Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Kamal Kharrazi

Supreme National Security Council

Iran

20030405

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF discovers Hamas underground weapons manufacturing facility in central Gaza

2024-11-03

[FoxNews] The terrorist-operated facility contained workshops and hundreds of supplies for producing rockets, shells and grenades, the IDF says

The IDF has released video showing Israeli troops uncovering a Hamas underground weapons-manufacturing facility in central Gaza located beneath the local civilian population.

The terrorist-operated facility contained workshops and hundreds of supplies for producing rockets, shells and grenades before it was destroyed by engineering troops, the IDF says. It was situated near the area of Zeitoun.

The IDF says the facility also had diving equipment intended for Hamas to infiltrate Israeli territory by sea.

Video released by the IDF shows troops navigating a long tunnel that leads to the facility. The IDF says the tunnel route contained several long-term living areas equipped with an oven, stove, food supplies, beds and offices used by the terrorists during the war.

The mission was carried out by the troops of the 252nd Division, soldiers from the 5th Brigade.

"Engineering troops, under the command of the Southern Command, in cooperation with the Yahalom Unit and the Ministry of Defense’s Engineering and Construction Directorate, located and dismantled the tunnel route, damaged weapons production capabilities, and thwarted another attempt by the Hamas terrorist organization to rearm," the IDF said in a statement.

The footage was released on the same day that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed a "tooth-breaking" response to the actions of both Israel and the U.S.

A top adviser to Khamenei, Kamal Kharrazi, issued the warning about Iran's nuclear capacity on Friday, saying that the country may be prepared to alter its policies on using nuclear weapons if the nation faces an existential threat.

"If an existential threat arises, Iran will modify its nuclear doctrine, we have the capability to build weapons and have no issue in this regard," Kharrazi told Lebanese media.

Israel also on Saturday claimed that its forces killed two Hezbollah commanders who were responsible for more than 400 strikes against them in October.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it "eliminated the terrorists Mousa Izz al-Din, the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the coastal sector, and Hassan Majid Daib, Hezbollah’s artillery commander in the coastal sector" on Friday in the Tyre region of Lebanon.

IDF says Daib was responsible for "the projectile fire toward the Haifa Bay on Thursday."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran claims it can build nukes, threatens Israel and US with 'tooth-breaking'' retaliation

2024-11-02

[NYPOST] Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
claimed it could build a nuclear weapons as its supreme leader on Saturday threatened the US and Israel with a ''tooth-breaking response'' to Israel's strike on Iranian military targets.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...>
spoke with students ahead of the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.

''The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response to what they are doing to Iran and the land of the Medes and the Persians and to the resistance front,'' Khamenei, 85, said in a video released by the state media, referring to Tehran-backed terror group like Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
and Hezbollah.

The comments came a day after a top adviser issued a warning about Iran's nuclear capabilities. Adviser Kamal Kharrazi said Friday the country could alter its policies on using nuclear weapons if the threat seems big enough.

''If an existential threat arises, Iran will modify its nuclear doctrine, we have the capability to build weapons and have no issue in this regard,'' Kharrazi told Lebanese media, Fox News reported.

A day earlier, Khamenei reportedly instructed his forces to prepare a direct attack against Israel.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Ex- Iranian Official Mohammad Javad Larijani: No One Can Stop Our Nuclear-Bomb Making

2022-07-24

[IranNewsUpdate.com]

On July 17, an ex-Iranian official threatened the international community with a potential nuclear bomb. In an interview with the Young Journalist Club (YJC) news agency, Mohammad Javad Larijani, a former judiciary official and a close ally to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said, “No one can prevent us from producing a nuclear weapon if Iran concludes to produce it.”

Speculating why the U.S. had abandoned a military approach against the regime, Larijani stated, “The United States’ policies are archaic, just like Biden’s age. They are incapable against us. Europe and the U.S. back Saudi Arabia with an unlimited amount of weapons; however, they are outmoded weapons that stuck Saudi Arabia in Yemen.”

Reacting to U.S. President Joe Biden’s trip to the Middle East, Larijani said that the U.S. and Israel signed an agreement and pledged together that “We will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.”

Larijani claimed, “Naturally, we have been prohibited from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, including atomic ones, based on the Supreme Leader’s fatwa. However, no one can stop us if we ever decide to do so.”

