Kann jemand die Authentizität dieses Satzes bestätigen, der angeblich von einem Ahmadinejad-Vertrauten, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, stammen soll: “Today, Iran is friends with the American and Israeli people. No nation in the world is our enemy, this is an honor.” Zum Hintergrund dieses angeblichen Freundschaftsangebots: The world’s major powers last night gave Iran two weeks to answer calls to rein in its nuclear programme – or face tougher sanctions. The ultimatum came after talks in Geneva to resolve the crisis ended in stalemate.

UPDATE: Das Ganze war nur ein Missverständnis: The following day, 20 July, Rahim-Masha’i denied the reports of his speech. “This is not what I meant and these are all lies. During my speech I also said that Israel was dead and only its funeral ceremony has been postponed, but they [the press] did not publish these statements,” Iranian state radio quoted him as saying. Fars news agency, which appears to have been the sole source for the vice-president’s original, contested, remarks, cited him as declaring: “By `Israel’ I meant the Palestinian and Jewish people living in Palestine, not the immigrant Jews or Zionists, because we do not recognize the Zionists at all.”