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West should allow Iran to solve its own problems, says opposition leader
Martin Fletcher, Times online
President Ahmadinejad has betrayed the Iranian Revolution, violated the country’s Constitution and may be unable to serve his full term, his most vocal opposition rival has told The Times.

In a surprising twist, however, Mehdi Karroubi warned the West against exploiting the regime’s weakness to strike a deal to halt a nuclear programme that was, he insisted, for peaceful purposes.

“Nuclear science and achieving peaceful nuclear technology is a right reserved for all NPT [Nuclear Proliferation Treaty] members,” he said. “We ask Western governments not to use this internal situation as a bargaining chip with the present Iranian Government to reach agreements which would undermine the rights of the Iranian people.”

He also urged the West against trying to help the opposition in its battle against the regime, saying that such efforts would “pave the way for suppression and accusations of dependency on foreigners”. He added: “The challenges in this country should be solved by its own people.”

If Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died last weekend, was the spiritual leader of the so-called Green Movement, Mr Karroubi, 72, has been its most defiant and outspoken political leader since he and Mir Hossein Mousavi were defeated by Mr Ahmadinejad in hotly disputed elections in June. He has appeared at street protests, exposed the widespread use of rape and torture against detainees and openly accused the regime of electoral fraud and corruption...
(22 Dec 2009)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says US fabricated nuclear documents
Mark Tran, the Guardian
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, today dismissed a year-end deadline set by the US for Iran to accept a UN-brokered deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

As Iran faces a renewed US drive for further sanctions, Ahmadinejad made light of the threat. "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you," he told supporters in the southern city of Shiraz. He said the west could give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care".

In an interview aired on US television yesterday, Ahmadinejad dismissed documents apparently describing Iranian efforts to make a nuclear trigger as "fabricated and distributed by the US".

The president brushed away a report in last week's Times newspaper that cited confidential Iranian technical documents detailing a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the part of a nuclear warhead that triggers detonation...
(22 Dec 2009)

Iran rejects nuclear trigger claim
Al Jazeera
Iran has no plans to test a trigger for a nuclear bomb, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the counrty's president, has said.

In an interview aired by the US-based ABC News television network on Monday, Ahmadinejad said that documents published in the media earlier this month
were forgeries made by Washington.

The UK's Times newspaper reported on December 14 on what it said was a confidential Iranian technical document that explained Tehran's attempts to make a trigger for an atomic bomb.

The document, entitled "Outlook for Special Neutron-Related Activities Over the Next Four Years", outlined a plan to test a neutron initiator, which sets off an explosion in a nuclear warhead...
(X Dec 2009)

Iran Charges 12 at Prison Over Death of Protesters
Robert F. Worth, New York Times
The Iranian authorities acknowledged Saturday for the first time that at least three protesters had been beaten to death in prison after the disputed presidential election in June, as a military court announced that 12 prison officials had been charged with murder and other crimes.

The court’s statement followed months of denials by the police and prosecutors, who grudgingly conceded that some torture had taken place but attributed the deaths to meningitis or other illnesses. The statement was posted on the Web site of ISNA, a semiofficial news agency.

The statement represented a vindication for the Iranian opposition, whose leaders have long accused the government of covering up savage abuses during the postelection crackdown. Opposition leaders say at least 73 people are known to have been killed in the unrest. The government has given varying totals, from 17 to 30, including members of its own security forces.

Some in the opposition and abroad were skeptical that the charges would lead to justice.

“There is a history of these kinds of trials that are announced as a result of a P.R. fiasco, but then go nowhere,” said Abbas Milani, the director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a strong critic of Iran’s leadership...
(19 Dec 2009)

Iran calls for specifying Iraq border areas
Reuters via Worldbulletin
ran on Tuesday described a border incident with Iraq as a "misunderstanding" and called for experts from both countries to look into border demarcation issues.

The statement came two days after Iraqi officials said Iranian troops had withdrawn from a disputed oil area claimed by both Tehran and Baghdad.

"Our stance has been crystal clear ... it was a misunderstanding," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference in comments translated by English-language state television.

Saying the two countries' foreign ministers had reached an understanding in a phone conversation on Saturday, he added a committee should be formed to look into border demarcation issues between Iran and Iraq, which fought a 1980-88 war...
(22 Dec 2009)