Iran's President Ahmadinejad Issues Permission for UN Chief's Visit to N. Facilities.

Iran's President Ahmadinejad Issues Permission for UN Chief's Visit to N. Facilities.(Fars). Salehi made the remarks on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) underway in Tehran on Wednesday. "UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's tour of Iran's nuclear sites has been planned, and the visit will be done in case of his personal willingness," Salehi told reporters here in Tehran on Wednesday.
He added that Iran has made the necessary arrangements for the NAM leaders' visit to different Iranian cities, including a tour of Natanz nuclear facilities, as well.
Ban Ki-moon arrived in Tehran minutes ago to attend the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and confer with Iranian officials on different regional and international developments. Earlier, Iranian officials had said that Ban Ki-moon will visit Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility on the sidelines of his presence at the Tehran summit. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for International Affairs Mehdi Akhoundzadeh told FNA that "the UN secretary-general will visit Isfahan province during his stay in Iran", while other sources said his presence in Isfahan will be aimed at a visit to the Natanz facility.
Meantime, participants in the NAM meeting in Tehran are due to go on a tour of Iranian nuclear sites and facilities on the sidelines of the gathering. Uranium enrichment has been a bone of contention in the nuclear raw between Iran and the US-led West in recent years. NAM, as the largest grouping of countries outside the United Nations which includes two-third of the world nations, has always stressed its support for Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, including enrichment.Read the full story here.

Iran may grant access to suspected Parchin military base nuclear site.

Iran may grant access to suspected Parchin military base nuclear site.(JPost).DUBAI, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Iran indicated on Monday it might allow diplomats visiting Tehran for this week's Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit to inspect the Parchin military base, which UN nuclear experts say may have been used for nuclear-related explosives tests. When asked about the possibility, Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh said: "Such a visit is not customary in such meetings.... However at the discretion of authorities, Iran would be ready for such a visit," the Iranian government-linked news agency Young Journalists Club reported.
The tentative offer was made just three days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) again requested access to Parchin for its inspectors at a meeting in Vienna. Iran is hosting the NAM summit, which ends on Friday, at a time when the West is trying to isolate the Islamic Republic over suspicions it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran says its atomic program has only peaceful aims. Any visit to Parchin by NAM representatives would do little to calm Western concerns or those of the IAEA whose talks with the Iranians ended on Friday without agreement. 
The UN body suspects that Iran has conducted explosives tests in a steel chamber at Parchin relevant for the development of nuclear weapons, possibly a decade ago Iran says Parchin, a vast, sprawling complex southeast of Tehran, is a conventional military facility and has dismissed allegations about it as "ridiculous". Monday's Iranian media report did not make clear whether the NAM diplomats would be able to visit the location in Parchin which the IAEA wants to see or only other areas of the complex. Akhoundzadeh said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to attend the NAM summit later in the week, might be able to visit Iran's nuclear sites. "At the discretion of officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is also the possibility of a visit by the UN Secretary General to our country's nuclear centers," YJC quoted Akhoundzadeh as saying. He said Ban would visit Isfahan, but did not say whether he would go to a uranium-processing site near the Iranian city. UN officials were not immediately available for comment .Read the full story here.

Haniya won’t attend Tehran NAM summit, announces 'boycott' of the meeting.

Haniya won’t attend Tehran NAM summit, announces 'boycott' of the meeting.(GT).Gaza’s Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya will not attend an upcoming Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, Taher al-Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government, said yesterday. “The prime minister received a generous invitation from the Iranian president to participate in the NAM summit,” he wrote in a statement, adding that Haniya initially “said he might be going but he decided today to apologise”.
It was a swift U-turn for the Islamist movement which had on Saturday announced that Haniya would attend the summit following an “invitation from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad”.
Iran’s foreign ministry confirmed that Haniya had been invited to the gathering as a “special guest”.
But the announcement sparked a furious response from the rival Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, with Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki saying President Mahmoud Abbas would boycott the summit if Haniya attended.
Nunu said that as a consequence Haniya had decided to stay at home in the interests of Palestinian solidarity.
“He didn’t want his participation to lead to deepening Palestinian, Arab and Islamic divisions on the Palestinian cause,” his statement said.
Yesterday morning, Iran also executed a swift U-turn, saying Haniya had never been invited in the first place.
Summit spokesman Mohamed Reza Forqani said in a statement quoted by the Isna and Mehr news agencies that “no official invitation from the Islamic Republic of Iran” or Ahmadinejad had been sent to Haniya “up to now”. Shortly afterwards, Malki told AFP that the Palestinian Authority had received personal assurances from his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi that Haniya “wasn’t invited to attend the summit in any way”. Malki said he would travel to Tehran today for further “clarification and reassurance” from the Iranians, and only after that would Abbas’s own attendance be confirmed. The Non-Aligned Movement conference, a grouping of developing nations founded during the Cold War, has emerged from obscurity with this year’s summit - largely thanks to the fact that its revolving leadership has passed to Iran. Iran hopes to earn diplomatic kudos by hosting the summit from August 29-31 at a time when the West is seeking to cripple its economy and isolate it diplomatically over its disputed nuclear programme. Israel and the US have already exhorted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to cancel his planned attendance because of Iran’s involvement. Egypt, last year’s chair of the organisation, will be represented by newly-elected president Mohamed Mursi. His Islamist affinity with Hamas along with rising militancy in the Sinai Peninsula adjoining Israel has strained Egyptian-Israeli relations. Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem will attend the summit, a top Iranian official announced in Damascus yesterday. Aladin Borujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy committee, on a visit to Damascus, said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad informed him at a meeting that Halqi and Muallem would attend the NAM summit.Read the full story here.

