By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned on Sunday the United States might take steps outside the U.N. Security Council to pressure Iran to stop its nuclear program.

Rice, who appeared on several Sunday television talk shows, said Washington still had a number of diplomatic steps it could take through the U.N. Security Council against Iran. However, if the Council did not act quickly enough, Washington and its allies would not wait.

"I absolutely believe that we have a lot of diplomatic arrows in our quiver at the Security Council and also like-minded states that would be able and willing to look at additional measures if the Security Council does not move quickly enough," Rice said on the CBS show Face the Nation.

Rice accused Iran of "playing games" with the international community, saying Tehran had had plenty of time to comply with earlier demands to halt its program.

The United States contends that Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran says its program is purely to meet civil energy needs.

The United States, Britain and France want to introduce a new Security Council resolution which would require Tehran to abandon uranium enrichment. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported last week that Tehran had defied an earlier Security Council deadline to halt its enrichment program.

The new resolution would invoke Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, making compliance mandatory and punishable by sanctions if violated. However, the United States still has to overcome veto threats by Russia and China to get such a resolution through the Council.

Iran renewed its defiant stance on Sunday, vowing to ignore any such resolution and to strike back if attacked.

Earlier, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, had suggested there could be still be room to consider a proposal to move Iran's enrichment work to Russia.

Despite its defiance, Rice said Iran was trying to avoid international isolation. She disputed an assessment by her predecessor as secretary of state, Colin Powell, who said in an interview in London that Iran appeared willing to accept sanctions to continue its atomic program.

"When the Iranians say things like, 'We don't care if there are sanctions,' then I ask myself, then why are they working so hard to stay out of the Security Council?" Rice said on CBS.

Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian on Sunday said there was little risk of sanctions on Iran's energy sector while oil prices flirt with record highs.

But Rice said no one was considering oil or gas sanctions, adding that there were a other options.

She sidestepped a question on whether she agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a psychopath. But she said the Iranian president's behaviour reinforced the world's concerns about his country acquiring nuclear weapons.

"I have no idea. I have never seen the man or talked to him," Rice said on CNN's Late Edition. "I just know that nobody speaks in polite company in that way and that he represents the Iranian regime very badly."

news.bbc.co.uk

Police have re-arrested five people after finding what they believe is the body of a missing 20-year-old London woman in a suitcase in Birmingham.
Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, of Mitcham, south London, vanished on 23 January. A man has been charged with murder.

Police recovered the suitcase during a search of a garden in Alexandra Road, Handsworth, and the body is thought to be that of the missing woman.

A post-mortem examination is being conducted at a Birmingham mortuary.

Searches

Banaz, who is of Kurdish origin, had not withdrawn any money since she vanished, and did not take a change of clothing or passport with her.

Searches had taken place previously at addresses in London, Birmingham and Sheffield.

A 29-year-old man has been charged with murder in connection with the investigation and a further eight people were arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.

Of these, five have been re-arrested and are now in custody, a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said on Sunday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4957666.stm

The Guradian

The body of a missing woman is believed to have been found in a suitcase more than 100 miles from her home, said police.

The remains of Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, from Mitcham, south London, were discovered during a search of a property in Birmingham more than three months after her disappearance.

Metropolitan Police officers combed an address in Alexandra Road, in the Handsworth area of the city, and recovered her body.

Scotland Yard would not confirm where the suitcase had been found and said they were not prepared to discuss it further.

Banaz, who was of Kurdish origin, vanished on January 23. She withdrew no money from her bank account following her disappearance, nor did she take a change of clothing or passport with her. The missing persons inquiry rapidly became a murder investigation.

Police said they believed Banaz's disappearance may be linked to a failed arranged marriage.

One line of inquiry was that she may have been murdered in an "honour killing".

A force spokeswoman said: "The body is believed to be that of Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, 20, who was last seen at 5.50pm on Monday January 23 in Cricket Green, Mitcham."

A 29-year-old man was charged previously in connection with the investigation and a further eight people arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.

The spokeswoman said two of those people had been rearrested and taken into custody at police stations in London.

http://eastkurd.blog.co.uk/2006/02/12/was_banaz_killed_for_honour~557185

By Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's president said on Sunday he and U.S. officials had met with insurgents and that a deal with some groups to end violence could be reached.

Though U.S. and Iraqi officials have spoken before of contacts with Sunni Arab rebels, the statement by Jalal Talabani came as Iraq's various factions negotiate on a new government and were among the strongest yet that some groups involved in the three-year-old war may be ready to lay down their arms.

"I believe that a deal could be reached with seven armed groups that visited me," Talabani said in a statement, adding that U.S. officials took part in the discussions in the president's Kurdish home region in northern Iraq.

Insurgents in the Sunni heartland observed an informal truce during December's parliamentary election, allowing a big turnout among minority Sunnis, who had previously boycotted the U.S.- backed political process.

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said the U.S. position has always been to try to engage insurgents into joining the political process who are not associated with Saddam Hussein or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq.

Talabani said: "There are other groups, excluding the Saddamists and Zarqawi-types, who are involved in military operations to remove the occupiers and these are the ones who we are seeking to hold a dialogue with and to include them in the political process."

Talabani, who was re-elected head of state by Iraq's new parliament last week, said the talks took place in the northern region of Kurdistan. He did not say when the talks occurred.

PARLIAMENT TO SIT

Iraq's parliament is set to meet on May 3, but Shi'ite Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki is not expected to unveil his cabinet line-up as Maliki is still studying ministerial candidates for a government of national unity.

Parliament designated Maliki a week ago to head Iraq's first full-term government since the fall of Saddam, ending a four-

Read on:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1907066&page=2

AFP

BAGHDAD - Baghdad on Sunday accused Iranian forces of having over the last 24 hours entered Iraqi territory and shelled Kurdish PKK guerrillas in the northern Arbil province.

“Iranian forces hit a border area called Haj Umran and then entered five kilometers into Iraqi territory and hit the area of Lollan with heavy artillery with 180 shells targeting PKK positions,” it said.

No casualty figures were immediately available.

The attack is the second Iranian offensive against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party guerilla group (PKK) in 10 days. The group is fighting for the creation of an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey.

The initial April 20 shelling killed at least two people and injured 10 others, the PKK said.

Iran is bound by treaty with Turkey to fight the outlawed PKK, which has waged a 15-year insurgency against Ankara for self rule in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

In return, Turkey has pledged to fight the Iranian armed opposition group, the Iraq-based People’s Mujahedeen.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States rejects Iran's offer to allow a watchdog agency to inspect the country's nuclear facilities and will press ahead for U.N. penalties against Tehran, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

"They've had plenty of time to cooperate. I think they're playing games," Rice said.

Iran on Saturday offered to allow inspections to resume if the Security Council turned over the dispute to the U.N. nuclear monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

A report from the IAEA confirmed that Iran had successfully produced enriched uranium and defied the Security Council's Friday deadline to stop the process.

Rice said the offer to resume IAEA inspections suggests the Iranians "are indeed somewhat concerned" about actions the Security Council might take to further isolate Iran.

Her remarks contrasted with comments from her predecessor at the State Department, Colin Powell, who said in an interview broadcast Sunday in London that Iran seems to "have pretty much decided they can accept whatever sanctions are coming their way."

Regardless, Rice said the U.S. probably would seek a U.N. resolution that would require Iran to comply with demands that it stop enriching uranium. Rice mentioned a resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which means it can be enforced through penalties or military action.

"The international community's credibility is at stake here," she told ABC's "This Week."

"And we have a choice, too. We can either mean what we say, when we say that Iran must comply, or we can continue to allow Iran to defy."

While the U.S. and its European allies are pushing for possible penalties, Russia and China - veto-wielding Security Council members - have opposed the idea.

Iran insists it has no plans to make nuclear weapons and does not need or want them. The United States, Britain and France suspect the program is aimed at producing nuclear warheads.

"The international community is completely of one mind that no one wants, needs, or really can tolerate a nuclear armed Iran," Rice told CNN's "Late Edition."

Iran's deputy oil minister said Sunday he did not believe the United Nations would impose penalties because that would boost oil prices even higher.

"Any action like that will increase oil prices very high. And I believe that the U.N. or its bodies will not put any sanctions on oil or the oil industry," M.H. Nejad Hosseinian told reporters after talks in Islamabad with Pakistani officials over a proposed pipeline to transport Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.

AFP
khaleejtimes.com

ANZI, Iraq - While Turkish Kurdish guerrillas based in northeast Iraq continue to wrestle their foes in Turkey, tensions have been brewing with neighbouring Iran. Lodged in northern Iraq in an area flanked by NATO member Turkey and Washington’s foe Iran, elements of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have accused Teheran of attacking their encampments.

The separatists, fighting for the creation of a Kurdish state in Turkey’s southeast, said Iranian artillery on April 20 bombed their positions in Iraq killing two fighters and wounding 10 others.

“There is an agreement between Turkey and Iran to attack our positions,” the commander of the group, Rustom Judi, told AFP in Anzi, a small village in rugged mountains, located near the Iranian border some 135 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of Sulaimaniyah.

“Iranian forces have no reason to do this because the fighting has been between our men and soldiers inside Turkey, far from the Iranian border,” he added.

Turkey says some 5,000 armed PKK militants have found refuge in northern Iraq since 1999, when the group declared a unilateral ceasefire after the capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The truce was called off in June 2004.

“I warn Iran that their aggression against our party’s positions in Iraq will have consequences,” Judi said.

A female Kurdish fighter from Syria, Mezkin Jurdit, added: “Iran has attacked our forces for the past year, arresting many of us.

“Recently, the Iranians started reinforcing their military positions on the border,” she said. “If they continue their attacks, we will start a merciless guerrilla war within Iran.

“Currently our strategy is defensive, but that can change if the Iranian attacks continue,” she said.

In a village near Anzi housing some 50 families, Iraqi Kurdish locals live in fear of being caught in the crossfire between the PKK and Iran.

The rebels have until now kept a low profile, despite establishing checkpoints from which they monitor signs of any possible Iranian attack.

“We live in fear of the presence of nearby Iranian troops. It reminds me of our time under Saddam Hussein,” said Haji Mustafa Yunes, referring to Iraq’s ousted leader who waged a decade-long war against Iran.

The 56-year-old local returned to the village following Saddam’s 1991 loss of control over the region, since when northern Iraq has been under the control of the Iraqi Kurds.

His sentiments were echoed by 20-year-old Amanj Mohammed.

“We’re startled by planes because we fear we could be the target of a bombing,” he said.

Iran has accused Kurdish rebels of infiltrating its territory.

Teheran and Ankara have agreed to help each other fight both the Kurdish rebels who oppose Turkish rule and the People’s Mujaheedeen, an Iraq-based group opposing Iran.

Turkey has long urged the United States and Iraq to root out the PKK from its bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, but it has been told that violence in other parts of the conflict-torn country was their priority.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Ankara during a visit last Tuesday to refrain from unilateral action against the Iraq-based Kurdish rebels, calling instead for renewed trilateral cooperation to fight the threat.

Turkey has massed troops along the border to intensify operations against PKK rebels who are sneaking into Turkey in growing numbers with the arrival of spring when snow melts and makes passage through the mountains easier.

The Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK launched its separatist campaign in 1984.

Bianet -Prof. Dr. Dedeoglu: "Chaotic conditions not in interests of USA. America concerned over risk of independent Kurdistan in Iran. Military buildup at borders against possible declaration of independent Kurdistan as well as the PKK and US policy. "

Prof. Dr. Beril Dedeoglu from the Galatasaray University International Affairs Department says chaotic conditions in the Middle East and Black Sea region are not in the interests of the United States but that until a balance of power is achieved, neither societies nor states will take sides and the chaos will pursue.

Dedoglu evaluated recent developments including US Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice's visit to Turkey, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Iraq, the Iran-USA tension as well as Turkey's military buildup in the Southeast and the new Anti-Terrorism Bill for Bianet.

"Turkey does not have the opportunity to follow a very tense policy with the USA nor is there any reason for it" Dedeoglu said, adding, "this is the path that is being pursued at the time being.

Dedeoglu said that the tension between the USA and Iran as well as the Iraqi Kurdistan administration's role were determining factors for regional developments and summarised his views of the current developments in the region for Bianet as follows:

Rumsfeld in Iraq: "Rumsfeld's visit to Iraq is most likely related to Iran. It is understood that Iran is involved in some cross-border initiatives in Iraq and these are directly related to the Kurdish region. The Kurds are disturbed over this. It is understood they have called in the USA for military duty".

Rice in Turkey: "The Kurds in the region are also of interest to Turkey. If a cross-border operation is going to take place, Turkey says this cannot happen without it. The USA says, on the other hand, that it is not the time. That is why Rice is here".

USA and Kurdistan: "There is a risk of a declaration of an independent Kurdistan. The internal power struggle in Iraq continued. Turkey does not accept this. The USA will most likely change tactic and decrease its support to the Kurds. Under this framework, it is possible to say that the USA-Turkey alliance will strengthen".

"Sides appear persuaded"

Turkey's Persuasion: "The first problem is to persuade Turkey. The problem relates to a crisis developing between Iran and Iraq. The tension over the nuclear armament period has escalated. If we read what lies under these, in reality no one is keen to strike but Iran does not approve of an independent Kurdistan in the region and for the USA to be there".

Troop deployment to Southeast: "Turkey resists by saying the USA can be there but if it uses the Kurds against me, I will not tolerate that. The soldiers at the borders should not necessarily be seen as being there for a cross-border operation. This buildup is against the PKK, the possibility of the declaration of an independent Kurdistan as well as USA policy".

"But both sides look as if they are persuaded. The USA is not objecting to Turkish soldiers being at the border even at point zero. As far as we understand, Rice left Ankara pleased".

Anti-Terror Law: "When you take such a position at the border the first measure will be directed inside. The Anti-Terror Law aims to break the connection between the PKK inside with its external links. It is not possible to search for or find democratic elements in that movement".

"Strategic Vision"

Dedeoglu says the USA has been following a strategy of "linking its leaps" that is spread over 4-5 years and that is related to the integrity of Iraq, the USA policy on the Black Sea and even the amendment draft to the Anti-Terror Law.

"The primary issue of disagreement is not the current situation" he says. "Related to the tension between Iran and the USA, a strategic vision means a period of 4-5 years. The USA is at this time conducting talks to be able to link each leap with the other. This is a linking, a conciliation operation."

"I believe that the USA is persuaded that the territorial integrity of Iraq should be retained for a while longer. Since the beginning of the crisis, there is for the first time an overlap between its own conditions and Turkey's demands: The declaration of an independent Kurdistan will not bother the USA too much but will it will crumble the Sunni and Shiite agreement; the structure they are trying to build in Iraq will become upside down".

Dedeoglu continued with his evaluation as follows:

Tension cannot continue in US-Turkey relations: "The USA, if the term can be used, has 'fallen prisoner' to the policy of the Kurds in Iraq. It is possible that the conflict with Iran will be based on this.

"While the USA has set up its bases in Bulgaria, how long can it continue a policy based on tension with Turkey? It has to act together with its allies to have the bases in Bulgaria be operational and for them to be seen as legitimate.

"It should be seen that under this framework, the talks being conducted are related to the Black Sea.

USA-Iran: "The USA is forcing Iran to make a choice. It is saying 'join my side by changing'. Iran has indicated that it will not do so. So the USA is saying 'those on Iran's side should gather on one side'. Otherwise I do not think they are disturbed personally over the Iranian President".

USA foreign policy: "Whoever comes to power in the USA in the coming period, it is not possible for them to change the current expansion. An overhaul could be possible through cooperation. The Republicans have already started to use this methid. USA policies are not linear, this situation will make it a great power".

Turkey's foreign policy: "As we have no access to all of the data, we cannot see the scene in its totality. But one leg that should not be forgotten in Turkey's foreign policy is the European Union (EU). The Iran-Iraq issue is an operative situation. The EU, however, is a political choice. Turkey should not end up in a situation forcing it to side-track from this. The unchanging reality relation with the USA should be evaluated taking into account the EU. Turkey should look at ways of acting together with countries within the EU

by Tolga KORKUT
www.bianet.org/2006/04/01_eng/index_eng.htm

BERLIN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a psychopath and anti-Semite whose declarations resemble those of Adolf Hitler, Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a newspaper interview on Saturday.

"Ahmadinejad speaks today like Hitler before taking power," Olmert told Germany's Bild newspaper. "He speaks of the complete destruction and annihilation of the Jewish people."

Ahmadinejad has questioned the Holocaust and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". He has also suggested the Jewish state should be moved to Europe or North America.

"So you see, we are dealing with a psychopath of the worst kind, with an anti-Semite," Olmert said. "God forbid that this man ever gets his hands on nuclear weapons, to carry out his threats."

Iran says it has the sovereign right to enrich uranium to use as fuel in power stations.

Israel, believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, says Iran is months away from acquiring the know-how to make nuclear weapons. Other experts say Iran is still years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), delivered a report on Friday saying U.N. checks in Iran had been hampered and Tehran had rebuffed requests to stop making nuclear fuel.

The Islamic Republic said on Saturday it was willing to resume allowing snap U.N. atomic inspections if its case were dropped by the U.N. Security Council and passed back to the IAEA.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A spokesman for Iraq's president denied a media report on Saturday that quoted the head of state as saying U.S. and Iranian officials held talks on Iraq.

Iraq's independent Sharqiya television channel said Jalal Talabani told writers at a cultural festival that U.S.-Iranian talks "dedicated to the Iraq issue" took place "a while ago" in the Kurdish lakeside resort of Dukan in northern Iraq.

"That meeting never took place," presidential spokesman Kameran Qaradaghi said.

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said she was unaware of any such meeting. Iranian officials made no immediate comment.

Iranian and U.S. officials have said in the past that they would hold talks to discuss Iraq, without giving a date.

The United States accuses Iran of fuelling violence in Iraq, a charge dismissed by Tehran, which says the presence of U.S. troops is to blame.

Both sides, which have not had diplomatic relations since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, have said any such talks would only cover Iraq and have yet to decide on how and where discussions might take place.
Some analysts said they could open a conduit for discussion of other issues, particularly the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. Iran and Iraq fought from 1980-88 and until U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 had frosty relations.

Iraq's newly dominant Islamist leaders have close ties to fellow Shi'ite Muslims ruling Iran.

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey: Prosecutors in Diyarbakir in the restless Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey have charged 175 people with involvement in violent clashes last month, court sources said Friday. Charges include violation of laws on demonstrations, and one of operating and membership of an armed group - a reference to the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), accused of orchestrating the riots.

If convicted of the charges, the accused will face possible sentences ranging from three years to life imprisonment.

The latest charges bring the number indicted so far to 265, including 80 minors who could face up to 24 years in prison.

Riots erupted in Diyarbakir, the main town of the Kurdish region, on March 28 after youths demanding vengeance attacked the police following the funerals of PKK rebels killed in fighting with Turkish armed forces.

A total of 16 people, including three small boys, were killed when security forces opened fire and used tear gas to disperse crowds, which attacked the police with Molotov cocktails and vandalized public buildings and shops.
dailystar.com.lb

Three women were crushed to death in Istanbul when Kurdish rioters set a city bus ablaze with a petrol bomb.

Court officials said legal proceedings were in progress against some 171 people, of whom 135 were in detention.

The prosecution has already charged suspects with offenses including membership in an armed organization, damaging public property, preventing public servants from carrying out their duties and breaching the country's law on meetings and demonstrations.

Ankara has accused the PKK, which has fought for Kurdish self-rule in the region since 1984, of deliberately pushing hundreds of children into clashes with the police in a bid to discredit the government.

The bloody Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States, took up arms to back its demand for self-rule in the southeast.

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - The world's nuclear watchdog said in a report circulated on Friday that Iran has ignored a U.N. Security Council call to suspend all nuclear fuel enrichment and has accelerated the programme, diplomats said.

They said the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said Iran had done little during a 30-day grace period to answer questions meant to determine whether its nuclear activity is solely for civilian purposes.

The report was being sent to the Security Council which could eventually impose sanctions on Iran. Tehran has said its enrichment policy is irreversible. It has vowed to withstand any consequences, whether financial penalties or military attack.

Hours before details of the IAEA report emerged, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would ignore any U.N. resolution designed to curb its atomic activities.

"Those who want to prevent Iranians from obtaining their right, should know that we do not give a damn about such resolutions," he told a rally in northwest Iran.

The diplomats in Vienna said the IAEA report confirmed that Iran had flouted the Security Council's demands.

"Iran was supposed to suspend, but since they continue to do experiments, they have not suspended enrichment efforts. The information available to us shows they have not heeded the request for compliance so far," said a senior official close to the IAEA.

The report said IAEA tests confirmed Iran's claim this month to have enriched uranium with a cascade of 164 centrifuges to the low level needed to fuel nuclear power plants. It must be purified to a much higher level for bomb-making.

Iran was also building two new cascades of 164 centrifuges at its underground enrichment plant. IAEA inspectors were monitoring the construction.

Ahmadinejad said Iran was ready to defy its foes.

"Enemies think that by ... threatening us, launching psychological warfare or ... imposing embargos they can dissuade our nation from obtaining nuclear technology," he said.

"The Iranian nation insists on its right to peaceful nuclear technology. We will not back down one iota," he added.

This week Iran vowed to hit U.S. targets worldwide if attacked by Washington, which has not ruled out military options if diplomacy fails to halt what it says is Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons. Iran says its programme is purely civilian.