Larijani’s statement comes just as another former official explicitly revealed that the regime started nuclear activities to produce atomic weapons. On April 24, Ali Motahari, the former deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament [Majlis], said, “When we started nuclear activities, our goal was to make a bomb.”

ack in February 2021, former Minister of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) Mahmoud Alavi also threatened the West with producing nuclear weapons. In an interview with the state-run TV Channel Two, he said, “In his Fatwa, the Supreme Leader announced that the production of nuclear weapons is Haram [forbidden] and contrary to Sharia, and the Islamic Republic would not pursue them.”

Alavi laid the blame for producing nuclear weapons on the West, saying, “However, if [foreigners] caught a cat in an awkward corner, it may behave unlikely to a free cat. If they pushed Iran to that path, then it is not Iran’s fault.”

On the same day, former Foreign Affairs Minister and current chief of the Supreme Council of Foreign Relations Kamal Kharrazi reiterated similar threats. His remarks came following the U.S. President’s pledge about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. He said, “The United States is committed to ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.”

In an interview with Aljazeera, Kharrazi stated, “We have the technical capabilities to produce a nuclear bomb; however, we have yet to have such a decision. Iran would not negotiate about its missile programs and regional policies because it is equivalent to surrender.”

In a threat to the international community, he added, “We enriched uranium from 20 percent fissile purity to 60 percent only within a few days. We can easily reach it to 90 percent alike.”

In an interview with Al-Jazeera on June 7, Mohammad Eslami, the regime’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) chief, did not reject the possibility of Iran enriching uranium at a 90 percent—weapons-grade level, highlighting that, “The decision to enrich at 90 percent depends on the relevant officials.”

In a nutshell, all evidence shows that the Iranian regime began and continued the nuclear projects to acquire at least an atomic bomb. The 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), failed to stop Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Larijani stated, “The JCPOA slowed our nuclear abilities, but it would be rebuilt soon.”

Remarkably, former IAEO chief Ali Akbar Salehi had already revealed that Tehran never obeyed by JCPOA clauses. He said, “When UN watchdog spectators told us to pour cement into the calendrias… we said: ‘Fine. We will pour.’ But we did not tell them that we had other tubes. Otherwise, they would have told us to pour cement into those tubes as well. Now we have the same tubes.”

The international community should no longer compromise on the Iranian regime’s nuclear extortion. The mullahs have deceived the world, particularly the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for a long while. Iranian dissidents have routinely emphasized, “The Iran regime only understands the language of power and firmness.”

As the regime continues to blackmail regional and global peace and security, world powers should, once and for all, hold the regime accountable for its constant attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and refrain from encouraging its aggression with further concessions.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran brags it has the 'technical means' to produce nuclear bomb'

2022-07-19

[NYPOST] Iran
Iran

...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
can make nuclear bombs but has not yet chosen whether to build one, a bigwig bragged.

Kamal Kharrazi, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...
, gave the warning Sunday, a day after President Biden ended his Middle East trip in which he vowed to stop Iran from "acquiring a nuclear weapon."

He told Al Jazeera TV that "Iran is on the nuclear threshold and this is not something secret," according to the Tehran Times.

"Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb but there has been no decision by Iran to build one," Kharrazi insisted.

Kharrazi said Iran has already been easily "able to enrich uranium up to 60%" — far above a cap of 3.67% under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran rejects Trump offer of talks as 'humiliation', without value

2018-08-01

LONDON (Reuters) - Senior Iranian officials on Tuesday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of talks without preconditions as worthless and "a humiliation" after he acted to reimpose sanctions on Tehran following his withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal. Separately, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Trump’s repudiation of the accord reached in 2015 was "illegal" and Iran would not easily yield to Washington’s renewed campaign to strangle Iran’s vital oil exports.

In May, Trump pulled the United States out of the multilateral deal concluded before he took office, denouncing it as one-sided in Iran’s favor. On Monday, he declared that he would be willing to meet Rouhani without preconditions to discuss how to improve relations.

The head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations said on Tuesday Tehran saw no worth in Trump’s offer, made only a week after he warned Iran it risked dire consequences few had ever suffered in history if it made threats against Washington. "Based on our bad experiences in negotiations with America and based on U.S. officials’ violation of their commitments, it is natural that we see no value in his proposal," Kamal Kharrazi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Ahmadinejad slammed for 'letter-writing' foreign policy

2007-12-12

TEHRAN (AFP) - A leading Iranian moderate launched a withering attack on the foreign policy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying his strategy consisted of "letter-writing and slogans," media reported on Tuesday.

Hassan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator who now heads an official think tank, ridiculed government claims that Iran was increasing its power and warned that its international situation was unfavourable.

