AP: Iran’s foreign minister made Europe an offer Tuesday: recognize our right to enrich uranium and we will guarantee never to produce nuclear bombs.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi put the offer in a speech to an energy conference in Tehran about six weeks before his government has to show the UN nuclear watchdog that it has ceased enrichment and all related activities. Iran has already rejected the demand of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran offers Europe deal to produce nuclear energy
Russia makes nuclear plea to Iran
BBC: Russia has urged Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme in order to avoid possible sanctions from the UN Security Council. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would continue nuclear co-operation with Tehran if it complies with the UN nuclear agency (IAEA). In its meeting last month, the IAEA called on Iran to suspend its nuclear fuel cycle.
Iraq frees 130 Iran prisoners, hundreds remain – TV
Reuters: Iraq on Monday released 130 Iranians arrested for crossing the border illegally, but another 270 remain behind bars, Iran’s top diplomat in Baghdad told state television.
Washington and some officials in Iraq’s interim government have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq’s affairs and allowing weapons and fighters to cross their long border. Iran denies this accusation.
Iran plots Ramadan infiltration in Iraq
Washington Times: A top Iranian dissident living in Paris says up to 800 clerics and theology students from Iran are in the process of infiltrating cities in neighboring Iraq in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins Friday.
Ayatollah Jalal Ganje’i, a prominent critic of the Iranian regime, said in an interview with The Washington Times that the influx is part of continuing efforts by Tehran’s power brokers to exploit the crisis in Iraq in order to set up a sister fundamentalist Islamic republic.
EU renews carrot offer to Iran in nuclear standoff
AFP: The European Union reiterated Monday its willingness to renew dialogue with Iran on a host of issues, including trade,
if it suspends uranium enrichment activities.
“If Iran on its side is willing to suspend all activities in the field of enrichment for peaceful purposes, we are willing to continue with the dialogue,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot.
Iran’s Rafsanjani says may stand for presidency
Reuters: Iranian political heavyweight and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has said he is considering standing for the presidency in polls next year, according to a newspaper.
Rafsanjani, a business-minded, mid-ranking cleric would be a strong candidate for president with the likely support of Iran’s resurgent conservatives. He is also a top advisor to Iran’s most powerful figure Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
New Book Claims Iran Harboring Bin Laden
HEO: Shadow War, a just-released Regnery book by New York Times best-selling author Richard Miniter, claims the mullahs in Iran are harboring Osama Bin Laden. The claim is based on the testimony of two Iranian intelligence officials who say they saw bin Laden alive
and well — in Iran!
“According to these two sources, bin Laden no longer resembles the picture that the FBI has put on its wanted posters. He has trimmed
his beard to fit the more traditional look of a Shiite cleric and he seemed to have put on weight, according to intelligence officials
.
US Says ‘Gravely Concerned’ About Iranian Arrest
Reuters: The United States said on Friday it is concerned Iran has arrested a journalist and stopped him picking up a rights award in New York in a sign of what it called worsening violations in the
Islamic republic. Emadeddin Baghi was due to receive next Monday a Civil Courage Award from the Northcote Parkinson Fund, which said he had previously been imprisoned for exposing the killings of intellectuals.
Iran criticises international condemnation of Egypt bombings
AFP: Iran’s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday criticised the international condemnation of the deadly anti-Israeli bombings in Egypt that he said were acts of retaliation. “How come there is no noise about the shedding of Palestinian blood but a retaliatory act is expected to be condemned so much?” Rafsanjani asked during the weekly Muslim prayers in Tehran.
Iran: Imminent execution, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh
Amnesty International: Imminent execution, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh: Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh has reportedly been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, who allegedly tried to rape her then 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage. She is reportedly at risk of imminent execution.
According to a 6 October report in the Iranian newspaper Etemad, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh murdered her husband in 1997.
