Iranians across the country have started holding Muharram mourning ceremonies which commemorate the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shiite Imam and Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, and his companions in the Battle of Karbala in the year 680 A.D.
Here are photos of these mourning ceremonies taken by different Iranian media outlets:
Iran has provided its military experience to Iraq at the request of the friend and brother country’s government, Velayati told reporters on Wednesday.
Asked about any plans for Iran’s participation in a large-scale operation to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul, he made it clear that Iran is not directly involved in any military operation in any country, including Iraq and Syria, stressing that Tehran only lends advisory support by sharing its experiences.
Iran, a close ally of Iraq, has been supporting the Baghdad government in the fight against terrorism. Tehran maintains that its assistance comes in the shape of advisory help.
Iraq has been facing the growing threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorist group.
Daesh militants made advances in northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing swaths of northern Syria, but have been forced to withdraw from many of the occupied areas in recent months.
“We declare to all the vessels present in Saudi Arabia’s stated war games, including the Saudi navy’s vessels and others, that the IRGC Navy believes these drills are principally a clear instance of stirring tensions and weakening sustainable security in the Persian Gulf,” the statement said.
Amid the Saudi navy’s drills in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, the statement stressed that passage of the military vessels participating in the war games through Iran’s territorial waters will not be allowed at all.
It further warned Saudis not to even sail through the international waters near the Iranian waters.
“The IRGC Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army are fully prepared to maintain sustainable security in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and will properly and rapidly confront any move, attempt and measure to disturb tranquillity and security in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman,” the statement added.
The Saudi media had reported late September that the country’s navy will hold exercises in the Persian Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz soon, as repored by Al Manar.
Exercise “Gulf Shield 1” will also take place in the Sea of Oman, with ships, planes, marines and other personnel taking part, said Royal Saudi Navy commander Abdullah Al Sultan.
Gulf Shield 1 is part of a series of exercises the fleet has carried out in the area, Sultan said in comments cited by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The manoeuvres aim to “raise combat readiness” and improve skills for defending the country’s borders, protecting sea lanes “and to deter any aggression or potential terrorist operations”, the SPA report said.
A delegation from Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology met with officials from Turkey’s Council of Higher Education in Ankara to discuss ways to boost interaction by exchanging teachers and students, transfer of technology via academic programs, scientific and research cooperation and implementing the bilateral agreements signed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s April visit to Turkey.
According to the deputy of Turkey’s Council of Higher Education, more than 5,000 Iranian students are studying in Turkey, and the highest number of foreign PhD students come from Iran.
During President Rouhani’s official visit to Turkey in April, the two countries signed eight memorandums of understanding (MoUs) to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various areas.
“Such reports have fundamental flaws in essence and that is why they lack validity from Iran’s viewpoint,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Wednesday, after the UN chief gave a negative assessment of human rights in Iran in a 19-page report, released this week.
Ban has said he remains “deeply troubled” by what he called accounts “of executions, floggings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, unfair trials, denial of access to medical care and possible torture and ill-treatment” in Iran.
In response, Qassemi said the report lacks credibility since it has been prepared on the basis of “cruel, unfair and politically-motivated resolutions” with the purpose of exerting pressure on Iran.
What casts more doubt on the credibility of the report is that it has used unclear and unreliable sources, he added.
“The report makes an unfair, one-sided and incorrect judgement on Iran’s human rights situation and has missed the opportunity for an evenhanded and fair assessment based on facts,” the spokesman added.
Highlighting Iran’s efforts to promote human rights and protect civil rights under the Constitution, Qassemi said Ban’s report has ignored the Islamic Republic’s struggle against major challenges, such as the fight against narcotics trafficking and dealing with cruel sanctions.
The spokesman finally warned of erosion of trust in the United Nations as a result of continued politicization of issues, adoption of double standards on human rights and turning a blind eye to the killing of women and children in Yemen.
Such a poor performance dashes hopes about the UN’s role in promoting the human rights situation in the world, he deplored.
In recent months, the number of tourists visiting different parts of Iran has considerably grown thanks to the good atmosphere created after the implementation of a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
The city of Shiraz in southern Iran has always been one of the top destinations for foreign tourists.
Here are IRNA’s photos of tourists, mostly from East Asian countries, enjoying the beauty of different sites in Shiraz, particularly Nasir-ul-Molk Mosque, Hafez Mausoleum, and Eram Garden:
Speaking at an open session of the parliament on Wednesday morning, Larijani said the US and the “evil” Zionist regime (Israel) jubilantly support Takfiri terrorism.
He added that in a recent speech at the Herzliya Conference, a US official said that today Israel is enjoying best security conditions because other countries in the region are engulfed in security crises and the worst scenario for Tel Aviv is when the terrorists are crushed by Iran and Hezbollah.
Such remarks prove that the US and Israeli regimes have no determination to combat terrorism despite their “false” claims, he went on to say.
In recent years, some parts of the Muslim world have been plagued with conflicts, violence and terrorism due to a lack of unity as well as plots hatched by the enemies of Islam.
Takfiri terrorist groups like Daesh have emerged in the Middle East, which are believed to have been created and supported by the West and some regional Arab countries.
