Rooyesh

Rice Says Iran’s Letter Not an Overture

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed a surprise letter that Iran’s president sent to President Bush on Monday, saying it did not seriously address the standoff over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Iran’s Women Barred From Soccer Games

Iran’s women will be barred from attending soccer games, a reversal by the president that comes a month before the national team plays in the World Cup. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ruled in April that he would allow women to go to soccer games and sit in a separate section of the stands. He wanted to “improve soccer-watching manners and promote a healthy atmosphere.”

Iranian leader’s letter to Bush could open new diplomatic tracks: Larijani

Iran’s national security supreme Ali Larijani said that a letter from the Iranian president to US President George W. Bush could break new diplomatic ground as world powers prepared to meet to discuss Tehran’s nuclear programme. Speaking during a one-day visit to Turkey, Larijani also said it would be a “scandal” to haul Iran before the United Nations Security Council and urged the West to confine the nuclear dispute to the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran letter may seek to influence UN: US intelligence chief

Iran President Mahmoud Amhadinejad’s letter to US President George W. Bush could be an attempt to influence the UN Security Council debate on Iran’s nuclear program, US intelligence czar John Negroponte said. “Bearing in mind that I haven’t read the letter … certainly one of the hypotheses you’d have to examine is whether and in what way the timing of the dispatch of that letter is connected with trying in some manner to influence the debate before the Security Council,” said Negroponte.

Iran’s Leader Writes to President Bush

Iran’s leader has written to President Bush proposing “new solutions” to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian head of state to an American president in 27 years, a government spokesman said Monday. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered the letter to the Swiss ambassador on Monday, ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told The Associated Press. The Swiss Embassy in Tehran houses a U.S. interests section.