AFP: Iranian President Hassan Rowhani has tasked the foreign ministry with handling the country’s sensitive nuclear talks, his website said Thursday, in a possible signal of a less confrontational approach with world powers.
Iran foreign minister tasked with nuclear talks
Church leaders condemn Camp Ashraf violence
Christian Today: The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales and the Archbishop of Wales have condemned the reported killing of 52 Iranian dissidents at a camp in Iraq on Sunday.
UN seeks Syria peace talks amid military strike threat
AFP: The United Nations is making a desperate new push for a Syria peace conference even as the United States prepares a possible military strike, according to diplomats.
Iran the real U.S. threat, not Syria
Chicago Sun Times: The Obama administration is flailing on the subject of national security, declaring the war over in one breath and thundering against Syria’s use of chemical weapons in the next.
Senate committee approves resolution authorizing U.S. strike on Syria
Washington Post: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution Wednesday granting President Obama limited authority to launch a military strike on Syria in response to its reported use of chemical weapons against civilians.
OMCT condemns the recent attack on Camp Ashraf
Iran Focus: The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) issued a press release about the massacre at camp Ashraf on Sunday. The text of their press release follows.
Syria isn’t Obama’s litmus test on Iran
Bloomberg: Over the past two days or so, the Syria interventionists (a group that includes yours truly, at least some of the time) have argued with great fervor that President Barack Obama’s proposed missile strike would be meant as a message not only to the Bashar al-Assad regime, but to its masters in Tehran.
French PM: not acting in Syria would send wrong message to Iran
Reuters: A lack of international action to the chemical attack in Syria would risk sending Iran the wrong message over its nuclear program, France’s Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned on Wednesday.
Rendell, Ridge ask U.S. to help Iranian opposition group
Philadelphia Inquire: In an impassioned letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, 13 influential political and government officials and military figures demanded Tuesday that more than 3,000 members of a controversial Iranian opposition group be immediately airlifted to temporary haven.
The world’s dictators are ‘listening for our silence’
Daily Mail: Kerry and Hagel refuse to rule out sending troops in to Syria as they tell the Senate that the world’s dictators are ‘listening for our silence’. Kerry said the administration has ‘no desire’ to send ground troops into Syria.
