A defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Saturday to inaugurate “important nuclear projects” within days and lashed out at Israel, saying the “story” of the Holocaust underpinning its existence had been “smashed.”
In a speech marking the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad said his nation will “never yield” to Western sanctions and threats of military action from Israel and the US.
A crowd of an estimated 30,000 people in Tehran’s main Azadi (Freedom) Square cheered Ahmadinejad’s words, despite the winter weather. Many, including exuberant high-school students, held aloft placards declaring: “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
In pointed messages aimed at those two arch-foes, Iranian officials planted a full-scale model of a US spy drone captured in December at an entrance to the square and hosted on the stage the Hamas leader of Gaza.
Hamas “will never recognize Israel,” Gaza leader Ismail Haniya told the crowd just before Ahmadinejad spoke.
His remarks were likely to complicate efforts to form with rival party Fatah a Palestinian unity government in the face of strong opposition from the Jewish state, which views Hamas as a terrorist organization armed by Iran.
Ahmadinejad gave no details about the “important nuclear projects” about to be made public.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has already said Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent — a level significantly closer to military-grade 90 percent purity — at a mountain bunker near the Shiite shrine city of Qom.
Iranian officials have said that they will be inserting their first domestically made 20-percent enriched fuel plate into a Tehran research reactor by next month.
Israel, voicing concerns that Iran could shield its nuclear program from attack by the end of this year, has made comments suggesting it could imminently launch air strikes against its long-time enemy. The US has also not ruled out military action.
However, Ahmadinejad rejected the pressure, saying that, “if the language of bullying and insult is used, the Iranian nation will never yield.”
“The only path is to adhere to justice and the respect of Iran’s [nuclear] rights and to return to the negotiating table,” he added.
Iran has said several times in recent months that it is ready to resume talks on its nuclear program with world powers.
However, up to now it has failed to respond to a letter by EU foreign policy head Catherine Ashton, formally offering to return to those talks as long as Iran imposes no preconditions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, in comments carried by media on Saturday, said his country’s head nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, had written a reply to Ashton that “either has been sent or is on the verge of being sent.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to