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Reuters: "European governments have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian oil, EU diplomats said on Wednesday, dealing a blow to Tehran that crowns new Western sanctions months before an Iranian election. The prospective embargo by the European Union, along with tough U.S. financial measures signed into law by President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve, form a concerted Western campaign to hold back Iran's nuclear program... Diplomats said EU envoys held talks on Iran in the last days of December, and that any objections to an oil embargo had been dropped - notably from crisis-hit Greece which gets a third of its oil from Iran, relying on Tehran's lenient financing. Spain and Italy are also big buyers. 'A lot of progress has been made,' one EU diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'The principle of an oil embargo is agreed. It is not being debated any more.'" http://t.uani.com/zdgiao
Reuters: "Turkish lender Halkbank , little known outside Turkey, has gained a reputation in the oil market over the past 18 months for handling transactions that other banks fear to touch - trade deals with Iran. Now a new law signed by President Barack Obama last Saturday, which imposes U.S. sanctions on financial institutions dealing with Iran's central bank, has put the bank squarely in the spotlight. Halkbank's stance toward Iran largely has reflected the attitude of the Turkish government, which owns 75 percent of the bank, towards international sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme... It also has a representative office in Tehran that it inherited in 2004 when it took over Pamukbank, once a jewel of Turkish tycoon Mehmet Emin Karamehmet's business empire." http://t.uani.com/wmJ7lm
Reuters: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will travel to China and Japan next week to discuss U.S. sanctions on Iran and the state of the global economy with top government officials, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday. Geithner will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan on Tuesday and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday. He will travel to Japan on Thursday to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Finance Minister Jun Azumi. Geithner's trip is the latest step in an accelerating U.S. effort to reduce Iran's oil revenue and try to force the country to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program." http://t.uani.com/yS31se
Nuclear Program & Sanctions Reuters: "Japan is weighing various ways of securing a waiver on new U.S. sanctions against Iran, with reducing Iranian oil imports and dealings with its central bank possible options, government sources said on Thursday. One of the sources told Reuters that Japanese officials will discuss U.S. sanctions on Iran as well as Europe's debt crisis with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner when he visits Japan next week, although a deal on sanctions is unlikely at that time... Iranian oil accounts for nearly 10 percent of Japan's crude imports and Tokyo is concerned that the new sanctions could drive up prices, dealing a blow to its economy." http://t.uani.com/yD7mu4
Reuters: "Japan's biggest refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp is talking with top exporter Saudi Arabia and other oil producers to source crude to replace any disruption to its imports from Iran, the company's president said on Thursday... 'We've been talking to Saudi Arabia and others on possible scenarios in the case of an import ban (from Iran),' Yasushi Kimura, president of JX Nippon, the wholly-owned downstream oil subsidiary of JX Holdings Inc, told a group of reporters... JX Nippon buys around 70,000 to 80,000 bpd from Iran, industry sources said." http://t.uani.com/wWgjcN
AP: "China says new U.S. sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad won't affect its business dealings with Tehran. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a briefing Friday that China's business dealings with Iran were normal and transparent and did not violate any U.N. Security Council resolutions. Hong also reiterated China's skepticism over sanctions' effectiveness in resolving the dispute over Iran's nuclear program and said Beijing opposed unilateral sanctions that go beyond measures taken by the Security Council." http://t.uani.com/ynOvxm
Human Rights
The Guardian: "Iran is launching a major clampdown on web users before parliamentary elections in March with draconian new rules on cyber cafes and preparations to launch a national internet. A series of tests for the launch of a countrywide network aimed at substituting services run through the world wide web has been carried out by Iran's ministry of information and communication technology, according to a newspaper report. The move has prompted fears among its online community that Iran may withdraw from the global internet. Speculation over the ministry's intentions comes amid a major clampdown on Iranian internet users by the police, which this week imposed new regulations on internet cafes." http://t.uani.com/AseAK3
Bloomberg: "Iran's Culture Minister says the government has ordered the closing the independent Iranian House of Cinema. Artists say political reasons are behind the decision. Mohammed Hosseini says his ministry determined that the film promotion institute lacked a legal basis for operations. His comments were reported by the official IRNA news agency Wednesday. The Iranian House of Cinema is an independent body that has operated for 20 years." http://t.uani.com/y7KM2i
Domestic Politics
Bloomberg: "Iran's central bank moved to avert a slide in the value of the rial as the U.S. and allies prepared for further sanctions that may include an oil embargo. The rial rose to 14,000 per dollar at currency-exchange traders yesterday, from 17,800 on Jan. 2, after foreign currency was made available to the market, the state-run Fars News Agency said, citing Mohammad Kashti-Aray, director of the Gold and Jewelry Union of Iran. Fars didn't give further details of the central bank's action. The official rate for today was 11,180 rials a dollar, according to the central bank's website. Today, foreign-currency traders in Tehran were ignoring instructions issued yesterday by the central bank for them to sell the dollar at the rate of 14,000 rials, Fars said." http://t.uani.com/yPAcUw
Foreign Affairs
