Lee and Obama to discuss North Korean threats

By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – As North Korea threatens nuclear war, President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will be eager to show the North the unity of their alliance and a determination not to back down.

North Korea's pledge to expand its nuclear programs gives their meeting Tuesday at the White House a sense of urgency. The presidents probably will express their refusal to accept the North as a nuclear weapons state and condemn recent missile and nuclear tests.

Before leaving Seoul, Lee said he supported Obama's appeal for a world without nuclear weapons. However, he told The Wall Street Journal, "we are faced with North Korea trying to become a nuclear power, and this really is a question we must deal with now."

The United States, during Lee's visit, is likely to pledge its continued commitment to use its military muscle to protect the South should the North attack. Such comments are welcome in Seoul and Tokyo, no matter how many times U.S. officials repeat them.

Lee's talks with Obama come on the second day of a three-day visit also scheduled to include meetings with U.S. trade envoy Ron Kirk, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed Lee to Washington on Monday, the same day tens of thousands rallied in Pyongyang to condemn sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the country's latest nuclear test.

Lee's office released a statement saying Clinton had called for close cooperation between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan in implementing the U.N. sanctions to "get North Korea to realize that its bad behavior will bring due consequences."

Lee told Clinton that "as long as the United States and its allies maintain a firm stance, North Korea's belief that it will be rewarded for its bad behavior if it waits long enough will dissipate," the statement said.

North Korea is reportedly readying a possible test of a missile that could reach Alaska. The North also may be preparing for a third nuclear test in defiance of the U.N. sanctions.

The U.S. government officially confirmed Monday that North Korea carried out an underground atomic test in late May. The Americans said the blast was somewhat larger than the country's first test, conducted in 2006.

Victor Cha, a senior Asia adviser in President George W. Bush's administration, said another nuclear test could motivate U.N. member states to actually enforce the sanctions specified in the U.N. resolution against the North.

Lee has infuriated North Korea since he took office in early 2008. He ended a decade of liberal rule in which South Korea sought to embrace the North and refrained from criticism, a so-called "sunshine" policy that provided aid without demanding concessions. Pyongyang regularly calls Lee a traitor.

While the nuclear standoff will top discussions, another tense issue looms for Lee and Obama: an ambitious South Korean-U.S. free trade agreement to slash tariffs on goods and services.

The deal was painstakingly negotiated but currently is in limbo, stalled over U.S. lawmakers' worries it could hurt an already suffering American auto industry.

The agreement signed in 2007 has been promoted as a potential $10 billion boon to the U.S. economy. Failure, supporters say, would threaten U.S. standing in an important region.

Obama, however, has said the deal does not adequately deal with an imbalance that has heavily favored South Korean automakers. His administration is now reviewing the deal.

Italy agrees to take 3 detainees from Guantanamo

By MARIA SANMINIATELLI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, seeking to restore some shine to his tattered international image, agreed to take three detainees from Guantanamo Bay and praised President Barack Obama after a long meeting at the White House.

The two leaders talked Monday for more than two hours on topics ranging from Guantanamo to the agenda for the July summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations in L'Aquila, Italy, the Apennine mountain town that was devastated by an earthquake this spring.

Speaking at the end of the Oval Office meeting, Obama praised Berlusconi and said he was "extremely grateful for his friendship." In turn, the 72-year-old Berlusconi lauded the young U.S. president "for his deep knowledge and precision and accuracy with which he discusses all of the issues."

The meeting was an opportunity for Berlusconi to rehabilitate his reputation after a scandal over his link to an 18-year-old model — which he maintains was not improper — earned him worldwide condemnation. Striking up a public friendship with the popular U.S. president and strengthening Italy's ties to America were among his goals.

And Italy's agreement to take in three Guantanamo prisoners was good news for Obama, who has been pressing foreign allies to take some of the detainees. His efforts to have some of the prisoners released in the U.S. or sent to American prisons have been stymied by stiff opposition from members of Congress.

In the past week, the administration has made some progress — securing a key agreement with the European Union and transferring 10 detainees out of Guantanamo. One prisoner was sent to New York to stand trial, while others were transferred to Chad, Iraq, Bermuda and Saudi Arabia. The latest announcement by Italy means that there will now be 226 detainees remaining at the prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

The EU agreement announced Monday said European nations are ready to help the Obama administration "turn the page" on Guantanamo, and take detainees on a case-by-case basis. The announcement did not provide details on the names of the countries or the number of prisoners they might take.

Obama also was looking for common ground on recovering from the economic crisis, which will figure prominently at the G-8 summit in L'Aquila in July.

