Saturday, September 28, 2013

[batavia-news] Iblis menyesatkan manusia dengan wanita

 

res: Untuk membaca artikel, click :
 
 
Iblis menyesatkan manusia dengan wanita

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[batavia-news] Rowhani is the real bomb

 

 

Rowhani is the real bomb



Uri Avnery

Published — Saturday 28 September 2013

Years ago I disclosed one of the biggest secrets about Iran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was an agent of the Mossad.
Suddenly, all the curious details of his behavior made sense. His public fantasies about the disappearance of Israel. His denial of the Holocaust, which until then had been typical only of a lunatic fringe. His boasting about Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Cui bono? Who had an interest in all this nonsense?
There is only one sensible answer: Israel.
His posturing depicted Iran as a state, which was both ridiculous and sinister. It justified Israel's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. It diverted attention from Israel's refusal to discuss the occupation of the Palestinian territories or hold meaningful peace negotiations.
Any doubt that I may have felt about this international scoop has evaporated now. Our political and military leaders almost openly bemoan the demise of Ahmadinejad.
Obviously, the Supreme Guide, Ali Khamenei, decided that I was right and has quietly disposed of this clown. Worse, he has reaffirmed his deadly enmity to the Zionist Entity by pushing forward a person like Hassan Rowhani.
Rowhani is the very opposite of his predecessor. If the Mossad had been asked to sketch the worst possible Iranian leader Israel could imagine, they would have come up with someone like him. An Iranian who recognizes and condemns the Holocaust! An Iranian man who offers sweetness and light! An Iranian who wishes peace and friendship on all nations — even hinting that Israel could be included, if only we give up the occupied Palestinian territories!
Could you imagine anything worse?
I am not joking. This is deadly serious!
Even before Rowhani could open his mouth after his election, he was condemned outright by Binyamin Netanyahu. A wolf in sheep's clothing! A real anti-Semite! A cheat out to deceive the whole world! A devious politician whose devilish aim is to drive a wedge between Israel and the naive Americans!
This is the real Iranian bomb, far more threatening than the nuclear one that will be built behind the smokescreen of Rowhani's sweet talk!
A nuclear bomb can be deterred by another nuclear bomb. But how do you deter a Rowhani?
Yuval Steinitz, our failed former Minister of Finance and at present responsible for our "strategic thinking" (yes, really!) exclaimed in despair that the world wants to be deceived by Iran. Binyamin Netanyahu called it a "honey trap". Commentators who are handfed by "official circles" (i.e. the Prime Minister's Office) proclaim that he is an existential threat. All this before he had uttered a word. When Rowhani at long last made his grand speech at the UN General Assembly, all the dire forebodings were confirmed.
Where Ahmadinejad had set off a stampede of delegates from the hall, Rowhani packed them in. Diplomats from all over the world were curious about the man. They could have read the speech a few minutes later, but they wanted to see and hear for themselves. Even the US sent officials to be present. No one left. No one, that is, except the Israelis.
The Israeli diplomats were instructed by Netanyahu to leave the hall demonstratively when the Iranian started to speak.
That was a stupid gesture. As rational and as effective as a little boy's tantrum when his favorite toy is taken away.
Stupid, because it painted Israel as a spoiler, at a time when the entire world is seized by an attack of optimism after the recent events in Damascus and Tehran.
Stupid, because it proclaims the fact that Israel is at present totally isolated.
By the way, did anyone notice that Rowhani was constantly wiping his brow during his half-hour speech? The man was obviously suffering. Did another Mossad agent sneak into the UN maintenance room and shut down the air-conditioning? Or was it just the heavy robes?
I never became a priest because of this obligation to wear the heavy clothes, which all creeds demand. Same goes for diplomats. After all, priests and diplomats are human beings, too! (Many of them, at least.)
Only one Israeli cabinet member dared to criticize the Israeli exit openly. Ya'ir Lapid. What has come over him? Well, polls show that the rising star is not rising any more. As minister of finance he has been compelled to take very unpopular steps. Since he does not speak about things like the occupation and peace, he is considered shallow. He has almost been pushed aside. His blunt criticism of Netanyahu may bring him back into the center.
However, he has put his finger on a central fact: that Netanyahu and his crew behave exactly as the Arab diplomats used to do a generation ago. Meaning, they are stuck in the past. They don't live in the present.
Living in the present needs something politicians are loath to do: thinking again.
Things are changing. Slowly, very slowly, but perceptibly.
It is far too early to say much about the Decline of the American Empire, but one does not need a seismograph to perceive some movement in that direction.
The Syrian affair was a good example. Vladimir Putin likes to be photographed in judo poses. In judo, one exploits the momentum of one's opponent to bring him down. That is exactly what Putin did.
President Obama has painted himself into a corner. He mouthed belligerent threats and could not retreat, though the US public is in no belligerent mood. Putin released him from the dilemma. For a price.
I don't know if Putin is such an agile player that he pounced on a side remark by John Kerry about Bashar Assad's chance of relinquishing his chemical weapons. I rather suspect that it was all arranged in advance. Either way, Obama got off the hook and Putin was in the game again.


