President Hosni Mubarak cautions against "falling into a whirlpool of serious nuclear arms race of unfavorable consequences"

U.S. State Department report says Iran remains "most active state sponsor of terrorism"

Iranian president launches fresh tirade on United States, Security Council

Washington still foresees dialogue with Iran late this summer

A spokesman for the Egyptian presidency on Sunday said it "was too early" to say when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be invited for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "The two sides are communicating to decide on a date that would suit both parties," presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said in a statement released to reporters.

The planned talks became the subject of controversy last month when Israeli press reports suggested that Egypt might invite Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to participate in the talks.

Mubarak quickly denied those reports, saying that Lieberman, whose past remarks threatening to destroy the Aswan High Dam and saying that Mubarak could "go to hell" if he did not visit Israel, had not been invited.

Awad said that Mubarak had told Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofume Nakasone that Egypt remained committed to "avoiding a nuclear arms race" in the Middle East.

Egypt would continue to push its plan to make the Middle East a region free of nuclear weapons at a UN conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at UN headquarters in New York this week, Awad told reporters.

"Every discussion of Iran's nuclear program should be held in conjunction with a discussion of Israel's nuclear program, with the same strength and clarity," he said.

Egypt has repeatedly called on all countries in the region, notably Israel and Iran, to submit to international regulatory inspections of their nuclear programs.

Meanwhile, Egypt will back the Philippine bid to acquire observer status in the influential Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), according to Philippine sources on Monday.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also purportedly promised President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in their one-on-one meeting in Cairo Sunday that he would try to enlist the support of other Islamic countries for the Philippine cause.

“President Mubarak did not just express his support for the Philippines but he will also seek the support of other OIC members such as Saudi Arabia, Libya and Indonesia,” deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo said in a briefing.

From Cairo, the President proceeded to Syria.

Arroyo had noted that Syria was the current OIC chair and would host the 36th Islamic Council of Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Damascus this month. “That is how important Syria is to the OIC,” she said.

The Philippine government has been trying to gain observer status in the OIC because of its decades-long problem with the Moro insurgency and Islamic fundamentalism in Mindanao.

“Our government has been working hard to reach a peace agreement in Mindanao,” Arroyo said in a speech to the Filipino community in Damascus.

“A vital ingredient is the vital role that Muslim nations will play in bringing peace and investment in reconstruction.”

In Cairo, a company owned by the 54th richest man in the world, Sheik Nasser Kharafi, expressed its desire to invest $1.2 billion in the development of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark Field, Pampanga.

The project’s first phase, worth $100 million, will cover facilities such as a Terminal 2, main gateway and boulevard, covered parking area, and offices.

The long-term project would be "a speed train," Fajardo said.

After the meeting with Kharafi, Arroyo sat down with the al Kholi Group, which expressed interest in a joint project with Philippine Postal Corp., Fajardo said.

She said the project was the “interconnection” of all post offices in the Philippines.

On the other hand, Iran’s conservative presidential hopeful Mohsen Rezai bitterly criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accusing him of pushing the Islamic Republic to the edge of a “precipice.”

“Ahmadinejad’s path leads to a precipice,” Rezai told a news conference. “I have been critical of him and still am.” Rezai, who headed Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps for 16 years up until 1997, is the first conservative to challenge Ahmadinejad in the June 12 poll.

“I see Ahmadinejad’s language as adventurous,” he said of the incumbent president’s nuclear policy, which has cost Iran three sets of UN sanctions over its refusal to halt sensitive atomic work.

“I believe the West and the US need us today. We have to exploit their need to serve our national interests,” he said. “I neither support passivity nor adventurism.”

Rezai also slammed Ahmadinejad for “throwing money around the country” for propaganda ahead of the election. Ahmadinejad has faced mounting criticism from reformists and fellow conservatives mainly over his handling of the economy, accusing him of stoking inflation and “wasting” Iran’s windfall oil revenues over the past two years.

Since his 2005 election, the president has gone on a spending spree, pledging generous sums for local infrastructure projects and small business loans.