"The idea is to work out a set of rules and regulations which can prevent situations and conditions like the ones we've experienced which have led ... first to the financial crisis and then to the economic crisis that we are experiencing right now," Berlusconi told reporters after the Oval Office meeting.

The two leaders also discussed the Middle East, Afghanistan — where Italy has about 2,800 troops — and Iran.

The Italian premier later met with the Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress. He also visited Washington's National Gallery of Art for a quick look at the Beffi Triptych, a 15th-century altarpiece from the National Museum of Abruzzo in L'Aquila, before departing for Italy late Monday.

The Italian government loaned the altarpiece to the Washington museum to thank the U.S. for being among the first to offer assistance to the region after the earthquake, the museum said.

Obama: Iranian voters' voices should be heard

By ANNE GEARAN, AP National Security Writer

WASHINGTON – With images of bloodied protesters in Tehran's streets recalling the Islamic revolution 30 years ago, President Barack Obama said the world is inspired by the outpouring of Iranian political dissent.

An inquiry into the disputed presidential election should go ahead without violence, Obama said Monday. He added that he does not know who rightfully won the Iranian election, but that Iranians have a right to feel their ballots mattered.

His response marked the most extensive U.S. response to Friday's voting, and appeared calculated to acknowledge the outpouring of dissent in Iran without claiming any credit.

"It would be wrong for me to be silent on what we've seen on the television the last few days," Obama told reporters at the White House.

He added, however, that "sometimes, the United States can be a handy political football."

The new American president is personally hugely popular in Iran, and all candidates in this year's surprisingly lively presidential election backed off on criticism of the United States. But the larger idea of the United States — and its world influence, backed by massive military power — remains highly divisive. Any candidate or popular movement seen to have the express backing of the United States would probably be doomed.

"What I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was," Obama said. "And they should know that the world is watching."

Iran's state radio said seven people died in shooting that erupted after people at an "unauthorized gathering" Monday night in western Tehran "tried to attack a military location."

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians streamed through the capital streets, and the fist-waving protesters denounced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim to a landslide re-election. Standing on rooftops, pro-government gunmen opened fire on a group of protesters who had tried to storm the militia's compound.

Obama campaigned on a promise to extend a hand to the United States' main rival for influence in the Middle East, and the prospect of a different relationship with the United States was a constant, if largely unspoken, theme in the hardline Ahmadinejad's contest with a pro-reform challenger.

Obama was asked whether the violence had changed his outlook on the value of outreach to the clerical regime. While denouncing violence against demonstrators, Obama said he remains committed to what he called "tough, hardheaded diplomacy" with a nation that could soon possess nuclear weapons.

The United States has a broader interest in stopping Iran from developing those weapons or exporting terrorism, Obama said.

"We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we'll see where it takes us," he said.

The United States urged Iran on Monday to agree to a meeting with the six key nations trying to ensure that its nuclear program is peaceful.

U.S. deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo told the U.N. Security Council that Iran has not responded to the request from the five permanent council members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — and Germany for new talks, which would be the first international discussion on Iran's nuclear program since Obama took office in January.

"The United States remains committed to direct diplomacy with Iran to resolve issues of concern to the international community and will engage on the basis of mutual respect," DiCarlo said. "The United States will be a full participant in these discussions and we continue to urge Iran to accept this invitation."

DiCarlo's comments came hours after Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged Iran to "respond to the U.S. initiative with an equal gesture of goodwill and trust-building."

In remarks alongside Italy's president on Monday, Obama called some of Ahmadinejad's past statements "odious," and did not mention the challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, by name. Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be "wiped from the map" and questioned the extent of Jewish extermination in the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad's challenger claims he was robbed of the presidency and has called for the results to be canceled.

Obama did not go that far.

He said peaceful dissent should never be subject to violence, but that he had no way of knowing whether the results were valid. Obama noted that the United States had no election monitors in the country.

He appealed to young Iranians, largely seen as determinative of Iran's political future over the coming five to 10 years. A quarter of the population of some 70 million is 15 years old or younger.

"I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected," Obama said.

Pakistan commander warns against collateral damage

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's military chief denounced terrorists as enemies of the country and Islam, but warned his officers to avoid killing civilians as they widen their operations against the Taliban.

The government is seeking to capitalize on public support for its 6-week-old offensive in the Swat Valley region and open a new front in a nearby lawless tribal zone where al-Qaida and the Taliban are entrenched.

The military action is being welcomed by the United States as a strong stand against militants after years of failed offensives and striking deals rather than confronting Taliban hard-liners directly.

