"Iran's military looks to the sky as new priority," The Washigton Post writes. In military manoeuvres and air shows, Iran has been proudly touting advances in its air forces and defences, including radar systems, anti-aircraft batteries and new attack and reconnaissance drones, the author reports. According to him, it's a sign of a new priority for Iran's military - trying to quickly bolster its ability to patrol its skies in the belief that U.S. or Israeli war-planes or missiles could strike its nuclear facilities.
An article entitled "Iran agrees to discuss its nuclear program" was published by The Washington Post yesterday. The author reports that Iran is hardening its position ahead of next week's nuclear talks with the world powers and that its president vowed Tuesday his country would not make "one iota" of concessions over its nuclear rights. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that a breakthrough could only be expected only if the new talks are held under "equal" conditions and
if Iran's rights are respected.
Yesterday The Los Angeles Times published an article headlined "U.S. announces new Iran sanctions". On the same day that Iran and the West agreed to meet next week for talks on Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. announced a set of fresh sanctions on the Islamic Republic's shipping lines, the author reports. It was perhaps an inauspicious launch to
the first set of talks between Iran and world powers over its controversial nuclear program in 14 months.
The New York Timeshas recently published an article headlined "Iran Calls LeakedDocuments a U.S. Plot". In Iran's first official reaction toleaked State Department cables quoting Arab leaders (including KingAbdullah of the Saudi Arabia) as urging the United States to bombTehran's nuclear facilities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejaddismissed the documents as American psychological warfare that wouldnot affect his country's relations with other nations, the authorreports.
The Guardian continued publishing the secret documents taken from the WikiLeaks website. Some of them touch directly upon the issues of South Caucasus and Middle East developments over the past 8-10 years.However, the same media agency published an article entitled WikiLeaks could kill the goose that laid the golden egg'. The author of this material speculates about negative results of massive secret cables publications for future possibilities in the very same field.
Among other things, the expert notices that king Abdullah's views on the desirability of "decapitating the Iranian snake 'will of course worsen relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, two key regional countries, raise the level of suspicion between them and quite possibly lead to conflict, pulling in other regional actors including Israel and the US itself. Possible political consequences of this internet publication are analyzed in an article headlined Fallout from the WikiLeaks files'.
Another article in The Guardian, poses an interesting question: why is Iran wasting time on 'western plots' when it should be uncovering why its nuclear scientists were attacked? The author concludes that the longer the regime's decreasing legitimacy and the ensuing infighting continues, the more risks he will expose hisr egime to, including its nuclear programme.
Hurriyet has also published a whole series of articles covering the topic of Wikileaks publications.
The same news agency published an article headlined A dream of Imperial Turkey'', treating the issues of Turkish demilitarization. The author speculates that the demilitarization alone doesn't guarantee"democratization." I am talking about the risk that Turkey might be dragged into civilian authoritarian politics. As I am accused of my concerns, we see harbingers interpreting the existing course as not demilitarization, but signs of an "imperial" Turkey.
Press-TV news agency informs its readers that the head of Iran's Expediency Council Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has condemned the assassination of an Iranian scientist, calling for the arrest and prosecution of those behind the murder. Iranian lawmaker Nader Qazipour argues that the US, Israel and Britain are behind the terrorist attack.
