TEHRAN, Feb. 17--Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Saturday officials should be seriously determined to conquer the highest peaks in different fields by relying on people’s power and talented Iranians.
In a meeting with thousands of people from East Azarbaijan province, Ayatollah Khamenei noted that it is narrow-mindedness to consider nuclear energy as unnecessary for the country, ISNA reported.
Ayatollah Khamenei thanked the nation for their magnificent rally on Feb. 11 marking the 28th anniversary of the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“The strength of the Islamic Revolution is derived from the courage of Iranians and their interest in the revolution and their religious identity,“ he said.
The meeting was held concurrent with the anniversary of the historical uprising of the people of Tabriz on Feb. 18, 1978.
The leader referred to the Tabriz uprising as an important step toward the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Emphasizing that the people should firmly confront the enemy, Ayatollah Khamenei said unfortunately some people exaggerate the prevailing problems to help the enemy pursue its objectives.
“Oil and gas resources will not last for ever and if a nation does not consider an alternative source of energy for future, it will have to rely on big powers for ever,“ he said.
He referred to the appetite of big powers for dominating the world’s energy resources as the reason for their opposition to Iran’s peaceful nuclear technology.
The leader termed the people of Azarbaijan as brave, pious and dynamic for their defense of national interests.
Commenting on the ’hallucination’ of enemies about disintegration of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei opined that this is the enemy’s biggest stupidity because the people of Azarbaijan are the most zealous and they have always fought the cynics.
He referred to the decisive role of people of Azarbaijan, especially the people of Tabriz in the Constitutional Movement, the uprising of Sheikh Mohammad Khiyabani, the Tobacco Boycott movement of Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi and incidents related to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“The Iranians will move forward with the help of officials who try to resolve their problems,“ he said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (l) shakes hands with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Al-Assad, during a welcoming ceremony in Tehran, Feb. 17.

TEHRAN, Feb. 17--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad officially received his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al-Assad and his entourage at the presidential complex on Saturday.
Current developments in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, give Bashar’s visit greater significance.
The trip of the Syrian delegation is taking place within the framework of regular exchange of visits between the officials of the two countries, IRNA reported.
The two presidents warned against the dangers of disunity between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, in particular in multi-confessional Lebanon and Iraq.
Ahmadinejad agreed that “we should be careful about the enemies’ efforts to create division and conflict amongst Muslims and make sure they do not reach their sinister goals.“
“Under the current conditions it is necessary that Islamic countries preserve their vigilance, unity and wisdom to prevent the establishment of new conspiracies,“ he added.
“We should cooperate and work to make the public aware of the sinister aims of the United States and the Zionists,“ Assad said.
“Iran and Syria support the peoples of the region and the enemies will only reach their goals by creating pessimism and disunity amongst Muslims,“ he added.
The Syrian president is accompanied by Vice President Farouk Al-Shara and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
During his stay in Tehran, the Syrian president is scheduled to confer with the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and State Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on issues of mutual interest.

WASHINGTON,
Feb. 17--Determined to check US President George W. Bush, Democratic critics of the Iraq war hope a strong House of Representatives vote critical of the administration’s troop buildup will pay dividends in the Senate in a nonbinding vote on Saturday.
The House of Representatives on Friday passed a measure stating opposition to Bush’s decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. The nonbinding resolution was a symbolic rebuke of a wartime president who has lost favor with the American public, AP reported.
The Senate is holding a test vote on an identical measure Saturday. But Republicans are insisting on an alternative that rejects any reduction in troop funding, making it unlikely Democrats will prevail.
“Americans deserve to know whether their senator stands with the president and his plan to deepen our military commitment in Iraq, or with the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose this escalation,“ Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday on the eve of the Senate showdown.
A sizable majority, 63 percent, oppose Bush’s decision to send more troops, although support for Bush’s plan has risen in the past few weeks from 26 percent to 35 percent, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.
“The bipartisan resolution opposing the president’s plan was just the beginning of our efforts to right this ship,“ Rep. Christopher Carney, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said Saturday in his party’s weekly radio address.
“The passage of this legislation will signal a change in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops home safely and soon,“ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday. The House passed the measure 246-182 on Friday.
Several Republican senators wary of the president’s Iraq plans were expected to side with Democrats, saying they were frustrated that Senate leaders had not been able to agree on the ground rules for such an important debate.
However, Democrats were still expected to fall shy of the 60 votes needed. But Reid said the vote would still help determine where members stand.
In the House, supporters of the nonbinding measure included 229 Democrats and 17 Republicans--fewer Republican defections than Democrats had hoped to get and the White House and its allies had feared. Two Democrats joined the 180 Republicans in opposition.

