Top Stories
AP: "The United States and the European Union demanded Tuesday that Iran return to international talks over its nuclear program and prove to the world that its atomic intentions are peaceful. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Iran must stop stalling and respond in good faith to invitations to discuss the nuclear matter with international negotiators. That's the same demand, and the same invitation, that negotiators have made for years. They have been unsuccessful in persuading Iran to openly discuss its atomic program, which the U.S. and its allies believe is a cover for nuclear weapons development. 'Iran has to meet its international obligations and negotiate seriously on the nuclear issue,' Clinton told reporters after she and Ashton met at the State Department. 'The burden remains on Iran to demonstrate it is prepared to end its stalling tactics, drop its unacceptable preconditions and start addressing the international community's concerns.' Ashton said she would seek clarification on Iran's latest written response to a proposal for talks, which she called disappointing." http://t.uani.com/jdWQiE
AFP: "The United States froze the assets Tuesday of an Iranian state-owned bank for its alleged help with Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program. The Iranian government used Bank of Industry and Mine 'to evade US and international sanctions against Iranian financial institutions involved in facilitating transactions in support of Iran's proliferation activities,' the US Treasury Department said in a statement. The Treasury accused BIM of providing financial services to Bank Mellat and Europaisch Iranische Handelsbank (EIH), two Iranian banks it had previously designated in connection with Iran's nuclear program. 'Iran has a well-established practice of migrating illicit financial activities from one bank to another to facilitate transactions for sanctioned banks,' said David Cohen, the Treasury's acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence... BIM is the 21st Iranian state-owned bank hit by US sanctions." http://t.uani.com/mspbJC
AP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will head the upcoming OPEC meeting in Vienna in his capacity as the country's caretaker oil minister, state media reported Wednesday. Ahmadinejad dismissed Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi last week as part of a Cabinet restructuring plan under which the government is required to merge eight ministries into four. The move puts him temporarily at the helm of the country's most vital sector. Iran also holds the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' rotating presidency this year. Vice President Mohammad Reza Mirtajeddini said that unless Ahmadinejad names a caretaker for the oil ministry's top job ahead of 12-nation bloc's June 8 meeting, he will lead Iran's delegation to OPEC. 'The president will participate in the meeting,' Mirtajeddini was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. 'Whoever is the caretaker oil minister will attend this (OPEC) meeting.'" http://t.uani.com/khg4B7
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "China on Tuesday played down a United Nations report that pointed to it as a trans-shipment point for banned missile technology and other illicit trade between North Korea and Iran. The report, obtained by Reuters over the weekend, said North Korea appeared to have been exchanging ballistic missile technology and expertise with Iran in violation of Security Council sanctions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not outright deny the report by a U.N. Panel. But it said the document did not have the authority of the Security Council and said Beijing scrupulously upheld punitive U.N. measures against North Korea. The report did not identify China, but said North Korean-Iranian missile trade went via a country neighboring North Korea, which diplomats at the U.N. told Reuters was indeed China." http://t.uani.com/k1yrpp
Reuters: "Iran accused Washington of engaging in 'psychological warfare' after the U.S. Treasury added an Iranian state bank to its list of blacklisted companies, semi-official news agency ISNA reported on Wednesday. The United States on Tuesday blacklisted Iran's Bank of Industry and Mine saying it was taking part in an increasingly sophisticated government campaign to evade international sanctions. 'Americans try to exaggerate by using media as a propaganda tool ... It is just psychological warfare and the media should not pay attention to such things,' Iran's Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini was quoted as saying by ISNA. 'Since the victory of the 1979 Islamic revolution, all the U.S. governments tried to impose their arrogant wills through various means, but they all failed,' he added." http://t.uani.com/mDo8MV
AP: "A federal indictment in California claims two Belgian men smuggled helicopter and aircraft parts to Iran. The indictment says 70-year-old Willy De Greef and 39-year-old Frederic Roland Nicolas Depelchin smuggled millions of dollars' worth of parts to Iran through their companies. The U.S. attorney's office in San Diego said Tuesday that De Greef was arrested Friday in London by the Metropolitan Police, and the United States will seek extradition. Depelchin is at-large. The grand jury indictment was handed up in March and unsealed Friday. It alleges the Belgian brokers concealed from U.S. suppliers that the parts were going to Iran - a violation of federal law unless authorized by the Treasury Department. The smuggled parts allegedly included helicopter switches and fuel cells." http://t.uani.com/isnP6p
