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Iranian FM: Killing of Jazeera journalist aimed at covering up Israeli crimes

Shireen Abu Akleh
A Palestinian artist paints a mural in honour of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Gaza City on May 12, 2022. Abu Akleh was shot and killed while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin early Wednesday.

The Iranian foreign minister added that the assassination of Abu Akleh shows that the occupiers fear world nations’ awareness about the truth about the Zionist regime’s oppression of people in Palestine.

Amir Abdollahian said Palestine is alive and the occupation is on the wane. The top Iranian diplomat called for an end to the impunity enjoyed by the Zionist regime.

Amir Abdollahian made those comments in a tweet.

Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli troops while she was covering a military raid in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

A state service was held for the late journalist in the city of Ramallah on Thursday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in attendance. Thousands of Palestinians attended the ceremony that happened at the Palestinian Authority’s presidential compound in the occupied West Bank city.

Ayatollah Khamenei calls on Arab world to take political action against Israel

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei & Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani

The Leader called Israel’s decades-long oppression of Palestinians a bitter reality and a blow to the Islamic world and the Arab world. “In the face of these crimes, the Islamic Republic of Iran expects the Arab world to clearly enter the field of political action,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Tehran on Thursday.

The Leader referred to Israel’s demolition of a Palestinian home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds a few months ago, saying: “In that case, the support of some Arab countries for the Palestinian people was not even as much as that of some Europeans, and they did not take a stance, and they are still acting that way today.”

“If this approach of the Arab countries is out of fear of the Zionist regime or out of greed for it, they should know that today the occupying regime is not in a situation where it can be coveted or feared,” he said during the meeting which was also attended by President Ebrahim Raisi.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution also stressed that there is no need for the intervention of foreigners in the region.

“The Zionists create corruption wherever they set foot and cannot give any power or privilege to the countries, therefore, we, the countries of the region, must strengthen our relations through consultation and cooperation as much as we can,” the leader noted.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the issues of Syria and Yemen can also be resolved through dialogue.

“Of course, dialogue should not be from a position of weakness, while the other sides, mainly the United States and others, rely on military and financial power,” he stated.

The leader also said the strength and stability of Iran-Qatar relations are in the interest of both countries, adding that the current level of economic relations between the two countries is very low and should be multiplied.

Expressing satisfaction with his second visit to Iran, the emir of Qatar pointed to the prominent position of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in the Islamic world.

The Qatari Emir slammed the crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine, saying everyone must take a stance against the developments there.

The Emir of Qatar also referred to the recent killing of a female journalist by the Israel military in the West Bank city of Jenin, saying: “The Zionists committed this crime in cold blood.”

Hamas hails Iraqi parliament for criminalizing normalization with Israel

Palestine Israel

Hamas issued a statement in this regard, urging parliaments of other Arab countries to model themselves on this “noble move” and approve similar laws to prevent normalizing ties with the Zionist regime.

“This move by the Iraqi parliament is indicative of the Iraqi nation’s zeal and their historical stance on supporting the Palestinian people”, the statement said.

Hamas also supported opposition from any side to normalization with the common enemy of the Muslim Ummah that threatens its security and stability.

Iraqi MPs on Wednesday approved a draft bill banning any normalization of ties with the Zionist regime. The Iraqi parliament’s information office said in a statement that the bill is meant to safeguard the national and Islamic principles in Iraq given the grave dangers of normalization with the Zionist enemy.

The Islamic Jihad movement of Palestine has also said the bill is a major step toward fighting the Zionists’ efforts to infiltrate into Arab countries.

A statement by the Islamic Jihad movement said, “We salute the Iraqi parliament for taking a decisive stance at an important juncture to prove that the free Iraqi people stand with Palestinians and the resistance and are against any normalization with the Zionist regime, the main enemy of all Islamic nations.”

Some Arab countries including the UAE and Bahrain have made Palestinians angry following their recent move to normalize ties with Israel.

Yemen deputy defense chief says they possess sophisticated weapons

Yemeni Forces

He said Yemen has militarily and politically won the Saudi-led war and that the country becomes stronger by the day.

“In the seventh year of the war, the Yemeni army was stronger than in the sixth year and in the sixth year was stronger than the fifth year.”

He condemned Saudi and Emirati forces and their US and Israeli backers of targeting Yemen’s infrastructure, describing it as “painful”.

