Iran News Round Up

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin.  To subscribe to this daily newsletter, please visit this page, fill out the "New Subscribers" section, and check "Iran News Round Up" listed under "Projects." 
 
(E) = Article in English

Politics

• Reactions to Ahmadinejad's attempt to dismiss Intelligence Minister Hojjat al-Eslam Heydar Moslehi:
  • Supreme Leader Khamenei declares his support for Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi.
  • Ahmadinejad's official website has still not released Supreme Leader's decree on Moslehi.
    • Alef News condemns the website’s ignoring of the Supreme Leader's decree.
  • Intelligence Ministry employees greet Moslehi "enthusiastically," chanting 'God is Great!' as he returned to the Ministry.
  • Parliamentarians warn against "a deviant current" within the cabinet, and call for obedience to the Supreme Leader.
    • In an open letter to Ahmadinejad, 216 parliamentarians express their support for Moslehi, and warn that dismissing the Intelligence Minister is not "expedient."
  • According to Digarban, Moslehi is absent from the cabinet members' visit to Kurdistan province.
  • Digarban reports filtering of pro-Ahmadinejad websites, such as Didgah News, the Office of the Presidency, Bakeri Online, and Dowlatyar.
  • Basij Chief Mohammad-Reza Naqdi warns against those "who appear to be proponents of Messianism [mahdaviat] but are against the guardianship [of the jurist]."
  • Ayatollah Abbas Vaez Tabasi, the Supreme Leader's representative to the Holy Shrine of Reza [Astan-e Qods-e Razavi] in Mashhad, addresses representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army in Khorasan-e Razavi province: "No power can make decisions contrary to the Imam of the society, who is the Supreme Leader. Legitimacy of all appointments and dismissals depend on the Leader of the regime."
  • Hojjat al-Eslam Abbas Nabavi says Mashaei, not Ahmadinejad, is to blame for the aborted attempt to dismiss the intelligence minister.
  • Fatemeh Rajabi: "Ahmadinejad's popularity depends on the Supreme Leader's acceptance of him."
• Rafsanjani's website releases the full text version of his two months old address to the Assembly of Experts in which he warns against the rule of the "provocateurs."
• Following government use of public funds to finance sports organizations, parliamentarian Mohammad-Reza Bahonar expresses hope that the parliament does not reach the conclusion to impeach Ahmadinejad.

Diplomacy

• Mohammad-Hossein Saffar Harandi, Revolutionary Guards cultural deputy:
  • "We must understand the Syrian episode the way it is. What we know about Syria is very limited and much of the information provided by the West is fantasies. None of the accounts are documented and this is because the Syrian society is a closed society. However, we at least know that the movements in Syria are not of the same character that we have seen in the rest of the region. When we look at the unfolding events there, for example 70 percent of the SMS messages circulating [in Syria] were sent from Israel. The source of this excitement and protest is not national, despite some national sources may be there along with some shortcomings. But the guidance of this movement is very different."
  • "[President] Khatami visited the United States... called Lincoln a martyr... First, Khatami paved the way, and later letters were sent [by the Ahmadinejad government]..."
• [E] Iranian university students staged a rally on Thursday to protest against the Saudi and Bahraini rulers' crackdown on protests and “massacre of the defenseless people in Bahrain.”
• [E] Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili has warned that the western countries and the Zionist regime have hatched plots to take advantage of the regional developments and uprisings to attain military goals.
• [E] Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stressed Tehran's enthusiasm for the further development of bilateral relations and mutual cooperation with Islamabad.

Military and Security

• Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast refuses to answer questions about Iran's release of 100 Egyptian citizens who fled from Afghanistan to Iran in 2001 where they were arrested by Iranian authorities.
• Hossein Allah-Karam, vigilante leader and former Quds Force member, threatens to use suicide terror against Saudi Arabia in case Saudi forces do not leave Bahrain.
• Mohammad-Hossein Saffar Harandi, Revolutionary Guards cultural deputy:
  • "What is the problem of handing large national projects to the Revolutionary Guards, which is able to carry them out in the absence of domestic capacities...? Ask the Tehran Metro which contractors are the fastest and least expensive one and they would tell you it is the Revolutionary Guards..."   
• Vatan-e Emrouz discusses the latest test of the Marsad surface-to-air missile.

Trade

• Pakistan's Ambassador to Tehran expresses Islamabad’s desire to increase trade ties with Tehran.

 Economy

• Ahmadinejad addressing the crowds in Iran’s Kurdistan warned against "the enemies of the reform of the subsidies system," and added that "the rights of the Iranian people should be in the pockets of the nation for the next hundred years."
• [E] Iran Power Plant Projects Management Co. (MAPNA), one of the major general contractors of energy projects in Iran, inked a lucrative agreement with Iranian Offshore Oil Co. (IOOC) to develop Iran's Forooz B gas field.

Iran in the Afghan Media

• Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin says Iran is concerned about long-term strategic partnership between Afghanistan and the United States. Ludin says he assured Iran’s leaders that the Afghan-U.S. partnership will not be used against Iran.

Photos of the Day

• Supreme Leader Khamenei addresses historians of the revolution of 1979.