This isn't a surprise. Most Iranians on the inside understand that Short Round's presidency has been a disaster. He's tanking the economy, isolating the country from those who should be their natural allies, and is ensuring that Iran is known for oil and terrorism, and not in that order.

His warnings counter the optimism of Ahmadinejad, who last week declared Iran had scored a "great victory" over world powers after the publication of the latest US intelligence report on the Iranian nuclear programme.

"A strategy of letter-writing and slogans cannot be an appropriate strategy for us to follow," Rowhani told the Jam-e Jam newspaper in an interview.

Ahmadinejad has shown a penchant for writing letters to world leaders such as US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as making provocative soundbites on Iran's nuclear standoff with the West.

Rowhani said US military difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan had created "golden opportunities for Iran.

"But the ninth government has not taken advantage of the opportunities created in the world and has not followed an appropriate strategy."

Asked if Ahmadinejad had been right to boast of Iran's growing power, Rowhani referred to a litany of US-led financial and other restrictions imposed on Tehran in the past two years. "To discuss this, we should see the proof of power. The fact that we cannot open a letter of credit, is this power?

"The fact that an Iranian student cannot study abroad in (his or her) chosen field, is that power?

"The fact that the economic risks have grown, is that power?

"The fact that banking activities have been restricted, is that power?"

Again, GWB has been waving the stick with one hand while using the other to hurt Iran. It's the bolo punch idea, and we're chopping at Iran in ways that quietly, carefully make their international situation miserable.

The mid-ranking cleric now heads an influential strategic think tank run by the Expediency Council, Iran's top political arbitration body. The Council is headed by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's top domestic political foe and his vanquished rival in the 2005 presidential elections.

The political temperature in Iran has heightened considerably ahead of March 14 parliamentary polls, with hardliners and moderates exchanging unusually explicit verbal blows over the government's performance.

Rowhani also complained that the government was ignoring the talents of "hundreds" of experienced diplomats and foreign policy experts. "We do not have a proper strategy in foreign policy. We do not use our experts' experience properly," he concluded.

We have a few CIA agents we could loan you.

His comments come after a report by the US intelligence community published last week said Iran halted a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, undermining previous White House accusations and prompting a jubilant Ahmadinejad reaction. The president has accused his opponents of being "traitors" for pressuring the government on the nuclear issue.

But former foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi also contradicted Ahmadinejad's optimism, saying that Tehran had to brace for a third UN Security Council sanctions resolution after the US intelligence report. "I suppose the US officials will now go even further toward the sanctions and politicial pressure against our country and prepare grounds for the next resolution," he was quoted as saying by the Aftab-e Yazd newspaper.

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Terror Networks

Report: Bin Laden's son sent to operate against Israel

2006-11-15

Iran has freed a son of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from house arrest, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday. Die Welt said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard released Saad bin Laden on July 28 with the aim of sending him to the Syria-Lebanon border. It linked the reported move to the outbreak of war between Israel and Lebanese-based Hizbullah.

"From the Lebanese border, he has the task of building Islamist terror cells and preparing them to fight together with Hizbullah," Die Welt said, quoting intelligence information. "Apparently Tehran is counting on recruiting Lebanese refugees in Syria for the fight against Israel, using bin Laden's help," it added in a preview of a report to appear in its Thursday edition.

Western intelligence sources have long suspected that Iran is holding a number of al-Qaeda figures, possibly including Saad Bin Laden and Saif al-Adel, the network's security chief.

Kamal Kharrazi, then Iran's foreign minister, said in January 2004 that Tehran had jailed about a dozen al-Qaeda suspects and would put them on trial. "Our general view is Iran certainly does have a few al-Qaeda-related figures ... The general perception is Iran keeps these people as a bargaining chip," said a European counter-terrorism official when asked about the Die Welt report. He said Shia Muslim Iran was not sympathetic to members of Sunni-dominated al-Qaeda but "they protect them as long as they think they can make use of them."

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri issued a video message last week in which, while not mentioning Hizbullah by name, he urged Muslims everywhere to "fight and become martyrs" in response to the conflict in Lebanon.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran frees Binny's kid

2006-08-02

Iran has freed a son of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from house arrest, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday. Die Welt said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard released Saad bin Laden on July 28 with the aim of sending him to the Syria-Lebanon border. It linked the reported move to the outbreak of war between Israel and Lebanese-based Hizbollah. "From the Lebanese border, he has the task of building Islamist terror cells and preparing them to fight together with Hizbollah," Die Welt said, quoting intelligence information. "Apparently Tehran is counting on recruiting Lebanese refugees in Syria for the fight against Israel, using bin Laden's help," it added in a preview of a report to appear in its Thursday edition.