TEHRAN, Feb. 17--Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said on Saturday the International Oil Refining Forum is being held against a backdrop of major developments in the Iranian oil refining industry.
Addressing the inaugural session, Vaziri-Hamaneh noted that the Iranian oil industry needs an investment of $15 billion for developing refinery capacity.
“This has already given rise to extensive opportunities for mutual cooperation in various fields, including process technologies, joint investment, technical and specialized alliance with Iranian companies and world-scale refining projects,“ he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The oil minister explained that development is centered on two major phases.
“The first phase includes upgrading, technological improvement and profit growth of refineries, which promote quality of products in compliance with international standards and introduce advanced productivity, safety, occupational health and environment-friendly systems.
“The second phase deals with projects for processing extra-heavy crude oil from Soroush, Norouz and Azadegan fields as well as the Yadavaran heavy crude field and South Pars oil layers and processing condensates from the SP gas field.“
He pointed out that the policies mainly focus on expanding refining capacity, converting heavy, low-value products to lighter products with higher value-added, meeting domestic fuel needs at present and, in the future, instituting fuel consumption management with reasonable prices and targeted subsidies, cooperating with neighboring states and investing in other countries.
Vaziri-Hamaneh predicted OPEC would not need to make a further cut in crude oil production at its next meeting in March, as long as the price of crude remains stable.
“If the oil price remains at current levels, there will probably be no need for a cut at the meeting in March,“ Vaziri-Hamaneh was quoted by ISNA as saying on the sidelines of an oil conference.
“At present prices are going up, so the OPEC price basket is above 50 dollars,“ he said. “But if the upward trend of prices were to change, some other options would definitely be examined.“
Iran is OPEC’s second largest producer.
Meanwhile, Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh also invited foreign countries to invest in a new Tehran project to build an oil pipeline from the north to the south of the country.
Addressing the forum, the official disclosed that a feasibility study had been conducted on building a pipeline capable of transporting one million barrels of Caspian Sea crude oil per day from north to south of Iran.
He noted that the ministry has signed more than $4 million worth of contracts with domestic and foreign companies to build and upgrade new refineries in the year to March 20.
The two-day forum opened with the participation of representatives of more than 83 foreign and 206 Iranian companies.

TOKYO, Feb. 17--A senior official at the UN’s atomic energy agency is expected to visit North Korea within two weeks to discuss details of a planned nuclear reactor inspection that Pyongyang agreed to at recent disarmament talks, a Japanese newspaper reported Saturday.
In a breakthrough deal reached in Beijing on Tuesday, North Korea agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow UN inspectors back into the country within 60 days. In return, other nations participating in the talks--the US, South Korea, Russia, China and Japan--agreed to provide energy aid and other support.
A delegation headed by International Atomic Energy Agency Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen will hold talks with North Korean officials to decide details such as inspection procedures and the North’s schedule to the eventual dismantlement of its entire nuclear program, the Asahi said, quoting unidentified IAEA sources.
The 35-nation IAEA is due to meet in early March to discuss the results of Heinonen’s planned visit to Pyongyang, the Asahi said.
Heinonen led inspections at the North’s facility located in Yongbyon north of the capital Pyongyang in 1994 and 2002, the report said.
Japanese government officials were not available for comment on Saturday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq,
Feb. 17--Attacks and killings in Baghdad have plunged by 80 percent since Iraqi and US forces launched a security plan for Baghdad, Iraqi military spokesman Qasim Al-Musawi said on Saturday.
“Terror operations in Baghdad dropped by 80 percent“ since Wednesday, when the Iraqi government officially launched a broad plan to try to snuff out sectarian violence in the capital, Musawi said, AFP reported.
“The morgue was receiving 40-50 bodies per day before and now has received only 20 in the last 48 hours,“ added Musawi, spokesman for Lieutenant General Abboud Gambar, who commands a joint force of Iraqi soldiers and police.
Musawi said 144 people had been arrested since Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki announced the operation was underway, adding that “they were wanted suspects, the arrests were not arbitrary“.
They included people sought in connection with a January 22 market bombing that killed at least 88 and wounded some 160, and suspects in a bomb blast at Mustansiriyah University on January 16 that left 70 dead.
Meanwhile, US-led forces in Iraq arrested 21 militants early Saturday, mainly insurgent fighters suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, the military said.
“Coalition forces detained 21 suspected terrorists during raids targeting foreign fighters and the Al-Qaeda in Iraq network Saturday morning,“ a statement said.
Al-Qaeda’s chapter in Iraq is the main Sunni-dominated insurgent group battling US-led forces and Maliki’s unity government.
The Iraqi military spokesman told reporters that sweeps through nests of illegal fighters had allowed 130 displaced families to return to their homes and stores to reopen for business.

VICENZA, Italy, Feb. 17--Tens of thousands of people were spilling out of buses and trains arriving in the northeastern
city of Vicenza early Saturday to take part in a major protest against the planned expansion of a US military base here, a divisive issue for Italy’s center-left government.
“We were 10 to a compartment,“ said Gino Del Ferraro, a 23-year-old physics student who arrived on a train chartered by the Refoundation Communist party, a component of Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s coalition that is fiercely opposed to the base plan along with a smaller communist party and the Greens.
Ferraro paid 10 euros ($12.50) for a round trip overnight train ride from Rome, AFP reported.
Prodi last month decided not to renege on a pledge by his staunchly pro-US conservative predecessor Silvio Berlusconi to allow the expansion of the base in Vicenza, a city of 100,000 people known as the home of Palladian architecture. The US 173rd Airborne Brigade is currently spread across two sites in Germany and Camp Ederle, on the east side of Vicenza, and Washington wants to consolidate the Brigade here. The US embassy has put out a travel advisory urging US nationals to stay away from Vicenza on Friday and Saturday, predicting a turnout of some 70,000.
The Italian press on Saturday predicted a turnout of up to 80,000, with authorities warning of violence fomented by ’extremists’, while organizers scoff at the idea.
“The mass media are calling us extremists,“ boomed Oscar Mancini at a pre-march rally late Friday. “They haven’t understood anything about Vicenza.“
In December, he recalled, more than 20,000 people held a peaceful protest here against the base expansion. Under the plan, the 2,750-strong Brigade will consolidate in Italy by taking in a former military airfield at Dal Molin, on the opposite side of Vicenza from Camp Ederle, at a cost of some $500 million.