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Reuters: "Iran will hold talks with major powers in Turkey over its disputed nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday, after earlier discussions failed to resolve the row. 'I hope that this important issue will reach its final result in the (next) Istanbul talks,' Ahmadinejad told a news conference in Istanbul, broadcast live on Iranian state television, without giving a date. Iran's nuclear talks with major powers in January failed after the Islamic state refused to halt its uranium enrichment, as demanded by the United Nations Security Council... After talks with his European Union counterpart in Geneva in February, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he hoped there would be further meetings, but no date was set. Iranian media quoted Salehi as saying earlier this month that Tehran had received a letter from European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represented major powers in previous talks with Iran. 'Soon the response to Mrs. Ashton's letter will be sent by relevant Iranian officials,' Ahmadinejad said." http://t.uani.com/ixeQ9Q
Reuters: "Iran's top nuclear negotiator replied on Tuesday to a letter from the EU foreign policy chief on a resumption of talks over Tehran's atomic program, saying they must be held without pressure, state television said. The United States and allies suspect Iran is trying to develop atom bombs under the cover of its declared civilian uranium enrichment program. Tehran saying it needs nuclear technology only to meet booming domestic demand for electricity. In a letter responding to Catherine Ashton's letter sent three months ago, Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili 'underlined that the (next) talks should be just and with no pressure exerted,' the state-run Iranian Arabic-language television channel al Alam reported. Analysts said references to 'just' and 'no pressure' are Iranian code meaning no discussions of enrichment, which Tehran sees as its sovereign right. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said again on Monday that Iran would not give ground on enrichment. The last six-power talks with Iran failed in January after Tehran again ruled out suspending enrichment in defiance of several U.N. Security Council resolutions passed since 2006... 'The letter (responding to Ashton) was handed over in Vienna by Iran's ambassador to the European Union. In the letter, Saeed Jalili welcomed P5+1's return to talks,' al Alam said." http://t.uani.com/kSvsU8
AFP: "Iran has finished reloading fuel into its first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, with expectations it will start producing electricity in July, local media reported on Tuesday. The fuel rods were cleaned, reloaded 'and final tests are under way,' Gholamali Miglinejad, a member of parliament from Bushehr, was quoted as saying in the government newspaper Irandaily. Iran's Fars News Agency reported that the Bushehr plant should produce electricity 'in two months time' when it is connected to national grid. Russia's Atomstroyexport agency, which oversaw the construction of Bushehr plant's construction, said in early April that the refuelling operation began after the plant had been re-checked and its various pieces 'washed through.' ... The plant's connection to Iran's electricity grid was initially scheduled for the end of 2010 but this has been postponed several times due to technical problems." http://t.uani.com/iSUQz9
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Iran's Bushehr nuclear power station has begun operating at a low level in a crucial step toward bringing it online, the Russian company that built the plant said Tuesday. The generating unit at Iran's first atomic power plant was brought up to the 'minimum controllable level of power' on Sunday, Atomstroyexport, the state company that builds nuclear plants abroad, said in a statement. 'This means that a nuclear reaction has begun,' Vladislav Bochkov, spokesman for Atomstroyexport's parent company Rosatom, told Reuters. 'This is one of the final stages in the physical launch of the reactor.'" http://t.uani.com/iyB8Lf
Reuters: Turkish banks that persist in dealing with local branches of a blacklisted Iranian state bank are risking U.S. sanctions, the Treasury department's top financial intelligence official warned. David Cohen, Treasury acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, told Reuters in an interview late Friday that Turkish branches of Bank Mellat are 'key conduits' for Iran to conduct international transactions, including potentially dangerous weapons proliferation activities. 'The danger is that Turkish banks that interact with Mellat are providing a pathway for Iran's financial connectivity out into the rest of the international financial system,' Cohen said. The United States and the European Union have blacklisted Mellat, but a U.N. Security Council resolution approved last year does not specifically order the bank to be cut off. Turkey, which opposed the latest round of United Nations sanctions against its fellow Muslim neighbor, is taking a narrower view of the Iran resolution and has allowed Mellat branches in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir to continue operating." http://t.uani.com/imt3kH
Human Rights