Iran to present peace plan for Syria at NAM Summit of Leaders.

Iran to present peace plan for Syria at NAM Summit of Leaders.(TI).IRI Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said on Saturday that Iran will present comprehensive peace plan for Syria at NAM Summit of Leaders, IRNA reported. Mehmanparast said that consultations will be made with the countries being in consensus with Iran over the issue. Salehi had in a TV debate last Thursday said the Islamic Republic of Iran would in the NAM Summit discuss with the participant countries about a peace plan for Syria. He said, "We believe that the proposal is acceptable, reasonable, rational, and comprehensive, being very difficult to oppose." Among issues on the Summit agenda before final document compilation are the regional and development related subjects and human rights. Mehmanparast said the final document of the meeting consists three chapters and 688 clauses. He said Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria as well as Latin America and African continent related issues are among subjects to be discussed at the Summit. Recalling Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's proposal to the extraordinary meeting of the Islamic Cooperation Organization in Mecca, Mehmanparast said he had proposed to the meeting that Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia should as influential countries keep on consultations on various regional crises. He said after the Mecca meeting, Iranian and Egyptian foreign ministers held two rounds of talks on phone about the subject.Read the full story here.

Iranian MPs Invite UN Chief to Human Rights Debate, want to ask him about his biased attitude.

Iranian MPs Invite UN Chief to Human Rights Debate, want to ask him about his biased attitude.(Fars).TEHRAN - Iranian parliamentarians said they want to meet UN Chief Ban Ki-moon to ask him about his biased attitude towards certain global issues and developments, including human rights issues.Speaking to FNA, member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Esmayeel Kosari expressed the hope that Ban Ki-moon would accept the invitation of the parliament's Human Rights Committee and join the committee members in a meeting on the sidelines of the upcoming conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran, adding that the meeting would be in the interest of both sides. As regards the topic of the discussions, Kosari said,

"We believe that Mr. Ban Ki-moon does not have a fair attitude towards international developments and his decisions are essentially biased. Therefore, we are willing to hear Mr. Secretary-General's explanations in this regard." 

Chairman of the parliament's Human Rights Committee Hadi Shoushtari had informed FNA earlier today that the Iranian legislature plans to invite Ban Ki-moon to take part in the meeting. "We ask Ban Ki-moon to respond to a number of questions of the Iranian parliamentarians at a meeting with the Islamic Consultative Assembly's (parliament's) Human Rights Committee," Shoushtari told FNA. Shoshtari said that the members of the Human Rights Commission are serious about the meeting with the UN chief as they have many shortcomings with regard to his behavior. The UN secretary-general will attend the 16th heads-of-state conference of the NAM in Tehran next week despite the attempts made by the US and Israel to prevent his presence in the international event.Hmmmm............"Biased Attitude"?Read the full story here.

"We're great at Chess" - Iran to show nuclear facilities to NAM member representatives.

"We're great at Chess" - Iran to show nuclear facilities to NAM member representatives.(TI).Iran is launching cultural, industrial, scientific and other tours based on the request of each representative of Non-Aligned Movement who will take part in NAM summit in Tehran, Iranian MP Hossein Naghavi said quoting Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi. Naghavi said Salehi announced that they planned to launch several tours, including showing Iranian nuclear facilities to each representative of NAM members on their request. Iran is going to demonstrate its latest military achievement to NAM representatives as well.
Negotiations over Iran's disputed nuclear program have continued since 2002, when Iran's hidden uranium enrichment center Natanz was revealed. Until now, the UN Security Council has adopted four rounds of sanctions on Iran to curve Iran's nuclear policy and to curb the country's sensitive nuclear activities, but Iran has announced it will keep its nuclear activities. The West countries suspect that Iran is going to make nuclear weapon, but Iran rejects, calling its activities "peaceful". The EU and the U.S. has adopted tighten sanctions over Iran's banking and oil sector which has led to halve of the country's oil export to 1.1 mbpd. Salehi said 120 countries' representatives including 50 high level officials as presidents, prime ministers and vice-presidents will participate in NAM summit. "We have been negotiating with Russia for their top official to take part in NAM summit," he added. Salehi said that the next NAM summit will be held in Venezuela. The 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement will be held in Tehran on August 28-29. Four-stage security measures have been taken at the meeting venue and in Tehran. All police and security agencies will be perfectly ready.NAM is an international organisation that brings together 118 countries in the world on the principles of non-participation of military blocs. NAM was officially established by 25 states at the Belgrade Conference in September 1961. The movement's establishment was preceded by the Bandung Conference in 1955.Hmmmm.....Taking the wind out of Obama's 'sails'.Read the full story here.