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Top Stories
Reuters: "With
a week until negotiations over Iran's nuclear program resume in Geneva,
Western diplomats are playing down any suggestion that Iran's new
openness on the world stage will result in any immediate or broad
loosening of sanctions. At the same time, they hope a new tone is being
established and that the talks on October 15-16 will at last deliver an
opportunity to make progress on ending the decade-long dispute over
Tehran's nuclear program. Senior officials from the United States and
Europe have said repeatedly they are not ready to offer any concessions
until Iran takes concrete steps to allay their concerns that the program
is ultimately designed to develop atomic weapons... 'There is a risk we
get carried away by the positive atmosphere,' one Western diplomat with
close knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters, speaking on condition
of anonymity." http://t.uani.com/1am4u7r
WSJ:
"Iran is preparing a package of proposals to halt production of
near-weapons-grade nuclear fuel, a key demand of the U.S. and other
global powers, according to officials briefed on diplomacy ahead of talks
in Geneva next week. Tehran in return will request that the U.S. and
European Union begin scaling back sanctions that have left it largely
frozen out of the international financial system and isolated its oil
industry, the officials said. 'The Iranians are preparing to go to Geneva
with a serious package,' said a former Western diplomat who has discussed
the incentives with senior Iranian diplomats in recent weeks. 'These include
limits on the numbers of centrifuges operating, enrichment amounts and
the need for verification.' The package from the new government of
President Hasan Rouhani could revitalize long-stalled negotiations over
Iran's nuclear program and underpin an emerging diplomatic thaw between
Washington and Tehran... In an opening salvo in the negotiations, Tehran
is expected to offer to stop enriching uranium to levels of 20% purity,
which international powers consider dangerously close to a weapons-grade
capability. Iran is also expected to offer to open the country's nuclear
facilities to more intrusive international inspections, the officials
said. And Iran is considering offering the closure of an underground
uranium-enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, which the U.S. and
Israel have charged is part of a covert Iranian weapons program, which
Tehran denies." http://t.uani.com/1bH4ynr
AP:
"Iran has more enriched uranium than it needs and plans to use that
as a bargaining chip at nuclear talks in Geneva next week, Iranian
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Wednesday. In an Associated Press
interview, Larijani said the surplus uranium would be discussed with
Western powers in the context of possibly halting its enrichment of
uranium to 20 percent, which has been a key concession sought in the
negotiations. 'Through the process of negotiations, yes, things can be
said and they can discuss this matter,' he said, on the sidelines of a
meeting of the world organization of parliaments. The 20-percent-enriched
uranium is much closer to warhead-grade material than the level needed
for energy-producing nuclear reactors." http://t.uani.com/1aacIhJ
Nuclear
Program
AFP: "US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
has promised Israel the United States will be 'clear-eyed' and committed
to ensuring that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons as Washington
pursues engagement. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, whose government
has pressed for a hard line, visited Washington a week before Iran meets
six nations to ease international concerns on its nuclear program that
have triggered a US-led campaign of sanctions. 'Secretary Hagel noted
that while the United States intends to test the prospect for a
diplomatic solution with Iran we remain clear-eyed about the challenges
ahead,' Pentagon spokesman George Little said. The United States 'will
not waver from our firm policy to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear
weapons,' he said." http://t.uani.com/16RgnFZ
Sanctions
AFP:
"Pakistan has asked Iran for $2 billion in financing to build its
side of a controversial gas pipeline that has drawn threats of US
sanctions, Islamabad's petroleum minister said Tuesday. The Iranian side
of the $7.5-billion project is almost complete, but Pakistan has run into
repeated problems paying for the 780 kilometre (485 mile) section to be
built on its side of the border. Pakistani petroleum minister Shahid
Khaqan Abbasi told AFP on Tuesday that the preparatory work was complete,
but they had asked Iran to provide $2 billion for the construction work.
'All these issues will be discussed in a meeting which we have requested,
but so far there is no reply from the Iranian side,' Abbasi said. 'They
were busy in cabinet formation and I hope that this meeting will take
place within this month.'" http://t.uani.com/16x4P8y
Bloomberg:
"When Mohammad-Reza needed parts for his heater company in Iran last
month, he carried a bagful of 500-euro notes on a plane to Dubai and paid
his German supplier over coffee in a hotel lobby. Often, he says, he has
to use even riskier channels. Mohammad-Reza, who declined to give his
surname for fear of reprisals, says he uses informal currency transfers
called hawala to get around the sanctions that cut Iran off from the
global banking system. 'Everything's based on mutual trust,' he said in
an interview in his Tehran office, describing a widely used network of
unofficial middle-men. 'The currency shops in Tehran don't give you a
receipt, and it's not clear when the supplier in Germany, the Czech
Republic or South Korea will receive it. Sometimes money gets lost in
transmission.' Like the Iranian economy, Mohammad-Reza's business has
shrunk under the impact of the trade and currency curbs imposed by the
U.S. and allies to restrain the Islamic republic's nuclear program."
