‘Thunder’ will fall on Israel if it attacks Iran: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

By Farhad Pouladi / AFP

TEHRAN — Any attack by Israel on Iran will blow back on the Jewish state “like thunder,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday.

Khamenei also said that the international community’s suspicion that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons is based on a “lie” and he insisted that sanctions imposed on his country were ineffective and only strengthened its resolve.

His speech, broadcast on state television to mark the 1989 death of his predecessor and founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, contained no sign Iran was prepared to make any concessions on its disputed nuclear program.

Instead, it was infused with defiance and Khamenei’s customary contempt for Iran’s arch-foes Israel and the United States.

If the Israelis “make any misstep or wrong action, it will fall on their heads like thunder,” Khamenei said.

The Jewish state, he added, was feeling “vulnerable” and “terrified” after losing deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as an ally.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Stockholm the threats against Israel were “nothing new,” insisting she would judge Tehran by its actions at upcoming nuclear talks in Russia.
“We look forward to what the Iranians actually bring to the table in Moscow,” she said.

“We want to see a diplomatic resolution. We now have an opportunity to achieve it, and we hope it is an opportunity that’s not lost, for everyone’s sake,” she said.

Allegations that Iran was trying to develop atomic bombs were false, Khamenei said on Sunday.

“International political circles and media talk about the danger of a nuclear Iran, that a nuclear Iran is dangerous. I say that they lie. They are deceiving,” Khamenei said.

“What they are afraid of — and should be afraid of — is not a nuclear but an Islamic Iran.”

He added: “They invoke the term ‘nuclear weapons’ based on a lie. They magnify and highlight the issue in their propaganda based on a lie. Their goal is to divert minds and public opinion from the (economic) events that are happening in the US and Europe.”

Western economic sanctions imposed to pressure Iran to curb its nuclear program were having no effect, Khamenei insisted. Their only impact, he said, was “deepening hatred and animosity of the West in the hearts of the Iranian people.”

Khamenei called the stance by the United States and its Western allies “crazy.”

“The Iranian people have proved they can progress without the United States, and while being an enemy of the United States,” he said.

Western nations, the United States at the fore, accuse Iran of wanting to develop the capability to make nuclear weapons, something Khamenei has repeatedly denied. The supreme leader has called atomic arms “a great sin.”

Talks between the Islamic republic and the so-called P5+1 group of nations — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, plus Germany — were revived this year and are to go to a crucial next round in Moscow on June 18-19.

But the United States and its ally Israel — the sole, if undeclared, nuclear weapons state in the Middle East — have threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails.

Khamenei’s speech was being closely watched by P5+1 officials for signs of what positions the Iranian delegation might take into the Moscow negotiations. The supreme leader has the final word on any decision on Iran’s nuclear activities.

At one point in his speech, Khamenei declared it “forbidden to stop on the path to progress, in the political sphere and in the sphere of science and technology.”

That carried the implication that Iran had no intention on scaling back its nuclear development.

Putin warns of worsening Syria conflict

By Anna Smolchenko / AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Friday of an "extremely dangerous" situation in Syria and emerging signs of a civil war but rejected a military intervention as he met with European leaders.

Amid mounting pressure for Moscow to drop its resistance to tougher UN action on Syria, Putin met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and had arrived in Paris for talks with newly elected French President Francois Hollande.

In Berlin, Putin appeared to strike a more conciliatory tone, warning of the escalating danger from the Syrian conflict and refraining from openly backing President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"Today we are seeing emerging elements of civil war," Putin said after arriving in Berlin from Belarus. "It is extremely dangerous."

But he also continued to defy calls for tougher UN action to stop the violence, warning at a joint press conference with Merkel: "You cannot do anything by force and expect an immediate effect."

And he hit back at suggestions Moscow was supplying weapons for use in the internal conflict, after the United States condemned Russian arms deliveries to Syria as "reprehensible".

"As far as arms supplies are concerned, Russia does not supply the weapons that could be used in a civil conflict," Putin told reporters, as he continued his first foreign tour since returning to the Kremlin.

Putin's brief trips to Berlin and Paris came amid mounting outrage in the West against Assad's regime after a massacre of 108 people, including women and children, in the town of Houla last week.

UN rights chief Navi Pillay said the massacre could be a crime against humanity.

In Moscow the foreign ministry blamed the Houla massacre on foreign assistance to Syrian rebels, including arms deliveries and mercenary training.

"The tragedy in Houla showed what can be the outcome of financial aid and smuggling of modern weapons to rebels, recruitment of foreign mercenaries and flirting with various sorts of extremists," the ministry said in a statement.

Putin said Russia, Germany and their partners would do their utmost to stop the violence from escalating and help UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who has brokered a peace plan for Syria, achieve "positive results".

"We both made clear that we are pushing for a political solution, that the Annan plan can be a starting point but that everything must be done in the United Nations Security Council to implement this plan," Merkel said.

Putin said Moscow was not taking sides in the deadly strife rocking Syria, where the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 13,000 people have been killed since Assad's regime launched a brutal crackdown on the opposition in March last year.

"There is a need to find a convergence of these interests and have them sit down at a negotiating table. That's the direction we are going to work in."

Merkel earlier greeted Putin with military honours as demonstrators waving Syrian flags shouted and whistled outside.

Putin was to hold a one-on-one meeting and dinner with Hollande, who has refused to rule out foreign military intervention as long as it is carried out with UN backing, followed by a press conference.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also said Syria was on the verge of a civil war and risked collapsing into sectarian strife after meeting members of the Syrian opposition based in Istanbul.

Germany, France, Britain, the United States and other Western nations expelled Syrian diplomats in protest at the slaughter in Houla.

Syria allies China and Russia, which have both blocked previous attempts at the UN Security Council to condemn Damascus, joined other council members on Sunday in backing a statement condemning the Houla killings.

But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday warned that Russia's policy of propping up the Assad regime could contribute to a civil war and even lead to a wider proxy war because of Iran's support for Damascus.

And she claimed Friday that Russia had continued to supply arms to the Assad regime, raising "serious concerns" in the United States.

"We know there has been a very consistent arms trade, even during the past year, coming from Russia to Syria. We also believe the continuous supply of arms from Russia has strengthened the Assad regime," Clinton told a news conference in Oslo.

Amnesty International demanded that Putin immediately stop Russian weapons deliveries to Syria, while Human Rights Watch called on Putin to make human rights a priority at home and abroad.