Mottaki, Indian PM discuss gas pipeline project

NEW DELHI, – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki who arrived in

New Delhi on Monday morning held talks with Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna behind closed doors.
An Indian official said talks between Mottaki and Krishna would cover the
much-delayed 7.5-billion-dollar gas pipeline project that was first mooted in
1994, AFP reported.

The project would carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and then India.

Recently India announced its willingness to join the project which Iran calls
the peace pipeline project.

India withdrew from the talks last year, citing disagreements about prices
and transit fees as well as chronic disputes with Pakistan.

In talks with Mottaki on Monday, Singh said India is willing to go ahead with
the gas pipeline project.

The Indian premier noted he might also travel to Tehran in the future, said
the Mehr News Agency correspondent who was visiting India with Mottaki.

Mottaki told Singh that Iran and India, as traditional allies, could formulate
similar policies on regional issues.

Upon his arrival in New Delhi, Mottaki said that he would hold talks on
mutual interests, ways to improve political and economic cooperation, and
regional issues including crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Some Indian media outlets reported that different issues including the
pipeline project, campaigns against terrorism, Iran-India trade cooperation,
and situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan would feature in talks between
Mottaki and Indian officials.

The Indian Foreign Ministry also announced on Sunday that Mottaki’s visit
would be an opportunity for both sides to exchange views on mutual
interests and ways to strengthen Tehran-New Delhi relationship.

Mottaki: A new chapter of broader Iran-India

relations ahead
New Delhi, – IRI Foreign Minister said after meetings with
Indian prime minister and high ranking officials here
Monday a new chapter in Tehran-New Delhi is opened and
Iran welcomes this development.
Manouchehr Mottaki who was speaking with IRNA reporter, said, “Based on
the determination I sensed from the words uttered by Mr. prime minister, Mr.
president, and Mr. foreign minister of India they are quite determined for
comprehensive expansion of ties, and I believe a new chapter in Iran-New
Delhi relations is about to be opened, which is off course welcomed by us.”
Referring to the separate negotiations he has had with Indian officials, he
reiterated, “Usually in such opportunities issues are discussed, a part of
which are directly related to bilateral ties, and they are partly about the
developments in shared region, particularly when the region is faced with
insecurity, terrorism and extremism, more time is allocated to such talks”
The foreign minister pointed out that the realm of discussions was very
broad, including the bilateral, the regional and the international issues and
developments, adding, “In our discussions we were agreed on the necessity
of the two countries’ high level officials’ talks.”
He added, “India’s Prime Minister Mr. Sing, announced that he is scheduled
to visit Tehran in near future and before that I had invited the Indian foreign
minister to visit Tehran.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, Mottaki referred to his talks with the Indian foreign
minister, who is meanwhile the head of the Indian joint economic
commission with Iran. He reiterated, “Deputies of some ministers and
executive organs are going to accompany him in this visit.”
He further reiterated, “In our talks with the Indian Foreign Minister Mr.
Krishna and his accompanying delegation we managed to discuss very broad
fields on relations.”
Mottaki said, “Regarding the Peace Pipeline, the Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister Krishna announced their country’s will
to put it on the agenda, and we, too, welcomed the idea.”
He added, “We hope the Indians would after finalizing their studies and
elimination of their probable concerns join the bilateral agreement we have
signed with Pakistan on construction of the gas pipeline.”
Mottaki reiterated, “Whenever India would make its final decision, the path is
open for its joining the pipeline.”
He said, “among the regional issues, we discussed the Afghanistan issue and
the unrests in Pakistan and I pointed out that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq
in Iran’s neighborhood are entangled with crises, insecurity, extremism, and
terrorism.”
Mottaki added, “Those countries’ most secure borders are those with Iran. In
fact Iran, despite the crises in its neighborhood, is a kind of stronghold of
peace and stability in the region.”
The Iranian FM said, “We also spoke about Palestine, stressing the need for
materializing the Palestinians’ rights.”
He added, “Iran believes based on the Goldstone Report, the UN Security
Council and the international communities must pursue the issue of putting
to trial the heads of the Zionist regime and the criminals involved in the
crimes committed against the Palestinians.”
Pointing out that he had a great opportunity for reviewing the the entire
developments with the Indian officials, he said, “We discussed the UN and
the need for restructuring its organs, too.”
Mottaki added, “With the passage of each day the status, importance, and
role playing of the General Assembly, that is the most democratic UN organ,
gets further decreased, while the decision making power and the status of
the Security Council that is the place for a small number of countries, and
the decision makers there, too, are even less than that, keeps increasing.
“This imbalance need to be balanced and the existing unjust system since
the structure laid 60 years ago by the winners of the World War is quite
inefficient today. Therefore, restructuring the UN status should be seriously
considered by the countries.”
He said, “We talked about Asia and the need for strengthening conversion of
ideas there, and that there are maximum elements and indexes in favor of
conversion among the huge Asian family, such as the historic, the cultural
and the civilizational factors, and even the fact that Asia has been the cradle
for the entire great religions of the world.”
Mottaki said that in comparison with the other continents, such as Europe,
Africa and even Latin America, that have managed to establish the European
Union, the African Union, the European Parliament, the African Parliament,
and the Latin American unions, in Asia we merely have separate islands.
He added, “While we have the ASEAN, the ECO, the PGCC, the SARC, the
Shanghai Treaty, and the G8, all of them serve as separate islands, so how
could we have a united Asia?” He added, “That issue, too, was one of the
topics of our discussions with the Indian officials.”
The Iranian foreign minister reiterated, “Iran-India relations would in not so
remote future be witness to an evolutionary and dynamic perspective and I
hope the people of the two countries and the entire activists in the field of
bilateral relations would be benefited from it.
 Ahmadinejad's Wife Invites Qatar's First Lady to
Visit Iran
TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's wife invited
Qatari Emir's wife to pay a visit to Tehran.

