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

Politics

• Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, temporary Tehran Friday Prayer Leader:
  • "They planted discord for eight months but reaped the fruit on February 11th. They had prepared themselves for street fights and the wretched counter revolutionaries had continuously said on television that our followers will go to the streets with the green color, that miserable color...Fourteen international television channels established their base for the first time 31 years after the victory of the revolution in order to transmit street clashes. They had not come to document the myth of the people. But this community [of believers] stormed to the degree that in the words of the Supreme Leader it gave a hard slap in their mouths..."
• JARAS News reports attempts to reform the election law in the Expediency Council.
• Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabayinezhad, Isfahan Friday Prayer Leader, says "Fifty million people participated in February 11th demonstrations."
• Ahmadinejad appoints Mehdi Khorshidi, his son-in-law, as Secretary of the Office of the President and Secretary of the Council of Advisers of the President.

Diplomacy

• Supreme Leader Khamenei, inaugurating Navy cruiser Jamaran, speak of the lies and anti-Iranian actions of the Americans and other Western countries:
  • "Also our neighbors know that such claims are lies and that the United States and the Zionist regime attempt to spread conflicts in order to deflect attention of the Islamic community of believers from the main enemies of the world of Islam which are the United States and Israel..."
  • "Counties in the region are our brothers and neighbors and we believe that the Persian Gulf could, through wise collective policies, be administered to the benefit of all the nations and states of the region... Creation of conflicts and shrewdness is the continuous policy of the foreigners, but we hope that as most instances such conspiracies and their tricks and attempts at spreading discord prove unsuccessful and be neutralized through vigilance of all the countries."
• Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, temporary Tehran Friday Prayer Leader [speaking to U.S.]: "Whether you want it or not, you must consider Iran a great power in the political arena and the people of Iran have also discovered that you could not do a damned thing and will not be able of doing so [in the future.]...Rather than using all your resources to oppose Iran - in which you have failed - you must engage with this regime..."
• Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament, addresses Obama:
  • "Before it is too late, he must do something about his Secretary of State who seems not to have left the atmosphere of electoral competition and is slaughtering the national interests of this country..."
  • Addressing the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Larijani continued: "Why have you tied your honor to the Americans sticking their tongue out? They pay attention to the princes of other countries just as they instrumentally used the Shah of Iran...You are sacrificing Islamic cooperation for the sake of the adventurist moves of a state who is trying to find a hook in the region in order to escape from the quagmire of its mistakes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon..."
• Ayatollah Mohsen Mojtahed Shabestari, Tabriz Friday Prayer Leader, urges the government to choose an "honorable posture against Britain."
• [E] Ahmadinejad on Sunday underlined the necessity for robust cooperation among the regional states to confront the plots hatched by the hegemonic powers against the region.
•  [E] Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said on Sunday that the powerful Iran is a danger for bullying powers and not to regional Muslim nations.

Military and Security

• Law Enforcement Forces Chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam,:
  • "Individuals from the movement of discord who establish relationship with the BBC, which is the medium of the MI6, and Voice of America, which is the medium of the CIA, and make statements against the Iranian nation...are working against the intelligence organizations of the country..."
  • "Freedom does not mean freedom of espionage for the spies of the enemies and does not mean restriction of action for the security forces..."
  • "One can’t harm security and national interests in the name of freedom. Freedom is what is described within the framework of the law and regulations... Islam is based upon the five pillars of pilgrimage, prayer, fasting, taxes and Velayat [guardianship]..."
  • "Everyone suspects the English, and everytime their hand is revealed behind the conspiracies. The evil personality of colonialism and their humiliating view of the nations is in the nature of the English...They arranged the serial killings [of dissidents in the late 1990s] and dealt a blow to the Intelligence Ministry..."
  • "I warn all those who cooperate with foreign services or by sending photos, reports and news and counter revolutionary deeds act against national security: All their actions is under control, is under surveillance and when time is ripe we will deal with them..."
• Mohammad Rasoul-Allah Revolutionary Guards unit in Greater Tehran to be divided into two operational units.
• The Revolutionary Guards establishes its fifth field hospital in Sistan Va Balouchestan Province.
• Commander Hossein Sajedinia is appointed Greater Tehran Law Enforcement Forces Chief.
• Commander Ghasem Rezai is appointed Operations Deputy of the Law Enforcement Force.
• [E] All the airborne bases of the Iranian army were equipped with flight simulators, a senior Iranian Army commander announced on Monday.
• [E] A member of Lebanon's parliament has called on the country's military to expand its defensive capability through extensive cooperation with Iran and Syria. "Iran and Syria are the only states willing to assist our country in building a powerful military," Nawaf al Mousawi told lawmakers at the Lebanese Majlis.
• [E] Two days after its launch, Iran's domestically-manufactured Jamaran destroyer has completed its first mission in the waters of the Persian Gulf.
• [E] Ministry of Information (Intelligence) announced Sunday that a four-member team affiliated to the terrorist Komeleh group was lately demolished in the West Azarbaijan province of Iran.