I have very mixed feelings about Putin. He has done to his Chechen citizens very much what Assad is doing to his Sunni citizens. His treatment of dissidents, such as the Pussy Riot band, is abominable.
But on the international stage, Putin is now the peacemaker. He has taken the sting out of the chemical weapons' crisis, and may quite possibly take the initiative in providing a political settlement for that dreadful civil war.


The next step could well be to play a similar role in the Iranian crisis. If Khamenei has come to the conclusion that his nuclear program may not be worth the economic misery of the sanctions, he may well sell it to the US. In this case, Putin can play a vital role, mediating between two tough traders who have a lot to trade.
(Unless, of course, Obama behaves like the American who bought a carpet in a Persian bazaar. The seller asked for $1,000 and the American paid up without haggling. When told that the carpet was worth no more than a $100, he answered: "I know, but I wanted to punish him. Now he won't be able to sleep, cursing himself for not asking $5,000.")

How do we fit into this changing scene?


First of all, we must start thinking, much as we would prefer to avoid it. New circumstances demand new thoughts.
In his own US speech, Obama made a clear connection between the Iranian bomb and the Israeli occupation. This linkage cannot be unlinked. Let's grasp it.
The US is today a bit less important than it was yesterday. Russia is a bit more important than it was. As its futile attack on Capitol Hill during the Syrian crisis shows, AIPAC is also less powerful.
Let's think again about Iran. It's too early to conclude how far Tehran is moving, if at all. But we need to try. Walking out of rooms is not a policy. Entering rooms is.
If we could restore some of our former relationship with Tehran, or even just take the sting out of the present one, that would be a huge gain for Israel. Combining this with a real peace initiative vis-à-vis the Palestinians would be even better. Our present course is leading toward disaster.
The present changes in the international and the regional scenes can make a change of course possible.
Let's help President Obama change American policy, instead of using AIPAC to terrorize Congress into blindly supporting an outdated policy toward Iran and Palestine. Let's extend cautious feelers toward Russia. Let's change our public stance, as the leaders of Iran are doing with such success.
Are they cleverer than us?

• Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and former member of Knesset.
Email:
avnery@actcom.co.il

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[batavia-news] German court orders Muslim girl to join swim class

 

 

German court orders Muslim girl to join swim class



Associated Press

Published — Wednesday 11 September 2013

 

BERLIN: A court in Germany has ruled that a Muslim girl cannot be excused from mixed-sex swimming lessons on the grounds of religious belief.
The 13-year-old girl from Frankfurt had argued that the sight of bare-chested male pupils breached her religious modesty.
She also claimed that accepting the school's offer that she herself could wear a full-body "burkini" swimsuit in the pool would expose her to discrimination among her peers.
But Germany's Federal Administrative Court ruled Wednesday that it was reasonable to compromise between the girl's religious freedom and the state's duty to educate its citizens.
The Deutshe Press Agentur (DPA) news agency reported that the unnamed girl's father said before the verdict that he would accept the ruling.
About 5 percent of Germany's population of 80 million is Muslim

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[batavia-news] The irony on who speaks for Islam

 

 
Saturday, September 28, 2013
 

VIEW : The irony on who speaks for Islam — Qasim Rashid

As survivors painfully clean their bloodstained churches, mosques, and malls, we're all once again left asking

How ironic.