AP: "With her legs barely reaching the floor from atop a sofa, Shirin Ebadi doesn't look much like a thorn in the side of the Iranian regime. But when the 63-year-old human rights defender begins to speak, her sharp mind and no-nonsense demeanor help explain why she's become persona non grata in her native land. 'At this time I can be more useful outside Iran. I would have much preferred to be in my own country, but even when I'm outside of Iran, I work for Iran,' said Ebadi, speaking through a translator during a recent visit to New York to promote her new memoir. 'I'm not here to have fun.' Ebadi says the punishment now in Iran for people working for her is five years in prison. In the year leading up to her departure, her secretaries received constant death threats." http://t.uani.com/lt7HEr
AP: "The mother of one of two American hikers held in Iran for nearly two years says she'll be up before dawn on Wednesday waiting for any news as they go on trial on allegations of spying for the U.S. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are due to go on trial in Tehran on Wednesday. Their families say the men were hiking in northern Iraq when they were arrested by Iranian soldiers in 2009. Bauer's fiancée was arrested with them but was released in September and is back in the U.S. Bauer's mother Cindy Hickey, who lives in Pine City, Minn., said Monday that the families haven't received new information on how they're doing since receiving a Christmas card in December." http://t.uani.com/jFkfrL
Domestic Politics
Bloomberg: "Iran's Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi and other officials will probably step down following planned mergers by a number of ministries, Arman reported. Industry and Mines Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian and Welfare Minister Sadegh Mahsouli may also leave the cabinet, the Tehran- based newspaper said. Iran said yesterday that the oil and energy ministries will be combined to cut the number of government departments to 17 from 21 and boost the administration's efficiency. The Industries and Mines Ministry will be combined with the Commerce Ministry and the Welfare Ministry with the Labor Ministry." http://t.uani.com/iobtm7
ABC: "Iran's powerful clerics have accused associates of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of witchcraft, including summoning genies, amid an increasingly bitter rift between Ahmadinejad and the country's supreme religious leader. In recent days, some 25 confidants of Ahmadinejad and his controversial but loyal chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei have been arrested and charged with being 'magicians.' One aide, Abbas Ghaffari, was described by conservative Iranian newspaper Ayandeh as 'a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with unknown worlds.' Ghaffari has reportedly been accused of summoning a genie, who caused his interrogator to have a heart attack. The arrests are the latest window into the growing rift between Ahmadinejad, Iran's elected secular president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, the country's appointed religious supreme leader." http://t.uani.com/jh2SYC
Foreign Affairs
Al Arabiya: "The tense relations between the Gulf States and Iran as well as the political stalemate in Yemen are expected to dominate the agenda when leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council gather in Riyadh on Tuesday for the annual consultative meeting, the UAE-based Gulf News quoted a source as saying... The summit comes at a time when GCC-Iran tensions are at a high. The uncovering of an Iranian spy ring in Kuwait and a recent statement by Iran's Chief of Armed Forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, claiming that the Arab Gulf 'belonged to Iran forever' have only served to fuel the tension. Iran's vocal support for protests in Bahrain and its criticism of the deployment Gulf troops there had also riled GCC officials." http://t.uani.com/kJWPop
Opinion & Analysis
Daniel Pipes in NRO: "After American forces leave Iraq at the end of 2011, Tehran will try to turn its neighbor into a satrapy (i.e., a province, a satellite state), to the great detriment of Western, moderate-Arab, and Israeli interests. Intense Iranian efforts are already underway, with Tehran sponsoring militias in Iraq and sending its own forces into Iraqi border areas. Baghdad responds with weakness - with its chief of staff proposing a regional pact with Iran and top politicians ordering attacks on the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian dissident organization with 3,400 members resident in Camp Ashraf, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. The MEK issue reveals Iraqi subservience to Iran with special clarity. Note some recent developments: On April 7, the MEK released intelligence exposing Iran's growing capacity to enrich uranium, a revelation the Iranian foreign minister quickly confirmed. On April 8, even as U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates was visiting Iraq, the country's armed forces attacked Ashraf. Fox News and CNN footage shows Iraqis in U.S.