NO SURPRISES

Diplomats said questions persisted over Iranian research on advanced "P-2" centrifuges, documents on how to design an atomic bomb core, and intelligence reports of links between uranium ore processing, high-explosives tests and a missile warhead design.

Mark Fitzpatrick, nuclear analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said interest in ElBaradei's report focussed on how it assessed Iran's claims to rapid progress towards mastering the enrichment process.

"Answers to such questions will be important in helping the world understand the degree of urgency of the crisis and scope for diplomacy. If the IAEA cannot say much about Iran's progress, then policymakers will rely more on worst-case scenarios," Fitzpatrick told Reuters.

The United States, backed by Britain and France, favours limited sanctions if Iran refuses to shelve enrichment quickly.

Russia and China, the Security Council's other two veto-holding permanent members who want to protect lucrative stakes in Iran's energy sector, have so far opposed such moves.

"To be credible, the Security Council of course has to act. It cannot have its word and its will simply ignored by a (U.N.) member state," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Washington and its allies want to shift the demands made in a March 29 council statement into a resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which would be legally binding.

Chinese and U.S. diplomats said the United States was trying to arrange a meeting on Iran of foreign ministers of the five permanent council members and Germany in New York on May 9.

Diplomats in Vienna said ElBaradei was vexed by Iran's refusal to "pause" enrichment even for a limited time to ease tensions, its failure to keep promises to cooperate more with his agency, and by its growing brinkmanship with world powers.

But they said he was also unhappy about the council's intervention and sanctions threats that some IAEA veterans fear could drive Iran out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran has invoked that prospect of late, threatening to freeze ties with the IAEA and questioning the value of staying in the NPT without a right to peaceful nuclear technology.

IAEA inspectors have found no hard proof that Iran has a military nuclear programme, but ElBaradei has said he still cannot say for sure that it is not conducting one in secret.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Tehran)

DPA

NEW YORK - Three European countries are negotiating a proposal to respond to Iran's rejection of UN Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment, the British UN ambassador said Friday.

Emyr Jones Parry said the draft resolution he is discussing with counterparts from France and Germany should be ready by next week for debate in the 15-nation council.

"We are setting a trend, which is a diplomatic solution," he said. "Our patience is pretty consistent in order to achieve that."

The resolution will be under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows military force to back up the will of the Security Council.

Jones Parry said the three EU countries are in

close discussion with US Ambassador John Bolton.

Bolton said a resolution under Chapter 7 would step up pressure on Iran by demanding "mandatory compliance" with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolutions meant to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"They have to comply or the Security Council can take other steps," he told reporters at the United Nations.

The US supports such a forceful resolution to demand compliance from the Iranian government, but Bolton has said it would not explicitly threaten sanctions yet.

"This resolution itself will not dictate or foreshadow future action," he said Friday. "Iran holds the keys of this in its own hand."

"The point is to enhance international pressure on Iran," he said, adding there was still time for Tehran to back down in the crisis over its nuclear programme.

UNITED NATIONS, April 28, 2006 (AFP) - The UN Security Council has received the International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran, its president, Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, told reporters Friday.

Friday was the deadline for Iran to meet UN demands that it end uranium enrichment activities.

Wang, who presides over the 15-member council for April, said he had just received the report from IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran's compliance with the demands set in a UN Security Council statement made on March 29.

"It is my intention to circulate it to other members of the Council," he noted.

In his report, ElBaradei said Tehran had failed to comply with the 30-day UN deadline, a move which could trigger Security Council sanctions.

The IAEA said Iran had offered to provide a timetable for cooperation with UN nuclear inspectors if the UN nuclear watchdog, rather than the Security Council, oversees Iranian compliance.

US, British and French diplomats here said they expected to present some time next week a Chapter 7 resolution in the Security Council to make legally binding the UN demands that Tehran comply with its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

"We believe the next step is a Chapter 7 resolution making mandatory the existing IAEA resolutions," US Ambassador John Bolton said, making it clear that this would not be a sanctions resolution.

Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which is invoked in case of threats to international peace and security, can open the door to sanctions or even military action.

Reuters
By Terry Friel

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - It's midnight and the restaurant on the top floor of the Sulaimaniya Palace hotel, with its panoramic views, is buzzing.

Seven stories below, the streets of the Kurdish city are still busy and couples walk in the light of the full moon.

This is Iraq. But it's a world away from the claustrophobic concrete blast walls and bloodshed of Baghdad far to the south.

Kurds boast that rents in Sulaimaniya now outstrip London. Whether it's true is hardly relevant -- the boast itself symbolizes the vibrancy and optimism that separate most of Kurdistan from the rest of strife-torn Iraq.

Sher Mohammed, 55, is typical of the new elite in Kurdistan. A former peshmerga guerrilla, he fled for the safety of London in 1990 and made a small fortune with a Mongolian restaurant.

Now he has come back, with an eye to starting a Kurdistan wine industry and luring foreign tourists to the stunningly beautiful, soaring rocky mountains.

"Twenty years ago, people went to Europe, to the United States, overseas," he said at his "Freedom Castle" mansion overlooking a small hill where he once lived for months at a time in a cramped, dirty cave, fighting Saddam Hussein's army and its chemical weapons.

"Now, in the three years since Saddam Hussein fell, they are coming back and bringing their money."

STABILITY, SECURITY

Not only Kurdish expatriates are moving in. The Sulaimaniya Palace has been taken over by a Lebanese company; a Norwegian outfit is looking for oil; Turkish, British, Chinese, Iranian and other multinational firms are looking for bases here.

Kurdistan is selling itself as a safe and secure base for companies that want to do business in Iraq but fear the insecurity and cost of setting up in Baghdad.

"We have stability. We have security," said Omar Fatah, Kurdistan's deputy prime minister and the prime minister of the Sulaimaniya sub-region, sitting in another restaurant overlooking the lights of the sprawling city.

"Companies should come here and set up. We have good infrastructure. Kurdistan is the ideal place for companies who want to set up and do business in Iraq."

Kurdistan has enjoyed 15 years of relative calm and prosperity. It has been semi-autonomous since a failed uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991 that led the United States and Britain to impose a no-fly zone, keeping out the Iraqi army.

The region offers tax breaks to companies, profits can be transferred out of Kurdistan and foreign companies can own land.

It also has oil. Norwegian company DNO announced this month it will start producing oil next year near the Turkish border.

The Kurdish parliament will soon vote on a proposal to establish the region's own natural resources ministry to deal with its oil and gas reserves, marking a further step in economic autonomy from the Arab south.

The main highway from Sulaimaniya to the disputed oil city of Kirkuk, just south of Kurdistan, is lined with new construction sites and piles of new bricks.

But the prosperity driving Kurdistan's cities does not reach its villages. The young are leaving the villages in search of work. Away from the highway even moderately well-off villages have not a single shop or roadside stall.

"We don't have enough food," complained Rashid Karim, an 80-year-old former peshmerga in the village of Sekanian Sheik Bakh, a few miles from Sher Mohammed's mansion and vineyards.

"Our life is getting better, but we don't have enough food. We don't have a school, either."

Iran Focus– Iran’s former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said in Tehran that the Islamic Republic would not abandon its nuclear projects, hours before the end of a 30-day deadline set by the United Nations Security Council for Tehran to cease all its uranium enrichment activities.

“No one can stop [Iran acquiring] indigenous knowledge”, Rafsanjani, who chairs the State Expediency Council, told worshippers during his Friday prayers sermon.

“Be careful and cautious and think about the consequences of your actions”, Rafsanjani warned the United States.

“I seriously insist, do not trouble yourselves, us, and the region. Avoid actions that would create trouble”, he said, adding that the West should return to the negotiations table.

In March, the Security Council adopted a “Presidential Statement” unanimously giving Iran until April 28 to suspend all of its uranium enrichment activities and resume its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On Friday, hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran “does not give a damn” about the demands of the Security Council.

Iran Focus – Iran’s radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Friday that the Islamic Republic would ignore resolutions by the United Nations Security Council calling on it to suspend its uranium enrichment. His remarks, which were aired on state television and carried by the official news agency, came on the final day of a 30-day deadline Tehran had been given by the Security Council to suspend all its uranium enrichment activities.

“Obtaining peaceful nuclear energy is the first step by the Iranian nation to conquer the obstacles to advancements”, Ahmadinejad told a crowd at a rally in north-west Iran.

“The enemies imagine that they can halt our nation from continuing its proud path with propaganda, creating a false atmosphere, political threats and embargo of junk consumer goods”, he said, adding that the Islamic Republic was a nuclear state “whether they like it or not”.

“Those who want to prevent the Iranian nation from its rights with these methods must know that Iran does not give a damn about any such directives or resolutions”, Ahmadinejad said, referring to the demand by the Security Council.

The Los Angeles Times
Op-Ed

Let me tell you about the next war. It will start sooner than you think — sometime between now and September. And it will be precipitated by the 700-million dollars Russian deal this week to sell Tor air defense missile systems to Iran.

When the war begins, it will be between Iran and Israel. Before it ends, though, it may set the whole of the Middle East on fire, pulling in the United States, leaving a legacy of instability that will last for generations and permanently ending a century of American supremacy.

Despite the high stakes, the Bush administration seems barely to have noticed the danger posed by the Russian missile sale. But the signs are there, for those inclined to read them.

As international pressure over their nuclear program mounts, the Iranians have become increasingly bellicose toward the U.S. and Israel. On Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel was a "fake regime" that "cannot logically continue to live." On Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, warned that "if the U.S. ventured into any aggression on Iran, Iran will retaliate by damaging the U.S. interests worldwide."

Israel has upped the rhetorical heat as well. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated Israel's determination to "make sure no one has the capability or the power to commit destruction against us."

This alone should make any observer jittery. In June 1981, Israel unilaterally launched an airstrike against a nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed and well-concealed, making a preemptive Israeli strike far more difficult this time around. But there's no reason to doubt Israel's willingness to try.

Of course, there's no firm evidence that Iran has offensive nuclear capabilities. And even a successful military strike against Iran would be a risky move for Israel, potentially igniting regionwide instability. Absent external meddling, Israel has a substantial incentive to wait to see if a diplomatic solution can be found.

But Russian brinksmanship is about to remove Israel's incentive to pursue a peaceful diplomatic path.

Russian leaders continue to mouth the usual diplomatic platitudes about democracy and global cooperation, but Russia is actually playing a complex double game. On Tuesday, Russia launched a spy satellite for Israel, which the Israelis can use to monitor Iran's nuclear facilities. On the same day, Russian leaders confirmed their opposition to any U.N. Security Council effort to impose sanctions against Iran, and their intention to go through with the lucrative sale of 29 Tor M1 air defense missile systems to Iran.

"There are no circumstances which would get in the way of us carrying out our commitments in the field of military cooperation with Iran," declared Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of Russia's National Security Council.

The upcoming deployment of Tor missiles around Iranian nuclear sites dramatically changes the calculus in the Middle East, and it significantly increases the risk of a regional war. Once the missile systems are deployed, Iran's air defenses will become far more sophisticated, and Israel will likely lose whatever ability it now has to unilaterally destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

The clock is ticking for Israel. To have a hope of succeeding, any unilateral Israeli strike against Iran must take place before September, when the Tor missile deployment is set to be completed.

At best, a conflict between Israel and Iran (with resulting civilian casualties) would further inflame anti-Israel sentiment in the Islamic world, with a consequent increase in terrorism, both against Israel and against the U.S., Israel's main foreign backer. At worst — if the U.S. gets drawn into the conflict directly — the entire Middle East could implode, terrorist attacks worldwide would increase, the already overstretched U.S. military would be badly damaged and U.S. global influence would wane — perhaps forever.

So what is Russia up to? Andrei Piontkovsky, a Russian political analyst, suggests that Russia's oil and gas oligarchs wouldn't shed any tears over a war in the Middle East, especially if it's a war that ensnares the U.S. and keeps oil prices high.

Even so, it may not be too late to avert a new war in the Middle East. A quiet but firm U.S. threat to boycott the G-8 summit in July in St. Petersburg might inspire Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to freeze the missile transfer. And a promise to facilitate Russian entry into the World Trade Organization might even get Russia's oil and gas oligarchs on board. Freezing the missile sale would buy crucial time to find a diplomatic solution to the stalemate over Iran's nuclear program.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears to be asleep at the wheel, too distracted by Iraq, skyrocketing gas prices and plummeting approval ratings to devote any attention to Russia's potentially catastrophic mischief.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.

KurdishMedia.com
By Sirvan Kaveh

There has always been a hidden debate among Kurds from Iran and Kurds from Eastern Kurdistan. Eastern Kurdistan has been long regarded as the “piece” of Kurdistan that lies within modern Iran’s borders, which includes the cities of Sanandaj, Kermanshah, Mahabad and Ormiye just to name a few. Therefore, removing any intention of being political, one can assume that an Eastern Kurd is nothing more than an Iranian Kurd. This is quite opposite of the beliefs of Kurds living in, or who are from, this part of Kurdistan. To the Iranian Kurd, being regarded as an Eastern Kurd makes no sense because the notion of a united greater Kurdistan (including the regions within Turkey, Iraq and Syria) does not exist within their minds. To the Eastern Kurd, being regarded as an Iranian Kurd is the greatest insult to their identity and life-long struggle against the Iranian regimes.

One may wonder why there is a sense of Iranian nationalism among Iranian Kurds, and why those same Kurds believe first and foremost in the national unity and democracy of Iran. One may wonder why there is such a division among Eastern Kurds and Iranian Kurds when they are from the same cities and regions of Kurdistan. Why does one believe in the national unity of Iran, while the other believes in uniting with Kurds across the border? The answers are not so simple but they can be found in the arguments of those who advocate Iran’s unity. Sadly, the same arguments are those that have placed Kurds in the powerless position they are in today. To understand the arguments of these Iranian Kurds, one must understand the history of Iran.

The creation of Iran is not well-defined. To many Iranians, the history of Iran dates back to the establishment of the Elamite Empire, and existed through the era of the Medes or Kurdish ancestors, who established the Median Empire. However, it was Cyrus the Great who successfully united the Indo-Iranian tribes, which includes Kurds, and created what has been continuously referred to as the “land of the people.” This “land of the people” successively known as “Iran” under the Achaemenid Dynasty is a notion, which many different Iranians hold and believe to this day. However, the fundamental principles of human rights, which Iran was established under Cyrus is a much more loosely-held notion. Throughout the next few hundred year after Achaemenid rule, ethnic Persians and Kurds would keep themselves occupied with power struggles that the Kurds would more often lose. One must wonder why this so-called “land of the people” quickly became a “land of the Farsi people.”

Back to the Iranian Kurd versus Eastern Kurd argument: The Iranian Kurd has based their argument of a united Iran on Persians and Medes who coexisted thousands of years ago. The Eastern Kurd on the other hand has based their argument on the empty promises of Iran and the oppression within Iran. To this very day, Iranists continue to speak of Persian and Kurdish coexistence, unity, and even brotherhood. However, these same Iranists have turned the blind eye in the face of oppression. The notion of brotherhood exists but the actions are lacking. Kurds have been treated unequally in Iran in terms of social, cultural and economic rights for decades, if not centuries. One may argue that the cultural rights in Iran have been better than those same rights in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, but what about the social and economic rights? What about the rights that affect peoples’ daily lives? While Persian Tehran grows, Kurdish cities in the west of Iran are deprived and neglected by the central government; Kurds are discriminated against, not given the jobs they are qualified for, jailed and murdered for speaking up about it, and laws are enforced more strictly in order to contain the people living there. These are sad facts that existed throughout Shah’s era and that exist today in the Ayatollah’s Islamic Republic. And what about cultural rights anyways? Is it enough that the Shah of Iran granted Kurds the rights to publications in the Kurdish language when his claim was that Kurdish is nothing more than a dialect of the Persian language? And that it was unnecessary for Kurds to teach Kurdish since Persian or Farsi was the official mother tongue of all Iranians? Are these the Iranian rights that Kurds should be satisfied with? The arguments of the pro-Iranian Kurd say we should be satisfied.

The Eastern Kurd has been ridiculed, mocked and attacked by Iranian Kurds and non-Kurdish Iranians alike for their Eastern Kurdish belief of an independent Kurdistan. The Iranians tell the Eastern Kurds that they are separatists who will fail in their attempt to break up the glorious Iranian nation. However, to the Eastern Kurd, he or she is far from a separatist. He or she is not separating, but instead, unifying with Kurdish brothers and sisters across the border of Iran. The Iranian Kurd says an independent Kurdistan is nothing more than an unrealistic dream. History has, however, proved that a unified and democratic Iran in which all ethnic groups are treated equally is the unrealistic dream.

There was a recent comment made by an Iranian Kurd who claimed that PJAK, PDKI and Komala were going the wrong direction by mentioning Kurdistan in their policies. However, this Iranian Kurd must have been ignorant to the policies and discussions of the three mentioned parties. These parties have acted just like the Iranian Kurd and have called for a united Iran. Therefore, ironically, the Iranian Kurd was correct in his or her statement. The PJAK, PDKI and Komala are going in the wrong direction: Their focus should remain with Kurdistan, not Iran. The meaning of the “Iranian” has changed over the last few thousand years. Iranian Kurds today continue hold their nationality as Iranian and maintain their ethnicity as Kurdish. However, the Iranian Persian does not exist. The Iranian is the Persian. “Iranian” was once used to describe all tribes of Indo-Iranian decent, which included Persians and Kurds. However, throughout the course of history, “Iran” or “Iranian” has become synonymous with “Persia” or “Persian” identity. Persian identity based upon Persian culture, values and the Persian language. The “Iranian” has therefore left no room for the Kurd.

Iran Focus– The top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the governor of Iran’s southern province of Khuzestan issued a stern warning to the United States and Britain on Thursday to “stop meddling in Iran’s internal affairs” and creating “insecurity” in the province, the heart of Iran’s oil industry.

“For the past two weeks, America has stationed a brigade of its forces on the borders of Khuzestan [and Iraq], despite the fact that the military responsibility for the region from al-Amara to Basra had been given to the British”, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi told a gathering of senior commanders of the Bassij militia in the volatile city of Ahwaz, provincial capital of Khuzestan.

“This action shows that either the Americans don’t trust the British or these two have problems with each other”, Safavi said. “We warn the U.S. and Britain not to meddle in Iran’s internal affairs”.

The top Revolutionary Guards commander said the United States was “the principal enemy of Muslims around the world”, adding that “America’s hands are “stained with the blood of Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan”.

Safavi claimed that members of the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin (also known as Mujahedin-e Khalq or MeK), had been stationed alongside the U.S. brigade in the south as part of the campaign to destabilise Khuzestan Province.

“We have to be sufficiently prepared to counter the plots being hatched by these enemies”, Safavi said.

Speaking at the same meeting, the governor of Khuzistan Province, Revolutionary Guards Brigadier General Hayat Moqaddam said security in the province could only be established by “expanding the Bassij forces”. The Bassij is an arm of the Revolutionary Guards composed of Islamist zealots.

“As we all know, 65 percent of Iran’s oil and gas, 15 percent of thermal electricity, 88 percent of hydro-electric power, and a third of our country’s agricultural produce come from Khuzestan Province”, the governor said, underlining the unique position of the oil-rich province in Iran’s economy.

“We don’t believe that the insecurity in Khuzestan Province is an indigenous issue”, the general said. “This is a foreign-driven crisis that has its roots in the conspiracies of America, Britain, and Israel against the Islamic revolution, the Islamic Republic, and the people of Iran”.

Khuzestan Province has been the scene of unremitting anti-government protests since early 2005.

The Washington Times
Commentary
By James Hackett

Some observers ask, why not just let Iran go nuclear? The answer is that nuclear weapons in the hands of the mullahs would be the most dangerous combination since the dawn of the nuclear age -- a nuclear-armed state with ballistic missiles led by religious zealots. It would be a serious threat to world peace and to the very survival of the 6 million people, Jews and Arabs alike, who live in Israel.

At a recent conference in support of the Palestinian government led by Hamas, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel "is heading toward annihilation." Coupling this talk with his announcement Iran had successfully enriched uranium, Mr. Ahmadinejad made clear the intent of the Iranian leadership to destroy Israel.

It is not an idle threat. Iran is not a minor sheikdom. With more than 66 million people and an area larger than California, Texas, New York, Michigan and Ohio combined, it is a major country with a long history. Just as Cyrus the Great created the Persian Empire there 2,500 years ago, the ayatollahs now seek to create a Shi'ite empire that will dominate the Middle East. Tehran already is using its vast oil wealth to support the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon and promises support for Hamas in Palestine. But to dominate its Arab neighbors, Iran must demonstrate its power by destroying their mutual enemy, Israel.

Iran has been developing ballistic missiles since its war with Iraq in the mid-1980s, first purchasing Russian Scuds and then producing its own model, called Shahab-1, and then extending its range as Shahab-2. The current version, Shahab-3, is based on the North Korean Nodong. With a range of 800 miles, it can reach all of Israel.

Iran is believed to have between 50 and 100 operational Shahab-3s and produces one a month, with production reportedly being increased. Modifications can extend its range to 1,000 miles, and by stacking on top a Shahab-2, a range of more than 2,000 miles could be achieved, which would reach Berlin. Tehran also may be buying North Korea's longer-range Taepodong-2. With a second stage on top, that missile could reach the U.S. East Coast.

