The Washington Post published the article headlined “Oil-rich Basra has Iran worries. ” It says that sitting on an estimated 120 billion barrels of untapped crude, Iraq’s economic future rests in this southern province, tucked between Iran and Kuwait. But local residents and officials worry that they are lagging behind their next-door neighbors, whose infrastructure and oil-drilling capabilities are far more advanced. Provincial leaders complain Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government is more interested in doing business with Iran than in promoting their interests. As the Iraqi and Iranian economies grow closer, however, officials in Basra say they believe Iraqi leaders are allowing Iran to take the lead on extracting oil in border-area reservoirs that are accessible to both countries.
The Turkish information agency Hurriyet reported that US Mideast envoy arrives in Ankara for a meeting as the Turkish foreign minister prepares to deliver a strong message to Damascus. Ending the violence in Syria is an urgent demand not only of Turkey but of the whole international community, official sources told the Hürriyet Daily News late Monday on the eve of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The first message Davutoğlu was planning to dispatch to Damascus was the urgency in ending the military operations against protesters. A recent operation launched on the same day as the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan caused widespread fury in the Islamic world. Davutoğlu’s second message will be a call for the al-Assad regime to announce a concrete date for free elections in which all political parties that wish to join can run for Parliament.
The same agency published the article subtitled “Nuclear plant’s launch delayed again, says Iran.” According to it, the country’s first nuclear power plant will not start up by late August as planned and blamed the delay on Russia, which is building the facility. The disclosure by Asgar Jalalian, a member of a special parliamentary committee on the Bushehr nuclear plant, reflects the continued difficulties Iran has faced in moving forward with its controversial nuclear program. The 1,000 megawatt plant being built in the southern port city of Bushehr has experienced repeated delays that come on top of the unyielding pressure Tehran faces from the United States and its allies, who are convinced the program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful uses like power generation.
The Iranian information agency Press TV reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the completion of the country's oil nationalization process during a ceremony to introduce Iran's new Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi. Ahmadinejad also called for the domestication of oil industries technologies and know-how and urged experts in the field to make efforts to localize the relevant knowledge. He further pointed out that global oil prices are not reasonable as they are determined by hegemonic states that seek cheap oil to produce costly products. Oil nationalization is seen as a turning point in Iran's contemporary political history.
