Top Stories
AFP:
"Western envoys gave Iran's new ambassador to the UN atomic agency a
frosty welcome Wednesday, saying Tehran's new government should waste no
time proving to the world it does not want the bomb. Speaking at a
meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors,
US envoy Joseph Macmanus said Iran was refusing to comply with UN
Security Council and IAEA resolutions demanding it suspend key parts of
its nuclear programme. 'In fact, Iran continues taking actions in direct
contravention of its obligations to expand and deepen these prohibited
programmes,' Macmanus told the closed-door quarterly gathering in Vienna.
These include uranium enrichment, a process that lies at the heart of the
international community's worries about Iran's activities since it could
provide Tehran with material for the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.
'With a new president in office, and a new government in place under his
leadership, Iran today has an opportunity to change its path from
intransigence to cooperation, from obfuscation to transparency,' Macmanus
said, according to the text of his remarks. Lithuania's IAEA
representative said in a statement on behalf of the European Union that
the IAEA's latest regular report on Iran last month that showed a
continued expansion 'further aggravates our deep concerns.'" http://t.uani.com/1b9r7QG
AP:
"Ten rounds of negotiations over the past two years have failed to
end the deadlock. The two sides meet again Sept. 27, and Macmanus
indicated that the West will consider those talks a yardstick of
Rouhani's professed interest in easing nuclear tensions. The West, he
said, will work with other board members to hold Iran accountable should
it fail to seize the moment and 'continue its intransigence and
obfuscation.' His comments appeared to be diplomatic code for an effort
in November to again refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council if the Sept.
27 talks end inconclusively. Past referrals have led to U.N sanctions.
While permanent council members Russia and China would likely veto
additional sanctions, a new referral would still be a harsh international
expression of displeasure with Iran. Also voicing the threat of referral,
a statement from the European Union warned of possible 'action' if Iran
does not cooperate with probe attempts by November. The IAEA is
particularly interested in visiting a site at Parchin, a sprawling
military complex southeast of Tehran, where it suspects Iran worked on a
conventional explosives trigger for a nuclear blast." http://t.uani.com/1b9rJpp
LAT:
Signaling a possible thaw in long-frozen relations, the Obama
administration and the new leadership in Iran are communicating about
Syria and are moving behind the scenes toward direct talks that both governments
hope can ease the escalating confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program.
President Obama reportedly reached out to Iran's relatively moderate
president, Hassan Rouhani, through an exchange of letters in recent
weeks. The pragmatist cleric is scheduled to address the United Nations
General Assembly on Sept. 24, and after years of the United States
cold-shouldering his ultraconservative predecessor, U.S. officials say
it's possible they will meet with Rouhani on the sidelines. Beyond that,
U.S. and Iranian officials are tentatively laying the groundwork for
potential face-to-face talks between the two governments, the first in
the rancorous 34 years since radical students seized the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran and founded the Islamic theocracy. Diplomatic relations have been
broken ever since." http://t.uani.com/14Ok0G0
Nuclear
Program
Reuters:
"Iran's new envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency said on Thursday he
would cooperate with it to find a way to 'overcome existing issues once
and for all', potentially signaling a more flexible approach from
Tehran's new administration. But Ambassador Reza Najafi, at his first
board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also
repeated Iran's position that it would not give up what it sees as its
legitimate right to a peaceful nuclear energy program. 'Based on its
rights and obligations recognized under the NPT (Non-Proliferation
Treaty), Iran is ready to faithfully engage and remove any ambiguity on
its nuclear activities,' Najafi told the governing board of the
Vienna-based U.N. agency." http://t.uani.com/15WzNmy
Sanctions
Trend:
"Iraq and other countries should bar the import of Iranian cars,
until Iran halts its nuclear program, UANI (United Against Nuclear Iran
U.S. group) Communications Director Nathan Carleton told Trend. Latest
reports from Iranian news outlets indicate that Iranian car manufacturer
Saipa shares some 40 percent of Iraqi car market, and Iraq has a very
large share of Iran's car exports. This is while Iraq is not very pleased
with Iran-made cars, which seem to have a lot of manufacturing flaws and
this turns into a lot of road accidents. 'Countries that continue to
support Iran's automotive sector are indirectly supporting the Iranian
regime,' Carleton said. 'The entire world should take note that Iran's
automotive sector is now under U.S. sanctions, due to President Obama's
Executive Order.'" http://t.uani.com/14ICH33
Reuters:
"A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the owners of a New York
City skyscraper at the center of a long-running dispute violated U.S.
