A view of the Arak heavy water reactor project, 190 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Tehran

VIENNA, Austria,
July 13--Iran has agreed to let UN inspectors visit a heavy water reactor by the end of July, as part of a series of measures aimed at clearing up questions over Tehran’s nuclear program, the UN atomic agency said Friday.
Iran confirmed it would provide access to the under-construction reactor at Arak, which will have the capacity to produce plutonium, AFP reported.
International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Chief Mohamed ElBaradei had called for such steps as a way out for clarifying the ambiguities.
The measures were agreed during a visit by IAEA’s deputy director for safeguards, Olli Heinonen, to Tehran this week.
Iran insists that its nuclear program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity but the UN Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions to get Tehran to stop enriching uranium, and there are calls for a third round.
Heinonen met with Iranian officials to draw up a plan to resolve “outstanding issues“ concerning Iran’s nuclear work--more than four years into an IAEA investigation that began in February 2003.
“During the visit, agreement was reached on...a visit of agency inspectors to the heavy water research reactor at Arak by the end of July 2007,“ the IAEA said in a statement.
There was also agreement to resolve problems over inspecting the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, as well as remaining issues “regarding Iran’s past plutonium experiments,“ the statement said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s envoy to IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, stressed that Iran considers completion of Arak’s heavy water installations as its undeniable right.
Speaking to IRNA on Friday, Soltanieh said, “Tehran will continue to work on the project because of its medical usage, especially in the field of radio medicine.“
The Arak reactor will replace Tehran Research Reactor to provide isotopes for more than 200 hospitals in the country.

Ahmad Reza Rouhollah-Zad

See page 2 for full text of the
interview

TEHRAN, July 13--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said economists should present practical solutions for solving the country’s economic problems.
Speaking at the six-hour meeting with critical university professors and economists on Thursday afternoon, Ahmadinejad added that the government welcomes any constructive solution, IRNA reported.
“University professors and economists should present their solutions for solving the economic problems of the country,“ he said.
First Vice President Parviz Davoudi, vice president for executive affairs, senior advisor to the president, eight ministers, Central Bank of Iran governor as well as the head of Planning and Management Organization accompanied the president in his meeting with some 50 economists from different universities.
Referring to oil revenues, Ahmadinejad said the main income is used for infrastructural construction and a noticeable amount is given to the private sector for investment activities. He added that according to the Fourth National Development Plan (2005-10), steps should be considered for increasing the salaries of government employees and improving social security.
“The ninth government’s support of private sector is unprecedented and we have doubled the credits and loans to private sector,“ he said.
The president underlined the continuation of experts’ meetings to find ways of solving the country’s economic difficulties. Ahmadinejad also emphasized the establishment of specialized working groups in ministries for solving economic problems.

TEHRAN, June 13--Head of Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council Abdul Aziz Hakim has said Iran-US talks serve the interests of Iraqi nation and would help ease tension in the war-torn country.
In an interview with IRNA, the top Iraqi Shiite leader assessed the outcomes of the first round of Iran-US talks as positive and said Iraqi political factions favor a second round of talks in the near future.
Referring to the Iranian exiled terrorist group Mujahideen Khalq Organization, he said MKO has committed acts against the interests of Iraqi people and its activities in Iraq are banned according to the Iraqi Constitution.
“Besides their terrorist attacks against Iran, they played a leading role in helping former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein suppress the Iraqi people’s uprising in 1991,“ he said.
Noting that MKO is known in Iraq as an enemy of the nation and that the Iraqis want their immediate expulsion, Hakim said, “However, the occupation forces have branded the MKO members as refugees in order to hinder Iraqi government’s efforts to expel them.“
Hakim, who is in Tehran since May for chemotherapy, said the Arab states pressuring the Iraqi government to bring back the infamous Baath party members to power “refuse to understand the changes and realities in Iraq“.
The head of the most powerful Iraqi political party opined that federalism is the only solution to resolve violent conflicts in the country.
“The issue of federalism is part of the popularly-supported Iraqi Constitution,“ he said, adding that federalism does not mean dividing the county into separate parts, but is a way to secure Iraqi integration.
Hakim said he stands by the country’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and his government, urging Sunni parties not to abandon the political process and promising serious efforts to solve all problems.
“The political process will not collapse because the vast majority of the Iraqi people support it since it is based on the constitution and elections,“ he said.
“We will work with our Sunni brothers as we did in the past and continue to keep them with us. If there are problems, there should be serious efforts to solve them.“

