Palestinians walk on top of a metal border wall at the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza, Jan. 23.

TEHRAN, Jan. 23--Majlis deputies voiced Iran’s support for the resistance movement of the oppressed nation of Palestine.
The statement was issued on Wednesday at the end of the MPs’ rallies in protest at the recent brutality of Zionist Israelis in the Gaza Strip, IRNA reported.
The statement said the only solution to the Palestinian issue is the defeat of hegemony of imperialism and Zionism in the region and holding free referendum with the participation of all Palestinians, including Muslims, Christians and Jews.
It further called for vigilance and unity of all Palestinian groups and parties.
Supporting the popular Palestinian government, led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, the statement urged all Muslim states to give a crushing response to the US President George W. Bush’s hegemonic policies in the region.
Condemning the genocide of the Palestinian people by the Zionist regime as well as the economic, political, military and security siege of the Gaza Strip, the statement urged all Palestinian groups and regional states to condemn the Israeli crimes.
The MPs further expressed the hatred of the Iranian nation toward Washington’s all-out support for the Zionist regime and its atrocities in the occupied lands.
Also on Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at the silence of the so-called supporters of human rights vis-ˆ-vis atrocities committed by the Zionist Israeli regime against the defenseless people of Palestine.
Speaking to reporters at the end of a cabinet session, the president said those who have kept silent toward the ongoing crimes in Gaza Strip by the Israeli regime “are accomplices of the Zionists and will be brought to justice before the world nations soon“.
Stressing Tehran’s support for the Palestinians, the president said, “Iran will continue its moves to resolve the problems of Gaza.“
Since the onset of Israel’s savage attacks on Gaza Strip, President Ahmadinejad has made various contacts with heads of major Muslim states and organizations, urging them to help the defenseless Palestinians and stop the Zionist regime’s crimes against them.
Ahmadinejad has also called on the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League to hold emergency meetings to study mechanisms to stop the humanitarian catastrophes in the Gaza Strip and dispatch food and medicine to the Palestinians.
Scores of Palestinian youth, women and children were killed in consecutive air and ground offensives and bombardment of the residential areas by the Zionist regime in the past days.

Thousands
Cross Downed Gaza Wall
GAZA CITY, Occupied Palestine, Jan. 23--Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured from the Gaza Strip into Egypt Wednesday after masked gunmen with explosives destroyed most of the seven-mile wall dividing the town of Rafah, which straddles the border.
The Gazans crossed on foot, in cars or riding donkey carts to buy supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade of their impoverished territory. Police from the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, directed the traffic. Egyptian border guards took no action, according to AP.
The gunmen began breaching the wall dividing Rafah before dawn, according to witnesses and Hamas officials, who told The Associated Press that they later closed all but two of the gaps in the wall.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said they were allowing Palestinians to move freely through the two gaps.
Thousands of Gazans began crossing into Egypt and returning with milk, cigarettes and plastic bottles of fuel, the Hamas officials and witnesses said.
An Associated Press reporter arrived after first light and saw that about two-thirds of the Rafah wall had been demolished. The reporter also saw the crowd of Palestinians crossing into Egypt swell into the tens of thousands.
Guards directed the crowds over the fallen metal through two main crossing areas, inspecting some bags.
The identity of the gunmen who breached the border was not immediately clear. But in a statement, Hamas expressed support for the move, saying, “Blowing up the border wall with Egypt is a reflection of the ... catastrophic situation which the Palestinian people in Gaza are living through due to the blockade.“
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council on Tuesday kicked off an emergency session on the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip as Israel eased its crippling blockade of the territory, AFP reported.
The meeting, which kicked off 45 minutes behind schedule at 10:45 am (1545 GMT), had been requested by Arab and Islamic states.
The 15 ambassadors were negotiating on a draft statement submitted by Libya, the council chair this month that would call on Israel to end its lockdown of Gaza and ensure “unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people“, according to a copy of the text obtained by AFP.
The statement would also urge Israel “to abide by its obligation under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and immediately to cease all its illegal measures and practices against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip.“

