Iran will harden stance on its nuclear ambitions

There is bad news on the Iran nuke issue. Iran’s chief negotiator with the West over Tehran’s nuclear programme, Ali Larijani, has resigned. What’s the bad news one may ask? Well, the bad news is that Larijami, though a conservative, was all for negotiations with the US and the west over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In the US eyes he was a “good guy”; at least when compared to some of the more hardliner figures in the Iranian establishment. The west can now expect a stiffer Iranian stance when they get talking again. European Union’s foreign policy head Javier Solana is going to get a taste of the new flavor on Tuesday when he sits across the table with Larijani’s successor, Saeed Jalili, who’s one of the deputy foreign ministers now and considered to be close to Iranian president Ahmadinejad. And everybody knows that Ahmadinejad is one of the hardest of hardliners in Iran today. It is an indication that the country’s top cleric and power-holder, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given his blessings to Ahmadinejad to go ahead and do as he pleases over the issue. One can expect more sparks to fly as US and Iran’s war-of-words intensifies or worse. But what encouraged Iran to firm up its position on the nuclear issue? The culprit is, if one may call him so, is Russian president Vladimir Putin. During his recent Iran visit he has forged a military alliance with the country. Anyone attacking Iran will have to face Russia too. No wonder Iran’s spine has stiffened. Putin has also expressed qualified support for Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear programme. Image credits 1 , 2 Via: BBC