Iran announces progress on atomic power plant

By Fredrik Dahl TEHRAN,
Reuters, May 20, 2007


Iran has started building its first domestically-made atomic power plant, a senior official announced on Saturday, and Tehran's foreign minister said nuclear talks with the EU were likely in Spain this month.

The deputy head of the atomic energy agency said the planned facility would have a capacity of 360 megawatt (MW), in a statement underlining Iran's determination to press ahead with its nuclear program despite Western suspicions.

"In the next decade Iran will be one of the most talked-about countries in the world regarding domestic nuclear energy," Mohammad Saeedi of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

Iran is in a deepening standoff with major powers over its nuclear program which the West fears is aimed at making warheads. Tehran says it wants only to produce electricity.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who has taken a lead role in Western contacts with Iran, has said it would "probably take years" to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Solana, a Spaniard, last met Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Turkey on April 25-26 and agreed to hold more talks in the next few weeks.

"There is a high possibility that it (a meeting) will take place in Spain," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the ILNA news agency.

He suggested it would be held sometime between May 22 and May 31. The official IRNA news agency had earlier said May 31 was the agreed date.

Search widens for missing troops in Iraq

By STEVEN KOMAROW,
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces broadened their hunt Saturday for three missing comrades beyond the rural area south of Baghdad where they disappeared, and their top commander expressed optimism that at least two of them were still alive a week after their isolated outpost was ambushed.

At least one soldier was killed Saturday and four others wounded as insurgents attacked the searchers with guns, mortars and bombs. The military reported a dozen other U.S. troop deaths in Iraq since Thursday.

Northeast of the capital, there was more gruesome Iraqi-on-Iraqi murder. Men in Iraqi army uniforms rousted Kurdish villagers from their homes, separated out the able-bodied men, and shot dead 15, according to an Iraqi general and a Kurdish political party.

It was the latest incident in months of sectarian killings in lawless Diyala province and officials said Saturday that the local army commander was fired by the government.

Violence also marred the last visit to Iraq by British Prime Minister Tony Blair before he leaves office. A mortar round hit the British Embassy compound and two more elsewhere in the Green Zone while Blair was in Baghdad. And then, although Blair's itinerary was not announced, explosions also were heard when Blair went to Basra in southern Iraq, where British forces are based.

The search for the missing soldiers involves some 4,000 troops who "will not stop searching until we find our soldiers," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "We're using all available assets and continuing to assault the al-Qaida in Iraq network," he said.

Acting on a tip, Garver said troops raided a building in Amiriyah on Saturday morning and captured nine Iraqis suspected of involvement in the attack. Amiriyah is a stronghold of Sunni insurgents with close tribal ties to Quarghuli, where the outpost was overrun.

He said U.S. troops also detained two Iraqis in Baqouba who he said were "associated" with the al-Qaida command network. He did not tie those arrests directly to the missing soldiers. Their outpost in Quarghuli is about 12 miles south of Baghdad and about 50 miles from Baqouba, a violence-wracked city to the north.

A group that claims ties to al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for the May 12 attack that resulted in the kidnapping and the deaths of four American soldiers and an Iraqi aide. However, there has been no evidence, such as photos, video or audio, released by that or other groups.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, told the Army Times newspaper in an interview Friday night that U.S. forces were focusing on an insurgent who is "sort of an affiliate of al-Qaida."

He said an informant provided U.S. forces with names of those who took part in the raid and kidnapping but they were still at large. "We've had all kinds of tips down there. We just tragically haven't found the individuals," he said.

Petraeus said he did not know whether the three missing soldiers, from the Army's 10th Mountain Division, were alive. But "as of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive," he said.

"At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again, we just don't know."

An Iraqi army intelligence officer, who said he helped interrogate two suspects detained in recent days in Mahmoudiya, said they confessed to participating in the raid. Mahmoudiya is the largest town in the search area.

They said 13 insurgents conducted the surprise attack and then escaped in two groups. The leader of the group, along with some gunmen, took the kidnapped soldiers to a destination unknown by the two detainees, he said.

He added that the two detainees gave interrogators the hiding place for weapons used in the ambush and U.S. troops went there and took them.

In the week since the attack in Quarghuli, some two dozen U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. Five were announced on Saturday, four of which occurred on Friday.

Those numbers were far eclipsed by the toll of Iraqis on Saturday alone.

The execution-style slayings of 15 Kurds in Hamid Shifi, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad by the men posing as troops, stood out because details of the event were known.

