Xinhua

english.peopledaily.com.cn

Two Turkish soldiers and three village guards were killed and five other security members injured in a clash with militants of a Kurdish rebel group in southeastern Turkey, the CNN-Turk television reported on Wednesday.

The clash between the security forces and the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) militants erupted in the Kelmehmet Mountain between Uludere and Beytussebap towns in the southeastern province of Sirnak, said the report.

During the confrontation, five security members, including two soldiers and three village guards, were killed and five PKK militants were also killed.

The clash came one day after two Turkish soldiers were killed in another exchange of fire with PKK militants in Sirnak, a mainly Kurdish province.

Meanwhile, Turkish security forces detained a 26-year-old woman, a wanted PKK member, in the eastern province of Elazig, the semi- official Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday.

The PKK, also known as KADEK or Kongra-Gel, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

kurdishinfo.com

MAKO- Iranian Army, which continues the operation against Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) guerillas in East Kurdistan, gave new losts. In the conflict, which was occured in Mako, 4 Iranian soldiers died.

It was informed that, a conflict was occured between the Iranian Army Forces, which made an operation in Sorki village, bounded to Mako, and PJAK forces. Local sources, narrated that, 4 Iranian soldiers died, in the conflict, which was happened yesterday, and after the incident, the pressures on the people were intensified.

Meanwhile, it was learned that, in the cities Mahabad and Piransahr Iranian governmental forces insisted people to be village guards in a lot of cities, against PJAK forces.

By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON - The United States said Wednesday it will join in face-to-face talks with Iran over its nuclear program if Tehran first agrees to put disputed atomic activities on hold, a shift in tactics meant to offer the Iranians a last chance to avoid punishing sanctions.

At the White House,President Bush said, "I believe that it's important that we solve this issue diplomatically, and my decision today says that the United States is going to take a leadership position in solving this issue."

The overture to join stalled European talks came after mounting pressure on the U.S. from European allies. It also followed what European diplomats told The Associated Press was a pledge that Russia and China would support sanctions or other harsh measures if new talks fail to persuade Iran to permanently abandon nuclear efforts that the West fears could lead to a bomb.

"We're prepared to go either way," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said before leaving for talks in Europe on Iran.

There was no immediate response from Iran.

The United States has had no diplomatic ties with Iran and few contacts at all with its government since Islamic radicals took over the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held diplomats there for more than a year.

Rice will meet with foreign ministers from the other permanent U.N. Security Council members on Thursday in Vienna to finalize a package of economic incentives and threats to be presented to Tehran. That package would be on the table in any new talks involving the United States.

The Bush administration had until now refused to talk directly to the Iranians about their nuclear program, although there have been sporadic contacts among relatively low-level officials on other subjects.

The offer to talk should strip Iran and some U.S. allies of the argument that the hardline U.S. stance was an obstacle, or that Washington was not willing to try every means to resolve the impasse peacefully, U.S. officials said.

"This is the last excuse, in some sense," Rice said.

She said the United States was not offering full diplomatic relations with Iran and would not swear off ever using military action to stop what the U.S. contends is a rogue program to build a nuclear weapon.

"This is not a grand bargain," Rice said. "What we're talking about here is an effort to enhance the chances for a successful negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem."

The administration has given arms-length support to European efforts to bargain with Iran, but also has been the prime mover for sanctions or other tough United Nations action. Russia and China, Iran's commercial allies on the council, have so far blocked that path.

Rice would not directly answer questions about whether those nations are committed to tough measures if the U.S. overture doesn't work.

She spoke of "tactical differences" and said, "I think you can be sure that our friends and our partners understand the importance of the step and the importance that the Iranians must now see of making a choice and making that choice clearly."

In Brussels, Belgium,European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana welcomed the U.S. words. "Direct U.S. participation would be the strongest and most positive signal of our common wish to reach an agreement with Iran," he said.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said, "The European side's goal is to present a serious and substantial offer of cooperation, which demonstrates to Iran the benefits that would flow from compliance ... rather than the further isolation which would result from their failure to do so."

The U.S. offer is conditioned on Iran suspending its enrichment of uranium and related activities and allowing inspections to prove it. European nations and the Security Council have demanded the same thing, but Iran has refused to comply.

Iran did suspend enrichment activities while talks were active with the Europeans last year but resumed and stepped up the program this spring.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said, "This is a time to move very aggressively to reach out to the government of Iran and say, `The ball is in your court.'"

Uranium enrichment can led either to a bomb or to nuclear power production, and Iran has so far insisted that it won't take any deal that involves giving up that technology.

If Iran agreed to suspend disputed activities in order to talk with the United States, it could still insist on resuming them later, which U.S. officials say would be a deal-breaker.

At that point, the United States and its allies would be expected to move for tough U.N. action, possibly including economic or other sanctions.

