The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bush turns to diplomacy to deter Iran

AP, Washington

While keeping the military option on the table, the Bush administration is counting heavily on diplomacy including direct talks with Tehran as the best way to wean Iran away from building nuclear weapons.

Iran's missile tests evidently included one long-range weapon that could devastate Israel and American military facilities in the region if fitted with a nuclear warhead. The tests brought a relatively calm response from the U.S., at least initially, with the White House calling on Iran to refrain from any more tests.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the tests were more evidence of the need for the U.S. missile defense system. Rice sharpened her language later Thursday, warning Iran that the United States will not back down in the face of Iranian threats against Israel. The Pentagon, meanwhile, studied intelligence to try to determine exactly what Iran launched and to gauge its missile capabilities.

Testifying to congressional committees, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns said the United States would go ahead jointly with Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to promote a deal to trade one suspension for another.

That is, if Iran suspended uranium enrichment, harsh sanctions pressing on the Iranian economy would be suspended as well.

Also, Rice would join officials from the five other countries in direct talks with the Iranians.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that should be followed by one-on-one talks between the United States and Iran.

Burns did not respond directly to the Delaware Democrat's proposal, but he stressed through a long day of testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees that "we are committed fully to using all diplomatic tools."

The seasoned American diplomat who holds the No. 3 post in the State Department also recited the now-familiar warning that "we view force as an option, but a last resort."

However, he stressed the gains Iran could score by suspending enrichment, which Burns said Iran has not yet perfected. These include supplies of civilian nuclear fuel, agricultural assistance and peaceful exchanges of students.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, will meet with Iranian officials within a few weeks, Burns said. He said an exact date for the pivotal session had not yet been set.

British Defense Secretary Des Browne, here for talks with Gates and White House officials, declined to predict Thursday whether the diplomatic initiative would succeed.

At a news conference, Browne said, "The international community must stand together."

"We need to find a way of engaging with those people with a balance of carrots and sticks," he said.

The stress on diplomacy illustrates how far the administration has traveled after stiffly resisting all but occasional and limited diplomatic talks with Iran on Afghanistan and a few other issues.

But the potential significance of the missile tests was not ignored. Burns called them "disturbing and provocative" and told the House committee: "Iran reminded us again today that it is moving ahead with a missile system which could be used to deliver a weapon."

Rice, traveling in Sofia, Bulgaria, called Wednesday's tests "evidence that the missile threat is not an imaginary one."

It will remain unclear how significant the tests were until they are fully analyzed, said Defense Department officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing assessment publicly.

Analysts said an early assessment showed that U.S. tracking systems detected seven missile launches, including a version of Tehran's longer-range Shahab-3, which officials have said has a range of 1,250 miles. Intelligence analysts were studying data from radar, satellites and other tracking systems to determine the distance it traveled, look at its accuracy and so on, one official said.

Gates said he hadn't been informed whether the test showed a capability beyond what the U.S. already has seen from Iran.

Nevertheless, he said, "I think this certainly addresses the doubts raised by the Russians that the Iranians won't have a longer-range ballistic missile for 10 years to 20 years.

"The fact is they've just tested a missile that has pretty extended range," Gates said.

Meanwhile, estimates vary on how long it would take Iran to build a bomb.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a report last year that Iran shelved an active weapons-development program years ago, a finding that undercut the administration's claim that Iran was using a public energy development program to hide a secret drive for a bomb.

An unclassified summary of the report, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, said Iran could resume a weapons program and might evade detection if it did.

Iran expects no US or Israeli attack

Reuters, Tehran

Iran's foreign minister said on Saturday he believed neither the United States nor Israel would want to get entangled in a new Middle East crisis and attack the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.

The comments by Manouchehr Mottaki came a few days after Iranian missile tests heightened regional tension and helped send world oil prices to new record levels.

Mottaki told the official IRNA news agency that Iran's response would be "firm and pounding" if its two arch-foes launched strikes against the country. But, he added: "Of course, the Zionist regime and the U.S. do not possess such capacities to want to involve themselves in new crises."

"The Zionist regime is still involved in the after-shocks of the war with Lebanon," Mottaki said, referring to Israel's inconclusive 2006 war with Hezbollah guerrillas.

"And the U.S. still does not possess the capacity to enter another crisis in the Persian Gulf region."

Iran says its nuclear program is aimed only at generating electricity. Western nations and Israel fear the world's fourth-largest oil exporter is seeking to build nuclear bombs.

Washington has said it wants diplomacy to end the nuclear row but has not ruled out military action should that fail.

