Posts tagged : "Europe politics"

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Located in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe, Finland shines as one of the most successful democracies in the world, coming first in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. The Nordic country has very good economic indicators and was classified by The Heritage Foundation as the world’s 16th country in terms of economic freedom. Despite being affected by the global economic crisis, Finland has a flourishing economy with a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $267 billion. Finland is a country in which you rarely experience such phenomena as inflation or overpricing. Transparency and government accountability are the major characteristics of the nation’s...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Lithuania is one of the smallest countries in Europe. A diverse nation in terms of its ethnic make-up, Lithuania has a population of around 2.9 million people. After two occupations by Soviet forces in June 1940 and July 1994, and a Nazi invasion in June 1941, Lithuania eventually declared independence in 1990 and joined the European Union (EU) in 2004. Lithuania does not make international headlines as often as its neighbors, but is strategically positioned as an eastern NATO member and is considered a free country by Freedom House. The country became a NATO member during the second post-Cold War round of enlargement in 2004, and has a thriving economy with plans to adopt the euro in early...

Fair Observer - Kourosh Ziabari: The Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák was the 13th European foreign minister to visit Iran since the moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani became President of Iran in June 2013. Lajčák came to Iran less than a week after the Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard concluded his trip to the country, and took part in an exclusive interview with Fair Observer. Aside from his role as the foreign minister, Miroslav Lajčák is also serving as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovakia in the cabinet of Robert Fico. Lajčák is a veteran diplomat who has held several high-ranking political offices prior to beginning his tenure as the Slovak Foreign Minister in April 2012. From 1994 to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: The new opportunities created by the coming to power of a new government in Tehran has instigated the European Union officials to think of ways for solving the nuclear controversy with Iran once for all, reconstructing the damaged bilateral and multilateral relations with the oil-rich country and returning to its lucrative market as permitted by the step-by-step removal of the economic sanctions. The Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn was the 9th EU foreign minister who traveled to Iran following the election of Hassan Rouhani as the President of Iran in June 2013 elections. Jean Asselborn's trip to Iran earlier in June was the first trip by a high-ranking Luxembourg official to the country in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: Jack Straw is not an unknown or unfamiliar politician to the Iranians. When the current President of Iran Hassan Rouhani was the country’s lead nuclear negotiator with the EU3 (Britain, France and Germany) under President Mohammad Khatami, Jack Straw traveled to Iran several times as the British Foreign Secretary and conferred with him on a number of occasions. Straw is a veteran politician who has experienced working at the different administrative and law-making levels in the British politics. From 1987 to 1992, he was the Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Science and for the next two years, he served as the Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment. From May 1997 until June 2001, he...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: Janko Veber, the president of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, visited Iran in early May 2014, in the first trip by a European parliament speaker to Iran in more than a decade. Veber had travelled to Iran at the invitation of his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani and was one of many high-ranking EU officials who came to Iran following the election of Hassan Rouhani as the President of Iran in June 2013. Like the majority of the EU officials who travelled to Iran recently, including 9 foreign ministers of the 28-member bloc, Mr. Veber voiced his optimism about the further expansion of ties between Iran and the international community and the diplomatic settlement of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: When Emma Bonino visited Iran in December 2013, she was the first European Union foreign minister who would travel to Iran in nearly one decade. Her trip was applauded by those who favored a peaceful settlement of the disputes between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, and irked those, including the Israeli regime, who find their interests in the continuation of the conflict and animosity between Iran, the United States and the European Union. Following the resignation of the Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, President Giorgio Napolitano named Matteo Renzi as the new Prime Minister in February 2014, and the cabinet was reshuffled. As a result, Emma Bonino is not the foreign minister...

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was one of the several high-ranking European officials, who traveled to Iran following the election of Hassan Rouhani as the Iranian President in June 2013. President Rouhani, considered as moderate politician, has promised to take up a conciliatory approach toward the international community with a strong determination to bring to an end the decade-long controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. President Rouhani’s platform of “prudence and hope” and his foreign policy agenda based on détente and rapprochement with the West was embraced by the United States and the European Union, and so far, seven foreign ministers of the European Union member...

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: Only a few weeks after the UN Human Rights Council endorsed a resolution in condemning the alleged violations of human rights in Iran on March 28, the European Parliament also took action to do its share of attacking the Islamic Republic for its “human rights violations” in what was introduced as the “European Parliament resolution on the EU strategy towards Iran.” The two U.S.-allied bodies, in line with their customary and conventional policies of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and sowing the seeds of discord and strife across the globe, expressed serious concern over the “alarming level” of rights violation in Iran and called on the Iranian government to respect...

Kourosh Ziabari: As a heated war of words soars between the United States and Russia over the sovereignty of the Crimean peninsula where 58% of the citizens are ethnic Russians, it seems that Washington is losing the battleground to the will of the Crimean citizens who favor reuniting with Russia instead of remaining under the autonomy of Ukraine. Although the US officials have been openly threatening Russia with economic sanctions and even a military strike in the recent weeks, and while even former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to the late German dictator Adolf Hitler, a renowned American journalist and syndicated columnist believes that the United States’ threats are futile and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: The Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders was one of the first European politicians who traveled to Iran following the election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s president in the June 2013 presidential elections. He traveled to Iran in late February to explore ways for expanding political, economic and cultural relations with Iran as the European Union member states become more willing and enthusiastic to reconstruct and improve their relations with Tehran. In an exclusive interview with Tehran Times, the Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said that he thinks a final, comprehensive agreement over Iran’s nuclear program will be a win-win solution and that Iran’s trade with the European Union...

Kourosh Ziabari - Tehran Times: “I firmly believe that the world can become a better place, if a critical number of people join hands in creating it. Then we can make this Earth a place where every human can live in dignity, where other species are respected for their rights to survive next to us, and where humankind is committed to care for our planet, for it is our common Mother and our common Home.” These are the aspirations of one of the world’s prominent leaders and a democratic president who introduced strategically important social, political and cultural reforms to her country and is now a member of several international organizations. Vaira Vike-Freiberga is a high-profile Latvian politician and the first female president...