Rezai, expressing confidence that he can win votes from supporters of rival candidates, said his biggest challenge would be “poverty, high prices and unemployment”.

Ahmadinejad has also drawn international condemnation by repeatedly saying Israel is doomed to disappear and branding the Holocaust a “myth.”

Rezai described a two-state solution for Palestinians and Israel as a “failed and unfeasible initiative”, but insisted the Holocaust was “a historic question which should be left out of the political language.”

“Denying or proving it has nothing do with it,” he said. The veteran conservative ran in the 2005 presidential election too, but pulled out of the race a day before the election.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sought to reassure U.S. allies in the Middle East on Tuesday that their relationships with the United States would not be damaged by the Obama administration's efforts to open a dialogue with Iran.

In Egypt, Gates played down the likelihood of a major breakthrough, or "grand bargain," that would lead to dramatic changes in the U.S.-Iranian relationship, such as the re-establishment of diplomatic ties.

"I believe that kind of prospect is very remote," he told reporters in Cairo on Tuesday after meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. "We'll just have to see how the Iranians respond to the offer from the president. Frankly, some of the first things that have happened as a result of the extension of that open hand have not been encouraging."

President Obama has advocated talking to the Iranian leadership as part of a broader effort to persuade Tehran to drop its nuclear weapons ambitions and cease supporting groups that the United States considers terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. U.S. allies in the Middle East have long seen Iran as a primary threat to their security.

In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Gates assured leaders that the United States would be "open and transparent" in its contacts with Iran and said that any talks with the Iranian regime would progress slowly, if they advanced at all.

"To tell you the truth, I have been around long enough to see these efforts attempted before with no result," he said.

"The question is whether circumstances in Iran have changed in such a way that with the administration offering an opportunity for contact that the Iranians are willing to take advantage of that opportunity."

Gates arrived in Saudi Arabia as the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan traveled to Washington for talks this week on how to handle the growing threat posed by the Taliban in both countries. Last month, Taliban insurgents moved to within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The Taliban have also have gained strength in Afghanistan of late, prompting Obama to send 20,000 additional American troops to the country and revamp the U.S. strategy.

Gates suggested that the Saudis might be able to provide some help in the battle against the Taliban, though he did not specify what measures the Saudis might take. The Saudis' close ties to the region go back to a joint campaign by the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s to arm Afghan guerrilla groups fighting to push the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. Some of those guerrilla fighters are now leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Saudi government has been linked to efforts to help the Afghan government reconcile with some of the more moderate elements of the Taliban movement.

"Saudi Arabia clearly has a lot of influence throughout the entire region and a long-standing and close relationship with Pakistan," Gates told reporters.

Senior U.S. officials, however, have said that as long as Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are convinced that they were operating from a position of strength, talks were unlikely to produce results.

In Havana, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Monday that Tehran would not accept suspension of uranium enrichment as a topic or outcome of the upcoming talks on its peaceful nuclear program.

Mottaki was speaking in the second round of talks with Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque before he wrapped up his week-long visit to Latin American states and left the Cuban capital for Tehran.

He said Iran was facing mounting psychological warfare waged by certain Western media about possible US attack three times during the past 1.5 years, adding the last propaganda campaign was launched following Iran's nuclear celebration.

"The US and West have waged a psychological warfare to prevent our move (to celebrate the National Day of Nuclear Technology).

"But Iran held a ceremony in Natanz city to celebrate production of nuclear fuel on industrial scale," he added.

Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani and the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana are scheduled to hold talks in Ankara on Wednesday on Iran's peaceful nuclear activities.

Pointing to bilateral ties between Iran and Cuba, Mottaki said, "We are determined to expand relations and make use of new potentials particularly in economic fields."

The Cuban minister, on his part, said his country has repeatedly voiced support for Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, adding Havana did its utmost in the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Non-Aligned Movement.

He stated that Cuba would spare no efforts to help Iran with its nuclear case.

Roque said joint cooperation and great potentials of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela could play an effective role in developing justice-seeking states in Latin America region.

He called for Iran's economic presence in Cuba.

