Iran may withdraw from nuclear deal: Larijani

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani warned that if the western powers do not accept Irans right to the access of nuclear technology for civilian purpose then Iran would not abide by the agreement to send much of its enriched uranium to Turkey for further enrichment, if the G51 powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program do not approve it in its entirety.
If the powers including the US, UK, France, Russia and China seek to lay any further conditions on Iran beyond those negotiated with Brazil and Turkey, Larijani said, Teheran would withdraw from the deal.

Hoping for better ties with Pakistan, terrorism issue is crucial: Krishna

Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna said that India is hoping for better ties with Pakistan; however the issue of terrorism is vital.
During the 40-minute meeting between Iranian Parliament’s speaker Ali Larijani and SM Krishna, they discussed regional issues of common concern including the current situation in Afghanistan. Krishna informed Larijani about the two attacks on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Krishna also apprised Larijani of the recent meeting of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani in Thimphu, Bhutan. He said that India wants cordial relations with Pakistan; however, the issue of terrorism remains New Delhi’s core concern. Larijani noted that terrorism is the common challenge for Iran and India. Krishna arrived in Iran for a four-day visit on Saturday during which he is also expected to discuss the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project. India walked out of the 2,775 kilometres long gas pipeline project in 2008 mainly due to the huge transit fee demanded by Pakistan.

Iran Guards fire five missiles: TV

TEHRAN: Iran”s elite Revolutionary Guards fired five missiles on Sunday as part of an ongoing military drill in the strategic Strait of Hormuz oil route, state television reported.

The shore-to-sea and sea-to-sea missiles struck at a single target simultaneously, the report said without offering further details.

The Guards have been conducting a military drill since Thursday in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, the narrow strategically located waterway through which 40 percent of world”s seaborne oil supplies pass.

The missile programme of Iran, which boasts of having projectiles that can hit targets in arch-foe Israel, has raised concerns in the West which is already at loggerheads with Tehran over its controversial nuclear project.

Mexican state security chief wounded in ambush

MORELIA: Gunmen ambushed the motorcade of the top state security official in the Mexican state of Michoacan early Saturday in the latest round of drug-related violence that left 13 people dead around the country.

The assailants opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles and detonated fragmentation grenades in the attack, killing four people and wounding 11 others, including the Michoacan state security secretary, Minerva Bautista.

“A trailer blocked the path of the vans in which Minerva Bautista and her security team were traveling, and in an instant, an armed group opened fire on all the secretary”s people, without a care for civilian passersby,” state prosecutor Jesus Montejano Ramirez said.

Two bodyguards and two civilians were killed in the onslaught. Bautista was hit with a grenade fragment and taken to a local hospital where she was in stable condition, the state government said.

Meanwhile, army troops clashed with suspected drug gangs in towns on the outskirts of the northern city of Monterrey, leaving six people dead and a soldier injured, the Mexican defense ministry said.

Gunmen attacked an army patrol in the municipality of Juarez, which adjoins Monterrey, and blocked the main avenues with two police cars to keep reinforcements from arriving, it said.

The defense ministry said five “presumed criminals” were killed in the shoot-out.

A short time earlier in the outlying Monterrey district of San Nicolas, soldiers killed a man fleeing a checkpoint in a car, the defense ministry said.

Monterrey has been the scene of a bloody turf war between the Gulf drug cartel and its former allies, Los Zetas.

Since 2006, more than 22,700 people have been killed in Mexico”s spiraling drug violence despite the deployment of some 50,000 troops to provide security in cities ravaged by killings.

In the western resort city of Acapulco, the dismembered bodies of three men were found Saturday stuffed in black plastic garbage backs and left in a house with a message to a rival drug gang, the Guerrero state security office said.

Drug violence has spiked in recent weeks in Acapulco as competing factions fight for control of the organization headed by Arturo Beltran Leyva, a cartel leader killed in December.

Parliament speaker Larijani says US cannot bully Iran

TEHRAN: The United States must understand that it cannot bully Iran and should respect the rights of the Islamic republic, parliament speaker Ali Larijani said in the eastern city of Tabas on Sunday.

“They (US administration) should respect Iran”s rights and understand that you cannot bully Iran,” Larijani said in a speech marking the 30th anniversary of the failed US mission to release American embassy staff taken hostage in the wake of the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Fifty-three employees of the then US embassy in Tehran were held hostage for 444 days by Islamist Iranian students soon after the Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah.

In April 1980, then US President Jimmy Carter sent a rescue mission to free the hostages but the military effort ended in failure, with eight American servicemen killed. Diplomatic ties between the US and Iran have been suspended ever since.

Larijani, whose speech was broadcast live on state television, also criticised diplomatic overtures by US President Barack Obama, saying they were followed by “harsh and sometimes threatening behaviour.”

The senior lawmaker boasted that Western countries were now “humbled in front of Iran”s military might” and did not dare to “attack” the Islamic republic.

“Instead of understanding the region, they want to deceive. You must understand that we are now living in a post-US era,” Larijani said, as the crowd shouted “Death to America!”

In recent months, Washington has stepped up global efforts to impose a fourth round of UN sanctions on Iran for pursuing its nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is peaceful but which Western powers believe masks a drive to manufacture an atomic weapon.

The United States has not ruled out military action to thwart Iran”s nuclear ambitions.

Barack Obama no better than Bush , Iran

TEHRAN: U.S. steps to renew sanctions and seize a New York skyscraper linked to Iran show that President Barack Obama is no better than his predecessor George W. Bush, Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani said on Sunday.

Larijani’s statement, which was followed by chants of “death to America” among MPs in the legislature, was the latest from Tehran voicing disappointment in the new U.S. Administration’s policies towards the Islamic Republic.

It came as Obama, during a visit to Asia on Sunday, said time was running out for diplomacy in a dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes but which the West suspects has military aims.

Since taking office in January, Obama has sought to reach out diplomatically to Iran, but the dispute over Tehran’s atomic activities continues.

“After one year of giving speeches and baseless slogans, it is a disgrace to see the behaviour and the attitudes of this president are not better than his predecessor’s,” Larijani told parliament, the official IRNA news agency said.

U.S. prosecutors filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday to seize control of a New York City skyscraper they say is owned by companies illegally funnelling money to the Iranian government. The suit seeks to revoke the Alavi Foundation and the Assa Corporation’s ownership of a 36-storey building at 650 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The original lawsuit filed in December only sought Assa Corp’s building share.

Prosecutors said both companies were sending money to Bank Melli, owned by the Iranian government. The U.S. Treasury has designated the bank as a weapons proliferator and banned U.S. citizens from dealing with it.

Also on Thursday, Obama renewed some long-standing U.S. financial sanctions against Iran. Obama notified Congress that, as expected, he was extending a set of existing U.S. Measures against Tehran for another year, saying: “our relations with Iran have not yet returned to normal.”

The sanctions that Obama renewed, which involve certain frozen Iranian assets, stem from a “national emergency” the U.S. government declared in November 1979 near the start of the Iran hostage crisis. Such sanctions have to be extended annually by the U.S. president to remain in effect.

Larijani said: “Extension of restrictions and sanctions against the Iranian nation for another year, and also blocking the accounts and assets of the Alavi Foundation in America, show how deep are the changes in the United States.”

He also accused Washington of “childish actions” after Iran’s disputed June election as well as “irrational proposals” on the nuclear issue. This showed that the “claimed changes by Obama were nothing but deceiving signals,” Larijani said.

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Barack Obama no better than Bush , Iran was first posted on November 15, 2009 at 9:31 pm.