“Iran has the scientific and technological capability to produce [a] nuclear weapon, but will never choose this path.”
“The elements behind these attacks were Iran and its protege, Hezbollah.”
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of being behind twin attacks on Israeli targets in India and Georgia on Monday in a move likely to further escalate tensions between the two countries and increase international pressure on the Iranian regime. (source)
“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this.”
Iran will help any nation or group that confronts the “cancer” Israel, the Islamic republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said in remarks delivered to worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran. (source)
Iran promises to return US drone - as a pink toy
It may not have been quite what Barack Obama meant when he called on Iran to return a US drone that crashed in the Islamic Republic.
Rather than giving back the multi-million dollar piece of spyware, which has been gleefully paraded for the world’s cameras, an Iranian toy maker has promised to send the White House a pink plastic toy replica of the downed drone.
The Ayeh Art group has been doing a brisk trade in models of the RQ-170, producing around 2,000 a day, and in an inspired moment of self-publicity has promised to reserve one for President Obama.
“He said he wanted it back, and we will send him one,” said Reza Kioumars, the company’s head of cultural production. (source)
This did make me giggle a little.
“European officials and other countries which are under America’s political pressure… should consider their national interests and not deprive themselves of Iran’s oil to help US officials achieve their secret aims.”
Iran has said an oil embargo adopted by European Union foreign ministers over the country’s nuclear programme is “unfair” and “doomed to fail”.
The measures would not prevent Iran’s “progress for achieving its basic rights”, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. The sanctions ban all new oil contracts with Iran and freeze the assets of Iran’s central bank in the EU.
The EU currently buys about 20% of Iran’s oil exports. (source)
“I have no doubt that it would pour fuel on a fire which is already smouldering, the hidden smouldering fire of Sunni-Shi’ite confrontation, and beyond that (it would cause) a chain reaction — I don’t know where it would stop.”
A Western military strike on Iran would be a ‘catastrophe’ that would aggravate dangerous divisions already present in the Muslim world, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. (source)
![Iran to ‘block’ Gulf oil if sanctions proceed
No oil will be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz if the West applies sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi has warned.
The threat was reported on Tuesday by the state news agency IRNA as Iran conducted its fourth day of naval drills near the Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the oil-rich Gulf.
Rahimi was quoted as saying:
“If sanctions are adopted against Iranian oil, not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz. We have no desire for hostilities or violence … but the West doesn’t want to go back on its plan [to impose sanctions]. The enemies will only drop their plots when we put them back in their place.
source](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwx1klSe4x1qakqyfo1_1280.jpg)
Iran to ‘block’ Gulf oil if sanctions proceed
No oil will be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz if the West applies sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi has warned.
The threat was reported on Tuesday by the state news agency IRNA as Iran conducted its fourth day of naval drills near the Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the oil-rich Gulf.
Rahimi was quoted as saying:
“If sanctions are adopted against Iranian oil, not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz. We have no desire for hostilities or violence … but the West doesn’t want to go back on its plan [to impose sanctions]. The enemies will only drop their plots when we put them back in their place.
Middle East on the brink of war: analysis
As Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad clings to power with the quiet backing of regional powers Iran and Russia, the Middle East may be sliding slowly into war.
Squeezed between the rebellions of a bloody Arab Spring and growing fears of a possible military response to Iran’s growing nuclear threat, the region is becoming increasingly unstable.
“I would be very surprised if it turned into a Russian-American war, but this could be a Mid-East war: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, Israel all having at each other,” said Jack Granatstein, military historian and senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.
“The American espionage drone is now Iran’s property, and our country will decide what steps to take regarding it…instead of apologising to the Iranian nation, it [the US] is brazenly asking for the drone back.”
Iran has rejected a US call for the return of an American spy drone captured by Iran’s military. The aircraft was now “property” of Iran and it was up to Iran to decide what to do with it, defence minister Ahmad Vahidi said. (source)
“We are very clearly making known our concerns. We submitted a formal request for the return of our lost equipment, as we would in any situation. Given Iran’s behaviour to date, we do not expect them to reply.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has said the US government has requested that Tehran return the surveillance drone captured by Iran’s military earlier this month. The US is concerned that Iran or its allies may be able to determine the chemical composition of the drone’s radar-deflecting paint, or copy its engine, control systems, and sophisticated cameras and sensors, which allow it to monitor the ground from high altitude. (source)
U.S. debated sending commandos into Iran to recover drone
The U.S. considered sending in covert missions to Iran to recover a drone that crashed in the country, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The RQ-170 Sentinel, a high-altitude stealth drone known as the Beast of Kandahar, went down in Iran while on a surveillance mission. Iran said it shot the drone down, but the U.S. maintains it crashed due to a malfunction.
Iranian TV has shown the first video footage of an advanced US drone aircraft that Tehran says it downed near the Afghan border.
Iranian officials say its forces electronically hijacked the drone and steered it to the ground.
Might be worth reading this article, detailing how Iran managed to capture this stealth drone. This event has greater implications on Iran’s technological advancement. (footage)
“An advanced RQ170 unmanned American spy plane was shot down by Iran’s armed forces. It suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran’s armed forces.”
Iran’s armed forces have shot down an unmanned US spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along its eastern border.
An unidentified military official quoted by the official Irna news agency on Sunday warned of a crushing response to any violations of Iranian airspace by US drone aircraft. (source)
Iranian protesters break into British Embassy in Tehran
A protester walks with a poster from the British embassy in Tehran Nov. 29, 2011. Dozens of young Iranian men entered buildings inside the British embassy compound in Tehran on Tuesday, throwing rocks, petrol bombs and burning documents looted from offices, Iranian news agencies reported. (Reuters)
“Probably, probably. I know, it’s not - I don’t delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel. They look around, they see the Indians are nuclear, the Chinese are nuclear, Pakistan is nuclear … not to mention the
Russians.”
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, has reassured Israelis about his government’s resolve after he appeared to empathise with Iran’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons during a US television interview.
During a Wednesday appearance on the PBS program Charlie Rose, Barak was asked if he would “want a nuclear weapon” were he a member of Iran’s government. (Source)
