Iran News Round Up

Politics

* Presidential crisis:
o Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appoints Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi the head of "the supreme council for resolving conflicts and coordinating relations between the three powers of the government." Other members of the council include Hojjat al-Eslam Mohammad-Hassan Abou-Torabi, Morteza Nabavi, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, and Samad Mousavi Khoshdel.
o Mehran Tahmasebi, Representative of the Supreme Leader to the Basij Coordination chief: "The current of deviation is detached from the government and they will soon be dealt with."

Military and Security

* Basij Chief Mohammad-Reza Naqdi: "In order to safeguard the country, we have no other solution but eradicating the Zionist regime."
* News stories related to the assassination of Dariush Rezainezhad:
o Fars News Agency removes its earlier reports describing Dariush Rezainezhad as a researcher in "nuclear weapons."
o According to police sources, the assassins were two bearded men on motorcycles.
o Details of the assassination.
* Rezainezhad shot in his car. Video
* Sobh-e Sadeq reports on the state of affairs in the fight against PEJAK in Iran’s Kurdistan province.
o Kayhan writes that PEJAK is not the same as the PKK, since the PKK is the "true representative of the Kurdish people."
o Three more members of the Revolutionary Guards are killed in clashes with the PEJAK group in Sardasht area.
o Nader Qazipour, parliamentarian, says "martyrdom of the Revolutionary Guardsmen is due to the weak [performance] of the Foreign Ministry."
* Yadollah Javani, Revolutionary Guards Political Bureau chief, warns the reformists against participating in parliamentary elections:
o "The heads of the sedition and their supporters should know that from the viewpoint of the Iranian nation and the Islamic regime they are guilty and not prosecuted. There is a special reason they have not been dealt with according to the law and punished. The greatest crime by this current and its known, prominent elements – that is the triangle of Mousavi, Karrubi and Khatami – was to accuse the Islamic regime of electoral fraud..."
* [E] Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli underlined Iran's air defense power, and said detecting aerial threats and combating enemy's intelligence systems set a priority for Iran's air defense units.

Trade

* [E] Tehran's Ambassador to Ankara Bahman Hosseinpour stressed that Iran and Turkey are determined to boost their trade exchanges to $15bln this year.
* [E] The Iranian foreign ministry says Tehran is selling crude to China without any problem, dismissing media reports that the country is facing problems in getting paid by its biggest crude customer.
* Iranian Minister of Economy and Finance Seyed Shamseddin Hosseini announced on Tuesday that the country has been able to attract $3.6bln of foreign investment.

Religion, Society and Culture

* According to Siasatname Website, 9,000 new shrines of descendants of Shi'a imams have been discovered in Iran during the past thirty years.

Photo of the Day

* Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi to address members of the Revolutionary Guards in Qom.