Free Republic

Iran's gulf of misunderstanding with US By Gordon Corera Security correspondent, BBC News Anti-American protests in Tehran are a regular event The US and Iran almost never speak to each other. "It's the most unusual relationship we have with any country in the world," explains US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns. "It's been 27 years since we've had a normal diplomatic, social and political relationship. And so for instance I am one of the people responsible for Iran in our government and yet I have never met an Iranian government official in my 25-year career." The fiery...

Iran's place at summit raises fears of anti-West alliance By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 15/06/2006) Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arrived in China last night for a summit of Asian states and Russia that Washington fears is forming a new anti-western alliance. Mr Ahmadinejad will seek support for his country's nuclear programme, fuelling US concern that Iran is being protected by its growing friendship with Russia and China, who both sit on the UN Security Council. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in China for the summit He is also believed to be pushing to join the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's leader has written to President Bush proposing "new solutions" to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian head of state to an American president in 27 years, a government spokesman said Monday. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered the letter to the Swiss ambassador on Monday, ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told The Associated Press. The Swiss Embassy in Tehran houses a U.S. interests section. In the letter, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposes "new solutions for getting out of international problems and the current fragile situation of the world," spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham told a news...

Neanderthals Lived in Iran's Kermanshah Caves Apr 27, 2006 The latest excavations by Iranian and French joint team at prehistoric caves of Kermanshah, west of Iran, revealed them to have been early settlements of Neanderthals who used to live there about 85000 to 40000 years ago. The joint team was to continue its studies on other Paleolithic caves in Kermanshah province, but as the term of the agreement has reached an end, the French team have returned back home. This team is to resume its activities in March 2006 in prehistoric caves in Kermanshah province if the agreement is renewed...

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2006 – The international community must focus on the actions of the Iranian regime and not just on the rhetoric of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday. "We have to focus not just on what he's saying," Rice told Sean Hannity, host of a nationally syndicated radio program that bears his name. "We have to focus on the behavior of the Iranian regime, and thus far, every time the international community has said, 'Iran, you must do this,' Iran has done just the opposite." Iran claimed earlier this week that it has...

Iran's spies watching us, says Israel By Con Coughlin Defence and Security Editor, on Israel's northern border (Filed: 04/04/2006) Iran has set up a sophisticated intelligence gathering operation in southern Lebanon to identify targets in northern Israel in the event of a military confrontation over its controversial nuclear programme. Senior Israeli military commanders say Iran has spent tens of millions of pounds helping its close ally, Hizbollah, the Shia Muslim militant group that controls southern Lebanon, to set up a network of control towers and monitoring stations along the entire length of Israel's border with south Lebanon. Some of the...

Diplomatic push is planned to curb Iran's nuclear ambition By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 28/03/2006) The world's key powers will seek this week to reach agreement on a strategy that will build up pressure on Iran. This could lead to sanctions being imposed by the summer unless Teheran halts the most dangerous parts of its nuclear programme. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, along with foreign ministers from the United States, France, Germany, Russia, and China will meet in Berlin on Thursday at a gathering designed to finalise a United Nations call on Iran to comply with international demands,...

Tailor's bag that put West on the trail of Iran's nuclear secrets By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 22/03/2006) Nuclear inspectors have established a link between Iranian nuclear documents and the blueprint for a warhead bought by Libya on the black market. The discovery increases suspicions that Teheran is trying to build atomic weapons under the cloak of its "civil" nuclear programme. As Iran faces the threat of United Nations sanctions, questions are growing about whether it has made the jump from enriching uranium to designing an actual weapon. The new evidence on "weaponisation" has built up from several...

Iran's secret talks with Iraqi militants spark fears of proxy war Harry de Quetteville (Filed: 19/03/2006) Iran held secret talks with Shia militant leaders from Iraq and Lebanon only days before the country's nuclear negotiators threatened America with "harm and pain", independent sources in Teheran have revealed. The Iraqi firebrand cleric, Moqtadr al-Sadr and the chief of the armed Shia group Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, held separate consultations with leading officials in Teheran. Al-Sadr commands thousands of fighters in Iraq, with the power to destabilise further the country and target British and American troops, while Hizbollah's missile-wielding fighters are...

Blair brushes off Iran's call for troop withdrawal By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 18/02/2006) Tony Blair dismissed Iran's call for Britain to withdraw its troops from Iraq yesterday as a tactic designed to divert attention from the international campaign to curb Teheran's nuclear programme. The Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, demanded the pull-out of British forces around Basra, saying their presence was causing turmoil both in Iraq and southern Iran. The Prime Minister meets Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin "Iran demands the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra," Mr Mottaki said during a visit to Lebanon. "We...

'Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader By Anton La Guardia (Filed: 14/01/2006) As Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is "What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?" Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad - recently described by President George W Bush as an "odd man" - and there is another dimension, a...

Rights group attacks Iran's 'ministers of murder' By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 15/12/2005) Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has packed his government with former security and intelligence officials responsible for serious human rights abuses, including the killing of thousands of dissidents in Iranian jails, a leading human rights group said yesterday. After Mr Ahmadinejad caused renewed international outrage by calling the Nazi Holocaust of Jews a "myth", a report by Human Rights Watch, based in New York, took aim at his hardline cabinet - in particular the new interior minister, Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has renewed his attack...

While the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism—2003 report [1] labeled Iran "the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2003," the Bush administration has yet to agree on a national security presidential directive to define U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic.[2] Meanwhile, Tehran continues to edge closer to nuclear capability.[3]The following are excerpts from the 9/11 Commission Report, an unclassified version of which was released to the public on July 22, 2004.[4] The commission interviewed more than 1,000 people in ten countries and conducted an unprecedented review of U.S. intelligence. Among its findings, excerpted below, was evidence of a...

US out to sabotage Iran's atom bomb programme By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 09/08/2004) The Bush administration is trying to find covert ways to sabotage or delay Iran's nuclear weapons programme believing that diplomatic deals struck with European nations have barely slowed Teheran's rush towards the bomb. Intelligence and administration officials are urgently trying to find secret means "to disrupt or delay as long as we can" the development of an Iranian bomb, one said. The urgency stems, in part, from "increasingly strong private statements" by Israeli counterparts that they may be forced to take military action to stop...

EU voices its dismay over Iran's 'flawed' election By David Blair in Teheran (Filed: 24/02/2004) Iran's clerical establishment faced international criticism yesterday when America and the European Union condemned the country's general election as flawed. The US State Department said it did not meet international standards and EU foreign ministers said a "genuine democratic choice" had been rendered "impossible". The EU voiced "deep regret and disappointment" over an election which saw Iran's hardliners retake control of parliament after the regime banned thousands of reformists from standing. Iran's only link with the West comes through trade talks with the EU. Jack...

Iran's Hard-Liners, Reformists Claim Wins Saturday February 21, 2004 11:16 PM By BRIAN MURPHY Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Islamic hard-liners and reformists both claimed victory in Iran's elections Saturday, with returns showing conservatives ahead in the race for parliament but a reformist boycott limiting voter turnout. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the winner of the election was the Iranian nation. He was upbeat about voter turnout, even though it marked a drop from previous elections. ``The loser of this election is the United States, Zionism and enemies of the Iranian nation,'' he told state media.A reformist...

America has convincing new evidence that iran is hiding an atomic bomb project despite Tehran's promise to open up all of its nuclear facilities to international inspectors, a senior US official has told The Daily Telegraph. He said the Tehran regime was secretly trying to build a second and more advanced uranium enrichment plant in parallel to the large facilities in the town of Natanz revealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last year. "There is no doubt in our mind that the Iranians have a lot that the IAEA does not know about," said the official. "The Iranians...

Iran's ambassador quits London Relations sour over diplomat's arrest and nuclear plans Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Wednesday September 3, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Relations between Iran and Britain deteriorated sharply yesterday when it emerged that the Iranian ambassador to London had returned to Tehran and may not return. The Iranians are angry over two separate issues: the detention in Britain of an Iranian diplomat wanted in connection with a terrorist attack in Argentina almost 10 years ago; and western pressure on Iran over its alleged nuclear weapon ambitions. The ambassador, Morteza Sarmadi, flew home after failing to win any compromise...

EU fires 'warning shot' over Iran's nuclear project By Stephen Castle in Brussels 22 July 2003 The European Union yesterday sent its toughest warning to Iran about its nuclear programme and over breaches of human rights, setting a September deadline for signs of concessions from Tehran. In a strongly worded statement, EU foreign ministers expressed "increasing concern" about Iran's nuclear programme and demanded an "urgent and unconditional" acceptance of an international agreement to allow more stringent nuclear inspections. The statement marks a distinct hardening of tone from the EU which has held out for a more nuanced policy of engagement...

Russia refuses to stop aiding Iran's nuclear programme By Leonard Doyle in Tehran 27 October 2002 Russia refused this weekend to abandon its efforts to bring Iran's nuclear power programme on line, which it is feared will help Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Iran will soon commission its first civil nuclear plant at Bushehr, greatly speeding up its clandestine race to produce a nuclear weapon that could threaten its neighbours – unless it brings a pre-emptive attack from Israel, which destroyed Iraq's only nuclear reactor in 1981. Russia is now actively co-operating with Iran to complete the Bushehr reactor, which...