Bharat Rakshak

The Iranian authorities must immediately overturn the death sentences of five members of Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority who were tried unfairly and may face imminent public execution, Amnesty International said after the prisoners were moved to an unknown location at the weekend.
...
All five were arrested in April 2011 amid unrest in Khuzestan province – where most of Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority lives – and were later convicted of moharebeh (“enmity against God”) for killing a law enforcement official.

shyamd wrote:SMK meets Iran FM Salehi (again). MMS due in Tehran tomorrow. Hmmm something is up perhaps?

hulaku wrote:

shyamd wrote:SMK meets Iran FM Salehi (again). MMS due in Tehran tomorrow. Hmmm something is up perhaps?

Yes, the Non-Aligned Movement Conference in Teheran.

Saudi Arabia-Iran: Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah will attend the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran in late August, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on 24 August.


Comment: It is difficult to understand how Saudi Arabia qualifies as non-aligned. Nevertheless, the Saudis will have a competent auditor of the proceedings.


Iran is more than willing to welcome a royal Saudi delegation because each delegation proves Iran is not as isolated as Secretary Clinton persists in claiming to an adoring press audience. Neither the Saudis nor the UN Secretary General pay much attention to the US Secretary of State on Syria.

ramana wrote:Gunjur,

Nightwatch 24 August 2012

Saudi Arabia-Iran: Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah will attend the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran in late August, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on 24 August.


Comment: It is difficult to understand how Saudi Arabia qualifies as non-aligned. Nevertheless, the Saudis will have a competent auditor of the proceedings.


Iran is more than willing to welcome a royal Saudi delegation because each delegation proves Iran is not as isolated as Secretary Clinton persists in claiming to an adoring press audience. Neither the Saudis nor the UN Secretary General pay much attention to the US Secretary of State on Syria.

Gunjur wrote: Even Morsi of Egypt is there.

Notwithstanding US pressure to reduce its oil dependence on Iran, India on Tuesday said it will continue to remain the biggest buyer of crude oil from the sanction-hit country and its companies will find ways to work around the financial restrictions imposed on oil purchases.

Notwithstanding US pressure to reduce its oil dependence on Iran, India on Tuesday said it will continue to remain the biggest buyer of crude oil from the sanction-hit country and its companies will find ways to work around the financial restrictions imposed on oil purchases.

"We are still the biggest buyers of oil. We will continue doing so. Companies pick and chose," government sources said while noting that the companies had trouble with insurance which was being resolved.

They said, the companies will also analyze the impact of these sanctions on their other businesses.

Asked about the status of requests by Iranian banks to open up branches in India, the sources said this will eventually happen. There are some technical issues which were being looked into, they said.

The remarks, ahead of the bilateral meetings between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Iranian leadership, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, assume significance given the fact that US is pushing India and other countries to reduce their engagement with Iran in a bid to put pressure on Tehran on its controversial nuclear programme.

Though New Delhi has reduced supply of crude oil from Tehran, Iran still remains one of the biggest suppliers of oil to energy-deficient India.

Discussions on the controversial Iranian nuclear programme are also expected to figure in Singh's meetings here, with India maintaining that though Iran has a right to pursue the atomic programme for peaceful purposes, it has certain international obligations by virtue of being an NPT signatory.

"We have always maintained that every country has a right to pursue nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. However, countries are also bound by international laws," they said, adding that earlier Tehran had refused to open up its facilities to international inspection but now the issue is under consideration.

shyamd wrote:Source says there is a very high probability of war now with Israel and iran.

shyamd wrote:US will engineer a black out I.e no green or red light. Osirak took place without US support.

CRamS wrote:

shyamd wrote:Source says there is a very high probability of war now with Israel and iran.

I wonder what Iran will do in retaliation? Will they just huff and puff and let a brazen Israeli attack pass, or will they do something? Does Iran have the capability? More than any so called threat that Iranian nukes pose, I would say its Ango-European-Jewish arrogance based on white colonial supremacy that needs to be dealt a hefty blow. In this regard, I hope Iran at least does something so Israel realizes ts folly and this colonial axis learns to treat "others" with a modicum of respect. I mean this whole saga stinks of imperialistic arrogance where this axis decides who can have nukes and who can't, and who poses a "global terrorist threat" and who doesn't. At least if there is some consistency, i.e., TSP is included in this axis of evil that needs to be stripped of nukes, I would have some sympathy. But no, a rabid terrorist dog like TSP is fed nukes and feted by the same axis to balance India, while we have to listen to lectures from the colonial axis on the threat to "world peace" that Iran poses. My foot.

shyamd wrote:The Iranians made a blunder when they told the P5 negotiators to hold off Israel from striking. It is very much coordinated.

