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Top Stories
Reuters: "A
South African telecom giant plotted to procure embargoed U.S. technology
products for an Iranian subsidiary through outside vendors to circumvent
American sanctions on the Islamic Republic, according to internal
documents seen by Reuters. The fresh revelations about MTN Group,
buttressed by interviews with people familiar with the procurement, come
as the South African multinational faces fights on several fronts over
its lucrative but controversial Iranian venture, a fast-growing telecom.
MTN is in talks with the U.S. Treasury in an effort to win permission to
repatriate millions of dollars of profit now bottled up in Iran by
American sanctions on the Iranian financial system." http://t.uani.com/Rq2Lmz
WSJ:
"The Iranian scientist considered Tehran's atomic-weapons guru until
he was apparently sidelined several years ago is back at work, according
to United Nations investigators and U.S. and Israeli officials, sparking
fresh concerns about the status of Iran's nuclear program. Mohsen
Fakhrizadeh, widely compared with Robert Oppenheimer, the American
physicist who oversaw the crash 1940s effort to build an atomic bomb,
helped push Iran into its nuclear age over the past two decades. A senior
officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he oversaw Iran's
research into the construction and detonation of a nuclear warhead,
Western officials say. Mr. Fakhrizadeh complained in 2006 that his
funding and nuclear-weapons work had been frozen by Iran's government,
according to intercepted email and phone calls, U.S. officials said. The
intercepts contributed to a 2007 U.S. intelligence report that concluded
Iran had halted its attempts to build a nuclear bomb in 2003. Today,
however, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy
Agency, believes Mr. Fakhrizadeh has opened a research facility in
Tehran's northern suburbs involved in studies relevant to developing
nuclear weapons." http://t.uani.com/OAPcnB
Reuters:
"A U.N. watchdog report is expected to show that Iran has expanded
its potential capacity to refine uranium in an underground site by at
least 30 percent since May, diplomats say, adding to Western worries over
Tehran's nuclear aims. The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
is due this week to issue its latest quarterly report on Iran's disputed
nuclear program, which the West and Israel suspect is aimed at developing
bombs... The Vienna-based diplomats, giving details on what they believe
the IAEA report will show, said Iran had completed installation of two
more cascades - interlinked networks of 174 centrifuges each - since the
previous IAEA report in May. They said Iran may also have added
centrifuges in another part of the fortified Fordow facility, buried deep
inside a mountain to better protect it against any enemy strikes, but
they gave no details." http://t.uani.com/Pu5VWR
NAM
Summit
Reuters: "Without naming Iran,
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon denounced his hosts in
Tehran on Thursday for threatening to destroy Israel and for denying the
Holocaust. 'I strongly reject threats by any member state to destroy
another or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts such as the
Holocaust,' Ban said in his speech to a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit
in the Iranian capital. 'Claiming that Israel does not have the right to
exist or describing it in racist terms is not only wrong but undermines
the very principle we all have pledged to uphold,' he added." http://t.uani.com/NYPHJA
Reuters:
"U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon met Iran's president and supreme leader in
Tehran on Wednesday to urge them to take concrete steps to prove the
country's nuclear program is peaceful and to use their influence to help
end Syria's 17-month conflict. Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky said that
in Ban's separate meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he further said their verbal attacks on
Israel were offensive, inflammatory and unacceptable. Ban arrived in
Tehran on Wednesday for a three-day visit to attend a meeting of some 120
non-aligned nations. He defied calls from the United States and Israel to
boycott the event. 'He said Iran needed to take concrete steps to address
the concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency and prove to the
world its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes,' Nesirky, speaking
from Tehran, told reporters in New York." http://t.uani.com/Pu7C6A
Reuters:
"Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons but will keep pursuing
peaceful nuclear energy, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told heads
of state from developing countries in Tehran. Iran, hosting a summit of
the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), is hoping the high-profile
event will prove that Western efforts to isolate it and punish it
economically for its disputed nuclear programme have failed. 'Our motto
is nuclear energy for all and nuclear weapons for none,' Khamenei told
the assembled heads of state. But discord over Syria swiftly marred the
summit when Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi urged member states to
support Syrians striving to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose
staunchest regional ally is Iran." http://t.uani.com/RujHfE
AP:
"In a clear rebuke to Syria's key ally Iran, Egypt's new president
said Thursday that Bashar Assad's 'oppressive' regime has lost its
legitimacy and told an international conference in Tehran that the world
must stand behind the Syrian rebels. The rallying call by Mohammed Morsi
- making the first visit to Iran by an Egyptian leader since the 1979
Islamic Revolution - showed the huge divide between Iran's stalwart
support of Assad and the growing network of regional powers pushing for
his downfall. It also drove home the difficulties for Iran as host of a
gathering of the 120-nation Nonaligned Movement, a Cold War-era group
that Tehran seeks to transform into a powerful bloc to challenge Western
influence." http://t.uani.com/OAVBz0
AFP:
"A showpiece summit hosted by Iran stumbled as soon as it opened on
Thursday when the head of the UN pressed Tehran on its nuclear stand, and
Egypt's new leader publicly sided with Syria's opposition. The double
challenge, before the leaders and delegates of the 120-member Non-Aligned
Movement, upset Iran's plans to portray the two-day summit as a
diplomatic triumph over Western efforts to isolate it. Supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei opened the event with a speech blasting the United States as
