World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (July 26, 2011)

The Washington Post reported that Iran’s top leader appointed a mediator to resolve an ongoing dispute between the country’s president and parliament that has also challenged his own authority. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei named his ally and former judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi to head an arbitration body that will tackle controversies within the ruling system. The dispute with the parliament and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s differences with Khamenei are part of an ongoing power struggle over shaping Iran’s politics ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections and the 2013 presidential balloting. Khamenei’s appointment could also be an attempt to weaken former President Hashemi Rafsanjani who now heads the Expediency Council, another arbitrating body in Iran.

The same theme is touched by the Guardian. It writes that Khamenei's appointment could also be an attempt to weaken the former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Council, another arbitrating body in the country. Rafsanjani has increasingly been isolated in the establishment because of his tacit support for the opposition after the disputed June 2009 presidential elections, which brought Ahmadinejad another term in office. The opposition has maintained that the vote was rigged but a bloody crackdown led by the powerful Revolutionary Guard crushed massive the street protests that followed the elections.

The Los Angeles Times published the article headlined “Iran rights activists face challenges from both sides.” It says that When Iranian activist-lawyer Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, human rights activists cheered. Here was a chance for Iranians to rally around a figure for political change and reform much as Poles rallied around Lech Walesa and Burmese around Aung San Suu Kyi, both fellow laureates. Eight years later, the small cadre of attorneys close to Ebadi and the organization she started with her prize money, the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, are either in jail or threatened with legal action. The center has been outlawed. Activists decry the detentions as a vengeful crackdown by government hard-liners who were incensed by Ebadi's Nobel prize. But some human rights lawyers criticize their peers, saying the attorneys sometimes overlook clients' best interests in their determination to take a stand.

“Turkey grills Israel amid UN delay” is an article published by the Turkish information agency Hurriyet. It says that Ankara strongly condemned Israel for continuing to construct settlements in the West Bank, statements that came as the United Nations announced a report into last year’s Mavi Marmara raid would be delayed until Aug. 20. “Israel’s illegal actions on the lands it has invaded are unacceptable,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said late Monday following the Israeli Cabinet’s decision to announce tenders for some 300 new settlements. The tone and timing of the statement reflect the deteriorating relations between the two countries following Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship. The Israeli request was conveyed to the United Nations last week, before the Israeli Cabinet was scheduled to decide on the apology issue.

The Iranian information agency Press TV reported that Iran's Foreign Ministry says Tehran welcomes Russia's efforts to replace the threat and pressure approach towards the country's nuclear program with diplomatic solutions. “The point, however, in regard with the issue of our country's peaceful nuclear programs is that we have taken big steps towards confidence-building but we believe that confidence-building is a mutual move,” Ramin Mehmanparast said in his weekly press conference on Tuesday.  He added that the Islamic Republic is waiting for the other party of negotiations -- the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany) -- to take the next step regarding confidence-building.  The spokesperson also pointed out that in the near future, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi plans to pay a visit to Russia upon the invitation of his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.