Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 15 – One of Iran’s most powerful clerics hinted during the Friday prayers sermon in Tehran
today that last week’s London bombings could have been the work of the United Kingdom government. Addressing worshippers at the site of Tehran University, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the powerful Guardian Council, the unelected constitutional watchdog, said, “At times they blame this [London bombings”> as the work of Al’Qaeda.

AFP: The prospect of dialogue resuming between the United States and Iran is more distant now than for years, with the situation unlikely to change under a new government in Tehran, outgoing President Mohammad Khatami said. “We are further from it (a resumption of dialogue) today than we have been for some years,” the reformist president said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television broadcast Thursday.

Iran Terror Website: London, Jul. 14 – Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (VEVAK) has confirmed that Reza Golpour, the 28-year-old author of a controversial book on the secret past of some of the top officials of the clerical regime, has been under arrest since last week. “Reza Golpour was identified and arrested by VEVAK agents last Thursday, three days after he went into hiding”, a VEVAK official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the government-run website Baztab.

Iran Focus: Tabriz, Iran, Jul. 14 – At least 200 agents of Iran’s State Security Forces on Monday conducted a midnight raid in the central park in Tabriz, northwest Iran, according to eye-witness accounts. “At one in the morning, more than 200 of the regime’s security forces were brought to Baghe Golestan Park in their cars and they started arresting anyone in sight”, said one eye-witness, who requested anonymity.

Iran Focus: Paris, Jul. 13 – France’s former Prime Minister Edith Cresson urged Paris to adopt a firm policy on Iran in the wake of the consolidation of power in the hands of the ultra-conservative faction in the Islamic Republic. Speaking at a conference on Tuesday attended by 300 political dignitaries, nuclear and terrorism experts, and representatives of non-governmental organisations, the former prime minister and European Union commissioner said, “Today, we are witnessing extremists seize all the levers of power in Iran. I think that it is time to adopt a firm policy vis-à-vis the Ayatollahs in this country.