I stayed up all night writing a rejoinder to an anti-Islam politician who insists that Islam is a violent faith. Instead, I'm met by Al-Shabab who brutally murder 59 non-Muslims in Nairobi, Kenya, the Taliban who blow up a church and kill 85 Christians in Peshawar, Pakistan, and the Pakistan police who deface and destroy three Ahmadi Muslim prayer places in Sialkot, Pakistan.

Each of these terrorists has decided to write his own bigoted narrative on Islam. The terrorists never asked for my opinion — much less approval — but proceeded as heroes in their own cowardly minds. As survivors painfully clean their bloodstained churches, mosques, and malls, we're all once again left asking the questions: is the narrative these terrorists fight the right one, or is someone willing to right this wrong and write the right narrative on Islam?

I'll give it a go.

I could tell you about Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) written pact with all Christians that said: "Christians are my citizens and by God I stand against all that displeases them." I could tell you about the time Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) stood up for a funeral procession, and when someone objected that the deceased was a Jew, Muhammad rebuked, "Was he not human? Did he not have a soul?" I could tell you about Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) rules of war in which he forbade offensive attacks, forbade killing women, children, the elderly, priests, male non-combatants, destroying trees, burning anything, or even harming animals.

But telling you all this won't do much. You're not the one blowing up churches and malls, defacing mosques and minarets. It's the terrorists who need this education. So instead, let me show you, and more importantly them, what Islam actually is, especially in response to the violence we've seen these past few days.

The fact is I feel no different today than I felt on May 28, 2010 in Lahore, when the Taliban brutally murdered 86 of my fellow Ahmadis and one Christian in broad daylight. Ahmadis face brutal and ongoing persecution. As a result, and as with the Peshawar Church attack, Pakistani police cowardly watched during the May 28 Lahore attack.

You may have heard about that Lahore attack but what you probably didn't hear is the response of the worldwide head of the Ahmadiyya community, Mirza Masroor Ahmad. He vehemently condemned the attack, but more importantly forbade Ahmadis from any form of retaliation. Rather, as one of the leading religious leaders who promote peace, he admonished the world's millions of Ahmadis to engage in prayer and to further increase our service to humanity.

So what did we do? We listened and showed what Islam actually is. We showed that Islam's world record that 200 American Ahmadi youth set last weekend as we funded, purchased, built, and donated 600 food packages to the hungry to affirm our place in the Guinness Book of Records. Islam is the 30,000 plus blood donations, that has saved up to 90,000 lives, that the Muslims for Life blood drive has collected since 2011 to honour 9/11 victims. Islam is the Tahir Heart Institute, a state of the art cardiac centre and hospital in Pakistan that offers free medical aid to any person of any faith, or of no faith. It is one of dozens of free Ahmadi-run hospitals just like it worldwide. Islam is Humanity First, a worldwide disaster relief non-profit, almost entirely volunteer-run.

As the Muslim world traverses one corrupt leader to the next, righteous hearts are naturally inclined to the beautiful message that Mirza Masroor Ahmad espouses. His is a message that champions universal freedom of conscience for all people of all faiths and for all people of no faith. His is a message that spans chapters in over 200 nations worldwide with tens of millions of members. His is a message of an Ahmadi community that has existed for 124 years without a single act of violence. And on May 28 as we painfully cleaned the blood off our mosque walls, not a single Ahmadi retaliated or responded negatively. Instead, we prayed and — as described above — further increased our service to humanity.

This is the true Islam I wish to show you. This is the right narrative we strive to write.

Yet, despite Mirza Masroor Ahmad's message of peace, tolerance, and pluralism, while he stays up day and night insisting Islam is not a violent faith, he is forbidden under penalty of death from stepping foot in many Muslim-majority nations, Pakistan included. And when I reflect over Pakistan's dire need for a peaceful religious leader and their outright rejection of the one man who can offer it, the same two words come to mind.

How ironic.

The writer is a national spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Community and author of The Wrong Kind of Muslim, which chronicles the persecution of Pakistan's religious minorities. He tweets at @MuslimIQ

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[batavia-news] Are Christians, Pakistanis?