The U.S. ambassador at the United Nations had a "courteous conversation" Wednesday with his Iranian counterpart to tell him about Rice's proposal, said Richard Grenell, a spokesman for John Bolton.

It was a rare one-on-one discussion between Bolton and Javad Zarif. Bolton has said previously there are a few diplomats at the U.N. he never talks to — from Iran,North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.

The Globe and Mail

ESTANISLAO OZIEWICZ

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

One is a 26-year-old model, aspiring pop singer, student of international studies and former Canadian beauty queen living in Vancouver. The other is an 18-year-old, poor, uneducated ethnic Kurd on death row in Iran for killing a predator trying to rape her.

They share a first name as well as Iranian roots.

Since news emerged of Nazanin Fatehi's conviction this year, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the 2003 Miss World runner-up, has spearheaded a growing international campaign to save Ms. Fatehi from execution.

Recently, Ms. Afshin-Jam has managed to attract some high-profile support, including former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy, now president of the University of Winnipeg, and Liberal MP Belinda Stronach.

“Everybody who I've talked to, experts who work on these kinds of things, say the more noise one makes on the matter the better it is to try to release somebody,” Ms. Afshin-Jam said in an interview.

Ms. Afshin-Jam is both glamorous and attuned to the world.

When she was an infant, she said, she and her family fled Iran during the 1979 revolution after her father was hounded and then jailed by the revolutionary guards.

The family lived briefly in Spain and France before settling in Canada, which Ms. Afshin-Jam took to with particular abandon.

Ms. Afshin-Jam became a Royal Canadian Air Cadet and studied political science and international relations at the University of British Columbia and in Europe, all the while maintaining a keen interest in her homeland.

She heard about the Fatehi case through a fan of her music, a career she launched after the end of her beauty-queen days.

Her pageant appearances had sparked some hate mail from Islamic fundamentalists.

“Thankfully I got far more mail from young women in Iran who gave me support and looked to me as a role model,” she said on her website.

Details of the Fatehi case and where it sits in Iran's judicial process are unclear and scarce. Some of them come from the German-based International Committee Against Executions, led by an Iranian exile, and from Amnesty International.

Amnesty, quoting reports in the Iranian newspaper E'temaad, said that Ms. Fatehi told the court that three men approached her and her niece, forced them to the ground and tried to rape them. Seeking to defend her niece and herself, Ms. Fatehi, 17 at the time, stabbed one man in the hand with a knife that she carried and then, when the men continued to pursue them, stabbed another of the men in the chest.

“I wanted to defend myself and my niece,” she reportedly told the court in Karaj, west of Tehran. “I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help.”

Through intermediaries and written questions, Ms. Afshin-Jam has “interviewed” Ms. Fatehi, the eldest of six children in a poor Kurdish family. Ms. Fatehi was unable to attend school because she was responsible for helping to care for her siblings. Her father is too ill to hold a job; her mother works as a housecleaner.

According to Ms. Afshin-Jam, Ms. Fatehi is struggling to cope.

“I'm alone here, and I am scared,” Ms. Afshin-Jam quotes her as saying. “To bear this situation is difficult. I want to see the day outside of here. I miss outside. To all those who are helping save my life, I thank them.”

As a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Iran has undertaken not to execute anyone for an offence committed when he or she was under the age of 18.

Nevertheless, Amnesty International has recorded 18 executions of child offenders in Iran since 1990. In 2005 alone, at least eight executions of child offenders were recorded.

The Fatehi case, said Ms. Stronach, is “very sad.”

“In life,” she added, “if you have an ability to influence something and you have a platform, then I think you have a greater responsibility to get involved in [correcting] such injustices.”

Ms. Stronach has written to another high-profile Canadian, Louise Arbour, the former Canadian Supreme Court justice who is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Mr. Axworthy, meanwhile, is urging all Canadians to rally to save Ms. Fatehi's life.

“Time is of the essence,” he said in a statement.

Ms. Stronach will be meeting Ms. Afshin-Jam when the former pageant star comes to Ottawa. The goal is to get more parliamentarians on side, to put pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran so that the execution order can be overturned.

Negar Azmudeh, a Vancouver immigration lawyer with an interest in human-rights issues, is working with Ms. Afshin-Jam on the case. Ms. Azmudeh said that efforts are being made to help the Fatehi family hire a lawyer with experience in such cases, and that feelers are being put out to determine whether the dead man's family would consider a so-called “blood-money” option available under Islamic law.

Ms. Afshin-Jam said that such an option, whereby Ms. Fatehi's life could be spared in exchange for a financial settlement, remains a possibility even though Ms. Fatehi “is the victim of an attempted rape and now she's being treated like a criminal.”

“It's an option we're keeping in mind because we have to work within the system if you want results in the end. We're prepared to fundraise and go that route but we don't necessarily want to do that.”

