[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

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Executive Summary Iran News/Articles Update-November 29, 2005
The First and Last Paragraph of Each Articles and Source URL For Complete News/Articles Are Shown


Khalilzad to hold talks with Iran

By Masood Haider
http://www.dawn.com/2005/11/29/top13.htm
NEW YORK, Nov 28: US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has said that he has received explicit permission from President Bush to begin a diplomatic dialogue with Iran to help secure Iraq after US troops? pullout in phases. In an interview with the Newsweek magazine Mr Khalilzad said: ?I?ve been authorized by the president to engage Iranians as I engaged them in Afghanistan directly.?

?There will be meetings, and that?s also a departure and an adjustment,? he said.

President Bush is under intense bi-partisan pressure to define a clear period to withdraw from Iraq, as the country spirals into violent confrontations between the coalition troops and the so-called insurgents. Mounting American causalities have undermined Mr Bush?s approval ratings, according to latest poll results.

In the interview, Mr Khalilzad warned of the dangers of a panicky pullout of US troops could bring the region.

?If we were to do a premature withdrawal, there could be a Shia-Sunni war here that could spread beyond Iraq. And you could have Iran backing the Shias and Sunni Arab states backing the Sunnis. You could have a regional war that could go on for a very long time, and affect the security of oil supplies,? Mr Khalilzad said.

US Plays Down Iran Contacts


November 29, 2005
Agence France-Presse
From Correspondents in Washington
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17401842-23109,00.html

The US State Department has sought to play down plans for the highest-level contact with Iran in decades, saying it would focus on Iraq and have little impact on ruptured bilateral ties.

Spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed plans by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador in Baghdad, to reach out to Tehran for assistance in quelling the unrest that has plagued Iraq since the American-led invasion in 2003.

"They share a long border, and there are a number of issues of which they can work together ... in an atmosphere of mutual respect and transparency," he said.

"And inasmuch as Ambassador Khalilzad needs to work through any of those issues in Baghdad (with the Iranians), it would be specifically related to Iraq," Mr McCormack said.

Appeasing the Mullahs?

November 28, 2005
The Wshington Times
Editorials/OP-Ed
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20051127-101632-2059r.htm

In his February 2005 State of the Union address, President Bush demanded that Tehran "give up its uranium enrichment program and end any plutonium reprocessing and end its support for terror." Shortly after that speech, he turned responsibility for handling that issue over to the European Union, which opted in essence for a diplomacy-only approach to Iran. Ten months later, Iran's behavior has grown even more defiant and contemptuous.

As it grapples with the worsening situation in Iran, Washington needs to guard against ill-considered statements such as the one made by a senior official travelling with the president in South Korea last week: The official referred to permitting Tehran to "retain" its "right to enrichment and reprocessing" of nuclear fuel. But the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which grants these rights, also requires participants to refrain from the very cheating and concealment activities Iran has engaged in for nearly two decades. The situation is precarious enough without making gratuitous concessions to Tehran.

Inside Iran Part VII: The Ties That Bind Iran, Iraq

November 28, 2005
FOX News
Amy Kellogg
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176880,00.html

TEHRAN, Iran -- FOX News' Amy Kellogg recently visited Iran, where she interviewed journalists, students and others on life inside the Islamic Republic. This is the seventh in a series of eight installments about that trip, which will be aired every night on FOX News Channel.



Watch Part VIII of the series, which focuses on the Iranian victims of the Iran-Iraq war, Monday at 6 p.m. on FOX News Channel's "Special Report" with Brit Hume.

Inside Iran Part VIII: Saddam's Iranian Victims

Monday, November 28, 2005
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176927,00.html
TEHRAN, Iran — FOX News' Amy Kellogg recently visited Iran, where she interviewed journalists, students and others on life inside the Islamic Republic. This is the last in a series of eight installments about that trip, which will be aired every night on FOX News Channel.
Mehdi Asgari is one of 50,000 Iranians suffering from the affects of exposure to Saddam Hussein's mustard gas.
Even though Muslims fought against Muslims, Iranians consider their war with Iraq a holy war because Saddam's regime was a secular one. And many of the devout at the Martyrs Cemetery believe that the former Iraqi dictator, while he'll be tried in a traditional court, will also have a more important judgment day sometime in the future.