They used turkey, Oman to communicate with Khamanei and now they want to use India because of its size and international position. Iran's last chance...

War will be last resort.

CRamS wrote: I wonder what Iran will do in retaliation? Will they just huff and puff and let a brazen Israeli attack pass, or will they do something? Does Iran have the capability? More than any so called threat that Iranian nukes pose, I would say its Ango-European-Jewish arrogance based on white colonial supremacy that needs to be dealt a hefty blow. In this regard, I hope Iran at least does something so Israel realizes ts folly and this colonial axis learns to treat "others" with a modicum of respect. I mean this whole saga stinks of imperialistic arrogance where this axis decides who can have nukes and who can't, and who poses a "global terrorist threat" and who doesn't. At least if there is some consistency, i.e., TSP is included in this axis of evil that needs to be stripped of nukes, I would have some sympathy. But no, a rabid terrorist dog like TSP is fed nukes and feted by the same axis to balance India, while we have to listen to lectures from the colonial axis on the threat to "world peace" that Iran poses. My foot.

Kati wrote:Just a few days back Susan Rice paid a low-profile visit to delhi and had a closed-door meetings with SS Menan and Ranjan Mathai. Apparently to convey some secret message
for MMS to carry to tehran. Now, MMS is scheduled to meet Khameini. Seems that he will
convey that message - could be a strong warning that adter Nov there can be stiffer penalties......
...
Ya, agree, unilateral attack by israel will galvanize the entire ME. Even during the Gulf wars, israel was forced to keep a very low profile.

eklavya wrote:
shyamd, the mullah's in Tehran may be evil but they are not stupid. The West cannot afford the potential economic and financial consequences of a war with Iran. No politician in Europe or the US is prepared to ruin their economy to deal with Netanyahu's paranoia.

Look at what CRamS said: the world already lives with Paki and NoKo nukes. The world will also get used to Iranian nukes in due course.

All this "last chance" stuff is bluff and the mullah's will not fall for it.

Iran's deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Ahmadian, said the reactor at the Bushehr power plant was brought to its "full capacity of 1,000 megawatts".

Expert: World Shouldn’t Panic about Iran Nuclear Weapons

September 4, 2012 | Posted by Nick Chiles
Tagged With: Iran, iran nuclear weapons, israel, Shashank Joshi, UN's International atomic Energy Agency, uranium

Though the international community, led by Israel, is creating panic around the globe about Iran’s campaign to build a nuclear weapon, Iran is still far from being able to make a bomb—and the steps it would need to do so would easily be detected and terminated by the United States, argues Shashank Joshi of Harvard in a piece in the UK Telegraph.
Joshi writes that a new report from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency produced the expected hand-wringing from the international community about how imminent is the Iran nuclear threat. But Joshi says the panic is not justified.
While Joshi says the U.N report makes it clear that Iran is enriching more uranium—it is nine-tenths of the way to weapons-grade—and it has doubled the number of underground centrifuges since May, the thing that should relax the rest of the world is the fact that Iran can’t take any steps toward nuclear weapons without everybody knowing about it the second it begins.
“The concern, then, is this: Iran could ‘break out’ by taking the uranium it has enriched so far, feeding it into this considerably expanded set of centrifuges, and produce weapons-grade uranium suitable for a bomb,” writes Joshi, a doctoral student at Harvard and research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “And it could do so at an ever-quickening pace. But could it do all this before it was detected and bombed? Almost certainly not.”
“Iran is still using extremely old centrifuge designs, and—something that was missed in most reporting—has taken steps that actually put it further away from a bomb,” Joshi continues. “Iran set aside over half of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium for conversion to fuel plates used in its medical research reactor. In that form, the stuff is much harder to use for weapons purposes (and impossible to use quickly). Iran is left without enough for even one bomb. Yes, it will eventually make up this lost amount through more production—but that takes time, and its willingness to eat into this stockpile, a bargaining chip for Iran, is a positive step.”
Joshi says it would take Iran months to produce weapons-grade uranium for a single bomb and that it would surely be detected if it tried to do so. And if it somehow managed to get the uranium together, it would take at least another year to actually make a nuclear device—and then longer to get the device onto a missile.
“If it were to try any of this, it would almost certainly face a serious military campaign led by the United States, which could do far more damage than Israel,” he writes.
“It is crucial that the IAEA’s findings be interpreted soberly and carefully,” Joshi concludes, “rather than with the continual undertone of panic that Israel has sought to instill over the summer.”

Canada shut its embassy in Tehran on Friday, severed diplomatic relations and ordered Iranian diplomats to leave, accusing the Islamic Republic of being the most significant threat to world peace.

