World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (November 24, 2011)

The Washington Post reported that President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that Russia will target the American missile defense system in Europe with its missiles if Moscow cannot reach an agreement with Washington and NATO on how the system will be built and operated. Medvedev, who is leading the ruling United Russia party to the polls in the country’s Dec. 4 parliamentary elections, accused the United States and its NATO allies of failing to negotiate with Russia in good faith, and he said Russia reserved the right to halt its arms-control efforts. “Unfortunately, the United States and other NATO partners have not demonstrated serious readiness to move,” he said in a televised address. His declaration comes after a week of bellicose statements by Russian officials about NATO. Much of the rhetoric has focused on the prospect of NATO expansion, which is not under discussion but which is an ever-handy political touchstone for Russian military and nationalist groups.

The same agency published the article headlined “Iran parliamentarian says 12 CIA agents arrested.” It says that An influential Iran parliamentarian has said that the country has arrested 12 agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency, the country’s official IRNA news agency reported. Parviz Sorouri, who sits on the powerful committee of foreign policy and national security, that the alleged agents had been operating in coordination with Israel’s Mossad and other regional agencies, and targeted the country’s military and its nuclear program. “The U.S. and Zionist regime’s espionage apparatuses were trying to damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services,” Sorouri was quoted as having said on Wednesday. The lawmaker did not specify the nationality of the alleged agents, nor when or where they had been arrested.

“Iran won't give up nuclear ambitions: Ahmadinejad” is an article published by the Turkish information agency Hurriyet. It says that Iran will not back down from its nuclear ambitions despite new Western sanctions announced this week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday in a speech broadcast on state television. "The Iranian nation will not back down an iota, and will not allow the slightest move to encroach on the nation's rights," he told a crowd in the town of Pakdasht, east of Tehran. Referring to the United States, Britain and Canada, which Monday unveiled the sanctions against Iran's financial sector, he said: "I advise them to cease these tantrums, and stop thinking that baring their claws and fangs will stop the Iranian nation." Ahmadinejad reiterated that, contrary to Western claims Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, "we do not need an atomic bomb."

The Iranian information agency Press TV reported that Russia has denounced the latest anti-Iran sanctions by the US and some Western countries as illegal, reiterating that such measures will bar efforts of resolving issues through dialogue with Tehran. “We again underline that the Russian Federation considers such extraterritorial measures unacceptable and contradictory to international law,” Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement on Tuesday. On Monday, the United States, Britain and Canada imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran's energy and financial sectors.