Washington Times – Op-Ed, By Ali Safavi: Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi’s defiant proclamation at the United Nations that Iran will press on with its nuclear-enrichment program is yet another ominous sign that ruling mullacracy is hellbent on obtaining the A-bomb. In early April, the Iranian National Council of Resistance revealed Tehran had been digging tunnels close to the Parchin military facility, a suspected nuclear site northeast of the capital, to disguise its nuclear-enrichment activities.
Putting Tehran on notice
Rafsanjani to stand again for Iranian presidency
Finanacial Times: Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani announced on Tuesday he would stand in the June 17 Iranian presidential election for the post he previously held between 1989 and 1997. In a written statement, Mr Rafsanjani called the decision “one of the most difficult of all my years of political activity”, …
Iran: Reports of Ethnic Violence Suppressed
Human Rights Watch: The Iranian government should immediately release Yusuf Azizi Banitaraf, an Iranian journalist of Arab descent, and allow independent journalists and human rights monitors to report on a government crackdown on protests in the southern province of Khuzistan, Human Rights Watch said today. Plainclothes agents arrested Banitaraf, who has written 20 books on ethnic minorities in Iran, in Tehran on April 25 during a press conference held by the nongovernmental Center for the Defense of Human Rights.
France presses Iran over uranium enrichment plans
Reuters: France urged Iran on Tuesday not to carry out a threat to resume uranium enrichment-related activities, which the European Union and the United States fear could be a step towards developing nuclear weapons. Fellow EU member Britain said that any resumption would spell an end to European negotiations with Tehran over the long-term future
of its nuclear programme.
Iranian students stage protest for first time in months
AFP: Students from one of the Iranian capital’s main universities staged a sit-in on Tuesday for the first time in months to protest at human rights violations and the jailing of political activists, witnesses said. The gathering in Amir Kabir university, one of the most active centres of political dissent in the Islamic republic in recent years, totalled some 200 peaceful demonstrators amid tight security and there was no sign of violence.
Dutch FM summons Iranian ambassador after Dutch MP allegedly harassed in Iran
AFP: The Iranian ambassador to the Netherlands was summoned to the foreign ministry here Tuesday after a Dutch member of parliament of Iranian descent charged that she had been harassed while on a trip to Teheran. “The minister has summoned the Iranian ambassador to the ministry and he will write a letter to his Iranian counterpart to demand information about what happend,” Foreign Minister Ben Bot’s spokesman Bart Jochems said.
UN watchdog fears imminent Iran resumption of nuclear activity: diplomats
AFP: The international nuclear energy watchdog fears that a resumption by Iran of sensitive nuclear activity is inevitable, diplomats in Vienna said Tuesday. Earlier Tehran said it would decide within days whether to resume some such activities, despite fresh warnings that the move could bring talks with the European Union to an end and result in possible UN sanctions.
Iran says resumption of some nuclear work imminent
Reuters: Iran shrugged off U.S. and EU warnings that it could be hauled before the U.N. Security Council and confirmed on Tuesday it would resume some sensitive nuclear work very soon. “The decision to resume some activities has been taken and now we are discussing the timing for resuming. But this decision is imminent as well,” Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, told Reuters.
Europeans braced for Iran crisis meeting
Financial Times: European governments intend to call a crisis meeting of the United Nations nuclear watchdog’s governing board next week if Iran carries out its threat to resume sensitive nuclear processes, western diplomats in Vienna said on Tuesday. The meeting at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency would discuss the prospects of a referral of the Iran nuclear dispute to the UN Security Council, where the US would lobby for sanctions.
Iran nuclear case to be referred to IAEA if talks with EU fail: Solana
AFP: European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he favors transferring the case of Iran’s nuclear activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) if talks break down between Iran and the EU, the Russian news agency Interfax reported Tuesday.
