Region

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani called for “fair and constructive” nuclear talks Tuesday as Iranians marked the 35th anniversary of the Islamic revolution amid recent progress in negotiations with world powers.

Rouhani, a moderate elected last year on vows to pursue a diplomatic solution to the decade-long impasse over Iran’s nuclear programme, also warned that Western nations should not have “delusions” about having a military option.

He spoke as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to mark the anniversary of the revolution that ousted the US-backed shah, with many railing against the United States, still commonly referred to as the “Great Satan”.

Iran is set to resume talks in Vienna next week with the P5+1 group of world powers on a comprehensive nuclear accord following a landmark interim agreement reached in November in which it agreed to curb some nuclear activities for sanctions relief.

But Tehran has laid out a series of “red lines” regarding the talks, and in a show of defiance on the eve of the anniversary announced it had successfully tested a long-range missile and a laser-guided projectile.

“Iran is committed to fair and constructive negotiations within the framework of international regulations; we hope to witness such a willingness in the other party in the upcoming talks,” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

“I say explicitly, if some have delusions of having any threats against Iran on their tables, they need to wear new glasses. There is no military option against Iran on any table in the world,” he added.

Western nations have long suspected Iran of covertly pursuing nuclear weapons alongside its civilian programme, allegations denied by Tehran, which insists its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful.

Neither the United States nor Israel has ruled out military action to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, if diplomacy fails.

Rouhani delivered the speech in honour of the anniversary at central Tehran’s Azadi Square, where huge crowds had gathered, many of them chanting against the United States.

“We don’t trust America. All they want is to plunder our wealth”, a 20-year-old Bassij Islamic militia member told AFP.

“We are fine with enduring the hardships (of international sanctions) because it will lead to the preservation of our rights.”

Iran made progress over the weekend with the UN nuclear watchdog by agreeing to divulge information that could shed light on allegations of possible past weapons research.

But officials also insisted on “red lines” in next week’s talks with the P5+1 — Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China plus Germany.

Negotiators said they would neither discuss Iran’s ballistic missile programme nor agree to the closure any nuclear sites or abandoning the “right” to enrich uranium to 20 per cent, a few technical steps away from weapons-grade material.

The missile programme — targeted by UN Security Council sanctions — worries Western powers, as Iran boasts long-range missiles with a maximum range of 2,000 kilometres, enough to reach Israel.

The November deal is seen as a victory for Rouhani’s foreign policy, after eight years of stalled talks and escalating sanctions under his hardline predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rouhani has the support of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but hardliners argue that Iran gave up too much in the November deal and have been critical of his diplomatic overtures, particularly towards the United States.

US and Iranian officials have held several face-to-face talks in recent months, but the resumption of diplomatic relations with Washington, which severed ties with Iran after the seizure of its embassy in the aftermath of the revolution, is still a taboo for many Iranians.

Tehran on Monday summoned the Swiss ambassador to Iran, whose country represents American interests, to protest US measures imposed on companies and individuals for violating sanctions against Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, meanwhile, warned that the talks in Vienna would be “difficult”, while anticipating that a framework for future negotiations would be discussed.

“The biggest challenge is the lack of trust,” he said.

OULED GACEM, Algeria — A military transport plane carrying members of the Algerian armed forces and their relatives crashed into a mountain on Tuesday, killing 77 people, the worst air disaster in the North African country in a decade.

State television showed footage of the wreckage of the plane near the village of Ouled Gacem in eastern Algeria, smoke rising from the site and emergency crews scouring the forested area for survivors and bodies.

“I saw the military plane crashing, and it was cut into two pieces,” Mohamed, a fireman told Reuters at Ouled Gacem, near the crash site in Oum El Bouaghi province, 500 km east of Algiers.

Colonel Lahmadi Bouguern told the APS state news agency that 99 passengers and four crew were on board the C-130 Hercules transport plane, which took off from the southern Tamanrasset province and was bound for Constantine.

