Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Nov. 28 Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday that peace and security would only be restored in Iraq once the United States withdraws its troops.
Irans Khamenei calls for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
Iran bans woman writer’s bestseller
AFP: Iran’s conservative cultural body has banned a female writer’s award-winning bestseller, which deals with a married woman’s secret and unrequited love for another man, a press report said Monday.
Tehran school siege ends peacefully
AFP: A man armed with grenades and pistols took Tehran pupils hostage Monday in a junior high school siege that ended without any children being harmed, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.
Iranian diplomat to appear before judge in bombing case
AFP: An Iranian diplomat is due to appear Tuesday before an Argentine judge investigating charges that Iranian officials were involved in the 1994 deadly bombing of a Jewish organization.
Iran offers to share nuclear know-how with Algeria
AFP: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has offered to share Tehran’s nuclear expertise with Algiers, in a meeting here with Algerian energy minister Shakib Khalil, the press reported Tuesday.
Key Democrat sets benchmarks for Iraq study group
Reuters: Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden, who will be the next chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, set down benchmarks on Monday that he said should be addressed by an influential panel considering the United States’ alternatives in Iraq.
Iran promises to help Iraq in ending violence there
New York Times: Irans president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pledged Monday in a meeting with the Iraqi president that Iran would do all it could to stop the growing violence in Iraq.
Hezbollah said to help Shiite army in Iraq
New York Times: A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr.
Philip Zelikow, senior aide to Rice, resigns from post
New York Times: Two months ago, the State Departments counselor, Philip D. Zelikow, offered an oblique criticism of the administrations failure to push strongly for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in the Middle East.
The ’39 parallel?
Washington Times: On Aug. 23, 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov stunned the world by signing the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact under the watchful eyes of German Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. With the sweep of a pen Soviet Russia paved the way for the beginning of World War II by assuring Hitler he would not have to fight a war on two fronts.
