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Gunbattles cast shadow over Iraq handover deadline BAGHDAD, Apr 6: With US forces battling militants with helicopter gunships and heavy arms, plans for Iraqis to take power within three......more Short
supply of men HANGAROA, EASTER ISLAND, Apr 6: "It’s so boring here," Whined Tama, age 19. In her grandmother’s small tourist hotel, Tama did kitchen duty. In the .....more Quiet pupil shapes Nepal’s Maoists into tough force NAGANDA DHIKUR POKHARI, NEPAL, Apr 6: He was an average, unremarkable student, well behaved and polite to ....more US forces on Al-Qaeda trail would not cope in tribal areas: Pak ISLAMABAD, Apr 6: Pakistani forces are doing a better job hunting Al-Qaeda and .....more |
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Lanka’s new PM wants Indian role in peace process COLOMBO, Apr 6: Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse today called for greater Indian involvement in the island’s peace process with . ......more Rajapakse
sworn in as COLOMBO, Apr 6: Regarded as a political moderate, Mahinda Rajapakse, hand-picked by President Chandrika ......more Los Angeles Times dominates this year’s Pulitzer prizes NEW YORK, Apr 6: The Los Angeles Times dominated this year’s Pulitzer prizes for excellence in journalism winning..more Haiti to elect new leader in 2005 US vows support PORT-au-PRINCE, Apr 6: Haiti has vowed to hold Presidential elections in 2005, and visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged US support to ....more |
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Gunbattles cast shadow over Iraq handover deadline BAGHDAD, Apr 6: With US forces battling militants with helicopter gunships and heavy arms, plans for Iraqis to take power within three months look increasingly doubtful. The US administration is due to hand sovereignty to an Iraqi Government on June 30 which will take charge of a raft of affairs from trade policy to foreign relations as well as more responsibility for security. More than 120,000 US and coalition troops will remain in Iraq, conducting daily anti-guerrilla operations, but the intention is for Iraqis to steadily take over authority for policing and security in a country awash with insurgency. "There’s no way Iraq is ready to take over 90 per cent of the responsibility for running the country in less than three months," Jonathan Stevenson, a middle east expert at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, told . "For US policy in Iraq to be vindicated, the country has to be made stable, which means US forces staying to fight an insurgency and stave off a civil war." in a measure of a growing alarm in Washington, two members of the US senate’s foreign relations panel said the Bush administration should consider extending the June 30 handover deadline or risk seeing Iraq fall into even deeper trouble. "We’re going to end up with a civil war in Iraq, if in fact we decide we can turn this over — including the bulk of the security to the Iraqis," democrat senator Joseph Biden told "Fox News Sunday", saying an Iraqi force would not be ready to assume security duties for at least another three years. "Something’s got to happen between now and then...Or else we’re going to end up with a civil war there. We’re going to end up with the worst of all worlds." republican senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was equally stern, criticising the White House for its lack of a plan for what happens after Paul Bremer, the US. Governor of Iraq, leaves the country on July 1. "At this point, I would have thought there would have been a more comprehensive plan," he told ABC’s "this week" on Sunday. "The fact is that we don’t know what we’re going to do." asked whether it was time for Washington to consider extending the sovereignty deadline, Lugar said: "It may be. And I think it’s probably time to have that debate." In response, the White House reiterated its faith in the timetable and said the date would not be changed. UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Baghdad on Sunday to begin working with Iraq’s governing council and US administrators on designing a Government to take power from July 1, a process that’s likely to be fraught. Iraqi politicians have vastly different opinions on what form the Government should take and how power will be balanced. Given that a framework must be agreed by May 31, there are just 55 days left for an agreement to be hammered out. But the bigger, longer-term concern is whether Iraqis are really going to be capable of handling an ever greater portion of the security duties, particularly with US forces preoccupied with the sort of battles seen in the past two days. US-led authorities have pushed to train as many new Iraqi police and paramilitary troops as they can in the past eight months to get a presence out on the streets countrywide. But the training is often rushed and officers complain of a lack of equipment, saying they need guns, ammunition, body armour, more vehicles and proper communications. So far nearly 70,000 police have been put into service and there are around 25,000 Iraqi civil defence corps soldiers on duty. But even the Americans training them are