John Tackaberry of Amnesty International Canada said that, according to the Iranian penal code, Iran's supreme court could uphold the execution order but grant a stay to allow the families to negotiate a blood-money settlement. He said it could also reject the order on the grounds that Ms. Fatehi acted in self-defence.

It remains unclear when the supreme court will review the case. Attempts to reach officials at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa for clarification were unsuccessful.

NCRI – A young man killed during anti-regime demonstrations in Meshkinshahr, northwestern Iran, was identified as Jalil Abedi. According to eye witness accounts he was shot dead by plain clothes suppressive agents. This has angered local residents fueling further protests in the city.

The authorities warned his family not to hold any memorial or funeral service to avoid further unrest. At the burial ceremony the grave yard was surrounded by security forces and the mourners were forced to leave the area.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Western Oil Sands Inc. (WTO.TO: Quote), whose sole business is a stake in a Canadian oil sands project, said on Tuesday it will explore for oil in Iraq's Kurdistan region.

The Calgary-based firm said its WesternZagros Ltd. unit has signed a exploration and production sharing agreement (EPSA) with the Kurdistan Regional Government, Sulamaniyah Administration.

"We believe this EPSA is an early-entry opportunity into a highly prospective area and, subject to exploration success, could provide Western with an additional world-class asset," Jim Houck, chief executive of Western Oil Sands, said in a statement.

Western, which owns a 20 percent stake in the Athabasca oil sands project operated by Shell Canada Ltd. (SHC.TO: Quote), said it has agreed to spend at least $45 million over four years exploring in what it called the Zagros Fold Belt of Kurdistan in Northern Iraq. an area the company said was under-explored.

Western said the agreement must be passed into law, which it expects to occur "in the coming months."

ISTANBUL, May 30 (KUNA) -- Two Turkish soldiers were killed during a clash with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members in the Southeast province of Cirnak, Turkish military official said on Tuesday.

Members of the banned Party engaged in a shoot out with security forces that resulted in killing of two of PKK members, Turkish news agency (IHLAS) said.

Violent clashes between the PKK and security forces have increased, especially during this month, since the jailed party leader Abdullah Ojalan, in Emirili Island, called off a unilateral cease-fire in 2004.

The PKK or groups linked to it have also carried out attacks on civilian targets all over Turkey.

AP

BAGHDAD (AP) - With a new Iraqi government in place, Iran is positioning itself to play a major role here at a time when American influence is showing signs of faltering.

That is worrisome to Iraq’s Arab neighbors, especially Sunni-dominated countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But it also raises serious questions for Washington, including the wisdom of withdrawing entirely from Iraq when it has long been considered the eastern defense against Iranian expansion.

Concerns about Iran have simmered since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq removed a Sunni-dominated dictatorship and set the stage for democracy - or, inevitably, Shiite rule in a country where Shiites hold an overwhelming majority.

Those issues have now come to the fore because of Iran’s confrontational stance over its nuclear program. In effect, Iran’s recent robust behavior in Iraq serves to remind Washington that it has its own cards to play - including influence among Iraqi Shiites - if the Americans threaten Teheran militarily over its plans to enrich uranium.

Iran has wasted little time in moving to shore up ties with the new government that took power last month in Baghdad. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki flew to Baghdad on Friday, where he was warmly welcomed by Iraq’s new leadership, including not only Shiites but also Sunni and Kurdish politicians.

In addition, work has already started on a multimillion-dollar international airport near the Shiite holy city of Najaf, financed mostly by a low-interest loan from Iran. The airport is designed to serve Shiite religious pilgrims visiting Najaf’s shrines and provide a major boost to the economy of Iraqi’s impoverished Shiite south.

All that is alarming to the Middle East’s majority Sunni Arab governments - including Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia - which have long feared Iranian influence among Shiites throughout the Persian Gulf because it could undermine pro-American regimes in the oil-rich region.

Last year, Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned that Iran wants to create “a Shiite crescent” that would disrupt the balance of power in the region. The Saudi foreign minister gave similar warnings.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak then outraged Shiites across the region this year when he said that Iraqi Shiites were more loyal to Iran than to their own country.

Arab governments fear a bleak future in which Iraq either descends into civil war or ends up closely allied with Iran.

As long as substantial US forces remain in Iraq, those dark scenarios seem unlikely. But prospects for a long-term US presence here look shaky as American public opposition to the war grows.

If the Americans leave, the Iranians are waiting in the wings.

It is unlikely, however, that Iran would take a high-profile role, given the ambivalent feelings that most Iraqis, even Shiites, hold toward their eastern neighbor after a bitter 1980s war that killed an estimated 2 million people.

Sunni Arabs deeply distrust Iranians and consider Shiite politicians little more than Iranian agents. Rumors circulate widely that Iranian intelligence agents direct death squads in Baghdad.

“Iran wants to shape the situation in its favor, but does not want to be, or be perceived as, heavy-handed about it,” said Juan Cole, an expert on Shiite Islam at the University of Michigan.

