Eye on Iran: India to Resume Shipping Iran Oil, as Asia Looks for Ways around EU Insurance Sanctions

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories AP: "India has joined Japan in offering government-backed insurance for ships carrying Iranian crude in order to bypass European sanctions that have nearly halved Iranian oil exports to key markets. The first Indian ship to carry oil from Iran with Indian insurance is scheduled to load up in Iran on Wednesday, a shipping company executive said. This is a breakthrough for the Indian government, which has scrambled to maintain vital Iranian oil imports after European sanctions blocked third-party insurance in July." http://t.uani.com/RQp4XI Reuters: "Standard Chartered Plc said on Monday it was in talks with New York's banking regulator to try to settle allegations it hid transactions with Iran. The two sides have been negotiating ahead of a hearing set for Wednesday at which the bank must demonstrate why its state banking license should not be revoked over the transactions. Last week, state Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky said the bank hid Iran-linked transactions with a total value of $250 billion. Standard Chartered Chief Executive Peter Sands has denied Lawsky's allegations and said the total amount that failed to adhere to U.S. sanctions on Iran was less than $14 million. A bank spokeswoman said negotiations were continuing, but she declined to give details. 'We're still trying to reach a settlement,' the spokeswoman said." http://t.uani.com/NAAOYk AP: "In an apparent change of heart, Iran said Tuesday it now welcomes foreign aid for victims of the deadly twin earthquakes that hit the country's northwest last weekend. The remarks indicate authorities were still struggling to cope with the quakes' aftermath amid growing criticism that they failed to react timely and help the region along the borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia, where the 6.4 and 6.3 magnitude quakes Saturday killed 306 and injured more than 3,000 people." http://t.uani.com/NgD4F6      Nuclear Program AP: "Iran's defense minister is dismissing Israeli threats against his country as psychological warfare. The semiofficial Mehr news agency on Tuesday quoted Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as saying Israeli leaders are resorting to 'psychological war' against Iran. Israel has not ruled out a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The West suspects Iran is aiming at producing nuclear weapons. Iran denies that. Gen. Vahidi warned that Israel is moving toward destruction of its 'war machine' through its 'warmongering' remarks." http://t.uani.com/PgU290 Sanctions Reuters: "Russia sharply criticized new U.S. sanctions against Iran on Monday, saying the measures to punish banks, insurance companies and shippers that help Iran sell its oil would harm Moscow's ties with Washington if Russian firms are affected. Russia, which has long opposed sanctions beyond those approved by the U.N. Security Council to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program, called the measures 'overt blackmail' and a 'crude contradiction of international law.'" http://t.uani.com/Nwz4B1 Reuters: "Turkish imports of Iranian crude oil have fallen to their lowest level in July since the European Union and United States decided to widen sanctions against Iran, shipping data showed. Turkey's sole refiner, Tupras, has been forced to lift even less Iranian oil than it had itself promised to the West as EU measures have stopped European firms, which dominate the marine insurance sector, from offering cover on Iranian crude. The EU oil embargo took effect from July 1. The United States granted Turkey a 180-day exception from sanctions from June 11 as a result of an initial 20 percent cut made by Tupras." http://t.uani.com/OWkh24 Syrian Civil War Bloomberg: "Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters in Jeddah that his country would oppose the exclusion of President Bashar al-Assad's government from the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has been recommended by the group's foreign ministers. 'Suspending does not mean that the problem will be solved,' he said. 'With such a reaction, you just erase the problem.'" http://t.uani.com/QxUQTR Domestic Politics The Telegraph: "Three of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's former ministers have called on Iran's supreme leader to form an emergency 'government of all the talents' that will effectively curb the president's power. Manouchehr Mottaki, the former foreign minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who served as interior minister, and Davoud Danesh Jafari, the ex-finance minister, have urged the radical move in a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, citing the country's 'sensitive and critical situation'. It calls for the establishment of a special cabinet of "wise men" made up of the heads of the executive, legislative and judicial branches, which would then govern Iran for the next year until Mr Ahmadinejad's term ends. Mr Ahmadinejad would be a member of such a body as head of the executive branch. But his powers would be diluted and prestige drastically reduced by the presence of other influential figures in the Islamic regime." http://t.uani.com/OWjU7z Foreign Affairs New York Times: "Taking over from Egypt, Iran's leaders are ambitiously readying themselves for their three-year term as head of the Nonaligned Movement, which will convene in Tehran in the last week of August. The Nonaligned Movement, founded during the height of the cold war, when the divisions were chiefly East-West, regards itself as independent from the major centers of power, which are not quite as neatly lined up as before. During a weeklong conference, followed by a leadership summit meeting, Iran says it will unfold plans to revitalize the movement and seek support for its nuclear enrichment program and