Turkey said on Tuesday it will not send its ambassador back to Washington until it gets a “clear sign” on the fate of a US resolution branding the 1915-era killings of Armenians by Turkish forces as “genocide”.
NATO member Turkey, a pivotal US ally, was infuriated and recalled its envoy after a US House panel last week approved the non-binding measure condemning the killings.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, speaking to reporters in Saudi Arabia off-camera, was quoted by state-news agency Anatolian as saying the ambassador will not be going back until there is a “clear sign” on the outcome of the situation regarding the Armenian bill. He did not elaborate.
Erdogan, on an official visit where he met Saudi leaders in Riyadh, has said the resolution will damage US-Turkish ties, although the Obama administration has vowed to stop it from going further in Congress.
Turkey, a secular Muslim democracy that has applied for membership of the European Union, is crucial to US interests in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
The issue of the Armenian massacres is deeply sensitive in Turkey. Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks but vehemently denies that up to 1.5 million died and that it amounted to genocide — a term employed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments.

A traditional Islamic concept about protecting the faith and its followers has become a judicial weapon for Iran’s rulers: charging opponents as so-called enemies of God with the threat of possible death sentences.
Iran’s accusations of “moharebeh”, literally “waging war” in Arabic, have opened deep rifts between ruling clerics and Islamic scholars questioning how an idea about safeguarding Muslims can be transformed into a tool to punish political protesters. The outcry increased last week after an appeals court reportedly upheld the death sentence for Mohammad Amin Valian, a 20-year-old student convicted of moharebeh crimes, which Iran’s legal code defines as “defiance of God”, or the state and punishable by hanging. Valian’s case has become a new rallying point for the opposition as authorities try to further rattle protesters after crushing demonstrations last month. Valian has only admitted to throwing stones at security forces during anti-government protests in December, according to opposition Web sites. On Sunday, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said the student still can appeal. The case also highlights the huge perception gap in Iran. Opposition groups have declared Iran’s leadership politically bankrupt after alleged vote-rigging and violence. But hard-line supporters of the Islamic system consider it answerable only to God. Valian is among a dozen people convicted of moharebeh offenses, said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Hundreds more are in detention and have yet to face the courts, which are directly controlled by the ruling theocracy.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is arriving in Pakistan today on a two-day visit.
During his stay, Karzai would meet with President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani. According to diplomatic sources, Pakistan would discuss India’s interference in Balochistan and security of Pakistanis present in Afghanistan with Karzai, while the latter would likely to raise regional strategy, and issues of 2 million Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan.
Sources added that the Afghan President would also seek shifting of arrested Taliban leader Baradar. It would be Karzai’s first visit to Pakistan after being elected President for the second term.

KABUL: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Kabul on Wednesday to hold talks with his Afghan counterpart, a spokesman in Hamid Karzai’s office said.

It is Ahmadinejad’s first visit to Iran’s eastern neighbour since Karzai was re-elected following a deeply controversial election in Afghanistan in August.

“President Ahmadinejad arrived,” Siamak Hirawi, a deputy spokesman for Karzai, told media.

“They will discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and expansion of economic relations between the two countries,” Hirawi said.

The two presidents were also scheduled to discuss economic projects that benefit both countries, including a railway line from Tajikistan through Afghanistan to Iran, transport and similar projects, he said.

A six-member delegation of the National Assembly and Senate returned to Pakistan in protest after refusing a body scan at the Washington International Airport.

Head of the delegation Senator Abbas Khan Afridi said they were asked for a body-scan but they refused, as they considered it an insult to parliamentarians of a sovereign country.

He said they were informed before their arrival in the US that they would not face any such discrimination during their visit. The delegation comprised Senator Hafiz Rasheed, Member National Assembly Akhwand Zada Chattan, Sajid Hussain Toori, Muhammad Kamran and Jawad.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted that the Sept 11 attacks on US World Trade Centre and Pentagon a ‘big lie’ which was used by the US as an excuse for the war on terror.

Ahmadinejad, while addressing the Intelligence Ministry staff, said “September 11 was a big lie and a pretext for the war on terror and a prelude to invading Afghanistan,” calling the attacks a “complicated intelligence scenario and act.” Ahmadinejad also questioned US claims that the death toll reached 3,000 saying that the Americans never published the names of those who died.

Back in 2007, New York officials have rejected the Iran leader’s request to visit the World Trade Center during his NY visit for a UN meeting.

Thailand’s Supreme Court rules it will seize $1.4bn of $2.3bn in contested assets belonging to the family of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra.

The funds were frozen after Mr Thaksin’s elected government was overthrown in a military coup in 2006.

Mr Thaksin, who is living abroad, has denied any wrongdoing.

The amount seized by the court is more than half of the $2.3bn that prosecutors had demanded.

It was not yet clear if the outstanding $900m will be returned to Mr Thaksin.

The court took several hours to deliver its verdict, with security forces on high alert amid government predictions of violence by Mr Thaksin’s red-shirted supporters if the court decision went against him.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus. Both leaders agreed, not to let Israel succeed in its evil propaganda.

Ahamdinejad said that no one can stop Iran from having its peaceful Nuclear Program.

The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran is now capable of enriching Uranium above 80 percent level. Addressing a rally Ahmadinejad said that Iran has no intentions of making a nuclear bomb but if it does it would do that candidly. Ahmadinejad said that the first consignment of 20 percent enriched Uranium and 20 percent of Atomic fuel has been prepared.
Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran had the capacity to enrich uranium up to a level of 100 percent — but he said the country had no intention of refining the material to that level. Salehi said Iran would have “good news” on improved nuclear enrichment centrifuges in coming months.
Ali Akbar Salehi also said the production of 20 percent nuclear fuel would be limited to the needs of a Tehran medical reactor of around 1.5 kg per month.

TEHRAN : New Uranium Units Not to Confront IAEA: President Ahmadinejad, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iran’s plan to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants was not aimed at confronting the UN atomic watchdog, which censured Tehran last month.

He also said Iran will continue to build the new plants, adding that sites for five of the 10 units had been finalised.

“The news that we announced (about the new plants) was not to confront the board of the agency, as we had assigned the (Iranian) atomic energy organisation to locate several sites (for the new plants) months ago,” the state television website quoted him as saying.

“We recently even asked them (Iran’s atomic agency) about the delay” in identifying the sites, Ahmadinejad said, adding that Iran has always “acted on its decisions, which are definite.”

Soon after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) condemned Iran for building its second uranium enrichment plant late last month, Ahmadinejad announced his government’s decision to build 10 new plants.

Iranian Vice President and atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said at the time that the plan to build the new plants was a response to the IAEA decision.

“The decision taken today is a firm reply to the indecent move by the five-plus-one in the latest IAEA meeting,” Salehi said on November 29, refering to the six world powers comprising the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany who backed the IAEA resolution.