Instead, the Iranians prefer to work behind the scenes, doling out cash to key Shiite political players - chief among them the biggest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic evolution in Iraq.

Iran’s hand also is rumored to be behind Shiite militias in Basra, although little evidence of a direct link has been made public.

Nevertheless, US officials have long accused the Iranians - though not necessarily the Teheran government- of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias in Basra and perhaps also selling roadside bomb technology to Sunni militants - charges Iran denies.

If the charges are valid, it may be that Iran wants to keep Iraq bubbling just enough to tie down the Americans and keep them from any military moves against Teheran.

Ironically, both the United States and Iran share an interest in preventing Iraq from disintegrating into full-scale civil war, something that would threaten Shiite political power in Iraq and risk angering Iran’s Arab minority.

But the nuclear standoff, as well as a generation of bitterness, has prevented the two countries from working together. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has offered to talk to the Iranians but only about the situation in Iraq.

Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, ruled out talks with the Americans, citing unspecified conditions. That suggested the Iranians want to hold out until Washington is ready to put everything - including the nuclear issue - on the table.

NCRI - In a meeting with his top lieutenants yesterday, Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi denounced Iranian Azeris as being “discredited” and “defeated counter-revolutionary elements that infiltrate through specific channels." "Many of those arrested during the recent events made it clear that many of them belonged to group lets and were foreign agents,” he said.

Former IRGC Commander in Chief Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezai voiced alarm over the uprisings in Azerbaijan and Khuzistan provinces, describing them as an indication of the fragile state of the regime’s security apparatus. Warning of the consequences of continuing unrest, he said, "A bogus letter attributed to the former Vice President in Ahwaz or the recent crisis in Tabriz over the publication of a cartoon in show that the security apparatus is extremely vulnerable especially in the ethnic areas, where even a minor disturbance could cause instability.”

These statements make it abundantly clear that the mullahs are quite concerned over the continuing protests and uprisings, and that they are setting the stage for further crackdown on Azeri speaking people.

Iran Focus

The United States will fall from its global stature and global power will end up in the hands of Asian countries in the next decade, a top Iranian official said on Tuesday.

“The next decade is the decade of the demise of the American empire”, secretary-general of the State Expediency Council Mohsen Rezai said in a meeting with the North Korean ambassador to Iran. His remarks were carried by the official news agency.

“The future of the world belongs to Asian countries”, Rezai, who for more than a decade headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said.

“Eastern and Asian powers can ascertain future global events with their abundant resources and potentials”, he said.

“China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have a pivotal role in this movement and can, while uniting and standing firm on their principles, commence an Asian movement in international relations”, he added.

The U.S.-led wars on Iraq and Afghanistan brought Washington’s “weaknesses” to light since it “is in need of the Islamic Republic of Iran to free itself from problems in the region, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq”, Rezai said.

He said that the U.S. was “unable” to reach its goals for the Middle East, adding that “free nations of the world” would continue to stand firm against “pressures” by Washington.

Rezai described Tehran-Pyongyang relations as “long-term and friendly”, adding, “The two countries can by cooperating with each other play a constructive role in global events”.

AFP

BEIRUT: An exiled Syrian opposition group created two months ago said yesterday it will meet in London next week to discuss an "action plan" for regime change in Damascus.

The National Salvation Front, which includes outspoken former Syrian vice president Abdel Halim Kaddam and the banned Muslim Brotherhood, has called the meeting for June 4 and 5, it said in a statement.

About 50 opponents of the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, including Kurdish parties, independents and communists, are expected to turn up for the talks, which will not however be attended by opposition figures living in Syria, an aide to Khaddam said.

The London meeting will come shortly before the head of a UN commission of inquiry submits his report into the February 2005 killing of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, which has been widely blamed on Syria.

Khaddam, who resigned last June and moved to exile in Paris where he is now leading opposition activities, has charged that Assad himself ordered the killing of Hariri in a massive Beirut bomb blast.

In turn, Syria has accused him of high treason and corruption. He has held a number of meetings in Paris and Brussels with the London-based head of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Sadredin Al-Bayanuni, on their push for "peaceful regime change

New York (KurdishMedia.com) 29 May 2006: Tomorrow in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, representatives of many of Iran’s numerous ethnic groups will come together to discuss the current situation in Iran and the future of the nation. Attendees will include the leaders of Iran’s two major Kurdish parties, Mustafa Hijri of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and Abdullah Mohtadi of the Komala Party of Iran, as well as representatives of other organizations that form the Congress of Iranian Nationalities such as Baluchistan Peoples Party, the Democratic Solidarity of Ahwaz, Organization for Defense of the Rights of Turkmen People, and the Diplomatic Commission of South Azerbaijan. Dr. Roya Toloui, who recently arrived in the US after traveling from Iran to Turkey, and other prominent human rights activists will also be in attendance.

