Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Eye on Iran: Official: Iran Foreign Ministry to Handle Nuclear Talks as Part of New Approach











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AP:
"An Iranian diplomatic official said Tuesday that the country's foreign minister will lead nuclear talks with world powers, taking over from the country's national security council. Since the election of centrist Hasan Rouhani as president in June, Iran says it is taking a new approach to negotiations with a six-nation group - the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. Iranian officials say they'll abandon the bombastic language used under Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But they also say Iran will continue its disputed nuclear activities. 'The nuclear dossier has been transferred to the Foreign Ministry,' the official said. He said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a Western-educated veteran diplomat, will be top nuclear negotiator. The move is seen as transferring the nuclear file to professional diplomats rather than security-minded figures at the Supreme National Security Council."

AP:
"A top adviser to Iran's supreme leader says the election of centrist Hasan Rouhani as the country's president gives an opportunity to world powers to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear program - but that Tehran will never again suspend its nuclear activities. Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on key matters including the nuclear issue, told The Associated Press that the onus was on the West to reach out to Iran, but pledged that Iran would respond with a 'different language' from the bombastic rhetoric used by Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ... 'Foreign policy, including the nuclear issue, is in the hands of the leadership of this country,' he said. He said Khamenei has set the 'principles' and the government has to abide by them, so Rouhani's administration will follow 'the same trend strategically as the former government.'" http://t.uani.com/19vacEF

Reuters:
"Iran appears to be holding back growth of its most sensitive nuclear stockpile by continuing to convert some of it into reactor fuel, diplomats said on Monday, potentially giving more time for negotiation with world powers. ... The diplomats, accredited to the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran might even have stepped up this conversion in recent months. If this is confirmed in the IAEA's quarterly report, due around August 27-28, the inventory of 20 percent gas will rise by less than the output, which has been about 15 kg per month. One of the diplomats suggested the stockpile may show little or even no growth during the last three months, saying: 'Everyone expects there to be as much or more conversion.'" http://t.uani.com/1eXWsmz
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Sasol

Hydrocarbon Processing: "Sasol had been pressured by international advocacy groups to sell its stake in the Iran business. ... Sasol has sold its stake in the Iran-based joint venture Arya Sasol Polymers Company, officials said on Monday. Sasol reached the agreement with Main Street 1095, a South African subsidiary of an Iranian investor. Main Street 1095 will acquire 100% of Sasol's joint venture vehicle SPI International, which holds a 50% stake in Arya Sasol Polymers. 'As a result of this transaction, Sasol has no on-going investment in Iran,' the company said in a news release. Sasol had been pressured by international advocacy groups such as US-based United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) to sell its stake in the Iran business." http://t.uani.com/1cUlp6N

KPLC-TV: "South-African based Sasol says it is ending its business dealings in Iran. The company announced Monday that it has sold its stake in the Arya Sasol Polymer Company, a company partnership based in Iran. In April, a billboard was put up in Lake Charles by a group called UANI, United Against Nuclear Iran. That sign stood at the corner of Belden and Enterprise, demanding Sasol choose between Louisiana or Iran. In a news release on Monday, the group applauded Sasol's decision." http://t.uani.com/16qWxxt

Commerce

Bloomberg: "Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL) purchased its first cargo of Iranian crude since April as India prepared a 20 billion-rupee ($314 million) insurance fund to cover future imports. The refiner, India's biggest buyer of Iranian crude, received about 85,000 metric tons on Aug. 17, Managing Director P.P. Upadhya said in a phone interview today from Mangalore. The company has ordered three more shipments of a similar size, he said, without stating delivery schedules. 'This is the first cargo we've got from Iran this financial year and we'll see how many more we can import in the rest of the year,' Upadhya said. 'The same ship has returned to Iran and will bring the additional cargoes.'" http://t.uani.com/14xPsYJ

Foreign Affairs

Reuters: "Stunned by turmoil in neighboring Egypt and starved of funds, the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is looking to repair damaged ties with its traditional Middle East allies, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah party. An off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas celebrated when the Sunni movement's Mohamed Mursi was elected president of Egypt in 2012, believing the vote would boost its own international standing and its grip on the isolated Gaza Strip. In the meantime, outraged by the bloody civil war in Syria, the Palestinian group quit its headquarters in Damascus, snapping the Iran-led "axis of resistance" that challenged Israel and the West across the turbulent region. Shi'ite Muslim Iran, which had for years supplied Hamas with cash and arms, was infuriated by what it saw as a betrayal of its close friend, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and drastically scaled back its support. Tehran's Shi'ite partner, Hezbollah, also voiced its fierce disapproval. But following the ousting of Mursi, removed by the Egyptian military on July 3, political sources said Hamas had had direct and indirect contacts with both Iran and Hezbollah -- anxious to revitalize old alliances and restore its battered funding." http://t.uani.com/13ClUhO

Culture

FT: "In the more than two weeks since Iranian president Hassan Rouhani introduced Mohammad-Javad Zarif to parliament as his nominee to head the Islamic state's foreign ministry, the 53-year-old diplomat has attracted tens of thousands of new followers on Facebook. ... The social networking site is difficult to access in Iran as the regime tries to block it, but many people use anti-filter software such as VPN and Psiphon. Comments on the foreign minister's page jokingly ask Mr Zarif which anti-filter software he uses and some hope that his presence on Facebook will encourage the regime to lessen restrictions on the site. A day after he became foreign minister, Mr Zarif put a message on his Facebook page, saying he had accepted 'the heavy responsibility for improving the [country's] international condition in a bid to alleviate economic pressure on the beloved [Iranian] people.' In post after post, commenters have urged him to shun the radical foreign policies pursued by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 'Now that people see one of the most important foreign policy figures has joined Facebook, they use it as a place to reflect their views and submit their demands,' says Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a spokesman for the Association to Defend Press Freedom." http://t.uani.com/16shAQ5

Opinion & Analysis

Akbar Ganji in Foreign Affairs: "In June, Hassan Rouhani was elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rouhani ran as a reform candidate, and many have interpreted his victory as a harbinger of a possible liberalization or rationalization of Iranian domestic and foreign policy. But the dominant figure in Iranian politics is not the president but rather the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian constitution endows the supreme leader with tremendous authority over all major state institutions, and Khamenei, who has held the post since 1989, has found many other ways to further increase his influence. Formally or not, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government all operate under his absolute sovereignty; Khamenei is Iran's head of state, commander in chief, and top ideologue. His views are what will ultimately shape Iranian policy, and so it is worth exploring them in detail. Khamenei was born in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad in 1939. His father was a religious scholar of modest means, and Khamenei, the second of eight children, followed his father's path to seminary. (Two of his brothers are also clerics.) He studied in Qom from 1958 to 1964, and while there, he joined the religious opposition movement of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1962. He played an important role in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and went on to become Iran's president, from 1981 to 1989, and then Khomeini's successor as supreme leader. Khamenei has always been in contact with the world of Iranian intellectuals, and the basic outlines of his thinking were laid down in his youth and young adulthood, during the 1950s and 1960s. Iran was then a monarchy and an ally of the United States; according to the Iranian opposition at the time, the shah was nothing but an American puppet. Unlike many other Islamists, Khamenei had contact with the most important secular opposition intellectuals and absorbed their prerevolutionary discourse. But he was also a seminary student, whose chief focus was learning sharia, Islamic law. He became acquainted with the theoreticians of the Muslim Brotherhood and was influenced by the works of Sayyid Qutb, some of which Khamenei himself translated into Persian." http://t.uani.com/13CoTXs

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.

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