WashPost: "Worried that U.S. troops could stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, Iran is mounting an aggressive campaign to fuel anti-American sentiment here and convince Afghan leaders that a robust, long-term security partnership with Washington would be counterproductive, Afghan officials and analysts say. The Iranian initiative involves cultivating closer relations with the Taliban, funding politicians and media outlets, and expanding cultural ties with its eastern neighbor. Although the effort has been underway for years, Iran has been moving with increased vigor in recent months because the United States and Afghanistan are negotiating a security agreement that could set the parameters for a U.S. troop presence here after 2014... Iran's strategy in Afghanistan is reminiscent of its maneuvering in Iraq, where it helped fuel the insurgency and persuaded Iraqi politicians not to yield on allowing the Americans a small military presence beyond 2011." http://t.uani.com/wRfAda
AP: "The family of an Iranian-American detained in Iran for four months on espionage charges said Wednesday he's not getting adequate legal representation. The family of Amir Hekmati said in a statement that his 'only advocate in Iran is a government-appointed lawyer who he first met on the day of his trial.' 'We have struggled to provide Amir with an attorney in Iran,' the family wrote in the statement. 'We have sought to hire at least 10 different attorneys in Tehran to no avail.' Hekmati's family said the former U.S. military translator was visiting his grandmothers." http://t.uani.com/wtl9tp
Opinion & Analysis
Fareed Zakaria in WashPost: "The discussion everywhere these days is about Iran's strength. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, describes Iran as 'the greatest threat that the world faces over the next decade.' He and others are impressed by Iran's recent declarations about its nuclear capacities and its missile tests. Newt Gingrich has compared the Iranian challenge to the rise of Hitler's Germany. More measured commentators also see Iran's rising influence and power across the Middle East. In fact, the real story is that Iran is weak and getting weaker. Sanctions have pushed its economy into a nose-dive. The political system is fractured and fragmenting. Abroad, its closest ally and the regime of which it is almost the sole supporter - Syria - is itself crumbling. The Persian Gulf monarchies have banded together against Iran and shored up their relations with Washington. Last week, Saudi Arabia closed its largest-ever purchase of U.S. weaponry. Meanwhile, Europe is close to approving even more intense sanctions against Tehran. The simplest measure of Iran's strength is its currency. When Barack Obama became president, you could buy 9,700 rials with one dollar. Since then, the dollar has appreciated 60 percent against the rial, meaning you can buy 15,600 rials. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told parliament recently that the latest sanctions were 'the most extensive.. sanctions ever' and that 'this is the heaviest economic onslaught on a nation in history... every day, all our banking and trade activities and our agreements are being monitored and blocked.' The price of food staples has soared 40 percent the past few months, Reuters reported this week. Tehran's reaction to the prospect of sanctions that affect its oil exports shows its desperation." http://t.uani.com/ySblDb
Olli Heinonen in The Guardian: "In the past few days, at a time of high tension in the Gulf, Iran announced that it had produced and tested its first fuel rod at the Tehran Research Reactor. It also claimed to have mastered the production of nuclear plates. My understanding is that what is being tested at the TRR is a rod designed to be used at the heavy water reactor under construction in Arak. Making assemblies of plates of the kind required to fuel the TRR itself is still some way off. Iran has always stated that the TRR is being used to produce radioisotopes through irradiation for industrial and medical purposes. To operate, the reactor needs a core made of fuel assemblies, which contain a total of 30 kg uranium enriched to 20 % U-235. Each fuel assembly is made of thin plates, which contain uranium in form of U3O8 (uranium oxide) in aluminium cladding. It appears from the announcement that what Iran has produced and tested at the hot cells at the TRR is something different: a fuel rod, which typically consists of cylindrical pellets clad in a zirconium tube. The rod Iran claims to have made contains natural uranium, suggesting that it is intended for the IR-40 heavy water reactor at Arak, rather than for a light water nuclear power station like Bushehr, which uses rods of low enriched U-235. This is a cause for concern as such an action is proscribed by the United Nations Security Council due to its proliferation concerns. Plutonium could be separated from the reactor's spent fuel. Hence this show of ostensibly civilian nuclear progress could end up further stoking international tensions." http://t.uani.com/wGoHJG
Ali Vaez in FP: "The United States and Iran are once again set on a collision course -- this time over the world's narrowest choke point, the Strait of Hormuz. With the specter of more draconian sanctions hovering over its oil exports, the Iranian regime threatened in late December to seal off the strait through which 30 percent of the world's oil supply travels. Iran's menacing rhetoric was matched by a bellicose rebuff from the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, based in neighboring Bahrain, warning that any disruption of the strait 'will not be tolerated.' The exchange was of a piece with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's new foreign-policy doctrine: Iran will 'respond to threats with threats.' The regime's inflammatory language certainly got the world's attention, reminding the West and its local allies that the Persian Gulf is a tinderbox where a single miscalculation could trigger a catastrophic war. But was threatening to set off a global recession such a smart move? In fact, Khamenei -- the ultimate arbiter of Iran's internal politics and international relations -- has proved himself a poor analyst of the West's red lines toward his country, and this confrontation is just the latest incident to bring the supreme leader's strategic calculus into question. Although Tehran might benefit from the threat by jacking up oil prices, a blockade of the strait would deprive the Iranian government of half its revenue, sour relations with China and Japan, alienate Oman and Iraq as its remaining regional allies, and escalate conflict with Washington to a level that could easily spiral out of control. It would be an own goal of epic proportions. Whether these threats are serious or not, Iran is playing a dangerous game of chicken. Just this week, the regime conducted a military drill in the Persian Gulf and announced a new breakthrough in its nuclear program, raising concern in Washington and feeding into hawkish critiques of U.S. President Barack Obama's sanctions strategy. But is bluster a winning strategy for Iran? The Islamic Republic has a history of boneheaded foreign-policy blunders, and no single case illustrates Khamenei's strategic ineptitude better than his handling of Iran's nuclear crisis." http://t.uani.com/zstCN1
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