Human Rights
NYT: "Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster, said on Wednesday that Dorothy Parvaz, one of its reporters missing in Syria and Iran for almost three weeks, had been released and was 'safe and well and back with us in Doha.' Her fiancé, Todd Barker, told The Canadian Press news agency that she had called him 'out of the blue' as she cleared customs after flying into Doha from Iran on Wednesday and had told him she was 'treated very well, she was interrogated, but she's fine.' 'When you don't hear from someone you love for 19 days,' he was quoted as saying, 'you don't know if they are dead, don't know if they are alive, you don't know if they are being tortured.' News of her release emerged a day after Tehran said it was pursuing unspecified information about Ms. Parvaz." http://t.uani.com/lqDamd
Foreign Affairs
Bloomberg: "U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, praising the Arab Spring of democratic protests across the Middle East and North Africa, said a similar revolt in Iran should not be ruled out. 'The Iranian regime is one of the most dictatorial and most repressive of all,' Cameron told lawmakers in London today. 'And if the Iranian people start to see that there is a future for a democratic Egypt and a democratic Tunisia and a Libyan people struggling to throw off their hideous leader, then people in Iran who have attempted this before might think, well actually we don't have to go down this autocratic path.' ... 'I think we can over-demonize Iran as a country run by genius politicians who are strategic masters,' Cameron said. 'In many ways it's an absolute basket case of a country. They can't even refine enough of their own oil; they are brutal in terms of using the death penalty. We should be describing the regime as much more backward rather than bigging them up.'" http://t.uani.com/l8mafc
Reuters: "Iran and Kuwait have agreed to exchange ambassadors again following a diplomatic row that erupted when a Kuwaiti court sentenced three men to death for their role in what Kuwait said was an Iranian spy ring. 'Thank God it has been decided that both ambassadors will return quickly to their posts,' Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference at the Kuwaiti parliament." http://t.uani.com/jCHysy
Opinion & Analysis
Simon Tisdall in The Guardian: "Nerves are fraying in Tehran as initial glee over Arab spring upheavals turns to alarm. Iran welcomed the fall of its old enemy, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. But the uprising now threatening its key Arab ally, the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad, is a different matter altogether. Worse still, the thought that the region's revolutionary mood may inspire Iran's own much-bludgeoned green opposition to rise again inspires real fear. Snap judgments in Washington and Jerusalem that Iran would be a main beneficiary of the collapse of the old Arab order now look wide of the mark. Infighting within the regime is matched by, and linked to, rising strategic uncertainty abroad. For these and other reasons, such as the gathering impact of nuclear-related sanctions, the era of cocky Iranian international defiance may be drawing to a close. Amid the Middle East maelstrom, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei - Tehran's terrible twins - suddenly look off balance, vulnerable, and at odds. Khamenei tried initially to hijack the Arab liberation movements in the name of Iran's illiberal theocratic brand, shamelessly sidestepping the brutal suppression of Iran's own democratic revolt in 2009. 'What I firmly announce is that a new movement, with the grace of God, has started in the region,' he said in his Persian new year message in March. 'This widespread awakening of nations, which is directed towards Islamic goals, will definitely become victorious.' Significantly, Khamenei did not mention Syria. But as unrest there and elsewhere has intensified, and as the essentially secular, wholly temporal, democratic thrust of that unrest has become undeniable, he and other Iranian leaders have largely abandoned the attempt to portray it as spreading Khomeini-ist revolution. Instead they complain about Nato intervention in Libya and a US-Israeli 'plot' to topple Assad... The sudden outpouring of repressed hostility unleashed by the Arab spring has punctured the illusion, cultivated by Iran, of harmonious relations with the Arab world and has instead highlighted its isolation. More dangerously for the warring Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, it may act as a catalyst reviving Iran's internal opposition as economic problems mount and political factionalism intensifies ahead of next year's parliamentary polls. At their latest demonstration in February, broken up like all the others, Tehran protesters hit on a slogan the terrible twins might do well to ponder: 'Whether Cairo or Tehran, death to tyrants!'" http://t.uani.com/izo67Y