The surprise action reinforces the Conservative government’s close ties with Tehran’s arch foe Israel but also removes some of Washington’s eyes and ears inside the Iranian capital.
[...]
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said that the Canadian embassy in Tehran will close immediately and Iranian diplomats in Canada have been given five days to leave.

A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Ramin Mehmanparast, called Canada’s decision ‘‘hasty and extreme’’ and said that Iran would soon respond, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

A note in Persian posted on the door of Iran’s embassy in Ottawa read: ‘‘Because of the hostile decision by the government of Canada, the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Ottawa is closed and has no choice but to stop providing any consular services for its dear citizens.’’

Baird said Canada was officially designating Iran a state sponsor of terrorism and gave a long list of reasons for Canada’s decision, including Tehran’s support for Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad in that country’s civil war.

‘‘The Iranian regime is providing increasing military assistance to the Assad regime; it refuses to comply with U.N. resolutions pertaining to its nuclear program; it routinely threatens the existence of Israel and engages in racist anti-Semitic rhetoric and incitement to genocide,’’ Baird said in a statement. ‘‘It is among the world’s worst violators of human rights; and it shelters and materially supports terrorist groups.’’

Baird said he also was worried about the safety of diplomats in Tehran following attacks on the British embassy there.

Britain downgraded ties with Iran following an attack on its embassy in Tehran in November 2011, which it insists was sanctioned by the Islamic Republic’s ruling elite. After the attack, Britain pulled all of its diplomats out of Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats from U.K. soil.

Most European countries maintain a diplomatic presence in Tehran despite increased tensions over European Union sanctions that block imports of Iranian oil. The Swiss represent diplomatic interests of the United States, which broke ties with Tehran after protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in the chaotic months following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Fifty-two Americans were held for 444 days.

Canada’s break with Iran removes another channel for Washington to get first-hand diplomatic assessments of Iranian affairs. Canada and Britain had been main conduits of information for the U.S., which also maintains special Iranian monitoring offices in several locations including Dubai.

A senior Iranian Defence Ministry official announced on Sunday that his ministry plans to unveil a highly advanced cruise missile.

"God willing, Meshkat (Lantern) cruise missile with a range of 2,000 km will be unveiled in the near future," Deputy Defence Minister and head of the ministry's Aerospace Organisation General Mehdi Farahi told the semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday, reported Xinhua.

"Meshkat Cruise Missile can be fired from land, air and sea," Farahi was quoted as saying.

According to the report, Iran's former cruise missile can travel a distance of no more than 300 km.

In August, the Iranian defence minister announced that Iran had "successfully" test-fired a 300 km-range missile.

In July, the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) staged a three-day missile drill and its aerospace division commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh said in the drill, dubbed "Great Prophet 7”, more than 100 hypothesized spots in the central desert region of the country were targeted by various kinds of missiles.

Hajizadeh said that Iran's missiles could hit the US military bases in neighbouring countries.

He said that all the US bases in the region were within the reach of Iran's missiles and Iranian missiles could also easily reach Israel.

Iranian commanders have warned that Iran would give firm response to any military attack against the country.

Elizabeth Roche, [email protected]
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Iran has expressed the hope that officials from India, Iran and Afghanistan will be able to finalize plans to develop the Chabahar port before an India-Iran joint commission meeting scheduled for November.

Iran’s envoy to India Seyed Mehdi Nabizadeh said his government was keen to develop the port, and free trade and industrial zone at Chabahar in the south-eastern part of the country as part of an alternative access route to land-locked Afghanistan and Central Asia.

India and Iran had agreed to look at developing the Chabahar port in 2003, during a visit to India by the then Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, but the venture has not made much progress. Given India’s often hostile relations with Pakistan, India views the port as an alternative route not only to Afghanistan, but also to resource-rich Central Asia.

But a meeting of officials of India, Iran and Afghanistan last month—ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Tehran for the Non-Aligned Meet on 30-31 August—agreed to set up a joint working group to explore options to develop the port.

Nabizadeh said one of the reasons for the delay on Chabahar was because the port was previously not part of the free trade and industrial zone. That has changed.

“Parliament approves free trade zones and recently the port was included,” Nabizadeh said. “Before the joint commission in November, we should finalize the case of Chabahar.”

An Iranian diplomat in New Delhi said among the issues that needed to be resolved was that of contractors. “Our people are saying why do we need Indian contractors, we have our people and we can use them to build the port,” he said.

A person familiar with developments on the Indian side said Iran was looking for Indian investment in dollars to develop the port and associated infrastructure. It was not keen on project imports as payment for oil exports.