laws against doing business with Iran. The ruling, which is likely to be
appealed, could result in the building, 650 Fifth Avenue, being seized by
the U.S. government. The ruling came just days before two parallel trials
were to begin in federal court in New York in which the Justice
Department and private plaintiffs were seeking to take control of the
building... Forrest found that the majority owner of the building, the
Alavi Foundation, knew that two minority owners were fronts for Iran's
Bank Melli, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act and U.S. money laundering laws... Alavi is a non-profit organization
that promotes Islamic culture and the Persian language. It donated more
than $1.5 million in 2012 to recipients including Hartford Seminary,
Harvard University and the Muslim Women's Institute for Research and
Development, according to a website for 650 Fifth Avenue." http://t.uani.com/14OgVpz
Reuters:
"India will talk to Iran about paying for its oil imports fully in
rupees after the Middle Eastern nation ended a brief trial of the mechanism
and reverted to a system of partial rupee payments, an Indian oil
ministry official said. Iran, isolated from the global financial system
due to U.S. and European Union sanctions against its nuclear programme,
wants to boost imports from India to fix its trade imbalance and utilise
billions of rupees lying in an Indian bank account. India, on the other
hand, wants to use its local currency, which has declined sharply against
the dollar, to settle imports and save foreign exchange. 'They had given
some invoices in rupees for 100 percent but I think lately they have
stopped that. So that matter had to be further discussed,' oil secretary
Vivek Rae told reporters on the sidelines of an industry event on
Thursday. India pays 45 percent of the import value of Iranian oil in
rupees and Indian refiners hold back the remaining 55 percent as Iran
explores avenues for alternative payment mechanisms." http://t.uani.com/1atwozJ
Human
Rights
RFE/RL:
"RFE/RL's Persian language Service, Radio Farda, has reported several
recent instances of intimidation targeting reporters' relatives in Iran,
despite widespread expectations that the new government of President
Hassan Rohani would usher in a period of more moderate politics and ease
societal tensions. In five separate instances in August, relatives were
approached, and in some cases interrogated, by agents of Iran's
Intelligence Ministry with the aim of pressuring them to persuade their
sons, daughters, and siblings to resign from their jobs. Radio Farda
journalists are banned from working in Iran, and RFE/RL President and CEO
Kevin Klose called the harassment 'censorship by other means.' 'These
methods are meant to pressure journalists living and reporting from
abroad and are no less heinous than threatening the journalists
directly,' Klose said. He added that if the Rohani administration wants
to signal a departure from its predecessors, 'it can stop these
tactics.'" http://t.uani.com/17sXkOH
IHR:
"Two prisoners were hanged in the prison of Kermanshah (western
Iran) today September 11. reported the Iranian state media... The human
rights group HRANA reported about scheduled public execution of three
prisoners in Dehdasht (western Iran) tomorrow September 12." http://t.uani.com/1d7XT2S
Domestic
Affairs
Guardian:
"Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi
have seen an improvement in the conditions of their house arrest as hopes
grow for their release. Since Hassan Rouhani took office as Iran's new
president last month the two men, who have been held for more than two
years without being put on trial, have been treated better by the
security guards and allowed more frequent family visits. Karroubi's son,
Mohammad Taghi, told the Guardian on Wednesday that both leaders have
been dealt with in a positive fashion recently as news emerges that
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has agreed that the
country's supreme national security council can decide on their fate.
'The supreme leader has agreed for the council to handle the issue regarding
their house arrests,' he said. 'We have received this news from a
reliable source.'" http://t.uani.com/1e61YaE
AP:
"Iranian authorities say a prominent center for filmmakers and
artists can reopen, more than 20 months after it was closed by
hard-liners. The decision, reported Thursday by the official IRNA news
agency, appears to reflect the more tolerant views on social and cultural
issues by Iran's new moderate-leaning president, Hasan Rouhani. IRNA
quotes Hojjatollah Ayoubi, a deputy culture minister, as saying the
reopening of the House of Cinema is an indication of support for film by
Rouhani's government." http://t.uani.com/1emaUKc
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