concerned they’re not up to the task of maintaining national security. "The training is in the end woefully inadequate," said one former US police officer speaking on condition of anonymity. "The CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) has pushed us to do too much, too quickly and in the end it’s going to have repercussions on Iraqi security," he said. Douglas brand, the Chief Adviser to the Iraq Police, admits the force may not be capable of taking on full security responsibilities "until the back end of 2005", but defends the speeded up training programme. "We had to condense the training programme to get people out onto the streets as quickly as possible... In an ideal world of course we would like more time, but there was a conscientious decision that we needed to be practical, not idealistic." (AGENCIES) |
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Short supply of men leaves easter island women desperate HANGAROA, EASTER ISLAND, Apr 6: "It’s so boring here," Whined Tama, age 19. In her grandmother’s small tourist hotel, Tama did kitchen duty. In the background, the noise of a Chilean television quiz programme kept her company. One of the world’s most isolated islands, Easter Island annually draws up to 20,000 visitors who travel long distances to the South Pacific to see its legendary mysterious colossal stone figures. For many young people, however, this outpost of Chilean territory seems like a prison. Hangaroa, the only settlement on the island, has two discos and two internet cafes, but not one cinema, theatre, bookstore, record store or fashion boutique. No international pop bands come to perform. There’s no university. Worst of all for the young women of the Rapa Nui - the island tribe descended from Polynesian settlers - is the dating scene. Not only must they abide by strict tabus about romantic affairs with their cousins. They also have to compete with female tourists for the dashing young island men. According to social laws that govern the 3,868 residents, including the 2,000 Rapa Nui, young lovers must be able to prove there were no blood relations for seven generations before they are allowed to court. The custom, aimed at preventing birth defects, is not always strictly enforced. But in Tama’s case, her boyfriend, Edmund, was a cousin twice removed, and the adults in the two families separated the couple. The intervention often involves violence - or at least the threat of physical pain. "We had to part," Tama said. "Otherwise, my father would have beat him up." but Tama was even more desperate over the way visiting tourists - Chilean women from the mainland as well as sexy young globe-trotters - tempted Edmund. "Do you know what the worst of it is? The tourists," Tama sighed. The wild Rapa Nui boys, the Yorgos, roar up and down the main street on their motorbikes, picking up off-island women right and left. "During the tourist season, you have to lock up the men at home," said the worldly Wise Mito, age 44. Unfortunately for the Rapa Nui women, who are a lot pickier, they only rarely are attracted to the pale-faced over-civilized variety of men who come to visit. "If a man doesn’t have the scars all over his bodies, the calloused hands, the thick-skinned feet, he hardly has a chance with a Rapa Nui woman," said Helen, a 19-year-old dane who has fallen in love with a well-built wild island youth - and plans to marry him. Helen swooned over the Idyllic island life and the absence of materialism, and said she had been accepted like a daughter among the islanders. She said she felt more at home on Easter Island than in Copenhagen. "Not everyone on the island is running the rat race after money, everything is shared, and there is always enough to eat," Helen said. But the peaceful south sea image has its ugly side. "We treat many victims of family violence," said Carolina Leal Ugarte, 27, a mainland Chilean and head doctor of the island’s only hospital. "The men beat their women, and the women bite and scratch back, and blood is drawn. Children are also regularly beaten." alcohol often plays a role, and the violence is part of the culture of the Rapa Nui, she said. For police Lieutenant Jose Carrasco, also a mainlander, domestic violence is the biggest problem. "Exactly there, where it’s toughest for us as unpopular mainlanders, in the homes of the islanders - that’s where such serious injuries occur and we are forced to intervene," he said. Tama however has found a way out of her misery. In March, she began to study medicine - not in Chile, but thousands of miles to the west of Easter Island, in Tahiti, where many Rapa Nui have relatives. (DPA) |
