Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki has said that Tehran won't export its partially enriched uranium for further enrichment, as proposed by the United Nations.
When representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, sit down with Iranian representatives in Turkey in October, they will do so with renewed violence and harsh rhetoric coming from Tehran fresh in their minds.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama have condemned the Iranian government for cracking down on citizens who have questioned the results of the June 12 presidential election, which President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is said to have won.
The two leaders were speaking at a joint news conference on June 26.
The United States and three European Union nations -- Britain, France, and Germany (the EU-3) -- remain determined to prevent Iran from moving ahead with its nuclear program, which they suspect is meant to develop nuclear weapons. But Russia seems to be an obstacle.
Romania and the United States have signed an agreement that would establish the first US military bases in an Eastern European country from the former Soviet bloc. The United States already has the rights to a base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, and is in the process of vacating one in neighboring Uzbekistan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush came away from their two-hour meeting September 16 touting the harmony of their visions on negotiations with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
Putin said the Russian and US positions are, in his words, "very close." Bush elaborated, saying the two sides share the same goal, even if they differ on the means to that end.
The United States recently made its strongest call yet for an independent international investigation of the May 13 killings in Andijon.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was asked June 9 about a letter sent by six US senators -- including four from Bush's Republican Party -- urging the administration to reconsider its relationship with Uzbekistan.
The Iron Curtain fell nearly 15 years ago, but Human Rights Watch says it is mostly business as usual in much of the former Soviet Union. That's according to "World Report 2005," the annual survey conducted by Human Rights Watch.
Thirteen years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the economies of Central Asia are still struggling. One problem is that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are not relying enough on one another for the boost necessary to start their economies after 70 years of central control. Corruption is another problem, as is a lack of economic innovation.