Israel, long assumed to have its own atomic arsenal, has sworn to prevent Iran from emerging as a nuclear-armed power.

Last month it staged an air force exercise that stoked speculation about a possible assault on Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran has vowed to strike back at Tel Aviv and U.S. interests and shipping if it is attacked. Tehran says missiles fired during Revolutionary Guards wargames on Wednesday included ones that could hit Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

"The recent maneuver t and the firing of indigenously produced missiles was the display of the Islamic Republic of Iran's capabilities and the scientists and innovators of our country," Mottaki said.

Asked how concerned President George W. Bush's administration was about the Iranian test-firings, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters in Washington on Friday: "I would just characterize it as continued Iranian defiance of international obligations and further isolating its people."

Perino said it would "re-strengthen" the international community's resolve in the standoff with Iran, but she also stressed Washington's aim of reaching a diplomatic solution.

Analysts say any U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran would be limited to air strikes, rather than a full-scale attack with U.S. ground forces, which are tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They say Iran could respond with unconventional tactics, such as deploying small craft to attack ships, or using allies in the area to strike at U.S. or Israeli interests.

Sudan President expected to face war crime charges

AP, United Nations

UN officials and diplomats said the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday charging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur.

The court based in The Hague, Netherlands, said the prosecutor will present evidence of the war crimes in Darfur to judges Monday and one or more new suspects will be named. But court officials refused Friday to identify any of the potential new suspects.The U.N. officials and diplomats said they expect lesser charges of helping orchestrate genocide and participating in crimes against humanity to be brought against Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A spokesman for Sudan's president dismissed the investigation and said his government refuses to hand over any suspects. The court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, has earlier clearly indicated he is aiming for the top of the Sudanese government, accusing them of sponsoring the janjaweed militias who have unleashed a reign of terror on Darfur.

He said last month that Sudan's "whole state apparatus" is implicated in crimes against humanity in the troubled Darfur region, where up to 300,000 people have died since the conflict began in early 2003.

The court in The Hague is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. An indictment of al-Bashir would mark the first time the tribunal has charged a sitting head of state with war crimes.

But there is precedent: Other U.N.-created international war crime tribunals charged Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian President Charles Taylor with war crimes while they were still in office. Milosevic died in his cell in March 2006, shortly before the end of his genocide trail. Taylor is currently on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone.

They also could complicate matters for the United Nations in its attempt to bring peace to Darfur while also seeking justice for war crimes. The charges could bring a backlash from Sudan's government, which has already made it difficult for international aid workers and U.N.-African Union peacekeepers to do their work.

"If the procedure is going the way it seems it's going to go, of course we have to be aware of the effects it would have on the ground," France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said Friday of the court's expected action.

Threats to the peacekeepers - currently about 9,000 soldiers and police officers - were underscored this week by an ambush that killed seven and injured 19, one of the deadliest attacks on U.N. forces in recent years.

But some court experts anticipating the charges against Sudan's leaders say the benefits outweigh the risks.

"If the prosecutor requests an arrest warrant against the president of Sudan for genocide or crimes against humanity or both, it will a huge step in limiting the impunity for horrific acts committed against innocent people in Dafur," said Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program for Human Rights Watch, a research and advocacy group.

"It would send the message that no one is above the law for these kinds of crimes including a sitting president," he said.

Sudan does not recognize the court's authority and has for months refused to arrest and send for trial a government minister and rebel leader charged with atrocities by Moreno-Ocampo last year.

NKorea pledges to fully disable nuclear plant by October

Reuters, Beijing

North Korea pledged on Saturday to complete steps to disable its nuclear facilities by the end of October, at six-country talks aimed at disarming the communist state in return for aid and better diplomatic relations.

International envoys could not agree on a guideline to verify the North's account of its own nuclear activities made last month but mandated a working group to draw up a detailed protocol on the facilities to visit for inspections and who will take part.

"The protocol gets very complex, but it's not just saying what verifiers will have a right to do-that is, to visit sites-but it also spells out what they can when they visit the sites," chief U.S. envoy Christopher Hill told reporters.

The impoverished North will get all 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel oil by the same date as promised under a disarmament deal with South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, a joint statement issued at the end of three days of talks said.

The talks by six countries aimed at coaxing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program are the first in nine months and come after Pyongyang produced last month an inventory of nuclear activities, one of the steps pledged under the deal.

The United States was seeking a standard package of measures to verify North Korea's own account of its nuclear program, its envoy said earlier on Saturday as negotiators try to move ahead on disarming the communist state.

