National Desk

IIran’s President Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi stressed that his administration is focused on completing high-priority semi-finished projects.
Speaking on Friday during a visit to the site of an incomplete dam project in the western province of Ilam, Raeisi added eroded public trust is among the many serious losses suffered when abandoning executive works unfinished, IRNA reported.
He noted that in addition, a failure in the timely completion of projects results in the wastage of national assets and capitals.

Martyrs’ path

In addition, in an address to local people in a visit to a martyrs’ cemetery during his Ilam trip, the president said the secret to the country’s progress and victory is continuing martyrs’ path with devotion and sincerity.
He added the martyrs’ message is that “we must not allow the aspirations of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the necessity of sticking to the guidelines of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to lose their importance in the society lest justice is trampled down and Iranians’ honor is distorted.
The president noted that Iranians’ are indebted to the people of Ilam, as during the Iraqi-imposed war (1980-88) they resisted against the enemy and made considerable sacrifices.
He added 3,000 people of Ilam were martyred during the eight-year war.
In his fourth provincial visit since being sworn in as Iran’s eighth president, Raeisi traveled to Ilam on Friday.
He had earlier visited Khuzestan (southwestern Iran), Sistan and Baluchestan (southeastern Iran) and South Khorasan (eastern Iran).


 

National Economy Desk

Iranian Minister of Petroleum Javad Owji said $10 billion has been allocated to the development project of Azar joint oilfield in the city of Mehran, Ilam Province, western Iran.
The minister made the remarks in a visit to Mehran on Friday, adding, “The top priority in the Petroleum Ministry is to expand oil fields in Ilam, which could lead to a daily production of 330,000 oil barrels [in the province] in coming years,” IRNA reported.
Owji announced the Ministry of Petroleum’s plans to invest further $4 billion in the oil and energy projects of the western Iranian province in the next 4-5 years, with nearly half of the sum defined in the downstream sectors.
“Ilam Province possesses some 3% of the country’s oil and gas reserves, as well as a number of independent fields and two joint oil fields, and the Ministry of Petroleum has planned, through subsidiaries and the private sector, up to $2 billion of investment in the upstream sector of the oil industry of the
province.”
In the downstream sector, including the petrochemical industry and value chain complementary industries, he added, “over $2 billion of projects have been defined, with part of the projects being bankrolled by the Ministry of Petroleum and its subsidiaries.”
The rest will be supplied by the Oil Pension Fund and the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), he said.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said the Iranian nation will never forget the sacrifices made by the martyrs of the eight-year war (1980-88) waged by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against Iran.
“The Sacred Defense Week is enriched with the names and memories of the great martyrs. Their sincere sacrifices and that of other [warriors] brought victory for the Iranian nation, and their pure blood recorded the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic on the face of history,” Ayatollah Khamenei wrote in a message on Thursday, marking the start of the Sacred Defense Week.
Noting that wherever there are sincere efforts, there will be victory and pride, the Leader said, “This is the great lesson of those models of self-sacrifice,” Press TV reported
“And the Iranian nation will never forget this honorable legacy, inshallah,” he added.
Iraq waged a war against Iran more than one and a half years after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
During the war, Iraq was fully supported not only by then Soviet block but also the US and its western allies, while the same countries denied Iran access to foreign arms.
Each year, on the first day of the national Sacred Defense Week, which marks the beginning of the imposed war, Iran holds military parades and puts on display the latest domestically-manufactured arms and military equipment across the country as a show of might against the backdrop of the US-led arms embargoes.
 

