FM Planning Myanmar Trip

A senior lawmaker said Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi is planning a visit to Myanmar in the coming months following the massacre of Rohingya Muslims in the Southeast Asian country.
Seyyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini said on Monday that Iran has no embassy or consulate in Myanmar and one of the objectives of the upcoming visit is to establish a diplomatic contact channel with Naypyidaw, Press TV reported.
Referring to the recent wave of violence against the Rohingya Muslims, Naqavi said, “The continuation of the atrocities in Myanmar is a source of regret, but even more regrettable is the silence of international and human rights’ bodies that show no reaction to these crimes.”
The lawmaker added, “It is a wonder how the organizations that issue resolutions and human rights’ reports against the Islamic Republic on a daily basis do not see Myanmar’s atrocities and do not show any reaction.”
Myanmar’s Vice Chairman of the Muslim National Democratic Party for Development (NDPD) Hla Thein said on Friday that more than 100 Rohingya Muslims had been killed in a recent wave of sectarian violence in the country’s western state of Rakhine.
Tensions have heightened across Rakhine, forcing Muslims to flee to emergency camps located in the state’s capital Sittwe.
The Buddhist-majority government of Myanmar refuses to recognize Rohingyas and has classified them as illegal migrants, even though the Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origins, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century.
The UN said that an estimated 26,500, including 4,000 who fled in boats to the state capital Sittwe, had been forced from their homes as a result of escalating sectarian violence.
The UN resident and coordinator in Myanmar Ashok Nigam had earlier said that the government of Myanmar declared on Sunday that 22,587 people, including 21,700 Muslims, had been displaced and 4,665 houses set ablaze in a new wave of communal unrest that swept Rakhine state this week.
“We have to say that this is a current estimate and we suspect there may be additional numbers.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has urged Myanmar government to safeguard basic rights of the country’s Muslim community.
Mehmanparast on Saturday expressed concern over fresh clashes between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar.

West Behind Syria Truce Violation

An Iranian lawmaker accused western governments of instigating Syrian opposition groups to break the recently agreed truce in the war-ravaged Arab country.
“By inciting opposition [groups] in Syria, the West has given them the green light to renege on the ceasefire deal, and has [practically] cleared the way for the repetition of previous conflicts,” Ebrahim Aqa-Mohammadi, member of the Majlis Foreign Policy and National Security Commission said on Sunday, Press TV reported.
He added that insurgents in Syria, who are armed by western governments and reactionary Arab states, are reigniting crisis in Syria by re-engaging the Syrian army and blaming them for the violation of the truce.
Last Thursday, Syria’s General Command of Army declared truce for Eid Al-Adha holidays, warning that it ‘reserves right’ to respond if insurgents don’t respect the ceasefire.
However, rebel groups fighting against the Syrian government opened fire on an army checkpoint in the northern city of Aleppo the next day and violated the truce.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence, while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the armed militants are foreign nationals.

Int’l Press, News Agencies Exhibition Underway

The 19th International Exhibition of Press, News Agencies, and Information Websites continued its second day at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Mosalla (Grand Prayers Ground) on Monday.
Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini accompanied with a number of cultural officials and journalists attended the opening ceremony on Sunday, ISNA reported.
The exhibition is hosting some 2,380 Persian dailies, magazines and periodicals while about 50 pavilions have been dedicated to international section, said Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for press and information Mohammad-Jafar Mohammadzadeh.
Emphasizing the exhibition is not a place for political affairs, Mohammadzadeh urged the Iranian media to make their best efforts to keep the event calm with cultural bearing and avoid presidential election campaigns.
He had earlier noted that some practical books on the ‘press’ are slated to be unveiled at this year’s event.
The Press Union of the Islamic World, established in 2011 edition of the exhibition, is planning to hold a meeting during the event.
The exhibition also includes a temporary museum displaying history of Iranian journalism on the sidelines of the event. A collection of the earliest Iranian newspapers and magazines is on display in the museum pavilion.
The 19th International Exhibition of the Press and News Agencies will continue until November 3.