http://t.uani.com/19zBnLx
Syria
Conflict
Reuters:
"Iran rejects any conditions for taking part in a long-delayed peace
conference on Syria, Iranian media reported, in effect dismissing a U.S.
suggestion that Tehran back a call for a transitional government in
Damascus. The United States accuses Iran of supporting the government of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that has run for more
than two years, killed more than 100,000 people and eluded all efforts at
a peaceful settlement." http://t.uani.com/15ne3U3
Human
Rights
ICHRI:
"The Iranian authorities should impose an immediate moratorium on
executions in Iran given the alarming rise in the use of the death
penalty in recent weeks, the International Campaign for Human Rights in
Iran and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said today. As World
Day Against the Death Penalty approaches on October 10, the Judiciary
should review the sentencing guidelines that allow for the use of capital
punishment, and revise them in accordance with international standards,
the human rights organizations added. In the two weeks between September
11 and September 25, Iranian officials hanged a record 50 individuals, primarily
for drug-related offenses. 'While Rouhani was promoting a softer image of
Iran internationally during his visit to New York two weeks ago, it was
business as usual on the domestic front with scores of prisoners put to
death following unfair trials,' said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of
the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. 'Since Rouhani's
inauguration, the increasing number of prisoners being sent to the
gallows is indefensible,' he added." http://t.uani.com/17fGaSz
AP:
"A well-known Iranian blogger and veteran activist says a court has
sentenced him to six years in prison over security charges. Mahdi Khazali
told The Associated Press the sentence was for spreading 'propaganda'
against the ruling establishment. He insists he did not break the law and
will appeal to the verdict. The semi-official Fars news agency said
Khazali was sentenced to five years for conspiracy against the country's
security, and one year for spreading propaganda against the ruling
system. In various past cases, Khazali was sentenced to nearly 16 years
in prison on similar charges. The 48-year-old surgeon and publisher was
released in early June after seven months in prison, partly on hunger
strike." http://t.uani.com/1bbfwxg
IHR:
"Two prisoners were hanged in the prison of Ahwaz (southwestern
Iran) today, reported the state run Iranian news agencies." http://t.uani.com/15V66aX
Domestic
Politics
AP:
"Iran's foreign minister fired back on Wednesday against hard-line
critics of Tehran's groundbreaking outreach to the United States,
accusing opponents of using fabricated news leaks and other tactics in
attempts to undermine the effort. Mohammad Javad Zarif said the political
battles had become so tense that it brought on back pain and spasms. He
said on his Facebook page that he cancelled appointments and went to
hospital for a check-up late Tuesday. The source of his distress: An
article in a hard-line newspaper that Zarif said misquoted him on the
subject of the new Iranian administration's outreach to the U.S. ...
Foreign Minister Zarif claimed the hard-line newspaper Kayhan misquoted
him Tuesday - publishing what was allegedly a confidential exchange - as
criticizing some aspects of Rouhani's policies, calling it a 'bitter
day.' Zarif vowed not to hold any further confidential assessments and
said all his remarks would be for public scrutiny... Zarif claimed Kayhan
misquoted him as saying Rouhani's 15-minute telephone conversation with
President Barack Obama was 'inappropriate.' It also quoted Zarif as saying
he believed it was wrong to hold a lengthy face-to-face meeting in New
York with Secretary of State John Kerry." http://t.uani.com/19zpHyt
BBC:
"The first Iranian official to cast doubt on the Holocaust was
actually Ayatollah Khamenei. In January 2002, he referred to gas chambers
in concentration camps as a story about which its truth was 'not clear'
and which was being used as 'Zionist propaganda' to gain the sympathy of
the world. Mr Ahmadinejad followed this line and in 2005, in his first
year in office, called the Nazi extermination of the Jews 'a myth'. 'The
Holocaust used to be something you only read about in history books in
Iran,' says Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy." http://t.uani.com/1fZy0qC
Foreign
Affairs
Reuters:
"Britain and Iran have started talks aimed at restoring diplomatic
relations two years after an angry mob ransacked the British embassy,
Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday. The announcement
reflects a significant thawing in Iran's relations with the West which
imposed tough economic sanctions on Tehran after the embassy storming. It
may raise hopes of a breakthrough in talks with world powers about its
disputed nuclear program in Geneva next week. Hague said there had been a
'marked change' for the better in Iran's approach since Hassan Rouhani
was election president in June, replacing hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
'Both our countries will now appoint a non-resident charge d'affaires
tasked with implementing the building of relations, including interim
steps on the way towards (the) eventual reopening of both our embassies,'
Hague told parliament." http://t.uani.com/1bbgKsk
Reuters:
"Already aghast at U.S. reluctance to back rebels fighting Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, Tehran's strongest Arab friend, Saudi princes
were horrified to see Washington reaching out to Hassan Rouhani, the new
Iranian president, last month. 'The Saudis' worst nightmare would be the
administration striking a grand bargain with Iran,' said former diplomat
Robert Jordan, who was U.S. ambassador to Riyadh from 2001 to 2003.