This conference is co-sponsored by the Kurdish National Congress of North America (KNC) and the newly-formed Kurdish American Committee for Democracy in Iran. Soraya Serajeddini, a veteran Kurdish-American activist and member of the KNC, is chairing tomorrow’s event. Speaking to KurdishMedia.com, she explained, “We want to make sure that the American administration and the congress are aware of the fact that Iranian society is a multi-ethnic society and the fact that for over two decades, the true struggle has been concentrated in the ethnic areas that are collectively a majority in Iran, a struggle for both human rights and political rights.” According to Ms. Serajeddini, these various ethnic groups must be brought together to bring true democracy to Iran, “These groups with modern style parties that are over 60 years old need to be brought together – Kurds, Arabs, Azeris, and others – and we feel that the Kurds can take the lead in this as they have shown by their participation in the Congress of Iranian nationalities.”

According to Ms. Serajeddini, Iran has been characterized by the rule of a minority for the last hundred years, “Persians are less than 50% of the population. Of course, we welcome any of their opposition groups who are willing to work together for a federal and democratic government.” She states that some Persian opposition groups have accepted the principles of the other oppositionists and adds that dialogue is underway with the groups that have not as the diverse Iranian opposition looks to build a united platform.

Xinhua

A Turkish soldier was killed and another soldier and three village guards wounded in clashes with Kurdish guerrillas in southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir, local media reported on Monday.

The clashes between the security forces and guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) occurred on Sunday night in Diyarbakir's Hazro town, in which Sergeant Major Serafettin Sengoren was killed, the semi-official Anatolia news agency said.

The injured were hospitalized in Diyarbakir, the report added.

The guerrillas, mostly based in northern Iraq, have stepped up attacks in the southeastern region in recent months, while Turkey has amassed troops in the region to crack down on the PKK, which has launched revolt for an independent Kurdish state since 1984.

By Bushra Juhi

The Canadian Press, BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb ripped through a bus Monday and killed 10 people working for an organization opposed to the Iranian regime, police said. Another 12 were injured in the blast north of Baghdad.

The blast occurred just after daybreak near Khalis, 80 kilometres north of Baghdad in Diyala province, an area notorious for such attacks, provincial police said. All the dead were workers at the Ashraf base of the Mujahedeen Khalk, or MEK, which opposes Iran's regime.

The blast pushed in the side of the white public bus and peppered its blackened side with shrapnel holes. The bus, later inspected by U.S. soldiers, was streaked in blood, Associated Press TV footage showed.

"We were transporting the workers from Baqouba to the Mujahedeen Khalk when the roadside bomb exploded and killed all these people," one man who was on the bus told AP TV.

In other attacks, a roadside bomb killed two police officers and wounded three others in downtown Baghdad's Karradah district, while one man was killed and six were injured when a bomb hidden in a minivan used as a bus exploded.

Gunmen killed two more police officers when they attacked a convoy in western Baghdad. Another group seriously wounded police colonel in nearby Ghazaliyah. Two other police officers, identified as former Baathists, were killed in Amarah, 290 kilometres southeast of Baghdad.

A car bomb targeting an American convoy killed one civilian and injured nine in Baghdad's Tahariyat Square, police Lt.-Col. Abbas Mohammed Salman said. It was not known if there were any other casualties.

A roadside bomb hit a British convoy in southern Iraq, wounding three British soldiers, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The explosion occurred late Sunday in the Gizayza area of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 550 kilometres southeast of Baghdad. Three soldiers were wounded, one seriously, British spokeswoman Capt. Kelly Goodall said.

Also late Sunday, a tribal chief who challenged Iraq's most feared terrorist and sent fighters to help U.S. troops battle al-Qaida in western Iraq died in a hail of bullets - the latest victim of an apparent insurgent campaign against Sunni Arabs who work with Americans.

The prime minister, meanwhile, was frustrated again in trying to fill key security posts, and his spokesman hinted at a deadline if the impasse continued. Nouri al-Maliki is trying to get Shiite and Sunni politicians to agree on candidates who are independent and not tied to sectarian militias.

Shootings and bombings killed nine people and wounded 35 across the country Sunday, and the bodies of at least 10 more people were found in Baghdad, possible victims of the sectarian bloodshed tearing at Iraq.

The most significant killing involved Sheik Osama al-Jadaan, who was ambushed by gunmen as he was being driven in Baghdad's Mansour district, a predominantly Sunni Arab area. Al-Jadaan's driver and one of his bodyguards also were killed, police said.

Al-Jadaan was a leader of the Karabila tribe, which has thousands of members in Anbar province, an insurgent hotbed stretching from west of Baghdad to the Syrian border. He had announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help security forces track down al-Qaida members and foreign fighters.

By Salam Faraj

Agence France Presse, BAGHDAD - At least 52 people were killed in a bloody explosion of violence across Iraq on Monday, including a spate of bombings against buses carrying people to work.

