The British Sunday Times has reported that Iran's
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supports a more moderate national position towards international negotiations regarding the monitoring of the country's nuclear activities.
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The paper cites growing American pressure and the United Nations enforced sanctions for the change of heart. Associates of Khamenei say the leader is interested in appointing a more moderate team for the nuclear negotiations in an effort to calm escalating tensions with the West.
Such a move on Khamenei's part, says the Sunday Times, would deliver a decisive blow to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has so far refused to back down from his hard set positions.
Sources in Tehran say that the driving force behind the policy switch is Khamenei himself, who has the final say over the country's armed forces and foreign affairs.
Khamenei, say the sources, fears Washington will not only to block Iran’s nuclear program but will also attempt to remove the current government from power. The paper also says Khamenei has taken into account that national interests may be harmed in the hands of an inexperienced leader with a penchant for provocation.
Among the proposals being suggested is an arrangement wherein a group composed of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council along with Germany or another nuclear power, perhaps India, will be charged with supervising Iran’s nuclear program.
Iranian sources noted that Ahmadinejad may be vulnerable as Khamenei has voiced his displeasure with him and due to the fact that the latter has the authority to dismiss the president. Khamenei himself usually refrains from speaking in public but in his privately owned newspaper he slammed
the president's “personalization” of the nuclear issue.
An editorial published in his paper said: “Our advice to the president is to speak about the nuclear issue only during important national occasions, stop provoking aggressive powers like the United States and concentrate more on the daily needs of the people, those who voted for you on your promises.”
Last month the UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran’s trade in sensitive nuclear materials and ballistic missiles, a move aimed at getting Tehran to halt uranium enrichment work.
The thrust of the sanctions is a ban on imports and exports of dangerous materials and technology relating to uranium enrichment, reprocessing and heavy-water reactors, as well as ballistic missile delivery systems.
Analysts in Israel
and abroad have speculated that Ahmadinejad's standing will suffer due to the embarrassing results won his supporters in local elections held last month. His spiritual mentor Masbah Yazdi was only ranked sixth on the country's Assembly of Experts - an 86-strong body of ayatollahs who monitor the Iranian Supreme Leader – while former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's arch-rival was ranked first.
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