its resistance to what it calls dominance by the United States. Representatives of all of the 118 member nations, among them China, India and Indonesia, will travel to Tehran for the conference, while invitations have been extended to observer states and international organizations, such as the Arab League, and Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin." http://t.uani.com/Mub2cn Opinion & Analysis Amb. John Bolton, UANI CEO Mark D. Wallace, & UANI President Kristen Silverberg in the WSJ: "One step short of force that the 'international community' has been unwilling to take is ostracizing Iran from international organizations, such as the U.N. and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This needs to change. Iran's participation in these organizations undermines their foundational principles. The U.N. Charter provides that membership is open to 'peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and . . . are able and willing to carry out these obligations.' The Islamic Republic clearly doesn't fit this bill. Iran has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction, using anti-Semitic, anti-Israel rhetoric in violation of the Genocide Convention. It has been repeatedly sanctioned by the Security Council and condemned by the International Atomic Energy Agency for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has also been cited for aiding the Assad regime's slaughter of Syrian citizens. Tehran regularly hosts Holocaust-denial conferences. Yet the UN has embraced Iranian leaders. Iran was elected unanimously to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2010. ... Just this past year, Iran was elected to a leadership role in the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty negotiations-despite its history of arming state sponsors of terror and terrorist groups. Iran undermines other international organizations, too. Currently, the IMF holds an account with Bank Markazi, Iran's central bank, totaling some $1 billion. Both the U.S. and the European Union have sanctioned that bank for its money-laundering activities, including funneling money to Iran's military and nuclear weapons-related facilities. Iran's participation in these organizations is unacceptable. Tehran should be held accountable for its defiance of international law. Article 6 of the U.N. Charter explicitly provides for the expulsion of any member 'which has persistently violated the Principles contained' therein. That certainly sounds like Iran. A lesser penalty, under Article 5, is suspension 'from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership.' The U.N. also has the power to reject the credentials of a delegation, as it did in 1974 with regard to the South African delegation, citing its 'constant violation of the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.'" http://t.uani.com/Mua7bV New York Times Editorial: "It is impossible to know what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning or why he has ignored American entreaties to give diplomacy a reasonable chance. There is, however, persistent speculation in Israel that Mr. Netanyahu wants to attack in the coming weeks in the belief that President Obama will be forced to support the decision because of his political needs in his re-election campaign. Such a move would be outrageously cynical. Military action is no quick fix. Even a sustained air campaign would likely set Iran's nuclear program back only by a few years and would rally tremendous sympathy for Iran both at home and abroad. The current international consensus for sanctions, and the punishments, would evaporate. It would shift international outrage against Mr. Assad's brutality in Syria to Israel. Many former Israeli intelligence and military officials have spoken out against a military attack. And polls show that many ordinary Israelis oppose unilateral action. Even so, Mr. Netanyahu's hard-line government has never liked the idea of negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue, and, at times, seems in a rush to end them altogether. On Sunday, the deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, told Israel Radio that the United States and the other major powers should simply 'declare today that the talks have failed.' Of course, it is disappointing that the negotiations have made so little progress. No one can be sure that any mix of diplomacy and sanctions will persuade Iran to give up its ambitions. But the talks have been under way only since April, and the toughest sanctions just took effect in July. There is still time for intensified diplomacy. It would be best served if the major powers stay united and Israeli leaders temper loose talk of war." http://t.uani.com/PU3Wth UANI Board Member Irwin Cotler in the National Post: "Iranian incitement is not a matter of a military intervention. Rather, it is a legal responsibility which Canada and Germany - as State Parties to the Genocide Convention - have an obligation to enforce. Indeed, as history as taught us only too well, the Holocaust - and the genocides that followed in Srebrenica, Rwanda and Darfur - occurred not only because of the machinery of death, but because of state-sanctioned incitement to genocide. As the Supreme Court of Canada found, 'The genocidal horrors of the Holocaust were made possible by the deliberate incitement of hatred against the Jewish people and other minorities.' State Parties to the Genocide Convention already understood this in 1948, in the wake of the Holocaust, such that the Convention prohibits the crime of 'Direct and public incitement to commit genocide.' Incitement itself is the crime - whether or not genocide follows. The objective is to prevent genocides before they occur, by sounding the alarm on the type of state-sanctioned incendiary incitement that has in the past led us down the road to horrific tragedy and atrocity." http://t.uani.com/RQqWzR 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.