Rejections and Invitations from Ahmadinejad

Stories we're following today:

Iranian Invites Six Powers To Tehran – Washington Post [link]

•  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday invited representatives from a group of six world powers, including the United States, to Tehran, but he said negotiations over his country's right to a nuclear program would be off the table.
• “We will never negotiate on the Iranian nation's obvious rights," [Ahmadinejad] said, adding that Iran would not halt its uranium enrichment efforts.
• A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no official communication has been received, said U.S. officials were "struck at how little new there was in the comments earlier today, particularly in light of the desires of so many Iranians for a new relationship with the rest of the world."

The U.S. And Iran: It’s Time to Talk – Los Angeles Times Editorial [link]

• Without accepting Iran's preconditions -- or imposing its own, for that matter -- the U.S. and its partners should take the opportunity to sit down and talk. The two sides have to get to the table if they ever hope to put their cards on it.
• It would be naive to assume that negotiations are likely to be quick or easy. The likelihood of success is further clouded by the recent political upheaval in Iran, although it's unclear whether that makes Tehran more likely to negotiate in order to reduce its isolation, or less likely to make concessions because it is wounded and weak. All the more reason to start negotiating, if only to learn.

Parsing Enrichment in North Korea – Arms Control Wonk [link]

• Last Friday, North Korea declared that it was in the concluding stage of tests to enrich uranium. 
• The bottom line: As of 2009, North Korea is finally claiming to be working on uranium enrichment. But their claims are limited, vague, and lack any overt connection to military applications. And they haven’t shown us anything to back up these claims just yet.

U.S., South Korea Envoy Discuss Nuclear Claim – ABC News [link]

• Top nuclear envoys from South Korea and the United States held talks Saturday on a strategy to bring North Korea back to disarmament talks, a day after the North claimed it is in the final stages of enriching uranium.
• Washington shows no signs of easing pressure on North Korea through new U.N. sanctions, despite a series of conciliatory gestures by the North, including the release of two detained American journalists and a reported invitation to top U.S. envoys, including [U.S. Special Envoy on North Korea, Stephen] Bosworth, to visit Pyongyang.
  

Obama Boost Opens Door for Nuclear Test Ban Pact – Reuters [link]

• Backers of a global pact banning nuclear tests [the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or CTBT] said on Tuesday they would seize on U.S. President Barack Obama's disarmament initiatives to further their agenda at the United Nations this month.
• Morocco and France are coordinating the drive to get nuclear states such as India, Pakistan and North Korea to sign the treaty.
• Senior officials of states in the (CTBT) as well as the U.N. Security Council will meet on September 24-25 at the United Nations in New York to debate the pact -- the first time in a decade that the United States will join such talks on the treaty.

No Freedom for Mr. Khan – New York Times Editorial [link]

• It was bad enough that [Abdul Qadeer] Khan enabled Pakistan to amass a nuclear arsenal now estimated by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at about 70 to 90 weapons. ...But officials and experts in Washington and elsewhere are concerned that he could still revive a network that was not fully dismantled.
• In a recent court petition, Mr. Khan protested the restrictions, saying they made him feel like a “prisoner.” That is exactly what he should be for his heinous role as maestro of the world’s largest nuclear black market.