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Quiet pupil shapes Nepal’s Maoists into tough force NAGANDA DHIKUR POKHARI, NEPAL, Apr 6: He was an average, unremarkable student, well behaved and polite to his elders in his small village in the mountains of western Nepal. Now, four decades later, his first teacher suggests his former pupil should learn to play better with others and stop destroying the country. The elusive "Prachanda" - loosely, "Awesome" or "Majestically Terrible" — who leads Nepal’s maoist revolutionaries learned to read and write at the age of nine in the Harsh Kaski area below the Himalayas here in western Nepal. "He was just a normal child for his age — not particularly bright or particularly lazy," says Ananta Nath Sharma, now 69 and retired. "He was just an ordinary village boy." the boy Sharma knew as Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the son of poor peasants, is now the country’s most wanted man for leading a brutal eight-year "people’s war" to topple the constitutional monarchy, that has killed 9,250 people, mainly rebels. "His ideology and my ideology are different," says Sharma. "His policies don’t augur well for the country and I think it would be best if he doesn’t do this." Prachanda has taken the Maoists, mainly by force, from a splinter group facing oblivion in mainstream politics in the mid-1990s to Nepal’s third power, after King Gyanendra and the major parties. "The Maoists are strong in military strength, though they are not a popular force, they do not have the support of the people," says Madhav Kumar Nepal, head of the communist Unified-Marxist-Leninist (UML) party and leader of an alliance of Nepal’s five main opposition parties. "They are well organised, they can even capture a district headquarters and the Government is helpless," he added, referring to the bloodiest battle of the war when Maoists over-ran a district capital, Beni, near here in March. The guerrillas’ strength is hard to gauge, and fluid. Analysts and diplomats estimate there about 15,000-20,000 hard-core fighters, including many women, backed by 50,000 "militia", villagers who chop down trees to block roads, act as runners or carry dead and wounded fighters from battle. Although Prachanda and other key leaders are from the same Brahmin and Chettri upper castes that control the world’s only Hindu kingdom, most of the rebels come from dirt-poor rural areas where revolution is seen as the only way to a better life. Diplomats say the Maoists also bolster their forces by indoctrinating schoolchildren in areas they control and kidnapping villagers to use as soldiers, charges the rebels deny. In their remote strongholds, they collect taxes and have set up civil administrations, and "people’s courts" to settle rows. They also raise money by raiding banks, blackmailing business in return for protection and "taxing" foreign trekkers and climbers, although they have pledged not to hurt tourists. Fearsome and fanatic fighters, the rebels specialise in night attacks and hit-and-run raids, often calling in fighters from surrounding areas through forced marches and dragooning local villagers to ensure they can overwhelm their target. "They are tough," says a senior Government official, nodding in admiration. "What an ordinary villager might take a day, or two days to walk, they can do in a few hours." a typical "pack" for an attack includes a walking stick, dry biscuits, a tin drinking cup, a bandage, some balm, soap and a toothbrush. Often, they wear simple dark blue clothes, with a red scarf or cap. Their preferred footwear, villagers and journalists say, is lightweight chinese goldstar walking shoes. Dead rebels are carried off from a battle and often buried in shallow graves in the mountains or on the banks of a nearby river to try to disguise casualty numbers. If they are senior, their heads might be cut off and taken away to avoid identification. In Nepal’s rugged mountains, thick forests and deep ravines, perfect guerrilla territory, the 150,000 Government soldiers and police are simply not enough. But both sides admit that while they can inflict heavy losses on each other they cannot win by force. The Maoists say they draw their inspiration from the Chinese revolutionary, but Beijing denies any involvement or support and their tactics more closely resemble peru’s "shining path". The rebels fight with a mix of homemade guns, crude bombs, weapons captured from soldiers or police and arms smuggled in through countries such as India and Bangladesh. Senior Nepali Army officers say they are also backed by international militant groups, hoping to destabilise the country and turn it into a new Afghanistan. Indian security officials also say there is some low-level cooperation with Indian rebels operating across the porous border and Nepali guerrillas routinely cross between the two nations, sometimes hiding out in India or seeking medical treatment. In late March, Indian police acting on a tip-off captured Mohan Vaidya, the Maoists’ number three after Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, the group’s public front and political leader. The war is not rooted in any history of ethnic, religious or caste oppression. In late 1995, the Maoists, a faction of the Communist Party facing a falling role in Parliament, issued a list of demands, including land reform and ending the monarchy. When these were not met, they took up arms a few months later. Now, as the war drags on, ordinary nepalis are growing more and more disillusioned with the rebels and with the Government forces, both accused by human rights groups of widespread abuses. "Innocent people are being taken and killed by both sides. It’s difficult to say who is worse," says Som Raj Thapa, from the Nepali human rights group INSEC. "Both sides are in competition as far as killing and violations of human rights are concerned." (AGENCIES) |