The defence ministry said 77 people were killed and said the crash was likely due to bad weather. Initial reports in Algerian media had put the death toll at 103.

“The plane crashed into a mountain and exploded. Several bodies were burnt to ashes and could not be identified,” one official told Reuters by telephone from the area.

State television said President Abdelaziz Bouteflika had declared three days of mourning from Wednesday.

The crash was the worst in Algeria since 2003 when an Air Algerie jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Tamanrasset, killing 102 people.

The defence ministry said it had set up a commission to investigate the crash and that army Chief of Staff and Deputy Defence Minister Ahmed Gaid Salah would go to the crash site.

DAMASCUS — A third shipment of chemical weapons material left Syria on Monday under a deal to rid the country of its arsenal by mid-2014, the mission overseeing the operation said.

The joint United Nations-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons mission did not give details about the shipment but said it left on a Norwegian cargo vessel, escorted by ships from four countries.

“The joint mission confirms that in-country destruction of some chemical materials has taken place alongside the removal of chemical weapons material, and welcomes progress to date,” it said in a statement.

“The Syrian Arab Republic is encouraged to expedite systematic, predictable and high-volume movements to complete the safe removal of chemical materials,” the statement added.

Under a UN resolution that cemented a deal worked out by the United States and Russia, Damascus is to give up all its chemical weapons for destruction by June 30.

But progress has slowed considerably in recent months, and the UN Security Council last week demanded that Syria move faster in the process of dismantling its arsenal of the banned weapons.

Syria has missed several deadlines for removing material, and — prior to the shipment Monday — was estimated by Washington to have shipped out just 5 per cent of its stockpile.

Damascus blames the delays on insecurity in the country, where the government is locked in a brutal war with rebels seeking President Bashar Assad’s overthrow.

But the Security Council last week rejected that explanation in part saying “Syria has sufficient material and equipment” as well as “substantial international support” to meet the deadlines.

The deal to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons came after an August 2013 chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus that reportedly killed hundreds of civilians.

Washington and the opposition blamed the attack on the regime, which has denied responsibility.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said on Monday it was unconcerned by an Iranian announcement that it would send naval vessels towards US maritime borders, noting that lots of countries operated in international waters in the Atlantic.

An Iranian naval officer was quoted by the semiofficial Fars news agency as saying on Saturday that the vessels were “approaching the United States’ maritime borders”.

The Pentagon has no information the ships are approaching the Atlantic yet, spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said, adding that “to our knowledge, this is an announcement only at this point”.

“We are not concerned about their announcement to send ships into the Atlantic. As I said earlier, freedom of the seas applies to every nation,” Warren said.

He said if Iranian ships do head into the Atlantic, “they should not be surprised to find many other navies also sailing in the Atlantic”.

Fars said the plan was part of “Iran’s response to Washington’s beefed up naval presence in the Persian Gulf”.

The United States and its allies regularly stage naval exercises in the Gulf, saying they want to ensure freedom of navigation in the waterway through which 40 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil exports passes.

US military facilities in the region include a base for its Fifth Fleet in the Gulf Arab kingdom of Bahrain.

Iran sees the Gulf as its own backyard and believes it has a legitimate interest in expanding its influence there.

Iranian officials have often said Iran could block the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Gulf, if it came under military attack over its disputed nuclear programme, and the Western war games are seen in the region as an attempt to deter any such move.

ADEN — Yemen’s president on Monday formally approved turning the country into a federal state, giving the south more autonomy and completing a milestone in his planned transition to democracy.

But the move was immediately rejected by some southerners who insist on a separate state, raising fears the impoverished country may face further instability on top of the challenges it already has from Islamist militants and a northern rebellion.

Demands by southern separatists to restore the state that merged with North Yemen in 1990 had delayed an agreement on broad reforms ahead of general elections.

Under the new system approved by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Yemen will be split into six regions.

The former South Yemen will be divided into two regions, Aden and Hadramout, according to state news agency Saba, and the more populous former North Yemen into four regions.