Sanctions Imperil Iranian Patients

US-engineered sanctions against the Islamic Republic have caused a shortage of medicines in Iran, endangering the lives of patients.
Iranian health authorities say recent illegal unilateral sanctions, imposed by the US and the EU, made it impossible to obtain medications needed for a number of diseases, Press TV reported on Sunday.
“We’ve faced with several issues about the drugs and medical instruments … We have several patients who have been denied rugs needed for the transplant…,” Ali Jafari, a transplant surgeon, said.
Many patients, suffering from diseases such as diabetes, kidney failure, hemophilia, multiple sclerosis, thalassemia, and leukemia, are affected by the sanctions.
“I ask those who have imposed sanctions on Iran: What is the fault of patients who are losing their lives for your political goals? Why should these people die as a result of a shortage of medicine,” a patient said.
Although the sanctions do not ban the sales of drugs to Iran directly, and are claimed to be aiming at Iran’s nuclear energy program, the import of more than fifty kinds of medicines have dropped drastically since the sanctions came into force.
“Almost two months ago, I had a liver transplant, and I needed four necessary medications, which were scarce … Now I have been infected with a virus,” another patient said.
After all financial routes were blocked against Iran, lack of some types of medicines and medical instruments put the lives of Iranian patients in danger.
“We have many problems for patients because of the paucity of supplies of very necessary instruments and drugs … Because of this problem we have an increased level of mortality,” neurosurgeon Houshang Saberi said.
Earlier this month, a health official said some six million patients in Iran are affected by western economic sanctions as import of medicine is becoming increasingly difficult.
Sanctions imposed on Iran’s banking sector ‘severely affected’ the import of drugs and pharmaceutical devices for treatment of complex illnesses, said Head of the Foundation for Special Diseases.
The sanctions have seriously complicated banking transactions, causing a hike in prices, and even ‘shortage’ in some sectors, even though they do not specifically target the sale of medicine and medical equipment to Iran, she said.
“We feel the shortage primarily for cancer and multiple sclerosis drugs. Of course, thalassemia and dialysis patients are also the targets of these hardships,” she added.
The official sent a letter to UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon in August asking him to make a case to the West to ‘lift the sanctions as they are political in nature and prove to the inexcusable detriment of patients in Iran’.
Early this month, Ban Ki-moon said the West’s embargoes against Iran have mainly targeted the livelihood of ordinary Iranian population.
“The sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran have had significant effects on the general population, including an escalation in inflation, a rise in commodities and energy costs, an increase in the rate of unemployment and a shortage of necessary items, including medicine,” Ban said in a report to the UN General Assembly.
The embargoes have also hampered humanitarian operations, as the restrictions imposed on Iran’s banking system have halted the export of medicines needed for treating diseases like cancer and heart and respiratory conditions, the report added.
Iran is under several rounds of sanctions designed by the United States, European Union and the UN Security Council to pressure it to curb its nuclear program.
Western powers suspect Tehran is using the program to develop atomic weapons capability. Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

Intel Obtained by Drone From Israel

A senior lawmaker said the Islamic Republic is in possession of data transmitted by an unmanned Hezbollah drone that overflew ‘restricted’ sites and bases in Israel earlier this month.
The drone ‘transmitted live data, photographing sensitive Israeli bases’, chairman of the Majlis Defense Commission, Esmaeel Kosari, told Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television.
“The photos of restricted areas are in Iran’s possession,” he said in an interview broadcast on Sunday night.
Israel’s air force on October 6 shot down the unarmed drone over the Negev desert after it entered the country’s airspace from the Mediterranean Sea.
At the time the Israeli military dispelled the notion the drone might have been launched from the Gaza Strip, and was looking into the possibility Hezbollah militants may have dispatched it.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on October 11 that the resistance movement sent the drone over Israel, saying the vehicle was ‘Iranian built and assembled in Lebanon’.
“It overflew sensitive and important installations for dozens of kilometers until the enemy spotted it near (the nuclear site) Dimona,” Nasrallah said without identifying the installations.
Iran confirmed Nasrallah’s claim, and scoffed at Israel’s air defenses.
Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the drone flight ‘shattered everything that was said about the Iron Dome system’--Israel’s air defense shield.
Speaking to Al-Alam on Sunday, Kosari also echoed a remarked by Vahidi earlier in the day that Iran had more advanced drone than the one Hezbollah used.
“Iran currently possesses unmanned aircraft which have more advanced technology than the drone that Hezbollah forces recently flew over the Zionist regime’s airspace,” Vahidi told reporters on Sunday.
On October 14, Vahidi confirmed that Ayub had been developed by Iran. Vahidi meanwhile rejected a notion that draconian economic sanctions against Tehran’s nuclear program had affected the military and its advances.
“Unfair western sanctions have no effect on boosting the defense and deterrent prowess of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.

India Able to Mediate Iran’s Nuclear Issue From Page 1

The United States, Israel, and some of their European allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program, but Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the NPT and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is entitled to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s nuclear energy program has been diverted toward military objectives. The Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) is a non-partisan, autonomous body dedicated to objective research and policy-relevant studies on all aspects of defense and security. Its mission is to promote national and international security through the generation and dissemination of knowledge on defense and security-related issues.
The Africa, Latin America, Caribbean and UN Center of IDSA focuses on understanding developments in the African and the Indian Ocean Region. The Center also endeavors to analyze India’s engagement with Latin American counties, particularly in forums such as the IBSA and BRICS.

No Plan on Hormuz Closure

From Page 1
Iran rejects the allegation noting that as a signatory to Non-Proliferation Treaty and a committed member of International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

US, Root Cause of Cyber Terrorism
Vahidi also said on Monday the US is the source of cyber terrorism and is trying to prepare the ground for expanding cyber terrorist operations.
The Zionist regime, in collaboration with the US, is trying to exert pressures on independent states opposing the bullying policies by planning and conducting the cyber attacks, the minister noted.
He added Washington and Tel Aviv have already conducted several cyber attacks on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Vahidi underlined that the bullying powers spare no efforts to continue plundering the wealth of nations and serve their illegitimate interests.
In the most recent case of a major cyber attack, the computer network of offshore drilling platforms was targeted.
Head of the Iranian Offshore Oil Company’s information technology, Mohammad Reza Golshani said Iranian oil platforms’ communication networks have been hit by an attempted cyber attack, but the country’s tech experts have managed to deflect it.
This attack was planned by the Israeli regime and a few other countries, he said.
Iran periodically reports attacks on government, nuclear, oil and industrial targets, blaming Israel and the United States.

Islamic Press Meeting

The second meeting of the Press and News Agencies of the Union of the Islamic World is to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday in Tehran.