Western intelligence sources have long suspected that Iran is holding a number of al Qaeda figures, possibly including Saad bin Laden and Saif al-Adel, the network's security chief. Kamal Kharrazi, then Iran's foreign minister, said in January 2004 that Tehran had jailed about a dozen al Qaeda suspects and would put them on trial.

"Our general view is Iran certainly does have a few al Qaeda-related figures The general perception is Iran keeps these people as a bargaining chip," said a European counter-terrorism official when asked about the Die Welt report. He said Shia Muslim Iran was not sympathetic to members of Sunni-dominated al Qaeda but "they protect them as long as they think they can make use of them." Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri issued a video message last week in which, while not mentioning Hizbollah by name, he urged Muslims everywhere to "fight and become martyrs" in response to the conflict in Lebanon.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Khamenei appoints body to oversee Irans foreign policy

2006-06-28

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Irans supreme leader, has established a new body to supervise foreign policy in a move seen by some politicians in Tehran as a way to counterbalance the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad.

The move comes as Iran faces fresh pressure from US and European Union officials to respond quickly to an incentive package presented earlier this month by western powers. The package, drawn up by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, was crafted in an effort to persuade Tehran to limit its nuclear programme. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said last week that Iran would respond to the package by August 22. However some US and EU officials want a much swifter response.

In a letter appointing Kamal Kharrazi foreign minister under former President Mohammad Khatami as head of the new Strategic Committee for Foreign Policy, Ayatollah Khamenei said it should help facilitate macro-decision making find new horizons and make use of intellectuals.

Mr Kharrazi said on Tuesday the body would have no executive function but would devise strategies and present them to the leader.

He spoke of including experts from previous governments. Mr Kharrazi was foreign minister throughout Irans two-year talks with the EU, a time when Iranian diplomats developed wide contacts in Europe.

Shargh, the reformist newspaper, on Tuesday splashed Return of the moderates to foreign policy as its front-page headline. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, the former vice-president, said the bodys composition meant the continuation of détente.

Among those appointed is Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, who has acted as contact between the leader and Saudi Arabia in improving the two states relations over recent months. But Ayatollah Khamenei may also be acting to build consensus within Irans leadership, where different tactics have been aired in recent months over how to proceed with the nuclear programme.

Addressing top officials last week, Ayatollah Khamenei said the term principleist usually claimed by fundamentalists including Mr Ahmadi-Nejad should apply to anyone of any trend ... committed to the principles of the revolution.

Regime insiders recently told the FT the leadership was uncertain how to interpret the US decision to take part in talks if Iran accepted the wests offer.

Ayatollah Khamenei said on Tuesday the ground was prepared for negotiations over Tehrans nuclear programme but reiterated that Iran would not negotiate over its right to obtain and use nuclear technology.

His comments came as Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said Moscow believed it was counterproductive to insist Tehran give an early response.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Ahmadinejad does what US diplos could not - Euros realize he's nuts

2005-09-19

Five weeks ago, Iran's new president bought his country some time. Facing mounting criticism after walking away from negotiations with Europe and restarting part of Iran's nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked the world to withhold diplomatic pressure while he put together new proposals.

On Saturday, dozens of international diplomats, including the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, gathered at the United Nations to hear how Ahmadinejad planned to stave off a crisis.

Instead his speech, followed by a confused hour-long news conference, was able to do what weeks of high-level U.S. diplomacy had not: convince skeptical allies that Iran may, in fact, use its nuclear energy program to build atomic bombs.

Ahmadinejad appeared to threaten as much when he warned from the General Assembly podium that in the face of U.S. provocation, "we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue."

Senior European diplomats said immediately afterward that the speech had been "unhelpful." In fact, the opposite may be true.

"The effect of that speech will likely be a toughening of the international response to Iran because it was seen by so many countries as overly harsh, negative and uncompromising," Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said in an interview Sunday. "The strategic aim of a great many countries is to see Iran suspend its nuclear program and return to peaceful negotiations with the Europeans."

A European diplomat, who could discuss strategy only on the condition of anonymity, echoed Burns's remarks.

"There's no question this will make our case stronger and our task easier," when board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency meet Monday in Vienna to discuss Iran's case.