Under a US-backed power transfer deal that forced former president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down in 2012, Hadi is overseeing reforms for an interim period.

Political factions last month gave Hadi an extra year to finalise Yemen’s status as a federal state and oversee drafting a new constitution that will form the basis for elections slated for next year. Work the constitution could not progress without an agreement on the shape of the Yemeni state.

Saba said a federal state comprised of six regions garnered the “highest level of agreement” against another proposal to divide the country into two regions, one in the north and one in the south.

Southern Yemeni leaders rejected the accord.

“What has been announced about the six regions is a coup against what had been agreed at the dialogue,” said Mohammed Ali Ahmed, a former South Yemen interior minister who returned from exile in March 2012. “That is why I pulled out of the dialogue,” he told Reuters.

Ahmed withdrew from the talks in November, and in December three other Yemeni parties rejected the proposal to turn the country into a federation.

Southern fears

Some southerners fear that having several regions would dilute their authority and deprive them of control over important areas such as Hadramout, where some of Yemen’s oil reserves are found.

Nasser Al Nawba, a founder of the southern Hirak separatist movement, also rejected the deal, saying the only solution was for the north and south to each have their own state, as was the case before 1990.

“We will continue our peaceful struggle until we achieve independence. We are against violence,” he said.

The 1990 union between the tribal North Yemen and the Marxist South soon went sour and a civil war broke out four years later in which then-president Saleh crushed southern secessionists and maintained the union.

Anna Boyd, senior Middle East analyst at IHS Country Risk, said that while the deal “closes the door on southern separatist ambitions”, the government was unlikely to be able to re-establish control over most of Yemen’s territory over the next year.

“Militant separatist factions will probably capitalise on the diminished capability of security forces in southern provinces, coordinate their efforts with other insurgent factions to acquire weapons and expertise, and increasingly resort to attacks targeting infrastructure, energy and security forces to further erode the government’s authority over southern Yemeni territory,” she said.

GENEVA/BEIRUT — A second round of Syria peace talks got off to a shaky start on Monday, with the two sides complaining about violations of a local ceasefire and an Islamist offensive respectively in separate meetings with the international mediator.

Ahead of the talks, mediator Lakhdar Brahimi told delegates to commit first to discussing both ending the fighting and setting up a transitional government.

The government side said combating “terrorism” — its catchall term for the revolt — should be agreed first. In a further bad sign, Brahimi cancelled a planned news conference.

During the first round of talks in nearly three years of civil war last month, Brahimi had tried to break down mistrust by focusing on agreeing a truce for a single city, Homs.

A three-day pause only began on Friday, and aid workers were fired upon as they evacuated civilians on Saturday.

The Syrian Red Crescent said 300 more people had been evacuated on Monday, taking the total to leave the city after more than a year under government siege to around 1,000, and the UN said the truce would be extended through Wednesday.

The UN World Food Programme underlined how far there was to go. “The old city of Homs is just one of 40 besieged communities in Syria. Altogether a quarter of a million people have been cut off from humanitarian aid for months,” it said.

A letter from Brahimi given to the delegates over the weekend said the new round aimed to tackle the issues of stopping violence, setting up a transitional governing body, and plans for national institutions and reconciliation.

It included a plea: “Will the two sides ... contribute even at a minimum, towards lessening the manifestations of violence, stopping the use of certain weapons and reaching ceasefires in some areas, even for a short period?”

The opposition says a transitional governing body must exclude President Bashar Al Assad. The government says it will not discuss his leaving power.

A deep split in the international community over the conflict has entrenched those positions. In a clear bid to overcome that, the UN said Brahimi would meet US and Russian officials on Friday.

Barrel bombs

Opposition delegates said they had handed Brahimi their view of what a transitional government should look like and submitted witness statements they said showed the army had fired at the Homs aid convoy. The government blames the rebels.

The opposition also said there had been an escalation in the government’s use of “barrel bombs” — oil drums or cylinders packed with explosives and metal fragments and usually dropped from helicopters. It said more than 1,800 Syrians had been killed by them last week, half in rebel held parts of Aleppo.