"We want basically standard kinds of package of how you verify this type of nuclear program," Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Hill told reporters. "We're not asking for anything unusual."

South Korean officials said while there was progress at talks on providing energy aid to the impoverished state in return for steps to eventually dismantle its nuclear program, differences remained between the North and the rest on how to verify the North's declaration.

The negotiators are seeking to push forward a disarmament deal that saw Pyongyang freeze and begin disabling its Yongbyon nuclear plant.

In exchange for those steps and for handing over last month the declaration originally due at the end of 2007, North Korea has been receiving much-needed energy aid and was also promised improved diplomatic relations with the United States and Japan.

US lawmakers condemn crackdown on China’s minority Muslims

AFP, Washington

US lawmakers on Friday "strongly condemned" what they called Beijing's harsh pre-Olympic crackdown in China's Muslim-populated far northwest Xinjiang region.

The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited "credible" reports about a July 9 conviction in a closed trial of 15 minority Muslim Uighurs on terrorism charges that led to "the immediate execution of two" of them.Three others were given suspended death sentences and the remaining 10 received life imprisonment, it said. These are "abuses of due process and rule of law," said caucus co-chairmen Democrat Jim McGovern and Republican Frank Wolf.

On the same day, they said, police in Urumchi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, reportedly killed five Uighur men who authorities claimed were part of a 15-member criminal gang allegedly trained for "holy war."

"The Chinese government should not be permitted to use the 'war on terror' or Olympic security as a front to persecute the Uighurs," Wolf said. "These trials' appear to be no more than a ploy to oppress religious freedom and ethnic minority groups," he said.

He called on the Chinese government to uphold the commitments made to the international community when awarded the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games and improve their human rights record.

"To this day, executions take place immediately after sentencing, trials are totally closed off to any observers and still happen in total secrecy," McGovern said. Amnesty says Xinjiang is the only place in China where political prisoners are executed and subject to special forms of torture believed not used in other parts of the country.

The Uighur American Association in a statement urged Beijing to provide evidence to the international community to back claims of criminal charges leveled against the 15 Uighurs.

"The experience of Uighurs has shown that the Beijing regime is prone to manipulating threats of religious extremism and terrorism in order to crack down on peaceful dissent," said association president Rebiya Kadeer.

Kadeer was a millionaire businesswoman and a high-profile Uighur political prisoner who became a symbol of the struggle of her eight-million-strong community.

She was deported to the United States following her release in March 2005 from six years of detention in Beijing. Her two sons are in jail.

Chinese police have this year detained 82 suspected terrorists in Xinjiang who they said were planning to attack the Beijing Olympics, state media reported on Thursday.

The 82 belonged to five groups that "allegedly plotted sabotage against the Beijing Olympics," Xinhua news agency reported, citing police.

It was the first time that Chinese officials had given a total number of suspects detained in a series of raids this year.

Japan to test missile interceptor in US

AP, Tokyo

Japan will conduct its first test-firing of a land-to-air missile interceptor in the United States in September to ensure that a missile shield for the Japanese capital will function properly if it falls under attack, the Defense Ministry said.

The PAC-3 Patriot interceptor will be fired at White Sands Missile Range in the state of New Mexico during the week of Sept. 15, according to a ministry statement obtained Saturday.

The test comes as Japan and the U.S. accelerate their joint missile defense program following North Korea's missile and nuclear tests in 2006.

The planned test "aims to confirm the functions of the Patriot system that has been upgraded with ballistic missile defense capabilities," the ministry said.

Japan has deployed four PAC-3 systems - each including several launchers, a radar vehicle and a control station - around Tokyo to protect the capital region, including the country's largest naval base in nearby Yokosuka, also the homeport of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

Japan has been aggressively augmenting its missile defense capabilities amid concerns about a possible threat from North Korea.

Japan plans to deploy the PAC-3 defense system at several more bases around the country by March 2011.

Georgia seeks urgent UN meeting on tension with Russia

AFP, Tbilisi

A senior Georgian official called Friday for an urgent UN Security Council meeting amid rocketing tension with Russia over the fate of separatist provinces within Georgian borders.

Russia separately demanded that Georgia pull its troops out of a gorge within one of the provinces, Abkhazia, and that Tbilisi sign an agreement renouncing any use of force in resolving the region's status.

Russia and Georgia each blame the other for fomenting unrest in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and each has recently appealed to the United Nations to help lower the temperature in the region. "Georgia demands the convocation of a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting" on the conflicts, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze told Rustavi 2 television in Tbilisi on Friday.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said that a 15-year impasse over the provinces can "only be found through an end to provocations and the immediate signing of documents on renouncing the use of force."

