IFP: Jow Kandan is a beautiful region in the central district of Talesh County, Gilan Province. Gilan is in the north of Iran, bordering the Caspian Sea to the north, and the Alborz mountain range to the south. Its geography gives it a humid subtropical climate, and its abundant rainfall (the highest level in the country) means that its forests and woodlands are lush and verdant all year round.
Pictures courtesy of Mehr.
A week earlier, Aref said they would speak together through a faction named the “Faction of Hope.”
“Implementing the tenets of resistance economy and addressing social challenges are among our future plans,” the reformist figure said.Elsewhere in his remarks, Aref highlighted that the majority of the Iranian people are against extremism, seeing reformist mechanisms to counter challenges.
Aref secured a landslide victory in the February parliamentary elections in Tehran, beating all his rivals in the city.
The Stanford-educated figure is considered the main competitor for the post of parliament speaker, competing with the incumbent Ali Larijani, who was reelected to parliament from the Qom constituency.
Since his victory in parliamentary elections, Aref, the former first vice president, has insisted on setting an economic agenda for the next Parliament.
Earlier, Aref had said that if his faction succeeds in taking the helm of Parliament, he will make it a priority to respond to the demands of Iranians. Among these demands, he noted, are better economic figures, promotion of living standards, controlling inflation, and creating jobs, he explained.
Aref was on the top of the 30-member candidate list in the Feb elections in the Tehran constituency. He and 29 others on the list captured all the 30 seats allocated for the metropolis of Tehran in the Majlis [Parliament]. They campaigned under the banner of the “List of Hope”.
In an address to a meeting of the administration and the incoming parliament, held in Tehran on Saturday May 7, President Rouhani said the oil exports will increase to previous levels soon.
A host of Western sanctions against Tehran had caused Iran’s crude production to drop by about one million barrels/day.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a lasting nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), terminated all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran.
The agreement took effect on January 16.
Before the sanctions were lifted, Iran said it had made the necessary preparations to boost its oil production capacity to pre-sanctions levels.
Elsewhere in his remarks, President Rouhani said part of the existing banking problems will be also resolved and the other obstacles will be removed gradually.
The comments come against a backdrop of growing concerns that the JCPOA has not led to any major breakthroughs in Iran’s financial transactions with foreign banks and companies.
“Complete use of the JCPOA’s capacities will be realized through counteracting Iranophobia,” Araqchi said, addressing a meeting of the Alborz province administrative council, IRNA reported.
He noted that making use of the JCPOA capacities requires a confident business atmosphere, even if anti-Iran factions are trying to ruin this.
“We should create an atmosphere of Iranophilia to replace Iranophobia,” Araqchi added.
He reiterated that all sanctions have been annulled, and the effects of this will be shown in practice, leading to greater economic exchange, but that this will take time.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Araqchi said the July nuclear deal should not be seen as the end of US hostility towards Tehran, noting that the concessions made by Washington and its allies in the nuclear talks came as a result of Iran’s defensive strength.
“The US enmity is endless, and still continues against the Iranian government and nation,” Araqchi stated, according to a report by Fars.
He underlined that the Iran-US negotiations only focused on nuclear talks, and that no other issues, including bilateral ties, were ever discussed in the two-year-long meetings.
Araqchi underscored the strong impacts of Iran’s defence and missile power on the opposite parties in the nuclear talks, and said, “Had we not enjoyed military and defensive power, we wouldn’t have been able to attain our current achievements, and no country would have made concessions (to Iran).”
“We were able to force our enemies to make concessions in the negotiations when they grew disillusioned with military options against the Islamic Republic, given its missile power,” he added.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran makes no claims on any grounds in coastal, regional and trans-boundary waters beyond international demarcation lines,” Dehqan said on Saturday.
He added that Iran has the right to defend its airspace, land and waters and will “allow no one to carry out any act of aggression.”
“We have no limitations to holding military plans and those who came [to the region] from thousands of kilometers away and claim to establish security in the region must know that their presence is a source of insecurity,” he pointed out.
The Iranian defense minister’s remarks came after Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on May 2 that Iran must show off its military power to the US in the Persian Gulf waters.
“The Persian Gulf coast and much of the coasts of the Sea of Oman belong to this powerful [Iranian] nation, therefore we have to be present in this region, [stage] maneuvers and show off our power,” the Leader said.
Dehqan further said the US and Saudi Arabia’s criticism of Iran over its military drills will not serve their interests.
“The US and Saudi Arabia are trying to destabilize the region to prepare the ground for the [military] presence of the US and extra-regional forces [in the Middle East] so that they can blame Iran for the insecurity that they themselves have created,” the Iranian minister said.
He emphasized that this is while Iran contributes to stability and sustainable security in the region
In recent years, Iran has made major breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in the production of important military equipment and systems.
The country has also conducted major military drills to enhance the defense capabilities of its armed forces and to test modern military tactics and state-of-the-art equipment.
The Islamic Republic maintains that its military might poses no threat to other countries, stating that its defense doctrine is merely based on deterrence.