It was this relationship President Bush referred to four years ago when he declared Iraq, Iran and North Korea an Axis of Evil. He was widely criticized for using undiplomatic language, but he was right. The world's evil regimes were trading weapons of mass destruction. And that was before the extent of the nuclear weapons bazaar run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Kahn was known.

Tehran recently claimed missile advances that probably are no more than propaganda. But Iran is known to be working on solid-fuel rocket engines for a "space launch vehicle," which really would be a long-range missile, and a nose cone that can carry a nuclear weapon. The London Daily Telegraph has cited intelligence sources that claim Russian and Chinese engineers helped Iran produce a new conical warhead for the Shahab-3 that can carry a spherical nuclear device similar to the Hiroshima bomb.

Whether or not that is true, Iran is buying and producing both ballistic and cruise missiles, with help from North Korea, China and Russia, and processing uranium. This adds up to nuclear weapons and missiles that can deliver them to increasing distances. Whether this capability is achieved in a few years or longer is subject to debate. But there is little confidence in last year's intelligence estimate that it will take a decade.

The danger is too great not to continue every effort to prevent Iran from completing its development of nuclear weapons. If the U.N. can't act because of Russian and Chinese opposition, NATO or a new alliance of the willing must take the lead and apply meaningful sanctions. Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. But while diplomacy is at work, it is necessary to improve defenses.

Helping Israel upgrade its Arrow interceptors is most important since Israel is the prime target. It also is urgent to get sea-based missile defenses on ships in the Persian Gulf, to build the planned missile defense site in Europe, and to speed development of boost-phase defenses that can stop missiles of any range or capability.

James Hackett is a contributing writer to The Washington Times and is based in Carlsbad, Calif.

VAN (DIHA) -6 each month jail sentence was given to 7 person who were in the Arrangement Committee for Kurdish songs and speches chanted in the congress of annuled DEHAP( pro-Kurdish Party) Bitlis Province Organization.

The trial opened about the 1 st Common Councill Meeting realized by annuled DEHAP Bitlis Province Organization in 11 may 2003 in the Manolya Cafe, was completed. 6 month each jail sentence was given to members of Arrangement Committee Mehmet Salih Yalcınkaya, Gurcu Araz, Enver Kurtulus, Sahin Coban, Celaletin Ilbar, Abdurrahim Eren, Mehmet Can Demir for Kurdish slogans and songs were chanted in the congress. The members of Arrangement Committee said that the decision is not appropriate to process of accordance with EU, and this ban on Kurdish in political party works should be removed immediately.

An attacked was made to Dersim Gendarme Station. As a result of the attack, which was made by HPG guerillas, it was defined that, according to the first determinations, 2 soldiers died and one was injured.

It was learned that, the attack was made by a group who invaded Karsilar Gendarme Station at about 23.00 o'clock, with a vehicle, had thrown a grenade to the station and opened fire on control point. 2 soldiers died and 1 soldier was injured.

By Selcan Hacaoglu

The Associated Press - Turkey has deployed more than 30,000 additional troops in its predominantly Kurdish southeast and along its rugged border with Iraq and Iran to fight Kurdish guerrillas and stop them from coming across the frontier, officials said Thursday.

Kurdish rebels killed two Turkish soldiers and injured a third in a grenade attack Wednesday on a military outpost, the Anatolia news agency reported, raising the number of Turkish troops killed this year to at least 17. More than 40 Kurdish guerrillas have also been killed in the same period in a series of clashes.

The Turkish deployment, which has been going on for several weeks, boosts an already large garrison in the region that by some estimates tops 250,000 soldiers.

Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, have bases in northern Iraq but also have substantial forces in the mountains of southeastern Turkey. They typically step up their attacks in the spring, when winter snow melts, clearing mountain passes in the region. Turkey often increases its military activities in response.

"(The deployment) is only aimed to prevent infiltrations of the terrorist organization into Turkey," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said. Turkey regards the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Iran also reportedly has moved forces to the border, and last week shelled a mountainous region inside Iraq used by anti-Iranian Kurdish fighters believed to be linked to the PKK.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, has expressed concern over reported Iranian and Turkish troop concentrations on the borders.

Gul said that since Iraq doesn't "have the capability to fight terrorism, they should be pleased with the measures we have taken and they should help us."

Turkish soldiers have been pursuing Kurdish guerrillas across the border into Iraq, penetrating up to six miles, according to a local official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Turkey already has an estimated 2,000 soldiers stationed inside Iraq and limited incursions inside of Iraq in pursuit of rebels have not been uncommon in the past.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish government in 1984. The fighting has so far claimed more than 37,000 lives.

By Edmund Blair

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Thursday it would pursue uranium enrichment in defiance of outside pressure, a day before the U.N. nuclear watchdog delivers a verdict on whether Tehran has met U.N. Security Council demands.

"If you think by frowning at us, by issuing resolutions ... you can impose anything on the Iranian nation or force it to abandon its obvious right, you still don't know its power," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a rally in northwest Iran.

"We have obtained the technology for producing nuclear fuel ... No one can take it away from our nation."

Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is widely expected to tell the council and the agency's board on Friday that Iran has not stopped purifying uranium or satisfied IAEA queries as the top U.N. body asked a month ago.

The West accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian programme. Tehran, which denies the charge, said this month it had processed uranium to the level used in power stations for the first time and planned large-scale enrichment.

The United States, backed by Britain and France, favours limited sanctions if Iran refuses to halt enrichment very soon. Russia and China, the U.N. Security Council's other two veto-holding permanent members, have so far opposed such moves.

"To be credible, the U.N. Security Council of course has to act," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said before talks on the issue with NATO foreign ministers in Bulgaria.

"It cannot have its word and its will simply ignored by a (U.N.) member state."

More defiance from Iran, however, was what she said she expected, deeming it "highly unlikely" Tehran would comply with international demands and suspend uranium enrichment.

Rather than pushing for sanctions immediately, the Western powers may put forward a resolution to make U.N. demands set out in a March 29 council statement legally binding.

They would propose punitive measures if Iran did not comply reasonably promptly, said a council diplomat in New York.

FASTER ENRICHMENT?

An exiled opposition group said Iran was working at secret military sites to develop a better type of centrifuge than the "P-1" machines at its Natanz enrichment plant, which would allow it to make fuel for an atom bomb faster than current estimates.

The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has reported accurately on hidden Iranian nuclear sites in the past but whose claims could not be verified, said Iran was researching "P-2" centrifuges in secret areas of Natanz and a site near Tehran.

"They need months and not years to produce these (P-2) centrifuges," Mohammad Mohaddessin, a leading NCRI official, told Reuters.

With P-2s in operation, analysts would have to shorten estimates that Iran was still three to 10 years away from bomb-making capacity.

After talks in the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasised the need for diplomacy but differed over the Council's role.

After Merkel had stressed its importance in the dispute, Putin pointedly said:

"The IAEA must continue to play a major, key role and it must not shrug off its responsibilities to resolve such questions and shift them onto the U.N. Security Council."

However, the Russian leader did not reiterate Moscow's long-stated opposition to sanctions.

China gave no sign it was ready to line up behind Western powers over sanctions but analysts said it was unlikely to block them.

Again advocating negotiations, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing called for calm, restraint and patience.

"China urges all parties to avoid measures that could worsen the situation," a spokesman said.

While the United States is keeping military options open in case diplomacy fails, NATO commanders stress they have not been charged at any level to study plans for the use of force.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Iran would strike at U.S. interests worldwide if it is attacked.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing, Louis Charbonneau in Tomsk, Matthew Bigg in Paris, Mark John and Michael Winfrey in Sofia)

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey said neighboring Iraq should be pleased with Turkish military reinforcements at their border because Baghdad was unable on its own to tackle Kurdish rebels based on its territory.

"If they (the Iraqis) do not have adequate forces, if their forces do not have the adequate capabilities to fight terror, then they should be pleased with the measures we are taking," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in televised remarks in the northwestern city of Edirne.

"There is absolutely nothing... that should cause hesitation among the Iraqis because what is being done is aimed totally at preventing the terrorist organization from infiltrating Turkey.

"They (the Iraqis) should be even helping us in our activities," he said.

The US ambassador to Turkey lent support to the enhanced measures at the frontier, but warned that any cross-border operations by Turkish forces would be "unwise."

Turkey has long urged the United States and Iraq to root out the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from its bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, but it has been told that violence in other parts of the conflict-torn country was their priority.

The PKK, which took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey in 1984, is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States.

The issue has become of increasing importance for Turkey in recent weeks amid escalating clashes between the PKK and the army and a series of bomb attacks blamed on the group in urban centers.

Turkey has massed troops along the border to intensify operations against PKK rebels who are sneaking into Turkey in growing numbers with the arrival of spring when snow melts and makes passage through the mountains easier.

Northern Iraq is administered by the Iraqi Kurds, who have had tense relations with Turkey since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Ankara denied media reports Wednesday that Turkish commandos were crossing into Iraq to pursue PKK rebels in hit-and-run operations.

Diplomats said the Iraqi ambassador handed a note seeking information on the military build-up at the border, but denied that the note included a protest over the alleged cross-border operations.

US ambassador Ross Wilson said Thursday they did not have any intelligence that Turkish commandos were pursuing rebels on Iraqi territory.

"We think that cross-border operations would be unwise," Wilson told reporters, according to a transcript released by the embassy.

"We certainly support the work that Turkey is doing... to strengthen its border controls (and) its ability to interdict terrorists who come across," he said. "We do not believe that there should be a sanctuary anywhere for PKK terrorists."

Washington, he said, was ready to resume trilateral meetings with Ankara and Baghdad once the new Iraqi government is formed "to focus on the problem of the PKK presence in northern Iraq and try together to do something about it."

During a visit to Ankara Tuesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged US support against the PKK, but warned that cross-border operations could complicate efforts to restore stability in Iraq.
The Turkish army conducted incursions into Iraq before the US-led invasion.

Thousands of armed PKK militants have found refuge in northern Iraq since 1999, when the group declared a unilateral ceasefire after the capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The truce was called off in June 2004.

The Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK launched its separatist campaign in 1984.

The Associated Press - An Iranian exile group claimed Thursday that Iran is hiding details of its work on a sophisticated type of centrifuge for enriching uranium by constantly shifting the project between military sites.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, also claimed that part of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran was set aside for tests on the newer type of centrifuge.

The P2 centrifuge, as it is known, could be used to more speedily create fuel for either power plants or for atomic weapons. Iran has come under intense pressure in recent months to cease any efforts to enrich uranium, and Friday is the U.N. Security Council's deadline for Tehran to halt them.

``The clerical regime will never abandon nuclear weapons because it considers them to be a strategic guarantee for survival,'' Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the NCRI's foreign affairs committee, said at a Paris news conference.

He said Iran's goal is to have a ``large number of P2s,'' adding that he did not know whether one had actually been produced.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said this month that his country is conducting laboratory research on the P-2. Some analysts say Ahmadinejad may have deliberately exaggerated Iran's capabilities, either to boost his own political support or to persuade the U.N. nuclear watchdog to back off.

At its news conference, the exile group listed experts and companies it claimed were involved in the project. It said supporters inside Iran provided the information but offered no specifics or evidence to back up the claims.

Mohaddessin also said that North Korean and Chinese experts have traveled to check machinery at what it claimed was another P2 research site in Ab-e Ali, north of Teheran.

Iran insists it is only building a civilian nuclear program to satisfy electricity demand, but the United States and many of its allies in Western Europe and Japan fear the Iranians want a nuclear weapon.

NCRI - the political arm of the Mujahedeen Khalq, a group that Washington and the European Union list as a terrorist organization - has a mixed record of accuracy.

Four years ago it disclosed information about two hidden nuclear sites that helped uncover nearly two decades of covert Iranian atomic activity and sparked present fears that Tehran wants to build a bomb.

But most of the information it has presented since then to back up claims that Iran has a secret weapons program has not been publicly verified.

Agence France Presse - The main exiled Iranian opposition group called Thursday for the United Nations to impose all-out sanctions on Tehran, claiming the regime was 18 months from the ability to build a nuclear bomb.

"It is not too late. The international community can still stop the process" through sanctions, Mohammad Mohaddessin, head of foreign affairs for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told reporters in Paris.

"The Iranian Resistance calls on the Security Council to swiftly impose comprehensive sanctions against the Iranian regime," he said, a day before the UN deadline for Iran to suspend sensitive nuclear work expires.

Mohaddessin repeated claims by the NCRI -- which has in the past provided accurate information on Iran's nuclear work -- that "the regime is currently producing or procuring the necessary components to build a nuclear bomb".

If nothing is done to stop it, "by the end of 2007, the Iranian regime will be in a position to build a nuclear bomb," he charged.

Western powers, led by the United States, are convinced Iran is trying to acquire either a nuclear bomb or the capacity to make one, although Iran insists its nuclear programme is intended only to produce electricity.

Based on information from "supporters in Iranian society", Mohaddessin claimed Tehran was seeking to build a bomb similar to Fat Man, the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, ending World War II.

Repeating a claim made by the NCRI's Scandinavian branch last year, he said Tehran had obtained 20 kilos (44 pounds) of beryllium, a metal that can be used to make the trigger for nuclear weapons, from China in the past two years.

Mohaddessin also charged that Iran was currently smuggling high-resistance maraging steel, which can be used to build the outer casing of a nuclear bomb, from Malaysia via the United Arab Emirates.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is to release a report Friday on Iran's compliance with UN demands that it freeze sensitive uranium enrichment work.

Iran's refusal to halt enrichment opens the door to sanctions despite opposition from Russia and China. The United States has also not ruled out taking military action.

The NCRI is opposed to military intervention in Iran, but supports "regime change and the establishment of democracy in Iran," Mohaddessin stressed.

He also repeated calls for the European Union and the United States to remove the NCRI's military arm -- the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) -- from their lists of terrorist organisations.

ANKARA, (Reuters) - Turkey denied on Wednesday a news report that its troops had crossed into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish militants, but it also said the new government in Baghdad must help crack down on the rebels.

Around 3,000 members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are believed to be hiding in the mountains of mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, from where they slip across the border to attack Turkish security forces.

The head of Turkey's military General Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, reaffirmed last Sunday Turkey's right under international law to carry out cross-border operations to root out the militants if that was deemed necessary.

"At the present time, there is no hot pursuit (of rebels) beyond our borders," a Turkish official told Reuters, denying a report in the Bugun newspaper that Turkish special forces had spent several days inside Iraq and that Baghdad had complained.

Turkey's NTV television quoted Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday as expressing concern about a buildup of both Turkish and Iranian troops on Iraq's northern borders and saying Baghdad would not allow foreign meddling in its affairs.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement it had informed Iraq's ambassador to Ankara on Wednesday about the Turkish troops movements near the border, which it described as part of an annual spring offensive against the PKK.

"The presence of the PKK in Iraq and its activities make these measures necessary," ministry spokesman Namik Tan said in the statement, adding that Turkey expected the new Iraqi government to help actively to suppress the rebel group.

Turkey, which has the second biggest army in NATO, announced last week it was sending 40,000 extra troops to join around 250,000 soldiers already stationed in the southeast to help deal with an expected rise in PKK incursions from northern Iraq.

In talks in Ankara on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to reassure Turkey that Washington was committed to defeating the PKK. The United States and the European Union both class the PKK as a terrorist group. Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed campaign for an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey in 1984.

Violence fell sharply after the 1999 capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, but it has begun to regain momentum since the group ended a unilateral ceasefire in 2004.

Last week, Iran shelled positions of Iranian Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. The Iranian Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) is an Iranian wing of Turkey's PKK, security experts say.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran has received a first shipment of missiles from North Korea that are capable of reaching Europe, Israel's military intelligence chief was quoted on Thursday as saying.

Known in the West as BM-25s, the Russian-designed missiles have a range of around 1,500 miles, giving them a longer reach than the Iranian-made Shihab-4 missiles which are capable of hitting Israel.

The intelligence chief, Major-General Amos Yadlin, was quoted by Israel's Haaretz newspaper as saying in a lecture on Wednesday that some BM-25s had arrived in Iran.

The BM-25 was originally manufactured in the Soviet Union, where it was known as the SSN6, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, Haaretz reported.

After the Russians decommissioned the SSN6, the missiles were sold to North Korea, which adapted them to carry a heavier payload, the newspaper's military affairs correspondent said.

In February, a German diplomat, citing his country's intelligence data, confirmed a German newspaper report that said Iran had purchased 18 disassembled BM-25s from North Korea.

Israel has been urging the international community to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear programme as well as its efforts to obtain long-range missiles.

Iran, the world's fourth largest producer of crude oil, says its nuclear programme is a peaceful project to provide electricity.

Israel is widely believed to have more than 200 nuclear warheads. It declines to comment on its atomic program, saying only it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

KurdishMedia.com
By Dr Rebwar Fatah

In Turkey, “Kurdish” is synonymous for “terrorist”, even if the subject matter is a child. Turkey’s constitution is based on racist ideology where the regime’s main pillar of fear is the existence of Kurds.

Turkish security forces shot Fatih Tekin, a three year old Kurdish boy, during a police raid on civilians’ houses in Batman Northern Kurdistan, on 30 March 2006. Fatih was not the only “terrorist” to be shot. The list is long but apart from Fatih, Enez Atak (6), Abdullah Duran (9), Muhlis Ete (16), Mehmet Isik (17), Mehmet Akbulut (18) and Emrah Fidan (19) were all killed. These names attract my attention because of their tender ages. There was also a much older Kurdish “terrorist”, Halit Sogut, 78 year of age.

Kurds, according to Turkish official policy, are all terrorists from 3 to 78 year of age.

The murders of children came from the direct order of their superior, the Turkish Prime Minister. "The security forces will intervene against the pawns of terrorism, no matter if they are children or women. Everybody should realise that,” the Turkish Prime Minister said to his troops, effectively permitting them to kill Kurdish women and children.

Read on: www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=12122

By Alireza Ronaghi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran vowed on Wednesday to strike at U.S. interests worldwide if it is attacked by the United States, which is keeping military options open in case diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear program.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the threat two days before the U.N. nuclear watchdog reports on whether Iran is meeting Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment.

Iran says it will not stop enrichment, which it says is purely for civilian purposes and not part of what the United States says is a clandestine effort to make atomic bombs.

"The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.

"The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity," he said.

Washington, backed by Britain and France, has been pushing for sanctions if, as it expects, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that Iran has flouted U.N. demands.

But Russia and China, the U.N. Security Council's other two veto-holding permanent members, oppose any embargo.

Consequently the Western powers next week will not push a sanctions resolution. Instead they are working on a resolution that would make legally binding previous demands contained in a March council statement.

If Iran does not comply after a reasonable period of time, the United States and its allies will try to introduce punitive measures in a subsequent resolution, a council diplomat said.

Iran's nuclear energy head, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, held talks with IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna Wednesday.

"The talks were encouraging," Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, told Reuters, adding the two sides discussed ways to resolve outstanding issues with the IAEA. He gave no details.

NO TIME

But a Vienna-based diplomat said before the meeting it would be too late to alter decisively the IAEA report, due to be submitted to the Security Council by Friday, because inspectors would not have time to verify issues.

"All ElBaradei can do is note any information received and say he could not assess whether it was significant," said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.

ElBaradei visited Tehran this month but his proposal that Iran "pause" enrichment was rebuffed, diplomats have said.

British Foreign Minister Jack Straw sought to enlist China's backing Wednesday, saying Beijing should use its growing diplomatic muscle to solve disputes with international partners.

"China's support for this goal, as a permanent member of the Security Council, has been valuable already and will be increasingly crucial in securing international consensus in the face of Iran's intransigence," Straw said in London.

The United States called on Iran to pursue diplomacy and warned that a confrontational approach would affect U.N. Security Council deliberations.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli urged Iran to address international concerns and "match our commitment to diplomacy with the actions of a responsible state."

"So far every step they've taken has been in the opposite direction, has been one of hostility and confrontation," he told reporters in Washington.

In response to the U.S. refusal to rule out military action, Iran has warned Washington that its forces in the region were vulnerable. Iran's war games in the Gulf this month were widely seen as a veiled threat to a vital oil shipping route.

"The security of the Persian Gulf is very well tied up to the world's economic affairs and it would be quite natural for Iran not to sit idle vis-a-vis any military adventure," Iranian legislator Alaeddin Broujerdi told reporters in London.

IRANIAN VOW

Iran said Tuesday it would suspend relations with the IAEA if sanctions were imposed. Diplomats said this could mean withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wednesday reiterated his view Iran could review its NPT and IAEA commitments if it saw no dividends from abiding by international protocols.

"We hope they fulfill their duties and make it unnecessary for the Islamic Republic of Iran to reconsider its relations with them," Ahmadinejad said.

Although Iran says it bases nuclear policy on the NPT, it pulled out of the treaty's Additional Protocol -- which allows snap inspections of atomic facilities -- in February after the IAEA referred its nuclear file to the Security Council.

Iran often says it does not benefit from the NPT's entitlement to shared technology, but Western diplomats say it must prove its goals are peaceful to qualify for this.

The IAEA has said that after three years of investigation it still cannot confirm that Iran's aims are entirely peaceful, although it has found no hard proof of a military program.

The agency points to gaps in its information, such as the status of Iran's research into P-2 centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster than the P-1 units it now operates.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Tehran, Mark Heinrich in Vienna and Katherine Baldwin in London)

TEHRAN (Reuters) -Iran said on Wednesday it would harm U.S. interests anywhere in the world if the United States launches an attack, a step Washington says is an option if diplomacy fails to resolve a nuclear standoff.

