Baku Asked Integration With Iran In 1990s, Memoires Say

The nuclear scientist was admitted to hospital on August 26 after testing positive for COVID-19.

"He was loved by our nation because of his critical contribution in making us a nuclear weapon state," Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Twitter.

But A.Q. Khan also confessed to being at the core of an operation that sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya.

Analysts and United Nations officials have said his illicit network, which specialized in helping countries skirt international sanctions, created the greatest nuclear proliferation crisis of the atomic age.

After a confession on national television to his involvement in selling nuclear secrets, Khan was pardoned by then-president Pervez Musharraf. He remained under house arrest for years in his palatial Islamabad home.

In his confession, Khan said he acted alone without the knowledge of the state officials. Later he said he had been scapegoated.

Musharraf once described Khan's admission of guilt, following a tip-off from the CIA, as the most embarrassing moment of his presidency.

Pakistan never let foreign investigators question Khan, saying it had passed on all relevant information about his nuclear proliferation.

Speaking to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) after completion of his tour of Moscow, Beirut and Damascus, Amir-Abdollahian said "a balanced foreign policy" means following "active diplomacy with East and West" adding that Iran does not want to "tie the country to Russia and China" and would only follow its national interests.

As Iran has been holding talks in Vienna with the United States and its three European allies, the United Kingdom, France and Germany on reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA), its rhetoric of strengthening ties with China and Russia has intensified.

Amir-Abdollahian said Iran has made it clear to the European countries that following US policies and failing to honor their commitments against Iran will damage their own interests and keep them away from investment opportunities and trade with Iran. "We have told them that Iran's hand will not remain tied."

During his Moscow visit Amir Abdollahian said the government of President Ebrahim Raisi was ready to quickly expand ties with Russia. "This doesn’t mean that we’ll be dependent on China and Russia, but from a strategic point of view, we’ll use existing capacities to further the interests of both nations,” Amir Abdollahian said.

Before his confirmation by the parliament in August, Amir-Abdollahian said negotiating with the US was not a taboo and that he had three times engaged in direct talks with Americans in Baghdad.

Nevertheless, the Vienna talks to restore the JCPOA which he has pledged to continue until "all sanctions on Iran are lifted", have been in limbo since June. Iran has made repeated promises of returning to the negotiating table "soon" without setting a concrete date.

Pundits believe Iran is buying time to build more leverage before returning to the talks. On Sunday Iran's nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, announced that stockpiles of 20-percent enriched uranium have reached 120kg, a third more than previous estimates.

Tehran has ‘looked east’ in expanding cooperation with Russia and particularly with China to fill the vacuum left in its oil and gas projects by European companies and selling its crude oil. The new hardline president Ebrahim Raisi’s government has also invested much hope in its newly accepted full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to boost its ailing economy.

The policy of relying on Asia or the East, particularly China and Russia, was promulgated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2018, with the catchphrase, “Looking East”. Since then, his hardliner followers have made it one of the centerpieces of a ‘revolutionary economy’. In a speech on February 13, Khamenei reiterated that in resisting "US unilateralism," Iran should look to the east to achieve a "resistance economy" that could withstand US economic pressures.

President Ebrahim Raisi has stressed that his policy is to deepen ties with China and Russia.

His hardliner supporters, who accused the Rouhani government of giving importance only to relations with Western countries, claim China has been assisting Iran to dodge US sanctions and buying Iranian oil through back channels and not even declaring it in their customs reports.

However, close relations with China and Russia have not been the magic wand for Iran’s economy during three years of US sanctions. Overall trade is relatively small and there have been no notable investments to compensate for the absence of Western businesses.

The tough-worded article says that Iraqi Kurdistan’s leadership has made northern Iraq a “backyard” for foreign intelligence services for creating insecurity in Iran and killing its nuclear scientists.

Iranian Kurdish separatist and opposition groups have bases in northern Iraq and Tehran often says they infiltrate into its territory for operations against government targets. The article by Fars accused the groups of assassinating a Kurdish shopkeeper a few days ago, who the insurgents thought supports the Islamic Republic.

Fars alleges that Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq “are fully aware” of operations and conspiracies against Iran and demands that the foreign ministry and the armed forces take actions against those responsible.

Iran last month used artillery and armed drones to attack targets in northern Iraq that it said were insurgent bases.

On October 7, Yahya Rahim-Safavi, the military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that Iran would not accept “any bordering country” hosting "anti-Iran terrorist groups."

Attorneys Mostafa Nili and Arash Kaykhosravi, along with activist Mehdi Mahmoudian had announced their intention in August to sue Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for having banned the purchase of American and British Covid vaccines in January. They also accused top officials of gross mismanagement of the covid pandemic. Authorities immediately arrested them, and they have spent nearly two months in prison.

In a letter sent to an Islamic Republic civil rights watchdog, they said that authorities asked them to sign a pledge not to sue Khamenei, but they refused, and their detention continued.

With a fifth wave of the pandemic starting in July, tens of thousands of more Iranians have perished with public sentiment turning against Khamenei for having banned the importation of Western vaccines, setting back Iran’s vaccination program.

The three detainees also said they had intended to sue officials for diverting millions of dollars to organizations with no medical expertise that promised to produce home-grown vaccines.

The German leader added that every day that passes without Tehran responding to US overtures will result in Iran enriching more uranium.

Speaking during a visit to Israel, the outgoing chancellor said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping also had a responsibility to help to push Iran back to the negotiating table, she said at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Western powers have been warning that time is running out to save the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) but so far have taken no action.

"I also see a responsibility for Russia and China here, since if the JCPOA (nuclear deal) is no longer doing what it's meant to do then that's very difficult, so we are now in very decisive weeks for this deal."

Iran in June suspended nuclear negotiations that had started in Vienna in April, saying its new government needed time to prepare for further talks, but so far has delayed a decision.

Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Salami told state television on Saturday that Tehran has stockpiled 120 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium.

With reporting by Reuters