U.S. Navy raises presence near Iran as nuclear talks continue
MANAMA, Bahrain: The U.S. Navy said Tuesday it had sent a third aircraft carrier to its 5th Fleet area of operations, which includes waters close to Iran, whose dispute with the West over its nuclear plans has stoked regional tensions.
The carrier will join two aircraft carriers already in the area, which recently gave the U.S. Navy its biggest presence in the Gulf since the Iraq war began in 2003, a Navy spokeswoman said.
The carrier Enterprise "provides navy power to counter the assertive, disruptive and coercive behavior of some countries," as well as supporting U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, a navy statement said.
In May, a flotilla of U.S. warships sailed through the narrowest point in the Gulf to hold exercises off the Iranian coast in a major show of force.
Tension over Tehran's nuclear ambitions has raised regional fears of a military confrontation.
"These operations are not specifically aimed at Iran," said a navy spokeswoman, Denise Garcia, citing Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. "We consider this time unprecedented in terms of the amount on insecurity and instability in the region."
One of the 5th Fleet's carriers was moored off the coast of India this month. The navy does not comment on its ships' future movements.
The 5th Fleet's area of operations includes the Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, discussions about Iran's nuclear program continue. The No. 2 official at the International Atomic Energy Agency is traveling to Iran on Wednesday to test Tehran's latest promise to answer questions about its nuclear agenda under the threat of stiffer sanctions.
Iran's gesture of an "action plan" to address suspicions that its nuclear program has military goals, combined with a slowdown in uranium enrichment, have raised the hope of defusing a standoff with big powers, according to the atomic agency's director.
But the United States and EU allies wonder whether Iran's offer of transparency is more than a gambit designed to avert further sanctions against what Western powers suspect is a bomb-making program in disguise.
Iran says it is refining uranium only to generate more electricity and allow it to export more of its bountiful oil.
Olli Heinonen, deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is going to Tehran at its invitation for two days of talks, where he will expect Iran to start fleshing out its "action plan" for answering the Vienna-based atomic energy agency's questions.
The monitor wants explanations for traces of highly enriched - bomb-grade - uranium found on some equipment.
It also wants to know more about experiments with plutonium, the status of research into an advanced centrifuge able to enrich uranium three times as fast as the model Iran now uses and documents showing how to cast uranium metal for a bomb core.
After a meeting of its 35-nation governing body on Monday, the agency's director, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Monday that he hoped Heinonen could "come back with at least a serious indication from Iran to move forward," adding, "To resolve these issues would be a major breakthrough."
Source :
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/10/news/gulf.php
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