are at least six or seven Americans who may be going and that’s a far larger number than is typically the case.

WERMAN: And a lot of these players are at the conference in Washington. What do you think the significance is of major players going to both conferences? Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the White House and its goals?

WALSH: I think it’s good for both countries to attend both conferences. Again, it’s an opportunity for those foreign ministers to talk to Foreign Minister Motaki and make clear their concerns and possibly also to talk about a way forward, a way where everyone can get what they want. Where we have confidence that that nuclear program is not going to be used for military purposes, but that they Iranians get what they need which is a civilian nuclear program that they can take some pride in and show off. If we’re going to resolve a nuclear issue, that’s the only way it’s going to happen where there’s some sort of negotiated settlement and which all sides can feel safe and secure and that’s only going to happen if there is some dialogue between the parties.

WERMAN: Jim Walsh with MIT’s Securities Studies Program, thank you very much Jim.

WALSH: Thank you.