a hegemonic meddler and Israel as a regime of 'Zionist wolves.' He also
stated that his country 'is never seeking nuclear weapons' and accused
the UN Security Council, under US influence, of exerting an 'overt
dictatorship' over the world." http://t.uani.com/OunO8F
Sanctions
NYT:
"Prosecutors say they have unearthed evidence in recent
international money-transfer investigations that Chinese banks may have
flouted United States sanctions against Iran. Now, as they investigate
global banks suspected of funneling billions of dollars through their
American branches to Iran and other sanctioned nations, the prosecutors
are looking for transactions that could offer more information on the
banks' dealings with Iran. Information on how Chinese banks may have
routed money on behalf of Iranian banks and corporations is more valuable
than any monetary settlement the authorities could win from the global
banks, law enforcement officials with knowledge of the cases said,
because the United States could use the information to strengthen its
efforts to choke off economic dealings with Iran." http://t.uani.com/Q46J7n
Reuters:
"OPEC crude oil output rose in August as Iranian shipments climbed slightly
from its lowest in more than two decades and because of higher exports
from Angola and Nigeria, a Reuters survey showed on Thursday... The most
notable trend in August is the lack of a further decline in Iranian
exports, which have dropped sharply this year due to U.S. and European
sanctions. Supply rose by 50,000 bpd in August, according to the survey,
to 2.85 million bpd... However, Iran's supply remains near a historic
low. July's output was its lowest since 1988, when it pumped 2.24 million
bpd, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information
Administration." http://t.uani.com/Nz2UZL
Reuters:
"Iran's top crude oil buyers - China, India, Japan and South Korea -
have worked their way around a European Union insurance ban that took
effect July 1. Insurance companies based in the EU are not allowed to
provide cover for ships that carry Iranian cargo... Following are details
on how Iran's four biggest oil customers - who together, purchase more
than half of Iran's oil exports - are dealing with the sanctions." http://t.uani.com/OLBE7g
Reuters:
"Japanese crude oil imports from Iran fell sharply in July, but
imports continued despite a halt in loadings by Japanese buyers to avoid
running foul of a European Union ban on insuring cargoes from the Middle
East nation. Japanese buyers stopped loading cargoes in early June to
avoid vessels sailing the final part of their journeys to Japan uninsured
after the EU sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear programme kicked in on
July 1. Japan imported from Iran 126,726 barrels per day last month
(624,585 kilolitres), down 52.5 percent from the same month a
year ago and down 23.1 percent from June, data from the ministry of
finance showed. The imports may have been due to a delay in customs
clearance on one or more cargoes that arrived in late June or
earlier." http://t.uani.com/PzoZ4U
Human Rights
AP:
"The U.N. chief jolted his Iranian hosts for a nonaligned nations
meeting Wednesday by pointing out 'serious concerns' in Tehran's human
rights record and urging cooperation with the world body to improve
freedoms. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had signaled he would not
shy away from criticism of Iran during his visit to the Nonaligned
Movement gathering in Tehran, but the sharp comments appeared to catch Iranian
officials off guard just hours after his arrival. 'We have discussed how
United Nations can work together with Iran to improve the human rights
situation in Iran. We have our serious concerns on the human rights
abuses and violations in this country,' he told a news conference as he
sat next to Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, who frowned at the
remarks." http://t.uani.com/Rumupd
Opinion &
Analysis
Andrew Ortendahl
& Andrea Stricker in ISIS: "Iran recently took
over leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a 120-nation
consortium of developing countries, for a period of three years.
Iran is now hosting the group's 16th Summit in Tehran where member states
are gathered to discuss issues of mutual importance. However, it is
disappointing given Iran's intransigence about its unresolved nuclear
case that so many member states decided to send top-level
representation. Those attending should deliver a clear message to
Iran that its many violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions and
lack of transparency with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
are unacceptable and a blemish on the NAM's struggle for the peaceful
resolutions of conflicts. Iran reportedly views its tenure as the NAM
chair, and in particular this conference in Tehran, as an opportunity to
garner an international platform for its views about the nuclear crisis,
a venue it craves after being shut out of many forums due to the ongoing
confrontation over its nuclear program. Iran has sought to use this
conference as a way to denounce economic and financial sanctions imposed
by the U.N. Security Council and Western nations and to try to create new
economic alliances. In a few years, it is possible that Iran may
also seize the opportunity as NAM chair to attempt to derail consensus at
the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. At the
NAM Summit, Iran has already attempted to gather support for its point of
view by calling on member states to support its falsely asserted an
unconditional 'right' to peaceful nuclear energy, a right it does not
have under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Foreign Minister
Ali Akbar Salehi also called on the NAM to 'seriously confront financial
sanctions by certain countries,' which in fact are legitimately imposed
under U.N. Security Council resolutions and national laws. Iran has
sought to undermine the IAEA's safeguards obligations among NAM members
by falsely representing its nonproliferation commitments under the NPT.
As it faces increasing economic isolation, Iran is also endeavoring to
strengthen trade ties with countries as a way to help alleviate the
effects of U.N. and unilateral sanctions, including denial of access to
financial markets and oil embargoes. Toward that goal, it has had
potentially promising negotiations with countries such as Nigeria. Iran's
leadership of the NAM presents yet another, more long-term risk: it could
seek to derail consensus at the 2015 Nonproliferation Treaty Review
Conference." http://t.uani.com/O5Ttwv
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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