1. Thousands of scared foreign holidaymakers
were being flown from Tunisia on Saturday
after a terrorist killed 38 people, most of them
British tourists, at a beach resort.
Meanwhile, a major German tour opera-
tor said more than 300 customers who had
planned to travel to Tunisia this summer have
called asking to change their bookings, most
of them seeking to change destinations.
The ISIL terrorist group claimed responsi-
bility for the attack, the deadliest in Tunisia’s
recent history.
So far, 10 of the dead have been identified.
Eight were British, one was Belgian and one
was German, the Tunisian Health Ministry
said.
In London, Prime Minister David Cameron
warned the country needed to prepare “for
the fact that many of those killed in the attack
were British”.
The process of identification was taking
time because the victims were not carrying
documentation with them on the beach, the
Tunisian authorities said.
Another 39 people were wounded when
the assailant pulled a gun from inside a
beach umbrella and opened fire on crowds
of tourists on the beach and by a hotel pool
in the popular Mediterranean resort of Port
el Kantaoui.
Prime Minister Habib Essid on Saturday an-
nounced that from next month armed tourist
security officers would be deployed all along
the coast and inside hotels.
But a heavy blow had already been de-
livered to the key industry with British tour
operator Thomas Cook announcing it would
offer all customers the possibility to change
bookings to the North African country up to
and including July 24.
The Association of British Travel Agents
said it was consulting with the Foreign Office
about the longer term.
Kurdish fighters said they fully secured the
Syrian border town of Kobani on Saturday
and killed more than 60 ISIL terrorists, two
days after the group launched bomb attacks
in the Syrian border city.
Redur Xelil, spokesman for the Syr-
ian Kurdish YPG militia said around eight
members of ISIL group had also escaped
north towards the Turkish border after the
Kurds pushed back, Reuters reported.
“There are still search operations in
neighborhoods where they might be hiding.
The town is quiet now,” he said in an online
message. In Syria’s northeast, Kurdish forc-
es and the army fought separate battles with
ISIL around Hasaka city overnight as the
terrorist group tried to capture more areas of
the major urban centre near the Iraqi border,
the so-called Observatory for Human Rights
monitoring group said on Saturday.
In Kobani, the YPG blew up a school
building used by ISIL earlier on Saturday,
the report said, and plumes of smoke could
be seen rising into the air from the Turkish
side of the border.
ISIL killed around 200 civilians in the
town and surrounding areas in the attack
which started on Thursday, the report said,
describing it as one of the worst massacres
committed by the group in Syria.
Kobani was the site of one of the biggest
battles against ISIL group last year. The
Kurdish YPG force drove the terrorists back
from the town after four months of fighting
and siege.
The YPG previously described the lat-
est attack on Kobani as “a suicide mission”
rather than an attempt to capture the town.
In the northeast, ISIL does seem to be at-
tempting to wrest Hasaka city from govern-
ment control. Syrian state television said on
Saturday the city was safe and under control,
but the report said fierce clashes continued
in the southwest, south and southeast.
Hasaka is important to all sides fighting in
an area that sits between ISIL-held territory
in Syria and Iraq and which reaches north up
to the Turkish border.
Number 5102● Sunday June 28, 2015 ● Tir 7, 1394 ● Ramadan 11, 1436● Price 5,000 Rials ● 12 Pages ● www.irandailyonline.ir
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4
5
12
Hard work ahead in nuclear talks
S
enior US and Iranian officials said hard work was still
needed as they met in Vienna on Saturday for what could
be their final negotiations to bridge significant differences
on an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. However, they are
hopeful of a successful outcome.
With a self-imposed deadline approaching on Tuesday, both
sides emphasized that major obstacles remained to finalizing a
nuclear deal.
“We have a lot of hard work to do. We have some very tough is-
sues,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said, according to a State
Department draft transcript.
“I agree. Maybe not on the issues. But on the fact that we need
to work really hard in order to be able to make progress and move
forward,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was
cited as saying in the transcript.
Nonetheless, Kerry also said he was “hopeful” of a successful
outcome. His meeting with Zarif ended after 90 minutes.
Continued on Page 2
Record rise in foreign
investments in IranIran’s media reported on Saturday that foreign investments in the
country had seen an unprecedented three-time rise in the second
quarter of 2015.
Foreign investments in Iran over the period had reached as high
as $3 billion. The figure was higher than the total of $2.1 billion
of foreign investments made in the country from March 2014-
2015, IRNA reported.
The Organization for Investment and Economic and Technical
Assistance of Iran (OIETAI) has been quoted as announcing in a
statement that the rise has been the result of “massive planning”
as well as a stronger economic “stability” in Iran for the past two
years.
Continued on Page 2
Iran and Turkey:
Partners or rivals?
By Sadeq Dehqan & Farzam Vanaki
As two main regional powers, Iran and Turkey have long been
major economic rivals.
Experts believe that it is in the interest of both sides to, initially,
become trade partners and use each others’ capacities to access
the markets of surrounding states.
