Iran will react swiftly if its commercial shipping or aviation are subjected to inspection, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday.
A UN Security Council resolution on June 9 imposed restrictions on Iranian shipping and other sectors to try to persuade Tehran to curb its nuclear program. Under the latest sanctions, countries would have the authority to inspect cargo ships heading to or from Iran.
“You should know whoever takes a decision against the Iranian nation, such as the so-called inspection of the Iranian ships or so-and-so toward its aircraft, will immediately receive Iran’s reaction,” Ahmadinejad told a conference in a speech broadcast live on radio.
Earlier this month, the European Union banned more planes operated by Iran Air from flying into the airspace of the 27-country bloc on safety grounds. It denied reports there was a ban on Iranian commercial airliners refueling in Germany and Britain as a result of US sanctions. However, some oil companies have stopped jet fuel supplies to Iranian aircraft outside Iran.
Restating that the Islamic state did not seek hostility with any country, Ahmadinejad said: “We are in favor of friendship and logic.”
Iran, the world’s fifth largest oil producer, has been the subject of four rounds of UN sanctions over its defiance to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. Iran says its nuclear program only has peaceful purposes and sanctions will not bring about any change.
source: Reuters
The former naval chief for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the country has set aside 100 military vessels to confront each warship from the US or any other foreign power that might pose a threat, an Iranian newspaper reported Saturday.
Such a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf would be of major global concern. The warning builds on earlier threats by Iran to seal off the Gulf’s strategic Strait of Hormuz – through which 40 percent of the world’s oil passes – in response to any military attack. “We have set aside 100 military vessels for each (US) warship to attack at the time of necessity,” Gen. Morteza Saffari was quoted as saying by the conservative weekly Panjereh.
The US and Israel have said military force could be used if diplomacy fails to stop what they suspect is an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Iran denies any aim to develop such weapons and says its nuclear work has peaceful purposes only.
The US Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters is based just across the Gulf from Iran in Bahrain. Saffari said more than 100 foreign warships were currently in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, adding that their sailors were “morsels” for Iran’s military to target, the newspaper reported. “Any moment the exalted supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) orders – or should the enemy carry out the smallest threat against (Iran’s ruling) Islamic system – the Guard … is ready for quick reaction,” he was quoted as saying.
By putting the number of foreign warships at 100, the general appeared to suggest Iran has 10,000 military vessels at the ready. Iran is known to have many speed boats used by the Guard, but there is no public information about how many larger military vessels it has.
The war of words has intensified between Iran and the West since the UN Security Council imposed tougher sanctions last month in response to Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel or material for an atomic bomb.
Iran put its most powerful military force, the Revolutionary Guard, in charge of defending the country’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf in 2008.
“We believe the enemy, through extensive psychological warfare, wants to coerce us, but Iran … is ready,” said Saffari, who was the Guard’s navy chief until early May. “The enemy won’t dare attack Iran.”
source: The Associated Press, IranFocus
An Iranian appellate court approved the nine and a half year prison sentence for Bahareh Hedayat, executive member of Iranian student organization Consolidation Bureau yesterday.
In her preliminary court, Bahareh Hedayat was sentenced to five years in prison for "assembly and collusion against the regime", two years for "insulting the leadership" and another six months for "insulting the president and advertising against the regime." She also had a two year suspended prison term from four years ago for organizing a demonstration on June 12.
Hedayat, who is also a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign to change discriminatory laws against Iranian women, was arrested last December and is currently in women's section of Evin Prison.
Furthermore, Daneshjoo news also reported today that Milad Asadi , another executive member of the Consolidation Bureau also received a final decision from the appellate court yesterday sentencing him to seven and a half year in prison. Asadi is also accused of “assembly and propaganda against the regime as well as insulting the leadership.”
Daneshjoo news notes that these are the heaviest sentences given to student activists in the post-election events.
source: Radio Zamaneh
هیچ نظری موجود نیست:
ارسال یک نظر