The presidents of Iran and Russia have expressed hope for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis on the eve of key talks aiming to break the deadlock, media reported yesterday.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held their first telephone talks late on Friday, a day before the talks yesterday in Geneva, media reported.
“In the Geneva negotiations ... we can examine ways to make decisions in different fields and help resolve the existing issues,” the Web site of Iranian state television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
CLARIFICATION
The Kremlin quoted Medvedev as urging Iran “to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] to clarify questions remaining about the Iranian nuclear program.”
“The Russian president reiterated his firm position on resolving the situation surrounding Iran’s nuclear program only by political and diplomatic means,” it said.
Russia is one of the six world powers that last month gave Iran a proposal offering it full negotiations on a range of incentives if it suspends sensitive uranium enrichment operations.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was to hold talks on the package with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Geneva yesterday, in a meeting that for the first time will also be attended by a US envoy.
Iran’s press yesterday hailed the presence of a US diplomat at the talks, calling on Tehran’s arch foe to recognize its atomic rights.
In a major shift by Washington, US Under-secretary of State William Burns was to attend yesterday’s talks.
GLEEFUL HARDLINERS
Hardline newspapers such as Jomhouri Eslami and Kayhan, the voices of Iran’s clerical establishment, expressed glee over the US presence at the talks and interpreted it as a sign of US weakness.
“Burns’ presence at the Geneva talks emanates from the needs of the foreign policy of the United States and also shows the existence of differences among the world powers,” said Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by the supreme leader.
For Jomhouri Eslami, the shift showed that the US “is no longer a superpower and its power is fading. Their weakness showed from the beginning of the Islamic Revolution and this has intensified.”
DIPLOMATIC PRESENCE
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister said on Friday that his country was open to discussing the establishment by the US of its first diplomatic presence in Tehran since relations were severed nearly three decades ago.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki welcomed as a “positive step” the administration’s decision to send a senior US official to participate in international talks with Iran this weekend, and said he expected the talks to make progress.
Speaking in Ankara, Turkey, Mottaki said there had been increased demand from Iranians and Americans for better bilateral social and business relations.
Although there has been no official confirmation, European and US officials have said the US was considering establishing a diplomatic presence in Iran for the first time since relations were ended during the 444-day occupation of the US embassy in Tehran, which started on Nov. 4, 1979.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
RSS