Paris is hosting a meeting on solving Lebanon political crisis, which will be attended by envoys from Lebanese parties, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Jean-Claude Cousseran, French special envoy on Lebanon.
The Arab League will also send an envoy to the meeting.
Cousseran, who earlier flew to Lebanon and Iran, has said France is trying to play the role of moderator between the Lebanese parties.
The French envoy has met with officials in Beirut, Rabat and Tehran ahead of the talks opening today between representatives of 14 political groups, including Hezbollah.
The US-backed Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora has questioned the credibility of the meeting and expressed pessimism about the results.
Siniora said during a visit to Paris late June that he did not expect much progress from the talks called by France between all of Lebanon’s political and civil society leaders.
“Expectations are not extremely high for this meeting,“ said Siniora after his visit from Paris.
Two members of the Western-backed Siniora government, Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh and Youth Minister Ahmed Fatfat, will also take part in the meetings outside Paris.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has assigned Mohammed Fneish to the two-member team, along with foreign affairs chief, Nawaf Mussawi.
Fneish was energy minister in the government of Siniora before resigning along with five other pro-Syrian ministers in November.
Nawaf Mussawi, Hezbollah’s foreign affairs adviser after receiving the invitation from Cousseran, said he welcomed the initiative which showed France was standing alongside the Lebanese without taking sides.
In Iran, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki welcomed the move and said his country will support any initiative to bring the Lebanese groups closer.
Lebanon has been deadlocked since November when six pro-Syrian ministers quit the cabinet, charging it was riding roughshod over the power-sharing arrangements in force since the 1975-90 civil war.
Both the anti- and pro-Syrian camps in Lebanon have publicly welcomed the French initiative.

TEHRAN, July 13--Minister of Industries and Mines has announced that several foreign investment townships and special economic zones will be set up in the provinces.
Alireza Tahmasbi also said more than $10 billion have been allocated for the purpose, according to the Persian daily ’Iran’.
Foreign investors, he said, have been showing growing interest in investing in Iran’s infrastructural sectors.
“Foreigners have also realized that there are many capacities and potentials in Iran’s industries,“ he said, adding that a strategic plan will be devised to attract more foreign investments. The minister recalled that the first foreign investment township was established in the northeastern province of East Azarbaijan.
Mining and industrial companies from Germany, Turkey and Italy have invested over $140 million in 71 units which employ more than 9,000 people.
In another development, deputy minister of mines and industries, Moqtada Ravanbakhsh, called for more support for small-scale industries.
He said small industrial units should be reorganized since they are currently operating at low value-added and productivity. Commenting on Article 44 of Iran’s Constitution on privatizing key economic sectors, Ravanbakhsh reiterated that small industries can be merged with enterprises as part of the privatization policies to boost productivity.
Small-scale industries make up more than 95 percent of Iran’s industrial units.

BERLIN, July 13--A 14-year-old German-Iranian wonderkid made press headlines on Thursday after scoring the perfect grade on her high school diploma.
Minu Dietlinde Tizabi managed to earn the magic grade 1 on her German ’Abitur’ (diploma) in her high school in the southern city of Pforzheim, making her the youngest high school graduate in the history of Germany, IRNA reported.
“I don’t find that I am something special or very smart,“ said Minu who hopes to study medicine at Germany’s prestigious University of Heidelberg.
Minu, whose father Jamshid Tizabi is an electronics engineer, was able to read books at the early age of three.
When she was of school age, Minu was promoted to the third grade and later on skipped several higher grades.
According to Minu, she never experienced any jealousy or rejection by her classmates because of her intelligence.

LONDON, July 13--A former British intelligence chief has warned that terrorists will mount another successful attack on Britain, despite their failure to carry out recent car bombings in London and Glasgow, Scotland.
Stella Rimmington, who led the domestic intelligence agency MI5 from 1992 to 1996, also said in an interview published Friday that, unlike Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his predecessor, Tony Blair, she believed that Britain’s military role in Iraq has inspired young men to join terrorist plots against the United Kingdom, AP reported.
Five suspects are being questioned over the three attempted attacks late last month in London’s entertainment district and at Glasgow airport. All three makeshift car bombs failed to detonate.
“I don’t think we should take a great deal of comfort from the fact that these latest bombs were botched,“ Rimmington told the Daily Mail newspaper. “Creating homemade explosives is difficult and they will get it wrong, but they will get it right as well.“
The only man charged is Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old British-born doctor raised in Iraq who is accused of conspiring to cause explosions.
Brown said Wednesday he believed military action in Iraq and Afghanistan had no impact on the threat to Britain from terrorism, saying the country would be at risk in any case.
No nation could be secure when Al-Qaida linked terrorists are “determined to practice carnage across the world“, Brown said.
Rimmington acknowledged that Al-Qaida attacks predated the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, but said the significance of the wars should not be played down.
“Terrorism was around from this source before we went into Iraq or Afghanistan,“ she told the newspaper. “But there is no doubt it has acted as a recruiting sergeant for a lot of these young men because of this sense of grievance about foreign policy.“
“If we had not gone to war I sense we would have had some of this, but not at the same level,“ she added.
MI5 head Jonathan Evans has said agents are tracking at least 30 plots within Britain and around 1,600 suspected terrorists.