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US forces on Al-Qaeda trail would not cope in tribal areas: Pak ISLAMABAD, Apr 6: Pakistani forces are doing a better job hunting Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in tribal areas than US forces ever could, a minister said today in response to comments by a US envoy. "We can do our job, we know our job, and the Americans don’t know the ground situation. We know better what is going on," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP. He was responding to US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad’s criticism of Pakistan’s efforts to sweep Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from sanctuaries in its unruly northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Khalilzad said in a speech at the center for strategic and international studies in Washington that despite Pakistan’s recent Army operation the extremists were still able"to base,train and operate from that country’s territory." "We cannot allow this problem to fester indefinitely. "We have told the Pakistani leadership that either they must solve this problem or we will have to do it for ourselves," Khalilzad said, in an apparent threat of action on Pakistani territory by US forces based in Afghanistan. "We prefer that Pakistan takes responsibility, and the Pakistani Government agrees." Rashid said Islamabad did not believe the US would send its troops across the border from Afghanistan. "We are the country which has delivered the best results in this war, and we believe that the Americans will not create any trouble for US and by themselves," he said. Rashid rejected Khalilzad’s suggestion that Taliban were training in Pakistan. (AFP) |
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Lanka’s new PM wants Indian role in peace process COLOMBO, Apr 6: Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse today called for greater Indian involvement in the island’s peace process with Tamil Tiger rebels. Rajapakse, 58, said he wanted neighbouring India to play a role in the island’s peace efforts, but did not specify how he wanted New Delhi to get involved. "We must get India’s involvement," he told reporters at his home here just before leaving for his official swearing in ceremony. He did not elaborate. India had been supportive of the Norwegian-backed peace process, but has refused a hands-on approach after New Delhi’s bitter experience of deploying troops in the island and ending up fighting rebels between 1987 and 1990. President Chandrika Kumaratunga last night appointed Rajapakse as the new Premier heading off a struggle within her freedom alliance for the top job, party officials said. Rajapakse, a former Minister of Labour and Fisheries, was asked by Kumaratunga to form a Government after ditching the other front runner, former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, 71. The new Premier is seen as a friend of India and he had been honoured by Shantiniketan University. A lawyer by profession, Rajapakse has been a member of Parliament since 1970, representing the southern district of Hambantota. He is also seen as a moderate supporting peace talks with Tamil Tiger rebels. Rajapakse will lead in Parliament a Government which commands 105 seats in the 225-member assembly and will depend on support of opposition parties to remain in power. (PTI) |
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Rajapakse sworn in as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister COLOMBO, Apr 6: Regarded as a political moderate, Mahinda Rajapakse, hand-picked by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, was today sworn in as Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister, who sought India’s help to revive the faltering peace process with Tamil Tigers. Soon after he was sworn in, 58-year old Rajapakse went in for a meeting with India’s High Commissioner here Nirupam Sen. Identifying the peace with the rebels as his main priority, Rajapakse told reporters, "India must come in as soon as possible and get involved in the peace process." "I have always wanted India to play a role in Sri Lanka. They are our biggest neighbour," Rajapakse, who was leader of the opposition in the outgoing Parliament, said. "We must keep the peace process moving," he said making it clear that he did not want to stop the Norwegian involvment to resolve the nearly two-decade old ethnic conflict. A lawyer by profession, Rajapakse was a former Minister of Labour and Fisheries. He was sworn in after heated debates among constituent parties of the freedom alliance as to who should get the top post in Parliament. Kumaratunga’s main leftist ally, the JVP or People’s Liberation Front, was backing former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar to be the Premier and opposed Rajapakse who had earlier clashed openly with the JVP. "At one point there were very serious splits that threatened to come out into the open," an aide of Rajapakse told PTI. "Now the compromise is that he gets the Prime Minister job plus one ministry." The key JVP members boycotted the hurriedly summoned swearing in ceremony, but a JVP legislator showed up after the ceremony was almost over, witnesses said. Sri Lanka’s post of Prime Minister is largely ceremonial, it is an additional portfolio that gives the Prime Minister a subject to handle. In this case, Rajapakse has been promised the relatively minor highways ministry. The ceremony itself was held by a small meeting room of the sprawling Presidential Secretariat whereas Kumaratunga had sworn in the previous Government at her imposing President’s house. (PTI) |