The comments by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei come two days before the U.N. nuclear watchdog reports on whether Iran is complying with U.N. demands to halt uranium enrichment.

Tehran says it will not stop enrichment, which it insists is purely for civilian purposes and not part of what the United States says is an effort to make atomic bombs.

"The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.

"The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity," he added.

The United States has been pushing to impose sanctions if, as Washington expects, Iran is found in the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency to have flouted U.N. demands.

Fellow U.N. Security Council members Britain and France have supported such a step, but sanctions are opposed by Russia and China, which like the other three permanent members of the council have the power to veto council resolutions.

Iran's nuclear energy chief, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, was due to hold talks at the IAEA's Vienna complex on Wednesday but the move looked too late to decisively alter the IAEA's report that is due to be submitted to the Security Council by April 28.

"... Whatever he tells us at this late stage, there would be no time for inspectors to check and verify it before the report comes out," a Vienna-based diplomat, who asked not to be named, said.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei visited Tehran this month but his proposal that Iran "pause" enrichment was rebuffed.

In response to the U.S. refusal to rule out military action, Iran has warned Washington that its forces in the region are vulnerable. Iran's wargames in the Gulf this month were also widely seen as a veiled threat to a vital oil shipping route.

"The security of the Persian Gulf is very well tied up to the world's economic affairs and it would be quite natural for the Islamic Republic of Iran not to sit idle vis a vis any military adventure," Alaeddin Broujerdi, head of parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, said in London.

RECONSIDERING RELATIONS

Under the threat of sanctions, Iran said on Tuesday it would suspend its relations with the IAEA if it were hit by an embargo. Diplomats said this could mean withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday reiterated his view that Iran could reconsider its commitment to the NPT and its cooperation with the IAEA if it felt it was not benefiting from abiding by international protocols.

"We have asked them (the U.N. watchdog), and we are waiting for an answer: what have they given us in reward for doing our duty? What sort of help have they given us?" he told reporters.

"We hope they fulfill their duties and make it unnecessary for the Islamic Republic of Iran to reconsider its relations with them," he said.

Although Iran says it bases its nuclear policy on the NPT, it has pulled out of the treaty's Additional Protocol, which allows snap inspections of atomic facilities. It took that step after Iran's atomic file was referred to the Security Council.

Iran often complains it does not benefit from the NPT's entitlement to shared technology but Western diplomats say Iran needs first to prove its peaceful goals to enjoy this right.

The IAEA has said that after three years of investigation it still cannot confirm that Iran's aims are entirely peaceful, although it has found no hard proof of a military program.

The IAEA says it needs to fill in gaps in its information, including details about Iran's research into P-2 centrifuges that enrich uranium fuel to bomb-grade level faster than the P-1 units it now operates.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday it was time for the Security Council to draft a Chapter 7 resolution. This would be binding under international law and allow for sanctions or even military intervention, although another resolution would be required to specify either step.

"They should know that they cannot impose any decisions upon us by using the name of the IAEA and U.N. Security Council because illegal decisions do not become legitimate just by using the name of the agency and Security Council," Ahmadinejad said.

Iran Focus – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a direct threat at the United States on Wednesday, saying that it would “harm” American interests all over the world if an attack was launched against its nuclear installations, state television reported.

“The Americans should know that if they attack Iran, their interests will be harmed around the world”, Khamenei said.

“The Iranian nation will respond to any attack twice as strongly”, he added.

In March, the United Nations Security Council adopted a “Presidential Statement” unanimously giving Iran until April 28 to suspend all of its uranium enrichment activities and resume its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has since said that Tehran would never abandon its “right” to uranium enrichment.

Washington has called on the Security Council to impose sanctions on Tehran for failing to heed the demands of the UN nuclear watchdog.

KurdishMedia.com

London (KurdishMedia.com) 26 April 2006: While the Turkish and Iranian troops are heavily gathering on the Southern Kurdistan’s border, destabilising the Kurdistan’s self-rule, a huge number of Shiia militants belonging to Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr about to occupying Kurdish city of Kirkuk. Mahdi Army is now part of the Shiia bloc, a partner of the Kurdistani bloc in the Iraqi government.

Turks and Iranian pretext is to pursue the Kurdish organisation, the PKK, but Mahdi militants have no pretext except increasing pressure on the Southern Kurdistan’s de facto state, assisting Turkish and Iranian troops to destabilise Kurdistan.

Read on: www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=12119

bianet.org

Prosecution demands 9 to 24 years imprisonment for 80 minors alleged to have been involved in the Diyarbakir incidents. Another case opened for 36 children.The Bar Association Childrens Rights Center will carry the case if its appeal rejected at home.

BİA (Diyarbakir) - The prosecution has demanded 9 to 24 years imprisonment for 80 children alleged to have been involved in the wave of incidents in Turkey's Southeast provincial capital of Diyarbakir during which 11 people, including 5 children, were killed when security forces opened fire on the crowds.

The indictment was sent to the Diyarbakir Capital Offences Court for Minors on Monday and charges the children for "membership to an armed organisation, inflicting damage on public buildings and other property, preventing civil servants from carrying out their duty" as well as violating law 2911 on Meetings and Demonstration Rallies.

Another case launched against 36 children was rejected by the same court and sent to the Ankara Capital Offences Court for Minors.

115 children spend holiday in prison

The number of children arrested in Diyarbakir for allegedly being involved in a wave of incidents during which security forces opened fire and killed 11 people including five minors has risen to 60, officials of the city Bar Association said.

The children are being held in prison for approximately on a month facing possible life time imprisonment, indicted with "damaging the sovereignty of the state", "inciting and provoking the people to uprising, hatred and enmity" and "aiding and abetting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) organization".

Since there are no prison compounds for minors in Diyarbakir, all of the children are being held at an annex building of the E-type prison in the province.

Read on: www.bianet.org/2006/04/01_eng/news78183.htm

Iran Focus– A young man was lashed in public in the Iranian city of Karaj, north-west of Tehran, on charges of “hooliganism”, the official news agency IRNA reported.

Majid R., 24 years old, was flogged 74 times Tuesday morning in the presence of judicial officials.

The sentence was carried out in public in Karaj’s eastern district of Kalak.

The young man was also sentenced to three months and two days in prison.

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel successfully launched on Tuesday a highly accurate imaging satellite which will enhance its ability to spy on Iran an official said.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said this week that the nuclear program being pursued by arch-foe Iran was the most serious threat faced by Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.

"The launching of the satellite was successful," an official with the manufacturer ImageSat International said.

Shimon Eckhaus, the firm's chief executive, told Reuters earlier on Tuesday: "The capabilities of the satellite speak for themselves. I do not need to say anything about what the purpose of its use might be."

A report in Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the Eros B satellite has a camera which can decipher objects on the ground as small as 70 centimeters (about two feet) across.

Eckhaus confirmed the accuracy of the published details to Reuters.

The report said Eros B will join an earlier version of the satellite, launched in December 2000. Both are set to augment the work of Israel's declared spy satellite, Ofek 5, which regularly passes over Arab territory.

The Yedioth report said that Israel was planning to send up another spy satellite with the ability to view objects in all weather conditions and in darkness. The Eros satellites are effective only in daylight and in clear visibility.

The launch comes at a time of heightened tension over Iran's nuclear program.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear bombs and has refused to rule out military options if diplomacy fails to curb the Islamic Republic's atomic ambitions. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity.

LAUNCHED FROM RUSSIA

Like its predecessor in 2000, Eros B was launched from the Svobodny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East later on Tuesday using a Russian Start-1 rocket.

It will orbit the Earth at a height of about 500 km (310 miles) and will circle the globe roughly every 95 minutes, ImageSat said.

The Eros satellites, which weigh under 350kg (770 lb), are among a number of small, lightweight satellites which Israel's space industry has perfected, Eckhaus said.

Because of the country's geographical location and small size, the space industry generally favors smaller payloads that can more easily be launched from Israeli territory.

"The fact that we are launching the satellite in Russia means that we can do so with the Earth's rotation and makes it more effective and gives it a longer life span," Eckhaus said.

Israel is only able to launch small satellites westwards over the Mediterranean Sea -- opposite to the Earth's rotation -- because it cannot risk rockets flying over its Arab neighbors to the east or debris falling on their territory.

The satellite manufacturer ImageSat International is partly owned by government-held Israel Aircraft Industries, the country's biggest defense company.

Iran Focus– Britain said on Tuesday that the international community had to take “very seriously” threats by Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Asked by reporters for a reaction to comments by Ahmadinejad concerning Israel, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman said, “Everyone should read the Iranian president's comments because they underlined, once again, the reasons why we had to take the situation very seriously”.

“These were not casual remarks made by somebody without power. These were remarks, repeatedly made by the Iranian president which were, in terms of the Holocaust, not only offensive and factually inaccurate but also were threatening to Israel”.

Such comments, he said, added to why the international community had to take Iran’s nuclear case “very seriously”.

Ahmadinejad said on Monday that Jews living in Israel should go back to Europe.

“Let them return to their own lands”, Ahmadinejad told foreign and domestic reporters at a press conference in Tehran.

The radical hard-liner shocked the international community previously when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and described the Holocaust as a “myth”.

ATHENS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday Iranian threats to suspend ties with the U.N. nuclear watchdog were deepening the Islamic Republic's isolation.

"I suppose the Iranians can threaten but they are deepening their own isolation," Rice said during a visit to Athens.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said on Tuesday his country would suspend its relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) if sanctions were imposed.

The United States accuses Iran of wanting to build nuclear bombs and has been seeking support for international sanctions if Tehran does not halt uranium enrichment, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council. Russia and China oppose such measures.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is aimed at generating electricity.

Washington has refused to rule out military options if diplomacy fails to curb Iran's atomic ambitions.

Rice told a news conference in the Greek capital, a stop in a trip that also includes Turkey and Bulgaria, that the international community needed to take "credible" steps to prevent Iran from continuing to develop its nuclear programme.

The IAEA reports to the Security Council on Friday on whether Teheran has complied with their demands.

Rice said the United Nations will consider measures to be taken next but those cannot be just statements "in light of Iran's continued defiance of international norms".

"I think that we are going to have to take a next step. It seems logical that we should consider a Chapter 7 resolution under the Security Council's mandate," she said, referring to a resolution that allows for sanctions or even military action.

Associated Press
ALI AKBAR DAREINI

Tehran's top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday that Iran will cease co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog agency if the UN Security Council slaps sanctions on the country.

The statements by Ali Larijani came a day after Iran's President — facing a UN deadline on Friday to stop enriching uranium — predicted the Security Council would not impose sanctions on Tehran and warned he was thinking about dropping out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

On Tuesday, Mr. Larijani, speaking to an international conference on Iran's energy program, said flatly that if the Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran, the country would suspend its co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees compliance with the nonproliferation treaty.

The Western countries on the IAEA board “have to understand they cannot resolve this issue through force,” he said.

Iran's former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaking at the same conference, claimed that Iran openly launched its nuclear program — which Iran insists is for peaceful energy purposes only — “but the behaviour of Western countries forced it to carry out its nuclear program independently, based on local expertise and knowledge without relying on Western countries.”

The United States, Britain and France maintain that Iran actually wants enriched uranium for atomic bombs, which would violate its commitments under the treaty. Iran denies the charge, but Washington is pressing fellow members of the Security Council to impose economic sanctions.

An Israeli defence official said that Israel was launching a satellite to spy on Iran's program, as Iran's leader persisted with his calls for the Jewish state's destruction.

Israel planned to launch from Siberia later Tuesday its Eros B satellite, designed to spot images on the ground as small as 68 centimetres, the defence official said. That level of resolution would allow Israel to gather information on Iran's nuclear program and its long-range missiles, which are capable of striking Israel, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive subject matter.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists the non-proliferation treaty gives Iran the right to enrich uranium for fuelling civilian nuclear power plants, and he has given no ground in the international faceoff.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said Monday he was reconsidering Iran's adherence to the non-proliferation treaty, which is aimed at stopping the spread of atomic weapons while allowing peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

“What has more than 30 years of membership in the agency given us?” he asked at the news conference, which was only the second since he took office last year at which foreign journalists have been allowed to ask questions.

Suspicions about Iran's intentions have grown since it was discovered in 2002 that the Tehran regime had for two decades secretly operated large-scale nuclear activities that could be used in weapons making.

The IAEA says it has since found no direct evidence of an arms program, but it also says the Iranians have not been fully forthcoming in answering questions about their nuclear activities.

After repeated attempts to resolve the issue through negotiations, the IAEA reported Iran to the Security Council for noncompliance. The council then gave Iran until Friday to suspend uranium enrichment.

Iran deepened international concerns by announcing April 11 that it had for the first time enriched uranium with 164 centrifuges — a step toward large-scale production of nuclear fuel.

The United States and others are urging the Security Council to take a tougher stance by imposing a mandatory order for Iran to halt enrichment, a move that would raise the threat of sanctions.

Russian and China, which are among the five permanent members that can veto council actions, have opposed that approach, saying diplomacy has not run its course. Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to be banking on their support to dissuade Washington from pressing a sanctions vote.

dozame.org

The armies of Turkey and Iran are getting ready for showdown with the PKK. About 230,000 Turkish soldiers have been massing along the border with southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) since April 2. The Iranians, in coordination with the Turks, have massed along "their" border with southern Kurdistan with about 30,000-50,000 soldiers according to Kurdish non-media sources close to HPG.

Turkish and Iranian incursions into southern Kurdistan have already occurred, and one Turkish battalion has already positioned itself within the borders of southern Kurdistan. Turkish forces crossed the border in two occasions on week 15. Incursions occurred at the Sirnak-Zaxo and the Esendere (Shemzinan [Semdinli])-Barzan borders, the HPG Press and Liaison Center (HPG-BIM) reported on April 13.

On April 23, one Turkish battalion moved and positioned itself inside southern Kurdistan close to Shemzinan (Semdinli). HPG identified it as a preparation and scout unit. Some sources call the battalion an "expendable bait" in order to easily justify a full-scale invasion if attacked. The battalion are currently under supervision by HPG scouts and special forces.

Read on:
http://dozame.org/blog/2006/04/25/ten-minutes-to-midnight

Photo from IRNA

The Washington Times
Commentary By Steve Forbes

At a Feb. 15 briefing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared Iran is "in open defiance" of the world community for violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran's persistent and flagrant development of a uranium enrichment program, despite enormous international pressure, is just one more disquieting incident in Iran's long history of troublemaking on the international stage.

Miss Rice suggested there are a "number of levers" that could be used for dealing with Iran, speaking generally of diplomatic and economic sanctions. But the question must be raised: How seriously will Iran take warnings of future retribution when we still hesitate to enforce punishments that are already on the books?

On Oct. 23, 1983, the barracks of the U.S. Marine Corps were bombed in Beirut, Lebanon: 241 Marines were killed. In October 2001, the families of these fallen soldiers sued the government of Iran in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Ultimately, the Islamic Republic of Iran was found guilty for organizing, funding and managing the attacks. As punishment, the judge ruled Iran is financially liable and is now gathering evidence that will lay the foundation for the enormous damages figure Iran must pay in compensation for this heinous crime.

Since the 1983 bombing and the court ruling in 2003, Iran has not curbed its terrorist activities nor paid for its crimes. A memorial in Tehran actually celebrates the bombers who killed those 241 Marines, and declares Iran's intentions to continue its violent behavior, reading, "Memorial for two Lebanese Muslim youth who at dawn on Sunday, October 23, 1983,... killed 241 U.S. Marines ... [w]e don't know their names but we shall continue in their path."

This monument is a tangible display of Iran's continued "open defiance. Miss Rice has acknowledged Iran's recent actions are unacceptable, and now it is time that action is taken. Holding Iran accountable to its legal obligations is a nonviolent option that will prevent Iran from funding its activities with money made in the United States.

The government of Iran retains commercial investments in the U.S. and is using profits made on American soil to finance more terrorism. For example, Bank Saderat and Bank Melli are both owned and controlled under the Iranian government with offices in New York City and Los Angeles. In the 1990s, Bank Saderat owned the California Land Holdings Co., which invested Iranian funds in U.S. property, for investment purposes. When dividends are paid on these investments to the shareholders, the government of Iran profits. Iran is capitalizing on our free market economy to fund actions that kill our countrymen and flout international treaties. That must stop.

The Justice for Marine Corps Families Victims of Terrorism Act (S. 1257; H.R. 865) clarifies language in existing laws that prohibits the families and victims of the Beirut bombing and from collecting on court-ordered damages. This legislation makes changes that will allow the victims and their families to collect damages from state sponsors of terrorism convicted of directing and financing attacks.

The Iranian assets collected when these bills pass will be distributed to the family members of the victims. No amount of money will ease their suffering, but knowing Iran has been brought to justice and preventative action has been taken will assure them they have not suffered in vain. This bill will also make a statement to Iran that we have not forgotten the events of the dawn of Sunday, October 23, 1983.

Passing the Justice for Marine Corps Families Victims of Terrorism Act into law will "pull" one of the "levers" of which Miss Rice spoke without physically endangering any American soldier or civilian. These bills will enable America to keep Iran from using our economic system to attacks against our citizens and the international community.

The State Department has made efforts to block this legislation, not because of an ideological debate about its implications for foreign policy, but because of an old-fashioned, bureaucratic turf war. In 1996, Congress passed a law allowing lawsuits against state sponsors of terrorism without the State Department's prior consent. State has since been trying to reassert itself in the process, and blocking this bill is one way to do so.

Miss Rice, on the other hand, is setting a new tone at the State Department and, with her leadership the department can prevent Iran from continuing down its violent path.

The United States has had sanctions against Iran for years, and it is clear more action may be on the horizon. By passing the Justice for Marine Corps Families Victims of Terrorism Act and clearing the way to force Iran to pay a damage award carefully measured by a U.S. federal court, we can remember the ultimate sacrifice paid by those 241 U.S. personnel on that fateful Sunday morning in October 1983 and acknowledge the gravity of Iran's continuing defiance and maintain our commitment to holding Iran accountable.

Steve Forbes is president and chief executive officer of Forbes Inc. and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine. He was a Republican candidate for president in 1996 and 2000.

NCRI - The clerical regime hanged a young man and sentenced another to death in Isfahan, central Iran, according to the state-run daily Etemad.

The man hanged was identified by his first name, Mehdi, and the other man as Mohammad B., aged 25.

A third person has been sentenced to death in Tehran according to the same daily. He was identified as Norooz.

The wave of executions in Iran takes place as new suppressive measures are introduced to restrict individual and social freedoms. According to new rules put in place since last Saturday, women are particularly forced to observe mullahs' strict code of dressing.

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - With Russia and China opposed to sanctions against Iran, the West wants to ratchet up pressure bit by bit in the U.N. Security Council next week to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

But China and Russia are contemplating a meeting of the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency before any U.N. consideration of a report due by Friday by IAEA director Mohammed ElBaradei.

"There are proposals that the IAEA board of directors should have a meeting first before the council takes it up," China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, disclosed to reporters on Monday.

In Berlin, a European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia and China wanted to emphasize the primacy of the Vienna-based IAEA board.

The envoy, who was not authorized to speak to reporters, said the aim was to delay U.N. action until after an IAEA board meeting in June to slow down any U.S. drive for sanctions.

The United States and its allies suspect Iran is trying to build an atomic bomb under cover of a civilian nuclear program. Tehran says its program is for energy purposes only.

The Security Council passed a statement last month asking ElBaradei to report simultaneously to the council and the IAEA board by April 28 on whether Iran has halted enriching uranium, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear warheads.

As a first step, Western powers want a council resolution that would turn demands in the March statement into a legally binding measure under the Chapter 7 provision of the U.N. Charter. The council's statement, which also asks Iran to answer outstanding questions on its program, was based on earlier resolutions by the IAEA board.

CHAPTER 7 RESOLUTION

"Our expectation would be -- assuming no change of direction by Iran, and there is no reason to think there will be a change of direction -- that we will look at a Chapter 7 resolution to make mandatory all of the existing IAEA resolutions," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Monday.

"We are going to wait for the April 28 report. We are in consultations now and will be this week on the timing and the handling of the resolution," Bolton told reporters.

While a Chapter 7 resolution allows for sanctions or even war, it needs a follow-up measure to make that decision.

A council diplomat, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak, said the United States, Britain and France were trying to reassure Russia and China that the resolution in question "does not do more than it says."

But to Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Chapter 7 invokes Security Council resolutions against Iraq, interpreted by the United States as a legal basis for the 2003 invasion.

However, compared to Iran, U.N. resolutions against Saddam Hussein's government stretched over a decade, starting with the 1991 Gulf War and including ceasefire breaches.

"I know how the Security Council works," Lavrov, a former U.N. ambassador for 10 years until 2004, told reporters in Moscow in early March.

"You start with a soft reminder, then you call upon, then you require, you demand, you threaten. It will become a self-propelling function," he said. "An enforcement scenario isn't acceptable both for the Iranian situation or for the situation in the region."

(Added reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Berlin)

The Guardian
Brian Whitaker

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has announced that women will be allowed to attend football matches in big stadiums for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Under a decree reported on state television yesterday, the president has ordered the head of the country's sports organisation to provide separate areas for women. "The best stands should be allocated to women and families in the stadiums in which national and important matches are being held," Mr Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

The reason given by the president seems to have been intended to placate hardliners. "The presence of women and families in public places promotes chastity," he said.

