3/1/08

Iran, Iraq to discuss Arvand River issue by mid-January: report
Tehran Times - Iran
TEHRAN -- Iraq's Foreign Ministry Undersecretary for Multilateral
Relations, Mohammad Al-Haj Hammoud, has said Iran has initially agreed with
Iraq to hold ...
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=160559

Iran keeps economic ties with Syria
PRESS TV – Tehran,Iran
Iran’s ambassador to Damascus stresses the enormous potential existing between Iran and Syria for expansion of economic cooperation. In a farewell meeting, …
www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=37312&sectionid=351020101

PMO: Talks with Bush to focus on Iran
Roni Sofer, YNetNews 1/2/2008
Prime Minister’s Office sources say Olmert to concentrate on Iranian nuclear threat during US president’s visit to Israel next week. Tripartite meeting between Bush, Olmert and Abbas possible – Talks between Israeli leaders and US President George W. Bush during his visit to the country next week will focus on both the Palestinian and the Iranian issues, sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday. “Iran’s uranium enrichment program is no less a concern to us than the Palestinian issue” they explained. According to the officials, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will discuss with Bush the recently-published US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which stated that Iran’s nuclear program was suspended in 2003. “This is the first time that the subject will be discussed in person.
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3489375,00.html

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator reshuffles team
by Staff Writers
Tehran (AFP) Jan 1, 2008
Top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili has made three key changes at the Iranian National Security Council, replacing figures seen as close to his predecessor Ali Larijani, media reported on Tuesday.
www.spacewar.com/reports/Irans_top_
nuclear_negotiator_reshuffles_team_999.html

“A long and many-sided struggle”: Major Sunni faction says Iran is the current priority
Arablinks
A regular spokesman for the Islamic Army of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Shammari, responded to interview questions in a new Qatari newspaper called Al-Arab (…)probably the most enlightening in terms of strategy was this exchange on the relative importance of the Americans and the Iranian threats. Interviewer: Have you thought about what could happen in Iraq after the Americans withdraw? Have you thought about the Iranian danger? Shammari: The Iranian danger needs no proof or explanations, because it is a paramount reality on the ground. We have a clause in out political program in which we say Iraq is under two occupations, the Iranian and the American, and the most dangerous and difficult is the Iranian. And in fact we were the first to warn of this, and we have called on our brothers in all of the other jihadi factions to support this so that now the Political Office of the Iraqi Resistance supports this, with a slight modification in the draft….
www.uruknet.de/?p=39759

Olmert, Bush to discuss Iran “nuke” program:
Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hosts U.S. President George Bush and his team to discuss the contentious Iranian “nuclear program.”
www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/122592

Are Iran and the U.S. ready to bite the bullet?
Omid Memarian, San Francisco Chronicle
…Despite their official rhetoric, the Iranian regime is flexible and pragmatic; it purchased weapons from Tel Aviv and Washington during the war with Iraq in 1980-1998, helped release American hostages in Lebanon in the late 1980s, collaborated with U.S. commanders to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, and welcomed the U.S. invasion of Iraq (…) Ironically, Iran has ultimately benefited from the U.S. attacks on the Taliban and Iraq because these efforts have weakened Iran’s top two enemies…
www.uruknet.de/?p=39735

Iran says ties with Egypt improving
Al Jazeera 1/1/2008
At the end of a rare visit to Egypt, a senior Iranian envoy has said that the two countries are making progress in normalising ties after nearly three decades of discord over regional issues. “There is no major problem and everything is moving forward,” Ali Larijani, a member of Iran’s powerful National Security Council, said on Tuesday after talks with Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister. Larijani, who is also a close aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, described the talks as “positive and constructive”. Tehran cut diplomatic ties with Egypt after the latter signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 and provided asylum for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran.
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/361E3
912-E8D8-450A-8997-54FB12832DDC.htm

Tech sales to China questioned
International Herald Tribune – France
Equally worrisome, the weapons experts say, is the possibility that China could share the technology with Iran or Syria. The technologies include advanced …
www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/02/technology/02techtransfer.php

Lebanon ex-premier: Iran not a threat to Arab states
Tehran Times – Iran
KUWAIT CITY (IRNA) — Lebanese former prime minister Selim al-Hoss said Monday that Iran never poses a threat to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. …
www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=160377