“It is not acceptable that the regime will send its own delegation to peace talks while it is killing our people in Syria. This must stop,” opposition spokesman Louay Al Safi told reporters after the delegation met Brahimi.

Representatives of fighters on the ground joined the delegation for the first time, a senior opposition member said on Monday, but they did not include the Islamic Front alliance, the biggest faction fighting Assad’s forces.

Powerful Islamist groups have denounced the opposition team, made up mainly of political exiles, as traitors, undermining any prospect of lasting peace.

The mediator plans to keep meeting the two sides separately in Geneva over the next two to three days in hopes of improving the atmosphere at the talks and aims for a second week focusing on the continuity of state institutions and reconciliation.

One Middle East diplomat said Brahimi should avoid getting bogged down in detail, arguing that had played into Assad’s hands in the first round of talks over Homs.

“The best way to proceed is for Brahimi to form committees to deal with ceasefires and the humanitarian issues while keeping the two delegations focused on the big political question,” the diplomat said.

The Syrian government delegation urged Brahimi to condemn an Islamist offensive on Sunday which it said killed 42 people in the town of Maan in central Syria populated mainly by Assad’s Alawite sect.

“Ending violence and combating terrorism and requiring the countries supporting [terrorism] to stop ... is the first issue that should be agreed upon to pave the way for the launch of the political process,” the delegation said in a document given to Brahimi and seen by Reuters.

Islamist fighters not represented at the talks seized a village in the central province of Hama on Sunday, trying to cut off supply routes from Damascus to the north.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the death toll at 41, 21 of them civilians and the other 20 from the pro-Assad paramilitary National Defence Forces.

The government said the dead were mainly women and children and accused the fighters of committing a massacre on the eve of the resumption of peace talks in Geneva.

Al Qaeda infighting

Activists and rebels said an Al Qaeda splinter group had withdrawn its forces from Syria’s oil-rich eastern province of Deir Al Zor after days of heavy fighting with its rivals.

Islamist opposition groups joined forces with some secular rebel units to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), with whom they have territorial disputes and ideological differences.

ISIL, which has attracted many foreign Islamist militants into its ranks, is a small but powerful fighting force in Syria’s opposition areas. It has alienated many civilians and opposition activists, however, by imposing harsh rulings against dissent in areas it controls, such as beheadings.

The civil war which grew from a crackdown on protests against Assad has killed more than 100,000 people, forced millions from their homes, and destabilised neighbouring countries.

One Western diplomat said the government was showing little sign of commitment to the peace talks. “Homs is not encouraging. They [the government] are not making a colossal effort.”

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the government was adopting a “very, very constructive approach”.

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s parliament speaker narrowly escaped an attack in his hometown on Monday while 21 militants died when a car bomb they were readying mistakenly went off in renewed nationwide violence.

The unrest comes amid the worst protracted period of bloodshed in nearly six years, with more than 1,000 people killed last month as security forces grapple with near-daily attacks and battles with anti-government fighters in Anbar province.

Foreign leaders have pressed the Shiite-led government to reach out to the disaffected Sunni minority to undermine support for militants, but Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has taken a hard line ahead of April elections.

On Monday, a convoy carrying Parliament Speaker Osama Al Nujaifi, Iraq’s most senior Sunni Arab politician, was hit by a roadside bomb in the main northern city of Mosul, his office said.

One of Nujaifi’s bodyguards was wounded, a police captain and a medical source said, but the speaker himself escaped unharmed.

Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province, where Nujaifi’s brother Atheel is governor, is one of Iraq’s most violent areas, with attacks regularly targeting security forces, government officials as well as civilians.

Also north of Baghdad, a car bomb mistakenly went off in a militant compound, killing 21 insurgents including a suicide bomber, an anti-Qaeda militia leader and a police officer said.

