Participants at the meeting of the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighboring states pose for a family photo at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul, Nov. 3.

ISTANBUL, Turkey, Nov. 3--Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki presented Iran’s plan to help resolve the Iraqi crisis.
Mottaki said in his address to the Conference on Iraq of Foreign Ministers of Neighboring States on Saturday that the Iraqi crisis has security, political and economic aspects, IRNA reported.
The Iranian foreign minister explained that the security aspect should be resolved by setting up a timetable for the withdrawal of occupiers by the United Nations.
“The Iraqi government should be empowered to administer state affairs and any military mission should require a request from the Iraqi government,“ he said.
He added that Iraqi national security forces must undertake military missions since they have proved that they can conduct such missions by carefully averting civilian losses.
“Provinces where Iraqi security forces have undertaken the task enjoy tranquility. We believe that the Iraqi government should be independent to buy arms to equip its armed forces and the police seriously,“ he said.
The minister pointed to organized crimes perpetrated by terrorist groups as the main cause of tension between Iraq and its neighbors.
Mottaki, who undertook mediation efforts between Iraq and Turkey to ease tension between the two neighboring states over the cross-border operations of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said terrorist groups have concentrated their forces in camps.
“In the past, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used to employ them as leverage against neighboring states. The Iraqi government is expected to expel terrorists from Iraq and revive bilateral or multilateral pacts that the former regime has signed with neighboring states,“ he said.
The foreign minister noted that the political aspect of the Iraqi crisis needs the collective assistance of regional states, which should reopen their embassies in Iraq as quickly as possible.
“The Iraqi Constitution should be respected and political concerns that created divisions among the Iraqi nation, such as fair distribution of oil wealth and the subject of Kirkuk, should be put off for two years,“ he said.
Mottaki also said that in order to deal with the Iraqi economic crisis, the international community must help Iraqi reconstruction efforts and deal with the plight of Iraqi refugees by helping their repatriation.
Mottaki said four major states in the region--Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Turkey--along with the United Nations are expected to help implement the Iranian plan on Iraq.
Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said in a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari that military options “remain on the table“ in the crisis over Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, after Iraq announced new steps to curb the separatists.
“There are various methods in the struggle against terrorism--political dialogue, diplomacy...and military instruments,“ Babacan said.
“All instruments remain on the table for Turkey,“ he said, adding that whether they will be used or not, or when they will be used, is a matter of strategy.
Ankara wants the Iraqi authorities to urgently crack down on and close PKK camps in the mountains of northern Iraq and arrest and extradite the group’s leaders.
But Zebari, himself a Kurd, insisted that “it was difficult indeed“ to capture the PKK leaders.
“Those people are armed and up in the mountains,“ he said. But he added that the Iraqi authorities would issue “a lookout list for people wanted by the Turkish government“.
He stressed that the measures envisaged by Iraq would help restore confidence between Baghdad and Ankara, and might pave the way for joint military action against the PKK in the future.
The international conference on Iraq was attended by foreign ministers and senior officials from Iraq’s neighbors, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, G-8 countries as well as representatives of the Organization of Islamic Conference, Arab League and European Union.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 3--President General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on whether to overturn his recent election win amid rising militant violence.
Eight Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. The government blocked transmissions of private news channels in several cities and telephone services in the capital Islamabad were cut, AP reported.
“The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order,“ a newscaster on state Pakistan TV said, adding that Musharraf, who took power in 1999 coup, would address the nation later Saturday.
Dozens of police blocked the road in front of the Supreme Court building, with the judges believed inside.
The state TV report gave no reason for the emergency but it follows weeks of speculation that he could take the step. The US and other Western allies urged him this week not to take steps that would jeopardize the country’s transition to democracy. During previous emergencies in Pakistan, a provisional constitutional order has led to the suspension of some basic rights of citizens and for judges to take a fresh oath of office.
“This is the most condemnable act,“ said Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for the opposition PML-N party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif was barred by Musharraf from returning to exile to Pakistan in September to mount a campaign against military rule.
“The whole nation will resist this extra-constitutional measure,“ he said. Private Geo TV network reported the eight judges rejected the declaration of emergency and ordered top officials, including the prime minister, and military officers not to comply.

TEHRAN, Nov. 3--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stressed that creating discord is the media strategy of bullying powers.
The president made the remark in his address to the opening session of the 44th General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) on Saturday, IRNA reported.
The president noted that magnifying disputes among neighboring states and even ethnic tribes of a country while exaggerating unity among the bullying powers are among the strategies of mass media moguls.
“By using the media as a tool and distorting the truth, oppressors try to humiliate nations and their cultures,“ he said, regretting that they also mislead the young generation by disseminating wrong historical, scientific, moral and political news and information.
The bullying powers introduce the most criminal persons as “men of peace“ while they present the most peace-seeking and the most oppressed people as ’warmongers’, Ahmadinejad said, citing Palestine as the best example.
President Ahmadinejad urged senior ABU officials to take measures to safeguard the rights of nations and civilizations of the ancient Asia and Pacific continents and make efforts to build a world based on brotherhood, peace, sustainable security and justice.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Nov. 3--Iran’s nuclear issue is now on a legal and right track, First Vice President Parviz Davoudi said on Saturday in Uzbekistan.
Davoudi stressed that Tehran is pursuing cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Davoudi, who arrived in Tashkent on Friday to attend a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), returned home on Saturday.
The vice president’s remarks were made during a meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.
The prime ministers and vice presidents of SCO member-states and those of observer countries gathered in the Uzbek capital city on Friday to follow up the agreements of the SCO summit in September in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, and discuss ways of executing previous agreements.
The SCO groups Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia have been attending the SCO meetings as observers since past four years. In his meeting with the Chinese premier, Davoudi stressed that Tehran has answered all questions raised by the IAEA over Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities.
Referring to Beijing as “a great economic partner of Tehran“, Davoudi said the two sides could further promote bilateral ties and cooperation in various fields, including petrochemical, oil and natural gas, transportation, joint projects for making power plants as well as the East-West corridor.

TEHRAN, Nov. 3--An Iranian professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, Farshid Sadeghi, has developed tiny wireless sensors that help prevent jet engine breakdowns.
Developed in cooperation with a faculty member of electrical and computer engineering and a graduate student, these sensors are resilient enough to survive the tough conditions inside jet engines to detect when critical bearings are closer to breakdown, Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday.
The devices are based on an emerging technology known as micro electromechanical systems or MEMs, which are machines that combine electronic and mechanical components on a microscopic scale.
The US Air Force intends to use the sensors in fighter jets and helicopters in order to prevent fatal accidents.
Experts believe that the sensors can also be used in commercial products, including aircraft and cars.
The findings of Sadeghi’s team were presented in a technical conference in Atlanta in October.
Sadeghi received his BS (1979) and MS (1981) in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee. He got his PhD in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University in 1985. His research interest is contact mechanics and materials processing.