Iran News Round Up

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin.  To subscribe to this daily newsletter, e-mail [email protected].

(E) = Article in English

Supreme Leader urges lawmakers to aid government; Ahmadinejad opines for world leadership; Mottaki urges German counterpart to study NPT context; Larijani stresses Iran’s support for Hamas, Hezbollah; Mottaki says IAEA resolution not to halt Iran’s nuclear program 

Politics

• Supreme Leader Khamenei urges parliamentarians to remain united and aid executive power.

  • Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami: "Should the Guardian Jurist be erased from the Constitution. the regime will become Satanic."

  • Ayatollah Abbas Ka'bi says "Islamic Republic without a Guardian Jurist" is the new project of the enemy against the Islamic Republic.

• Fars News Agency's analyst refutes description of the Green Movement as a social movement.

Diplomacy

• Ahmadinejad addresses the elites and intellectuals in Isfahan: "We have two missions: The first mission is to develop Iran and the second is our readiness to take over the leadership of the world..."

• Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mehmanparast: " It is the Supreme Leader who clarifies our duties in grand foreign policy issues...The Americans must with their actions show that change has taken place... but as our authorities have declared earlier, should we truly sense change in the behavior and policies of the United States towards us or the important regional and global issues, they too will notice change [in our behavior and policies.]"

• Bashar al-Assad receiving Said Jalili, Supreme National Security Council Secretary, in Damascus says defending the "religiously legal resistance against Zionist occupiers is the most logical and most efficient way of stabilizing security in the region and increasing the welfare of the nations."

• Fars News Agency claims "the Zionists" have been trading the organs of Ukrainian children.

• [E] Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili stressed the significant of unity among Lebanese political fractions and ethnic groups in a meeting with Hossein Khalil, political affairs deputy to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and Ali Hassan Khalil, the political aide of Nabih Berri, the leader of Amal Movement in Damascus.

• [E] Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Thursday that Iran supports Hamas and Hezbollah because they defend their land. Addressing a seminar in commemoration of local martyrs in Iran's northern province of Golestan, Larijani said some countries criticize Iran for supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, because they consider the two as "terrorists". He said the Islamic Republic of Iran does not at all conceal supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, and added, "We say clearly that we support Hamas and Hezbollah."

Military and Security

• Basij Chief Naghdi says there is no such a thing as "plainclothes agents," and they are members of the public who are much tougher in their behavior towards instigators of unrest.

Nuclear Issue

• Foreign Minister Mottaki urges the Germany’s Foreign Minister to reread the Non Proliferation Treaty.

• Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mehmanparast: "According to our rights in the IAEA, they must provide us with nuclear fuel. But a certain point, we may reach a point where we both produce it ourselves and import some. After all, such needs need to be satisfied...Statements of the President [regarding establishment of 10 more nuclear sites] are a general informational act and the nuclear authorities of the country will soon inform the IAEA through the bureaucratic channels...We do not desire to stop our cooperation with the IAEA. We want to build the 10 new sites under the IAEA's supervision...We are not having any discussion about leaving the NPT..."

• [E] Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has underlined that the recent IAEA resolution will not stop Iran from developing its nuclear program.

Trade

• Mehmanparast: "Unfortunately, our counterparts are trying to use our dependency on gasoline as a political instrument...our long term planning aims at self sufficiency, which means that we will increase our production and should this be the case, will also export the surplus to other countries..."

Photos of the Day

• Ali Larijani on horseback.

• Former Vice President Mohammadali Abtahi, released from prison, meets Hassan Khomeini.