WT Editorial Board: "It was just a matter of time before the disruptions in the Middle East began to have an impact on Israel. Unfortunately, the border violence there over the weekend had more to do with preventing change than promoting it. Sunday marked the annual Palestinian political ritual of Nakba ('the catastrophe'), which marks Israel's founding in 1948. This year, thousands of people turned out to demonstrate. In Golan, hundreds of protesters burst through the border where they came under fire from Israeli troops. Soldiers clashed with demonstrators on the Lebanese, Gaza and Palestinian Authority borders as well. It was the largest such disturbance in many years. The common factor in three of the incidents is Iran. The Islamic regime in Tehran is a major supporter of Syria, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Hamas faction in Gaza. The Iranian mullahs have been working diligently to turn the recent Middle East disturbances to their favor, backing Shiite and other dissident groups in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Tehran sees the risings as an opportunity to extend its influence throughout the region, targeting Arabs and Israelis alike. Iran's client, Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, has the most to gain from fomenting violence against Israel. His regime has been fighting for its life against pro-democracy protesters, killing at least 45 last week alone. The provocation in Golan can be read as a means of diverting popular attention - as well as the international media - away from the struggles of those thirsting for freedom inside Syria and toward the time-honored distraction of the conflict with Israel." http://t.uani.com/iCvFCq
Ray Walser in The Heritage Foundation: "The Berlin-based daily Die Welt published a news story on May 13 citing 'Western security sources' who reported that Venezuela's authoritarian strongman Hugo Chavez secretly met in February 2011 with the chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Air Force, Amir al-Hadschisadeh. The pair, according to Die Welt, finalized the location for a missile base, said to be located on the Peninsula de Paraguana, a jut of land 120 kilometers from the Colombian border. Engineers from the Iranian state-owned construction agency Khatam al-Anbia, Die Welt added, have already begun preliminary work on the base. Thus far there has been no response from the Obama Administration. Chavez has long expressed interest in acquiring Russian-made missiles. He has purchased and showcased hundreds of shoulder-fired IGLA surface-to-air missiles and has been in the market for Russian S-300 missiles, the same powerful weapon that Russia has thus far denied to Iran. Chavez claims that U.S. aggression is his number one security threat. More than one report on Iran's missile intentions surfaced late last year. With the help of North Korea, Iran continues to extend its missile range capability and may now have weapons with sufficient capacity to reach the U.S. Add a nuclear weapon or WMD and one has a prescription for another Cuban missile crisis. The central question that must be asked with increased urgency is: To what lengths will Chavez go to demonstrate the operational commitment of his alliance with Iran? Is this alliance one of rhetorical convenience filled with venom and bluster but little concrete action? Or is it an increasingly cooperative and operational venture that aims at accumulating military power, sharing resources (including access to uranium), and exploiting petroleum ties that will, as Chavez routinely promises, 'hasten the end of U.S. imperialism'?" http://t.uani.com/kOtHJt
Parisa Hafezi in Reuters: "Fighting for more power, not given to compromise and risking the disapproval even of the supreme authority in Iran's clerical establishment; President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it might seem, is headed for a fall. Few analysts doubt, however, he will hold on to power through a term due to end in 2013. Difficult he may be, but even rivals may fear his dismissal could pitch Iran into uncertainty and open the gates to unrest that has swept the Middle East. Iran enjoyed a foretaste of those troubles in 2009, when Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election stirred protests that mounted to the biggest challenge to the Islamic state since 1979. Discord between Ahmadinejad and hardline rulers surfaced after Iran's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reinstated the intelligence minister who Iranian media said was forced to resign by the president last month. 'It is not Ahmadinejad's style to compromise...Any compromise will display a weak image of the president,' said an analyst, who asked not to be named. The president and his allies have been fiercely criticized by conservative politicians, hardline senior clerics and the elite Revolutionary Guards in the past weeks for trying to extend their powers. Analysts interpret Khamenei's rare public interference as an attempt to clip the hardline president's wings. Khamenei, supposedly above the political fray, had quickly endorsed Ahmadinejad's re-election in 2009. The climate has changed. 'The Supreme Leader's aim is to preserve the establishment while blocking Ahmadinejad's attempts to gain more power,' said political analyst Hesam Borghei. 'In Iran, nothing is predictable...But all top rulers want to preserve the system.' The path to resolution is very cloudy because of Iran's complex political system, based on coalitions or compromise, analysts say. Resistance to Ahmadinejad, however, has united prominent conservatives otherwise divided on many issues." http://t.uani.com/lnwF9Y
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