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http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-236/0604146066132940.htm

Speakers from 9 states in Tehran to attend Palestine confab
Tehran, April 14, IRNA
Iran-Palestine Conference

Parliament speakers from nine countries have so far arrived in Tehran to attend the `International Conference of Holy Qods and Support for the Rights of the Palestinian Nation', it was reported here Thursday.

The three-day conference will open in Tehran on Friday, April 14, on the initiative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

Parliament speakers from Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Cuba, Venezuela, Sierra Leon, Guinea, Mauritania and Madagascar have arrived in Tehran, IRNA reported quoting sources close to the officials in charge of organizing the conference.

Speakers from Qatar, Indonesia, Sudan, Syria, Sri Lanka and Comoros are scheduled to arrive in Tehran on Friday, according to the report.

Libya, Morocco, the Philippines and Palestine will send their vice-speaker to the Palestine conference.

The Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri arrived at Mehrabad International Airport on Thursday.

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=11852171&src=rss/topNews

Ahmadinejad says "Zionist regime" a threat
Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:47 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Friday that the existence of the "Zionist regime," Iran's term for Israel, was a threat to the Islamic world, days after declaring Iran had become a nuclear power by enriching uranium.

"The existence of the Zionist regime is tantamount to an imposition of an unending and unrestrained threat so that none of the nations and Islamic countries of the region and beyond can feel secure from its threat," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a conference on the Palestinian cause.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-236/0604144558161350.htm

Defending Palestine, top priority of Islamic world, official

Tehran, April 14, IRNA
Palestine-Conference-Mohtashamipour
An Iranian official said here Thursday night defending the oppressed Palestinian people would be the most important issue of the Islamic world.

Secretary of the third international conference in support of Palestinians' right , Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipour, made the remark while addressing the conference participants at the mausoleum of the Founder of the Islamic Republic, the late Imam Khomeini.

The conference, dubbed `Support for Holy Qods and the Rights of Palestinian People', is to kick off in Tehran Friday afternoon upon the initiative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

The conference would be continued until April 16.

Mohtashamipour stressed the importance of providing all-out support for the oppressed Palestinian people and making efforts to free the first kiblah of Muslims.

He added the late Imam Khomeini named the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramazan as the International Qods Day and encouraged holing the international conference in support of the Palestinians.

He laid emphasis on following the late Imam's path until freedom of Palestinians from the oppression of the Zionist regime and liberation of the Holy Qods.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=41994&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

Iran Rafsanjani meets radical Palestinian leaders

Friday, April 14, 2006 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, April 14 (IranMania) - Iran's influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani met with leaders of the radical Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as the head of the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah movement, Iranian sources said, according to AFP.

Rafsanjani is on a four-day visit to the Syrian capital amid worldwide alarm over Iran's announcement Tuesday that it had successfully enriched uranium, a process that can lead to the production of fuel for nuclear power plants or the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

"The Palestinian resistance has today reached a new phase which requires the support of all Muslim countries... to reach victory," Rafsanjani said, according to an Iranian source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Rafsanjani met Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah late Wednesday at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the source said.

Nasrallah said that Iran's ability to enrich uranium would "be a large moral boost to the resistance."

An Iranian diplomatic source also said that on Wednesday night Rafsanjani met Hamas's political supremo Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad's secretary-general Ramadan Shaleh, AFP noted.

"The Muslim world is proud that Tehran has acquired nuclear technology," Meshaal reportedly said during their meeting.

"Uranium enrichment provides a great deal of moral support to the Palestinian people and heroes of the resistance," he said.

Rafsanjani assured that Iran would continue its support for the Palestinian resistance and criticized "Western states that have suspended aid the Palestinian Authority."

Rafsanjani also met with Syrian Prime Minister Naji Otri and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem over "external pressures confronting Syria and Iran," the official SANA news agency said.

On Wednesday, Rafsanjani vowed Tehran would not give in to UN pressures to halt its enrichment of uranium, which he hailed as a great achievement.

Tehran's announcement put Iran on a collision course with the UN Security Council, which has given the country until April 28 to accede to demands that it halt enrichment or face possible sanctions.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is aimed purely at producing nuclear power, but the country is widely suspected of using it to conceal efforts to develop atomic weapons.

Asked about international pressures on Syria over issues ranging from its alleged interference in neighboring Lebanon to alleged support for Iraqi rebels, Rafsanjani said Wednesday: "Iran and Syria are in the same boat."

Rafsanjani, who heads Iran's powerful Expediency Council, is slated to hold talks with President Bashar al-Assad at some point during his visit.

On Friday, Rafsanjani is to visit the tomb in Qarhaba of the president's father and predecessor in office, Hafez al-Assad. The following day, he is set to visit Shiite Muslim holy sites in Damascus before heading home.