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Iran Not to Let US Hostility Harm Its National Interests: Araqchi

April 19, 2018

Asked about Iran’s possible response to the US government’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal next month, Araqchi says the Islamic Republic’s reaction is clear.

“We have already said and reiterated that the withdrawal of the United States will lead to the loss of Iran’s interests which will surely entail the strong reaction of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They will see how Iran is able to use its capacities to be promoted to a much higher status,” he underlined.

Araqchi made the comments in a Farsi interview with IRIB News Agency during his short stay in Rome where he met with his Italian counterpart Vincenzo Amendola on Wednesday.

The Iranian diplomat said there is still a long time left until May 12 and the European countries are busy holding talks with the United States.

“The rest of the countries are more or less in touch, and Tehran is in close contact with Russia and China as well.”

Araqchi further added that the Islamic Republic is ready for every possible scenario or any situation underlining that President Hassan Rouhani has given the necessary directives to the institutions and bodies involved in the economic, political and nuclear fields, and all are ready to react to any situation that may arise from Trump’s May 12 decision.

“The current critical condition, both in terms of regional issues and also regarding the JCPOA and its implementation needs to be continuously discussed with different countries, especially with European countries, who have a special link with the JCPOA and international affairs,” noted Araqchi.

“In the past few days, I visited different European capitals. Today, I had a lot of useful negotiations with my counterpart and Italian foreign ministry’s director general for political affairs, and then I will travel to Brussels and Oslo to finally join FM Zarif in New York.”

Zarif will leave Tehran on Thursday for New York to attend a high-level UN meeting on sustaining peace. He also plans to deliver a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations during his six-day trip.

Iranian Airport Using Information Bot to Offer Special Services

IFP Editorial Staff

April 19, 2018

Omid Aminzadeh, the General Director of the Electronic Office at Imam Khomeini Airport City Company, says the bot has been developed with the goal of offering services to the passengers at the international airport.

“The main information provided by the bot includes details about flights at the airport. The passengers can easily have access to the information on flights including their country of origin and destiny as well as their numbers,” he was quoted as saying in a Farsi report by Fars News Agency.

He said the bot also gives the passengers information on the services given by the IKA City Company like tax payments, mobile phone registration, emergency calls, location and internet address of the airport.

Aminzadeh said the bot is still under development and will contain more relevant information in the future.

According to the official, the bot is capable of responding to passengers’ questions.

“The passengers can use the bot to receive all the required information they may need about the airport within just ten minutes,” he noted.

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Touching on the performance of the bot, Aminzadeh said over the past month, the information bot carried out 80,000 operations including 14,000 on flight details.

Despite the fact that the Imam Khomeini Airport City Company didn’t advertise the bot, the number of its bot users has grown on average 20 percent each week, he added.

Aminzaeh referred to the cooperation underway between the IKA City Company and Iran’s National Elites Foundation as well as Iranian students graduated from western universities saying the bot is set to be equipped with a lingual function.

“With the new function, the bot can reply verbally to the questions raised by the passengers about the flights,” he noted.

The bot launched about two months ago is available at ikacinformationbot in Telegram messaging app.

Iran Welcomes African Union’s Stance on Syria Developments

IFP Editorial Staff

April 18, 2018

In remarks made on Wednesday, Qassemi hailed the African Union’s statement which condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria and stressed the need for close examination of the facts by independent authorities and the need for a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

The Iranian spokesman said the adoption of such a stance by the African Union regarding the developments in Syria undoubtedly reflects the full understanding of the Union of the international developments.

“This statement shows to what extent the use of chemical weapons is rejected from the viewpoint of mindful international actors,” he noted.

On the other hand, he added, it reflects the view of these actors that the Syrian crisis could only be resolved through political dialogue.

The African Union issued a strongly worded statement condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria and cautioning against responding without ‘incontrovertible evidence’ and compliance with international law.

The statement asked members of the United Nations Security Council to put aside their differences and pursue global peace.

“In the face of this dire situation, the only sensible course of action is the intensification of international efforts to find a lasting political solution based solely on the interests of the Syrian people and respecting the territorial integrity of Syria,” read the statement.

The United States, Britain and France launched military air strikes on multiple government targets in Syria in the wee hours of Saturday morning in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of people on April 7 in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

Iran’s Beauties in Photos: Shazdeh Mahan Garden

IFP Editorial Staff

April 18, 2018

The garden, which dates back to the Qajar era, was registered as a national heritage back in 1974. In 2011, the garden was also inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site, along with a number of other Persian Gardens.

Shazdeh Garden is 5.5 hectares and has a rectangular shape with a wall around it.