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Los Angeles Times dominates this year’s Pulitzer prizes NEW YORK, Apr 6: The Los Angeles Times dominated this year’s Pulitzer prizes for excellence in journalism winning in five categories including for breaking news. The Wall Street Journal won in two categories, the New York Times in public service category and Washington Post in international reporting. Each prize is worth 10,000 dollars except for public service which is recognised by a gold medal. In the awards announced by the Columbia University yesterday, the Los Angeles Times staff won two Pulitzer including for its "compelling and comprehensive" coverage of the massive wildfires that imperiled a populated region of southern California last fall. The other was in the national reporting category for "engrossing examination" of the tactics that have made wal-mart the largest retailer in the world with cascading effects across American towns and developing countries. Dan Neil of the paper won Pulitzer in criticism category for his "one-of-a-kind" reviews of automobiles. William Stall won Los Angeles Time prize in editorial writing category for his "incisive editorials" that analysed California’s troubled State Government, prescribed remedies and "served as a model for addressing complex state issues." Carolyn Cole won the fifth Pulitzer for the paper in feature photograph category for her "cohesive, behind-the- scene look at the effects of civil war in Liberia with special attention to innocent civilians." David Barstow and Lowell Bergman of the New York Times won in the public service category for their effort in examining death and injury among American workers and exposing employers who break basic safety rules. (PTI) |
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Haiti to elect new leader in 2005 US vows support PORT-au-PRINCE, Apr 6: Haiti has vowed to hold Presidential elections in 2005, and visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged US support to help the poorest country in the Americas start over after a bloody revolt. Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue told a news conference with Powell at Port-au-Prince’s heavily guarded airport Haiti’s next President would take the reins in February 2006 — when ousted ex-President Jean-Bertrand aristide’s term was originally due to end. Powell, the first high-ranking US official to visit Haiti since aristide went into exile on February. 29, hit back at critics who say President George W Bush’s administration failed to support the former leader and pressured him to resign. He also rejected a call by the 15-nation Caribbean community for a probe into aristide’s ouster. "It was only six weeks ago that Haiti was on the verge of ... Total security collapse. On that last weekend in February, I believe we prevented a bloodbath from happening," Powell said as soldiers patrolled nearby with M-16s at the ready. "Our purpose is to help the people and leadership of Haiti make a new beginning," he added, calling on armed gangs and rebels who led the revolt against aristide to lay down arms. "Without disarmament, Haiti’s democracy will remain at risk." Powell said he and latortue had discussed "the importance of getting guns off the street and ... Out of the hands of thugs and criminals." the US Secretary of State did not make clear if he was specifically referring to the armed gangs and human rights violators who led the revolt. Powell called them "thugs" before aristide’s overthrow, but latortue has since hailed them as "freedom fighters." (AGENCIES) |
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US troops said to enter radical cleric’s stronghold CAIRO, Apr 6: US troops have entered Kufa, the central Iraqi town where a radical Shiite leader is believed to be staying, the Arab television channel Al-Jazeera reported. US forces also began shelling targets in Fallujah yesterday evening, with several shells heard resonating in the city, according to Al-Jazeera. One Iraqi was killed, the report said. Troops arrived in Kufa where Moqtada-al-Sadr has been holding Friday prayer sessions since last year. An Al-Jazeera reporter was quoted as saying she heard explosions in the town when the US forces arrived in the evening. Earlier in the day, the US military said an arrest warrant had been issued for Al-Sadr, who is accused of complicity in the killing of a rival clergyman a year ago. The arrest of one of Al-Sadr’s associates on the same charge on saturday triggered violent gunbattles between Al-Sadr loyalists and coalition forces which left many dead. Fallujah, a Sunni stronghold, was under "heavy shelling", Al-Jazeera said. An Al-Jazeera correspondent