Women have occasionally scuffled with police when barred from entering stadiums, although now and then they have been allowed into smaller venues to watch sports such as basketball or volleyball. They have also tried to go inside venues disguised as men or have sneaked in with the supporters of foreign teams.

Last month security forces attacked dozens of female football fans who had bought tickets for a match at the Azadi stadium in Tehran.

They briefly unfurled protest banners and staged a demonstration outside before being forced into a bus and driven away. A few days later some 250 female spectators at a gymnastics world cup event in Tehran were escorted from an indoor stadium.

At a time when the Iran is facing international pressures over its nuclear programme, the president's move may be an attempt to defuse one of the most divisive issues inside the country.

On Sunday he also seemed to back-track on a move to tighten up on women's dress codes by saying his government would not use strongarm tactics.

Since Mr Ahmadinejad won the presidency last year with the backing of conservative clerics and Basij religious militias hardliners have been pressing for tighter controls on "immoral behaviour".

Agence France-Presse

ANKARA (AFP) -Turkey called on the United States for "operational" support against separatist Turkish Kurd rebels based in neighboring northern Iraq, saying that intelligence sharing alone cannot be effective against "terrorism."

The appeal came ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will hold talks with Turkish leaders in Ankara on Wednesday.

"We have had very sincere and fruitful cooperation (against the PKK) in the past. Today, this cooperation needs to be taken further," Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, who is also the government's spokesman, said after a cabinet meeting.

"Operational cooperation is required in the fight against terrorism and other types of organized crime," Cicek said. "Turkey wishes to have not only intelligence sharing (with the US) but also cooperation that goes beyond that."

Thousands of armed militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by both Ankara and Washington, have taken refuge in the mountains of northern Iraq, from where they infiltrate into adjoining southeast Turkey.

Ankara has repeatedly urged the United States to crack down on PKK bases in the Kurdish-held region, but Washington says its troops are swamped by violence in other parts of conflict-torn Iraq.

The issue has become of increasing importance for Turkey in recent weeks, which saw escalating clashes between the PKK and the army in the southeast and a series of bomb attacks in urban centers blamed on the group.

Despite Ankara's frustration with US reluctance over military action against the PKK, Turkish diplomats say intelligence sharing between the two countries is improving and Washington is supplying information on PKK infiltrations into Turkey.

They say US efforts to cut PKK's financing channels are also under way.

The Turkish army has recently reinforced its troops in areas bordering Iraq and Iran, preparing to intensify operations against the rebels, whose infiltrations usually increase with the arrival of spring as snow melts and passage through the mountains becomes easier.

Most PKK militants, whose numbers are estimated at about 5,000, retreated to northern Iraq in 1999 after the group declared a unilateral ceasefire following the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan. The truce was called off in June 2004.

Prior to the US-led occupation of Iraq in 2003, the Turkish army carried out incursions into northern Iraq to pursue the PKK.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the southeast in 1984.

Associated Press
By Anne Gearan

AP Diplomatic Writer

SHANNON, Ireland (AP) - The credibility of the U.N. Security Council will be in doubt if it does not take clear-cut action against Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday.

Rice made her remarks four days before the expiration of a United Nations deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment. That process can produce fuel for nuclear energy or material for nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, has accused Iran of failing to answer questions about its nuclear program. In late March, it reported Tehran to the Security Council and gave it one month to address the demands.

"When the international community reconvenes after the 30 days, there has to be some message, clear message, that this kind of behavior is not acceptable, or you will start to call into question the credibility of what the Security Council says when it says it," Rice said while flying to diplomatic visits to Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Though the United States has said it prefers decisive steps, Security Council members Russia and China have opposed forceful sanctions. As permanent members of the council, either of those countries could veto any proposals.

"We'll continue to discuss this with the Russians and with others, but I expect that we're going to have to have some kind of action by the Security Council that demonstrates that this is a serious matter," Rice said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated Monday that Iran might withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on nuclear activities, and he predicted the Security Council would not impose sanctions on his country.

Meanwhile, a leading German legislator said the United States should delay "for some time" any U.N. Security Council action on Iran and talk directly to Tehran about its security concerns.

"We have time to be patient," Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the international relations committee of the German Bundestag, said before meetings in Washington with Undersecretary of State Nichols Burns and Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council.

In the meantime, Polenz said, Russia could explore expressions of renewed interest by Iran in joint enrichment of uranium on Russian territory. The Russian proposal has U.S. and European support as a way to make sure Iran does not use enriched uranium for weapons development.

Nor, he said, would it be "a bad idea" for the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency to resume its review of Iran's nuclear activities.

By contrast, a State Department spokesman was skeptical that Iran really was interested in the Russian proposal.

"One day they will say there is a deal and the other day they will say there is no deal, and then they will say there is one - only on their terms," spokesman Adam Ereli said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the watchdog group, is due to report to the Security Council by the end of the week on Iran's nuclear activities, which Iran says are entirely peaceful in purpose.

Next week, U.S., British, French, Chinese, Russian and German officials will meet "to consider the next steps that we should take in response to what we expect to be a negative report," Ereli said.

Iran Focus– Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected on Monday a demand by the Untied Nations Security Council for the Islamic Republic to suspend its uranium enrichment activities by April 28.

“Iran must have its own nuclear fuel”, Ahmadinejad told reporters at a press conference.

He called on the West not to stand up to Iran over its sensitive nuclear work.

“Iran is a nuclear country”, Ahmadinejad said.

Asked whether Tehran would heed the call by the Security to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, the hard-line president said, “The UN Security Council must operate in a legal framework”.

Tehran would not accept “bullying” demands even if they came from the Security Council, Ahmadinejad said, adding that by making such a demand the international body was “loosing credibility”.

“We want our rights”, he said, adding that the era in which Tehran would be willing to make concessions was over.

Asked whether Iran was willing to consider a Russian proposal aimed at averting an international crisis whereby Iran would enrich uranium exclusively on Russian soil, Ahmadinejad said, “Which proposal? Russia has enrichment and we have enrichment … six months have passed since [Russia’s] proposal”.

Iran Focus – Iran’s radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that Jews living in Israel should go back to Europe.

“Let them return to their own lands”, Ahmadinejad told foreign and domestic reporters at a press conference in Tehran.

The hard-line president shocked the international community previously when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and described the Holocaust as a “myth”.

“They say that no one must speak about or research that event. Why shouldn’t they? If it is real, you must allow scientists to research it so that the reality becomes clearer every day. Why do you not allow it?” he said during Monday’s conference.

“You have created a problem in Palestine and must solve it yourselves”, he added.

Ahmadinejad also said that Germany should no longer have to pay war reparations from World War II since more than 60 years had passed since the end of the war. The money was going to a “bunch of Zionists to suppress the Palestinian people”, he added.

Associated Press
By adam goldman
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Israel's consul general in New York said Sunday that the world needs to take a tougher stance with Iran and warned that a "strong" and "determined" Israel will never allow another Jewish Holocaust.

"It's important that the world understands that this is not an Israeli issue, it's a world problem, and the world must stop Iran," Arye Mekel said. "At this time, we would hope that the Security Council of the United Nations would impose economic and political sanctions against Iran. Let's be clear: That country cannot, cannot have nuclear weapons."

Mekel delivered his remarks at Hunter College during the Annual Gathering of Remembrance, which commemorates the deaths of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis in the Holocaust.

Joining Mekel was New York Sen. Charles Schumer and U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who also warned about the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Israeli officials believe Iran could be just a few years away from obtaining the capability to make nuclear weapons, and they view Iran as a gathering threat.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims his country's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but he also has said Israel should be wiped off the map and the Holocaust didn't happen.

Mekel said Israel will protect Jews from Iran or terrorist groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah.

"We are strong and we are determined, and our youth is as strong as ever in this noble idea of defending the Jewish people and the Jewish state," Mekel said.

Bolton told the crowd of several hundred that Iran gives fresh meaning to the Holocaust and its survivors, many of whom attended Sunday's event with their families.

"When a country like Iran seeks a nuclear weapons capability under the leadership of a man who denies the Holocaust, it is the reason why this prospect of the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction weighs so heavily on the president as he contemplates the risk to the United States and all of its friends and allies but in particular the risk of a second, a nuclear, holocaust," Bolton said.

Schumer also had strong words for Iran, calling Ahmadinejad a "madman." But he warned against other threats to Jews.

"In Europe itself," he said, "we see a vehement double standard against Israel and the Jewish people. We see countries recognizing a government, Hamas, dedicated to killing Jewish women, children and men."

Schumer said there was little difference between the Nazis and Hamas.

Hamas might not use gas like the Nazis, he said, "but the result is the same."

DOHA (Reuters) - Conducting business with Iran encourages its nuclear ambitions, said U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman on Monday when asked for his reaction to a $7 billion gas pipeline deal between Iran, Pakistan and India.

"Doing business with Iran, it seems to me, at a certain level encourages this," he told a news conference, referring to Iran's nuclear program.

The oil ministers of Iran, Pakistan and India told Reuters on Saturday they were very near a final agreement on a planned gas pipeline to pump Iranian gas to India, in defiance of U.S. opposition. Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri said he expected the final deal to be signed in Tehran in June.

Bodman said he would meet with Indian oil minister Murli Deora, also attending the International Energy Forum in Doha.

The project to pump Iranian gas to India through Pakistan was first proposed more than a decade ago, but progress has been slow because of hostility between India and Pakistan and, more recently, U.S. opposition to Iran over its nuclear work.

The pipeline would link Iran's abundant gas reserves, the world's second biggest, to India's booming economy.

Bodman said record oil prices of around $75 were causing great "dislocation" in the United States and the rest of the world but there was little producers could do.

"We have encouraged producing nations to keep oil markets well supplied -- I think they've done that. I would encourage them to do more if they can," he said. "We are in a situation where supply is roughly equal to demand today."

OPEC ministers were due to meet in Doha later on Monday. They are expected to keep their 28 million barrels per day output limit unchanged because they are already producing as much oil as refiners can process.

The United States uses a quarter of the world's oil and over 40 percent of its gasoline. Bodman appeared to dismiss a suggestion by the International Monetary Fund that Washington should up fuel tax, among the world's lowest, to stem demand.

"There is not a lot of sentiment in Washington to raise gasoline taxes," he said.

The United States faces supply disruptions in some states due to a switch to an ethanol mix in its motor fuel and concern over shortages have helped push oil prices upwards.

Iran Focus– A young man was hanged in prison in the central city of Isfahan charged with killing a local police commander, a state-run daily reported.

The police commander, identified as Akbar Bayati, was shot and killed during a gun battle with four men outside a police station in August 2004, the daily Hamshahri wrote on Sunday.

The four men had first attacked a soldier outside the building, the report said.

The group’s ringleader, identified only as Mehdi B., was sentenced by Judge Seyyed Jaafar Hashemi to hang in public.

The sentence was carried out on April 20 after it was upheld by the State Supreme Court.

On Saturday, the state-run daily Resalat reported that a man, identified as Morteza F., was hanged in Adel-Abad Prison in the southern city of Shiraz.

Three other men, identified as Mahmoud A., Vahid E., and Ahmad E., were also sentenced to execution in Fars Province, southern Iran, the report added.

AP

BAGHDAD - President Jalal Talabani expressed his concern on Sunday over reported Iranian and Turkish troop concentrations on those countries’ borders with Iraq.

Turkey has moved thousands of troops to the border region in what its military said was an offensive against Turkish Kurd guerrillas.

Iran has also reportedly moved forces to the border, and last week shelled a mountainous region inside Iraq used by Iranian Kurd fighters for infiltration into Iran, according to Iraqi Kurd officials. There were no reports of casualties from Friday’s artillery and rocket barrage.

Talabani said that so far Iranian and Turkish forces have stayed on their sides of the border.

But “I have expressed my concern over these concentrations ... Iraq is a soveriegn independent nation that won’t let other nations interfere in its internal affairs,” he said at a press conference with US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in the northern city of Irbil.

Turkey has called on the United States to crack down on rebel bases in northern Iraq, but US commanders, struggling to battle Iraqi insurgents elsewhere, have been extremely reticent to fight the rebels, who are based in the remote mountain areas in one of the few stable parts of the country.

Meanwhile, Khalilzad said planned talks between the United States and Iran over stabilizing Iraq must wait until an Iraqi government is formed. Talabani said he would participate in any US-Iran talks.

“We see it as good that after an Iraqi government is formed, this issue can take shape,” Khalilzad said.

“If the United States holds talks alone with Iran without an Iraqi govenrment being formed, that would certainly be a problem for the Iraqi government,” the Afghan-born Khalilzad said, speaking in Dari. Once the governmnent is formed, “we have no problem with meetings with Iranian officials.”

Prime Minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki was tapped on Saturday to put together a government and has 30 days to do so.

The talks _ a rare, direct high-level meeting between the Iran and the United States _ are to deal exclusively with calming the situation in Iraq, where Iran holds enormous influence.

But Washington is under pressure to negotiate directly with Tehran on the nuclear issue amid rising tensions over Iran’s determination to push ahead with uranium enrichment despite a U.N. Security Council demand it stop the program.

AKI
Istanbul, (AKI) - The Turkish military has confirmed reports that it is preparing a large military operation against Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) rebels based along the borders with Iraq and Iran.

The offensive will aim to root out PKK militants who have entered Turkey in increasing numbers recently from camps in Iraq and in Iran. The announcement follows a report by the Turkish Dogan agency with video footage showing commando units, tanks, armoured vehicles and a large amount of military equipment being transported from western Turkey to the mountaineous eastern border regions of Van, Sirnak and Hakkari.

Many of the tanks have been stationed around the Gabar Mountain, a hotbed for PKK militants, according to media reports.

Nearly 250,000 troops will join the operation and the command centre will be Sirnak, only a few kilometers to Iraq border, the Posta newspaper reported.

The last large scale Turkish military operation against PKK was in 1997. It was also expanded to the PKK camps in northern Iraq.

It is not yet clear whether the current operation will be extended into Iraqi soil.

Some analysts say that Washington has provided Anakara with statellite intelligence information on the whereabouts of the PKK camps. They also suggested that planning for the military operation started some months ago, in coordination with US intelligence officials.

Dozens of guerrillas and members of Turkey's security forces have been killed in clashes and bomb attacks in recent months, inluding a series of blasts in Istanbul, some of them claimed by a group which has been linked to the PKK.

Street clashes in March and April between Kurdish protestors and security forces raised public concern over security, prompting the government to formulate new anti-terror legislation introducing harsher punishment for PKK members and their supporters.

The European Union and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist organisation and blame it for the deaths of some 30,000 people between 1984-1999.

www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=12087

Washington Times

Kurdish unrest in Turkey, which has continued with bombings in Istanbul in recent weeks and almost daily clashes and rioting in the mountains, strains U.S.-Turkey relations at a time when Ankara's support for U.S. policy in the Middle East and against Iran is crucial. Winning Turkish support to confront the Iran issue will be a challenging task, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried to steer Turkey toward friendly relationships with all its Arab neighbors while continuing to pursue accession into the European Union. Losing Turkish support would be a difficult setback for the United States.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to the region next week, where she will face the challenge of maintaining the delicate balance the United States has struck. Washington's approach must include building a stronger alliance with Turkey, keeping the Iraqi Kurds involved in the governing process in Iraq and opposing acts of violence, which are mostly the work of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a radical Kurdish faction that both the United States and Europe recognize as a terrorist organization.

Washington should also be concerned that Turkey, a secular Muslim democracy and bridge between the Western and Muslim worlds, has seen fundamentalism rise and pro-American sentiment erode so much that the overwhelming majority of Turks now consider the United States as the biggest obstacle to peace.

Turks see Kurdish sovereignty in Iraq as a threat to the integrity of their state: They regard a fully autonomous Kurdish state in Iraq as a precursor to a stronger push for independence and more divisive civil strife among the Turkish Kurds. Playing on these concerns, the Iranian ambassador to Turkey asserted that "the U.S. will carve pieces from us for a Kurdish state." The Turkish government is not alone in its distaste for the idea of a Kurdish state; Ayad Jamal al Din, a Shi'ite Iraqi legislator who represents the southern city of Nasiriya, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times earlier this month that many Iraqis also want a stronger central government and less Kurdish autonomy. Mr. Erdogan's statements indicate he is on the right track, proposing to engage the Kurds as citizens and promising "more roads, more hospitals, more schools and places of work," along with "more freedom, more democracy, more welfare, more rights and justice."

Relations with Turkey soured as a result of that nation's refusal in 2003 to allow U.S. troops to use Turkey's territorial border with Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom -- a decision that low point in the 50-year alliance between the United States and Turkey. The subsequent arrest of Turkish soldiers in Iraq by U.S. forces, which has been inaccurately interpreted in Turkish popular culture as a sign of American support for the Kurds over the Turks, did nothing to help rebuild the relationship. Today most of the PKK clashes with Turkish military occur in the Southeast mountain region, and reports abound of PKK guerillas operating out of camps in Northern Iraq and fighting with weapons supplied from Iraq.

Terrorism is a pressing issue for Mr. Erdogan and his government, and Washington should not let Ankara think that the United States restricts Turkey's ability to fight the PKK. Such a conclusion would risk pushing Turkey closer to its Muslim neighbors, including Iran, at the expense of its Western ties.

The alliance has been on the mend, but the process hasn't happened quickly enough. Polls show public opinion regarding the United States in Turkey is resoundingly negative, and Turkish opposition to American action against Iran is strong. When Miss Rice visits Turkey next week, ensuring that the pre-Iraq failure was not an indicator of how the alliance will function when tested should top the agenda. Clearly, this is a daunting challenge, and one that will require a Bismarckian level of diplomacy.

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060422-103450-2902r.htm

The Sunday Times
Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv

Plot for revenge attacks on West

IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.

US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.

Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.

Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks” of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president.

Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably” been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.

“It’s hard to identify Mugniyeh because he is said to have changed his face and his fingerprints,” Ledeen said. “But senior government officials have told me I was right. He was there.”

Shortly after the Damascus summit Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department, singled out the elusive Mugniyeh as a threat. The Iranians, Crumpton said, “have complete command and control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyeh works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem.”

Mugniyeh lives in Iran and has evaded capture for more than 20 years, despite a $5m American bounty on his head. Western intelligence reports claim he has many connections to terrorist cells in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US and he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden.

“When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act,” a western intelligence source said last week.

An Israeli defence source claimed Mugniyeh was in regular touch with the new Iranian intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei. The minister is a long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad and was appointed by him.

“We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyeh, who is today Iran’s head of overseas operations,” said the Israeli defence source. “Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyeh is certainly playing a major role.”

The young Mugniyeh first attracted the attention of the West when he was involved in the kidnapping, torture and mutilation of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984. He kept his victim at the Sheikh Abdullah camp in the Lebanese Bekaa valley and was allegedly the last person Buckley saw before he died.

“Imad had good reason to retaliate,” said a well-informed source. “A car bomb killed his brother Jihad, who had taken Imad’s old job as bodyguard to Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” Mugniyeh blamed the CIA, and Buckley was chosen to pay the price.

The kidnapping led to the Iran-contra affair, one of the most embarrassing episodes of the Reagan presidency, in which arms were swapped for hostages. But by the time the Americans were negotiating with the Iranians, Buckley was already dead.

Mugniyeh has also been linked to the demolition of the American embassy and marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and is wanted in Argentina for his role in recruiting the bombers of the Israeli embassy and Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.

Mugniyeh left Lebanon for Iran in 1994 with his wife and son after an assassination attempt. He is since believed to have played an active role in fomenting trouble in Iraq. Ledeen described him last week as the “spinal column of the terror war against America in Iraq from the beginning”.

According to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who pursued Mugniyeh in the 1980s, “he is the most dangerous terrorist we have ever faced. Mugniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we have ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else.

“He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments by telephone — he is never predictable. He is the master terrorist, the grail we have been after since 1983”.

Elite Iranian army officers who arrived in south Lebanon this month have taken command of thousands of rockets aimed at cities across Israel. They are believed to have been given control of the missiles by Hezbollah to deter possible Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

www.timesonline.co.uk/world

BBC - Authorities in Iran are to crack down on women failing to follow the regime's definition of good Islamic dress.

Some 200 extra police are to patrol the streets of Tehran confronting women who reveal ankles, sport thin headscarves or wear short or tight jackets.

Those found to be in breach of Iran's Islamic dress code could face instant penalty fines.

The move is part of a blitz against anti-social behaviour, also targeting drugs and people who play loud music.

People walking pets or men sporting outlandish hairstyles could also face fines, of up to $55 (£31), said Tehran's police chief, Mortaza Talai.

Iran's clerical establishment says it wants to protect the values of the country's Islamic revolution against a corrupting Western influence.

Changing times

There have been many such campaigns in the past, but they have often achieved little, correspondents say.

Women's clothing has always been a political barometer in Iran, but has changed dramatically over the past decade, according to the BBC's Pam O'Toole.

Even if they arrest all the girls wearing bad hijab, how long can they keep them in jail?
Tehran resident

During eight years of reformist rule, many young women in big cities abandoned the dark colours and long loose clothing of the early Islamic revolution for colourful headscarves and short, figure hugging coats.

That offends conservative Iranians, the grassroots supporters of the new hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, our correspondent says.

"In my opinion Islam, and the Islamic Republic, don't want to have a confrontation with people who have bad hijab," said conservative MP Fatemeh Ajorlou, who backs the campaign.

