Going down the garden path

The Globe and Mail reports that Canada has been taking the wrong approach to Iran according to this Iranian spokesman:

Iran on Sunday said Canada was following the "wrong approach" in the case of an Iranian-born Canadian photojournalist who died while in Iranian custody. Canada has demanded an international forensic examination to determine the cause of Zahra Kazemi's death.

"Unfortunately Canada has been following a wrong approach from the very beginning, and caused things to get more complicated," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a weekly press conference. "From the very beginning, the Canadians should have accepted that Mrs. Kazemi is an Iranian citizen. Demands by the Canadians have to be answered by Iran's judiciary," he said.

I knew we should have cut all ties with Iran and raised our embassy in Tehran to the ground. In other news today, I found this Haaretz report from Iranian Foreign Affairs spokesman Hamid Asefi. Yesterday, Mr. Asefi set out to clarify the Iranian position on uranium enrichment:

Iran will never abandon uranium enrichment, despite its negotiations with the European Union on its nuclear program, a senior official said on Sunday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran would never renounce its right to carry out the process, but was hopeful about the outcome of the talks with Europe.
Britain, France and Germany, representing the European Union, have been trying to persuade Tehran to scrap all parts of its atomic fuel cycle, particularly uranium enrichment which can be used to make atomic bombs as well as fuel for power plants.

Asefi said uranium enrichment was Iran's legitimate right, reiterating comments made almost daily by Iranian officials."Iran will never give up its [uranium] enrichment activities," Asefi told a weekly news conference.

Washington, which suspects Iran of using civilian atomic power as cover for a weapons programme, backs the talks but wants Iran to give up its disputed nuclear activities. Iran, which insists its atomic ambitions are entirely peaceful, has agreed to suspend uranium enrichment while the talks with the EU continue but insists the freeze is temporary. "Iran's uranium enrichment suspension is only for a short period of time," Asefi said. "It will be until reaching an agreement with the EU."

Of course their intentions are peaceful and that is why the Iranian parliament sessions commonly chant that modern catch phrase “Death to the Americans”. And Canadian Zahra Kamezi was on a hunger strike which left her so weak in an Iran jail that she fainted while going down the stairs and fractured her skull open.