IRAN: Swiss leak word of secret U.S.-Iranian talks

For six years, groups of American and Iranian academics and others have been secretly traveling to Geneva and other European cities for closed-door brainstorming sessions on how to break through three decades of hostility between the two nations, a Swiss newspaper is reporting. 

According to a lengthy and detailed report in the French-language Swiss daily Le Temps, the informal series of meetings took place with the full knowledge of authorities in Washington and Tehran.

About 400 people have taken part in the discussions -- called the "Track II" process -- including experts and scholars from Europe, the Arab world and Israel. None of the participants would speak on the record about the meetings.

But Switzerland's foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, told reporters that her government was fully aware of the contacts, the last of which took place from March 6 to 8.

"The talks are on a purely informal level and the foreign ministry is not involved,"  she said, according to an English-language report on the website of Swiss public broadcasting.

IRAN: Germans in talks with Tehran for Afghanistan support, says report

 

 

Iran's official news agency is reporting that German contractors are in talks with Iranians to use the Islamic Republic's territory to ship supplies to North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan.  

“The German sides negotiating with Iran are representatives of private firms that provide foodstuff and fuel for the German forces serving at NATO units in Afghanistan," said an unnamed German military official quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency's Berlin bureau. “These companies are after finding alternative routes from Pakistan to forward those goods to Afghanistan.”

The sourcing is sketchy, but there have been mutterings about such talks in the German media  for days. Perhaps more important, the report by IRNA suggests Iran wants, or at least is eager to give the impression that it wants, to be helpful to the American-led war in Afghanistan. 

MIDDLE EAST: Maker of Dutch film "Fitna" to face trial

The movie provoked anger among Muslims all over the world last year. 

But the Dutch maker of “Fitna,” a short film that equated Islam with terrorism, had managed to escape legal troubles.

No longer.

The right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders will have to answer to a Dutch court for what advocates said were his statements that incited hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

EGYPT: Paris exhibit chronicles Napoleon's encounter with the Pharaohs

A brash young Western leader, fresh off a traumatic national crisis, invades a Middle East country, ostensibly to spread democratic ideals. Instead he winds up violently resented by the locals and strengthening his rivals, who immediately exploit his weaknesses.

No, we’re not talking about George W. Bush and his post-Sept. 11 war against Iraq, but Napoleon Bonaparte, the French general whose forces invaded and briefly occupied Egypt nine years after a cataclysmic revolution.

His late 18th century adventures in the land of the Pharaohs are chronicled and dissected at a fascinating and extensive exhibit of paintings, manuscripts and artifacts, "Bonaparte and Egypt" at the gigantic Institut du Monde Arab along the Seine River in Paris.

Napoleon said he wanted to liberate Egyptians from the tyrannical rule of the Mamluk dynasty. But he also wanted to find another route to access to the east and undercut Britain's near-monopoly on trade with India.

At first, the Egyptians welcomed Napoleon as a liberator when he and his forces arrived on July 1, 1798, easily defeating the Mamluk forces.

IRAN: If no sanctions and no war, then what?

Iran has managed to escape sanctions, but it didn't walk away completely unscathed from the latest United Nations General Assembly meeting.

The U.N. Security Council over the weekend passed a largely symbolic resolution against Iran for its refusal to stop producing enriched uranium, a key step in a certain type of nuclear weapons program, as well as in producing fuel for peaceful power generation.

The five-paragraph resolution reaffirmed four previous resolutions containing three sets of sanctions and urged Iran to comply with U.N. demands "without delay."

Of course Iran was flabbergasted.

Its office at the U.N. issued a news release calling the unanimous move "unfortunate" and an "unpleasant surprise" for the whole world. Iran downgraded its participation in an International Atomic Energy Agency conference set to begin today, a reminder that it could also boot U.N. arms inspectors out of the country if it's pushed too hard.

But the resolution fell far short of the harsh punitive sanctions the U.S. and Israel wanted. With veto-wielding Russia virtually ruling out the possibility of even mild sanctions, it was the best deal they could get, affirming the Bush administration's ninth-inning conversion to the type of painstaking multilateral consensus-building it decried during its first years in power.

LIBYA: Making Italians pay $5 billion for their colonial past

Is Italy really trying to clear its conscience for its colonial past? Last weekend, the Italian government made a generous offer to Libya to redeem itself for decades of military occupation.

According to the terms of a "friendship and cooperation" deal sealed Saturday between the European country and the oil-rich North African nation, Italy will invest $200 million a year during the next 25 years in infrastructure projects in Libya. The deal also calls for student grants and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served alongside Italians during World War II.