"But if someone wants to blatantly flout Islam or the Islamic system, that's another matter."

Women appear resigned to the new initiative but sceptical of its long-term effectiveness.

"Ultimately what they can do is go onto the streets and burn some clothes shops," one Iranian girl told the BBC.

"They will put pressure on us for a while. But after that it is up to people what to wear. Even if they arrest all the girls wearing bad hijab, my question is - how long can they keep them in jail?"

The New York Times

By Steven R. Weisman

WASHINGTON, April 21 — The Bush administration called today for Russia and the countries of Europe to impose their own penalties on Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program if no agreement on sanctions can be reached soon at the United Nations Security Council.

"If the Security Council cannot act over a reasonable period of time, then there will be an opportunity for groups of countries to organize themselves together for the purpose of isolating the Iranians diplomatically and economically," said R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs and the lead envoy on Iran.

He added that "it's not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future a group of countries could get together, if the Security Council is not able to act, to take collective economic action collective action on sanction."

It was not clear that Europeans or the Russians were interested in a sanctions approach without the United Nations Security Council authorizing it, and American and European officials said they still hope the council will move in that direction next month. A European official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said several European countries would resist the approach of letting countries proceed without an international consensus.

"If one or more countries break off and impose international sanctions, the Iranians would be thrilled," he said. "They would just be able to play countries off against each other. Going for sanctions, that would be a wasted exercise."

Mr. Burns's comments at a news conference in Washington came after several weeks of what some European and American officials say has been a frustrating period of diplomacy, with both Russia and China resisting the administration's efforts to get the Security Council to act against Iran.

The under secretary was in Moscow last week to try to get the Russians to go along with quick action at the Security Council. He said that he got agreement on the general need for such action but not on specifics. "We did not agree on the specific tactical way forward," he said.

Indeed, nearly three years of threats and diplomatic maneuverings, coupled with offers of economic incentives for Iran if it abandons its uranium enrichment activities, have resulted in Iran speeding its program up rather than slowing it down.

"In terms of activities on the ground in Iran, it's fair to say, I believe, that the Iranians have put both feet on the accelerator," Robert Joseph, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, said at the news conference with Mr. Burns.

He cited Iran's claim that it had 110 tons of uranium hexaflouride, a precursor for nuclear fuel in a civilian reactor but also potentially enough for 10 nuclear weapons. Iran's additional claim that it had enriched uranium to a level of 3.5 percent means that it is on its way to higher levels for use in weapons.

The Bush administration has sought to organize a widening circle of countries to put pressure on Iran, including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the so-called Group of Eight nations of leading industrial democracies that will be holding a summit meeting in St. Petersburg in July.

But the price of bringing Russia, China, India and other countries into seeking to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment program has been going along with their refusal to consider sanctions.

In the last two weeks, American officials say they are pleased that at least economic sanctions are being more widely discussed.

The week before last, Javier Solana, the European Union's principal foreign affairs envoy, proposed a series of possible economic penalties on Iran that won approval in Washington. They included imposing stricter export controls on high technology shipments to Iran and revocation of visas for any Iranian officials linked to the nuclear program.

In addition, the European list implied a freeze of personal assets for certain Iranian officials and a halt in defense-related contracts for Iran, which some European countries continue to honor.

But another senior European official, also asking not to be identified, said the list did not mean Europe was ready to impose these steps. The official noted that Mr. Solana listed the steps as "options for reflection" without saying they would be implemented. "We haven't called them options for action," the official said.

Iran's economic links with Europe and Russia are enormous, particularly in the energy sector. Iran is one of the world's leading producers of oil and natural gas, but even American officials say they doubt that any sanctions would include a ban on such imports to the West.

Mr. Burns also acknowledged that Russian officials rebuffed an American request that it half the sale of anti-aircraft missile equipment to Iran. He said that "we hope and trust" that this sale, announced last December, would not go forward.

"It just doesn't stand to reason that Russia would continue with arms sales, particularly of the type envisioned," Mr. Burns said. But he said that the United States still had work to do to persuade the Russian government.

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia must stop any arms deals with Iran and other nations must bar the sale of dual-use technologies to Tehran to put pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

"It's time for countries to use their leverage against Iran," said senior U.S. State Department official Nicholas Burns, adding: "We think it's very important that countries like Russia freeze any arms sales planned for Iran."

Washington wants Moscow to cancel the planned sale to Iran of Tor tactical surface-to-air missiles. Moscow and Tehran say they are for defensive purposes and Russia wants to go ahead with the deal.

"We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward," said Burns of the Tor deal.

Burns, who met in Moscow this week with officials from Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain to plan strategy against Iran, said nations must pressure Iran individually as well as collectively at the U.N. Security Council.

Washington has failed to convince veto-wielding nations China and Russia to adopt sanctions against Iran and Russia said on Friday the Security Council should only consider such measures if it had proof Tehran was trying to build a bomb.

It could take months before the United Nations might act against Iran and Burns said a group of countries could work together outside of the Security Council to isolate Iran diplomatically and economically.

Burns played down divisions between Russia, China and even some European allies over how to tackle Iran and said there was a "sense of urgency" among nations at the Moscow meeting to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, especially after it announced last week it had begun the enrichment of uranium.

Russia has also rejected a call from the United States, which has long maintained its own trade embargo on Iran, to halt work on the Islamic Republic's Bushehr nuclear power station.

Russia's state atomic energy agency is contracted to help Iran build the $1 billion reactor.

The State Department's arms control chief, Robert Joseph, said the Iranians had "both feet on the accelerator" in terms of their nuclear program.

"We are very close to that point of no return. And I think that's a view that is shared by many others," said Joseph, who lobbied Arab nations last week to isolate Iran.

A meeting among political directors from the six countries is expected to take place in Paris on May 2 and the group would try then to reach an agreement on what diplomatic action to take next against Iran, Burns said.

In addition, he said the Group of Eight industrialised nations would focus on Iran at their July summit.

csmonitor.com
By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Turkey says the satellite network Roj TV is a mouthpiece for Kurdish terrorists.

DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY – From her small apartment in this ancient city, Rabia Celikmilek has access to the entire world. A satellite dish on the roof of her crumbling brick building streams 452 TV channels, with programs from almost every continent.

But Ms. Celikmilek, a Kurd who doesn't speak Turkish, says she only watches Roj TV, a Kurdish channel based in Denmark.

"Roj TV reflects the emotions of the Kurds, our opinions. It's a mirror of the Kurds," says the mother of 10 as she watches the station's 7 p.m. news broadcast.

It's the third time a Kurdish satellite station has tried to beam news into Turkey, whose laws restrict Kurdish programming within the country. The first two were shut down. Now the Turkish government is lobbying Denmark to rein in Roj, accusing the two-year-old station of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for Kurdish terrorists.

"We know for sure that Roj TV is part of the PKK, a terrorist organization," says a Turkish foreign ministry official, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which battled Turkish troops during the 1980s and '90s in a bloody separatist fight that took the lives of more than 30,000. "[The PKK] is listed as a terrorist organization by the EU. Denmark is a member of the EU, and we would expect that the broadcasting organization of a terrorist group would not be given a free pass."

Asked for evidence of this link, the foreign ministry official says only that Roj had released the names of slain PKK guerrillas before the Turkish authorities had released their identities, implying the station must have a direct connection with the PKK. Turkey has also accused Roj of helping incite a three-day outbreak of violent protests in the southeast earlier this month, and says it has provided the Danish government with documentation to prove the station's link to the PKK.

Denmark, meanwhile, finds itself wrapped up in yet another sticky freedom-of-the-press debate. Although nothing compared to what took place during the furor over the prophet Muhammad cartoons first printed by a Danish newspaper, Denmark's embassy in Ankara - Turkey's capital city - has been receiving a steady stream of angry letters and e-mails from Turks incensed by the country's hosting of Roj TV.

The issue even sparked a mini crisis in Copenhagen last fall, when Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan boycotted a press conference with his Danish counterpart, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, because a reporter from Roj was in the room.

"Surely [the Roj TV affair] is not something that helps to improve relations," admits Anders Christian Hoppe, Denmark's ambassador to Turkey. But Mr. Hoppe declined to comment on whether Denmark was taking any steps to investigate or shut down the station.

"The [Danish] government's position is that, just like in Turkey, this is a matter for the courts. Governments in Western countries, including Turkey, do not interfere with the courts," the ambassador adds.

"It is being investigated by the police, the government. We have been given material by the Turks and it has been very helpful." The first Kurdish satellite channel, Med TV, was licensed in Britain. But the British closed it in 1999, saying it had incited violence. The second attempt, Medya TV, was licensed by France and closed in 2004 because it was deemed to be the successor of Med TV.

Roj appears to be treading more cautiously than Med TV and Medya TV, mindful that they were shut down. But it's clear they have open access to the PKK, whose fighters and leadership are holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq. The station frequently airs footage provided by the organization of its guerrillas in action against Turkish security forces. Its news programs also feature frequent updates about imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, a reviled figure for many Turks.

Manouchehr Tahsili Zonoozi, a Kurd from Iran who is the station's general manager, acknowledges that the station maintains contact with the PKK, but says it is not controlled by it.

"We are an independent Kurdish broadcaster. Our job is to be journalists," he says, speaking by telephone from the station's studios in Denmark.

Mr. Zonoozi also rejects the Turkish claim that Roj helped incite the recent violent protests in Turkey.

"If I am going to be [blamed] for what happened in Istanbul or Diyarbakir, then you should [blame] Le Figaro for [the recent riots that] happened in France. I'm sorry, but that is rubbish," Zonoozi says.

"We are very popular, and that's hard for the governments in the region."

Until the recent introduction of reforms that are part of Turkey's push to join the European Union, local stations in the country were forbidden from broadcasting programs in Kurdish. But limits remain. Stations are only allowed to broadcast in Kurdish for four hours a week, cannot air children's programs, and must avoid "political" subjects - though it's up to managers to interpret what that means.

Deniz Gorduk, news manager of Gun TV, a local Diyarbakir station, says Roj - which, among its various programs, shows children's cartoons in Kurdish - fills a vacuum created by the Turkish government's controls.

"There are so many limits on us and that is why Roj TV is so popular," he says.

In the increasingly restive southeast of Turkey, where satellite dishes now adorn even the humblest village homes, the Turkish government's efforts to shut down Roj TV are now being added to the list of grievances. In January, more than 50 mayors from the region sent a letter to Denmark asking it to keep the station on the air.

"When Roj TV started, it was like a sun rising," says Ali, a tailor who asks that only his first name be used. "We only have Roj TV and now Turkey wants to shut it down."
www.csmonitor.com/2006/0421/p01s01-woeu.html

Jerusalem Post

President Moshe Katsav has warned the people of Iran that their radical regime, with its insistent drive for a nuclear capability, poses a grave danger to global peace and security and is leading them toward the abyss.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post ahead of Independence Day, the president sent a message to Iranians stressing that "Israel is not against the Iranian people," and that he himself had "great love for Persian culture, Persian history."

Potentially, the Iranian-born president said, Iran enjoyed oil revenues that could ensure a high standard of living and quality of life for its people. But instead of using that money to alleviate poverty, distress, illiteracy and the other economic and social problems facing many of his citizens, Iran's "fanatical, extremist president" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime were investing all of their resources in developing a nuclear capability.

Moreover, Katsav said, there was no existential threat to Iran, and therefore there would be no basis for an Iranian claim to require a nuclear capability for self-defense.

Katsav, who came to Israel with his family as a five-year-old in 1951, characterized Ahmadinejad's regime as "the most hostile" since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and branded it "an enemy and a danger to the internal situation in Iran and a danger to peace and security in the world. The Iranians, to my sorrow, are either too scared or don't recognize the reality and therefore don't see the regime leading them to the abyss."

A nuclear Iran would constitute a threat "to Europe, to Israel, the Persian Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia and the Hashemite Kingdom," he said.

The president noted that, for years, the West had hoped that internal Iranian pressure "would ultimately bring Iran closer to the West... But in the last year it's become clear that the notion of positive change was a Western illusion. The reformists didn't prevail."

In a similar vein, the West had hoped that diplomatic efforts would deter the Iranian nuclear drive. But "Iran simply led Europe astray."

"The Iranians pretended to want trade agreements," he said, "but they didn't slow in the slightest their plans to reach a nuclear capability. In my opinion, they aim to reach the day when the world will say, 'Too bad, they've already got it.'"

Even after Ahmadinejad's recent announcement that Iran was enriching uranium, Katsav noted, there was no international outcry. "I imagine that in the inner rooms of the Iranian regime they are falling over with laughter at how they are moving step by step toward their goal and how the free world is hesitant and weak," he said.

The president stressed that he was not calling for military action against Iran but rather for a "forceful stance" to deter the nuclear program. The West, he said, needed to say "enough" and "acknowledge that the diplomatic effort has failed. Why don't they open their eyes?"

"We can't have Iran cheating the world, behaving with contempt," he said.

"Everyone thinks that we Israelis, when we speak of standing firm against Iran, are talking of military action. That is not the case," said Katsav. "I think that a resolute, unhesitant stance by the free world is precisely what will avoid military action. Those who want to avoid military action must now take a forceful stance against Iran."

(The full interview with President Katsav will appear in the Post's Independence Day supplement.)

kurdishinfo.com

BEHDINAN (21.04.2006)- Commandership of HPG Main Headquarters made an invitation to the public, for the funerals of guerillas, who lost their lives in the operations of Turkish Army. HPG, who wanted from the families of guerillas and people to go to the operation areas and take the funerals of guerillas, stated the areas in which the funerals were buried.

Commandership of HPG Main Headquarters, made an explanation about the burying areas of funerals of guerillas, who lost their lives in the conflicts which were occured in the operations of Turkish Army.

According to the knowledges of HPG; the areas in which funerals of guerillas were buried together by Turkish Army, is like these; the funerals of 12 guerillas, who lost their lives in the conflicts in Cudi Mountain, which is bounded to Sirnak and Besta area were buried together in the conflict area. The funerals of 4 guerillas of Cudi Mountain, were buried in the country of Hesenan (Hasatli) village, the funerals of 8 HPG guerillas in Besta area, were buried in the country of Deryan village, which is in Geliyê Hezil.

In the statement, HPG invited "the families of martries and people to go to these areas together and take the funerals of our martries". HPG, who attracted notice that, Turkish Army was used chemical gases in the conflicts, specified that Turkish soldiers tampered on the funerals of guerillas.

HPG said that, the reason that they buried the funerals and they don't want to give the 6 guerillas to their families, which are in Malatya State Hospital is, ''They are hiding the inhuman treatment, that they made to our martiries''.

The Headquarters of HPG attracted notice to these points:

- The AKP Government, which was afraid from the possession of martiries from our people and opposing of the using of chemical gases, decided to bury the funerals in conflict areas by decree.

- There is not an enforcement like this in any part of the world. In all the world, the forces which are conflicting, give their funerals reciprocal. Also there is not a mentality in any religion not to give the funerals.

- AKP said that they are a muslim party, but they exhibited that they are fake muslims, because of not giving the funerals of martiries and making inhuman tretaments to funerals of martiries.

- AKP Government didn't want to give the funerald, because they want to hide the inhuman treatmnent, that they made to funerals.

- The funerals of 6 guerillas from West, East and South Kurdistan are being waited in Malatya State Hospital. Because, if an objective legal medicine association make autopsy to them, it will be understood that, they kill these 6 guerillas by chemical gases.

On 24th March 2006, 14 guerillas lost thier lives in Amed-Bingol-Mus region by the comprehensive operation, which was made by Turkish Army Forces. During the funerals, policemen and soldiers used violence against people. 16 civilian people, in which there were children, who were 3, 6, 8 and 12, lost their lives in Amed (Diyarbakir), Batman, Qoser (Kiziltepe) and Istanbul. More than 500 people, were injured by bullets and hundreds of people were taken into custody.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Friday the rise in oil price was "very good," Iran's Mehr News Agency reported, emphasizing the hawkish position of the world's fourth largest oil exporter as crude prices have hit record levels.

"The increase of the oil price and growth of oil income is very good and we hope that the oil prices reach their real levels," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said as he toured an oil exhibition in Tehran, the agency reported.

He did not say what those real levels should be. But these and other earlier remarks suggest he believes crude prices should rise above this week's record high of over $74 a barrel.

On Friday, European Brent crude oil dipped below $73.

Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said on Thursday Iran was happy with surging prices. The minister blamed the price rise on a shortage of gasoline in the United States and not a shortage of crude in world markets.

Most members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries worry that the high prices will hurt world economic growth and Iran had previously shared that view.

OPEC member Venezuela has also taken a hawkish position.

In earlier comments to reporters at the exhibition, Ahmadinejad said Iran was looking at ways to help protect poor states from the impact of rising prices but said rich countries should pay what he called the "real price."

Iranian lawmakers have previously said that a price of $100 or more for a barrel of oil was an appropriate level.

"There is a fund in OPEC, and the Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry are in talks to see whether this OPEC fund has the capacity (to support poor countries)," Ahmadinejad said when asked about his plans to set up an assistance fund.

"But those rich and industrial countries that have billions of dollars in income should pay the real price for their crude oil," he said.

He did not give details about the financing mechanism, but the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has a fund to promote development.

In March, OPEC production excluding Iraq was 27.81 million barrels per day, of which Iran's production was 3.85 million bpd.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, April 21 (Reuters) - Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish guerrilla positions inside mountainous northern Iraq early Friday morning to repel an attack, an Iraqi Kurdish official said.

"This morning Iranian Kurdish fighters infiltrated the border into the Iranian side and the Iranian army bombed the area and repelled them. The shelling hit Iraqi land at Sidakan," said Saadi Pira, an official in the leading PUK Kurdish party.

There was no word on casualties in the shelling of the Iranian Kurdish rebels of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK). Sidakan is about 80 km (50 miles) north of the northern Iraqi city of Arbil and about 10 km (6 miles) inside Iraq from the Iranian border.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have previously clashed with PJAK separatists in Iran's restive western borderlands.

Security experts say PJAK is an Iranian wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) whose separatist struggle regained momentum in southeastern Turkey after it called off a unilateral ceasefire in the summer of 2004.

Based on received reports, Ejlal Ghavami, journalist from the province of Kurdistan will go on trial on Saturday, April 22nd in the city of Sanandadj.

Among the charges brought against this journalist are: insulting the leadership, taking action against national security, connection with various anti-regime fronts, planning the uprisings of summer of 2005 in the province of Kurdistan. Ghavami who is a member of the editorial board of the banned weekly newspaper PAYAM'EH MARDOM, spent 65 days in prison however he was released on a $12000 bail.

Iran Focus– Iranian authorities hanged 10 men in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison on various charges including murder.

The 10 individuals were all hanged in the early hours of Wednesday, the state-run news agency Fars reported.

The report said that the sentences were carried out after they were upheld by Iran’s State Supreme Court.

Evin Prison was built by the Shah’s regime as a modern security prison to house political dissidents, but it became the Islamic Republic’s most dreaded gulag and the site of numerous political executions.

Iran Focus– Ten young men were paraded by police in the northern Iranian town of Tonkabon, Iran’s official news agency reported on Thursday.

Colonel Ahmad Fazeli, the commander of State Security Forces in the town, was quoted as saying that the men, who had been arrested over the past month, were paraded in the streets of Tonkabon on Wednesday.
The men were accused of various crimes including “racketeering”, theft, and “hooliganism”.

Authorities frequently use degrading punishments against youths in their local neighbourhood so as to embarrass and humiliate them.

Such punishments are often used for petty crimes such as alcohol consumption, disregarding nightly curfews, and disrespect towards security agents.

By Rufat Abbasov

BAKU (Reuters) - The prospect of the United States using force to halt Iran's nuclear programme is empty talk, Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on Thursday.

U.S. President George W. Bush says he is using diplomacy to curb Iran's atomic ambitions, but has not ruled out military options, even including a nuclear strike, to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"The United States has been threatening Iran for 27 years and this is not new for us. Therefore we are never afraid of U.S. threats," Najjar told reporters during a visit to neighbouring Azerbaijan.

"If you take into account the fact that they are not doing anything, this shows it is just talk," he said.

"We are ready to resolve all issues through negotiations (but) if we are confronted with something, we are ready to deal with it," the minister added.

Iran says its nuclear programme is solely to generate electricity. The United States and other major powers suspect that Tehran's efforts to enrich uranium could allow it to divert material for clandestine bomb-making.

Iranian nuclear negotiators were in Moscow on Thursday but there was no word on who they were meeting or what they were discussing.

Late on Wednesday the delegation met representatives of the so-called EU3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- but a British diplomat said there had been no breakthrough.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog is to file a report on April 28 that is likely to criticise Iran for failing to comply with a Security Council demand for a halt to enrichment.

Washington, backed by Britain and France, wants the Security Council to approve targeted sanctions on Iran, such as travel bans and asset freezes against its leaders.

But China and Russia, the two other veto-holders on the council, are not convinced sanctions will help. Talks between the big powers in Moscow this week failed to produce any detailed consensus on punitive measures.

Azerbaijan, a Caspian Sea state on Iran's northern border, is an ally of Washington that has run joint exercises with the U.S military.

Azeri and Russian media have speculated that the United States may use Azerbaijan to apply pressure on Iran or even to launch a military strike. Officials in Washington and Baku have flatly denied this.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev is to fly to Washington next week at the invitation of the White House.

