"If [the US] gives us uranium grade 20 percent, we would stop production. Those negotiations took place in Vienna. Apparently they know everything. I repeat: If you give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production."
This, in effect, is a return to Ahmadinejad's hopes for a deal in the autumn 2009 talks, where his effort to get an agreement was undermined by domestic opposition (as Weymouth astutely notes). Far from giving up the effort, this statement indicates he is determined to try once more.
Photo: Alexandre Meneghini (The country needs to begin the process of creating a constitution that makes the government accountable to the Libyan people. Such a framework would need to define power sharing rules to overcome potential post-revolution conflicts between the country's two most powerful regions: Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The framework will also need to mitigate center-periphery frictions by creating an institutional basis for a decentralized political system that promotes regional development. Most important is to ensure that regional and local institutions are offered adequate technical support and the fiscal resources to deliver services.
The US ambassador Ryan Crocker said the attack needed to be put into perspective. "These were five guys that rumbled into town with RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) under their car seats," he said.
"They got into a building and did some harassment fire on us and Isaf. This really is not a very big deal, a hard day for the embassy and my staff, who behaved with enormous courage and dedication, but half a dozen RPG rounds from 800 metres away – that isn't Tet, that's harassment," he said in reference to the Tet offensive in Vietnam.
"If that's the best they can do, I think it's actually a statement of their weakness and more importantly since Kabul is in the hands of Afghan security it's a real credit to the Afghan national security forces."
This is effectively a 45-minute political advertisement by President Ahmadinejad.
NBC News has paid a high price for its access to the President and the "exclusive" that Ahmadinejad will give a "unilateral pardon" to US hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, sentenced to eight years for espionage. (It is an interesting question whether NBC knew in advance, as a sweetener to do the interview, of the President's plan or at least was told that Ahmadinejad would make an "important announcement".) The US channel agreed to an advance, glowing profile of "A Day in the Life of the President". I am certain that the list of questions was submitted to Ahmadinejad's office in advance, and I strongly suspect that NBC agreed that it would ask only those questions, with no follow-ups on Ahmadinejad's points. At points, interviewer Ann Curry is embarrassingly deferential --- note, for example, her obsequious, almost apologetic, introduction of a question (at the 18:00 mark) of a question about Iran's co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. At no point does she interrupt to challenge or even clarify Ahmadinejad's answers, which last up to five minutes without pause.
The details are sketchy at best at this moment. What’s clear is that insurgents linked to the Haqqani Network first started targeting several areas of the Afghan capital Kabul with suicide bombers and then fired several rockets in yet other areas. As confusing as it sounds right now, I have been told by an Interior Ministry source --- who wishes to remain anonymous --- that it was just as confusing for the security forces.
Taliban gunmen armed with suicide vests and heavy weaponry have launched co-ordinated attacks in Kabul, targeting NATO's headquarters, the US embassy, and the Afghan intelligence agency.
Heavy gunfire continued to be heard on Tuesday as Afghan forces battled to clear a building in the city's diplomatic quarter which had been taken over by heavily armed fighters. Rockets have reportedly been fired at the US and other embassies in the area.
At least four policemen and two civilians have been killed and 22 others injured, according to AFP.
Police have surrounded the occupied building, calling in air support to end a siege carried out by gunmen resisting inside the building.
Sediq Seddiqi, spokesman to the Afghan Ministry of Interior, said three of the Taliban fighters in the building had been killed and two were continuing to resist.
NATO has confirmed that they are providing Afghan forces ground and air support in the operation.
Claimed footage of a mass funeral procession for Ezzat al-Baidee, the teenager whose death in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Monday was captured on video
2110 GMT: Denial of the Day. According to Fars, via Khabar Online, President Ahmadinejad's office continues to deny that 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, suspected of involvement in fraud, has been dismissed.
2000 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Here's a wrinkle in the hard-line blogosphere in Iran: the blogger "Grain of Character" has asked the Supreme Leader to end his support for Presidnet Ahmadinejad and allow his istizah --- an interrogation possibly leading to impeachment -- by Parliament.
President Ahmadinejad tells US NBC News that American hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer to be freed in 48 hours
1250 GMT: Ahmadinejad, who is due to speak at the United Nations later this month, told The Washington Post that he was issuing a "unilateral pardon" of Fattal and Bauer, arrested in July 2009 while hiking on the Iran-Iraq border, as a "humanitarian gesture".
Masoud Shafiee, the lawyer for Bauer and Fattal, said bail for the two men had been set at $500,000 each.
Ahmadinejad had wanted to released Bauer and Fattal last September when a third American, Sarah Shourd, was freed, also on $500,000. However, the Iranian judiciary objected to the release of the two men, as well as Ahmadinejad's planned elaborate ceremony. In the end, Shourd was released with little fanfare.
Bauer and Fattal were sentenced this summer to eight years in prison. Shourd refused to return for the trial.
0950 GMT: It looks like President Ahmadinejad is using his interview with America's NBC News to make a high-profile political move in advance of his trip to the United Nations later this month.
NBC says it was told by Ahmadinejad that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the US hikers detained in July 2009 and sentenced last month to eight years in prison on espionage charges will be freed in two days.
NBC posted the claim in a Twitter message. The interview will air later Tuesday on the Today show.
In the conservative lexicon, Ahmadinejad and his inner circle have joined the reformists as a lethal threat to conservative values.
In their drive for unity, almost all the conservative politicians now label themselves osulgara, or "principlists." Prodded by leading conservatives, such as Assembly of Experts President Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi-Kani, principlists from several conservative organizations have created a council of 15 --- also known as the council of the 7 plus 8 --- to draw up a common platform and list of candidates for parliament.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 13:41
"If [the US] gives us uranium grade 20 percent, we would stop production. Those negotiations took place in Vienna. Apparently they know everything. I repeat: If you give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production."