-supplied armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and bulldozers running down unarmed residents as sharpshooters shot at them, killing 34 people and injuring 325. The top-secret plan-to-attack order of the Iraqi military, 'Iraqi Security Forces Operation Order No. 21, Year 2011,' reveals that Baghdad sees the Ashraf residents as 'the enemy,' suggesting collusion between Baghdad and Tehran. This incident took place despite fresh pledges by Baghdad to treat the Iranian dissidents humanely and to protect them. John Kerry, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, rightly described the attack as a 'massacre,' while former governor of Vermont Howard Dean called the Iraqi prime minister a 'mass murderer.' The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights 'condemned' the attack, and the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) expressed 'deep concern.' On April 11, the adviser for military affairs to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei 'praised the Iraqi Army for its recent attack on the strongholds of [the MEK] and asked Baghdad to continue attacking the terrorist base until its destruction,' according to a news report. On April 24, despite the United Nations' insistence that 'Camp Ashraf residents be protected from forcible deportation, expulsion or repatriation,' Baghdad and Tehran signed an extradition agreement that the state-controlled Iranian media interpret as a mechanism to transfer MEK members forcibly to Iran, where they anticipate a horrific fate. Iraqi maltreatment of Iranian dissidents both raises humanitarian concerns and points to the MEK's larger importance as a mechanism to thwart the U.S. goal of minimizing Tehran's influence in Iraq...Now is the time to act urgently on Camp Ashraf, a bellwether of growing Iranian influence over Iraq, before Tehran turns Iraq into a satrapy." http://t.uani.com/kPmVTq
Mike Shuster in NPR: "For years, the United States has been trying to stop Iran's nuclear program and change what it says is Iran's bad behavior in the Middle East and beyond. The United States has used economic sanctions, censure by the United Nations, diplomatic engagement and the threat of military action to accomplish these goals - all with little or no success. At the same time, other, unacknowledged activities have been under way. They have included cyberattacks, assassinations and defections. As it turns out, these efforts have had some success Covert action is meant to stay just that - covert, clandestine, in the shadows. And in Iran, it did, for quite some time. But in the last year, much has become known about intelligence operations in Iran, says Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who is now an analyst with the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. 'There's little doubt that there's a covert war under way against Iran,' he says. 'There are at least two players in it: the United States and Israel.' And often, it appears, those players work together. That was especially true with the Stuxnet worm. The computer virus, apparently developed in Israel with the help of the CIA, was launched in 2009. Sometime the following year, the worm found its way into the computers that control Iran's most important nuclear facility, the uranium enrichment operation at Natanz. The worm told the gas centrifuges that enrich uranium to spin too fast. Many broke and destroyed other centrifuges - nearly a thousand of them. The impact of the worm spread even wider, says Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California who writes for the website Tehran Bureau. 'In fact, not only it destroyed a thousand centrifuges at Natanz - it also forced the government to actually shut down the enrichment facility for a few days,' Sahimi says. That was last year. Computer security companies got wind of it, in part because it may also have affected companies and equipment outside of Iran. And the story became public." http://t.uani.com/jzPheV
Adrian Bloomfield in The Daily Telegraph: "Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian foreign minister, announced that one of his deputies would visit Cairo 'in the near future' and said that he would hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Nabil al-Arabi, in the Indonesian resort of Bali at the end of the month. It comes as the two states prepare for the full-scale resumption of diplomatic relations in more than 30 years, a development that some observers believe could tilt balance of power in the Middle East in Iran's favour. Mr Salehi boasted of a flurry of communications between the two capitals as they work towards an exchange of ambassadors, a breakthrough that has alarmed Israel, dismayed Saudi Arabia, Iran's long-standing rival for influence in the Arab world, and caused unease in Washington. 'Currently, many oral and written messages and phone calls are being exchanged between officials of the two sides,' Mr Salehi said. Under Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president ousted in a popular revolution three months ago, relations with Iran were deeply antagonistic. Egypt was the only Arab country not to maintain an embassy in Tehran, the result of a souring of ties in the aftermath of Iran's Islamist revolution in 1979 and Cairo's recognition of Israel that same year. But Egypt's new military-led government, sitting until elections are held in the autumn, has signalled its willingness to pursue closer ties with Iran, and will take a more assertive line with Israel. By establishing a foothold in Egypt, Iran hopes to advance its long-cherished ambitions of countering Saudi influence in the Middle East. Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia have long competed for domination over the region in a Cold-War style power struggle that has, until now, seen Cairo align itself with Riyadh. But while Iran will revel in what one western diplomat called 'giving Saudi Arabia a poke in the eye,' the regime's Islamist leaders may struggle to capitalise. 'In the short term it will be a diplomatic boost for Iran to have an embassy in Egypt,' said Meir Javedanfar, a leading analyst on Iran. 'But in the long term they will find that, rather than having influence over it, Egypt will be a competitor.'" http://t.uani.com/jpN1ye
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