Media reports indicate Iranian President will visit Pakistan in the near future. Date and details of the trip are being discussed and finalized. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the Iranian premier; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be visiting its South Asian neighbor to participate in a trilateral meeting between the leaders of Iran, Afghan and Pakistan.

The three of heads of state met last in June in Tehran. The meeting had focused on the expansion and strengthening of trilateral cooperation for regional peace and development.

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Iran began negotiations with Russia on building more nuclear power plants. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday his country was planning on building additional nuclear facilities and required assistance of international experts. He said Iran would accept any cooperation in this field. The head of state told reporters in Moscow that he believed scientific achievement should not be the privilege of a few, but should be regarded as “humankind’s possession”.

Russia has already assisted in the building of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. The plant was launched on Sept 12. Moscow has also agreed to provide nuclear fuel and to reprocess the use fuel.

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Iran and Pakistan expressed their commitment to boost bilateral cooperation in diverse areas, with special focus on energy, economic and trade spheres. During his brief five-hour trip to Tehran, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari held meetings with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, followed by another round of talks with Ahmadinejad in the president’s palace. Accompanying Zardari on the trip was Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar, Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Asim Hussain and Pakistan’s Ambassador to Iran Khalid Aziz Babar. The visit is bound to ruffle Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia and US.

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The deployment of “military submarines” by Iran in the Red Sea, announced on Tuesday, was Tehran’s answer to a new International Atomic Energy Agency’s report that accused Iran of nuclear projects with “possible military purposes.” Shortly after the announcement, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a press conference during which he dismissed the UN watchdog’s indictment as “lacking legal credibility” and called Iran’s nuclear program “a train with no brakes or reverse gear.” Iran claims its submarines have long-range potential without specifying what types or how many have been deployed in the Red Sea. The deployment is a new challenge for Israel where debates have been going on over whether to take military action against Iran or not.

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Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the US of trying to sabotage Pakistani nuclear installations. “We have precise information that America wants to sabotage the Pakistani nuclear facilities in order to control Pakistan and to weaken the government and people of Pakistan,” he said during a press conference on Tuesday in Tehran. America will then use the United Nations Security Council as well as “some other international bodies as levers to prepare the ground for a massive presence [in Pakistan] and weaken the national sovereignty of Pakistan,” the president added, without providing further details.

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Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday said that the Obama administration’s killing of Osama bin Laden was part of its propaganda to win the upcoming US presidential elections, according to the official Press TV. “The U.S. killed bin Laden not to fight terrorism and not to eradicate groups it claims as terrorist but as (a part of) its election propaganda to win people’s votes,” Ahmadinejad said in a seminar on terrorism in the Iranian capital Tehran. He further said that he possessed “precise information” that the Al-Qaeda leader was in US military custody for a long time prior to his death, the report said.

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Context

A dramatic row at the top level of the Iranian government seems to be deepening, with rumors that president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might be planning to resign. The rumors stem from a dispute between the president and Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader. Ahmadinejad last month fired Intelligence Chief Hyedar Moslehi, in a decision that Khomeini overruled quickly, reinstating Moslehi. The president boycotted cabinet meetings for 10 days to show his disappointment with the reinstatement before returning to work after he reportedly met the supreme leader and was urged to come back. “There was a lot of criticism from different camps in this country about his [Ahmadinejad’s] behavior. He was … accused of allegedly defying the supreme leader, [which is] equivalent to defying God in this country,” Al-Jazeera reported.

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Context
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Monday said the recent remark against his country was issued by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) due to pressure from the American government and its partners. The current American government has more “scandalous and loathsome” policies than those of its predecessors, according to Ahmadinejad, referring to the intrusion of America and its partners in the internal matters of the Middle Eastern countries. GCC foreign ministers met in Riyadh on Sunday and accused Iran for interfering in the internal affairs of its neighbors.

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With the arrival of Zardari, Iran’s influence on Pakistan has been increasing as well; most illustrated by the Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project. Traditionally, improvement of Pakistan’s relations with Iran comes at the expense of relations with Saudi Arabia. The most popular politician of Pakistan presently is the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who is also favored by the Saudi’s. How this dynamic will play-out as United States attempts its regional approach in the region, is yet to be seen.

The major foreign stakeholders in Iran are keeping their fingers crossed. The challenge is that no one knows for sure the true balance of the public sentiment in Iran. The media has played so many games that it has ended up in a trap i.e., confusion in assessing the true public opinion towards the reformers and the hardliners.

POLITACT predicts that the hardliners will be able survive the protests, but what we are seeing is the beginning of something that will play-out in the long-term. The pressure these demonstrators have built will force an incremental change in the power structure of the Iranian political institutions. These changes will not necessarily alter Iranian foreign policy or minimize its nuclear ambitions, but will make the nation more open to foreign influences. How Iran balances these influences while achieving its own interests is a test that the country has historically not handled well.

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