India has been finding it difficult to pay for the oil it buys from Iran due to US and European sanctions targeting financial institutions that route payments from the buyers of Iranian oil.

Iran is under sanctions because Western countries suspect that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian programme. India’s bilateral trade with Iran stands at more than $15 billion (Rs.84,000 crore), of which Indian exports constitute less than $3 billion.

The government has said that it has reduced oil imports from Iran due to payment issues though Nabizadeh said in February that both sides had worked out an agreement under which New Delhi would pay 45% of the dues in rupees and Tehran will use this money to pay for imports.

Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.

In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.
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The war games are the largest ever undertaken in the region.

They will practise tactics in how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and the force will also undertake counter-mining drills.

The multi-national naval force in the Gulf includes three US Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force.

The carriers are supported by at least 12 battleships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and assault ships carrying thousand of US Marines and special forces.

The British component consists of four British minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Cardigan Bay, a logistics vessel. HMS Diamond, a brand-new £1billion Type 45 destroyer, one of the most powerful ships in the British fleet, will also be operating in the region.

In addition, commanders will also simulate destroying Iranian combat jets, ships and coastal missile batteries.

In the event of war, the main threat to the multi-national force will come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps navy, which is expected to adopt an “access-denial” strategy in the wake of an attack, by directly targeting US warships, attacking merchant shipping and mining vital maritime chokepoints in the Persian Gulf.

Defence sources say that although Iran’s capability may not be technologically sophisticated, it could deliver a series of lethal blows against British and US ships using mini-subs, fast attack boats, mines and shore-based anti-ship missile batteries.

Next month, Iran will stage massive military manoeuvres of its own, to show that it is prepared to defend its nuclear installations against the threat of aerial bombardment.

The exercise is being showcased as the biggest air defence war game in the Islamic Republic’s history, and will be its most visible response yet to the prospect of an Israeli military strike.

Using surface-to-air missiles, unmanned drones and state-of-the-art radar, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and air force will combine to test the defences of 3,600 sensitive locations throughout the country, including oil refineries and uranium enrichment facilities.

Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya air defence base, told a conference this month that the manoeuvres would “identify vulnerabilities, try out new tactics and practise old ones”.

At the same time as the Western manoeuvres in the Gulf, the British Response Task Forces Group — which includes the carrier HMS Illustrious, equipped with Apache attack helicopters, along with the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle - will be conducting a naval exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. The task force could easily be diverted to the Gulf region via the Suez Canal within a week of being ordered to do so.

The main naval exercise comes as President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, today to discuss the Iranian crisis.

Many within the Obama administration believe that Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities before the US presidential elections, an act which would signal the failure of one of Washington’s key foreign policy objectives.

Both Downing Street and Washington hope that the show of force will demonstrate to Iran that Nato and the West will not allow President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, to develop a nuclear armoury or close Hormuz.

Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, reportedly met the Israeli prime minister and Ehud Barak, his defence secretary, two weeks ago in an attempt to avert military action against Iran.

But just last week Mr Netanyahu signalled that time for a negotiated settlement was running out when he said: “The world tells Israel 'Wait, there’s still time.’ And I say, 'Wait for what? Wait until when?’

“Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.”

The crisis hinges on Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, which Israel believes is designed to build an atomic weapon. Tehran has long argued that the programme is for civil use only and says it has no plans to an build a nuclear bomb, but that claim has been disputed by the West, with even the head of MI6 stating that the Islamic Republic is on course to develop atomic weapons by 2014.

The Strait of Hormuz has long been disputed territory, with the Iranians claiming control of the region and the entire Persian Gulf.

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps recently boasted that “any plots of enemies” would be foiled and a heavy price exacted, adding: “We determine the rules of military conflict in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.”

But Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that Iranian attempts to exercise control over the Strait of Hormuz could be met with force.

He said: “The Iranians need to understand that the United States and the international community are going to hold them directly responsible for any disruption of shipping in that region — by Iran or, for that matter, by its surrogates.”

Mr Panetta said that the United States was “fully prepared for all contingencies” and added: “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that the Iranian attempt to close down shipping in the Gulf is something that we are going to be able to defeat if they make that decision.”

That announcement was supported by Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, who added: “We are determined to work as part of the international community effort to ensure freedom of passage in the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”

One defence source told The Sunday Telegraph last night: “If it came to war, there would be carnage. The Iranian casualties would be huge but they would be able to inflict severe blows against the US and British.

“The Iranian Republican Guard are well versed in asymmetrical warfare and would use swarm attacks to sink or seriously damage ships. This is a conflict nobody wants, but the rhetoric from Israel is unrelenting.”