Kohlani said Yemenis are known for their resistance against bullying and rejection of servitude to foreign countries. He however maintained that Saudi and UAE rulers have played the fool regarding the outcome of their war on Yemen while the whole world knows that their coalition has been defeated and it has collapsed.

“Yemen has lost everything, but the material damage suffered by Saudi Arabia is also significant and the number of their casualties has exceeded 10,000”.

Kohalni underlined that Yemen has shifted from the defensive to the offensive and that all areas inside Saudi Arabia and the UAE are within the reach of Yemeni arms including the ballistic missiles and the drones.

Kohlani however underscored that Yemen extends its hand for peace.

He said Yemeni politician are tasked with negotiating peace and that the country’s armed forces negotiate through their weapons.

Saudi Arabia and its allies began the war in March 2015. The war has killed and wounded thousands of people with millions of Yemenis internally displaced.

Iran Atomic chief hails progress in heavy water technology

Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami

“The enemies launched an intense campaign against Iran’s peaceful activities in the heavy water sector and wanted Iran not to be active in this area. Fortunately, we were able to continue to move forward on the path to achieving heavy water and its derivatives, regardless of Western pressure,” Eslami said in a specialized seminar on the role of radiopharmaceuticals in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer on Thursday.

The Iranian atomic chief said: “Heavy water is a very large and important gateway in the process of molecular and atomic engineering, the derivatives of heavy water can provide great achievements in the field of health and industries. They (the enemies) do not want our country to create strategic scientific and technical capacities to be among the world powers.”

“We possess all the capacities of the nuclear fuel cycle and with the scientific, research and industrial capacities that we have created, we are serving human health. We have provided 50 types of radiopharmaceuticals to medical centers for diagnosis, alleviation and treatment,” Eslami added.

A few days ago, the Iranian nuclear chief said the country is aiming to attract investment worth 50 billion dollars in its nuclear sector over the next 15 years.

He explained that the development of nuclear technology can improve all areas of people’s daily lives, including health, food, medicine, agriculture, industry and energy.

Iraqi MPs draft bill to criminalize normalization with Zionist regime

Iraq Parliament

The Iraqi parliament’s information office said in a statement that the initial review of the draft proposed by the legislature’s legal commission is complete.

The statement added that the bill is meant to safeguard the national, Islamic and humane principles in Iraq given the grave dangers of normalization with the Zionist enemy.

The Iraqi parliament added that the law will punish anyone seeking to normalize with Tel Aviv.

Iraq’s culture and tourism ministry also approved some rules and regulations to ban any normalization with Israel.

Meanwhile, some campaigns will be launched by the Iraqi Ministry of Culture to counter any normalization with the Zionist enemy, and in general, the fight against normalization with the occupying regime by any means is included in the activities and programs of this ministry.

Palestinian groups have thanked Iraq for the legislation.

The Islamic Jihad movement said the bill is a major step toward fighting the Zionists’ efforts to infiltrate into Arab countries.

A statement by the Islamic Jihad movement said, “We salute the Iraqi parliament for taking a decisive stance at an important juncture to prove that the free Iraqi people stand with Palestinians and the resistance and are against any normalization with the Zionist regime, the main enemy of all Islamic nations.”

A few other Arab states have normalized ties with the Zionist regime, drawing condemnation from Palestinians and many of their own people.

Iran has also deplored the normalization deals with Tel Aviv as a stab in the back to the Palestinian cause.

Paris calls for release of French nationals ‘detained in Iran’

France Foreign Ministry

The foreign ministry said France’s ambassador in Tehran had approached Iranian authorities to obtain consular access, adding that it had summoned Iran’s representative in Paris.

Earlier on Thursday, a French teachers’ union announced one of its members had gone missing while on holiday in Iran with her partner. Christophe Lalande, federal secretary of the FNEC FP-FO union, said he had no news from his staffer, who was due back in France earlier this week.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry has announced its forces have arrested two individuals of unspecified European nationality who had been dispatched to Iran to provoke unrest.

The ministry said the two, “experts in inciting unrest and instability,” had been exposed during Iranian intelligence gathering outside of Iran and had been under surveillance since their entry into the country.

