World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (November 24, 2010)

The Washington Post has published an article headlined "Ahmadinejad adviser Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi: U.S. sanctions against Iran failed". The top adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that measures designed to pressure Iran have been useless and that it is time for the United States and other Western nations "to stop fooling themselves" over their effectiveness, the author reports. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, 52, a foreign policy expert and long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad's, said in an interview on Monday that actions such as the banning of Iranian ships from European ports, a fuel blockade against Iran Air and increasing financial restrictions have had "no noticeable effect" and that the failure of the sanctions has propelled the West to restart talks - a direct contradiction of the U.S. view.

The Washington Post has also published information that several international terrorists were detained in Belgium in an anti-terror sweep. Among others the police have detained several men suspected of dealing with the so-called Caucasus Emirate, an illegal body in the Russian North Caucasus headed by the notorious militant Doku Umarov.

An article entitled "Iran ramps up uranium enrichment despite shutdown" was published today by The Los Angeles Times. According to the article, production was interrupted at least briefly, but despite sanctions and a reported virus, Iran increased output and apparently built up the number of centrifuges producing nuclear fuel. Despite international sanctions and reports in the Western media that a computer virus had damaged sensitive equipment, Iran ramped up its production rate of enriched uranium and apparently worked out technical glitches to increase the number of delicate centrifuges
producing nuclear fuel, the latest quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency indicates.

"Report Suggests Problems With Iran's Nuclear Effort", is the headline of an article published recently by the New York Times. On Tuesday atomic inspectors reported that Iran mysteriously stopped feeding uranium into thousands of centrifuges at its main enrichment plant this month, and independent experts suggested that a computer worm suspected of being aimed at Iran's nuclear program had caused the spinning machines to break down, the author says.

An article entitled "Creaking wheels of Turkish justice" has been published by the Turkish news agency Hurriyet. In some countries the proverbial wheels of justice turn slowly? The author believes that in Turkey justice is applied not with wheels, but in a fashion resembling the workings of a kaleidoscope: crisscrossing judicial currents, fast arrests and slow verdicts, fractured results and confused lines between victim and perpetrator. The article was published after a series of arrests. The police have detained many protesters, including several students.


An article headlined 'Consensus on Caspian Sea Legal Regime' was published today by the Iranian news agency Press TV. Iran's deputy foreign minister says the Caspian Sea littoral states have reached consensus on the sea's legal regime, voicing their determination to resolve issues without foreign interference, the author reports. "All five littoral states of the Caspian Sea have come to a conclusion that they should recognize their capacities and draw up strategies for each
issue," Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh told a press conference on Tuesday.