The U.S. State Department said Thursday in its annual report on global terrorism that Iran remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, adding that Iran's support for terror-related activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan threatens efforts to promote peace in the regions.

The report added that terror attacks in Pakistan have more than doubled between 2007 and 2008, and warned that the country is slowly becoming the strong-hold of the al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

"Pakistan's tribal areas provided AQ [Al-Qaeda] many of the benefits it once derived from its base across the border in Afghanistan," the report said, adding that the Taliban and other al-Qaeda-linked insurgent groups have increased the "co-ordination, sophistication and frequency'' of suicide and other bombings in Pakistan.

The report pointed out that terror attacks in Pakistan rose from 890 in 2007 to 1,839 in 2008, adding that Taliban and other al-Qaeda-linked militants were threatening the Pakistani government's authority.

"They have used this terrain as a safe haven to hide, train terrorists, communicate with followers, plot attacks and send fighters to support the insurgency in Afghanistan," the report said.

The report added that the international community's assistance to the Afghan government to build "counterinsurgency capabilities, ensure legitimate and effective governance, and counter the surge in narcotics cultivation is essential to the effort to defeat the Taliban and other insurgent groups and criminal gangs."

Also, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez condemned the U.S. report Friday that alleges Venezuela fails to co-operate in fighting terrorism and called on President Barack Obama to end the decades-long trade embargo against Cuba.

Two weeks after Chavez and Obama exchanged smiles and handshakes at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago, the Venezuelan leader called the report "one more slander" that brings into question Obama's pledges of change.

"In the name of the Venezuelan people, I reject this new aggression by the U.S. empire," Chavez said.

The U.S. State Department's 2008 Country Reports on Terrorism criticized Chavez's "ideological sympathy" for leftist guerrilla groups in Colombia, saying it "limits Venezuelan co-operation with Colombia in combating terrorism."

The report issued Thursday also accused the Venezuelan government of failing to systematically police its border with Colombia.

Chavez dismissed the charges, then called on Obama to prove he really wants change by ending the "criminal" embargo against Cuba.

"If Obama doesn't knock down the savage blockade against the Cuban people, it's all a lie. Everything would be a big farce," Chavez said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged Friday growing pressure from other Western Hemisphere countries to lift the U.S. freeze on relations with Cuba but added Obama would like to see some "reciprocity" from Cuba's leadership after he lifted travel and financial restrictions on Americans with Cuban relatives.

She said the Obama administration aims to turn around policies embraced by former president George W. Bush. She said the attempt to "isolate" Latin America's leftist leaders had enabled them to promote anti-U.S. sentiment while strengthening ties with China, Iran and Russia.

Venezuela's rocky relations with the Bush administration reached a low point last September when Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador and recalled his envoy to Washington.

Clinton noted she discussed with Chavez the possibility of restoring a U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. The Venezuelan leader said following the April summit in Trinidad and Tobago he would send a new ambassador to Washington.

Despite years of political tension, Venezuela remains the fourth-largest oil supplier to the United States.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad called on certain world powers which played a role in the creation of the Zionist regime to dismantle the regime or accept arrangement of a referendum to determine the fate of the occupied Palestine by its own residents.

Addressing a large gathering of people in the city of Karaj in Tehran province, Ahmadinejad referred to Israel's deadline to the Palestinians to leave their houses, and said the regime aims to force the oppressed Palestinian people to leave their houses while the UN Secretary General and those who claim to be advocates of democracy and human rights do not hear the voice of the Palestinians.

"If bullying powers don't desist from (their) crimes, they should know that nations will uproot them," he added.

Addressing the bullying powers, Ahmadinejad said, "You have always defended the Zionist regime and called Palestinians' elected government terrorist for showing resistance and defending their rights, but the era for the bullying of your fake regime has come to its end and you have no choice but to accept the reality."

Elsewhere, he pointed to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by the US forces and their allies, and said they presumed that they can pave the way for attacking Iran and made some threats against Iranian nation.

But they should be aware that they have made a mistake because they didn't know that the Iranian nation will not give up even an iota of its rights.