 

 
-Illustration by Faraz Aamer Khan
-Illustration by Faraz Aamer Khan
"Stop killing Christians in Pakistan, Pakistan," shouted a group of 20 people outside a New York hotel where Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was addressing the Pakistani community.

Since most of them were Christians, they were not asked to come in. Are Christians, Pakistanis? It is still debatable.

"We will build a road from Islamabad to Abbottabad" drilling a hole through the Margallas," said the prime minister. "An underground, linking Rawalpindi to Islamabad, a train from Islamabad to Muzzaffarabad, through Murree."

He paused to breath and added: "Another highway will also be built, linking Karachi to Peshawar. Yet another, linking to Gilgit Baltistan."

Now the prime minister was fully excited, so there was no stopping.

"These roads will not terminate at our borders. One will go to Termez, linking us to Central Asia. Another road, and a train, will link Havelian to China," he declared.

Some of these roads will snake across KPK and Punjab, and link us to India, Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Now, if you are busy building roads across South and Central Asia, touching the Middle East and eyeing Southeast Asia, you obviously cannot hear less than 20 people chanting across the hotel.

But they also were Pakistanis – even if we do not acknowledge them, so they were equally stubborn and were not about to go away.

-Photo by Victor Gill.
-Photo by Victor Gill.

"We want religious freedom," they shouted. "Stop killing Christians. Stop burning churches."

A man, who obviously had a greater claim to Pakistaniyet being a Muslim, walked up to them and said: "We share your grief but you should not protest here."

"And why not?" asked a protester.

"The prime minister is here and it looks bad. We should not make him look bad," said the man.

"Looks bad? They are killing our family members and you are worried about looking bad," said another protester who said his relatives had also been killed in attacks on Pakistani Christians.

Earlier in the evening, two blue-blood Pakistani Muslims were walking up and down the Madison Avenue, looking for a massage parlour. They did not find one, so they went to a barbers' shop.

A strange shop, it was. The man who shaved was a Jew from Tashkent. The barber was an Uzbek Muslim and the woman who shampooed another was a Tajik.

"You see, we are all from the former Soviet Union and that binds us," said the Tajik. "We all speak the Russian language too."

This was not acceptable to the two blue-blood Muslims.

"Islam does not bind you?" asked one of them.

"And the Arabic language, don't you speak Arabic?" asked another.

Both eagerly reminded the Central Asians that as Muslims they were their brothers.

-Photo by Victor Gill.
-Photo by Victor Gill.

"Stop killing Christians," chanted the Christians perched on a pavement outside the hotel where the prime minister was speaking. That they were Pakistanis was not important or was it? Did it make them the brothers of Pakistani Muslims?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Inside the hotel, some prominent Pakistanis met the prime minister and gave him a memorandum.

"Release daughter of the nation, Dr Aafia Siddiqui," said the memorandum.

"And what about the daughters, sisters and mothers killed in last week's blasts in Peshawar that killed 81 Christians?" asked yet another protester.

"What about them? They were Christians, right?" asked a blue-blood male.

One Pakistani, whose blood was not as blue as those of the others, offered dinners to the protesters.

"Don't," said a blue-blood. "They are against Pakistan."

"But how?" asked the not-so-blue. "They are only protesting against a gross injustice."

"A gross injustice? The terrorists have also killed more than 40,000 Muslims," said the blue-blood.

"Yes, we regret those deaths too," said a Christian protester, showing a placard that said: "End terrorism, protect all."

"We did not kill them. The killers were also Muslims," said another.

-Photo by Victor Gill.
-Photo by Victor Gill.

A third Christian reminded the blue-blood that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had also condemned the Peshawar blasts. Although he did not use words like Christian or church in his speech to the UN General Assembly, he did mention them later.

In his address to the Pakistani community on Friday evening, he did say that the terrorists had targeted a church and most of the victims were Christians.

He also said that it was a great injustice and that nothing could justify killing innocent people.

At the barbers' shop, two blue-blood Muslims tipped two Central Asians and came out, noting that some of them were Muslims too but were not fully aware of their Muslim identity.