During his 25 minutes Saturday, Ahmadinejad delivered what began as a sermon praising the prophets of Islam, Christianity and Judaism and then descended into anti-American vitriol, conspiracy theories and threats.

He expressed doubt that the deadly attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were really carried out by terrorists. He said Americans had brought the devastation of Hurricane Katrina upon themselves and that the U.S. military was purposely poisoning its own troops in Iraq.

There were quotes from the Koran, angry finger pointing and attacks on Israel interlaced with talk of justice and tranquility. There was a staunch defense of Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, and to enrich uranium to fuel that program. There were no new proposals and little detail about old ones that were reoffered.

For much of last week, Iran had been the subject of endless backroom negotiations and public diplomacy, and at times, Tehran appeared to have the upper hand. But by the time the Iranian leader was headed for John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday night, U.S. and European officials were regaining confidence and putting together a new strategy designed to isolate Iran.

Burns met with British, German and French officials on Sunday in New York to discuss ways to bring around enough members of the IAEA board to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose sanctions.

The United States has long advocated such a strategy but still does not have the support of India, Russia or China, or a "next steps" policy if the matter does end up in the Security Council.

Diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the most likely outcome of the week-long meeting in Vienna would be a deadline resolution giving Iran several weeks to reverse course and demonstrate transparency with U.N. nuclear inspectors, or face the consequences of Security Council action.

Iran has consistently maintained that its program is designed to produce nuclear energy, not weapons. IAEA nuclear inspectors have not found any evidence of a weapons program but several serious questions about the scale, scope and history of the program remain unanswered and have fueled suspicion that Iran is concealing information.

Ahmadinejad's speech, his first major international address as a world leader, highlights a dramatic and conservative shift in foreign affairs for Iran under the new president's leadership. Several diplomats noted that his defiant comments were strikingly different in tone and substance from those delivered from the same podium three months ago by Kamal Kharrazi, who was Iran's foreign minister until Ahmadinejad was elected this summer.

Kharrazi, who addressed a conference on the future of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, spoke in English in an effort to reach an international audience, rather than in Persian, which is spoken almost exclusively in Iran. Although Kharrazi also defended Iran's program, which was built in secret over 18 years and exposed in 2002, he did so without threats.

That text, written by Iranian diplomats eager to see reform of political and religious life, won over countries unsure about Iran's intentions. Tehran declared victory shortly afterward when the IAEA board decided against reporting the country's nuclear program to the Security Council.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Rohani holds talks in Yemen

2005-06-08

SANAA, Yemen, June 8 (UPI) -- Yemen is expected to bring up Iranian support for a rebel leader during a two-day visit by the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. An official Yemeni source told United Press International Iran's Rohani Rohani will discuss political tensions that erupted after Yemen accused Iran of supporting Yemeni rebel leader Badreddine al-Houthy in the province of Saada, near the Yemeni-Saudi border. Rohani began a two-day state visit Wednesday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi denied the charge, saying his government does not wish to interfere in Yemen's internal affairs. He urged the Yemeni government to respect minorities, a reference to the Shiite minority, which was criticized and defamed in government newspapers.
Iran's ambassador to Yemen, Hussein Kamalian, was quoted in the official daily al-Thawra as saying the talks will focus on issues of joint interest. Rohani was expected to brief Yemeni officials on Iran's nuclear activities. Kamalian hailed "the distinctive and close relations between the two countries."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran defends Hizbollah's right to arms in Lebanon

2005-05-26

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran said on Thursday a U.N. resolution demanding that militias in Lebanon disarm does not apply to the Hizbollah guerrilla group it supports. Visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said the Lebanese government had denied the Shi'ite Muslim group was a militia subject to last year's Security Council resolution 1559. "What is here is a resistance linked to the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people and no government or people would cut off its own hand," he told reporters on arrival at the airport, speaking through a translator.
Hizbollah, which is facing mounting international pressure to disarm, said on Wednesday it would fight anyone who tried to take away its weapons, which were only for use against Israel. "We do not want to attack anyone and will not allow anyone to attack Lebanon but if anyone, anyone, thinks of disarming the resistance we will fight them like the martyrs of Kerbala," said Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, referring to a battle in Islamic history that is central to Shi'ites.
Iran, along with Syria, has long backed Hizbollah, whose guerrilla attacks were instrumental in prompting Israel to end its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in May 2000. The U.N. resolution adopted in September demanded that Syrian forces leave Lebanon and all militias in the country disarm. Damascus withdrew its troops in April.

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