World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (February 8, 2012)

The Washington Post reported that the West’s increasing pressure on Iran has meant scrutiny for South African businesses that operate in the Middle Eastern nation accused of having nuclear ambitions. South African-Iranian political ties have long been close, and that has meant close business ties. A politically connected South African telecommunications company has been accused of pushing Pretoria to support Iran’s nuclear power program. A South African energy and chemicals company is reviewing its Iranian investments. Iranian oil makes up nearly a third of South Africa’s oil imports. South Africa, the only nation in the world to have voluntarily surrendered a nuclear weapons program, says all nations should have the right to exploit atomic energy’s peaceful potential. South Africa has uranium reserves and its own nuclear power program. Foreign affairs department spokesman Clayson Monyela said this week that South Africa has told Iran that it is ready to help any country that wants to follow its lead and give up nuclear weapons.

The same agency reported that more than two-thirds of Iran’s lawmakers have endorsed a statement calling for cutting off oil sales to the European Union before EU sanctions on their country go into effect. The statement, which was read Wednesday in an open session of parliament broadcast on state radio, said “in the case of the continuation of illogical policies” by the EU, Iran will look for alternative customers for its oil before the European embargo goes into effect in the summer. The statement was signed by 200 of the parliament’s 290 lawmakers. The EU sanctions are part of the West’s efforts to pressure Iran over its controversial nuclear program. On Saturday, Iran’s oil minister said the country would “definitely” cut off oil to “hostile” European countries.

“Ahmadinejad Must Testify in Iran’s Parliament” is an article published by The New York Times. It says that after several failed attempts, Iranian lawmakers for the first time mustered enough votes on Tuesday to compel President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to testify before them in coming weeks about what they called “irregularities” related to his handling of the country’s struggling economy. The semiofficial Mehr news agency said 79 lawmakers supported a motion that forces the president to testify, potentially setting up a public confrontation. Lawmakers tried last year to summon Mr. Ahmadinejad, only to fall a few votes short of the one-quarter of the 290 members required. The summons, which Mr. Ahmadinejad is required to obey within a month, reflected an unusual display of a domestic power struggle that has been simmering within Iran’s conservative hierarchy. Despite its intolerance for political dissent and its unified voice of bellicose anger at the West over the disputed Iranian nuclear program, tensions have grown between Mr. Ahmadinejad’s faction and rivals aligned with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.

The Turkish information agency Hurriyet reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, back from talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, pointedly declined to say Wednesday whether Moscow asked the embattled leader to go, stressing that Syrians themselves should decide his fate. "Any outcome of national dialogue should be the result of agreement between the Syrians themselves and should be acceptable to all Syrians," Lavrov told reporters. He sidestepped a direct question from a reporter who asked Russia's top diplomat whether he urged Assad to step down during their talks in Damascus Tuesday.