"If everybody is saying that we have made mistakes, we must have made mistakes," said the prime minister

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[batavia-news] Nanik's fate renews pressure on zoo

 

ref: Untuk melihat video footage, click :
 
 

Nanik's fate renews pressure on zoo

Date  September 27, 2013

Political infighting has stymied a bid to improve life for Surabaya's animals. Michael Bachelard reports.

Orangutans eating rubbish in Surbaya Zoo

Despite revelations by Fairfax Media earlier in the year, the animals of Surbaya Zoo still suffer.

A young orang-utan died prematurely on Saturday after a short life spent in the squalid environment of Indonesia's Surabaya zoo. Her death will put more pressure on the City of Surabaya, which now manages the notorious zoo, to upgrade facilities which international NGOs have identified as archaic and cruel.

But zoo workers and expert Tony Sumampauw say that, instead of accelerating improvements to animal welfare at the zoo, the city government-appointed managers have halted them and concentrated instead on painting cages and tending the gardens.

An autopsy report shows orang-utan Nanik died last Saturday afternoon with liver problems, intestinal tumours, hepatitis and pneumonia at just 10 years old, a fraction of the 50-year lifespan expected of an animal in captivity in a decent zoo.

Sumatran tiger Melani is now being cared for in a Bogor safari park.

Sumatran tiger Melani is now being cared for in a Bogor safari park. Photo: Michael Bachelard

She had grown sick after years of being kept in dark and humid colonial-era enclosures where the zoo's orang-utans are still forced to spend the night.

There are no current plans to upgrade those enclosures.

Nanik died just a week after the city's mayor, Tri Rismaharini, known as Risma, told Fairfax Media there would be no more deaths under her management.

Nanik before she died.

Nanik before she died. Photo: Michael Bachelard

The historic zoo in Indonesia's second largest city has become a byword for the poor treatment of captive animals in Indonesia. After a Fairfax Media story in May highlighted the sad plight of Sumatran tiger Melani, a petition signed by more than 100,000 people globally called for the ''cruelty of Surabaya zoo'' to stop.

But political infighting over the zoo's management continued and in July the city government of Surabaya seized control, ousting temporary managers who had included Mr Sumampauw, the highly regarded head of the Indonesian Zoological Parks Association, as a consultant.

Since then, a push to reduce overcrowding and update cages has stalled. Offers of help from international NGOs have also been stonewalled by the new management team.

Sumatran elephant in small enclosure at Surabaya Zoo.

A confined Sumatran elephant at Surabaya Zoo. Photo: Michael Bachelard

Ms Risma says animal welfare is a high priority and the city had commissioned a university-run audit of the zoo, which has not yet reported.

But Sybelle Foxcroft, from Australian NGO Cee4life, has visited the zoo and tried to get an audience with the mayor, adding that, if Surabaya allowed international experts in, ''help would be pouring in from all over the world''. Those offers have so far been rejected.

In an interview with Fairfax Media, Ms Risma defended the city's takeover of the zoo, saying ''the temporary management was worse'' and that, ''people can see for themselves that the zoo is getting better''. ''The test is that the dead and lost animals only happened under the temporary management. I can guarantee there will be no dead or lost animals under this management,'' she said.

Her assurances did not save Nanik. Just 10 days before her death, Fairfax Media had filmed the orang-utan chewing on some of the garbage that still litters the zoo's grounds. An autopsy report shows the animal's liver was yellow with white spots, her kidney also had yellow spots and she had gastric tumours which blocked her intestinal tract.

Mr Sumampauw said the orang-utan enclosure where the animals were kept at night was damp and had been dark until his temporary management had installed skylights. At one stage in the past, a keeper with tuberculosis had also slept in the enclosure.

A staff member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the animals were still put there and Ms Risma did not want to fix the Dutch-era enclosure ''because it's of cultural heritage value''.

''We'd like to maintain the old cages and we are evaluating which animals are suitable to put in them,'' Ms Risma said.

On a recent visit it was clear to Fairfax Media that, under the new management, a number of enclosures had been freshly painted, the amount of rubbish greatly reduced and the gardens were well tended.

A giraffe, Moritz, which was donated under the temporary management from Berlin Zoo, is living apparently happily in an enclosure built especially for him.

The zoo achieved international notoriety in 2012 when its previous giraffe died with a 30-kilogram ball of plastic bags in its stomach.

