TEHRAN, July 7--Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini on Saturday rejected the communiquŽ issued by Arab states and said the Iranian Persian Gulf islands are and will remain integral parts of Iranian territory.
The ministry’s Information and Press Bureau quoted Hosseini as stressing that repeated claims by the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) on Iran’s Abu Mussa, Greater and Lesser Tunb islands are legally baseless, IRNA reported the .
“The repetition of this baseless stance by the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council is surprising since Iran and the UAE enjoy enhanced contacts and relations,“ he said.
Hosseini noted that regional countries are expected to choose the path of strengthening integrity and constructive regional cooperation in different fields.

BAGHDAD, Iraq,
July 7--Iranian diplomats made the first consular visit on Saturday to five Iranians who were taken hostage by US forces in northern Iraq in January, Iraq’s foreign minister said, describing it as a positive development.
The US military says the five are linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and were backing militants in Iraq. Iran has insisted they are diplomats, demanded they be freed and sought access to the men.
“Three Iranian diplomats, including the ambassador in Baghdad, visited the five detainees in Iraq,“ Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters, adding the visit lasted several hours.
Zebari had previously said he hoped the consular visit would help ease tensions between the US and Iran.
Iraq has been pressing both countries to hold a second round of talks in Baghdad to follow up a landmark meeting in May where senior envoys from the two sides discussed the violence in Iraq.
“This is the first such visit since they were detained. This is a positive development,“ Zebari said.
US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad Hassan Kazemi-Qomi met in the Iraqi capital on May 28 to discuss security in Iraq in what was the most high-profile meeting of the two arch enemies in almost three decades.
Both envoys described the talks as positive. Iraq has invited both sides to meet again.
The five detained Iranians have previously been visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

TEHRAN, July 7--Iran’s Standards and Industrial Research Institute announced on Saturday 42 categories of imported goods valued at $1.48 million have been returned in June because of poor quality.
ISIRI said nonstandard goods included surgery gloves, electromotor, vacuum cleaners, electric kettles, circuit devices, hair dryers, mixers, helmets, milk powder, cables, lamps, coolers, brake pads, clutch pads, toys, sugar, pineapple compote, rice, switches, copy papers, faucets, television sets, batteries, fabric, metal joints, engine oil, automobile horns and monitors, ISNA reported.
Of these nonstandard goods, 76.2 percent were imported from China, 16.7 percent from East Asia, 4.7 percent from United Arab Emirates and 2.4 percent from Europe.
Hormuzgan province topped in importing 22 substandard goods, Khuzestan province second with 10 goods, Bushehr province third with 8 goods, and Tehran and Mazandaran provinces one type of good each.

ASPEN, USA, July 7--Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, long a defender of President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, said the administration should be in talks with Syria and Iran as part of an overall strategy to reduce troop levels.
Even with 100,000 additional troops, Powell said it would be tough for the US to continue its present mission in Iraq. Bush’s recent troop surge sent about 30,000 additional soldiers to Iraq, AP reported.
Powell’s comments Thursday at the Aspen Ideas Festival followed a panel discussion with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, and former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group.
The US cannot “blow a whistle one morning and (have) all 180,000 American forces just leave,“ Powell said, advocating a smaller US force in Iraq, strategic redeployment of troops in the region and intense diplomatic efforts.
“I think we should be talking to Syria and Iran,“ Powell said. “You have to talk to people you dislike most in this dangerous world.“
Powell said troop reductions should be pursued because the ineffective Iraqi government is unable to oversee the country and cool the unabated violence between majority Shiite and minority Sunni Muslims.
“You can’t sit there forever on the lid of this sectarian stew,“ Powell said.
Powell, who appeared before the United Nations shortly before the start of the March 2003 war to present the US case for invasion, said he supported sending troops as the only sure way to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Powell said Saddam had the ability and intent to develop and use weapons of mass destruction.
“It was the lack of planning for these later phases and the things that got out of control that got us to this point,“ he said.
Powell predicted that a lack of support for the war and political pressure will force Bush to “face the situation on the ground“ and alter his policy by the end of 2007.
Politics aside, the volunteer army cannot maintain the existing presence in Iraq, according to Powell, a retired four-star general who also served as commander of the joint chiefs of staff.