By contrast, there were no narratives attached to the 20 bodies found Saturday around Baghdad. Police said they were all men, handcuffed, blindfolded, shot and then dumped on the streets. All but three were found on the Sunni Muslim side of the city.

In all, at least 93 people were killed or found dead Saturday nationwide.

One well-known Iraqi politician close to the Bush administration narrowly escaped injury.

Ahmad Chalabi was hustled to safety by his bodyguards when attackers struck with mortars and firearms in Buhriz, about 40 miles north of Baghdad and just south of Baqouba.

Chalabi, who helped President Bush sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the American public, told Iraqi television afterward that was helping to mobilize the tribes of Diyala province against insurgents but they needed more help from the U.S.-led military forces.

"The multinational forces should be more active and support the residents and the Iraqi forces to counter the terrorism," he said.

Meanwhile, the health of one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, was at risk from cancer.

Aides to al-Hakim said he was flown to Houston, Texas, on Wednesday for tests after doctors in Baghdad suspected he had lung cancer. He had complained of a cough and had high blood pressure, said members of his staff who spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Jalal Talabani also was traveling to the United States for a medical checkup at the Mayo Clinic, a senior Kurdish politician close to the Iraqi leader said Saturday. The 73-year-old Sunni Kurd was hospitalized in Jordan for about two weeks after collapsing three months ago with what doctors called exhaustion and dehydration from lung and sinus infections.

U.S. Arab allies have harsh words for Iran at Mideast economic forum

By Anna Johnson

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan – Washington's Arab allies harshly criticized Iran's growing influence in the Middle East, telling the country's top diplomat at a high-level conference Saturday that it must stay out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and be more open about its nuclear ambitions.

Dominating many discussions at the World Economic Forum was the deadly violence between the Fatah Palestinian faction and Hamas militants, which has helped stall a Saudi Arabian-sponsored plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the plan would flounder partly because Israel has no intention of striking a peace deal, but Arab countries focused their criticism on Iran.

“We had some 130 plans in the past 30 years, but none of them were realized because of the approach of the other side (Israel),” Mottaki said during a panel discussion. “Besides, we do not see any chance for the success of the Arab peace initiative because it fails to address fateful issues, like the capital of a Palestinian state and the right of return for some 5 million refugees.”

Former Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Turki al-Faisal scolded Iran, however, saying that the predominantly Persian country had little to do with Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

“It's an Arab issue and should be resolved within the Arab fold,” he said.

Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit was even more blunt, saying: “The Iranian foreign minister was wrong when he said there were 130 plans on Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking ... The Arab peace plan is the first of its kind. It presents a clear and detailed path to peacemaking.”

Mottaki insisted that his country's goal was to help the resolve the Middle East's concurrent crises, which he blamed on the U.S. and Israel.

“Iran was always part of the solution to the crisis in the region. We have been in contact with governments in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said during the panel on Mideast security and stability, which also included Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

His words seemed unlikely to assuage many of the 1,000 forum participants, a great number of whom are political and business leaders from moderate Arab countries with strong military and diplomatic ties to Washington, and increasing worries about Iran's rising regional influence.

The U.S. accuses Shiite-ruled Iran of helping train and arm Shiite militias and some Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq. Arab countries on the Persian Gulf fear that rising Washington-Tehran tensions could turn explosive and they would be caught in the middle.

Mottaki said Iran planned to tell the United States during a May 28 meeting between the countries' ambassadors in Baghdad that its policies in Iraq were “wrong” and have led to failure, comments that set the stage for a potentially unproductive discussion.

Both Iranian and American officials have said that the talks in Baghdad will be limited to Iraq's security situation and will not delve into the diplomatic deadlock between the two countries over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is for peaceful energy generation, and the U.S. calls camouflage for weapons development.

Bahraini Crown Prince Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa called for Iran to be more open about that program.

“Iran should work in partnership with its neighbors and not at their expense,” Al Khalifa said. “Iran can develop its technology for peaceful purposes, but that must be in a clear and transparent manner.”

Abdulaziz Sager, the chairman of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, also said Iran has not been forthcoming about its nuclear ambitions.

“We have serious problems with the Iranian government in this region,” said Sager, who was part of the second panel with Mottaki.

“We do not wish to see this sort of attack,” said Sager, who cautioned that better relations did not appear on the near horizon. “We would like to see normalized relations, but unfortunately, since Ahmadinejad came, they keep sending wrong signals.”