McChrystal: Iran supports Taliban

Stanley McChrystal, highest ranked US-General as well as leader of the Nato forces in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul on Sunday, that Iran supports the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

He said Taliban fighters would be trained in Iran and also be supplied with weapons by their western neighbour. McChrystal spoke of "clear evidence" for this accusation but didn't show any of this evidence to the public. When one month ago McChrystal had talked about Iranian support for Taliban forces he sounded less certain:

Last month, McChrystal said there were indications that Taliban militants were training in Iran, but not very many. He did not, however, suggest any links to Iranian government policy.

- Washington Post, May 31

Iran's government denied the accusation. Although Iran is opposed to the presence of US troops in Afghanistan it has always supported the Northern Alliance in its fight against the Taliban and has good relationships with the government of Hamid Karzai.

Iran signs deal for uranium exchange with Turkey

After 18 hours of negotiations between the leaders of Iran, Brazil and Turkey in Tehran today, the three nations signed an agreement for a nuclear fuel swap. According to Iran's foreign embassy, the Islamic Republic is going to send 1200 Kg of its low-enriched uranium, which should be in fact a large part of Iran's nuclear stockpile, to Turkey in return for 120 kg of uranium, which is enriched highly enough for medical research programms but not for building atomic bombs.
Until today Tehran has declined an older but very similar proposal given by the UN. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed the deal only together with the Turkish prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he avoided to be seen as caving in to US pressure.
While the Iranian president immediately adressed the international community to accept the deal and restart negotiations with Tehran, the reactions of Western states are still cautious, as you can read on washingtonpost.com:

"U.S. officials did not react immediately to the announcement. But Germany, said the swap deal, which still needs the approval of the U.S., Russia and France, does not free Iran from U.N. Security Council demands that it immediately stop enriching uranium."

Protests at Tehran University during visit of Ahmadinejad

When Ahmadinejad surprisingly visited the campus of the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran on monday, a protest among the students broke out. Like one year ago at the mass protests in Tehran, this incident was uncovered by citizen journalists, filming videos and taking pictures with their cellphones. Although there was no big media echo The Lede Blog, written by Robert Mackey for the New York Times posted three videos that apparently showed yesterdays protests. In these videos you can see at least several hundred students protesting and chanting phrases like "Freedom" or “Today is a day of mourning. Ahmadinejad, the liar, is our guest today” (Both quotes translated). There is no evidence wether the protests had any link to the execution of five prisoners the day before, but as these executions were seen controversial, it is very likely that they had at least some influence on the protesters.

Assault on Pakistani Ambassador

Today Mohammad Bakhsh Abbasi, Pakistani ambassador to Iran, got assaulted by an Afghan in northern Tehran. Abbasi just got slightly wounded on his head and his hands but already seems to be in a good condition again. Official sources say the aggressor got caught by Iranian police shortly after the incident had happened. So far the motive of the assault remains unclear. The Associated Press wrote that the Afghan attacked the ambassador after both had argued with each other. But it is still unclear wether they were arguing about politics or something else.

Delegates walk out of UN general assembly during speech of Ahmadinejad

The UN nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, which is taking place at the UN right now, hosts delegations from 189 countries, but only a single head of state found his way there today: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Even though Iran's nuclear program is among the hottest topics in international affairs at the moment, Ahmadinejad used his speech at the UN to criticize states which already have nuclear weapons, mainly the USA. When demanding the suspension of members of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ahmadinejad asked:

"How can the United States be a member of the board of governors when it used nuclear weapons against Japan"

He also accused Israel, which he referred to as the "zionist regime", of secretely building up an arsenal of nuclear weapons.
His speech caused delegates from the US, Britain, Germany and France to walk out of the assembly. The walkout is no surprise as it had even been announced before the assembly took place.
Hillary Clinton is going to speak in front of the assembly later this day. Last week Clinton expressed her hope that the talks with Iran over its nuclear program will be successful:

"If President Ahmadinejad wants to come and announce that Iran will abide by their non-proliferation requirements under the NPT, that would be very good news indeed"

No mass protests on Labour's Day

As protests on May 1st were expected, Iranian opposition leaders, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, had called for workers and teachers to join the reformists in a broad-based coalition. But although there have been some protests in Iranian cities during Labour's Day, there haven't been big masses of people on the streets of Teheran. The reason for that is very probably the massive police presence on the streets of Iran's capital, as you can see by quotes of witnesses in The New York Times:

Across Tehran on Saturday, major intersections that had been filled with protesters last summer were filled instead with police officers in riot gear

On last week's wednesday Spiegel Online published an interview with Mehdi Karroubi. The clergyman, who is known as a reformer and is under permanent surveillance by Iranian forces, said he calls on the people for a peaceful assembly on June 15, exactly one year after about three million people had protested on the streets of Teheran. Karroubi told Spiegel that it may be quiet on the streets of Iran right now, but people would just be waiting for a spark to go out again.