TEHRAN, Feb. 23--Members of the Assembly of Experts Thursday called on the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
The leader termed the status of the Islamic state as unique and underlined that the nation and its officials should concentrate on the lofty principles of the Islamic Revolution to conquer new peaks of progress and advancement in all spheres, IRNA reported.
The present government has had a successful record in terms of organizing the recent elections for the assembly, said the leader.
Hostile powers are aware of the role and importance of the Experts and that is why they resorted, albeit vainly, to propaganda stunts, political pressures and intimidation to dissuade the people from voting in the election for the Experts, he added.
Enemies now admit the deep and growing influence of Iran’s revolution in the Middle East and the Muslim world at large, Ayatollah Khamenei said, and recalled that despite their unending animosity the revolution is stronger and stable than before and enjoys a higher status in the world.
The leader urged care and caution in running the affairs of the state and called on the people and senior officials to follow the guidelines of Holy Qur’an and exercise extra vigilance to identify and foil enemy plots.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh

TEHRAN, Feb. 23--Iranian envoy and permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in reaction to a report by chief Mohamed ElBaradei said it is shows the scale of Iran’s nuclear capability and the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Fars News Agency ElBaradei’s report demonstrates Iran’s right to use nuclear energy for economic development and that its nuclear activities are in compliance with NPT regulations and there has been no diversion.
The report also indicates that no uranium enrichment is presently taking place in Iran, he added.
“Part of his report that states Iran has not suspended uranium enrichment is rather strange because Tehran has publicly announced that it sees no technical or legal grounds for doing so.“
He observed that the most important part of ElBaradei’s report is where it mentions Iran’s nuclear activities in Natanz are fully monitored by the UN nuclear watchdog and under constant surveillance of IAEA closed-circuit cameras.
Furthermore, what Iran said about conducting uranium enrichment at five percent has also been established in the report,“ Soltanieh added.
Sections of a letter sent by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to ElBaradei have also been included in ElBaradei’s report.
“President Ahmadinejad told ElBaradei that if Iran’s nuclear dossier remains with the IAEA and the UNSC does not interfere, Iran would be ready to cooperate with the IAEA in resolving the remaining issues,“ the senior nuclear official told the news agency.
In related news, it was reported six world powers will meet early next week in a bid to defuse the nuclear crisis with Iran, while the United States and its allies seek stiffer UN sanctions, US officials said Thursday.
The meeting announcement came after the UN nuclear watchdog agency concluded in a report Thursday for its 35-nation board that Iran had not suspended its nuclear fuel enrichment as the UN Security Council demanded.
Officials of the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and German will attend the meeting.
The United States, France and Britain called for increased sanctions against Iran. Germany said that further consultations were necessary, and Russia withheld comment.
Meanwhile China’s foreign minister in a telephone conversation told his Iranian counterpart on Friday said Beijing backed a diplomatic solution to resolve the international dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, the Chinese government’s news agency reported.
China’s Li Zhaoxing conveyed Beijing’s desire “to peacefully resolve“ the nuclear issue to Manouchehr Mottaki, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The brief report gave no further details of their discussions.

FOUMAN, Gilan, Feb. 23--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Friday that there would not be any change in his nuclear policies despite growing western pressures and threat of sanctions.
Speaking at a public rally in this northern city during the last and final-leg of his 25th provincial tour, Ahmadinejad said “we will not retreat from our nuclear stance because if we do the arrogant powers will defeat us,“ IRNA reported.
“In the nuclear case you saw that arrogant powers had said four years ago that they did not trust our nuclear program. Then they told us to freeze some parts of our program in Natanz and Isfahan. When we complied, they demanded that we also shut down our nuclear research centers,“ he recalled.
Resisting arrogant powers and global tyrants is the highest form of prevention of vice and promotion of virtue as dictated by the Islamic faith, the president told his supporters.
Referring to his government’s ratifications with regards to Gilan province, Ahmadinejad said more than 500 billion rials have been allocated for financing jobs and distribution of facilities among the youth in Fouman.
The president and his entourage arrived in Gilan Tuesday. It was his 25th tour of the provinces since the start of his initiative a year ago to “bring the government closer to the people.“

Cindy Sheehan

ISTANBUL, Turkey, Feb. 23--Cindy Sheehan, who earned the moniker “peace mom“ for her anti-war activism in the United States after her son was killed fighting in Iraq, appealed for a grass-roots campaign around the world to prevent any American attack on Iran.
“The possibility of attacking Iran grows every day,“ Sheehan said Friday during a visit to Turkey. “I think we need to join together to stop that, to stop the impending invasion of Iran,“ AP reported.
Sheehan was in Istanbul to attend a conference sponsored by a Turkish anti-war group called the Global Peace and Justice Coalition. She said people had a responsibility “to force our leaders to behave peacefully and not violently.“
Sheehan has campaigned against the Iraq policy of US President George W. Bush since the death of her son, Casey, in April 2004.
She has bought land near the president’s ranch in Texas and has demonstrated there and at the White House.

