New York Times: It is an election as contradictory as Iran itself: the front-runner is a pillar of the Islamic Revolution now cast as the man who can curb the excesses of hard-line clerics and improve relations with the country’s bogeyman, the United States.
Indeed, this politician, Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and self-styled free-marketer, cloaks himself in the trappings of a reformist as carefully as he wears his tailored
blue-gray clerical robes.
Iran’s Ex-Leader Seeks Return in the Trappings of a Reformer
Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped at all costs: Asselborn
AFP: The world community must “do everything” to stop Iran from one day gaining access to nuclear weapons, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country currently
holds the EU presidency, said on Wednesday. “Everything must be done to avoid having a new country in this very precarious region of the world acquiring a nuclear bomb,” Asselborn told reporters on the sidelines of a Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Security Forum meeting in the central Swedish town of Aare.
US fires warning shot over Iran nuclear talks
Financial Times: The US warned European ministers on Tuesday to stand firm in negotiations with Iran and reject any proposal that could allow the partial resumption of Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.
The warning, given as the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK prepared to meet Iranian negotiators in Geneva on Wednesday, underlines the risk that the talks might break up or lead to increased transatlantic tension.
EU-Iran nuclear talks in Geneva court deadlock
AFP: Iran has warned of the danger of deadlock in decisive talks over its controversial nuclear programme, as the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany prepare to meet in Geneva on Wednesday with Iran’s top negotiator Hassan Rowhani. “The negotiations are so far not entirely satisfactory, but I don’t think they have been negative either,” Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said in Tehran.
West fears nuclear talks with Iran are doomed to failure
Daily Telegraph: Make-or-break talks between Europe and Iran are doomed to failure and US military action will only delay, not halt, Teheran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme, a leading think-tank predicted yesterday. In a gloomy assessment, the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies said America had no simple military way of stopping Iran going nuclear.
US unimpressed by enlargement of Iranian candidate list
AFP: The United States on Tuesday shrugged off Iran’s move
to allow two reformists to run in the upcoming presidential election, saying the poll remained fundamentally undemocratic. The State Department said the decision by the hardline Guardians Council, under pressure by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, raised the field in next month’s vote from six to eight but did little else.
Iran’s Nobel laureate Ebadi says she won’t be voting
AFP: Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has said she won’t be voting in next month’s presidential election because of the disqualification of large numbers of candidates. “I do not see these elections as free. It is not a
free one because not all the candidates get approved and a number of them are disqualified.
Renault to build Megane in Iran
BBC: French carmaker Renault is to build its Megane saloon model in Iran from 2006. The firm’s joint venture with Iran’s Industrial Development and Renovation Organisation and two leading carmakers will make about 15,000 Meganes a year. The car is the second to be introduced by Renault to Iran following the Logan, a stripped-down version of the Clio Supermini, also due for a 2006 release.
HRW Report: Sacrificing Objectivity, Undermining Credibility, Says Associationof Iranian-Americans i
U.S. Newswire: On May 18, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report; “No exit: human rights violations in People’s Mojahedin Organization’s camps”, accusing an Iranian opposition group, Mojahedin e-Khalq (MEK), of mistreatment of its members. This unprecedented report raises serious questions for the public, thus, Association of Iranian-Americans in New York (AIA) will hold a press conference at 1 UN Plaza Hotel on Wednesday, May 25, at 11 a.m. to Noon to discuss the validity of Human Right Watch’s report.
Exiled Iranian opposition group condemns EU-Iran talks
AFP: The main Iranian opposition group, in exile and based in France, on Tuesday condemned the European Union for its so-called “betrayal” for negotiating with Tehran on its controversial nuclear program. “Negotiating with the mullahs’ regime constitutes a betrayal,” Mohammed Mohaddessin, an official in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told a news conference, accusing Tehran of massive human rights violations.
