Financial Times – The world’s largest oil traders have quietly stopped supplying petrol to Iran in a clear sign that the threat of sanctions and Washington’s behind-the-scenes efforts to convince companies not to sell to Tehran are paying off. However, the decision by Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura is unlikely to cut Tehran off completely from the global petrol market as traders said Iran’s long-standing suppliers were being replaced by small Dubai-based and Chinese companies. Although Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, its refineries are dilapidated and it suffers from runaway petrol demand because of generous subsidies. Read article
BBC – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the US of playing a “double game” in Afghanistan after the US used the same term to condemn Iran’s role. Mr Ahmadinejad said the US had “created terrorists and now say they are fighting them”, as he appeared with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Read article
Reuters – Vice President Joe Biden began a visit to Israel and the West Bank on Monday, assuring Israelis in a newspaper interview that Washington would close ranks with them against any threat from a nuclear-armed Iran. Biden, the most senior U.S. official to visit Israel since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, is widely expected to caution his hosts not to attack Iran pre-emptively while world powers pursue fresh sanctions against Tehran. Read article
Telegraph – The US and Britain are acting in the expectation that any measures agreed by the UN Security Council will be heavily diluted by Russia or China. The supplementary action is being drawn up in consultation with Middle Eastern and Asian countries that have financial or trade ties with the Islamic regime, and a common interest in preventing it developing nuclear weapons. The measures would focus on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the secretive militia force that is suspected of running and financing the country’s covert nuclear programme. Read Article
The Independent – A car bomb exploded in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf on today, killing four Iranian pilgrims a day before a parliamentary election that Islamist insurgents have vowed to wreck with violence, officials said. The blast gutted two tour buses parked near the Imam Ali shrine, which draws millions of Shi’ite faithful from Iraq and Iran each year. Salim Nema, a Najaf health official, said the attack wounded 54 people, including 17 Iraqis and 37 Iranians. Read article
Reuters – A Western proposal for fresh U.N. sanctions on Iran includes a call for restricting new Iranian banks abroad and urges “vigilance” against the Islamic Republic’s central bank, diplomats said on Friday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, Western diplomats familiar with negotiations on the draft proposal — which Washington worked on with Britain, France and Germany and then shared with Russia and China — said they were no longer pushing for an official U.N. blacklisting of the central bank. Read article
Reuters – The president of the U.N. Security Council said on Tuesday it was ready to tackle proposals for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, while U.S. diplomats worked to persuade China that action is needed. Gabon’s U.N. Ambassador Emanuel Issoze-Ngondet, president of the Security Council for March, said the Iranian nuclear issue was not on the agenda of the 15-nation panel this month, but council members might still hold a meeting on it. Read article
BBC – Brazil will not bow to pressure from the US to support further sanctions against Iran over its nuclear work, the country’s foreign minister has said. Celso Amorim told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Brazil wanted to see further negotiations on the issue before it would support sanctions. Read article
Reuters – The president of the U.N. Security Council said on Tuesday it was ready to tackle proposals for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, while U.S. diplomats worked to persuade China that action is needed. Gabon’s U.N. Ambassador Emanuel Issoze-Ngondet, president of the Security Council for March, said the Iranian nuclear issue was not on the agenda of the 15-nation panel this month, but council members might still hold a meeting on it. Read article
Reuters – China stood its ground that diplomacy was the best way to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, as U.S. diplomats arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for talks on Tehran and North Korea’s atomic ambitions. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg will be the most senior U.S. diplomat to visit Beijing since a flurry of disputes over Internet censorship, trade, arms sales to Taiwan and Tibet unsettled ties with China. Read article
Ahlul Bayt – According to Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA), the captured ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, was scheduled to meet US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke at the Manas Air Base for talks on waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a journalist says. Rigi had planned to meet a high-profile US official at the Manas Air Base near Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek. Read article
Telegraph – Amid fears that Moscow remains intent on weakening a planned Security Council resolution punishing Tehran for its nuclear programme, western diplomats are seeking to convince Russia to support much more robust measures. They hope the West’s case for robust action will be strengthened on Monday when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, meets in Vienna to discuss a damning new report on Iran’s atomic intentions. Read article
