Iranian Alert -- November 3, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

"As if our goal were to improve relations with the Islamic Republic!"

This is the impression I've been getting recently, too.
What is going on back there in Washington?
Going to TALK Khamenei and the Guardian Council out of being "bad guys"? This is a WAR on Terrorism. (At least,
I thought it was.) And these men are in league with Terrorists. There's no "making nice". They've got to GO!!!

US Slams Torture Claims

November 03, 2003
The Australian
From correspondents in Baghdad

THE US-led coalition overnight vigorously rejected allegations by two Iranian journalists they were tortured during four months of detention in Iraq.

"The coalition does not mistreat anyone in its custody - full stop," a US military spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

Journalists Saeed Abou Taleb and Sohail Karimi told Iranian state television after they were freed yesterday that they were subjected to "severe torture" in the early days of their detention.

They described the duration of their incarceration as "terrifying" and "very bad, very bad" upon returning home from Iraq. They did not elaborate on the torture allegations.

The two journalists work as documentary film-makers for Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), and were arrested on July 1 in the town of Kut, southeast of Baghdad, after being spotted filming a US base.

Coalition sources had suggested the pair may have been spying, although IRIB says the two were merely making a film on the life of the Iraqi people after the US-led forces toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein.

They were later transferred to Diwaniyah, and then to Baghdad, before being handed over to British troops in Umm Qasr prison, southern Iraq, and eventually released, Iran's state news agency IRNA said.

Both US and British officials in Iraq have accused Iran of supporting elements inside Iraq that are actively undermining post-war security, a charge Tehran denies.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,7764514%255E1702,00.html

Bomb in Holy Iraqi City Kills Three

November 03, 2003
Reuters
Ha'aretz

A bomb exploded outside a hotel used by Iranian pilgrims in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala in Iraq on Monday, killing at least three people, Shi'ite officials said.

They said the bomb appeared to have been planted in a nearby car and had destroyed much of the front of the hotel.

A spokesman for the Polish-led multinational force responsible for security around the Kerbala region confirmed there had been a bomb explosion and that there were Iraqi casualties.

"There were no casualties from coalition forces," the spokesman said.

There was no indication who was behind Monday's deadly blast, which follows days of violence farther north in Baghdad and west in the area known as the Sunni triangle.

Kerbala, 90 km south of Baghdad, was tense last month after U.S. forces killed eight followers of cleric Mahmoud al-Hassani in a shootout on October 16. Three U.S. military police and two Iraqi police also died.

The cleric is a sympathizer of radical Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, an opponent of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

In August, a bomb blast in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf killed senior Shi'ite cleric Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim and more than 80 of his followers.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=356738&contrassID=1&subContrassID=8&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

U.S. Warning on Iran Nuke Stance

November 03, 2003
CNN
Elise Labott

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. State Department says any decision by Iran to end cooperation on its nuclear program would be "gravely troubling".

The comment follows remarks made by Iran's religious leader threatening that excessive demands by the international community could prompt Tehran to end its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As a party to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Iran "has an obligation to cooperate fully with the IAEA to ensure verification of compliance with Iran's safeguards agreement," State Department deputy spokesman J. Adam Ereli said Monday, adding that Iran must also meet additional requirements put forth by the IAEA in a September 12 resolution.

Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei earlier praised an agreement made by Tehran with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, but warned that Iran could end its cooperation if pushed too hard by the international community. ('Don't push us on nukes')

Last month, Iranian officials pledged in the agreement to fully cooperate with the IAEA, sign a protocol allowing for surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities, and immediately stop enriching uranium.

The nuclear inspections arm of the United Nations expects Iran to provide a letter of intent next week that would set a process in motion for signing a formal protocol on nuclear weapons, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Commission said Friday.

Ereli said, "threats from Iran to end such cooperation, rather than give the IAEA full access to and answers about its nuclear activities, would be gravely troubling and would further deepen the international community's concerns that Iran continues to have something to hide from the IAEA."

Iran had until Friday to provide a declaration and information on its nuclear programs, including answering all questions IAEA inspectors have turned up in their investigations over the past few months, said IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

The declaration and other data were provided on October 23, and Fleming said they were being studied to see if they meet IAEA standards.

She said IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei considers what was handed in, about 200 pages, "very comprehensive." But more actions were expected, Fleming added.

Tehran claims it has provided the United Nations with full disclosure on its nuclear weapons program. Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN that Iran was "extending full cooperation" with the IAEA.

"Whether it takes the IAEA one day or two days or two weeks to verify that, it's up to the IAEA," Zarif said Sunday in an interview on CNN's Late Edition.

Civilian uses
"We have agreed to suspend our uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities and we will send a notification to the IAEA that we are ready to sign the additional protocol and start implementing it."

Iran has denied it is developing nuclear weapons and insists that its program is intended only for civilian uses, such as the production of electricity.

"Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction have no place in our defense doctrine," Zarif said. "And that is the policy that we have pursued and we continue to pursue today."

But he added that signatories to the NPT, who forswear pursuing nuclear weapons, "have a right to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and nuclear technology for peaceful purposes."

"That is an area that is extremely important to us," he said.

The United States has said Iran, which U.S. President George W. Bush has branded part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and pre-war Iraq, must demonstrate it does not have a nuclear weapons program.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/03/iran.nuclear/index.html

U.S. Warning on Iran Nuke Stance

November 03, 2003
CNN
Elise Labott

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1013456/posts?page=44#44

GRIM START OF THE IRAQI NEIGHBOURS CONFERENCE OF DAMASCUS

DAMASCUS, First of November (IPS)
11.3.2003

The meeting of Iraqi neighbours that opened in Damascus Saturday was doomed to fail as Iraq decided to keep away from it, stating that Baghdad would not “accept any recommendations or decisions that come out of this meeting without Iraq's participation".