But a number of projects to renovate enclosures, including those containing the Barbary sheep and the elephants, have stalled.

Ms Risma has also vetoed the temporary management's policy of trading overcrowded animals out of the zoo. ''It is not overcrowded,'' Ms Risma said, adding that there was vacant space around the zoo which could be used to expand.

She has also denied the zoo needs the 100 billion rupiah ($A10 million) funding injection recommended by Mr Sumampauw, saying the funds in the city budget are adequate.

Melani, an emaciated Sumatran tiger whose digestive system was wrecked by a life eating formalin-contaminated meat at the zoo, is now being cared for at Mr Sumampauw's state-of-the-art Taman Safari park in Bogor.

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[batavia-news] Israel reserves right to act if deal with Iran fails, says Likud MK

 

 
 

Israel reserves right to act if deal with Iran fails, says Likud MK

Tzachi Hanegbi warns upcoming period is fateful for future of nuclear program, says Netanyahu to call for increased sanctions in UN address this week

September 28, 2013, 12:07 pm 1
Tzachi Hanegbi talks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 2010 Knesset committee meeting (photo credit:  Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Tzachi Hanegbi talks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 2010 Knesset committee meeting (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash
 

The upcoming period is fateful for the Iranian nuclear program, and if an agreement with the Islamic Republic is not reached soon, Israel will take the necessary steps to defend itself and remove the threat, said Tzachi Hanegbi, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party and a member of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

 

In an interview with Israel Radio Saturday, Hanegbi warned that Israel has made it clear that it reserves the right to defend itself in the face of the nuclear threat from Iran, and that even US President Barack Obama acknowledged this right.

 

"Obama knows that speeches end and that if no real solution is found to the nuclear dispute, Israel — as it has said in the past — will take the necessary measures to defend itself.," said Hanegbi

"The military option is definitely still on the table," he added.

A longtime lawmaker, Hanegbi previously served in a number of ministerial posts, including justice minister and intelligence and nuclear affairs minister.

He said that there exists a wide gap between world powers and Iran in the nuclear race which he described as one "between a powerful, ambitious athlete with his eye on the prize and a fat, disunited athlete who is panting away behind him.".

Hanegbi also echoed statements made by Netanyahu recently regarding Iranian President Hasan Rouhani's real authority in bringing the nuclear dispute to a close, calling Rouhani's powers limited and subject to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — the person really in charge of Iran's nuclear policy.

Hanegbi called for an increase in sanctions on Iran, saying now was the perfect time to up the pressure. He added that the sanctions are what led Iran to voice its desire to negotiate with world powers.

"The sanctions have affected them greatly. They are now trying to smile to ease them. And we should tell them that now is the time for more pressure because we understand that the sanctions were more effective than we had hoped," he said, adding that "this is what Netahyahu has said and, I imagine, will say in his UN address [ to the General Assembly this week]," he said.

Earlier this year, Hanegbi warned that Israel should make a decision on what action to take by 2014.

"We're getting closer and closer to the point of no return," Hanegbi said at a symposium at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in May. "Decisions should be made this year, no later than the beginning of 2014. And I believe that Israel's future cannot be dependent on others, even on our best allies."

Various Israeli media reports on Friday indicated Iran was very close to the bomb — or even had one already, according to a report in the Maariv daily.

Hanegbi's statements come a day after the US and Iran took a dramatic step toward ending more than three decades of estrangement when Obama phoned Rouhani and they agreed to work toward resolving the dispute over global suspicions that Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

The last direct conversation between the leaders of the two countries was in 1979, before the Iranian Revolution toppled the pro-US shah and brought Islamic militants to power.

Israeli officials have repeatedly derided Iran's seeming willingness recently to engage in talks as a charm offensive aimed at deflecting pressure from its nuclear program. Rouhani has said he is ready for an agreement in the coming months.

On Wednesday, Communications and Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan acknowledged a growing sense that Israel was increasingly isolated in its tough line on Iran.

Erdan said it now fell to Netanyahu to refocus international attention "on the facts" behind the rhetoric, which made plain that Iran's bid for nuclear weaponry had not been slowed, much less halted. "The centrifuges are spinning faster," Erdan told Israel Radio. "There's also a plutonium core."