in Fallujah said he saw several military planes firing at targets in the city. US marines and Iraqi security had surrounded and cut off Fallujah, which lies west of Baghdad, earlier yesterday. The US and Iraqi forces are looking for the killers of four American civilian contractors there last week. The killings and mutilations of the victims’ bodies prompted the the US military to vow retaliation. (DPA) Courtney love admitted taking painkiller LOS ANGELES, Apr 6: Rocker courtney love appeared intoxicated when arrested last October on suspicion of drug use and told police that she had taken "hillbilly heroin," or the painkiller oxycontin, one of the officers testified. The officer, who with a partner found love outside her ex-boyfriend’s home in the middle of the night last October, said during a pretrial hearing in the case that the 39-year-old singer also admitted breaking windows of the house. "She admitted to taking Hillbilly Heroin, the street name for oxycontin," officer Scott Blackman, adding that love had symptoms of intoxication that included "slow, slick, slurred speech and mucous around both nostrils." love’s pupils were also dilated to 8 millimeters, nearly double the average size, Blackman said, and her pulse was 126 beats per minute, much faster than normal. "She was off-balance. She couldn’t stand on her own," Blackman said. "She had to lean on the police car." Love, the widow of late grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, is also charged with disorderly conduct. She did not attend the hearing, at which her Attorney Michael Rosenstein asked a judge to toss out a urine test and other evidence against her, including her statements to police. Rosenstein argued that the officers didn’t have good cause to question love about the drugs she may have taken because she wasn’t driving and her ex-boyfriend didn’t want her arrested. "It’s very clear, quite frankly, that this was a witch hunt against my client. She’s a very high-profile person," he said. But Los Angeles superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg refused to throw out the evidence, siding with prosecutors who said that officers investigating one crime can pursue their concerns if they suspect a different offense. She ordered attorneys for both sides back to court on April 13 to prepare for trial. Love, former front woman for the rock band hole, also faces charges of illegal possession of prescription painkillers in a separate case in Beverly Hills. Last month, she was arrested in New York after throwing a microphone stand into a nightclub audience and hitting a man on the head. (AGENCIES) Malaysia tells Thailand to tone down accusations KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 6: Malaysia has told its northern neighbour, Thailand, to stop accusing the country of harbouring militants, the leading star daily said today, quoting foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar. Bangkok has said recent motorcycle bomb that wounded nearly 30 people was the work of thais with dual nationalities who fled to Malaysia. Syed Hamid, whose Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is due to meet thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra this week, said stories of terrorists being trained in Malaysia should not be recycled. "Every time an incident like this occurs there, Malaysia surfaces as a party to it, somewhat or other. The same things are repeated and the old accusations arise." Thaksin had asked to see Abdullah on April 9 to discuss the security situation in southern Thailand, where a spate of violence has claimed 60 lives since January and has been blamed on militants hiding in Malaysia. Many southern Thai Muslims speak a Malay dialect, hold dual citizenship and have strong religious and cultural ties with their Malaysian neighbours. (AGENCIES) TEHERAN, Apr 6: The Chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammad Elbaradei, arrived in Teheran for talks with Iranian officials on the countrys controversial nuclear programmes. The IAEA Chief denied carrying any message from the United States to the Iranian Government and said that his visit has merely a technical nature. I am here to discuss the latest developments in Irans nuclear programmes and remove ambiguities over designs of P-2 centrifuges and any nuclear pollution in the countrys plants,’’ Elbaradei told reporters at Teherans Mehrabad airport. Teheran has strongly denied having resumed uranium enrichment and designs for P-2 centrifuges - used for atomic weapons - and further insisted that any traces of enriched uranium are from devices purchased in the black market. Elbaradei will today meet President Mohammad Khatami the head of the local atomic energy organization, Gholam-reza-Aqazadeh and Chief Nuclear Negotiator Hassan Rowhani. Iran termed the visit by Elbaradei as very important and aimed at removing ambiguities over the Islamic states nuclear projects. Teheran has several times denied accusations by the west, especially the US, over secret nuclear programmes for military purposes and said it was just interested in acquiring additional energy resources beyond oil and gas. (DPA) |
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