TEHRAN, Oct. 13--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran is not to set any limit on expansion of ties with Russia and seeks durable, all-out ties with that country.
“Iran’s authority would be to the benefit of Russia and vice versa,“ Ahmadinejad added in an interview with Russian news agency ITAR-TASS and Russian TV network on Thursday.
“Given their geographical, political and cultural status, the two nations are to live together,“ he said, stressing that Iran and Russia are naturally united.
The president noted that despite many ups and downs in bilateral relations in the past, the two countries are determined to fully bolster their ties.
“Mutual cooperation between Iran and Russia would have positive impacts on the region as well as the whole world,“ he said.
“The two sides enjoy ample economic potentials to meet each other’s requirements.“
Ahmadinejad also said both Iran and Russia, as two big powers, play a significant role in regional and global equations.
On the Caspian Sea, he said, the Caspian Sea littoral countries have many commonalities and should live together in peace.
“We hope the upcoming summit of Caspian Sea littoral states in Tehran (on October 16) will bear fruitful results and help maintain peace and welfare of their nations,“ he said.
The president said the current unrest in the Middle East is rooted in the interference of foreign countries.
“Western countries have rushed to the Middle East to plunder its oil and gas reserves and the Zionist regime is the main cause of insecurity in the region,“ he said.
“(However), regional nations are vigilant and will not let aliens carry out their plots and divide the Middle East,“ he said.
Ahmadinejad also noted that Iranian nuclear activities are of a totally peaceful nature.
“Our way of developing nuclear technologies is quite transparent, and our nuclear activities are of peaceful nature,“ he said.
“The Iranian nation is an honest and quiet nation, seeking no tension. The West abuses this and builds up its position on claims.“
Stating that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) now has ten times more questions for European countries than Iran, the president said, “For instance we can ask Americans: what right have they to test fifth generation nuclear bombs? For what purpose are they doing this? Why are they unleashing the arms race? Why do they provoke confrontation between the East and the West?“
Ahmadinejad said the atomic bomb is ineffective, pointing out that “they have a bomb, but will it rescue them in Iraq? It will not“.

Valiollah Khebreh

TEHRAN, Oct. 13--State Inspectorate Organization announced it will strongly confront the smallest offense of government employees.
Deputy head of the organization, Valiollah Khebreh, said the judicial nature of his organization calls for strict inspection of state-owned organizations, ISNA reported.
He said managers of government organizations will be sacked or suspended if they violate notifications of State Inspectorate Organization (SIO), adding that serious offenders can be prosecuted and even imprisoned.
“We, as a supervisory body, are duty-bound to make our reports public,“ he said.
Khebreh said his organization sacked or transferred incompetent managers of some governmental organizations in 2006.
“In some cases, reports of offenses [in governmental organizations] will be presented to the president and then the parliament,“ he said.
He urged managers to incorporate reports of State Inspectorate Organization in their decision-making processes.
Commenting on the upcoming parliamentary elections (slated for March 14), the official said no candidate should use government facilities for one’s election campaign.
Asked about the privatization process, Khebreh said some high-ranking officials are reluctant to cede their subsidiary organizations to the private sector.
“We need culture-building measures among government managers to speed up the privatization efforts,“ he said.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 13--Lebanon’s top Shiite cleric criticized US Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday for backing a military strike against Iran that would “bring destruction to the region“.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah made the remark during Friday prayers in Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik, AP reported.
“We see that America’s Vice President Dick Cheney favors a major aerial, naval and missile strike against Iran, specifically against all its military and civilian infrastructure in addition to the oil, telecommunications and transportation sectors by March at the latest,“ Fadlallah said in comments distributed by his office.
The cleric did not provide specific evidence for his claim.
Fadlallah, the top religious authority for Lebanon’s 1.2 million Shiites, warned that any such attack will not succeed and only plunge the already volatile region into a wider crisis.
Some Arabs fear that the United States or Israel, or both, may strike predominantly Shiite Iran over its nuclear program. Iran says the program is for civilian purposes.
Earlier, former US President Jimmy Carter also criticized Vice President Dick Cheney as “a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military“.
In an interview that aired on the BBC, Carter denounced Cheney as a ’disaster’ for the country and a ’militant’ who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.
Cheney has been on the wrong side of the debate on many issues, including an internal White House discussion over Syria and Iran in which the vice president is thought to be pushing a tough approach, Carter said.
“You know he’s been a disaster for our country,“ Carter said. “I think he’s been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he’s prevailed.“

