Tehran Iran

The former U.S. embassy in Tehran. Photo: Flickr user John In the international chess game over Iran’s nuclear program, it was six wor...

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TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's foreign minister said Monday that Tehran may agree to ship part of its stockpile of low enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment, the first official indication that Iran could at least partly sign onto a U.N.-drafted plan aimed at easing nuclear tensions.

The plan is seen by the international community as a way to delay Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon by getting a large part of its enriched uranium stock out of the country, preventing it from being reworked into a warhead. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran's final decision over the plan will "will be made in the next few days."

As an alternative to the U.N. plan, Mottaki said Iran was weighing whether to buy enriched uranium abroad and keep its own supply. The fuel is needed for a research reactor that makes medical isotopes.

"To supply fuel, we may purchase it like in the past, or we may deliver part of (the low enriched uranium) fuel which we currently don't need," Mottaki said.

QUETTA, Pakistan — Pakistan arrested 11 Iranians on Monday after they shot at a vehicle carrying smugglers on the Pakistani side of the border, officials said.

The incident came amid tensions over a recent suicide attack that Tehran alleges was carried out by militants sheltering inside Pakistan and supported by its intelligence officials.

Pakistani officials initially identified the men as members of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, but later said most were regular border guards. One official said three senior officers among the detainees probably belonged to the elite unit.

Iran's Press TV carried what it described as a statement from the guard condemning the arrests, but saying that the 11 were not its members. The report cited "informed" sources as saying the 11 were "border guards hunting fuel smugglers (who) accidentally entered Pakistan."

In an attempt to boost security in the region, Iran in April put the Revolutionary Guard directly in control of Sistan-Baluchistan province. Its officers typically take the lead in any operations on Iran's border.

Bigan Saliani, who was born in Iran, traveled to Tehran for Worldfocus to report on Afghan refugees there. He writes here about why he felt t...

Bigan Saliani, who was born in Iran,  reported from Tehran for Worldfocus on the little-known story of Afghan refugees there.  Here is his ...

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WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday sent a message to Iran that pursuit of nuclear capability will not go unpunished, approving legislation that allows state and local governments to curtail investments in international corporations doing business in Iran's energy sector.

The legislation also protects from shareholder lawsuits those investment managers who divest funds from companies that are involved in Iran's energy sector or have provided equipment for the transport of oil or liquefied natural gas from Iran.

The bill passed the House 414-6 and now goes to the Senate.

The bill does not impose new sanctions, said its author, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass.

"What it does is to make it very clear that Americans who are deeply concerned about the prospect of Iranian nuclear power, and other aspects of Iranian governance, that they are able to act on those (concerns)," he said.

BEIJING — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized talk of sanctions against Iran on Wednesday, undermining U.S. efforts to present a united front against Tehran's nuclear program at a crucial moment.

Putin's comments in China came a day after Russia's foreign minister, at Hillary Rodham Clinton's side in Moscow, said threatening sanctions was "counterproductive."

Russia's growing hostility to even discussing sanctions comes shortly after President Barack Obama canceled plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe. That was seen by some as a concession to Russia in hopes of persuading it to put more pressure on Iran to open its nuclear program for inspection.

The U.S. and a number of other countries contend the program is meant to develop nuclear weapons.

"If we speak about some kind of sanctions now, before we take concrete steps, we will fail to create favorable conditions for negotiations," Putin said. "That is why we consider such talk premature."

WASHINGTON — Iran's foreign minister is making a rare appearance in Washington after being granted a visa by the State Department to visit the Pakistani embassy, which represents Iranian interests with the U.S. government.

Iran and the U.S. have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1980. No senior Iranian official has visited the U.S. capital in years.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday the decision to allow the rare visit was made in the last 24 hours, just a day in advance of an important meeting in Geneva between Iran and six world powers seeking to restrict Iran's nuclear program.

Crowley described the Iranian government's request for the visa as a straightforward matter. He said the Iranian minister is not meeting with any U.S. officials during his visit.

BERKELEY, Calif. — Supporters of three American hikers detained in Iran are planning vigils around the country to draw attention to their plight.

The vigils Wednesday are being held two months after Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd were detained for illegal entry after straying over the border during a hike in northern Iraq. All three are graduates of the University of California, Berkeley.

Vigils are planned Wednesday evening in multiple locations including Philadelphia, Minnesota, Oregon and Berkeley.

Since the three were arrested, their families have had no contact with them.

On Tuesday, Iran told Swiss diplomats they could meet with the three Americans, something viewed as a conciliatory gesture.

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says sanctions are rarely productive but opened the door to tougher ones to halt Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

After meeting with President Barack Obama in New York, the Russian leader told reporters "in some cases sanctions are inevitable."

Obama's top priority in his sit-down with Medvedev was Iran's nuclear ambitions. Talks are scheduled for next month between a group of nations and Iran, and Obama wants to pursue tougher sanctions if those meetings yield nothing. Yet, Russia has stood in the way of stronger action against Tehran in the past.

Obama told reporters that he remains committed to negotiating with Iran in "serious fashion" but that "serious, additional sanctions" remain a possibility.

A Russian-made Iranian passenger plane carrying 168 people crashed shortly after takeoff Wednesday, smashing into a field northwest of the capital and shattering into flaming pieces. All on board were killed in Iran's worst air disaster in six years, officials said.

Before crashing, the plane's tail was on fire as it circled in the air, one witness told The Associated Press.

"Then, I saw the plane crashing nose-down. It hit the ground causing a big explosion. The impact shook the ground like an earthquake. Then, plane pieces were scattered all over the agricultural fields," Ali Akbar Hashemi, a 23-year-old who was laying gas pipes in a nearby home, told AP by phone.

The impact blasted a deep trench in the dirt field, which was littered with smoking wreckage, body parts and personal items from the Tupolev jet, according to photos from the scene. Firefighters put out the flaming wreckage, which officials said was strewn over a 200 yard (meter) area. A large chunk of a wing was visible in footage of the scene, but much of the wreckage appeared to be in small shreds.

Iran has seen numerous crashes in recent years, usually blamed on poor maintenance. Iranian officials often blame U.S. sanctions that prevent it from updating American aircraft bought before the 1979 Islamic revolution and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes as well.

A Russian-made Iranian passenger plane nearly 170 people crashed shortly after takeoff Wednesday, smashing into a field northwest of the capital and shattering to pieces. State television said all on board were killed.

The plane's tail burst into flames in the air and it circled in the air as if looking for a place to land before it crashed, an unidentified witness told the semi-official ISNA news agency.

The impact gouged a deep trench in the dirt field, which was shown littered with smoking wreckage in footage shown on state TV. It showed a large chunk of a wing, but much of the wreckage appeared to be in small pieces, and emergency workers and witnesses picked around the shredded metal for bodies and flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.

The Caspian Airlines Tupolev jet had taken off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport Wednesday and was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan. It crashed about 16 minutes after takeoff near the village of Jannat Abad outside the city of Qazvin, around 75 miles northwest of Tehran, civil aviation spokesman Reza Jaafarzadeh told state media.

At Yerevan's airport, Tina Karapetian, 45, said she had been waiting for her sister and the sister's 6- and 11-year-old sons, who were due on the flight. "What will I do without them?" she said, weeping, before she collapsed to the floor.