The attacks underlined the parlous security situation in Iraq as agreement on the key defense and interior ministries remained elusive despite the formation of a new government on May 20, five months after national elections.

Despite repeated assertions that a final decision on the security ministers was imminent, the positions remain unfilled because of bickering among the major political parties.

In the deadliest attack Monday, 14 people were killed and 17 wounded when a bomb tore through a bus carrying Iraqis work from Khalis, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, to Camp Ashraf, the home of an Iranian opposition movement.

"The workers were ordinary Iraqi citizens who had ordinary jobs since a long time ago in the city of Ashraf," said Shahriar Kia, a spokesman for the movement, which blamed Iran's regime for the attack in Diyala province.

The organization said the bombing recalled an attack against a bus carrying members of the People's Mojahedeen of Iran to Ashraf in June 1999 which left six dead.

Another 12 people were killed, including a child, and 24 wounded when a massive car bomb exploded in Baghdad's predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah.

Only a minutes later, a second car bomb exploded in the same district, killing five and wounding seven.

Just across the Tigris, a bus in the Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya was blown up, killing seven people and wounding nine.

In southern Baghdad, another bomb went off inside a commuter minibus, killing two Iraqis and wounding one.

A car bomb also exploded next to a police patrol in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad near the German embassy, killing three people and wounding five.

Another nine people were killed in other violence, highlighting the surge in attacks against ordinary Iraqis trying to go about their daily lives despite the Sunni-led insurgency and a flare-up of sectarian violence.

The breakdown in security was the main topic of Monday's parliamentary session as MPs took a break from debating internal rules to discuss the deteriorating situation in Diyala and the southern Basra province.

"The US control over security matters is worsening the security situation in Baquba, which prevents Diyala province from fighting terrorism," said Shiite MP Jalal Eddin Sagheer.
Parliament agreed to form a committee to study the matter but could not agree on its composition and adjourned the session until Sunday.

Iraqi and US officials have said local security forces could start taking over responsibility from the US-led troops for at least two provinces by the summer, though for Baghdad it would not be until the end of the year.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd, told CNN Sunday that the delicate process of appeasing the four major parties in the national unity government was causing the delay in naming the security ministers and appealed for international patience.

"We have committed as part of that compact to include all communities of Iraq, that the ministers of defense and interior will be agreed to by the main communities," he said.

"That is a difficult challenge because in this polarized society, there are different views about particularly the issue of security."

Sources close to the dominant conservative Shiite United Iraqi Alliance said the delay over choosing the interior minister, who will be a Shiite, was due to squabbling between Shiite factions themselves.

In other violence Monday, there was a series of incidents across the south of Iraq, mostly drive-by shootings against security personnel.

Britain announced on Monday that two of its soldiers were killed and two injured in a roadside bomb attack the day before in the main southern city of Basra, where British forces are based.

Though less affected by the largely Sunni-run insurgency n the center and west, the Shiite south is plagued by battles between various militias.

"We'll deal with the issues of militias by laying ahead of us a road map for rehabilitation and reintegration of these people back into public life of Iraqi politics or Iraqi state," Saleh said.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has several times since his inauguration promised to address the phenomenon, which is largely restricted to organizations linked to his Shiite allies.

The New York Times
By John F. Burns

BAGHDAD Iran's foreign minister, on a visit to Iraq, has said that the two countries have agreed to form a joint commission to oversee border issues and that its primary task will be to "block saboteurs" crossing their mutual border.

"We plan to form a joint commission between Iran and Iraq to control our borders and block the way to saboteurs whose aim is to destabilize the security of the two countries," the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said in Najaf on Saturday after talks with Iraq's most powerful Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani.

Mottaki, who was taking part in only the second visit by an official Iranian government delegation since the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, said improved border controls would be part of a wide effort to build close ties between the countries, including $1 billion in Iranian economic assistance to Shiite and Kurdish areas of Iraq.

The announcement in Najaf was made as U.S. military commanders and diplomats were focusing new attention on what they said was strong evidence that a covert flow of weapons and money from Iran to Shiite militia groups in Iraq had fueled sectarian violence here. Action to tighten security on the weakly patrolled Iran-Iraq border is among the measures U.S. officials have urged on the new Iraqi government, which is now led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The issue is fraught with political complexity in Iraq, where the Maliki government includes Shiite leaders with links to at least two militias. The militias have been accused of participating in a cycle of sectarian violence that has killed hundreds of people in Baghdad and other major cities in recent months, in revenge for the relentless attacks on Shiites by Sunni insurgent groups.

U.S. officials met with Maliki last week to brief him on what they contend are a range of clandestine Iranian efforts to gain influence in Iraq, and to urge the new government leader to take action to restrain that effort as part of his promise to curb all militias in Iraq.

