Iranian foreign minister meets Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus

Source: AP, 16-02-2008
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met with the leaders of two hard-line Palestinian groups on Damascus Friday, days after a senior Hizbullah member was killed in the Syrian capital, members of the Iranian delegation said. Mottaki held separate meetings at the Iranian Embassy with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, said the Iranian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Later in the day, Mottaki held a one-hour meeting with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa to discuss the recent assassination of Imad Moghnieh, a senior commander in Hizbullah, which is allied with Iran and Syria.
"We discussed the terrorist crime that led to the martyrdom of one of the most senior commanders in the Lebanese Islamic Resistance [Hizbullah], martyr Imad Moghnieh," Mottaki told reporters after his meeting with al-Sharaa.
Hamas leader Mashaal said on Thursday Moghnieh's death would not deter it from continuing its resistance against "Israel".
"We accept the challenge and we are not afraid at all," said Meshaal at a wake for Moghnieh at a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus.
During Friday prayers in Baghdad, Sheikh Suhail al-Eqabi read worshippers a statement that was issued Thursday by Muslim-Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr regarding Moghnieh's death.
"The dirty hands have stretched out to get [Moghnieh] and he was sent to paradise where he became a martyr of world Islamic resistance," Eqabi said, reading the statement.
Meanwhile, Iran's ambassador to Russia said Friday that Tehran is not developing long-range missiles and that its efforts to launch a satellite have no military purpose.
Iran launched a research rocket into space earlier this month in what it said was part of an effort to send a satellite into orbit.
The US said the launch was troubling because the technology and know-how involved in a satellite launch could also be used in efforts to launch a long-range ballistic missile.
"We are not involved in the creation of missiles with a long range," Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio.
Ansari said "the things that we are doing now in terms of the launch of a satellite are in no way linked" with a long-range missile effort. "The technology that we have used for the launch of that satellite has only civilian uses." He said the satellite would monitor weather and help Iran respond to natural disasters.
Russia, which has close ties with Iran and is building its first nuclear power plant, expressed disapproval earlier this week with Tehran's rocket and its uranium enrichment efforts. The remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that Moscow, which has watered down Western-initiated sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, was edging closer to sharing Western concerns.
Ansari said that Iran seeks to explain its actions to the international community but will not allow other countries to dictate its behavior. He pointed out that Russia also rejects Western pressure when it believes its interests are at stake.
"We cannot ask the Americans or Europeans for permission if we want to conduct scientific activity," Ansari said. "And the Russians act in the same way - they do what is beneficial, what answers to their country's interests."