Iran News Round Up

Politics

• Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi accuses Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's chief of staff, of being a charlatan like Mehdi Bazargan.
• A newly formed Justice and Welfare Front [Jebhe-ye Edalat va Refah] expresses support for Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's chief of staff.
• Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki condemns statements of Baghaei, head of the Iran Cultural Heritage Organization, about Armenian genocide.
  • Conflict could end with Mottaki's dismissal.
• Press denies rumors that parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani had heart attack.
• Sadegh Kharazi, former deputy foreign minister, hospitalized with cancer.
• Video of mobs attack at Karrubi’s home.
•  Sobh-e Sadegh warns Yaser Khomeini against the political connections he is developing

Diplomacy

• [E] Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul to discuss the latest developments in Afghanistan and exchange views over other issues of mutual interest.  
•  [E] Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast stressed on Wednesday that the three Iranian Islands of Abu Musa, the Greater Tunb and the Lesser Tunb in the Persian Gulf will remain an indispensible part of Iran forever

Military and Security

• Firouz-Abadi, chief of the General Staff, on U.S. threats of force against the Islamic Republic: "No target in Israel is outside the reach of our equipment...."
• Sobh-e Sadegh releases an interview with Commander Bahram Hosseini, Tehran Seyyed al-Shohada Revolutionary Guards unit chief:
  • "Since the soft threats constitute the most prominent threat of the day, much of the activities of the 51st Seyyed al-Shohada zone of the Tehran province and the Basij organizations of the Guards in Tehran province specialize in this field... The Ashoura and Al-Zahra brigades engage in the fight against soft threats, and relief and rescue operations during emergencies, and Imam Hossein brigades which secure the human resource needs of the Guards in the province while Imam Ali brigades are formed to deal with security threats."
  • "The Basij members can engage in activities in the brigades of their preference."
• Sobh-e Sadegh's analyst discusses the American Enterprise Institute in its series on think tanks in the United States, accuses Ali Alfoneh of advancing "Iranophobia."
• Basij members attack followers of Ayatollah Dastgheib in Shiraz.
•  [E] A senior Iranian Army commander stressed that the country's Armed Forces are fully prepared to repel any military action against Iran, warning that any silly move by the country's enemies will be reciprocated by a crushing response

Nuclear Issue

• Reactions to the latest IAEA report on the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities:
  • Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast: "Some parts of this report have a non-technical dimension and have become politicized. We believe that the agency should attend more to the technical issues within the framework of its duties and pay attention to serious breaches with the NPT... One of the most important breaches are the activities of the Zionist regime, the nuclear activities of which are not monitored by the agency..."
  • Ali-Akbar Salehi, Iran Nuclear Energy Organization director: "The new report, in accordance with previous reports, does not contain any report on non-peaceful use of nuclear materials. Other issues mentioned in the report are secondary issues."
  • Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, the Islamic Republic's permanent representative to the IAEA: "The report is not balanced compared with previous reports."
•  [E] Iran's Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asqar Soltaniyeh blasted certain western countries for halting the talks between Iran and the Vienna Group (the IAEA, the US, Russia and France) on the supply of nuclear fuel for the Tehran research reactor

Economy

• Supreme Leader Khamenei addresses the seminar of "job creators": "The nation and authorities will undoubtedly bypass these sanctions and will not let them work just as during the past three decades... The enemies of the nation are trying to pressure the people through economic means so that the people will blame the government and its performance. But they don't know this nation, just as in the past thirty years and they are totally wrong in their calculations."
• Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi says Iran is now self-sufficient in gas.
•  [E] Iranian Oil Minister Massoud Mir-Kazzemi says the country has increased domestic gasoline production to 66mln liters per day, meaning that Iran no more needs foreign imports

Photo of the Day

• "Job creators" meet Supreme Leader Khamenei