The US on Wednesday rejected claims it was interfering with the post-election tumult in Iran, saying President Barack Obama would raise concerns about, but not meddle in, Iranian politics.
“As the president has said, we are not interfering with the debate that Iranians are having about their election and its aftermath,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “You know, this is a debate about Iranians and about Iran’s future. It’s up to the government of Iran to resolve these questions and these concerns that the Iranian people have and that the world has in a credible way, in a transparent way and in a peaceful way.”
At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would continue to express his concerns about the election and the subsequent political unrest. Gibbs noted that the president had discussed universal principles such as the right to peacefully demonstrate and stressed they should be observed in Iran.
“The president will continue to express those concerns and ensure that we are not meddling,” Gibbs said.
Earlier, Iran protested to the Swiss envoy in Tehran over “interfering remarks” by US officials on last Friday’s presidential election, state television reported. Washington has had no diplomatic ties with Tehran for three decades and its interests are represented by the Swiss embassy.
Obama said on Tuesday that he had concerns about the conduct of the election and subsequent violence, but said that US “meddling” in Iranian affairs could be counterproductive.
Washington would still pursue “tough diplomacy” toward Iran over its nuclear drive, but has been walking a fine political line designed to avoid becoming a “political football” in Iran, Obama said.
The White House also downplayed reports that the State Department had intervened to stop the microblogging service Twitter, which has been carrying many eyewitness reports of protests in Iran, from scheduling a shutdown for maintenance that would have coincided with daytime hours in Tehran.
Gibbs described the State Department’s role as having been undertaken by “an employee in some discussions with Twitter about the importance of social networking and maintenance.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the request to Twitter, which has emerged as a vital tool to help protesters chronicle events in Iran in the face of a media and Internet crackdown.
“We promote the right of free expression and it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter, is a very important one, not only to the Iranian people but now increasingly to people around the world and most particularly to young people,” Clinton said. “I think keeping that line of communications open and enabling people to share information, particularly at a time when there was not many other sources of information, is an important expression of the right to speak out and to be able to organize.”
Iran’s opposition stepped up its challenge to the Islamic regime on Wednesday, holding another rally even as the authorities cracked down hard on the media to try to contain the biggest crisis since the 1979 revolution.
Tens of thousands of supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took part in what was billed as a “silent” protest rally, marching through central Tehran, witnesses said.
Mousavi has demanded a re-run of the election after official results gave outright victory in the first round to hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of