World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (September 16, 2011)

The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday she is optimistic the two American hikers being held in Iran will be released, despite a delay since Iran’s president announced the planned release. Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said they continue to hope that the Iranian regime will release the two men as a humanitarian gesture. The pair has been jailed more than two years. Clinton said the U.S. has received word through a number of sources that the hikers will be released and returned to their families.

The New York Times published the article headlined “Russia Again at Odds With West Over Election Monitors.” It says that Russia’s top election official said Western election observers were proposing an overly large delegation to monitor parliamentary voting in December, raising the possibility of a standoff like the one that caused the cancellation of an observation mission four years ago. The cancellation of the O.S.C.E. mission in 2007 was the first since Russia undertook to hold free elections in 1990, and followed reports that said the country was falling short of democratic standards.

The Turkish information agency Hurriyet reported that Turkish Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin believes that not the long detentions but the lengthy trial periods are the biggest problem of the Turkish judicial system. ‘Instead of discussing long detention periods, we should perhaps focus on the excessive length of trial processes,’ he said. According to Ergin, there are four fundamental issues that slow down the judicial process: shortcomings in physical infrastructure, a lack of human resources, regulations and problems deriving from the implementation of laws. Turkey currently has around 12,000 judges and prosecutors but needs at least 10,000 more to deal with the heavy caseload, Ergin said.

“Iran's Masjed Soleiman oil output up” is an article published by the Iranian Press TV. It says that Iran has boosted its crude production from the Masjed Soleiman oilfield to 28,000 barrels per day, according to the managing director of the National Iranian Southern Oil Company (NISOC). Hormoz Qalavand further said that the development project for Masjed Soleiman oilfield was originally aimed at exploiting 25,000 barrels of oil per day.The official went on to say that while implementing the project, 12 horizontal and 3 vertical wells were drilled, adding that by installing intra-well pumps, oil extraction from the field climbed to 28,000 barrels a day (bpd) from the original 3,000 bpd.