NOURNEWS- The following headlines appeared in English-language newspapers in the Iranian capital on Sunday, December 10, 2023.
IRAN DAILY:
- Tehran, Damascus to expand all-out trade ties
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber underscored the “strategic and amicable” relations between the Islamic Republic and Syria.
The Iranian official said Tehran is determined to expand economic cooperation with Damascus, Press TV reported.
“The Iranian government and nation attach profound significance to Syria, and consider the nation’s stability, independence, welfare and prosperity among their priorities,” Mokhber said in a meeting with visiting Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous in Tehran on Saturday.
The senior Iranian official also mentioned the ongoing Israeli military onslaught on the Gaza Strip. Mokhber said the international community is witnessing circumstances that have no precedent in history.
Mokhber said Washington and the Tel Aviv regime failed miserably to attain any of their set objectives in Gaza, emphasizing that the Axis of Resistance has grown to be strong and powerful, and rendered enemies unable to confront it.
“Just like Daesh terrorist group, which could not achieve its goals in Syria due to the heroic resistance of the country’s government and nation, the Zionist regime will not be able to dominate the region because of the strong steadfastness of the people of Gaza.”
He expressed hope that enemies as well as their military forces and proxies would pull out of West Asia completely.
For his part, Arnous said the Syrian government and nation will never forget Iran’s unconditional support and honorable positions vis-à-vis Syria.
“Iran and Syria have always come under pressure from global arrogance, the United States and certain Western states because they have been safeguarding their independence. Western countries have been putting pressure on Syria as it is one of the main pillars of the Axis of Resistance.”
“Nonetheless I give you assurances that Syria will not alter its stance and will continue to tread the path of resistance,” the Syrian prime minister said.
Turning to the relentless Israeli air and ground strikes on Gaza, Arnous described the scale of the regime’s aggression as “bizarre and out of the ordinary.”
“It is eccentric that such atrocities are taking place just before the world public opinion. It seems as if some parties are willing to wipe Gaza off the world map. We hope the Axis of Resistance would foil all these conspiracies.”
Inking several MoUs
Later on Saturday, Iran and Syria signed six cooperation agreements, including a deal on free trade and memoranda of understanding pertaining to tourism, media, sports, museums and libraries.
The two sides also agreed to launch shipping routes and promote transportation between Tehran and Damascus.
- Iran, Qatar can boost bilateral trade to $1b: Official
The annual trade between Iran and Qatar can reach $1 billion, announced the director of the International Affairs Department of the Ministry of Energy.
Mojtaba Akbari made the remark in the 9th meeting of the Iran-Qatar Joint Economic Cooperation Commission in Tehran on Saturday, adding that the amount of export of goods and equipment to Qatar from Iran is about $200 million a year, while Iran is doing its best to increase this amount it to $1 billion, IRNA reported.
According to the official, the annual joint commission meeting is being held to upgrade economic cooperation and constructive interaction between the two nations, which is attended by high-level representatives of executive authorities as well as the trade council of Iran and Qatar to deepen an amicable relationship.
The Joint Economic Cooperation Commission comprises four specialized committees, including the trade committee (commerce, industry, banking, customs, and insurance), the infrastructure committee (roads, urban planning, agriculture, information technology, communications, and labor sectors), social and cultural committee (tourism, handicrafts, health, science, research, and judicial system), and energy committee (water, wastewater, electricity, gas, and environment).
- Iran: JCPOA becoming more useless day by day
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is becoming more and more useless, day by day.
Addressing a group of students at the University of Tehran on the occasion of the national Student Day, the Iranian foreign minister said that Iran will not cross its redlines to revive the 2015 agreement on its nuclear programs.
Talks on the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have been on pause since August, 2022, with Iran blaming a lack of political will on the part of US President Joe Biden’s administration to undo the damage caused to the multilateral nuclear deal by the previous US administration.
Former US president Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the UNSC-endorsed agreement in May 2018, imposing severe economic sanctions against Tehran while Iran was adhering to its commitments under the deal and even continued to do so for a year after the US withdrawal.
Tehran scaled back its commitments to the JCPOA in a series of pre-announced and clear steps after witnessing the other parties’ failure to secure its interests under the agreement.