All their activities, including plans, secret meetings, and guises had been monitored and documented, it added. In Iran, they sought to “brief, guide, network, and link individuals and infested domestic networks” to turn rightful demands inside the country into “unrest, social disorder, and societal instability.”

It stated the two individuals were “professionals” in the inciting of unrest who had trained local agents in several countries for a number of years, and had been in contact with, among others, a particular illegal association inside Iran.

In recent weeks, a number of gatherings have been held by the practitioners of various trades and professions in some cities in Iran to protest rising prices, inflation, and their living conditions.

Iran Covid: Downward trend holding

COVID in Iran

The daily caseload was 371 as per the figures released by the Health Ministry on Thursday. They included 71 hospitalizations.

The daily deaths have been single-digit for the past few days.

Officials in Iran attribute this to a nationwide vaccination process and the people’s observance of the health protocols.

Now over 85 percent of the country’s population are double-vaxxed with the officials saying herd immunity has occurred in Iran.

Nearly 30 million people are triple-vaxxed in the country. Authorities say people over the age of 70 and also healthcare personnel must get their fourth shot of vaccine. The authorities say thanks to the vaccination process, the vast majority of cities and towns have no deaths.

They are however warning Iranians to not relax health protocols so they will not cause a resurgence of the Coronavirus pandemic.

No red cities or towns exist in Iran currently. Red zones are areas where people face the highest level of risk from the virus.

Most cities are however Yellow while over 120 cities and towns are blue, which means the situation has returned to normal there.

Covid killed millions worldwide before subsiding in many parts of the world.

Russian envoy believes restoring JCPOA still possible

Nuclear Talks Vienna

“There is always a chance, but the Iranians insist, and quite rightly so, that their red lines be respected,” he stated.

According to the diplomat, exchanges between Washington and Tehran are continuing, mediated by Brussels.

“One of the main stumbling blocks is the issue of Iran’s insistence that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from the sanctions list. Not just the corps itself as a whole, but some of its units, so that everything is considered in a comprehensive way,” he added.

“And while there are no meetings on the Vienna platform yet, the exchange of messages between Washington and Tehran continues. As we understand it, [US President Joe] Biden’s administration is under a lot of pressure. Not only from Republican opponents, but more and more Democrats are starting to oppose the restoration of the JCPOA,” Dzhagaryan noted.

Iran insists that the nuclear talks must lead to the removal of all American sanctions that were imposed against Tehran following Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the landmark agreement in May 2018. Tehran has also demanded credible guarantees that Washington will not abandon the deal again.

Raisi: Foreign interference undermines regional security

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani & Ebrahim Raisi

“Managers, officials and governments present in the region should know that any interference of foreign countries and Westerners in the region does not provide security but is harmful to regional security,” Raisi said during a joint press conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Tehran on Thursday.

He also said Tehran and Doha believe that the blockade imposed on Yemen must be removed as soon as possible and the Yemeni people must be allowed to decide for their own country.

Raisi said Iran and Qatar share the view that the people of Afghanistan must have an inclusive government with the participation of all ethnic groups so that the government can establish lasting security in Afghanistan.

The Iranian president went on to say that the two countries believe that Palestine must be liberated and the Israel siege of Gaza must be broken and the crimes committed by the Israeli regime must end.

Raisi offered his condolences to the Qatari emir for the death of Al Jazeera’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. She was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

“Such crimes cannot provide security for the Zionist regime in any way… such crimes will increase the global hatred of the crimes of the Zionist regime more than before,” the Iranian president stated.

Raisi went on to say that the visit of the Qatar emir to the Islamic Republic of Iran is a turning point in the expansion of relations between the two countries and the two nations, and will certainly play a significant role in enhancing bilateral relations and cooperation.

“In our talks with the emir of Qatar today, in addition to emphasizing the expansion of relations between Iran and Qatar in the political, economic, trade, cultural, tourism and energy fields, it was stressed that joint investments should be made between the two countries and we placed emphasis on the development of bilateral relations,” he added.

The Iranian president said during his visit to Qatar in February, preparations were made for the development of relations and that the two countries should now take steps to implements the agreements reached in Doha and Tehran.

The Qatari emir said for his part that “We talked about bilateral issues today, and we believe that disputes in the region can only be resolved through constructive dialogue.”

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani praised the status of relations between Iran and Qatar as strong, adding that bilateral ties are based on a sense of neighborliness.