But the weak government is also keenly aware that public support could sour if civilian casualties escalate or the task of resettling more than 2 million refugees displaced by fighting is badly handled.

A top official in the northwest said Sunday that the government had given the order to send the military after Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. The announcement was interpreted as effectively giving the go-ahead for a fresh military offensive in Waziristan, the semiautonomous tribal region on the border with Afghanistan that is rumored to be a hiding place of Osama bin Laden and where Mehsud makes his base.

The military reportedly closed key roads leading into the area Monday, but there was no immediate sign of fighting.

In a carefully stage-managed event Monday, selected television outlets taped armed forces chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani dressed in a tight-fitting flight suit clambering into the copilot's seat of an F-16 fighter-bomber before taking off for a flight over the Swat Valley.

In an address to officers before the trip, Kayani denounced Mehsud and the Taliban leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, saying they had nothing to do with Islam.

"Terrorists are the enemies of Pakistan and enemies of Islam. We have to eliminate them," Kayani was quoted as saying by Geo TV, one of three networks invited to cover the event. No questions were allowed.

He also stressed the importance of avoiding civilian casualties.

"In the present circumstances ... it is difficult to differentiate between friend and enemy," Kayani told the officers. "The problem is that you have to separate black from white ... to avoid collateral damage."

Focus has increasingly shifted from Swat to Waziristan in recent days, though the military says it is still fighting pockets of resistance in the northwestern valley.

In one skirmish Monday, the military said troops battled militants fleeing on mules from Fazlullah's rear base of Piochar. On Tuesday, a rocket attack by suspected Taliban killed two police officers and wounded three others at a checkpoint in the village of Kharki, on the edge of the Mardan district in the Mlakand region, which includes Swat, said Habib Khan, an area police chief.

The military has struck suspected militant strongholds in South Waziristan and neighboring Bannu with shells and bombs in recent days but insists the operations are a response to increased militant attacks on troops and not the start of a major offensive.

The U.S. has frequently targeted South Waziristan with missile strikes. The latest killed five suspected militants Sunday, two Pakistani intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Owais Ghani, governor of North West Frontier Province, said late Sunday that the government felt it had no choice but to use force against Mehsud and his network, calling him "the root cause of all evils."

Mehsud is blamed for a spate of suicide attacks across Pakistan since late May that have killed more than 100 people, and which the Taliban says are retaliation for the Swat offensive.

Those attacks, which have included at least two mosque bombings and the slaying of a leading moderate cleric, have reinforced the anti-Taliban mood.

In the southern city of Karachi on Monday, hundreds of protesters furiously beat and kicked effigies of Mehsud and a hardline cleric who negotiated a failed peace deal that handed control of Swat to the militants prior to the military operation.

"They are the murderers of the Muslims," the mob chanted, setting the effigies alight.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said police in Islamabad had foiled "a number" of plots to kidnap diplomats and carry out bombings in the Pakistani capital in the past six months. He did not elaborate.

Seven killed at Tehran rally, more protests planned

By Dominic Evans and Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Seven people were killed near a rally held by supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi, state television said on Tuesday, as they prepared for more protests against a poll they say was rigged.

Backers of hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said they planned a demonstration on Tuesday at the same location as Mousavi supporters, raising the possibility of further clashes between the rival camps.

Ahmadinejad, who according to official results won a resounding re-election, was endorsed as "the new president" by the Russian government on Tuesday during his first foreign trip since Friday's poll.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was deeply troubled by the post-election violence in Iran and demonstrators who had taken to the streets in three days of protests had inspired the world.

Iran's English-language Press TV said seven people were killed and several wounded at the end of Monday's rally -- a mainly peaceful gathering attended by many tens of thousands -- when "thugs" tried to attack a military post in central Tehran.

It gave no details of how the seven deaths occurred.

An Iranian photographer at the scene had said Islamic militiamen opened fire when people in the crowd attacked a post of the Basij religious militia.

The Iranian capital has already seen three days of the biggest and most violent anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and Mousavi supporters have pledged to continue their demonstrations.

Further protests, especially if they are maintained on the same scale, would be a direct challenge to authorities who have kept a tight grip on dissent since the overthrow of the U.S.-backed shah after months of demonstrations 30 years ago.

"Tomorrow at 5 p.m. (1230 GMT) at Vali-ye Asr Square," some of the crowd chanted at Monday's march, referring to a major road junction in the sprawling city of 12 million.

Ahmadinejad supporters plan a rally at the same square just an hour earlier, the semi-official Fars News said. It quoted an organization affiliated to the government as saying the gathering would be "in protest against the recent agitation and destruction of public property."

