A general view of a UN Security Council meeting at the United Nations, in New York.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 4--Libya said it was uncomfortable with the idea of sanctions against Iran but vowed to be ’constructive’ in dealing with Tehran’s nuclear program while chairing the UN Security Council this month.
Libya took over the rotating presidency of the council this week after decades as a pariah of the West. It was elected to the 15-nation body along with four other countries in October for 2008-9 after Washington decided not to oppose it, Reuters reported.
Among issues that may be discussed by the council this month are western calls for a new round of sanctions against Iran, which has ignored repeated Security Council demands that it halt its nuclear enrichment program.
“We will try to be constructive,“ Libya’s UN Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi told a news conference in English on Thursday when asked how he would treat the issue of Iran.
Speaking after the Security Council’s first 2008 meeting, Ettalhi said his country’s return to the council was significant for Tripoli, which in 1992 was hit with UN sanctions over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
“We are back to normal from the perspective of other countries,“ he said.
Also joining the council for two years are Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia and Vietnam.
Ettalhi said Tripoli enjoyed good ties with Iran, adding that the Libyans “support states’ right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy“.
Tehran says its nuclear program is intended solely for the peaceful generation of nuclear energy.
Ettalhi declined to comment on how Libya would react if it were presented with a resolution on a new round of sanctions.
“But as a country that has suffered from sanctions we would definitely be in a difficult position when sanctions are proposed,“ Ettalhi said, according to a UN interpretation of an Arabic reply to a question in Arabic.
Libya is not the only country on the Security Council with doubts about the wisdom of further sanctioning Tehran. Both Russia and China oppose tough additional punitive measures.
Ettalhi said the six key players on the Iran issue--Germany and permanent Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States--had not yet agreed on what to do with Iran or when the council should discuss it.
Senior diplomats from the six countries are expected to return to the issue in January.

TEHRAN, Jan. 4--Interim Friday prayer leader of Tehran advised prospective candidates for the next parliamentary elections to observe ethics.
Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani, addressing thousands of worshipers at the Tehran University campus in his second Friday prayer sermon, said, “Securing a position or a seat in the parliament should not be the ultimate goal,“ IRNA reported.
He reiterated that candidates should enter the election campaign scene for the sake of God and for serving people as a duty, and the people, too, should likewise vote in their favor as a duty.“
Emami-Kashani stressed the need for observing election ethics.
“By keeping such objectives in mind, we would never again witness severe disputes in our cities and provincial capitals,“ he said.

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 4--Afghanistan’s government called on Iran to delay its decision to expel or punish more than a million Afghan refugees living there without proper documents.
Tehran has said it has warned one-and-a-half-million Afghan refugees living in Iran without proper papers that they face arrest and detention in camps for up to five years, AFP reported.
Afghan Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said on Thursday his government was not ’formally’ told about the move but called on the Iranian authorities to delay their decision.
“We’ve not formally received what we see in media. But we believe what is being said in media is not inconsistent with what we’ve agreed over,“ he said, referring to dialogue between Kabul and Tehran over the issue in recent months.
“We hope that those decisions are not executed at least during the freezing months of the winter,“ he told a news conference in Kabul.
Baheen said a government delegation would “very soon“ travel to Tehran to discuss the topic and other related issues with Iranian officials.
More than two million Afghans live in Iran while a similar number remain in eastern Pakistan after they fled war and unrest in their homeland over the past three decades.

Abbas Araqchi

TEHRAN, Jan. 4--Abbas Araqchi and Ahmad Mousavi have been named Iran’s ambassadors to Japan and Syria based on a proposal by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and the approval of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmad Mousavi

Araqchi formerly served as deputy foreign minister for international affairs, director of Foreign Ministry’s Institute of Political and International Studies and Iran’s ambassador to the Netherlands, IRNA reported.
Mousavi served as vice president for legal and parliamentary affairs.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 4--Iranian and Iraqi officials in Baghdad are making arrangements for an Iraqi delegation’s visit to Tehran.
Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement faxed to IRNA on Thursday that preparations are underway in Baghdad for the visit.
An official in the ministry also told IRNA that Iranian officials from Iran’s Embassy in Baghdad met with senior officials of Iraq’s Foreign Ministry in the run-up to the visit.
The agenda of talks in Tehran will include implementation of articles of the Iran-Iraq Accord signed in Algeria in 1975, the official said.
Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi was also present in the meeting.
Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Muhammad Al-Haj Hamud, who is expected to visit Tehran to discuss implementation of the accord, also held talks with Qomi on Monday.
The deputy minister emphasized the credibility of all agreements signed between Iran and Iraq, adding that the delegation will discuss the river of Arvand Roud.
Hamud also said future negotiations between the two nations will have positive impacts on the internal affairs of the war-torn country.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jan. 4--A Dutch university will no longer enroll students from Iran because the Dutch government is concerned Iranians could gain nuclear expertise from the Netherlands, Dutch newspaper Trouw reported Thursday.
The Twente University of Technology, located in the eastern Dutch city of Enschede, has informed three potential Iranian students in writing that they cannot study at the university. One of them had already received confirmation of a grant, Xinhua quoted.
An internal email by the university management to staff also states, according to Trouw, that no more Iranian staff members will be employed there.
The Twente University and the other two Dutch universities of technology in the Netherlands, namely Eindhoven and Delft, are required by the Dutch government to state in a declaration that Iranian students will not have access to knowledge on nuclear technology.
The universities must send the declaration to the Dutch Immigration Service to obtain visa for their students, said the paper.
The Twente University said it cannot issue this statement because its students are entitled to all information available, and an all-time surveillance would be impossible.