Amir-Abdollahian said that the other parties to the nuclear deal did not heed Iran’s redlines. Iran is not currently on the path to sign a new agreement to revive the JCPOA. “We will not get caught in the narrow tunnel of the JCPOA,” the Iranian top diplomat underscored.
“Of course, this does not mean that we have set the agreement aside. If the agreement serves our interests, [we will accept it] with all its flaws.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, he said that American companies are among customers of Iran’s heavy water.
As confirmed by US officials, Iran produces a very high quality heavy water in the world, Iran’s top diplomat said. Back in 2016, the US agreed to buy 32 tons of Iran’s heavy water, which is used in some nuclear reactors. US officials said the heavy water would be resold for research purposes.
Heavy water, formed with a hydrogen isotope, is not radioactive but has research and medical applications. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to use heavy water in its modified Arak nuclear reactor, but must sell any excess supply of both heavy water and enriched uranium on the international market.
KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL:
Israeli Study: Civilians Make Up 61% of Gaza Deaths
The aerial bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza is the most indiscriminate in terms of civilian casualties in recent years, a study published by an Israeli newspaper has found. The analysis by Haaretz came as Israeli forces fought to consolidate their control of northern Gaza on Saturday, bombing the Shejaiya district of Gaza City, while also conducting airstrikes on Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt where the Israeli army has told people in Gaza to take shelter. The full death toll from the past 24 hours was unclear but the main hospital in central Gaza, at Deir al-Balah, reported it received 71 bodies, and 62 bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in the main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
- Int’l Outrage After U.S. Vetoes Gaza Truce Resolution
The U.S. used its veto in the United Nations Security Council to block a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The draft resolution proposed by the United Arab Emirates received support from thirteen members of the Security Council, with Britain choosing to abstain.
The voting took place after UN secretary general Antonio Guterres on Wednesday officially alerted the 15-member council about the international risks posed by the war.
“We can’t just snap our fingers and the conflict stops. This is a very, very difficult situation,” Deputy U.S. ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told reporters ahead of the vote.
Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour slammed the UN Security Council’s failure to adopt a UN resolution calling for Gaza ceasefire as “beyond regrettable” and “disastrous.”
“Instead of allowing this council to uphold its mandate by finally making a clear call, after two months, that atrocities must end, the war criminals are given more time to perpetuate their crimes. How can this be justified? How can anyone justify the slaughter of an entire people?” he said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the U.S. veto as “aggressive, immoral, and a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles”, saying the move made Washington “complicit” in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh described the veto as “a disgrace” and another “blank cheque” given to the Zionist regime to “massacre, destroy and displace”.
Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, told the UN Security Council that condoning the continuation of war while claiming to care about the lives and safety of people in Gaza is” hypocritical” and “double-standards”.
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, said the U.S. has “literally before our eyes issued a death sentence to thousands if not tens of thousands more civilians in Palestine and Israel.”
Nicolas de Rivière, the permanent representative of France to the United Nations, said once again the Security Council has “failed with a lack of unity, and by refusing to commit to negotiations the crisis in Gaza is getting worse and the council is not completing its mandate under the charter.”
Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi said “the use of the veto at the Security Council is a shameful insult to
humanitarian norms,” expressing deep regret that the U.S. “should sacrifice the lives of innocent civilians for the cause of Zionism.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian warned that as long the U.S. supports the crimes of the Israeli regime and the continuation of the war in Gaza, there would be the threat of an “uncontrollable explosion” of the situation in the region.
In a post on X, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim expressed his “strong objection” to the U.S. veto, saying “It is strange and beyond human sanity when there are parties who support and remain silent regarding the massacre of innocent children and women as well as civilians.”
The United Arab Emirates’ deputy UN ambassador Mohamed Abushahab asked the Security Council, “What is the message we are sending Palestinians if we cannot unite behind a call to halt the relentless bombardment of Gaza?”
Pakistan said it was “deeply disappointed” by the failure of the UNSC’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza, stressing that Israel must put an end to its “brutal attacks and inhumane blockade” of the besieged enclave.
Norway Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the Security Council’s inability to agree on a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons in Gaza “was tragic”.
Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said the U.S. veto “displays a callous disregard for civilian suffering in the face of a staggering death toll”.
Washington “has brazenly wielded and weaponized its veto to strongarm the UN Security Council, further undermining its credibility and ability to live up to its mandate to maintain international peace and security,” she said.
- Ex-Israel Army Deputy Chief of Staff: ‘We Will Not Succeed in Eliminating Hamas, Hezbollah’
Former deputy chief of staff of the Zionist regime’s army, Yair Golan, has expressed his view that the occupying regime will not be able to eliminate Hamas nor Hezbollah in the war against Gaza. He described the heads of the regime’s Unity party, Benny Gantz, and Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, as the “extreme center”.
Golan’s remarks were published by Haaretz newspaper, which reported that he is seeking to establish a new left-wing Zionist party.
Golan shared: “Hamas rule will not be abolished, at least not in the near future. The pressure on Hamas will not be enough to dismantle its strength completely. And because no military drama is to be expected here, we will need to focus on freeing the captives, preventing the entry of combat materiel into Gaza and providing a response to the humanitarian needs in the strip. That doesn’t mean that once those goals are achieved, the campaign is over.”
He touched on the claim that the Zionist regime’s army controls the northern Gaza Strip, even though it is still facing resistance in this region: “Two convenient conditions are in the background of the achievement in the north: the evacuation of most of the population and the understanding that most of the abductees are already no longer there.”
Golan added: “Israel capable of abolishing the Hamas government? Yes. But do we have more than just a few weeks to continue the operation without sharp American opposition? Apparently not, and we are not acting in a vacuum. We will need to maintain constant offensive pressure. I would draw a comparison with Operation Defensive Shield [2002, West Bank], which lasted six weeks and after which we continued to operate in the West Bank for another five years.”
Golan has previously stated that the Zionist regime should seek a settlement with Hamas: “I said something very simple, which is that we cannot remain where we are. The idea that you freeze history and turn it into an eternal status quo has failed. The theory of conflict management has collapsed.”
- The US Signs its Own Death Sentence
What could one expect of barbarians except brutalities and bloodletting!
True to its satanic nature the US once again vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution which if passed, as voted by 13 of the 15 members of the body, could have led to ceasefire and end of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Senile but still sadistically thirsting for the blood of the innocents, Joe Biden, the head of the roguish regime in Washington where foreign policy is handled by the bestial Antony Blinken (a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist) and military matters by the uncouth Lloyd Austin (who despite his slavish attitude is ridiculed as no more than a ‘Nigger’ by Israel), shocked the civilized world by killing the call for truce that was drafted on the UN Secretary-General’s invoking of the rarely used Article 99 of the World Body’s Charter for immediate end of the two-month long carnage.
Antonio Guterres, a seasoned Portuguese diplomat, could do nothing in response to the veto of the inhuman Americans, except to rub his hands in disgust and repeat that the situation in Gaza is “catastrophic” – with justified fears of the crisis spiraling out of control to embroil more parties and lead to torrents of blood.
In contrast, Biden, Blinken, and Austin were overjoyed at the sharply rising figures of over 18,000 dead civilians, of whom more than 60 percent are children and women, especially after child-killer Benjamin Netanyahu thanked them for providing lethal weapons to destroy whatever buildings are left intact in Gaza and the permission to mercilessly bomb refugees and relief convoys as well, after having razed to the ground hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and UN centres.
The enormity of heartlessness of the US Chief Executive and his Foreign and War Secretaries whose blind servitude to Israel’s atrocities are opposed by their own staff members alarmed at the permanent damage done to national interests on the international scene, has even made the unrepresentative Arab regimes clinging to the American apron for survival condemn the Zionist entity’s war crimes – not out of any sympathy for the persecuted Palestinians, but for exposure as traitors to Islam when the Resistance Front has actively rallied to the support of the Gazans.
They are dead scared that their overlord has pushed them into such a dreadful situation where there is no guarantee when their politically-suffocated masses may burst into open revolt or their tightly-controlled militaries may decide that there is no other option now but coups (supported by the public) to throw off the US-Israeli yoke and make common cause with the Palestinian brethren.