Tehran Lends Pyongyang a Helping Hand

SPIEGEL ONLINE - November 28, 2005,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,387241,00.html

Is Iran trying to sabotage negotiations between the United States and Pyongyang to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program? Human rights official decries conditions at American prison camp in Kosovo. Plus, thieves rob the Gaza zoo of one of its few and favorite animals.
What is also unclear is how Iran will react to the compromise solution, proposed by Russia, that it continue to convert uranium ore itself into "yellow cake" and then into a gas ready for the enrichment process. The actual enrichment would then be carried out in Russia, monitored by international observers. Although talks are due to take place on Dec. 6 in Vienna, Great Britain, France and Germany are only prepared to negotiate with Iran once it has agreed in principle to this solution.


Iran: Two More Executions for Homosexual Conduct

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
(New York, November 22, 2005) Iran’s execution of two men last week for homosexual conduct highlights a pattern of persecution of gay men that stands in stark violation of the rights to life and privacy, Human Rights Watch said today.
On Sunday, November 13, the semi-official Tehran daily Kayhan reported that the Iranian government publicly hung two men, Mokhtar N. (24 years old) and Ali A. (25 years old), in the Shahid Bahonar Square of the northern town of Gorgan.


Furthermore, Human Rights Watch urged Iran to reform its judiciary in accordance with principles for fair trials enshrined in both the Iranian constitution and international human rights law. Finally, Human Rights Watch called upon Iran to cease implementation of capital punishment in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty, irreversibility, and potential for discriminatory application.


Iran: Breaking The Will of Political Prisoners

November 28, 2005
Radio Free Europe
Bill Samii and Fatemeh Aman
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/c30c65f8-ddd6-4312-bd3a-5159e1b30833.html

Activists say Iran has adopted a tactic of housing political prisoners together with common criminals as a way of breaking them down. Iranian officials deny the charges and even maintain that the country has no political prisoners at all.

More than 2,000 Iranian prisoners were freed in early November after receiving an amnesty from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is traditional to grant such amnesties on religious holidays -- it was Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan -- and other significant events.


In June 2004, Ali Akbar Yasaqi, the new Prisons and Corrections Organization chief, said there are no political prisoners in the country. "I positively stress there are no political prisoners in Iranian prisons," he said. Yasaqi explained that this is because parliament has not passed legislation defining political crimes.

GCC calls on Tehran to Enforce Stability, Security in Gulf Region

November 28, 2005
Arab Times
KUNA
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/kuwait/Viewdet.asp?ID=5835&cat=a

DOHA -- A conference on Nato and the Greater Middle East wrapped up deliberations here on Sunday focusing on regional security issues, in addition to the role of Nato in enhancing security in the Gulf region. The final session of the conference focused on the Gulf-Iranian relations, with speakers demanding that Tehran works on enforcing stability in the region.


While noting that the future holds a great amount of development when it comes to this issue, he added that the meeting’s agenda covered all aspects of security cooperation, facilitating travels of GCC citizens between the GCC states, extraditing convicts and using the smart-card in place of passports when traveling within the GCC. Sheikh Nawaf expressed heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to the meeting’s participants, especially Bahrain’s Interior Minister Lieutenant-General Sheikh Rashed bin Abdullah Al Khalifa. Upon arrival, Sheikh Nawaf was received by Amiri Diwan Affairs Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Interior Ministry’s Undersecretary Lieutenant-General Nasser Al-Othman and other officials.

SNSC spokesman: Entire Enrichment Process to be Conducted in Iran

November 28, 2005
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
IRNA
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0511280856201835.htm

Tehran -- Iran's Supreme National Security Council Spokesman Hossein Entezami emphasized here Monday, "The entire process of uranium enrichment must be conducted inside Iran." Speaking to IRNA Political Desk, Entezami reiterated, "The country's high ranking officials intend to have the full cycle of nuclear fuel production in our own soil, in other words, they want Iran to join the world nuclear club."


He meanwhile considered the timely initiative of the SNSC Secretary Ali Larijani in inviting the EU troika to resume negotiations with Iran as "Another aspect of Iran's dynamic diplomacy" on its nuclear projects.

In Russia We Trust?

November 28, 2005
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported last week that Iran possesses detailed drawings showing ways to "cast and machine enriched natural and depleted uranium into hemispherical forms," which is another way of saying the inner core of a nuclear bomb.

Surely no American policy maker wants to allow vital U.S. and international interests to be compromised by the bad faith and avarice of a few foreign governments, in the way they were prior to the Iraq war. It's enough to have one deadly farce at the IAEA without creating a second one in Russia.