Euronews

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has invoked self-defence as a potential justification for military intervention in Iran. Rice said the US had the authority to act alone or with a coalition if the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme could not be resolved within the context of the United Nations Security Council.

The UN Security Council has given Iran until the 28th of April to comply with its demands to stop enriching uranium. Iran has ignored the ultimatum, while China and Russia have both made clear they will use their power of veto against sanctions. However, a senior US official at the meeting said they are in the minority: "We heard last night, and again today, from individual countries, that all of those who spoke, and it was the great majority, are looking at sanctions", said senior White House official Nicholas Burns.

Iran's programme of low-grade uranium enrichment has stoked western fears that the country plans to manufacture nuclear weapons. But the country has always insisted its research is peaceful and aimed at generating domestic energy.

London (KurdishMedia.com) 20 April 2006: In a letter to the Shiia bloc, known as the United Iraqi Alliance, Ibarhim al-Jaafari left his fate, as the nominee for the next permanent post of the Iraqi Prime Minister, to the Shiia bloc.

Al-Jaafari informed the United Iraqi Alliance, in his letter, that they nominated him and he would leave it for them to decide whether they pursue him as the nominee or select another individual. He did not say that he would step down as the nominee.

The Kurds and Sunni blocs have rejected the Shiia bloc’s nominee Ibarhaim Jaafari, arguing that he is not suitable for the post.

rferl.org
By Golnaz Esfandiari

Authorities in Iran have announced a crackdown against citizens who offend the country's strict Islamic dress code. Police chief Morteza Talaei said on April 18 that officers will deal harshly with offenders, beginning on April 21. Such announcements frequently accompany the onset of warmer weather. Will this effort prove more successful than conservative-led crackdowns in the past?

Each of the past two days, roughly 100 women have gathered in front of the Iranian parliament to protest "bad hejabi" -- or noncompliance with the country's dress code. They complain that lax adherence to Islamic dress is spreading in Iranian society, and they accuse offenders of "propagating corruption and prostitution."

The demonstration came on the heels of a pledge by Tehran's police chief of "firm confrontation" targeting people who disrespect "religious sanctities and social values." Even taxi services that transport "improperly" clad women will be punished, he says.

Periodic Pressure

It appears to be part of a broader initiative aimed particularly at young people ahead of the hot days of summer.

But one young Tehran resident who spoke with Radio Farda, Akbar, predicted this government initiative will be futile.

"Whenever the government changes because they want to say that, 'We [are in charge],' they put some pressure [on young people]," Akbar said. "When [President Mohammad] Khatami's government came to power, they also put the youth under pressure; but later there was absolute freedom, young people were going out in public anyway they wanted. It's the same now, but later there will be freedom again."

Police chief Talaei said that under the new plan, 50 new police squads that include female officers will help enforce Islamic dress.

He warned that women and girls wearing Capri pants, short or tight-fitting coats, loose scarves, or failing to wear socks in public will be "confronted."

Conspicuous Targets

The decency crackdown ostensibly targets men, as well, but it is women and young girls who are likely to bear the brunt of enforcement in this cleric-dominated Islamic republic.

A strict dress code has been in effect since the country's Islamic Revolution in 1979. Men are forbidden from wearing shorts. But women cannot expose their hair or ankles, for instance, and must don loose-fitting clothes that conceal the shape of their bodies.

Enforcement efforts have varied for decades. But one look around the capital, Tehran, suggests that many Iranians flout the strictest Islamic interpretations of propriety. And more women and girls defy the code by wearing tighter, shorter, and more colorful clothing -- or head scarves that barely cover their hair.

The new campaign follows recent calls by the conservative-dominated parliament for government action against the practitioners of "bad hejabi."

Lawmakers have also proposed a national dress that would "redefine Iranian identity while respecting religious and cultural identities."

Could It Backfire

But the clampdown could backfire in a country with such a sizable population of young people. One resident of Tehran, a young woman named Azar, complained to Radio Farda about the effect of such strictures on her generation:

"These actions are useless," Azar said. "It will only cause stress and anxiety for the young generation. For example, they'll think, 'If I go out, I'll get arrested, [so] I'd better not go out.' It's a bit depressing."

Dr. Amanollah Gharayi Moghadam, a professor of sociology in Tehran, told RFE/RL that tighter enforcement of the dress code could lead to trouble in the longer term.

"In fact it will lead [the youth] toward confrontation. Young people don't accept it," he said. "Even tougher past restrictions were fruitless. So today we see that these behaviors among girls and the youth are increasing -- not only in the northern part of the city but also in the southern [poorer and generally more conservative] parts, we can more or less see it. I think that not only it will bring no results, but it will actually have a reverse effect."

But authorities appear determined to fight what they consider "social corruption." Today, Tehran deputy prosecutor Mahmud Salarkia said the police should deal with those who break the rules and fail to respect Islamic principles.

Salarkia noted that, under the law, the punishment for such offenders is as long as two months in prison, a lashing, or a fine equal to about $50.

LONDON (AFP) - China,Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States carried out most of the world's executions in 2005, Amnesty International said as it released new figures on the use of the death penalty.

The London-based human rights group said the four countries carried out nearly 94 percent of the 2,148 known executions in 2005 in 22 countries.

Some 1,770 executions were reported in China -- although Amnesty said it suspected the real figure was higher -- with at least 94 in Iran, 86 in Saudi Arabia and 60 in the United States.

Overall, 5,186 people were sentenced to death in 53 countries in the 12 months to December last year, although their sentence will either never be carried out or has yet to be performed, it added.

Taken with previous figures, Amnesty estimated there were more than 20,000 people on death row across the world, describing the figures as "truly disturbing".

"The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights because it contravenes the essence of human values," said Irene Khan, secretary general of the rights group.

"It is often applied in a discriminatory manner, follows unfair trials or is applied for political reasons. It can be an irreversible error when there is miscarriage of justice."

Khan renewed her organisation's long-held call for the practice to be abolished, arguing that it was not a "unique deterrent" to crime.

She said it was a "glaring anomaly" that China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States still used the deadly sanction when countries such as Mexico and Liberia had recently voted to abolish it.

In particular, she called on Iran -- "the only country known to Amnesty International to have executed juvenile offenders in 2005" -- and others to follow the lead of the United States and ban the death penalty for under-18s.

To end capital punishment for juveniles completely would be a "remarkable human rights achievement", she added.

"The momentum against the death penalty has become unstoppable, said Khan.

She noted that in 1977, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes. By 2005, that figure had risen to 86.

Students in a number of universities across Iran staged protests and strikes following the rise in crackdown and intimidation in society.

In Rajai University in Tehran, students' protest against suppressive policies and the appointment of extremists as the chancellor of the university entered its sixth day. The students also called for the dismissal of the chancellor and protested the burial of three members of Paramilitary Bassij force on campus.

On Friday, the University Chancellor, visited the strikers, and called the students “thieves, opportunists and foreign operatives” and accused them of receiving “foreign aid to create chaos."

The students stepped up their protests by closing down classrooms and calling for the resignation of the chancellor. Yesterday, the University's staff issued a statement supporting and joining the student strike.

In another development, Tehran’s “Allamme-Tabatabei” University students prevented the new chancellor from making a speech.

On Saturday and Sunday, Kerman University’s Science and Technology students staged a strike against the regime's intimidating actions.

Students at “Bahonar” School of Kerman University have been on strike since Saturday. University officials have reportedly closed the main gate to the Science and Technology School and cut off water to the building.

Meanwhile, 20 students from Sharif Technical University, who had protested against the burial of Bassij members on campus, have been summoned to court.

The mullahs’ regime continues the plan to bury war victims in the universities in order to step up an atmosphere of terror and intimidation.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

Iran Focus–Iran’s State Supreme Court has upheld the execution sentence of a young man, a state-run news agency reported on Wednesday.

The young man was only identified as 20-year-old Yadollah.

He was accused of stabbing to death an acquaintance over a financial dispute in October 2004 when he was a teenager, according to the news agency ISNA.

On Tuesday, ISNA reported that a court in Tehran sentenced 19-year-old Faraz A. to hanging. He was accused of murder.

Meanwhile, the state-run daily Iran reported that two young men, identified as Sourosh and Nader, were sentenced to hanging.

There was also a separate report that the execution sentence of another man, identified as 56-year-old Hamid-Reza B., was upheld by the State Supreme Court. He was accused of murdering a 70-year-old woman.

The Washington Times
By Andrew Borowiec
NICOSIA, Cyprus -- In a growing climate of fear punctuated by riots and bomb explosions, Kurdish nationalists in Turkey are pressing their claim for autonomy.

Turkish military leaders and politicians feel that granting such a demand would be tantamount to storing dynamite under the republic's foundations, and likely to result in Turkey's fragmentation along ethnic lines.

As the country counted its latest victims of clashes between the army and Kurdish rebels, Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, chief of the general staff, called for "unity, loyalty and self-sacrifice" from Turkish soldiers so that "no one will be able to divide the homeland." He addressed the troops in the provinces bordering Iraq and Iran, where recent clashes took place.

The problem of the Kurds, a tormented nation-tribe deprived of statehood throughout its history, also affects Turkey's neighbors Iran, Iraq and Syria, where an estimated 10 million Kurds live.

It clouds U.S. policies in the area and Turkey's candidacy for membership in the European Union, which has been pressing the Turkish government to show restraint in the face of Kurdish violence spilling from the bleak mountains of southeastern Turkey to the urban ghettoes of Istanbul, where a number of Kurds have settled.

To the Turkish government, the creation of a semiautonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq has brought the specter of autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish population. The Kurds have braced themselves for more bloodshed and turmoil, while Syria and Iran hint darkly at what they perceive to be the Bush administration's intention to carve out a Kurdish state from their territories.

Suicide bombings begin

In recent weeks, suicide bombers have appeared in the conflict, which since the 1980s has claimed an estimated 37,000 lives in the war between the Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), regarded by Turkey, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization.

Hardly a day goes by without rioting and clashes in the mountains, where Kurdish fighters are reportedly supplied with weapons from Iraq. The victims include Kurdish guerrillas and an increasing number of Turkish soldiers.

Mosques and government buildings have been bombed.

Although the PKK has proclaimed a unilateral cease-fire in its campaign, local clashes accompanied by mass demonstrations and rioting have led to a general deterioration of the situation.

According to some diplomatic reports, a number of Kurds doubt the validity of armed struggle, now that Turkey has become an EU candidate. They argue that time should be allowed for the EU to exert more pressure on Turkey to recognize the validity of Kurdish demands.

While allowing the restive Kurds the right to use their language -- banned in public not long ago -- the Turkish authorities have vowed to suppress rioting and bombings by the PKK.

"Sinister plans buried in history cannot be revived. No one should dare defy the power of the state and of the nation," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu has promised that "our struggle against terrorism will continue with conviction and determination."

Since 1924, there have been 29 violent Kurdish uprisings.

According to Jean-Francois Perouse, a French specialist on Kurdish affairs, the Turkish Kurds have been "economically and politically marginalized, becoming the republic's second-class citizens, and prone to violence."

Though they weigh heavily over Turkey's stability, officially the Kurds don't exist. They are "mountain Turks" or "our eastern compatriots." Their number in Turkey is estimated at 8 million or more -- no reliable figures are available.

Addressing economic problems and marginalization in some predominantly Kurdish areas, Mr. Erdogan has promised a series of reforms that would reduce support for PKK militants roaming the mostly barren, wind-swept mountains.

"While they [the PKK] try to capitalize on hatred, we will build more roads, more hospitals, more schools and places of work for the mountain Turks. We will bring more freedom, more democracy, more welfare, more rights and justice."

Kurdish identity denied

Wrote Hikmet Cetin in the pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Politika: "We should not forget that the identity of the Kurds has always been denied and that efforts have always been made to annihilate them."

Seeking to satisfy some of their demands for freedom of expression, the government recently authorized private television channels to broadcast in Kurdish for up to 45 minutes per day. However, the measure is limited to 45 minutes a day for a total of four hours a week. All video must carry Turkish subtitles. Programs aimed at teaching or propagating the Kurdish language are banned.

Politically, the process of convincing Kurds that "it is not too late" to give up their fight is paralyzed. So far, Mr. Erdogan has refused to meet representatives of the Democratic Society Party, the main pro-Kurdish political entity, until it declares the PKK to be a terrorist organization.

Not all Turkish Kurds are impoverished and angry. According to one diplomatic assessment, "although their Kurdish origin is never mentioned publicly, many Kurds have reached high positions in the Turkish state and enriched many walks of Turkish life."

"There have been Kurdish judges, Cabinet ministers and members of parliament," a senior Turkish official said recently, adding that his wife is a Kurd.

Another assessment claims that since the creation of the republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s, successive governments "have pursued a policy of assimilation, repression and dispersal of the Kurds. Large numbers of Kurds have been transferred from the eastern provinces to other parts of Anatolia."

Because "the Kurdish problem" constitutes a considerable obstacle in Turkey's EU accession process, measures were recently announced to compensate Kurds for their losses in population transfers during which the Turkish army was accused of razing entire villages.

Diplomats say it is too early to assess how successful the compensation process has been.

Despite the great importance of the Kurdish problem, little has been written in Turkey about the Kurds' origins and aspirations.

The Kurds claim to be Aryans, are classified as a white race, and speak a language considered to be Indo-European. They have lived in parts of Anatolia since the 7th century B.C.

There are countless myths and legends about their history. One says the Kurdish nation sprang from 400 virgins raped by devils en route to King Solomon's court. There is a prophecy about a great Kurdish leader who will arise one day and throw off the yoke of his people's various oppressors.

For the time being, many Kurds look up to one leader, now in a Turkish prison. He is Abdullah Ocalan, 57, who once led the PKK and began the latest rebellion in 1984, today blamed for 37,000 deaths.

He was condemned to death for treason in 1999, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2002 after Turkey abolished the death penalty as part of its efforts to adopt EU norms. Kurds have rioted on several occasions demanding his release, which has always been categorically rejected by the government, which considers him a public enemy.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20060418-092815-7436r.htm

BERLIN, April 19 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in the western Siberian city of Tomsk next week with Iran's atomic plans one of the main topics of discussion, Germany said on Wednesday.

"This issue (Iran's nuclear programme) will figure prominently in upcoming discussions, not least between the chancellor and the Russian president," German government spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters.

Merkel will be in Tomsk next Wednesday and Thursday. Steg said she and Putin would also discuss energy ties and political issues such as last month's election in Belarus.

Steg said Iran's determination to develop its uranium enrichment programme despite worldwide condemnation was leading to further isolation for the Islamic republic.

"We want the international community to keep up the pressure so that the regime in Tehran realises its continued pursuit of enrichment will only lead to further self-isolation," he said.

Amid suspicions in the West that Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons, Iran last week defied U.N. demands and declared it had enriched uranium to a level used in power stations. Iran says it only wants nuclear technology to produce electricity, not bombs.

The U.N. Security Council has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report by April 28 on Iran's compliance with a council demand that it stop enriching uranium and answer the agency's questions on its nuclear programme.

Steg said Berlin wanted the six key countries working to pressure Iran to freeze its nuclear enrichment programme -- Germany, the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- to focus on resolving the crisis diplomatically.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner played down the failure of the six countries to reach an agreement on Iran at a meeting in Moscow late on Tuesday.

"This was a half-time meeting, so to speak," he said, referring to the April 28 deadline for IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's report on Iran. "No specific result was expected to come out of it."

The Guardian
Robert Tait in Tehran and Ewen MacAskill

Relations between the west and the hardline Iranian regime are set to worsen after a Tehran-based group claimed yesterday it was trying to recruit Iranians and other Muslims in Britain to carry out suicide bombings against Israel.

The Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign, which claims to be independent but has the backing of the regime, said it is targeting potential recruits in Britain because of the relative ease with which UK passport-holders can enter Israel.

The claim came hours after nine people were killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, and days after a prediction by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel would be blown away in a "storm". President George Bush refused to rule out a limited nuclear strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Mohammad Samadi, a spokesman for the group, told the Guardian that striking at Israel was the priority of his recruitment drive. "The first target is Israel. For us, that is the battlefield," he said. "All the Jews are targets, whether military or civilian. It's our land and they are in the wrong place. It's their duty to pay attention to safety of their own families and move them away from the battlefield," he said.

Mr Samadi's group was participating in a recruitment fair for "martyrdom seekers" being held in the grounds of the former US embassy in Tehran. Several hundred volunteers have signed up for missions in the past few days.

Volunteers attracted to his group were asked to complete forms specifying whether they prefer to carry out operations against "the Quds occupiers" [Israel], the British author Salman Rushdie - subject of a death sentence passed by Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, over The Satanic Verses - or "the occupiers of Islamic lands", the US and Britain.

Mr Samadi was standing at an exhibition stall festooned with portraits of Palestinian suicide bombers, including pictures of the aftermaths of attacks. It also featured a tribute to Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza three years ago. A banner outside the fair read: "There is no voice higher than intifada." Nearby stood a mock model of the Statue of Liberty, with iron bars cut into the torso to symbolise a prison cell.

The British embassy has called on the Iranian government to renounce support for the group. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We have longstanding concerns at the support that Iran provides to groups undermining peace in the Middle East through violence, including the activities of this group."

But western diplomats played down the significance of the group's threat, saying it was primarily a campaign to gather signatures of protest against Israel rather than recruiting bombers. But the group's pronouncements add to the list of western indictments against Iran since the election last year of Mr Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth.

While the committee claims to be independent it has previously been linked with the Revolutionary Guards. It claims it has gathered 52,000 recruits - of whom 30% are women - since forming two years ago. According to the group, recruits are instructed in target planning and military discipline before progressing to intensive urban guerrilla warfare training, involving the use of bomb belts.

When asked how Iranian volunteers would get into Israel, Mr Samadi cited the precedent of Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Sharif, two British Muslims who attacked a bar in Tel Aviv, killing three Israelis, in 2003 after entering Israel as tourists and then posing as peace activists. Hanif blew himself up at the scene while Sharif fled, but was found drowned in the Mediterranean.

"That shows that it has not been difficult getting into Israel," he said. "Do you think getting hold of a British passport for an Iranian citizen is hard? Tens of passports are issued for Iranian asylum seekers in Britain every day. There are hundreds of other ways available to us, such as illegal entry [into Britain], fake passports, etc.

"Britain and other European countries have a lot of disaffected Muslims who are ready. We understand the suspicion with which Britain, America and other western countries regard their Muslim populations. We don't condemn them for this because we believe every Muslim has the potential to turn into a bomb against the west."

Mr Samadi said recruits would not be told to attack British cities. "With the exception of Israel, we do not target civilians," he said. "They would definitely not be sent to carry out an attack on London unless it was to kill Salman Rushdie."

Israeli security analysts said there is no evidence that the group has been directly linked to suicide bombings or other attacks in Israel.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, in a security council debate about Monday's Tel Aviv bombing, called Iranian threats against Israel a "declaration of war".

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain does not expect Iran to comply with United Nations Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment by the end of April, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Wednesday.

Amid suspicions in the West that Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons, Iran last week defied U.N. demands and declared it had enriched uranium to a level used in power stations. Iran says it only wants nuclear technology to produce electricity, not bombs.

The U.N. Security Council has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report by April 28 on Iran's compliance with a council demand that it stop enriching uranium and answer the agency's questions on its nuclear program.

"We are working on the basis that Iran will not meet the proposals from the Security Council on the 30-day deadline," Straw told BBC Radio Four in an interview from Saudi Arabia.

His comments are consistent with a long-held view from Britain that Iran is showing no signs of complying.

Straw said negotiating with Iran was unpredictable.

"But what is most likely to happen is that the matter will move back to the Security Council and there will then be discussions about the next steps which the international community will take," he added.

Straw's comments followed a meeting in Moscow of senior officials from the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France -- the council's permanent members -- and Germany. No agreement emerged from the talks on Tuesday.

Straw, echoing similar remarks by his Russian and French counterparts, said world powers would wait for the IAEA's report before considering future action.

The United States, which already enforces its own sweeping sanctions on Iran, wants the Security Council to be ready to take strong diplomatic action, including so-called targeted measures such as a freeze on assets and visa curbs.

Straw again played down the likelihood of military action against Iran, even though President Bush on Tuesday refused to rule out nuclear strikes if diplomacy fails to curb the Islamic Republic's atomic ambitions.

"I have always acknowledged that the United States government formally is in a different position from that of the European governments upon this theoretical issue about the use of force," said Straw.

"But in practice both the Americans and the Europeans, and Russia and China are committed to finding a diplomatic solution to this issue."

KurdishMedia.com
By Vladimir van Wilgenburg

London--An English woman has been charged with the murder of a Kurdish man in Hull, England last week. A Kurd who was arrested at the time has been released because the police are certain he is 100% innocent, a fact confirmed by CCTV cameras in the area where the murder occurred. He is the only witness and is important to prosecute the woman of the murder of his friend.

The problem that remains is one of bad communication. The Kurdish community in Hull believes the other Kurdish man was the killer, but he was not. The police have tried to tell the Kurdish community the facts, but the Kurdish community does not trust the British police. This means that news of the murder has reached Kurdistan without the true facts.

The two Kurds in this situation come from very close families and this could lead to a tragedy between these families in Kurdistan. Only because did not know the truth about this murder. The Kurd who was originally arrested by mistake was actually helping his friend before he died. He is now helping to make sure the woman who committed the murder is convicted and goes to prison. He did not murder his friend.