The group was filming a propaganda video of the would-be suicide attacker when a technical glitch set off the car bomb in the Jilam area south of Samarra, according to Majeed Ali, the head of the Sahwa militia force in the city, and a police officer.

Jilam, a mostly rural farming area just south of the mostly-Sunni city of Samarra, has long been an insurgent stronghold.

The 8:00am (0500 GMT) blast went off within a compound in the area, Ali and the police officer said.

Elsewhere on Monday, attacks near Baghdad in and around the towns of Mussayib and Balad left two people dead, while three militants were also killed in clashes with security forces.

More than 1,000 people were killed nationwide last month, according to government data, the highest such figure since 2008, with violence surging markedly higher in recent months.

No group has claimed responsibility for most of the bloodshed, but Sunni militants including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a powerful jihadist group, are often blamed.

Analysts say that while the vast majority of Sunni Arabs do not support militancy, frustration with the Shiite-led authorities means they are less likely to cooperate with security forces in providing intelligence against insurgents.

DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates says it plans to use unmanned aerial drones to deliver official documents and packages to its citizens as part of efforts to upgrade government services.

The wealthy Gulf state is known for its showmanship — it boasts the tallest skyscraper in the world - and its love of high-technology gadgets. The drone project appears to satisfy both interests.

“The UAE will try to deliver its government services through drones. This is the first project of its kind in the world,” Mohammed Al Gergawi, a minister of Cabinet affairs, said on Monday as he displayed a prototype developed for the government.

The battery-operated vehicle, about half a metre (1-1/2 feet) across, resembles a butterfly with a top compartment that can carry small parcels. Coloured white and enblazoned with the UAE flag, it is propelled by four rotors.

Local engineer Abdulrahman Alserkal, who designed the project, said fingerprint and eye-recognition security systems would be used to protect the drones and their cargo.

Gergawi said the drones would be tested for durability and efficiency in Dubai for six months, before being introduced across the UAE within a year. Services would initially include delivery of identity cards, driving licences and other permits.

Proposals for the civilian use of drones have run into practical difficulties elsewhere in the world. In December Amazon.com Inc. chief executive Jeff Bezos said his company planned to deliver goods to millions of customers with a fleet of drones, but safety and technical issues mean the plan is unlikely to become a reality in the United States this decade, engineers say.

The UAE drone programme faces similar obstacles, plus temperatures which often exceed 40oC in summer and heavy sandstorms which occasionally sweep across the desert country.

“Within a year from now we will understand the capabilities of the system and what sort of services, and how far we can deliver. Eventually a new product will be launched across all the country,” Gergawi said.

PARIS — France on Monday ruled out Western military action against Islamist fighters in southern Libya for the time being, rebuffing an appeal for intervention from neighbouring Niger.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, asked about Niger’s call for action, said there was no question of putting foreign troops into a region that the United States has identified as an increasingly worrisome new haven for Al Qaeda-linked militants.

But he said the Western powers were aware of the problem and were drawing up plans to help the Libyan government deal with it.

“No, an intervention, no [that’s not being discussed],” Fabius told RTL Radio. “But we are going to have an international meeting in Rome at the beginning of March to give Libya more help because it’s true that there are terrorists gathering in the south.

Fabius said Britain, Germany, the United States, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia were all involved in talks on how to help Libya.

“We have to fight terrorism everywhere,” Fabius said. “That does not mean we have to have people on the ground, it means we have to help governments that want to get rid of terrorism, which is the case with the Libyan government.”

Niger last week called on the West to finish the job they started in Libya by dealing with the Islamists who have established bases in the south since the 2011 overthrow of former dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

A poor but mineral-rich former French colony, Niger has had to contend with numerous Islamist attacks and kidnappings on its own soil, some of which have threatened the security of its uranium production.

In an annual intelligence report published in December, the United States said southern Libya had become an “incubator” for terrorism in a “hothouse” region and described a possible intervention as “within the bounds of the possible”.

France sent troops into Mali last year to combat Islamist militants who had seized control of much of the north of the country.