Ali Akbar Velayati

TEHRAN, Oct. 13--Leader’s international affairs advisor said threats and pressure against Iran over its peaceful nuclear activities are, in fact, directed against the entire Muslim world.
Ali Akbar Velayati, also a former foreign minister, made the remark in a meeting with the Iranian Medical Doctors Islamic Association and a group of conservative politicians late Thursday, IRNA reported.
“Pressure against Islamic countries is very comprehensive, with various manifestations,“ he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Pointing out that even if Iran had no nuclear program, they would have resorted to some other pretext for pressuring it, he said, “Old colonialists are the new hegemonic powers, which seek different pretexts in different parts of the Islamic world, trying to lock the path of the prosperous emergence of a new strong block.“
Noting that the future world would be multi-polar, Velayati considered the United States, Europe, Russia and China as members of the same block in the future.
“The Muslim world is seeking ’idealistic globalism’ and hegemonic countries are trying their best to block the path for the emergence of the Muslim world as a new pole on the international scene,“ he said.
“What we are going through is neither exclusively directed against Iran, nor a short-term dilemma. The Islamic world would continually face pressures led by the United States and Israel in the foreseeable future,“ he said.
Velayati stressed that pressure against the Muslim world is aimed at suppressing Islamic awareness, pointing out that strong waves of Islamic nation’s ever-increasing awareness are seen throughout the world today.

TOKYO, Oct. 13--A top Japanese envoy is set to travel to Iran next week to seek the help of Iranian authorities to secure the release of a Japanese man kidnapped in southeastern Iran, Foreign Ministry officials said Friday.
Senior Vice Foreign Minister Itsunori Onodera is to visit Tehran during Oct. 16-19 to ask Iranian officials to step up their effort in the rescue of the 23-year-old Japanese man, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters, AP reported.
The man, whom Japanese media identified as college senior Satoshi Nakamura, was traveling alone in Iran’s area bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. The case surfaced on Monday when the Japanese Embassy notified Tokyo after receiving telephone calls from Nakamura.
The captive had been confirmed alive as of Wednesday night, when he last contacted the embassy, officials said.
Komura on Wednesday spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, seeking his cooperation in the case. Iranian authorities have a general idea about the captors’ identity and location, though details were withheld due to safety concerns.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Oct. 13--The European Union on Monday will leave open the possibility of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, following a demand by France and despite the objections of Germany and Italy.
According to a text set to be endorsed in Luxembourg by EU foreign ministers, and seen on Friday by AFP, “the EU will consider what additional measures it might take in order to support the UN process and the shared objectives of the international community ...“
The move came as, earlier Italian Premier Romano Prodi said that before any further sanctions against Iran are considered, a window of opportunity that agreement between the Islamic state and the UN nuclear agency has opened must be explored.
“We must take advantage of this window,“ Prodi told the Foreign Press Association.
The International Atomic Energy Agency wrested a promise from Tehran in July to clear up its nuclear record. Last month, the agency’s chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, urged Iran to answer all outstanding questions before the end of the year.
A European diplomat, speaking on anonymity given the sensitive nature of the Iran dossier, said the text “leaves the door ajar“ to the 27-nation bloc imposing sanctions on Iran beyond those of the United Nations.
With moves for heavier sanctions held up at the UN Security Council until November, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has urged his EU partners to take independent measures to pressure Iran to end its “nuclear defiance“.
Portugal, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency until the end of the year, has said it plans “to give Kouchner a moment to present his initiative“ at the Luxembourg meeting.
France has the backing of Britain, but not Germany and Italy who have important economic interests in Iran.
Germany, with permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, has led efforts to convince Iran to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for political and economic incentives.
Last week, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said France’s call for EU sanctions against Tehran outside of the UN framework was illegal and the Islamic Republic would not back away from its nuclear ambitions.
Speaking on a talk show on state television, Mottaki described Kouchner’s letter as ’baseless’ and said he would respond with his own letter.
“I will soon, in the next few days, send him a letter and will send a copy of it to his European counterparts, the foreign ministers of the European Union, and will remind (them) how illogical and illegal comments by Mr Kouchner were,“ he said.
“They should receive one clear message and that is that on this issue Iran’s right (to obtain nuclear technology) cannot be traded. This is not something that anyone in the Islamic Republic will retreat from.“

BERLIN, Oct. 13--The decision to release early two men convicted in the 1992 assassination of four Iranian-German citizens in a Berlin restaurant is not related to the release of a German by Iran, the government said Friday.
“There is no such arrangement“ with Iran, German Foreign Ministry Spokesman Martin Jaeger told reporters.
The federal prosecutor’s office confirmed on Thursday that Kazem Darabi, an Iranian, and Abbas Rhayel, a Lebanese--both sentenced to life in prison in 1997--would be released and deported in December, citing a law that allows early release for foreigners who have served at least 15 years of their sentence, AP reported. The pair were held in pretrial custody for roughly five years, which counts toward their overall time served.
German media have frequently speculated that the government had struck a deal with the Iranian government in order to obtain the freedom of German citizen Donald Klein, who was arrested by Iran in November 2005 after entering the country’s territorial waters during a sailing trip off the coast of neighboring United Arab Emirates.