World in brief: Official claims missiles no threat

Iranian missiles present no threat to any country, the Islamic Republic’s defense minister said Saturday.

“Iran’s missiles bear no threat to any states, but are designed exclusively for aggressors who violate the border of Iran,” local media quoted Mostafa Mohammad Najar as saying.

Najar also said Iran’s missile arsenal “serves peace and security in the region,” calling “an exaggeration” U.S. administration representatives’ statements that Iranian missiles would be able to reach Europe and America by 2015.

Ankara, Turkey

Military leader warns Kurds

Turkey’s top military commander promised Saturday to make Iraq-based Kurdish rebels “grieve with an intensity that they cannot imagine,” while the prime minister said his nation would fight “when needed,” regardless of international pressure.

The military chief, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, said Turkey would wait until Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with President Bush in Washington on Nov. 5 before deciding on any cross-border offensive.

But Erdogan said his country could not be pinned down by dates in deciding whether to attack.

HAMBURG, Germany

Party members back speed limit

Members of one of Germany’s governing parties on Saturday backed a proposal to introduce a speed limit on highways, a measure that would revoke a cherished freedom in this rule-bound country and was likely to be met with resistance.

A majority of delegates at a conference of the center-left Social Democrat party backed a resolution stating that “a fast and unbureaucratic path to climate protection is the introduction of a general speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour,” or 80 mph.