Turkey sees Iran as the gate-
way to great Eastern markets
while Tehran holds that it can
boost presence in major West-
ern markets through Ankara.
In case the two countries
share resources and capitals,
they will manage to send their
products to more regional
markets.
Both sides, however, have
not yet used opportunities in
boosting joint production and
investment properly and even
do not have any comprehen-
sive information of one another’s capacities and potentials.
In an exclusive interview with Iran Daily, Jalal Ebrahimi, the
chairman of Iran-Turkey Joint Trade Council, maintained that
Turkey’s hesitation in investing in Iranian projects, will be great-
ly harmful for both sides, particularly Ankara, since, given the
increased probability of Tehran’s success in nuclear negotiations
with P5+1, a large number of states are now in a rush to enter the
country’s market once they find the time is ripe. This will make
the competition even more intense for Turkey.
Excerpts of the interview follow:
IRAN DAILY: Would you please expound on the history of
the two countries’relations?
JALAL EBRAHIMI: The two sides’ trade ties date back to a
long time when the Eastern Roman Empire ruled both Ancient
Rome and Anatolia. Iranian traders used to travel to Mediter-
ranean coasts and exchanged goods with European merchants.
Throughout history, Turkey has always been Iran’s best gateway
to the markets of European countries. Iran played the same role
for Turkey with regard to Eastern markets.
The two countries have always needed to maintain favorable
trade ties with each other.At present, Turkey still plays very much
the same role, though Iran has tried its luck to find other entries
to Europe including Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Turkey
sends products to East and Central Asian nations and the Persian
Gulf littoral states through Iran.
Two free trade and industrial zones of Aras and Maku have
been established on the two countries’ joint borders which are
also adjacent to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two strategic zones play a very significant role in boosting
mutual trade.
How do you evaluate transactions?
In 2014, transactions between Iran and Turkey amounted to
$14.2 billion, of which $9.2 pertained to exchange of oil, gas
and petrochemicals and the rest were related to trade of non-oil
products. In the first five month of 2015, Iran imported non-oil
goods worth $1.59 billion from Turkey and ranked eighth among
the country’s export destinations. Major Iranian export items to
Turkey include gas, oil products, petrochemicals such as metha-
nol, paraffin wax and different types of ethylene, salambor sheep
skin, nuts, minerals, building stones and honey. In addition, agro
crops constitute a major portion of Tehran’s exports to Ankara.
Turkey’s exports to Iran comprise of Medium Density Fiber-
boards, different kinds of wood, clothes, textiles, jewels and gold,
industrial spare parts, machineries and metals.
Continued on Page 4
ISIL ousted from Syria’s Kobani
inveIran’s med
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quarter of
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as $3 billi
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2015, IRN
The Org
Assistanc
statement
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Iran raps minimal int’l
cooperation in fighting drugs
Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza
Rahmani Fazli expressed regret that
the international cooperation with the
Islamic Republic in the war against il-
licit drugs has remained at its minimal
level.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the
International Day against Drug Abuse
and Illicit Trafficking on Saturday,
Rahmani Fazli pointed to Iran’s prox-
imity to Afghanistan, which produces
80 percent of the world’s traditional
narcotics, saying that being a neighbor
to the country is one of the root causes
of the spread of illicit drugs in Iran,
Tasnim News Agency reported.
“This is while, unfortunately, (inter-
national) cooperation with Iran in the
fight against narcotics is at the lowest,”
the interior minister said.
He further emphasized that if the
international bodies and other coun-
tries cooperate with Iran, the campaign
against illicit drugs will definitely
achieve its objectives more effectively.
Also on Saturday, Iran burned hun-
dreds of tons of drugs recovered from
traffickers.
President Hassan Rouhani, in a mes-
sage to the ceremony, said the day
provides an opportunity for raising
awareness and attracting public support
against destructive harms of narcotic
drugs as well as offering mechanisms
in the relentless and overall campaign
with such an immense social problem.
The message deplored the fact that
the youth who are the productive force
and supportive of the future develop-
ment of the country are among prime
victims of the deadly trade.
“Iran, due to its neighborhood with
a country which is the main source of
the cultivation, production and conse-
quently activities of the criminals and
organized and transnational crimes, is
exposed to the heaviest human harms
and destructive outcome of the traffick-
ing of drugs and addiction.”
In recent decades, Iran has been hit
by drug trafficking, mainly because of
its 936-kilometer shared border with
Afghanistan.
The war on drugs trade originating
from Afghanistan has claimed the lives
of nearly 3,700 Iranian police officers
over the past 30 years.
Iran suffers severe drug-related prob-
lems, mostly due to heroin and meth-
amphetamine use.
IE
xclusive
Tourists scramble to
leave Tunisia after
ISILmassacre
AFP
A picture taken from the Turkish side of the border in Suruc, Sanliurfa Province, shows a Turkish solider standing as smoke
rises from the Syrian town of Kobani on June 27, 2015.