"I just pray the two families in Kurdistan consider the facts before they act. I pray they read this and know it is true," said a resident of Hull, who wanted to remain anonymous.

"I know how difficult a death in the family is, when you are so far from home. I do know your son will receive justice in the British system and that the murderer will go to prison," told the source to KurdishMedia.com.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during an armed forces parade on Tuesday that any aggressor would regret attacking the Islamic Republic, which is embroiled in a nuclear dispute with the West.

The president declared Iran a nuclear power last week after he said it had successfully enriched uranium to the level used in power stations. Iran insists its program is civilian despite accusations by the West that it wants atomic bombs.

The United States has said it wants a diplomatic solution to the standoff but has not ruled out a military option.

"Today, Iran's army is one of the most powerful armies in the world and it will powerfully defend the country's political borders and the nation," Ahmadinejad said in a brief speech before troops and small missiles were paraded past.

"It will cut off the hands of any aggressors and will make any aggressor regret it," he added.

Ahmadinejad took the salute of thousands of army, navy and air force troops goose-stepping passed. Tanks were towed passed on large trucks and helicopters flew in formation overhead. Parachutists trailing ribbons sailed down from the sky.

Iran staged war games in the Gulf earlier this month and during the maneuvers tested what it said was a radar-evading missile, a high-speed sonar-evading torpedo and other equipment it said the country had developed.

Analysts say much of Iran's military equipment is outdated but say Iranian forces could still disrupt key oil shipping routes in the Gulf if pushed, the message they said the maneuvers were intended to send.

Tuesday's parade was held opposite the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic state. Nearby are tens of thousands of war graves of those who died in the bloody 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Members of the volunteer Basij militia, who see themselves as the guardians of revolutionary values, also paraded past, wearing head bands with the words "Mohammad, God's prophet."

The Washington Times
Editorial

Using menacing rhetoric that evokes memories of Egyptian President Gamel Abdel-Nasser right before the Six-Day War and Adolf Hitler during the 1930s, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Tehran's terror network sound like they are girding for war with the United States, Britain and Israel. Mr. Ahmadinejad on Friday appeared to suggest once again that Israel would soon be wiped off the map, while the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards hinted that American troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the region would be in danger if Washington attempted to target the regime's nuclear facilities.

"You can start a war, but it won't be you who finishes it," Revolutionary Guards Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi warned Washington. Gen. Safavi, addressing Palestinian radicals at a conference in Tehran, appeared to threaten the safety of American troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region: "The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable." Another Revolutionary Guards official recently said that 29 potential U.S. and British targets have been identified. Iranian jihadists said yesterday that 200 Iranians had volunteered to carry out suicide attacks in the past few days. Last month, members of a special Revolutionary Guards unit marched in a military parade carrying detonators and explosive packs around their wastes.

As the tone from Tehran grows more menacing, there is mounting international concern about Iran's progress towards an atomic bomb. Last week, the Institute for Science and International Security, a U.S.-based research group, released satellite images which suggest that Iran is expanding its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. (The ISIS is headed by David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector who has been skeptical of using military means to disarm Iran.) Meanwhile, Israeli officials, who for many months have been privately counseling that there is still time for diplomatic efforts to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, tell us that they are increasingly worried that the Islamic Republic's program is on the verge of becoming impossible to stop.

On Friday, Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke at a conference in Tehran that was aimed at raising money for the new Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. As representatives of terrorist organizations including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah looked on, the Iranian president again questioned whether the Holocaust had actually occurred. Calling Israel a "dried up, rotten tree that will be annihilated by one storm," Mr. Ahmadinejad declared that "the existence of the Zionist regime" is "an unending and unrestrained threat" to the Middle East." Whatever else he had hoped to achieve, the Iranian leader seems to have inspired Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the former University of South Florida professor who heads the Damascus-based PIJ -- perhaps the most violent jihadist group now operating in the West Bank and Gaza. Mr. Shallah told Mr. Ahmadinejad that Iran "would not stand alone" if it goes to war.

Perhaps all of this will prove to be mere bluster. But the reality is that by behaving this way, Iran and its terrorist allies are playing a very dangerous game indeed.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Iran will continue to enrich uranium, influential former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Monday, as concerns grow over possible U.S. military action against Tehran's nuclear programme.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran does not intend to stop," he said when asked about Iran's success at enriching uranium.

"The Islamic Republic wants to continue along its path," he told reporters in Kuwait during a visit to the Gulf state.

Last week, Iran announced it had enriched uranium for use in its power stations, stoking a diplomatic row with the West which suspects Tehran is trying to build an atomic bomb. Iran says it is seeking nuclear power to generate electricity.

Rafsanjani, who was speaking through an interpreter, said Iran's neighbours had nothing to fear from its nuclear programme which he said was bound by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"This is a comprehensive treaty and the paths towards any breaches are blocked," he said.

United Press International
LONDON--British Prime Minister Tony Blair has reportedly warned U.S. President George W. Bush he cannot expect any military help from Britain for a strike on Iran.

Scotland on Sunday, citing government sources, reported that Blair has told Bush his country will not join an attack even if it has significant international support.

"We will support the diplomatic moves, at best," a Foreign Office source said. "But we cannot commit our own resources to a military strike."

Britain has the second-largest force in Iraq and a significant contingent of troops in Afghanistan.

Blair is expected to back U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's call for a United Nations Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Iran.

A British think tank, the Foreign Policy Center, is about to release a report calling for a negotiated solution to the crisis of Iran's nuclear program.

"The only long-term solution to Iran's problems is democracy," Alex Bigham, one of the authors of the report, said. "But it cannot be dictated, Iraq-style, or it will backfire."

Iran Focus – The supreme commander of Iran’s regular armed forces said the Islamic Republic was monitoring enemy positions in the region and was prepared to give a “crushing” response to any foreign attack.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s army is closely monitoring all military activities across the region and by understanding the enemies’ goals and program has the required awareness and preparedness to counter any direct or indirect threat. The army will decisively respond to even the smallest act of aggression against the sovereignty and interests of the country”, Major General Atta’ollah Salehi said in a statement read out Saturday morning at the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“The army will in the shortest space of time give the most crushing response to any aggressor”, Salehi said, adding that the armed forces would continue to “emblazon the torch of the struggle against global imperialism”.

Iran has a dual military system with a regular armed forces as well as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Both report directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Sunday Telegraph
online edition)

Pope Benedict has called for an "honourable solution" to the nuclear crisis with Iran in his first Easter message.

Speaking on his 79th birthday, the Benedict XVI also called for a truly independent Palestinian state, and global co-operation to combat terrorism

He made his appeal for world peace in his Easter "Urbi et Orbi" message to nearly 100,000 people St Peter's Square in Rome.

Millions more people in 65 countries watched the speech and mass at home on television.

The Pope, who marks the first anniversary of his election on Wednesday, used his speech to draw attention to the problems facing the world, particularly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

In a clear reference to Iran, he said: "Concerning the international crises linked to nuclear power, may an honourable solution be found for all parties, through serious and honest negotiations."

In another part of the speech, the Pope defended Israel's right to exist, a passage which appeared to be an indirect criticism of statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, that the Jewish state should be eliminated.

But he also called for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

He said: "May the international community, which re-affirms Israel's just right to exist in peace, assist the Palestinian people to overcome the precarious conditions in which they live and to build their future, moving towards the constitution of a state that is truly their own."

The Pope struck a different tone to the one he took at an Easter ceremony on Friday, when he claimed that the world was in the grip of Satan and prayed for mankind to open its eyes to the "filth around us".

This is the first Easter since the death of Pope John Paul II, who was severely ill a year ago and was only able to make brief appearances in the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. He died days later.

Easter is the most important day of the Christian calendar, when the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics celebrate Christ's resurrection from the dead.

NCRI – Clerical regime's judiciary sentenced a young Iranian man to death in Tehran according to the state-run news agency, Fars.

The man was only identified by his first name, Mehdi. The agency gave no detail about his trial.

Faced with international and domestic isolation, the clerical regime had to intensify repression in Iran and as a result the number of executions have been on the rise in recent months. International human rights bodies have expressed their concern over the high number of executions in Iran.

The Sunday Times

Marie Colvin, Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter

IRAN has formed battalions of suicide bombers to strike at British and American targets if the nation’s nuclear sites are attacked. According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.

The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held high.

Dr Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, said in a speech that 29 western targets had been identified: “We are ready to attack American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.” He added that some of them were “quite close” to the Iranian border in Iraq.

In a tape recording heard by The Sunday Times, Abbasi warned the would-be martyrs to “pay close attention to wily England” and vowed that “Britain’s demise is on our agenda”.

At a recruiting station in Tehran recently, volunteers for the force had to show their birth certificates, give proof of their address and tick a box stating whether they would prefer to attack American targets in Iraq or Israeli targets.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned last Friday that Israel was heading towards “annihilation”. He was speaking at a Tehran conference on Palestinian rights aimed at promoting Iran as a new Middle Eastern superpower.

According to western intelligence documents leaked to The Sunday Times, the Revolutionary Guards are in charge of a secret nuclear weapons programme designed to evade the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

One of the leaked reports, dating from February this year, confirms that President George W Bush is preparing to strike Iran. “If the problem is not resolved in some way, he intends to act before leaving office because it would be ‘unfair’ to leave the task of destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities to a new president,” the document says.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a former spokesman for National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition group, said a secret, parallel military programme was under way. According to sources inside Iran, the Revolutionary Guards were constructing underground sites that could be activated if Iran’s known nuclear facilities were destroyed.

The NCRI is the political wing of the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, which is deemed a terrorist organisation in Britain and America. However, much of its information is considered to be “absolutely credible” by western intelligence sources after Jafarzadeh revealed the existence of the Natanz plant in 2002.

Within the past year, 14 large and several smaller projects have been created, according to Jafarzadeh. Several are designed to be nuclear factories; others are for the storage of weapons, he claimed.

Additional reporting: Safa Haeri

Telegraph.co.uk
16/04/2006

James Brandon on Mt Qandil, on the Iran border and Colin Freeman

Sitting on the floor of a stone hut, deep in the mountains on the border between Iran and Iraq, the leaders of Pejak, a Kurdish Iranian militant group, outlined their plans to fight Teheran's hard-line Islamic government.

"The Iranian government's plan to create a global Islamic state is destroying our people's culture and -values," said Akif Zagros, 28, a Persian literature graduate who serves on Pejak's seven-strong ruling council. "But we want all nations to be democratic, to live together and learn from each other." Pejak, the Party for Freedom and Life in Kurdistan, is fast becoming a threat to Teheran. The group, founded in 1998, claims to have hundreds of thousands of followers among Iran's estimated four million Kurds, and has been denounced as a terrorist organisation by Teheran for carrying out attacks within the borders of the Islamic republic.

The Iranian regime has also accused the group of receiving American funding, a claim dismissed by the US. Pejak is believed to be linked to Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), which has been branded a terrorist organisation by Washington and the European Union. That would make funding illegal.

But according to reports last week, America is courting opposition movements among the numerous ethnic minority groups concentrated in Iran's border regions, many of which claim their languages and culture have been -systematically repressed by Teheran.

Washington is intent on destabilising Mr Ahmadinejad's regime because of its apparent pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme.

The grievances of Iran's ethnic minorities are said to have deepened since the ultra-conservative Mr Ahmadinejad won power from Iran's more Western-leaning, reformist government in last June's elections. While his predecessors were more open to granting minority rights, he has re-imposed stronger central controls in line with strict Islamic laws.

As well as the Kurds, Iran's minorities include Azeris, whose homeland of Azerbaijan lies to the north-west, ethnic Baluchis, who straddle the east of Iran and Pakistan's Baluchistan region, and Ah-wazi Arabs, who inhabit the south-west corner, near Iraq.

Pejak has taken up the fight for Iranian Kurdish separatism, which aims to copy the gains made by Kurds in Iraq since the downfall of Saddam. It is said to be behind much of the unrest in Kurdish towns along the -Iranian border, where pro-independence demonstrations have often met violence from the Iranian authorities.

The group claims to have killed 24 Iranian soldiers in raids against army bases in March, purportedly in retaliation for the killing of 10 -Iranian Kurds during a peaceful demonstration in the city of Maku. The clashes are said to have brought a flood of recruits to Pejak's training camp, concealed in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The area is a few hours' drive from the Iranian border and has long been almost lawless because of its remoteness. Guerrillas, equipped with assault rifles and clad in a dark-green version of the Kurdish national dress, tramp up and down the mountain leading mules laden with supplies. Estimates of their numbers vary between 500 and 2,000.

"Since President Ahmadinejad was elected, the situation has become worse," said Karwan Agri, a 24-year-old computer science graduate who arrived at the camp two months ago. "From his first days in power he began to oppress the Kurdish people. Many students who supported Pejak went into the mountains in Iran. I know about 100 more who have come to this mountain."

Nearly half the group's members are women, aggrieved by the Iranian government's record on women's rights. In the camp, female volunteers wear the same uniform as men and also take part in military operations. "Women in Iran have no cultural, political or economic rights," said Gulistan Dugan, 36, a -psychology graduate of the University of Teheran and one of three women on the leadership council.

"Here women learn to be strong, so when they go back to Iran they can teach about our struggle for democracy."

Despite the organisation's military bearing and discipline, Pejak insists it would prefer to change Iran's political system democratically and peacefully.

Unlike other militant groups in the Middle East, it espouses a Western-style secularism, its leaders' speeches peppered with an eclectic mix of concepts - ranging from "freedom" and "human rights" to "ecology". It also eschews ostentatious displays of weaponry, which seems to be limited to assault rifles and grenades.

The group's members say they have not had any contact with the US, but would be willing to work with Washington.

"We demand democratic change in Iran," says Zagros, "and, if the US government wants to help us, we are happy to accept.

AFP
Yahoo news

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - Hassan Amin Hassin wants the man who killed more than 30 members of his family tried in Kurdistan so that he can get his justice.

If not, however, the grizzled 60-year-old Kurd is ready to head south and confront iraq's deposed president saddam hussein, the man behind the anti-Kurdish 1988 Anfal campaign that left as many as 100,000 dead.

"We want the trial of Saddam Hussein here, but if that isn't possible, I will go to Baghdad if need be to testify," he said, adding that he lost 35 members of his family to the Anfal, which means "the spoils of war" in Arabic.

Saddam and six of his officials have been accused by the Iraqi High Tribunal of genocide for the Anfal which killed anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds, resulted in thousands of arrests and left some 2,000 villages razed, according to estimates by New York-based Human Rights Watch.

However that trial is not expected to start until the conclusion of the current case before the tribunal involving the execution of 148 Shiite villagers in Dujail after a failed 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam.

For Hassan and many other Kurds in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah, the trial cannot come soon enough.
"The proof is there, it's not like Dujail," said his cousin Abdallah Hassan.

In his mind, the Dujail case pales in comparison to the sheer scale of the Anfal campaign mounted under Saddam's paternal cousin Ali Hassan Majid, who earned the sobriquet Chemical Ali for his alleged gassing of the Kurds.

Majid, appointed head of the ruling Baath party's northern branch in 1987, launched ruthless strikes upon assuming near presidential powers in Kurdistan, but the Anfal started in earnest in February 1988.
It counted eight offensives before ending that September.

With the Anfal, Majid wanted to break the back of Kurdistan's longstanding insurgency by uprooting villages across its mountainous terrain. The northern region had been swept up in the violence of Iraq's 1980-1988 war with iran . Kurdish rebels had received financial backing and troop support from Tehran.

The Anfal campaign witnessed the widespread use of chemical weapons and nerve agents against at least 60 Kurdish villages and Majid first employed the tactic as early as April 1987 when he shelled Kurdish fighters with mustard gas and sarin, according to Human Rights Watch.

Although not technically part of the Anfal campaigns, the incident which came to symbolize the regime's "scorched earth" tactics was the March 1988 chemical attack on the village of Halabja that claimed the lives of up to 5,000 people.

According to Human Rights Watch, Majid described his rationale in a meeting of Baath officials in April 1988: "By next summer there will be no more villages remaining spread out here and there ... We'll put the people in the complexes and keep an eye on them. We'll no longer let them live in the villages where the saboteurs can go and visit them."

Eighteen years later, many in Kurdistan remain haunted by their memories of the brutal campaign.

Guidam Mahdi Hamzab remembers being 18 when the Iraqi army attacked his village and killed 86 people, while sending hundreds of others fleeing towards the Iranian border.
For him though, the trial "will not make up for the misfortune suffered by our people".

"Regardless of what the verdict is, I don't see how you can redress the thousand and one wounds suffered by the Kurdish people," said the former peshmerga.

"The effects of this campaign of repression are always with us," he said, adding that he still has no news about many members of his family who disappeared in the assault on his village.
"In Kurdistan, we live always with the nightmare of the Anfal."

Hassan Abdel Karim, who is in his 60s, says many Kurds still believe they will find relatives who vanished during the Anfal campaign.
"Despite the trauma experienced by our people, the Kurds always hope to find a brother or sister even many years after our tragedy," he said.

But Karim harbours no sentiments of forgiveness for Saddam or Chemical Ali.

"The Kurdish people want Saddam and his fellow defendants to be swiftly executed."

In the tiny stone village of Swayssan, nestled in a valley just to the northeast of Sulaimaniyah is a memorial to 50 victims of the Anfal campaign. There, Golshin Ali, an elderly woman who prefers not to reveal her age, prays over the graves of her husband and six children.

"I pray over the tombs of my family and the other victims of Saddam," she said. "It is my only comfort.

"As for Saddam, God will take care of him."

Iran Focus– A top Iranian military commander said on Friday that the Islamic Republic’s Army and Revolutionary Guards “are today in a situation to make the Oppressor World [the United States and its allies] feel the great powers that are at Iran’s disposal”, the state-run news agency Mehr reported.

Brigadier General Mohammad-Hossein Dadras, commander of the regular Iranian army’s ground forces, said Iran’s military has identified “the enemies’ weak spots” in the region and its missile capabilities would guarantee Iran’s “national interests”.

“We have identified and studied the enemies’ strong and weak spots in the region regarding ground, sea, and air forces”, Dadras said at the Friday prayers ceremony in Tehran.

“Today, we have in the country that which is adequate to face threats. Right now, we have that thing which, when required, will land on the enemy’s weak spot. The enemies know this”, Dadras said.

“We do not need foreign support. We have an adequate missile capability which can guarantee our national interests”, he said.

“Iran’s capability is such that no one dares to come near it. If they do they will return with no success”.

Alluding to the border with Iraq and Afghanistan, the army chief said that Iran has six military divisions based at “strategic and operational points”.

He described Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “pillar of power of the Islamic Republic”.

“We are very capable in dealing with the enemy in a military confrontation. We have never been so strong as we are today”, General Dadras told the Friday prayers congregation over a chorus of “Death to America”.

BRUSSELS, April 15 (Reuters) - Thousands of Kurds marched through Brussels on Saturday, calling on the European Union to put pressure on Turkey to improve its treatment of Kurds.

Kurds came from around Europe, carrying flags and holding up pictures they said showed victims of street clashes with Turkish police that occurred two weeks ago in southeast Turkey.

Ankara began negotiations with the EU to join the rich 25-member bloc last year. But its conflict with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought for 20 years to carve out a Kurdish homeland in the region, has been one of several sticking points in the talks. "We want the European Union to talk to Turkey, to say that there is a problem, there is no democratisation in the country, and to push for dialogue between Turkey and the Kurds," a march organiser, Sidan Dogan, said.

Local media said there were about 10,000 protesters and that the march appeared to be peaceful. The police were not immediately available to say whether there were any incidents.

In late March, 16 people died in street battles between Kurds and Turkish police, which were sparked by the funerals of 14 PKK rebels killed by troops.

The EU then voiced concern over the violence, and called for Turkey to grant more economic and cultural rights to the Kurds. It also noted that the PKK was on the EU list of terrorist organisations.

AFP
15 April 2006

JERUSALEM - Former Israeli premier Shimon Peres said Saturday the United Nations must take Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to task over his latest implicit threats against the Jewish state.

The influential senior statesman also predicted that the firebrand Iranian leader would meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator overthrown in the 2003 US-led invasion.

“Iran is a member state of the United Nations that is threatening to destroy another member state of the United Nations,” Peres said in remarks reported by public radio.

“The United Nations cannot but react. The world must unite against the Iranian president.”

On Friday, at a Tehran-sponsored conference to support Palestinian groups, Ahmadinejad again voiced “serious doubts” over the Holocaust and predicted the “elimination” of the Jewish state.

“The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat,” he told the gathering.

“Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is on the road to being eliminated,” said Ahmadinejad, whose regime does not recognize Israel and who drew worldwide condemnation last year when he said it should be “wiped off the map.”

He also repeated his controversial stance on the Holocaust.

“If there is serious doubt over the Holocaust, there is no doubt over the catastrophe and Holocaust being faced by the Palestinians,” said the president, who had previously dismissed as a “myth” the killing of an estimated six million Jews by the Nazis and their allies during World War II.

In response, Peres remarked: “What the Iranian president says is reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s proclamations, and Ahmadinejad will meet the same end as he did.

“The Iranian president represents Satan and not God. History has rejected these sorts of sword-brandishing lunatics.”

Peres was the first Israeli public figure to speak out against Ahmadinejad’s remarks.

He is number two on the parliamentary list of the Kadima party of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but does not hold any official position. Olmert is in the process of forming a new government following his electoral victory last month.