US Secretary of State John Kerry said this week that Iran and the US could reach a deal on Tehran's nuclear program within 3 to 6 months or sooner, amid a whirl of diplomatic activity.

Kerry told CBS news, however, that the US would not remove punishing sanctions imposed by the West until Washington was sure Tehran was complying with world demands to curb its nuclear activity.

"The United States is not going to lift the sanctions until it is clear that a very verifiable, accountable, transparent process is in place, whereby we know exactly what Iran is going be doing with its program," Kerry told the US news station.

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[batavia-news] Kerry, Iranian foreign minister Zarif hold private meeting on sidelines of nuclear talks + Iran reiterates call for nuclear-weapons-free zone in Mideast

 

 

Kerry, Iranian foreign minister Zarif hold private meeting on sidelines of nuclear talks

Jason DeCrow/AP - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at U.N. headquarters Thursday.

UNITED NATIONS — The top diplomats from the United States and Iran met privately Thursday on the sidelines of a larger negotiating session about Iran's disputed nuclear program, marking the highest-level discussion in years between two nations that have been firm adversaries for more than three decades.

Both U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called their talks productive and constructive. The group of nations that have negotiated intermittently with Iran over its nuclear ambitions agreed to meet again in about three weeks in Switzerland for what Kerry called more-substantive work.

 

"I think all of us were pleased that Foreign Minister Zarif came and made a presentation to us, which was very different in tone and very different in the vision that he held out, with respect to the possibilities for the future," Kerry told reporters.

Kerry did not detail what Zarif had proposed but said further sessions would seek to "find a way to answer the questions that people have about Iran's nuclear program."

Zarif, speaking in English, followed Kerry to the podium and said he welcomed the opportunity to try to address international doubts about Iran's nuclear intentions.

"We hope to be able to make progress toward resolving this issue in a timely fashion based on respecting the rights of the Iranian people to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," Zarif said, "and at the same time making sure that there is no concern at the international level that Iran's nuclear program is anything but peaceful."

The United States, Israel and several other nations have strong suspicions that Iran is using its development of a domestic nuclear energy program as a cover to amass the means and know-how to build a nuclear weapon.

The U.N. Security Council — and separately the United States and European Union — has imposed strict economic sanctions on Iran for failing to comply with past demands for information and assurances, and the new Iranian leadership is making a case for easing those crippling measures.

"Sanctions are counter­productive," Zarif said. "As we move forward there has to be removal of sanctions and in the end­game a total lifting of all sanctions."

No U.S. secretary of state had met directly with an Iranian counterpart since 2007, and that session amounted only to pleasantries at a dinner.

Kerry and Zarif sat beside each other during the main meeting and met with only a handful of aides for several minutes afterward. They emerged separately to speak to reporters.

"Needless to say, one meeting and a change in tone, which was welcome, doesn't answer those questions yet," Kerry said. "We hope very, very much, all of us, that we can get the concrete results that will answer the outstanding questions."

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http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/111093-iran-reiterates-call-for-nuclear-weapons-free-zone-in-mideast-

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c_330_235_16777215_0___images_stories_edim_609067-HassanRouhaniAFP-1380067063-302-640x480.jpgTEHRAN – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking on Wednesday on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, reiterated the group's and Iran's position that Israel must join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in order to bring about a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported.
 
Addressing a UN nuclear disarmament conference on the sidelines of the General Assembly, Rouhani, who is the current leader of NAM, said, "Almost four decades of international efforts to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East have regrettably failed."
 
"Urgent practical steps towards the establishment of such a zone are necessary," he said. "Israel, the only non-party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in this region, should join thereto without any further delay."
 
Rouhani said that "all nuclear activities in the region should be subject to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) comprehensive safeguards."
 
Israel is widely believed to possess the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons.
 
The idea of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons was first codified in the 1991 UN Security Council ceasefire resolution that ended the first Persian Gulf War.
 
NAM, begun in 1961 by mostly developing nations who didn't want to take sides in the Cold War, is an influential bloc within the UN General Assembly. Iran became chair of the movement for three years in 2012.
 
EP/PA

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