In the case of Abkhazia, the pledge "must be accompanied by the complete withdrawal of Georgian troops from the upper Kodori Gorge," the ministry said. The Kodori Gorge, located 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the Abkhaz separatist capital of Sukhumi, is the only part of Abkhazia under Georgian control. The moves Friday by Georgia and Russia came a day after Moscow admitted that it had flown warplanes earlier this week over South Ossetia, an admission followed immediately by Georgia's recall of its ambassador to Moscow.

Russia said it had conducted sorties over South Ossetia after receiving reports that Georgia was preparing a military operation in the province to free four Georgian soldiers who were arrested there earlier in the week.

It said the appearance of the fighter jets headed off imminent "bloodshed" in the province.

Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Techelashvili, fresh from meetings in Tbilisi with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appeared to reject Russia's explanation.

"Moscow has committed an act of aggression against Georgia," she said Thursday.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia have enjoyed de facto independence from Tbilisi following separate bloody conflicts in the early 1990s, in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The two provinces are tacitly supported by Russia, but their independence is not formally recognized by any state. Both regions argue that they are not Georgian and that they have a right to self-determination.

Iraqis protest security deal with US

AP, Baghdad

Hundreds of followers of a radical Shiite cleric in Iraq have taken to the streets to protest a proposed security agreement between Iraq and the United States.

The supporters of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr say the proposed deal would lead to a permanent U.S. occupation of Iraq.

They held their protest Friday in the southern city of Kufa and shouted slogans such as: "No to America."

Such demonstrations have become a weekly event, usually following prayers held in local mosques on Fridays.

Al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, recently suffered a setback when the U.S.-backed Iraqi army won control of the Baghdad district of Sadr City. The militia had dominated the area since 2003.

18 Tiger rebels killed in Sri Lanka

AFP, Colombo

Sri Lanka's defence ministry said Saturday troops had destroyed Tamil Tiger bunkers and killed 18 rebels in fighting in the north of the island.

The military put its own losses at 20 wounded during Friday's clashes centered around Mannar, Jaffna, Vavuniya and Weli Oya.

On Friday, the military accused the rebels of shooting at a passenger bus in the southeastern region of Buttala, killing four people and wounding 26.

Fighting is centred around the north, but the rebels routinely carry out attacks against military, economic and civilian targets elsewhere on the island.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam did not comment on the bus attack or the fighting in the north.

Israeli jets use Iraqi airspace to practice Iran strike: Website

AFP, Baghdad

An Iraqi website has claimed that Israeli warplanes have been using Iraqi airspace to practice for possible bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities.

Nahrainnet.com, quoting unnamed sources in the Iraqi defence ministry, said that for the past month Israel has been using US bases in Iraq to conduct overflights. Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari dismissed the report on Friday. "We have no information about Israeli jets using Iraqi airspace for rehearsals," he told AFP. In Jerusalem, meanwhile, an Israeli military spokesman told AFP he was aware of the report and said, "I have no information on this."

The US military did not comment on the report.

Nahrainnet.com, a news portal, said the defence ministry sources were told by retired army officers that Israeli jets had been entering Iraqi airspace from Jordan and landing at an airport in Haditha in the western province of Anbar.

The report said its sources estimated that should the Israeli jets take off from the American bases in Iraq it would take them no more than five minutes to reach Iran's nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

Iran tests prove missile shield not needed, Russia says

AP, Moscow

Russia said on Friday Iran's missile tests showed there is no military justification for U.S. plans to deploy missile defences in eastern Europe because Tehran's rockets cannot travel that far.

Iran this week test-fired missiles which it said were capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Washington says the shield in Europe is needed to defend against any missile attacks from countries such as Iran. Russia says the U.S. plans are a direct threat to its security.

"The tests in Iran have only confirmed that Iran at the moment has rockets with a range of up to 2,000 km (1,243 miles). That confirms what we have said before," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news briefing. "That is that the current idea of deploying a U.S. t missile shield in Europe, with its parameters, is not needed to monitor and react to these particular rockets with this range."

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"We continue to be convinced of the invented nature of discussions about the Iranian rocket threat as a motive for the deployment of the missile shield in Europe," Lavrov said after talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Salaheddin Al-Bashir.

The United States and European powers suspect Iran is trying develop a nuclear weapon, using its civilian nuclear programme as a cover. Tehran denies any such intention and says its nuclear programme is exclusively to generate electricity.

