Eye on Iran: U.S. Keeps India Waiting on Iran Sanctions Waiver

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories Reuters: "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaned harder on India on Monday to deepen cuts of Iranian oil imports, saying Washington may not make a decision on whether to exempt New Delhi from financial sanctions for another two months. Clinton, on a three-day visit to India, said the United States was encouraged by the steps its ally had taken so far to reduce its reliance on Iranian oil but that 'even more' action was needed. The oil issue has become an irritant in ties between India and the United States. India is unwilling to be seen to be bowing to U.S. pressure and is reluctant to become too reliant on Saudi Arabia for its oil needs, which officials say privately would be strategically unwise." http://t.uani.com/JKSjBV Reuters: "The United States called on Iran on Monday to take 'urgent practical steps' to build confidence during nuclear talks with world powers, and the European Union said Tehran must suspend sensitive atomic activities. Iran and the six powers resumed discussions in mid-April in Istanbul after a gap of more than a year - a chance to ease escalating tension and help to avert the threat of a new Middle East war. The major powers - the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany - and Iran are to meet again on May 23 in Baghdad. 'We remain concerned by Iran's persistent failure to comply with its nonproliferation obligations,' U.S. envoy Robert Wood told an international nuclear conference in Vienna, attended also by Iran. 'We seek a sustained process that produces concrete results, and call on Iran to take urgent practical steps to build confidence and lead to compliance with all its international obligations,' Wood added." http://t.uani.com/IPpNVi AP: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's support in Iran's parliament crumbled as final results released Saturday showed conservative rivals consolidating their hold on the legislative body in a runoff vote... The result is also a new humiliation for Ahmadinejad, whose political decline started last year with his bold but failed challenge of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the choice of intelligence chief... Ahmadinejad's opponents had already won an outright majority in the 290-member legislature in the first round of voting in March. Of 65 seats up for grabs in Friday's runoff election, Ahmadinejad's opponents won 41 while the president's supporters got only 13 seats. Independents won 11, according to final results reported Saturday by state media." http://t.uani.com/IBSFvm      Nuclear Program  & Sanctions  Bloomberg: "Iran is poised to lose at least 192,000 barrels a day of crude-supply contracts, or about 9.5 percent of its global exports, as Asian buyers curb purchases amid western sanctions targeting the nation's oil trade. Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL) and Essar Oil Ltd., India's biggest buyers of Iranian crude, and China International United Petroleum & Chemical Co. have reduced or plan to cut purchases from the Islamic Republic by as much as 15 percent. China and India are Iran's largest customers. In Japan, the only Asian country to get an exemption from U.S. sanctions after it demonstrated reductions in purchases, Cosmo Oil Co. plans to cut imports by 25 percent, while JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. suspended talks with the Persian Gulf nation over a 10,000 barrel-a-day contract." http://t.uani.com/IBQLLj Bloomberg: "India barred an Iranian bank from opening a branch in the country because of U.S. pressure, making it harder for the Persian Gulf state to settle oil trades with its second-biggest crude customer, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Parsian Bank, based in Tehran, had sought approval for a Mumbai office to facilitate trade transactions in rupees, the people said, declining to be identified because the information is confidential. An official at Parsian Bank in Tehran who declined to be identified said the lender was yet to be granted a permit. A person who answered the telephone at India's finance ministry in New Delhi said D.S. Malik, a spokesman, was unavailable to comment." http://t.uani.com/JKQ9lL Bloomberg: "India plans to cut its oil imports from Iran by 20 percent this financial year, four Indian government and refinery officials with direct knowledge of the matter said. Asia's third-biggest importer of crude will curtail its purchases from the Persian Gulf to 14 million tons from 17.5 million tons in the 12 months ending March 31, the officials said. They asked not to be identified because they aren't authorized to speak on the subject." http://t.uani.com/IS0v3B Reuters: "Japan is considering a new law to provide sovereign guarantees for its ships to allow them to continue importing Iranian crude oil after EU sanctions come into effect in July, the Nikkei business daily said. The European Union has already prohibited European insurance coverage on hull and machinery for Iranian crude shipments, which has significantly limited Japan's lifting of Iranian crude from April. The European Union in March, however, extended European insurance for oil spills on Iranian oil shipments until July 1, responding to calls for exemptions by Japan and South Korea." http://t.uani.com/J7Ps9p Commerce AFP: "A big Iranian trade mission will arrive in India on Sunday to explore commercial opportunities on the same day as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton starts her official visit, officials said. The six-day Iranian trip comes as Washington has been pressuring India to reduce its oil purchases from Iran in a bid to coax the Islamic republic to abandon its disputed nuclear programme. 