The Guardian published an article entitled ‘Strangers in a foreign land’ by Kamin Mohammadi, an emigrant from Iran, telling the story of her life after fleeing the Islamic Revolution in 1979 when she was nine with her mother and sister to live in London. Later, her father joined them. She remembers the confusion of a new life in exile, after a move that changed their lives radically.
According to the Hurriyet Daily newspaper, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s meeting with US senators McCain, Lieberman and Graham might be a step to a turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian talks. Only Turkey can convince the Palestinian organization Hamas to join in peace talks with Israel, the three U.S. senators told the Turkish prime minister over the weekend, according to well-placed sources. In response, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham that, if Hamas was “encouraged” to participate in the Palestinian peace talks, then Turkey “would do its best” to convince the organization to sit at the negotiating table, according to sources.
In the meantime, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, paid his first official visit to Benghazi on Sunday for a meeting with Libyan opposition groups, a sign of Ankara cutting ties with Moammar Gaddafi. Davutoğlu’s visit came a day after a decision to freeze Gaddafi's assets and impose sanctions on his leadership was published in Turkey’s Official Gazette and after Turkey recalled Levent Şahinkaya, its ambassador to Tripoli.
According to Iranian Press-TV news agency, Iran plans to test-fire new “supersonic surface-to-sea missiles” as part of its war games in the Persian Gulf in the coming days. Commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that the new missiles have been designed to target ships and forces at sea.
The same agency reports that the value of Iran's international trade has reached $23.73 billion in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (which started on March 21). 8.182 million tons of goods worth a total of $13.729 billion were imported to the Islamic Republic, showing a 26 percent decrease in weight transported and a 0.4 percent decrease in value against the same period of the previous year.