Terrorists and armed groups, erroneously called moderate opposition, have joined hands in capitalizing on the ceasefire in Syria, said Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on Saturday, adding that such moves clearly showed the fact that foreign-backed groups seek to perpetuate military operations and did not believe in a political solution, whatsoever.
Under the control of the Syrian armed forces since December, Khan Tuman fell into the hands of the al-Nusra Front terrorists on Friday.
“We believe that the solution to Syrian crisis is only political and the terrorists and their groups should be denounced and crushed by the international community,” he said.
This comes as 13 military advisers of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps were killed and 21 others sustained injuries in Khan Tuman.
Iran maintains military advisers in Syria, where the government of President Bashar al-Assad is fighting an array of foreign-backed militant forces, including, but not limited to, those of the Daesh terrorist group.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has also displaced over half of the Arab country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.
Tokyo hopes to team up with India in the development of the regional logistics hub in southeastern Iran, according to the Nikkei Asian Review citing its sources on Sunday.
The report said Tokyo wants to be part of a project on the construction of a site, which is set to include a port and an industrial complex in Chabahar.
It said Tokyo is keen to build stronger ties with Tehran and that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes to reach a deal on the port during a planned visit to the Iranian capital later this year.
In April, the Indian government announced plans to invest some $20 billion to build fertilizer and petrochemical plants at Chabahar.
The Japanese government hopes to start drawing up specific plans for Chabahar development by the end of this year through the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Tokyo will decide on details such as the necessary infrastructure and a list of companies it will invite to tender for the project. The investment will use official development assistance, the report added.
It said Japan hopes to develop the area into a trading center for resource-rich Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan, the world’s fourth largest producer of natural gas. It also hopes that Chabahar will serve as a logistics pivot for Iran and Afghanistan.
Late in April, local Iranian media reports said China also wanted to have a stake in Chabahar, with the official IRNA news agency saying a technical team of Chinese experts visited Chabahar in Iran’s province of Sistan-Baluchestan for the launch of a Chinese industrial town project there.
Chabahar is located in the Gulf of Oman on the border with Pakistan. It is the closest and best access point of Iran to the Indian Ocean and Iran has devised serious plans to turn it into a transit hub for immediate access to markets in the northern part of the Indian Ocean and Central Asia.
In May 2014, India and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly develop the port once the international sanctions against Iran were lifted. Both sides agreed as per the MoU to allow India lease two docks at the port for a period of 10 years, a move that was meant to cut India’s crude oil and urea transportation costs by around 30 percent.
In a statement on Saturday, the IRGC said the forces were all from Iran’s northern province of Mazandaran.
It added that they were killed and injured in the town of Khan Tuman, located in the southwest of the Syrian province of Aleppo.
The statement said the identity of the victims would be released later.
On Thursday, the Syrian army troops delivered a major blow to al-Nusra Front terrorists after the latter launched an attack on the government forces in Khan Tuman.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday, dozens of the Takfiri terrorists as well as government forces lost their lives during the heavy fighting.
The UK-based group further claimed that the Takfiri militants had managed to retake Khan Tuman and its surrounding villages from the army troops.
The Syrian military is yet to confirm reports about Khan Tuman’s fall into the hands of the terrorists. The Syrian armed forces had driven the terrorists out of Khan Tuman in December.
Iran maintains military advisers in Syria, where the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is fighting an array of foreign-backed militant forces, including, but not limited to, those of the Daesh terrorist group.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has furthermore displaced over half of Syria’s pre-war population of about 23 million.
IFP: One of Tehran’s most notable and visible landmarks, Milad Tower can be seen from points all across the city, and has become a recognizable symbol of Tehran, defining the skyline at all times of day and night, and in all weathers and seasons. It was officially opened in 2009, and stands at 435m tall, making it the the tallest tower in Iran, and the sixth tallest telecommunication tower worldwide.
Here you can see the tower in some of its many guises, in a collection originally presented by Tehran Picture Agency.
According to IFP’s translation of a report by ISNA, 43 runners from Iran, Italy, Canada, Britain, Germany, Austria, Norway, India, Morocco, and Lebanon will cross the finish line on Sunday, and the winners will be announced.
The marathon is being held in six stages, in each of which the runners run between 35 and 45 kilometres.
The most difficult stage, the Long March, was held on Thursday, during which the runners ran a distance of 80km in two consecutive days without any overnight accommodation. During the march, the temperature rose to 48 degrees Celsius in certain hours.
Mohamad Ahansal, the famous Moroccan ultra-marathon runner, has been the best runner so far.
Many of the runners ran in this stage continuously without any rest even in the night, and the last runner finally crossed the finish line [of this stage] on Friday morning.
Since Saturday morning, they have started the sixth stage after a full rest on Friday.
The ultra-marathon, mainly aimed at introducing Iran as a safe and intact place to the world, is held in two integral and lite formats, each of which is in 6 stages.
The slogan of the event is, “Run with us in the hottest place on Earth”.
© All Content by IFP News ( Iran Front Page ) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