'The timing of the visit with Mrs Clinton's arrival is a coincidence,'Anand Seth, a spokesman for the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), a quasi-government body under the Indian trade ministry, said Saturday. 'They're returning our visit. We invited them when we were there (in Iran),' he told AFP. An 80-member Indian trade mission spent five days in Iran in March." http://t.uani.com/JP7zSz Domestic Politics Reuters: "A committee of Iranian lawmakers has rejected a government plan to increase prices for subsidized food and fuel in a move that threatens to derail a drive to rein in the country's sanctions-squeezed budget, Iranian media reported late on Saturday. International sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program have sharply reduced the amount of money Tehran earns from oil, upping pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to push through cuts in government spending worth tens of billions of dollars by scaling back subsidies for the population. But a parliamentary committee examining this year's budget - which the overall parliament has yet to approve - rejected the size of the proposed cuts, setting the stage for a possible compromise deal that may force the government to sign up to far less ambitious cost-savings." http://t.uani.com/IEOJPl Reuters: "Iran's government denied on Monday it would treble the price of gasoline as part of subsidy reforms that have been commended by the IMF but caused anger at home among a population struggling under Western trade sanctions. In a statement carried by the Fars news agency, the office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said talk of a threefold price increase - broadcast on Friday by Ahmadinejad's bitter critic, the speaker of parliament - was 'entirely false'. Speaker Ali Larijani had said the government was looking to triple petrol prices and to double the cost of natural gas as part of a further stage of efforts to reduce spending on subsidies while trying to target relief at the poorest Iranians. In the statement, Ahmadinejad's office said: 'Comments published saying the government has decided to sell gasoline at 2,000 toman per litre are entirely false.'" http://t.uani.com/Lv1exu Human Rights AFP: "Iran on Monday hanged nine men in a prison in Tehran after they were convicted of trafficking 'glass', or methamphetamine, a statement from the Tehran prosecution office said. Seven of the men had been sentenced to death after a consignment of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of the drug was seized in a cargo ship bound for southeast Asia, the statement carried by local media said... London-based Amnesty International said in its annual review of death sentences and executions worldwide published in March that Iran had executed at least 360 people in 2011, three-quarters of them for drugs offenses, up from at least 252 in 2010." http://t.uani.com/KHvyA8 Opinion & Analysis Hassan Hassan in The National: "In a recent talk in Bahrain about national security in the GCC, Dubai's police chief, Lt Gen Dhahi Khalfan, listed Iraq's subordination to Iran as one of the top five potential security threats to the Gulf. It is not news that Iran's influence in Iraq is growing. But there is a misplaced assumption in the Gulf that because of sectarian tendencies and proximity, Iraq's political tilt towards Iran is inevitable and natural. In light of such assessments, the Gulf has been reluctant to expand diplomatic relations with Baghdad. Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, told me in a recent interview that a 'breakthrough' is being reached in relations with the Gulf. During meetings last Monday in Baghdad, he said, progress was made towards resolving outstanding disputes. Qatar, he said, pledged to consider resumption of diplomatic relations within the year. Saudi Arabia is likely to open its Arar border crossing to boost trade with Iraq. The remaining states already have diplomatic representation in Iraq. But even if diplomatic breakthroughs are reached, the Gulf's outlook towards Iraq is still marred by distrust and suspicion (which has only deepened during the premiership of Nouri al Maliki, who lived in Iran for a decade). Saudi Arabia appointed a non-resident ambassador to Baghdad in February but refused (along with other Gulf states) to send top-level delegations to the Arab League summit there in March. Yet there are considerable reasons for the GCC to move closer to Iraq than to push it away. First is the potential downfall of the Syrian regime; when this happens, Iraq will need to reengage with the Gulf - not only because of the $2 billion (Dh 7.34 billion) in annual trade between Iraq and Syria, but because the post-Assad regime will likely be friendlier to the Gulf. Then there is economics. Iraq is projected to become the second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, surpassing Iran, by the end of this decade. If that happens, power dynamics will change and it will be difficult for Iran to exert influence in Iraq. Until that happens, Iraq needs its Gulf neighbours, who are well-positioned to invest in the country." http://t.uani.com/ITBEzQ Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.