Maliki's action on this and other security issues has been curbed, at least to some degree, by the continuing jockeying among the governing parties over the government's top three security posts, which were left unfilled when his government took office a week ago.

A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad said Saturday that he expected the ministers of interior, defense and national security to be named "within two or three days." Similar predictions were made by Maliki and U.S. officials the previous weekend. But candidates brought forward at midweek for two of the posts - a senior Shiite military officer for the interior post and a Sunni expatriate living in London for the Defense Ministry - failed to win approval by all the major groups involved, including senior U.S. officials, who said that the candidates seemed unlikely to have enough authority to impose control.

Maliki, who is acting as interim interior minister, has appointed another senior official to oversee the Defense Ministry in an acting capacity. But the delay in completing his government, and particularly in filling the security posts, has been an embarrassing start for a government that came to office under pressure to show it can be more effective than the departing government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN, May 28 (Reuters) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Germans they should no longer allow themselves to be held prisoner by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust and reiterated doubts that the Holocaust even happened.

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Ahmadinejad said he doubted Germans were allowed to write "the truth" about the Holocaust and said he was still considering travelling to Germany for the World Cup soccer tournament.

"I believe the German people are prisoners of the Holocaust. More than 60 million were killed in World War Two ... The question is: Why is it that only Jews are at the centre of attention?," he said in the interview published on Sunday.

"How long is this going to go on?" he added. "How long will the German people be held hostage to the Zionists?... Why should you feel obligated to the Zionists? You've paid reparations for 60 years and will have to pay for another 100 years."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders have said his previous remarks questioning whether the Holocaust happened were unacceptable. Denying the Holocaust is a serious crime in Germany punishable with a prison term of up to five years.

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies in concentration camps.

In the rare interview with Western media, Ahmadinejad said if the Holocaust really happened Jews should be moved from Israel back to Europe.

"We say if the Holocaust happened, then the Europeans must accept the consequences and the price should not be paid by Palestine. If it did not happen, then the Jews must return to where they came from."

WORLD CUP

He said he was still considering going to Germany to support Iran in the World Cup despite protest stirred by a "worldwide network of Zionists".

Iran's first World Cup match is against Mexico in Nuremberg on June 11 two days after the tournament starts and German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says he would be welcome to come because Germany wants to be a good host.

The invitation sparked protests from other political leaders and groups who said his anti-Israeli comments were unacceptable.

"My decision (on whether to go) depends on a lot of different things," said Ahmadinejad, a soccer fan. "Whether I have time, whether I want to and some other things."

He said he could not understand why his possible visit had caused such debate but was not surprised by the row.

"I was not at all surprised because there is a very active worldwide network of Zionists, also in Europe," he said in the rare interview with Western media that was published on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad's latest comments were condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Rabbi Marvin Hier, a founder and dean, called on Merkel to keep him out of Germany.

"On a day when the Pope is in Auschwitz to remind the world of the horrors of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad questions it again," Hier said. "For him to be at the World Cup and sit in a VIP seat would be a desecration of the memory of the Holocaust."

Asked by Der Spiegel, in its cover story entitled "The man the world is afraid of", whether he stood by his earlier view the Holocaust was a myth, Ahmadinejad said: "I only accept something as the truth if I am truly convinced of it.

"In Europe there are two opinions on it. One group of researchers who are by and large politically motivated say the Holocaust happened. There is another group of researchers who have the opposite view and are by and large in prison for that."

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday praised a letter sent this month by the Iranian president to his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush, in his first public comments on the unprecedented message.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter was the first publicly announced missive sent by an Iranian president to his opposite number since Washington broke ties with Tehran in 1980.

"It was a very good initiative because in the international field of global issues, taking initiatives, being brave, entering the arena pulling rivals behind you is the most important step to be taken," Khamenei was quoted by state television as saying.

Despite its harsh criticism of U.S. policy, Iranian analysts and some officials saw the letter as a bid to open dialogue with the United States and analysts said it would probably not have been sent without Khamenei's approval.

Under Iran's system of clerical rule, the supreme leader and not the president has the final say in all matters of state. Until now, Khamenei has not publicly commented on the missive.

The letter was initially dismissed by Bush but, on Thursday, the U.S. president described it as "interesting".

Iran and the United States are embroiled in a standoff over Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is civilian but which the West says is a cover to make atomic bombs.

Bush said Ahmadinejad's letter failed to address the West's fears that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons.

telegraph.co.uk
By Philip Sherwell in Washington

A leading Iranian pro-democracy and women's activist, who was jailed on trumped-up charges last year, has revealed how the clerical regime cynically deploys systemic sexual violence against female dissidents in the name of Islam.

Roya Tolouee, 40, was beaten up by Iranian intelligence agents and subjected to a horrific sexual assault when she refused to sign forced confessions. It was only when they threatened to burn her two children to death in front of her that she agreed to put her name to the documents.