Press TV said Mousavi had called for calm at what it called his supporters' "illegally" planned rally.

LEADING REFORMIST ARRESTED

Leading Iranian reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice-president who backed pro-reform candidate Mehdi Karoubi in the election, was arrested early on Tuesday, his office said.

Reformist sources said another prominent reformer and Mousavi ally, Saeed Hajjarian, was arrested on Monday.

Obama said on Monday he was concerned by the violence.

"The democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected," he told reporters.

The United States and its European allies have been trying to engage Iran and persuade the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter to halt nuclear work that could be used to make an atomic bomb. Iran says it wants nuclear energy only to generate electricity.

Obama said he would continue pursuing tough, direct dialogue with Tehran but urged that any Iranian investigation of election irregularities be conducted without bloodshed. The world was inspired by the Iranian protesters, he said.

Demonstrators filled a broad avenue in central Tehran for several kilometers on Monday, chanting "We fight, we die, we will not accept this vote rigging," in support of Mousavi.

Mousavi was "ready to pay any price" in his fight against election irregularities, his website quoted him as saying, indicating a determination to keep up the pressure for the election result to be annulled.

"Tanks and guns have no use any longer," chanted the protesters in a deliberate echo of slogans used leading up to the 1979 revolution.

Members of Iran's security forces have at times fired into the air during the unrest and used batons to beat protesters who have pelted police with stones.

The Basij militia is a volunteer paramilitary force fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on all matters of state.

Gunfire was heard in three districts of wealthy northern Tehran late on Monday and residents said there had been peaceful pro-Mousavi demonstrations in the cities of Rasht, Orumiyeh, Zahedan, and Tabriz on Monday.

Speed of Iran vote count called suspicious

By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO – How do you count almost 40 million handwritten paper ballots in a matter of hours and declare a winner? That's a key question in Iran's disputed presidential election. International polling experts and Iran analysts said the speed of the vote count, coupled with a lack of detailed election data normally released by officials, was fueling suspicion around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory.

Iran's supreme leader endorsed the hard-line president's re-election the morning after Friday's vote, calling it a "divine assessment" and appearing to close the door on challenges from Iran's reformist camp. But on Monday, after two days of rioting in the streets, he ordered an investigation into the allegations of fraud.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's reformist challenger, claims he was robbed of the presidency and has called for the results to be canceled.

Mousavi's newspaper, Kalemeh Sabz, or the Green Word, reported on its Web site that more than 10 million votes were missing national identification numbers similar to U.S. Social Security numbers, which make the votes "untraceable." It did not say how it knew that information.

Mousavi said some polling stations closed early with voters still in line, and he charged that representatives of his campaign were expelled from polling centers even though each candidate was allowed one observer at each location. He has not provided evidence to support the accusations.

His supporters have reported intimidation by security forces who maintained a strong presence around polling stations.

Observers who questioned the vote said that at each stage of the counting, results released by the Interior Ministry showed Ahmadinejad ahead of Mousavi by about a 2-1 margin.

That could be unusual, polling experts noted, because results reported first from Iran's cities would likely reflect a different ratio from those reported later from the countryside, where the populist Ahmadinejad has more support among the poor.

Mousavi said the results also may have been affected by a shortage of ballot papers in the provinces of Fars and East Azerbaijan, where he had been expected to do well because he is among the country's Azeri minority. He said the shortage was despite the fact that officials had 17 million extra ballots ready.

Interior Ministry results show that Ahmadinejad won in East Azerbaijan.

The final tally was 62.6 percent of the vote for Ahmadinejad and 33.75 for Mousavi — a landslide victory in a race that was perceived to be much closer. Such a huge margin also went against the expectation that a high turnout — a record 85 percent of Iran's 46.2 million eligible voters — would boost Mousavi, whose campaign energized young people to vote. About a third of the eligible voters were under 30.

Ahmadinejad, who has significant support among the poor and in the countryside, said Sunday that the vote was "real and free" and insisted the results were fair and legitimate.

"Personally, I think that it is entirely possible that Ahmadinejad received more than 50 percent of the vote," said Konstantin Kosten, an expert on Iran with the Berlin-based German Council of Foreign Relations who spent a year from 2005-06 in Iran.

Still, he said, "there must be an examination of the allegations of irregularities, as the German government has called for."

But Iran's electoral system lacks the transparency needed to ensure a fair election, observers said. International monitors are barred from observing Iranian elections and there are no clear mechanisms to accredit domestic observers, said Michael Meyer-Resende, coordinator of the Berlin-based Democracy Reporting International, which tracked developments in the Iranian vote from outside the country.