Nuclear Issue

• Supreme Leader Khamenei on Iran's nuclear activities: "The Islamic Republic will not get emotional while answering such nonsense. We have always said that our religious beliefs consider such weapons as symbols of generational murder and therefore religiously impermissible. Therefore, we do not at all believe in nuclear bomb and arms and do not pursue it..."
• Rafsanjani addressing the Expediency Council Saturday comments the IAEA report: "It is totally clear that parts of this report have been ordered and were produced by elements outside the agency and can't be the position of an independent international organization..."
• Hojjat al-Eslam Hassan Rowhani:
  • "The West's pressure to dissuade Iran from continuing this path [enrichment of uranium] is unjust and illegal. What is the difference between us with Japan, Brazil, India and Pakistan? They want to enrich [uranium] and so do we. All this pressure against the Islamic Republic is truly unjust and taking the nuclear issue to the Security Council was also unjust..."
  • "What we should have told the Agency was that the Tehran reactor is in need of fuel and according to the regulations of the Agency, they are tasked with purchasing fuel and delivering to us. We must just pay money, not anything else. Here a problem surfaced and unfortunately it began from within the country. Meaning that a statement was made to the effect that we must exchange 3.5 percent enriched uranium in return for 20 percent enriched uranium. This incorrect and wrong statement made the Westerners greedy. They said, such a wonderful thing that they want to give us 3.5 percent to us and we should give them 20 percent. They became even merrier when they found out that through calculations they could take away from us the fruit of everything which we have done for enrichment of uranium during the past three to four years. In reality they can impose an invisible three years suspension on us. On top of this they can take away nuclear materials from us since they unfortunately don't allow nuclear materials to enter our country..."
• Kayhan says Iran is considering leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• [E] A senior Iranian legislator said on Monday that the latest report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Chief Yukiya Amano included politically-driven unreal parts and that Tehran plans to inform the member states of the UN nuclear body of these political inclusions.
• [E] The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announces the country's plan to build two more enrichment facilities. "God willing, the construction of two new [uranium] enrichment sites may begin in the new Iranian year (starts on March 21) on the order of President (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad)," Ali Akbar Salehi said.
• [E] The IAEA Director General's first report on Iran's nuclear issue looked into topics which were not a part of the agency's responsibilities and showed Yukiya Amano is an amateur in his new position and needs time to get experienced, said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Economy

• Mehregan Investments company of the Law Enforcement Forces purchases 49 percent of the shares of Marine Installations Engineering Company owned by Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani.
• The parliament's research center predicts zero percent growth next year.
• According to Welfare Minister Sadegh Mahsouli, the cash subsidies will be transferred to the bank account of the head of the family.

Religion, Society and Culture

• A Greek steward on Kish Air deported from Iran for using the term "the Arab Gulf" during a Tehran-Kish flight, after which he argued with passengers about the term and threatened to arrest passengers who protested.

Photos of the Day

• The late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and religious innovator Abd al-Karim Soroush.
• Office of Hojjat al-Eslam Hassan Khomeini.