Perhaps just as shocking as the physical abuse were the chilling words of the man who led the attack. "When I asked how he could do this to me, he said that he believed in only two things - Islam and the rule of the clerics," Miss Tolouee told The Sunday Telegraph last week in an interview in Washington after she fled Iran.

"But I know of no religious morality that can justify what they did to me, or other women. For these people, religion is only a tool for dictatorship and abuse. It is a regime of prejudice against women, against other regimes, against other ethnic groups, against anybody who thinks differently from them."

Miss Tolouee's account of her ordeal confirms recent reports from opposition groups that Iranian intelligence officials use sexual abuse against female prisoners as an interrogation technique and even rape young women before execution so that they cannot reach heaven as virgins.

Few women from the Islamic world are willing to discuss such matters, even with each other, but Miss Tolouee said that the regime routinely committed sexual attacks against female detainees.

She dropped her voice to a whisper and sobbed quietly as she described her experience, hoping not to upset her six-year-old son, Nima, as he picked at a piece of pizza in a hotel restaurant.

But he tried to comfort her. "I don't like it when my mummy talks about prison. It makes her cry," he said sadly. Miss Tolouee, who founded a women's group in Iranian Kurdistan and then launched a monthly magazine that was closed down by the judiciary last summer, was detained in the city of Sanandaj in August after taking part in anti-regime demonstrations that spread across Kurdish areas.

"Four armed men and three armed women barged into my house at night and took me away," she said. "My kids were terrified and crying. I was questioned all night by different interrogators and then thrown alone into a cell."

She was held in solitary confinement in the prison of the feared internal intelligence service, with only a blanket and a cup that often had to serve as a lavatory.

For the first six nights, she was taken to a basement where interrogators demanded that she admit to organising the protests, and also that she identify co-conspirators on a list of names they put to her.

"When I wouldn't do what they wanted, they slapped me. But after the sixth night, the routine changed. I was left alone in a small dark room with two men. One was the assistant prosecutor and called himself Amiri. The other had a filthy mouth and said terrible things. They started slapping me again. For the rest of the night they did to me what no woman should ever experience. Amiri said, 'I'm going to hang you, but before I hang you, I will make an example of you so that no woman will dare to open her mouth here again'." He then sexually assaulted her.

When she asked Amiri how he could act like that, he told her that only Islam and clerical rule were important to him. The attack left her badly bruised and bleeding internally, but she refused to sign the papers they put before her. To her assailants' fury, she demanded to see a lawyer and cited international treaties on human rights.

The following night they did not sexually molest her again as she was still bleeding - and hence "unclean". Instead, they told her that they would kill her children by setting them on fire before her eyes.

Finally, she admits, she cracked. "I threw myself at Amiri's feet and begged him not to harm my children. I said I'd do anything they wanted. Whatever they wanted, I would sign." She admitted to conspiring against the regime by giving interviews to the foreign media and leading the protests, but said that she did not implicate others.

After several more nights in solitary confinement, Miss Tolouee was moved to a general women's prison, where she saw horrendous festering wounds inflicted by lashings on other detainees.

Trying to maintain her dignity and strength, she taught the women about their basic human rights and helped to secure the provision of sanitary supplies for the first time. "We had a great feeling of camaraderie," she recalled.

Miss Tolouee was released on bail after 66 days in jail because, she said, "The regime had got what it wanted". But she still feared for her children's lives and decided to flee. She made it first to neighbouring Turkey with Nima and then her daughter Shima, 14, was smuggled out to join them.

Fearful of the reach of regime agents, who have killed exiled dissidents, an opposition group called the Alliance of Iranian Women helped them to reach the United States last month.

Miss Tolouee has been granted political asylum and intends to maintain her campaign against Teheran. She still has relatives in Iran - she does not want to go into details for reasons of security - but says that they have given her their blessing to speak out, despite the possible consequences.

The world's attention is currently focused on Iran's nuclear ambitions under its hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to office while Miss Tolouee was in prison. But inside Iran, she says, little has changed.

"Sometimes the regime seems a bit better, sometimes a bit worse, but for the people of Iran, the suffering continues," she said.

NCRI – In solidarity with the uprising in western and northwestern Iranian provinces against the clerical regime, students in Tehran University abandoned their lessons and held rallies, demonstrations and protest gatherings in the past few days.

Many covering their faces carried banners which read "death to dictator" and chanted anti-regime slogans.

Unrests in Azeri speaking provinces was sparked by an insulting cartoon in a state-run daily which rapidly turned political and against the clerical rulers. The regime had to declare a state of alert in these provinces. Dozens are reported to have been killed or wounded in clashes with suppressive forces in Tabriz, Orumieh, Naqadeh, Meshkinshahr and Maragheh and hundreds arrested.

According to a report by the Amnesty International some 300-500 thousand took part in demonstrations in Tabriz on Monday. AI expressed concern over the plight of hundreds of detainees.