Tehran remains ready to return to nuclear talks “very soon” but the administration of US President Joe Biden has sent a “negative signal” by failing to lift economic sanctions and imposing new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Iran’s foreign minister told NBC News in an interview published on Friday.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that Biden needed to back up his talk of diplomacy with concrete actions to show Tehran that Washington is serious about rejoining the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
“They say, ‘We are ready to return to the fulfillment of our commitments.’ However, there is no action taken in order to show and prove the true will to the new Iranian administration, to the Iranian nation. And worse than that, simultaneously, they have put on new sanctions,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
The talks in Vienna aimed at restoring the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have been stalled since June, when Iran held its presidential election. The government under President Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi said it is assessing the results of previous negotiations.
Amir-Abdollahian said it was up to the United States to demonstrate it was serious about returning to the accord after former president Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal three years ago.
“In other words, President Biden was and is criticizing the behavior of his predecessor, Mr. Trump vis-à-vis Iran, but at the same time, the volume of the file of sanctions that Mr. Trump built against Iran is being carried carefully by Mr. Biden,” he said.
If the United States was serious about pursuing negotiations, then why was it “piling up” actions, the foreign minister asked.
“This is a negative sign, signal to Iran,” he said.
The foreign minister said “the reality of the matter is that for years, we have not obtained any benefits from the JCPOA.” But the new Iranian government is now evaluating the talks undertaken by the previous Iranian administration, he said.
Amir-Abdollahian said, “we are assessing and I can tell you that we have had many meetings and we will keep the window of diplomacy and negotiations open. And we will very soon return to the negotiations.”

 

The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement announced the arrival of a second Iranian tanker ship loaded with diesel in Syria in order to help ease crippling fuel shortages in crisis-stricken Lebanon amid a dire economic crisis.
Hezbollah’s media relations office, in a statement released early on Friday, said the fuel shipment from Iran arrived in Syria’s northwestern port city of Baniyas on Thursday, Lebanon Al Manar TV reported.
The statement added that truck convoys carrying Iranian fuel deliveries will enter Lebanon from Syria within the next few days.
The report comes as Lebanese media outlets reported late on Wednesday that a convoy of tanker trucks carrying Iranian fuel oil had crossed the border from Syria into Lebanon.
 

Talks between regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia have led to a “serious progress” on the issue of Persian Gulf security, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
“Regarding the security of the Persian Gulf, progress in the talks has been very serious,” Saeed Khatibzadeh told journalists on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
He said the talks on bilateral issues were “good” and called for the settlement of regional issues by regional nations themselves, without foreign interference.
“If Saudi Arabia pays serious attention to Iran’s message that the solution to the problems in the region lies within the region itself and that we must reach a comprehensive regional mechanism, we can have a stable and good relationship between the two important countries,” IRNA quoted him saying.  
Iran and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in talks since April with the aim of improving relations, for the first time since the kingdom cut diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic in 2016 after protesters, angered by the execution of a revered Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia, held protests before Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad.
The current discussions were launched under Iran’s former president Hassan Rouhani and have continued since his successor Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi took office in August.
Saudi King Salman, in his speech via videoconference to the General Assembly, on Wednesday expressed hope that talks with Iran would “lead to tangible outcomes to build trust” and to the relaunch bilateral “cooperation”, according to media reports.
 

Sports Desk

An all-Asian battle at the FIFA Futsal World Cup saw Iran survive a late scare to edge past Uzbekistan 9-8 for a place at the quarterfinals in Lithuania.
Iranian skipper Ali-Asghar Hassanzadeh opened the scoring in the first minute before Mehdi Javid’s superb volley on a Farhad Fakhim’s corner-kick found the top corner in the fifth minute.
Khusniddin Nishonov pulled one back for Uzbekistan in the ninth minute but Seyyed Ahamd Abbasi restored Iran’s two-goal cushion seven minutes later.
Dilshod Rakhmatov and Ikhtiyor Ropiev scored twice in the space of one minute to level the tie at 3-3, but Farhad Tavakkoli bagged a last-gasp strike as the first half finished with a 4-3 lead for Iran.
Abbasi and Javid scored for Iran’s 6-3 lead with five minutes into the second period, before Anaskhon Rakhmatov netted Uzbeks’ fourth.
Hassanzadeh and Moslem Olad-Qobad took Iran’s lead to 8-4 before Ilhomjon Hamroev and Nishonov pulled a couple of goals back for Uzbekistan with seven minutes left on the clock.
Abbasi scored his third of the night with three minutes remaining as Iran seemed to be on its way to the quarterfinals.
However, Anaskhon Rakhmatov got on the score sheet again and Hamroev scored seconds later to make it a nail-biting closing stage at the Vilnius Arena in the Lithuanian capital.
The 12-time Asian champion still managed to hold on to the one-goal lead and will now face Kazakhstan in the last-eight round on Monday.