The terrorist groups, which claim to be Islamic but whose actions are anything but, have been committing heinous crimes not only against non-Muslims, but mostly against Muslims in the region.
President Rouhani and his entourage, a high-ranking delegation of political and economic officials, left Tehran for Vietnam on Wednesday morning.
The Iranian president is scheduled to meet with his Vietnamese counterpart during a two-day stop at Hanoi, while the two sides will also sign a number of bilateral agreements.
Speaking to reporters at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport on Wednesday morning,President Rouhani said Iran eyes the export of technical and engineering services to Vietnam.
President Rouhani will travel to Malaysia on Friday, where high-profile meetings will take place as well.
As regards the trip to Kuala Lumpur, the president said he aims to restore and expand relations with Malaysia, which have not been thriving in recent years.
The latest developments in the Islamic world and in the region will be discussed in Malaysia as well, he told reporters.
And on the final leg of the tour, the Iranian delegation will go to Thailand to attend the 2nd Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) Summit in Bangkok.
A speech at the summit and meetings with senior officials on the sidelines of the conference will be on the agenda of President Rouhani’s trip to Thailand.
The president told reporters that Iran, which has been a member of ACD for 12 years, is pursuing stronger cooperation among the Asian countries to consolidate Asia’s position as a major trade partner among the other economic powers.
The summit, entitled “One Asia, Diverse Strength”, will be held on October 8-10. Currently, ACD comprises 34 countries, including Iran, China, India, Japan, Russia and Turkey.
The head of Iran’s space program announced Tuesday that the nation is interested in cooperating with NASA, a partnership that could spur international collaboration, as reported by Christian Science Monitor, and covered by Fars.
But some wonder if such a move would make the US more vulnerable to attacks rather than mending relations and jumpstarting the sharing of valuable information between the two countries.
“Many in the world look at NASA’s programs,” Mohsen Bahrami told reporters at World Space Week. “We are interested in having cooperation, naturally. When you are in orbit, there is no country and race.”
The collaboration would require leaders of both the US and Iran to come to an agreement. Bahrami noted that Iran’s civil space program is both powerful and peaceful, making a cooperation possibly mutually beneficial.
“We have capabilities and we are part of an international scene,” he said.
This isn’t the first time Iran has reached out to foreign space agencies. Bahrami said that the nation has entered into negotiations with agencies in European countries, as well as Russia, China, and Japan. While they have discussed technical cooperation, Bahrami did not provide further details of what such talks or possible agreements entail.
While Iran’s past experience with space is limited, the nation has become more active recently. In the past 10 years, Iran has experimented with dummy satellites by sending them into orbit, and sent a monkey to space in 2013. The nation also created a tracking centre to monitor objects as they passed through orbit above the country.
The next planned step will be to send three domestically-made mini satellites into a low orbit before 2018, Bahrami said.
While some of Iran’s technology is rudimentary, it has made space innovation a high priority.
Iran says that sending its satellites into orbit is a matter of safety. The nation, which is prone to destructive earthquakes, has a vital interest in improving telecommunications and monitoring natural disasters.
But doing so would also allow Iran to expand its military surveillance techniques, and the US and its allies have argued that the technology could pose a security threat by empowering Iran to build long-range missiles.
“There is evidence, however, that Iran is looking at rudimentary counter-space capabilities, such as electronic jammers against communications satellites, that could potentially deny the United States and its allies/ use of space for short periods of time in and around Iran in the event of a conflict,” John B. Sheldon, the chairman and president of Swiss-based consulting company ThorGroup GmbH, a Swiss-based consulting company and publisher and editor of SpaceWatch Middle East, told World Politics Review last week.
In response, Iran has stressed its goals to cooperate, denying any desire to use the technology to create more weapons. The nation has also said it would share scientific discoveries and data culled by the satellites with other countries.
It’s not clear that the US Congress would welcome NASA partnering with Iran. In 2011, China was barred from joining the International Space Station when Congress passed a law prohibiting official American contact with the Chinese space program due to concerns about national security.
The report was covered by Fars News Agency with the title “Iran’s Establishment of Space Observatory Centre over Its Territory Has Made the US Worried: CSM’s Report of Iran’s Space Innovations”.
Speaking in a meeting in Tehran with Brigitte Zypries, the parliamentary state secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Seif highlighted the banking problems hampering Iran’s foreign trade after the JCPOA, saying that in the nuclear talks, it was agreed that the grounds be provided for Iran’s return to pre-sanctions conditions.
“Unfortunately, nearly 9 months after the coming into force of the JCPOA, no effective step has been taken by the Western side to fulfil its undertakings,” he regretted.
This is while the Iranian side has fulfilled all its commitments under the nuclear agreement, he went on to say.
While the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), came into force in January, some Iranian officials complain about the US failure to fully implement the accord.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in a speech in March said Americans have yet to fulfill what they were supposed to do as per the nuclear deal.
Iran still has problems in its banking transactions or in restoring its frozen assets, because Western countries and those involved in such processes are afraid of Americans, the Leader said at the time, criticizing the US for its moves to prevent Iran from taking advantage of the sanctions removal.
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