He noted that the election was organized and overseen by two institutions that are not independent, the government's Interior Ministry and the Guardian Council, a 12-member body made up of clerics and experts in Islamic law who are closely allied to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Meyer-Resende said that to be sure of the results announced by the Interior Ministry, it must release data all the way down to the level of each polling station.

One of the central questions was how 39.2 million paper ballots could be counted by hand and final results announced by authorities in Tehran in just over 12 hours. Past elections took at least twice as long.

A new computerized system might have helped speed the process in urban centers, where most Iranians live, though it is unclear if that system was extended to every small town and village. And each ballot — on which a candidate's name was written in — would still have to be counted by hand before any data could be entered into a computer, aggregated and transmitted to the Interior Ministry in Tehran.

"I wouldn't say it's completely impossible," Meyer-Resende said. "In the case of Iran, of course, you wonder with logistical challenges whether they could do it so fast."

Susan Hyde, an assistant political science professor at Yale University who has taken part in election monitoring missions in developing countries for the Carter Center, agreed that would be uncharacteristically fast.

"If they're still using hand counting, that would be very speedy, unusually speedy," she said.

The Interior Ministry released results from a first batch of 5 million votes just an hour and a half after polling stations closed.

Over the next four hours, it released vote totals almost hourly in huge chunks of about 5 million votes — plowing through more than half of all ballots cast.

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, said a major rigging process would require the involvement of powerful advisory bodies, including those in which one of the other candidates and a key Mousavi backer are prominent figures.

"Given that Mohsen Rezaei, one of the other presidential candidates, is the head of the powerful Expediency Council, for instance, it is highly unlikely that he wouldn't have received any information of such a strategic plan to hijack the election," Adib-Moghaddam said.

State radio: 7 killed in Tehran clashes

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writers

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's state radio reported Tuesday that clashes in the Iranian capital the previous night left seven people dead after an "unauthorized gathering" following a mass rally over alleged election fraud.

The seven were killed in shooting that erupted after protesters in western Tehran "tried to attack a military location," the radio said, providing no details.

It was the first official confirmation of Monday's fatalities in Tehran's Azadi Square, where witnesses had seen at least one person shot dead and several others seriously wounded by gunfire from a compound for volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

The deaths also were the first known in Tehran since rioting and protests broke out after last week's disputed elections — raising the prospect of possibility of further defiance and anger from crowds claiming the vote was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Another protest march is planned later Tuesday.

The shootings occurred after hundreds of thousands of people supporting opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi defied an official ban on the march and gathered to protest fraud in last week's election.

At Azidi Square, standing on a roof, gunmen opened fire on a group of protesters who had tried to storm the militia's compound on the edge of the square. Angry men showed their bloody palms after cradling the dead and wounded who had been part of a crowd that stretched more than five miles (nearly 10 kilometers).

The march also marked Mousavi's first public appearance since shortly after the election and said he was willing to "pay any price" in his demands to overturn the election results.

Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, arrived in Russia on Tuesday to attend a regional security summit, after having postponed the trip for one day.

A Web site run by Iran's former reformist vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, said he had been arrested by security officers, but provided no further details. Abtahi's Web site, popular among the youth, has reported extensively on the alleged vote fraud after Friday's election.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said Monday he was "deeply troubled by the violence I've been seeing on TV."

Although he said he had no way of knowing whether the election was valid, Obama praised protesters and Iranian youth who questioned the results. "The world is watching and is inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was," he said.

The huge rally Monday — and smaller protests around the country — display the resolve of Mousavi's backers and have pushed Iran's Islamic establishment into attempts to cool the tensions after days of unrest.

The death toll reported Tuesday was the first in Tehran since the postelection turmoil gripped Iran and could be a further rallying point in a culture that venerates martyrs and often marks their death with memorials. One of Mousavi's Web sites said a student protester was killed early Monday in clashes with plainclothes hard-liners in Shiraz in southern Iran but there was no independent confirmation of the report.

Britain and Germany joined the calls of alarm over the rising confrontations in Iran. In Paris, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to discuss the allegations of vote-tampering and the violence.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's most powerful figure, has ordering an examination into the fraud allegations, although he had initially welcomed Ahmadinejad's victory.

The 12-member Guardian Council, made up of clerics and experts in Islamic law, was asked to study the claims. The council, which is closely allied to Khamenei, must certify ballot results, but nullifying an election would be an unprecedented step.

Claims of voting irregularities went to the council after Ahmadinejad's upset victory in 2005, but there was no official word on the outcome of the inquiry, and the vote stood.