Other European nations with colonial pasts, including France, Britain and the Netherlands, carry out developmental projects in African and Asian countries they once colonized.

But Italy made a point of framing its assistance to Libya as an apology for colonizing the country in the 1930s before it won its independence in 1951.

As he signed the accord, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters during a visit Saturday to the second-largest Libyan city, Benghazi:

This agreement should put an end to 40 years of discord. It is a concrete and moral acknowledgment of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era.

LIBYA: Gaddafi son's arrest leads to oil embargo on Swiss

Libya does not react lightly to authorities in another country getting in the way of its leader’s son.

The brief detention by the Swiss police of the youngest son of Muammar Gaddafi, Hannibal, last week for allegedly beating two of his servants in a luxury hotel has sparked a serious international row between Switzerland and the North African nation.

Libya decided Thursday to cut its oil shipments to Switzerland as a result. The state-run shipping company threatened to take more actions against the Swiss if they do not apologize for the arrest.

ISRAEL: Soldier's suicide sparks security fears for departing French president

An Israeli policeman reportedly shot and killed himself during a farewell ceremony Israeli leaders were holding for French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport.

Sarkozy was in Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel Radio said that after the shooting, security forces quickly pushed Olmert and Israeli President Shimon Perez into cars. Local reports said the shooting sent Bruni running up the stairs into their airplane, while security forces surrounded Sarkozy and whisked him on board as well.

Sarkozy was there to bolster France's ties with Israel and pledge support in confronting Iran over its nuclear program. During the visit, Sarkozy pledged greater European Union support for Palestinians and urged Israel to stop the spread of settlements in the West Bank.

A police spokesman said the policeman died in an apparent suicide. Police say there was no assassination attempt on Sarkozy and that he was not in danger.

— Nicole Gaouette

IRAN: Package detailed for Tehran to stop nuclear enrichment

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Tehran today presented the Iranians with a sweetened package of economic, political and security incentives for Iran to give up its controversial program to enrich uranium.

The E.U., the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany made Iran a similar offer two years ago. Iranian officials denounced the offer as "insulting" and not worthy of a response, characterizing it as offering Iran little in exchange for halting its coveted enrichment program.

Many of those who crafted the package feel Iranians characterized it unjustly. This time around, Solana took no chances.

Appearing slightly tense and worn, he staged a showy press conference at the residence of the German ambassador to Tehran. Before the assembled reporters, he delivered an impassioned speech (DOC) urging Iranian cooperation, which was simultaneously translated into Farsi.

He said the international community was ready to stop treating Iran like a pariah and recognize Iran's right to have nuclear power, if Tehran halts its enrichment activities:

We are ready to cooperate with Iran in the development of a modern nuclear energy program based on the most modern generation of light-water reactors. We offer legally binding fuel supply guarantees, or to work together in designing a system to provide these fuel guarantees. We can help Iran with the management of nuclear waste. We can support Iranian research and development, including in the nuclear field once confidence is being restored. If we can settle the core issue, the nuclear program, the door would be open to cooperation in many other areas.

So there could be little misinterpretation, Solana handed out English and Farsi copies of both the latest package of incentives (PDF) and a letter urging cooperation (PDF) to Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki. It was signed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and by the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Great Britain, France and Germany, as well as Solana.

Immediately, analysts began comparing the 2006 package of incentives (PDF) rejected by Iran to the 2008 package (PDF) submitted today.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana holds a news conference at the residence of the German ambassador to Iran Saturday in Tehran.

Photo credit: Hasan Sarbakhshian / Associated Press

IRAN: Nuclear talks kick off in Tehran

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived this morning in Tehran as the head of a delegation trying to defuse the international crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

The United States, Israel and Europe are alarmed by Iran's increasing mastery of the technically complicated process of teasing out isotopes from uranium ore to create enriched fissile material that can be used to either fuel an electricity plant or build a nuclear bomb.

There's been a lot of talk of war or increased sanctions if Iran doesn't halt the program, which arms control experts view as a potential cornerstone of an eventual nuclear weapons arsenal.

Prospects for a solution don't look so hot. Solana handed Iran a proposed package of incentives to halt its program similar to the one rejected by Tehran in 2006. Christina Golash, Solana's spokeswoman, was quoted on Iranian television as saying that Europe and Iran are "ready to establish a new energy relations," a possible hint of an offer to increase investment in the country's oil and gas fields.

But that's not likely to to get Iran to halt enrichment.