The more so, when people all over the world, including the West, where some of the worst anti-people regimes rule the roost (e.g. France, Britain, Germany, and Italy), have unfurled the Palestinian flag, called for liberation of Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, and the trial of the terrorists in Tel Aviv.
In other words, masses in the Americas and Europe have begun to hate the US for its complicity in the crimes against humanity of the Zionist entity.
They view the US as no more than a brutal military power, always on the wrong side and destabilizing the world through its naked display of warplanes and warships, not just in West Asia but all over the globe, ranging from Ukraine in Europe to the coasts of China in the Pacific, with a vampire-like thirst for sucking more and more human blood.
Except for tyrants, criminal-minded regimes, and puppets on the CIA’s payroll no sane human beings have ever seen the so-called White House’s policies as peaceful, positive, and progressive.
In short, it is now proven beyond an iota of doubt that the US is more tyrannical than all the bloodthirsty empires of history which eventually collapsed and more ignorantly arrogant than any of them.
For the moment, with Biden’s green signal the Zionists may slaughter many more thousand Palestinians, but as all indicators point out, especially after vetoing of the latest UN Security Council’s draft resolution which is tantamount to the US signing its own death sentence, the time is fast approaching when Divine Wrath erases it forever shortly after Israel is erased from the world map.
TEHRAN TIMES:
- Iran warns of ‘diminishing effectiveness’ of JCPOA
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Iran would not indefinitely adhere to the stringent conditions of the JCPOA, expressing concerns over its diminishing effectiveness as time goes by. In a ceremony commemorating Student Day at the University of Tehran, Amir Abdollahian engaged in a question-and-answer session addressing critical issues, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the nation’s stance on international relations. Addressing students, he stated, “we will not remain ensnared within the tight tunnels of JCPOA forever.” Iran’s foreign minister discussed the JCPOA’s flaws and benefits, noting that if it secures Iran’s interests, despite its imperfections, the country will utilize it. Amir Abdollahian underscored a pivotal shift introduced by the JCPOA, which consolidated several resolutions into a single, complex text, diminishing its comprehensiveness. Highlighting the importance of rationality in shaping domestic and foreign policies while upholding fundamental principles, the minister stated, “In the realm of foreign policy, the enhancement of political relations at the diplomatic level and on other fronts can be achieved by adhering to principles and respecting red lines.”
- Social collapse, another tactic of the apartheid regime
With the brutal war on Gaza entering its 65th day, we unfortunately see that the Zionist regime continues to massacre innocent civilians despite repeated calls various countries to limit civilian casualties. The regime claims it has created “safe-zones” to protect the Palestinian people, but in reality, no inch of the besieged Gaza Strip is secure against Israeli bombs. The million-dollar question is whether Israel, as its officials claim, really have no way of limiting civilian deaths and need to target big crowds of people to kill Hamas fighters, or that it’s been targeting civilian sites like schools, hospitals, and homes deliberately and with the aim of killing ordinary citizens? Some European and American media outlets have been pointing to growing international pressure against Israel, arguing that the regime is carrying out its brutal attacks on civilians while being well-aware of the increasing animus against its tactics. With that, they argue, that the high number of civilian casualties during Israeli attacks is an unwitting result of the regime’s assaults.
- Art diplomacy in Tehran: 35 nations illuminate ‘Humanity, Solidarity and One Planet’
The United Nations, in collaboration with the Islamic Republic of Iran, has launched a prestigious exhibition titled “Humanity, Solidarity and One Planet” at Tehran’s Niavaran Cultural-Historical Complex. Ambassadors, diplomats, cultural heritage experts, and art enthusiasts from various countries attended the inauguration ceremony of the event, which serves as a vibrant testament to the cultural richness and artistic diversity of 35 countries worldwide. Among the highlights are striking photographs revealing the heartfelt gifts contributed by member states and the public to adorn the UN Headquarters in New York, emphasizing the spirit of unity and cooperation among nations. According to Stefan Priesner, the UN Resident Coordinator for the Islamic Republic, the works of art in this exhibition should serve as a call for people - irrespective of their gender, race, religion, or nationality, to come together and build societies where compassion reigns, where no one is left behind and where the well-being of both people and the planet regain political priority.
NOURNEWS