BBC – The authorities in Iran have closed down the country’s biggest-circulation reformist newspaper, Etemaad, accusing it of breaching media laws. They also suspended publication of a weekly reformist paper whose managing director is the son of one of Iran’s opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi. Read article
Times Online – Iran’s religious leadership is orchestrating a campaign of killings and arrests in Kurd provinces as it seeks to prevent pro-democracy protests from spreading to the country’s ethnic minorities, an Iranian Kurd leader has said. In an interview with The Times, Abdullah Mohtadi, secretary general of the Komala Party, said Tehran had ordered a security crackdown that had brought renewed oppression to Kurd areas in the wake of protests against last year’s contested presidential election. Read article
Press TV – Israel’s air force has introduced a fleet of large surveillance UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles), claiming they can fly as far as Iran and the Persian Gulf. The Israeli military says the Heron TP drones, with a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), will primarily be used for surveillance, implying that they also can be used for other applications. Read article
Haaretz – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Monday for an immediate embargo on Iran’s energy sector, saying the United Nations Security Council should be sidestepped if it cannot agree on the move. Iran’s uranium enrichment, in defiance of several rounds of Security Council sanctions, has spurred world powers to consider tougher diplomatic measures, against the backdrop of threatened military action by Israel as a last resort. Read article
Press TV – Iran’s envoy to the IAEA has objected to the fact that suspicions have been raised about Tehran’s nuclear activities only because it is not implementing voluntary protocols. “We have to be able distinguish between two different issues. One is the Safeguards Agreement… and the other is additional measures, which are voluntary like the additional protocol. They cover more activities,” Ali-Asghar Soltanieh told Press TV on Sunday. Read article
CNN – Seven in 10 Americans believe that Iran currently has nuclear weapons, according to a new national poll. Friday’s release of the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey comes just hours after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the Islamic republic isn’t seeking and doesn’t believe in pursuing nuclear weapons. Khamenei was responding to a draft United Nations report that said that Iran may be working to develop a nuclear weapon. Read article
Times Online – Iran’s Supreme Leader took to the deck of a naval guided missile destroyer yesterday in defiance of the international storm sparked by the United Nations’ warning that Tehran may be building a nuclear bomb. There were renewed calls for sanctions from the United States, Britain, France and Germany. But some of the strongest reaction came from Russia, the country traditionally most reluctant to impose them, raising hopes of a consensus at the UN Security Council. Read article
AFP – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her country has no plan for military action against Iran over its nuclear programme, in a television interview broadcast on Wednesday. “Obviously, we don’t want Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, but we are not planning anything other than going for sanctions,” she told Al-Arabiya television. Read article
Ed – she’s not lying, unless of course the Israeli plan can be considered a US plan.
Reuters – The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday it fears Iran may be working now to develop a nuclear-armed missile, as Washington warned Tehran of “consequences” for ignoring international demands to stop its atomic program. In unusually blunt language, an International Atomic Energy Agency report for the first time suggested Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability, throwing independent weight behind similar Western suspicions. Read article
Press TV – Two Republican senators have once again introduced a draft bill in the US Congress seeking full support for the Iranian opposition and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic government in Iran. Senators John Cornyn and Sam Brownback introduced the so-called “Iran Democratic Transition Act” bill on February 11, coinciding with the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, in which unprecedented tens of millions of Iranians poured into the streets to rally and celebrate the 31st anniversary. Read article
Times Online – Russia raised Western hopes that it will support tougher international sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme by announcing a delay in delivery of S-300 advanced air defence missiles. The postponement for unspecified “technical problems” was made public a day after Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, urged Russia to support “crippling” sanctions against Tehran during a visit to Moscow. Read article
Reuters – Iran’s supreme leader accused the United States on Wednesday of war-mongering and of turning the Gulf into an “arms depot,” hitting back at U.S. accusations that the Islamic state was moving toward a military dictatorship. The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were the latest sign of growing tensions between Tehran and Washington, which are embroiled in a long-running and escalating row over Iranian nuclear work the West suspects is aimed at making bombs. Read article
AFP – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that Iran’s arch-foe Israel was mulling starting a war “next spring or summer” but has yet to make a final decision. Without specifying whom would be targeted, Ahmadinejad said: “According to information we have they (Israel) are seeking to start a war next spring or summer, although their decision is not final yet.” Read article