BERLIN, Jan. 23--US anti-Iran efforts have failed to reach consensus among Group 5+1 at a meeting in Berlin, Germany.
The group agreed on Tuesday on the outlines of a new resolution against Iran, but diplomats said the draft did not contain the punitive economic measures Washington had been pushing for, Alalam.ir reported.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after the talks that a new draft UN Security Council resolution on Iran’s nuclear program envisages direct talks with Tehran that would include the United States.
“It’s clearly confirmed by the resolution that direct negotiations on resolving all questions related to the Iranian nuclear program--with the participation of all six powers, including the United States--would be initiated if Iran accepts the proposals of the six,“ Lavrov said.
In his remarks to Russian journalists after the Berlin meeting, reported by the Ria-Novosti news agency, the foreign minister added that the proposed text does not foresee fresh sanctions against Iran.
Lavrov said the new wording “not only acknowledges, but salutes progress made by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in clarifying aspects of Iran’s nuclear program“.
The resolution underlines ’support’ among the six powers--Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United States--for the IAEA’s efforts toward alleviating their remaining concerns, he said.
Iran has promised to deliver answers on outstanding questions put to it “within the next two or three weeks“, Lavrov added.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said following a nearly two-hour meeting with his counterparts from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, that the new draft would be presented to the UN Security Council in the coming weeks.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iran does not recognize the decisions of the UN Security Council as effective on its peaceful nuclear program.
“The Iranian nation has chosen its path and will continue to tread the same,“ he said, adding that “such illegal behavior...will not divert the Iranian nation from its path (to obtain nuclear technology)“.
“They should know that such illegal behavior will be ineffective against the will of the Iranian people,“ he said in reaction to the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting of six major powers over Tehran’s nuclear issue.
President Ahmadinejad reiterated that nobody, except the International Atomic Energy Agency, has the right to make decisions or impose anything on the Iranian nation.
Tehran insists that its nuclear program should be dealt with only by the UN atomic agency and rejects the interference of the UN Security Council.

VIENNA, Austria,
Jan. 23--Iran has allowed top UN nuclear monitors to visit an advanced centrifuge development site for the first time in a gesture of transparency about its peaceful nuclear program, diplomats familiar with the matter said.
One of the diplomats, close to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the IAEA was nearing the end of an inquiry into Iran’s nuclear activity and cited concern that a new big power move to increase sanctions on Tehran could hurt the process, Reuters reported.
After a rare Tehran visit by IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei on January 11-12, the agency said Iran agreed to settle remaining questions in the long stalled inquiry within four weeks and also handed over some information about efforts to develop “a new generation“ of centrifuges able to refine uranium much faster.
On Wednesday, diplomats familiar with IAEA-Iran relations told Reuters that ElBaradei and his safeguards chief, Olli Heinonen, also visited a Tehran site where a centrifuge to replace Iran’s current outmoded, breakdown-prone model is being developed.
“The Iranian reaction will be interesting to this resolution. It certainly will not be helpful, and it might be detrimental for their cooperation in finishing up,“ the diplomat said.
“Very good progress has been made this month. The IAEA is in the very last stretch, focusing on the most sensitive issue, the alleged efforts to weaponries (nuclear material), and the involvement of the military.“

WASHINGTON,
Jan. 23--A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that US President George W. Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses“, AP reported.
The study was posted Tuesday on the website of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
White House Spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration’s position that the world community viewed Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.
“The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world,“ Stanzel said.
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to Al-Qaeda or both.
“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al-Qaeda,“ according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study.
Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.
Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to Al-Qaeda, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

ANKARA, Turkey, Jan. 23--Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis arrived here Wednesday for a landmark visit, the first to Turkey by a Greek premier in five decades, aiming to boost efforts to bring the two former enemies closer.
Karamanlis, accompanied by Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, was to hold talks later in the day with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, AFP reported.
Even though the two leaders have a warm personal relationship--Karamanlis attended the wedding of Erdogan’s daughter in 2004--territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea and the Cyprus conflict continue to cast a shadow on improvement in bilateral ties over the past decade.
A tense face-off between Greek and Turkish patrol boats near a disputed islet in the Aegean had marred the visit of then Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis in 2005.
Karamanlis has said his government has “neither excessive optimism nor pessimism“ over the visit.