TEHRAN, Feb. 23-Spokesman of the ’Might’ maneuvers being held by the ground forces of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC) said Friday that training 9,000 elite forces would help facilitate their deployment at any time and any place.
General Abbas Nilforoushan said the new group would fulfill its mission at very short notice without relying on the IRGC’s main units.
“By deploying 3,000 operational teams in an area covering 850,000 square km, the norm according to which three brigades were required to fulfill the same mission has been changed.“
Commenting on the war drills being held in three phases in 16 provinces, he enumerated maintaining the integrity of forces and rapid deployment of weapons, equipment and air defenses as peculiarities of the first phase of the maneuvers.
“In the first phase, our units were able to urgently get out of their positions and leave for other regions that were determined earlier. They performed well in maintaining their ranks, weapons and equipment --a feature peculiar to asymmetric wars.“
Noting that many militaries and armies are also capable of rapid deployment and evacuation, he stated that IRGC early response and vastness of its operations are not very common.
Nilforoushan enumerated deployment of air defense systems and responding to air raids during military action as other characteristics of the second phase of military maneuvers.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 23--Foreign ministers of seven key Muslim nations will meet in Pakistan this weekend to discuss a joint strategy to end the worsening turmoil in the Middle East, officials said Friday.
Sunday’s conference will focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the ongoing strife in Iraq and tensions between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, Pakistani foreign ministry officials said, AFP reported.
Ministers from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Malaysia, Egypt and Indonesia will prepare the ground for a summit of their leaders to be hosted in Saudi Arabia by King Abdullah at a later date.
Secretary general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is also due to attend.
“The foreign ministers are meeting to prepare for a summit that His Majesty King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia will hold,“ foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.
“The meeting here will consider the Palestinian crisis, the situation in Iraq and the Iran-US tensions,“ Aslam said.
The ministers are expected to arrive in Islamabad late Saturday for the conference which will be opened by Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
They will call on President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally in the “war on terror,“ who has frequently warned that the turmoil in the Middle East could spread outside the region.

Dick Cheney

SYDNEY, Australia, Feb. 23--US Vice President Dick Cheney warned China Friday that its swift military build-up worried the world and said Washington was not blindly trusting North Korea to implement a landmark nuclear deal.
On the first full day of an official visit, Cheney also used a speech to a group of prominent US and Australian citizens to assail unnamed critics who he said want the allies to “turn our backs“ on places like Afghanistan or Iraq, AFP reported.
But his visit, aimed at thanking staunch US ally Australia for its support in Iraq, was marred by a second day of clashes between police and demonstrators protesting Cheney’s trip outside the hotel where he was speaking.
In some of his most extensive remarks on the North Korean pact, Cheney praised China’s help but said its military build-up and anti-satellite weapons test clashed with its stated goal of being a peaceful power.
“The Chinese understand that a nuclear North Korea would be a threat to their own security,“ he told the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, but “other actions by the Chinese government send a different message.“
“Last month’s anti-satellite test and China’s continued fast-paced military build-up are less constructive and are not consistent with China’s stated goal of a ’peaceful rise,’“ Cheney said.
China shot down one of its own orbiting weather satellites in space with a ballistic missile, provoking an international outcry amid fears over satellite security.
US-China military ties chilled in 2001 following a collision between a Chinese fighter jet and an American spy plane that killed the Chinese jet pilot. Beijing infuriated Washington by holding the spy crew for 11 days.
As for the nuclear deal, which requires North Korea to shut key facilities in exchange for energy aid, Cheney sought to allay concerns in Asia--especially in Japan--that the United States was going soft on Pyongyang.
“We go into this deal with our eyes open. In light of North Korea’s missile tests last July, its nuclear test in October and its record of proliferation and human rights abuses, the regime in Pyongyang has much to prove,“ he said.
Cheney also made a full-throated defense of the Iraq war and the new US plan to pacify Baghdad, which has drawn opposition in the United States even as key ally Britain announced a troop draw-down.

GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb. 23--The international Red Cross is barred by principles of neutrality and confidentiality from testifying if the International Criminal Court holds war crimes trials for those accused of Darfur atrocities, its president said Friday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has the largest presence of any aid group in Darfur and has frequently in the last four years pleaded with both the Sudan’s government and Darfur rebel groups to stop what Jakob Kellenberger called “very gross violations of international humanitarian law,“ AP reported.
Nevertheless, Kellenberger said the neutral ICRC, guardian of the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war, was bound by its strict principles of confidentiality and would never make public the conversations it has held with officials and rebels, or the observations of its nearly 2,000 Sudanese and international staff working in the country.
“That’s not for the public. That’s for the authorities concerned,“ Kellenberger told journalists at the ICRC’s Geneva headquarters. “The ICRC will never be a witness in court proceedings.“
The issue is a sensitive one for the ICRC, which is frequently criticized for refusing to go public with its denunciations of atrocities.
More recently it has insisted on speaking only to US authorities about any mistreatment it may have found at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It denies any role in the leaking to the news media of its reports to the US government.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million forced from their homes in the conflict, which began when ethnic African tribesmen took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese government.