The United States has refused to rule out military action against Iran over the nuclear issue, although its says it is committed to finding a diplomatic solution.

Lavrov said negotiations, not threats, were the only way to resolve the dispute.

Lebanon forms unity govt with Hezbollah

Reuters, Beirut

Lebanon ended weeks of wrangling on Friday and formed a unity government in which Hezbollah and its allies hold effective veto power, as agreed under a deal that ended a paralyzing political conflict in the country.

The decisive say granted to the former opposition led by Hezbollah, an ally of Damascus, shows that Syria has succeeded in wrenching back some political leverage in Lebanon, where it was the main power broker until its troops left in 2005. The birth of the government, the first under newly elected President Michel Suleiman, should close a long political crisis that had threatened to plunge Lebanon into a new civil war.

But it also marks the start of a challenging new era in which leaders must contain rising sectarian tensions, prepare for a parliamentary election next year and start talks on the fate of Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah's military wing.

A presidential decree announced the cabinet after Suleiman, a Maronite Christian, met Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a Sunni Muslim, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Shi'ite Muslim.

"This government has two main tasks: regaining confidence in the Lebanese political systemt and securing the holding of a transparent parliamentary election," Siniora told reporters.

The new team has one Hezbollah minister in addition to 10 ministers from its Shi'ite, Druze and Christian allies.

The opposition was guaranteed 11 of the cabinet's 30 seats under a May deal to defuse a conflict that had sparked some of the worst fighting since the 1975-90 civil war. All major decisions require a two-thirds majority or 20 cabinet votes.

The Qatari-brokered May 21 agreement opened the way for Suleiman's election four days later, but factional squabbling over portfolios had held up the formation of a government.

The majority coalition chose 16 ministers. Suleiman picked the remaining three,

Obama would not change India nuclear deal now

Reuters, Mumbai

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who voted in the Senate for a civilian nuclear trade deal between India and the United States, would not seek changes to it at this stage, an Indian news magazine quoted him as saying.

"I voted for the U.S.-India nuclear agreement because India is a strong democracy and a natural strategic partner for the U.S. in the 21st century," he told Outlook magazine, according to a transcript provided by the magazine Friday.

His attitude toward the deal may prove decisive if India fails to finalize the deal before the end of U.S. President George W. Bush's term in January and Obama wins the November U.S. election. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shook hands on the deal, which gives India access to U.S. nuclear resources and technology for energy, in 2005. Since then it has been stalled by opposition from the anti-U.S. communist allies of India's coalition government, and at moments almost given up for dead. The communists this week withdrew support for the Indian government, which now faces a confidence vote despite moving to prop up its position in parliament with the help of a regional party whose leader backs the deal.

If India misses the effective deadline of the November U.S. elections, it may seek to revive the deal under the next administration, although pessimists say it may have to agree to less favorable terms.

Obama noted that the U.N. watchdog agency-the International Atomic Energy Agency-and a 45-nation group that controls nuclear trade still had to weigh in on aspects of the deal.

"A final judgment on the deal t must await the IAEA's approval of a safeguards agreement with India and changes to be agreed (upon) by the Nuclear Suppliers Group," he said.

"At that point, the US Congress will decide whether to approve the agreement. I continue to hope this process can be concluded before the end of the year," Obama said.

"The existing agreement effectively balanced a range of important issues, from our strategic relationship with India to our non-proliferation concerns to India's energy needs," he told the magazine, which will publish the interview Saturday.

"I am therefore reluctant to seek changes."

He said the deal would help combat global warming by giving India an alternative to coal and that he hoped it would be finalized by the end of this year.

Abbas hopes for 'positive momentum’ at Paris summit

AFP, Rome

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Friday he hoped this weekend's Mediterranean Union summit in Paris would boost prospects for peace with Israel.

"This summit can give positive momentum to the peace process and could lead to more economic support for the Palestinian Authority," Abbas said at a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi for his part said the conclusion of peace negotiations "had never been closer" and that U.S. President George W. Bush, who he met at the recent G8 summit in Japan, was optimistic about the chance of reaching an agreement before 2009.

Berlusconi said he had offered to host talks between Israel and the Palestinians at Erice in Sicily. He did not provide further details. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas will meet face to face in Paris on Sunday at the launch of the Mediterranean Union, a flagship project of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The grouping will see the 27 countries from the European Union join states in north Africa and the Middle East, bringing leaders from Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority to the same table despite their unresolved peace issues.