Mir Feisal Baqerzadeh

TEHRAN, June 30--A senior official said on Saturday many Iraqis still do not know that the executed dictator Saddam Hussein was responsible for imposing the war on Iran.
Speaking at a news conference on the anniversary of the US warship’s downing of an Iranian civilian plane in 1988, Brigadier Mir Feisal Baqerzadeh, head of the Foundation for Safeguarding the Values of Sacred Defense, also said efforts are underway to conceal the 1980-88 war’s realities, IRNA reported.
“Documents about the chemical bombings of Iranian cities are clear proof that the Iranian people were oppressed,“ he said.
In 1988, the Iranian aircraft en route from Bandar Abbas to Dubai was shot down by the missile fired from USS Vincennes, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children.
Baqerzadeh noted that everyone is responsible for publicizing the war documents and familiarizing the new generation with the untold realities of the war.
“Our documents show that the US and western countries helped Saddam in its war against Iran. They should know that hiding the truth cannot stop Iran from pursuing its rights,“ he said.
The official added that Iran’s charges against Saddam were not pressed and the international community did not hear about many of Saddam’s crimes.
Baqerzadeh showed some of the documents to reporters after the news conference.

TOKYO, June 30--Iran on Friday dismissed any military cooperation with North Korea.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia-Pacific and the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs Mehdi Safari made the remark while speaking to Japan’s TBS television.
Safari was in Tokyo to attend the 16th round of bilateral talks between the two countries’ deputy foreign ministers on Thursday, IRNA reported.
“All countries have the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,“ he said.
The deputy minister stressed Iran’s nuclear activities are thoroughly peaceful and based on international regulations that allow signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop and use nuclear energy.
Safari noted that restoration of tranquility to Afghanistan and Iraq is in line with Iran’s interests.
“During the past 27 years (since the victory of the Islamic Revolution), Iran has always been among the main factors behind regional security and stability. As a major and important state in the region, it has always supported restoration of tranquility to regional states,“ he said.
Referring to “very successful and constructive“ meetings with senior Japanese officials, Safari added that the two countries’ officials have the political will to expand mutual relations in all fields.
“During the 16th round of bilateral talks, the two sides discussed political, economic and cultural ties as well as major regional and international developments,“ he said.
Meanwhile, in separate interviews with Yomiuri newspaper, Safari elaborated on Tehran-Tokyo ties, Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities, Tehran’s role in establishing regional peace and stability, relations with North Korea and developments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, June 30--Iranian Ambassador to Uzbekistan Mohammad Fathali on Friday met with the head of Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure, Sobanev Mirzkan Osur Kinovich.
In the meeting, Fathali pointed to the crucial role of SCO in developing peace and stability in the region, expressing Tehran’s readiness to cooperate in different fields, including campaigns against drugs, extremist groups and terrorism, IRNA reported.
Touching on the long common border between Iran and Afghanistan as well as on the two countries’ historical commonalities, he called for more cooperation with SCO in fighting drug trafficking.
Sobanev, for his part, welcomed the proposal of the Iranian ambassador for boosting cooperation.
The SCO official referred to peace and stability as the key to regional development and said holding the next conference of foreign ministers and heads of member-states of SCO in Kazakhstan is an appropriate opportunity for exchanging views on important issues.
The summit of SCO member-states will be held in the presence of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, on August 16.
Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are the permanent SCO member-states while Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan hold observer status.

TEHRAN, June 30--Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met with Venezuelan deputy foreign minister for Middle East and Oceana affairs, Vladimir Villegas, on Saturday.
Villegas is in Tehran to make preparations for the official visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Iran.
According to a fax sent to Iran Daily by the Foreign Ministry’s Information and Media Department, Mottaki said the trip is very important for boosting ties between the two countries.
Villegas also expressed hope that the visit will take place as per the scheduled programs successfully.
Chavez is scheduled to arrive in Tehran on Sunday for a two-day visit, following his trip to Minsk and Moscow.
The Venezuelan president will be heading a delegation to discuss bilateral and international issues with Iranian officials. He will deliver a speech at Iran’s University of Science and Technology on Sunday.
Chavez’s trip to Tehran is aimed at discussing ways to further improve mutual political and economic ties and expedite Iran’s industrial projects in Venezuela.
This will mark Chavez’s third trip to Iran in the past two years.

