Monthly archive : "January, 2014"

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My exclusive interview with former Portuguese President Mario Soares

My exclusive interview with former Portuguese President Mario Soares

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: Mário Nobre Lopes Soares is the 17th President of Portugal who served two terms in office from 1986 to 1996. He was also the nation’s Prime Minister from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985. At the time when the former dictator António de Oliveira Salazar was ruling Portugal, Soares diligently fought him and the dictator’s secret police PIDE that arrested him 12 times and expelled him to different countries. Soares is endowed with the highest-ranking military order of Portugal titled “Military Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour, Loyalty and Merit” which was created by King Afonso V in 1459. Mario Soares’s father João Lopes Soares was a minister, anti-fascist republican...

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Don’t kill the chances of diplomacy with Iran

Don’t kill the chances of diplomacy with Iran

Kourosh Ziabari - Press TV: The Geneva interim accord over Iran’s nuclear program signed on November 24 last year was a landmark development in the course of Iran’s relations with other countries, especially the United States, with which it directly negotiated at a high-level for the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. According to the agreement known as the Joint Plan of Action, Iran will voluntarily limit certain portions of its nuclear activities, in return for relief from some of the sanctions imposed against Iran in the recent years, including the petrochemical and automobile industry sanctions. The P5+1 group(Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) have also agreed to release $4.2...

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Italy attaches great importance to relations with Iran: Former PM

Italy attaches great importance to relations with Iran: Former PM

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: Following the election of the moderate politician Hassan Rouhani as the Iranian President in the June 14, 2013 elections, the European countries have become more willing to interact with Iran on equal footings and based on mutual respect. In the recent months and following President Rouhani’s elections, several high-ranking European delegations and dignitaries have traveled to Iran, and it’s expected that more Western officials, including diplomats, politicians and lawmakers will be coming to Iran in the near future. The former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema was one of the dignitaries who traveled to Iran in December last year to hold meetings with senior Iranian officials, academicians...

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Geneva Accord a Product of the Failure of the US Policies on Iran

Geneva Accord a Product of the Failure of the US Policies on Iran

Kourosh Ziabari: Prominent Iranian academician believes that even if Iran gets access to nuclear weapons, it will not spark an arms race in the Middle East, because the Arab states of the region have long lived with the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East that is a reactionary, expansionistic and occupying regime. “The usual argument presented by the Israeli and US officials, including many times by President Obama himself, that the Arab States fear an arms race in the Middle East if Iran acquires nuclear weapons has never made any sense. The Middle East has lived for many decades with a nuclear armed power in its midst, Israel, a power that is most belligerent, expansionist, and warmongering. Yet, despite this fact,...

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Who has appointed the U.S. to be the world’s policeman?

Who has appointed the U.S. to be the world’s policeman?

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: The fact that the United States has been long treating other nations in a derogatory and irresponsible manner and allows itself to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries is a source of frustration for many people, even if the world’s politicians don’t dare to criticize Washington over its arrogant behavior. The United States, blasted by many critics of its domestic and foreign policy as a newly-emerged police state interacts with the other nations across the world in such a way as if they are all its subordinates and inferiors. The people occupying the different rooms of White House think that they are the owners of the world and that they have a right to look down upon the other...

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Truth to endure attack on whistleblowers

Truth to endure attack on whistleblowers

Kourosh Ziabari - Press TV: Like the story of all those freedom fighters and conscientious people who struggle for realizing true democracy and freedom in the United States but are punished because they purportedly threaten the “national security,” the story of Jeremy Hammond is a painful and moving one. The mainstream media in the United States gave coverage to Jeremy Hammond’s case critically and analyzed it within the borders of their dogmatic stereotypes. They never alluded to the fact that Hammond lost the joy and peace of his youth days in an audacious attempt to defeat tyranny and autocracy and that although his bargain cost him his liberty, he once again attracted the global attentions to the stirring realities hidden...

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My interview with former Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio

My interview with former Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: Former Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio believes that the controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program should be solved through dialog and negotiations, and that a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear standoff would be in everybody’s best interests. Palacio, who was the Spanish foreign minister under Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar from July 2002 to March 2004, said that despite the fact that Spain has been a traditional ally of the United States, her government “never subscribed to the ‘axis of evil’ approach.” “I arranged and conducted a state visit of King Juan Carlos to Syria and of President Khatami to Spain. I strongly believe that exchange, even a critical exchange, is...

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My best wishes for a Happy New Year!

My best wishes for a Happy New Year!

One year has passed, with its hopes and fears, achievements and failures, breakthroughs and losses, happy and sorrowful moments, ups and downs. For us, the Iranians, 2013 was a promising and auspicious year since we elected a moderate President, Hassan Rouhani, who came to power with a slogan of change, and with a commitment to engage with the international community constructively. His landslide victory in the June 14, 2013 presidential elections heralded an end to the era of extremism and fanaticism in foreign policy and imprudence in domestic management. The whole world welcomed the election of President Rouhani, and more than 100 leaders from the five continents congratulated him on his victory in the presidential elections. His...

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