World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (July 9-11, 2011)

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that last year, an Iranian diplomat was flown home nearly 15 months after being kidnapped by gunmen in an ambush on the Pakistani side of the Khyber Pass. Iran hailed the release as a victory for its intelligence agents, who they claimed staged a rescue mission into the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Western officials and others saw it differently: A turning point in Iran’s dealings with al-Qaida. At the same time, Iran cooperated with the West against al-Qaida.

On Sunday the same information agency published the article headlined “Plan for gender divide at Iran’s universities spills into political clashes.” It says that Iran’s political power struggles have brought no shortage of cutthroat intrigue with careers ruined, government officials arrested and even accusations of black magic. And now this — firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the voice of liberal dissent. That’s the latest twist in the showdown between Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling clerics. Ahmadinejad — reviled by the opposition as a figurehead of hard-line rule — is now temporarily in the reformists’ corner by opposing plans to segregate male and female students at Iranian universities.

“In Iran, sanctions aim at shipping lifeline” is an article published by the Washington Post on Monday. It says that on June 30, the Danish shipping giant Maersk startled Iran’s trade officials by abruptly pulling out of the country’s three largest ports. Company officials said little about the decision, but the timing was striking: A week earlier, the Obama administration had declared the ports’ operator to be an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, a group linked to terrorism and weapons trafficking. After two years of failed efforts to entice Iran with diplomatic carrots, the Obama administration is quietly toasting successes at using economic sticks. At the same time, the measures have not slowed Iran’s race to make the enriched uranium needed to produce a nuclear weapon. But current and former U.S. officials say the sanctions are having unparalleled success in creating significant hardships for key Iranian.

The Los Angeles Times reported today that the US Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Sunday that weapons supplied by Iran are behind a rash of attacks against American forces in Iraq, part of an escalating campaign of violence ahead of the planned U.S. troop withdrawal by the end of the year. A senior U.S. official said the attacks on U.S. forces were an effort by the Iranian-backed militias to make it appear as though they were forcing out American troops, all of whom are due to withdraw by the end of the year under a 2008 agreement between Washington and Baghdad. By playing up the Iranian threat, U.S. officials may be hoping to spur such a request from Iraq.

“Iran's nuclear threat is escalating” is an article published by the Guardian. It says that On 8 June, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, announced plans to triple Iran's capacity to produce 20% enriched uranium, transferring enrichment from Natanz to the Fordo plant. Inside Iran this announcement by a discredited regime drew little comment and was quickly overshadowed by the domestic political theatre of the latest high-profile tussles between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But it was an important statement because it makes even clearer the fact that Iran's programme is not designed for purely peaceful purposes. Iran has one civilian nuclear power station and is seeking to build more. All of these power stations need uranium enriched to about 3.5% for fuel. So plans to enrich any further rightly prompt questions.

The Turkish information agency Hurriyet reported that Turkish President Abdullah Gül brought a de facto end Sunday to a crisis in Parliament, inviting deputies from opposition parties that have been refusing to take the oath of office to accompany him on an official trip. Gül said he had invited many lawmakers on similar trips before. Members of the CHP and independent deputies backed by the BDP have been refusing to take the oath of office after deputies from both parties were denied from entering Parliament due to being arrested in ongoing trials.

The Iranian information agency Press TV published the article subtitled “Iran, Turkey urge talks on region.” It says that Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu held talks in the Iranian capital city of Tehran on Sunday focusing on amicable Tehran-Ankara relations and recent events in the region. The Iranian and Turkish ministers called for an end to the interference by foreign powers in domestic affairs of regional states and urged for the respect of civil rights and legitimate demands of nations in their desire to establish stability, security and welfare. Salehi said that exchange of visits between officials of the two countries will prepare an opportunity for holding further constructive consultations. The Turkish minister, for his part, said that Tehran and Ankara enjoy cordial relations and highlighted the significance of stability for the two sides.