What follows are photos of the beautiful garden retrieved from ILNA:

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Iran’s Beauties in Photos: Bahmanshir River in Khuzestan

IFP Editorial Staff

April 18, 2018

After reaching the city of Khorramshar, Karun River is divided into two estuaries: one pouring into Arvand and then the Persian Gulf and the other one pouring into Bahmanshir.

Also known as Shat (in local language meaning river), Bahmanshir has a 900-metre length connecting Karun to the Persian Gulf.

The two sides of Bahmanshir River are covered with green plants which are known for their fruitful palm trees.

Over the past years, due to the unscientific construction of dams as well as drought and traditional agriculture, the river has faced a lot of problems, losing most of its water.

Without the Bahmanshir, the waters of the Karun — like those of the Tigris and the Euphrates – would largely flow into the vast marshlands of southern Mesopotamia that included the entire southern half of the Khuzestan as well – leaving no navigable course to exist.

The following are ISNA’s photos of the river:

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Two ISIS Cells Dismantled in Russia, Turkey

IFP Editorial Staff

April 18, 2018

The Russian intelligence apparatus says it has dismantled a three-member ISIS cell in the country, two of whom were detained and one blew himself up before being arrested.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said the ISIS affiliates were preparing for a terrorist attack in the southern city of Rostov, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

The report did not elaborate whether the blast has left any casualties or damages.

Turkish police forces have also arrested a four-member ISIS cell comprising three men and one woman.

The cell was dismantled after a Turkish prosecutor investigating the presence of ISIS executioners in Turkey found the trail of the group in Sakarya and ordered anti-terror units of the police to look into the issue.

According to a Farsi report by Tasnim News Agency, the ISIS members had filmed themselves beheading people in ISIS-controlled cities in Iraq and Syria and then posted the videos on social media.

Two of the arrested ISIS members were Syrian and the other two Iraqi.

Iran Blasts “Shameful” Complicity of US, UK in Yemen War

IFP Media Wire

April 18, 2018

“The US and UK complicity in Yemen crisis is shameful,” Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a press release on Tuesday.

The Iranian mission was reacting to remarks by the American and British ambassadors to the UN, Nikki Haley and Karen Pierce during a Security Council meeting on Yemen earlier in the day.

Haley claimed that Iran was interfering in the Yemeni affairs and violating the arms embargo on the impoverished state. Pierce also accused Tehran of “non-compliance with Security Council Resolution 2216.”

The Iranian mission, however, said the American and British officials had “repeated their derogatory allegations about Iran to cover up their own role in the disastrous situation created in Yemen. Iran categorically rejects those allegations as baseless propaganda.”

“The fact is that the war of aggression of Saudi Arabia in Yemen is the main underlying reason for the escalation of the crisis. It is regrettable that Saudi Arabia and its warmonger supporters, as the main party responsible for such a catastrophic humanitarian situation, are trying to cover up their shameful crimes by introducing false charges against others or trying to spread the crisis beyond Yemen’s borders,” it added.

“The US and UK are enjoying a blood business in Yemen now” by providing bombs to the Saudi warplanes that are targeting Yemeni civilians, the Iranian mission added.

Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the war in March 2015 in support of Yemen’s former Riyadh-friendly government and against the Houthi Ansarullah movement, which is currently running state affairs.

The military campaign has killed and injured over 600,000 civilians, according to the latest figures released by the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights.

Several Western countries, the US and the UK in particular, are accused of being complicit in the aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment.

Iran Opens First Cyber Health Clinic

IFP Editorial Staff

April 18, 2018

The clinic established by Seraj Cyber Organization was inaugurated on Tuesday in a ceremony attended by a group of experts in the relative fields.

“People who spend at least eight hours of their time per day in the Internet are deemed internet addicts and this type of addiction is more sensible among the adults,” Ahmad Reza Matinfar, Head of Seraj Organization, was quoted as saying in a Farsi report by YJC.

Meanwhile, in an address to the opening ceremony, Ahmad Qayoumi, the Deputy Director for Planning at Seraj Cyber Organization, highlighted the undeniable role of internet and cyberspace in the society and added given the high penetration of cyberspace into our daily lives, controlling and regulating it is too difficult.

He went on to say that sometimes overuse of the cyberspace has damaging effects which can be too dangerous.

“Restricting children’s access to the Internet is not a good method to deal with the issue. We rather need to provide them with good clues while using the cyberspace,” he noted.

He elaborated on the side-effects of Internet addiction on the daily life and added unfortunately some people don’t even want to admit the fact that they are addicted to the Internet.

“Though the Western societies are far ahead of us when it comes to dealing with Internet addiction, opening of this clinic is by itself a good step in the right direction,” he concluded.