Foreign Affairs ministers from Iraq neighbours, namely Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria plus that of Egypt, worried by the escalating violence in the US-occupied country and the risks of regional instability, was called by Syria that originally had not invited Mr. Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi interim government’s top diplomat.

The past week has seen the worst bloodshed since US troops entered Baghdad in April, with a wave of car-bombings in the Iraqi capital prompting a host of foreign missions to withdraw or downscale their staff, undermining the post-war reconstruction effort.

But under pressures from Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that had menaced to boycott the meeting if Iraq was not present in the one hand and Iran, one of the few first nations to have recognised the American-installed Provisory Government of Iraq on the other, Syria sent an 11th hour an invitation to Mr. Zebari in order to “save” the meeting from total collapse.

"The way the invitation has been extended was not in keeping with Iraq's dignity", Mr. Zerbari, , who is a Kurd belonging to the Democratic Party of (Iraqi) Kurdistan led by Mr. Mas’oud Barzani, told a press conference in Baghdad.

"In the absence of a frank and clear invitation from the Syrian government for Iraq to participate in the Damascus meeting, it is impossible to take part", he explained.

"A few of us don't see the logic of a meeting without Iraq, especially since it was called for by Syria to discuss Iraq", AFP quoted a diplomat close to the meeting as having said on condition of anonymity.

"We believe Iraq ought to be represented at any meeting dealing with the country", Jordanian Foreign Affairs Minister Marwan Mo’asher said before his departure from Amman for the talks.

"We are in favour of any cooperation with the interim Governing Council that might lead to a rapprochement between Arab states and Iraq, and help put an end to the occupation of the country and improve its internal situation."

Mo’asher, pointing out that it would have been “perverse” to have denied Zebari a seat in Saturday's talks given that Arab ministers had already admitted him to an Arab League meeting in Cairo in September.

“The failure of Iraq’s Foreign Minister to attend the meeting has compounded the situation while some sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, have foreseen that emerging tension would cast doubt on the confab”, the official Iranian news agency IRNA commented.

“They said the deliberations among the participants would take place behind closed doors and the prospects of public discussions are grim”, the Agency said, quoting the same sources as having warned that of the “eventuality of the verbal disputes among participants”.

However, a senior Iraqi diplomat had called on the participants “to do more” to stop the infiltration of foreign militants that the US Administration holds responsible for the growing violence in Iraq, including daily attacks on American forces.

"We are asking neighbours to help us curb border infiltration and hand us information on all persons who infiltrate into Iraq". "The issue of terrorism remains a priority", AFP quoted the diplomat who was speaking on condition of anonymity.

The first such encounter took place in Istanbul last April before the fall of Saddam Hoseyn, the Iraqi dictator.

"It is only natural that the meeting should address the difficulties of the Iraqi people and try to find the means to put an end to the occupation", Syrian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Bushra Kanafani said.

Like all other participants, Syria had opposed the US-led war and the American military presence in Iraq, with whose regime it had long been at odds before a rapprochement with Saddam in the mid-1990s.

But Washington says all the neighbours, but most particularly Syria could do more to prevent Islamic militants infiltrating Iraq through their borders.

A key issue at the Damascus meeting will be whether to contribute troops to a stabilisation force. Under US pressure, only Turkey has so far agreed to send troops, although no action has been taken on the ground, a decision vehemently opposed by the Iraqi interim government, a “melting pot” made of various Iraqi forces, including the two mainstreams, namely the Kurds and the Shi’ites that make the majority of the Iraqi population.

For Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, a pillar of the old guard who form a circle around President Bashar al-Assad, it is "out of the question" for Syria to send peacekeeping troops to Iraq.

No Arab country would take such action, he said last week during a meeting with a delegation of Iraqi parties not represented in the Governing Council. The visit raised question marks over the intentions of the Syrian leadership.

The Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Kamal Kharrazi was one of the first ministers to arrive in Damascus on Saturday morning to take part in the fourth ministerial meeting of Iraq’s neighbours.

Heading a high- ranking delegation to the two-day meeting which is expected to debate the latest developments of Iraq and their effects on the security and stability of its neighbours, Mr. Kharrazi said he hoped that the conference could reach a “certain consensus” over the best ways and means to contribute to Iraq’s stabilisation, according to an Iranian diplomat speaking on condition that not be named .

“The meeting is also expected to discuss the assistance that Iraq’s neighbours can provide for the reconstruction of the country”, he added, pointing out that Iran made some “constructive undertakings” at the Iraqi Donors conference that took place in Madrid on 23 and 24 October.

At that meeting, Iran, the only participant that has no diplomatic relation with the United States while others, except the host country, are Washington’s close allies in the region, Tehran had offered to help actively in the reconstruction of Iraq by providing natural gas and electricity to the predominantly Shi’ite inhabited southern Iraq.

The Turkish, Egyptian, Jordanian, Iranian, Kuwaiti and Saudi ministers have taken part in a sundown Iftar, the meal which follows the dawn-to-dusk fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, hosted by their Syrian counterpart at a Damascus restaurant.

Commenting on the aims of the Damascus meeting, Syrian foreign
ministry spokesman said the meeting would by no means interfere in the
internal affairs of Iraq but it would probe into the repercussions of the developments of Iraq over its neighbour states and the regional countries.

The last meeting of Iraq’s neighbours was held in Tehran in June on the sidelines of the ministerial conference of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the official Iranian news agency IRNA said in a dispatch from Damascus. IRAQI NEIGHBOURS CONFERENCE 11103

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2003/Nov-2003/iraq_neighbours_11103.html

"The U.S. State Department says any decision by Iran to end cooperation on its nuclear program would be "gravely troubling"."

Get ready to be "gravely troubled".

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