Iranian Ambassador to Doha Abdullah Sohrabi submitted the invitation to the Head
of Sheikhah Mozeh Bint Nasser Abdullah al-Misnad's Office, Abdullah bin Hossein al-
Kabisi.

During the meeting, Sohrabi lauded the friendly ties between Tehran and Doha, and
said that exchange of experiences in issues related to women, including education
and health will pave the way for expansion of bilateral relations.

He also praised Sheikhah Mozeh's initiatives to support Palestinian students in the

Gaza Strip.

Sohrabi further underlined the importance of cooperation among the Islamic states,
Iran and Qatar in particular, for supporting education in the world of Islam.

Ahmadinejad to travel to America, Africa

TEHRAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to start a tour of

South and Latin America on November 22 that will also take him to West
Africa.

In his 5-day travel, Ahmadinejad will visit Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Gambia,
and Senegal

'Israel using Palestinians as guinea pigs'

The Sawasya Center for Human Rights has stated that the Israel is using
Palestinians held in its detention centers as guinea pigs to test the effectiveness of
new drugs manufactured by its health industry.

According to the Palestinian Information Center, the Cairo-based rights center cited
evidence that Israeli interrogators gave prisoner Zuhair al-Iskafi and several other
Palestinian inmates an injection which resulted in complete loss of their hair on the
head and body -- a medical condition referred to as alopecia universalis.

The Sawasya Center called on human rights organizations and the World Health
Organization to dispatch a delegation of medical experts to Israel to examine
Palestinian detainees allegedly subjected to these tests.

The issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is routinely glossed over by the
international community. Thousands of Palestinians are still held in flagrant breach
of international law and their basic human rights.

A report prepared by the Palestinian Ministry for Prisoner Affairs states that 700,000
Palestinians have been arrested since 1967 and almost 50,000 since the second
uprising of 2000.

Today, 9,850 are being held in about 30 prisons and detention centers in Israel and
the occupied Palestinian territories. Of these, 105 are women and 359 are children.

All are held either by the military or in Israeli prisons, and many are in
administrative detention without trial or a judicial decree.

Israel lobby 'big influence

in UK'

A British documentary has

alleged that any future Conservative
government will be disproportionately
influenced by a powerful pro-Israeli The programme links Hague, left, and Cameron
lobby in the country. to
the Conservative Friends of Israel
Channel 4's Dispatches programme on
Monday said that at least half of the Conservative shadow cabinet are
members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), one of a number of pro-
Israel lobby organisations.

The prorgramme, entitled 'Inside Britain's Israel Lobby', said that such
organisations make up "one of the most powerful and influential political
lobbies in Britain", but that "little is known" about these groups and their
associated individuals.

CFI members and their businesses are alleged to have donated more than
$16.8m to the Conservative Party over the past eight years.
The alleged donations include tens of thousands of pounds to William Hague,
after he was appointed shadow foreign secretary in 2005.

The documentary alleged that Lord Kalm, a CFI member and

significant donor to the Conservatives, threatened to remove Hague's
funding after he said that Israel had used "disproportionate" force during its
war in Lebanon in 2006.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is alleged to have promised not

to repeat the conjecture.

'Transparent'

Stuart Polak, CFI's director, disputed the figures in the UK's Guardian
newspaper.

"CFI as an organisation has donated only £30,000 [$50,000] since 2005.

Each of these donations has been made transparently and publicly
registered," he said.

"In addition to this £30,000, it is undoubtedly the case that some of our
supporters have also chosen, separately, to donate to the party as
individuals."

The Dispatches documentary also claims that Poju Zabludowicz, a Finnish

billionaire and chairman of Bicom (the British Israel Communications and
Research Centre), gave $25,000 and $84,000 donations to Cameron and the
Conservative Central Office respectively.

Zabludowicz has a business interest in a shopping centre in Ma'aleh Adumim,

an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank deemed illegal under
international law.

Bicom organises briefings on and trips to Israel for journalists. The CFI
and the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) group, which is described in the
documentary as "less unquestioning in its support of the Israeli government
than CFI", plays a similar role, accounting for 13 per cent of the total number
of paid-for foreign trips for MPs and candidates.

'Openness needed'

Zabludowicz told The Jerusalem Post newspaper that the Dispatches

programme "seems to have a predetermined agenda".
"Some people have suggested that the production team felt compelled to
'balance out' their two recent programs exposing the footprint of radical
Islamism in the UK," he said.

"I come to this conclusion with a heavy heart, having been led [through] a
not-so-merry dance over the past 10 days by the programme-makers.

"Bicom is an advocacy organisation. We work with journalists every day. It is

in our DNA to put our side of the story forward and to be transparent."

While the programme said that the donations are legal, one of its makers,
David Oborne, a political columnist for the British Daily Mail newspaper, said
that more needs to be known about the Israeli lobby's workings and power.

"There is nothing resembling a conspiracy," he wrote in the Guardian.

"The pro-Israel lobby, in common with other lobbies, has every right to
operate and indeed to flourish in Britain.

"But it needs to be far more open about how it is funded and what it does ...
mainly because politics in a democracy ... should be out in the open for all to
see."

In 2006, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, two American academics,

released a paper stating that Washington's support for Israel was predicated
by a hugely powerful Israeli lobby in the US.