BAGHDAD, Iraq,
July 7--At least 105 people were killed Saturday when a suicide truck bomb devastated a crowded Iraqi village market and demolished many homes, the top local security, administrative and health officials said.
Ambulances and private cars ferried dozens of bloodied corpses and wounded civilians to clinics in the nearby town of Tuz Khurmatu and the provincial capital Kirkuk, where desperate relatives waited for news of the missing, AFP reported.
Lieutenant Colonel Saman Hamid, commander of the security coordination center in nearby Tuz Khuramtu, told AFP that a suicide bomber had detonated a powerful bomb on board a brick truck in the village of Emerli.
“105 Iraqis were killed and five are missing; we have registered their names. There are more than 250 wounded,“ he said.
The casualty toll was confirmed by Dr. Wissam Abdullah, director of the main local hospital.
Shrapnel from the blast killed shoppers hundreds of meters (yards) from its epicenter, wounded grocer Hussein Abu Al-Hussein Akbar Aziz said in Kirkuk.
“We have never seen an attack like that in Ermeli. The whole village was shrouded in smoke and dust,“ he said, grimacing from a leg injury. “I was serving a woman and her child in my shop. They were both killed.“
As medical staff in Tuz Khurmatu scrambled to cope with the arrivals, Doctor Jawdat Abdullah said: “We’ve received 30 bodies and 105 wounded, and that might increase as rescuers are still pulling people out of the rubble.“
The captain said the early morning attack occurred when the market was crowded with people.
Three children were brought alive out of the debris but died before they could be taken for medical treatment.
Another car bomb attack against a military checkpoint in Baghdad killed at least three people and wounded 10, medics at the city’s Ibn Nafees hospital said. A defense official said up to six people could have been killed.
The bombing came as the US military announced the deaths of eight soldiers over the previous two days and the British of two, and against a backdrop of mounting domestic opposition to the international troop presence.
Iraq is in the grip of several overlapping conflicts between religious and political factions, but the suicide car bomb is a hallmark of Sunni extremists such as those affiliated with Al-Qaeda or Ansar Al-Sunna.
The attacks appear designed to foment sectarian and ethnic violence and undermine Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s coalition government, which is working with US forces to quell the fighting.

LONDON, July 7--A group of British parliamentarians called for the international community’s engagement with Hamas, after it helped free BBC reporter Alan Johnston in Gaza.
Twenty MPs from all parties, including Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, signed the Commons motion a day after the BBC correspondent’s release, QODSNA reported.
It says Hamas’ “pivotal role“ in ending his kidnap shows it should join Palestinian reconciliation efforts.
“The international community’s support for Mahmoud Abbas as the president of Palestinian Authority should not preclude contact with Hamas,“ the motion said.
The motion, tabled by Labor’s Richard Burden, was signed by MPs from across the British political spectrum.
Johnston acknowledged the pivotal role played by Hamas in condemning the kidnapping and securing his release.
After his release from four months of captivity on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary David Miliband fully acknowledged the crucial role played by Hamas and its leader, Ismail Haniya, in securing Johnston’s release from captivity by a militant group opposed to Hamas.
The motion also hails Johnston’s integrity and courage, and the dignity shown by his parents since the March 12 abduction in Gaza City, during which several threats were made against his life.

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 7--Fierce fighting in three separate regions of Afghanistan killed more than 100 militants, part of a cycle of rapidly rising violence five years into the US-led effort to defeat the Taliban.
The governor of northeastern Kunar province said villagers were claiming that Friday’s airstrikes had killed dozens of civilians, though he said he could not confirm the report.
The fighting--in the south, west and northeast--continues a trend of sharply rising bloodshed over the last five weeks, among the deadliest periods since the 2001 US-led invasion, AP said.
More than 1,000 people were killed in insurgency-related violence in June alone, including 700 militants and 200 civilians. More than 3,100 people have been killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count based on information from Western and Afghan officials. Around 4,000 people died in violence last year.
US-led coalition and NATO spokesmen on Friday emphasized that ground commanders had evaluated the terrain to prevent civilian casualties, though Kunar Gov. Shalizai Dedar said villagers had reported that 10 civilians were killed in an initial airstrike, and that a second strike killed about 30 people who were trying to bury the dead.
Dedar said he could not confirm the reports of civilian deaths but that he was not rejecting their validity either. He said around 60 militants died in the battle.
US and NATO officials say Taliban militants threaten villagers into claiming that attacks killed civilians.
“There were some number of insurgents that were killed. We have no reason to believe that any civilians were killed at this time,“ said NATO Spokesman Maj. John Thomas. He said soldiers called in airstrikes on “positively identified enemy firing positions“ in a remote area.
Civilian deaths have been a growing problem for international forces here, threatening to derail support for the Western mission.
Both a UN and the AP count of civilian deaths this year show that US and NATO forces have caused more civilian deaths this year than Taliban fighters have.
In the south, militants attacked two police vehicles with gunfire and rocket propelled grenades overnight Thursday, and US-led coalition and Afghan forces responded with artillery fire and airstrikes in what the coalition described as a “sparsely populated area“ in Uruzgan province.