U.S., Iran End 27-Year Diplomatic Freeze
May 29th, 2007Incredible.
Which “Diplomatic Freeze” are we talking about, precisely? Halliburton has no problem with doing business with Iran. If you think that’s illegal under U.S. law, think again:
It’s just another Halliburton oil and gas operation. The company name is emblazoned everywhere: On trucks, equipment, large storage silos and workers’ uniforms.
But this isn’t Texas. It’s Iran. U.S. companies aren’t supposed to do business here.
Yet, in January, Halliburton won a contract to drill at a huge Iranian gas field called Pars, which an Iranian government spokesman said “served the interests” of Iran.
“I am baffled that any American company would want to have employees operating in Iran,” says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “I would think they’d be ashamed.”
Halliburton says the operation — videotaped by NBC News — is entirely legal. It’s run by a subsidiary called “Halliburton Products and Services Limited,” based outside the U.S.
And the war with Iran???
“Don’t ask me how it will be stopped…”
Via: Yahoo / AP:
The United States and Iran broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze Monday with a four-hour meeting about Iraqi security. The American envoy said there was broad policy agreement, but that Iran must stop arming and financing militants who are attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi told The Associated Press that the two sides would meet again in less than a month. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said Washington would decide only after the Iraqi government issued an invitation.
“We don’t have a formal invitation to respond to just yet, so it doesn’t make sense to respond to what we don’t have,” Crocker told reporters after the meeting.
The talks in the Green Zone offices of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were the first formal and scheduled meeting between Iranian and American government officials since the United States broke diplomatic relations with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy.
An AP reporter who witnessed the opening of the session said Crocker and Kazemi shook hands.
The American envoy called the meeting “businesslike” and said at “the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position as articulated by the Iranian ambassador was very close to our own.”
However, he said: “What we would obviously like to see, and the Iraqis would clearly like to see, is an action by Iran on the ground to bring what it’s actually doing in line with its stated policy.”
Speaking later at a news conference in the Iranian Embassy, Kazemi said: “We don’t take the American accusations seriously.”
Crocker declined to detail what Kazemi had said in the session, but the Iranian diplomat — formerly a top official in the elite Revolutionary Guards Quds Force — said he had offered to train and equip the Iraqi army and police to create “a new military and security structure” for Iraq.
Kazemi said U.S. efforts to rebuild those forces were inadequate to handle the chaos in Iraq, for which he said Washington bore sole responsibility. He said he also offered to provide what assistance Iran could in rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, which he said had been “demolished by the American invaders.”
The icebreaking session, according to both sides, did not veer into other difficult issues that encumber the U.S.-Iranian relationship — primarily Iran’s nuclear program and the more than a quarter-century history of diplomatic estrangement.
Doesn’t mean a thing. US Ambassador April Glaspie was famously cordial with Saddam in July 1990.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11376.htm
It has been an interesting soap opera the last 2.5 years or so. You have two regimes, US & Iran, (nominally) led by corrupt oil plutocrats and messianic theocrats. Each has growing demographic, budgetary, and infrastructure problems. Each is hoping the other regime will collapse first, but has prepared for war. Sooner or later, someone is going to pull the trigger. If they don’t, a third part (Israel) will step in and do it for them.
Alek, while I believe there are nut jobs running all governments, the bitter irony is that the U.S. stands there with a finger screeching about nukes (with its thousands…and wanting MORE) at a nation that hasn’t even one! All the while turning a blind eye to Israel, Pakistan, India etc.. You’ll notice that Uncle Sam doesn’t invade countries that actually have the means to protect themselves but cherry picks its fights. Its a bully. And I believe that any “event” that occurs to bring about another attack will only prove once more that America is Israels bitch.
Maybe they hate Israel for its freedoms…
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/media/landloss.gif