Top Stories
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
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
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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