Some $1.2 billion worth of medicines are produced annually in Iran.

TEHRAN, June 30--A senior health official said research has shown patients throw out 18 percent of their drugs annually.
Mehdi Mohammad-Zadeh, managing director of Ta’amin Investment company, affiliated to Iran’s Social Security Organization, added that most patients in Iran do not use one of the five medicines prescribed, Fars reported.
“The price of medicine in Iran is lower than in many developed countries and as a result unused drugs remain in homes,“ he said.
He noted that the prices of Iranian medicines are one-tenth of their foreign counterparts which, coupled with lack of supervision, has made Iranian medicines worthless.
“The gap between medicine and poison is very small, so poison should not be readily available to people. We still do not know how much the extra medicines have harmed the society’s health,“ he said.
The official pointed out that justice in the field of medicine distribution is different from justice in distributing other commodities, stressing that justice in the medicine sector means equitable availability of drugs and not their easy access.
“There are $1.2 billion worth of medicines produced annually in Iran and if their production were to stop, we will need to import more than $6 billion worth of medicines annually,“ he said.
Mohammad-Zadeh also said the Health Ministry’s policy is to maintain the current medicine prices.

TEHRAN, June 30--Iran on Saturday condemned the assassination attempt on Ivory Coast Premier Guillaume Soro’s life.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini referred to it as a terrorist move and called for peace in the Ivorian nation, Fars reported.
On Friday, attackers fired a rocket at a plane carrying Soro as it landed at an airport, killing at least three people, but Soro survived.
The plane was landing at Bouake in the center of the strife-torn country, Soro’s stronghold, when it came under attack.

TEHRAN, June 30--Head of Russia’s state-owned nuclear contractor Atomstroiexport, Sergei Shmatko, will arrive in Tehran on Sunday.
Kamran Kamrani, the head of Public Relations Department of Iran’s Atomic Energy Development and Production Company, made the remark to IRNA.
“Shmatko will pay a visit to Iran at the head of a financial and technical delegation to discuss reasons behind the delay in conducting executive operations of Bushehr power plant in the southern Iranian Bushehr province,“ he said.
Atomstroiexport started construction of the first nuclear power plant in Bushehr on January 8, 1995 and so far postponed its commissioning four times.
According to the agreement, Bushehr’s power plant was set to be inaugurated in 1999.
Based on the fifth agreement signed by Gholamreza Aqazadeh, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, and Russia’s Atomic Energy Chief Sergei Kiriyenko, on September 26, 2006, the Russian contractor was to make the power plant operational in September 2007. The Russian side later agreed to fulfill the same in November 2007.
The Russian company had earlier claimed that it could not complete the project on schedule, because Iran had not complied with its financial commitments on time. Iran dismissed the claims and declared that it had fulfilled its commitments as per the agreement.

PARIS, June 30--Iran became a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission during the commission’s 24th assembly in Paris on Friday.
Along with Indonesia, India, China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan and South Korea, Iran will sit on the board for Asia and Pacific region for two years, IRNA reported.
Tehran’s membership was the result of efforts made by Iran’s permanent mission at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The IOC provides member-states with an essential mechanism for global cooperation in oceanic studies. It assists governments to address their individual and collective ocean and coastal problems by sharing knowledge, information and technology, in coordination with national programs.
The 24th IOC assembly was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

MAHABAD, Kurdestan, June 30--Iran is ready to provide chemically injured Iraqis with medical aid, an official said on Saturday.
Deputy Health Minister Mohammad Reza Vaez-Mahdavi also told IRNA in this western province that officials of Iran’s Shahed University have asked the Foreign Ministry in a letter to inform the Iraqi officials of the university’s decision to help Iraq’s chemical victims.
He noted that experts of the university’s medical teams have been examining and treating the physical, mental and psychological ailments of Iran’s chemically injured people for a long time.
“We are ready to render similar services to the Iraqis who were injured by chemical weapons in the last days of the Iraq-imposed war against Iran,“ he said.
Halabja, a predominantly Kurdish town in northeastern Iraq bordering Iran, was attacked by the forces of former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein with chemical bombs in 1988.
Some 5,000 civilians were killed and 10,000 injured when Iraqi air forces bombarded Halabja with mustard and other poisonous gases.
Halabja’s residents are still suffering from very high rates of serious diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders, birth defects and miscarriages.