Although any meaningful U.S.-Iranian rapprochement looks distant, Obama
telephoned Rouhani, an emollient self-described moderate, during the
United Nations General Assembly." http://t.uani.com/16Ritpm
Opinion & Analysis
Aaron David Miller
& Mitchel Hochberg in FP: "Nobody knows how the
Iranian nuclear dilemma is going to end. A good deal, a bad deal, no
deal, a U.S. or Israeli military strike -- or none of the above? But amid
all the uncertainty, at least one thing seems pretty certain: The mullahs
are playing three-dimensional chess while the United States is playing
checkers. This is not to say that the Iranians are diplomatic and
strategic geniuses. After all, if they were that clever, they wouldn't be
reeling under the impact of nation-crushing sanctions that are destroying
their economy. Nor would everyone's favorite mullah -- President Hasan
Rouhani -- be sending Rosh Hashanah tweets to all his would-be Jewish
friends. The checkers reference is also not meant to suggest that the
Obama administration is clueless about how to deal with Iran. While the
president's handling of the Syrian chemical weapons issue did at times
resemble a Marx Brothers movie, the administration knows the stakes on
Iran are higher -- and that, precisely because of Syria, it must be more
disciplined, focused, and deliberate. Yet Iran has certain natural
advantages that the United States lacks. This doesn't invariably mean the
United States will lose and Iran will win at nuclear roulette. But it
does mean that Tehran can be far more agile, devious, and strategic in
its quest for a nuclear weapons capacity than Washington can be in its
effort to stop it. Here are brief explanations of these important advantages...
The emergence of Rouhani is the perfect play against the United States,
because his election as president really does reflect reformist
tendencies within the Iranian public and polity. Sanctions are ruining
the economy and hold the potential to create serious popular discontent.
Why not send abroad a smiling, attractive, and forthcoming president who
can tone down the anti-Israeli rhetoric, accept the Holocaust, and deny
Iran has a nuclear weapons program, even while Tehran continues to pursue
said program? The Iranian leadership can lie, dissemble, and pursue this
two-track strategy without blinking an eye and without fear of any
domestic backlash, all in an effort to see what kind of sanctions relief
it can achieve and what it has to pay for it. If the price isn't right,
it can recalibrate, turn on a dime, and effortlessly return to the
hard-line rhetoric of Rouhani's predecessor." http://t.uani.com/19gGAdh
Saeed
Ghasseminejad & Emanuele Ottolenghi in Times of Israel:
"Most Western observers welcomed the end of Ahmadinejad's term with
a sigh of relief, interpreting Rouhani's election as a sign of moderation
and, perhaps, even a return of something like a reformist agenda. Western
chanceries were adamant that anything was better than Ahmadinejad. This
was a mistake, if an understandable one. Rouhani presented himself as a
moderate. But he has begun meticulously replacing Ahmadinejad's friends
with familiar faces who spent previous decades plundering the country's
resources for their own personal profit, or in pursuit of proliferation
activities that allowed them to make money on the side. Rather than
reforming the system, there's every reason to believe Rouhani and his
clique will be busy milking it. Take for example Mr. Bijan Namdar
Zanganeh, Rouhani's minister of oil. As the holder of a key position that
controls billions of dollars' worth of contracts and revenues, Zanganeh
knows his way around. He served as oil minister under reformist president
Mohammad Khatami. Reuters described him as a 'non-partisan technocrat.'
In truth, Zanganeh's time at the oil ministry is associated with many
high level corruption cases - most notably with handing contracts to
Petropars under the buy-back scheme he invented to lure foreign oil
companies back into the Iranian energy market during the reformist era.
Petropars is a subsidiary company of the U.S. and EU sanctioned Naftiran
Intertrade Company (NICO), which Zanganeh helped establish. During
Zanganeh's tenure at the oil ministry, Petropars was chaired by Akbar Torkan,
who previously served as Iran's minister of defense under Rafsanjani.
Zanganeh rewarded Torkan's company with contracts worth billions -
including several development phases of the lucrative South Pars natural
gas field. Now the two occupy key posts in government once again - and
the contracts are predictably flowing. Zanganeh and Torkan are but two in
a long list of recent returnees to the corridors of Iranian power. Mehdi
Karbasian, the newly appointed chairman of the Iranian Mines & Mining
Industries Development & Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), is a board
member of the U.S. sanctioned Parsian Bank and of Sepehr Energy
Corporation, which has been winning oil contracts at an astonishing rate,
despite its short existence and lack of proven record. Like Zanganeh and
others, Karbasian never really left the control room - his resume reads
like a U.S. Department of Treasury sanctioned entities' list, with past
and present executive roles with companies in the shipping, heavy
industry, food, transport, banking, and oil sectors. A veteran of the
Islamic Republic's early glories and, like Zanganeh, a past holder of
ministerial positions beginning in the early 1980's, Karbasian's business
interests flourished during his time in the private sector thanks to government
contracts. He is now back at the helm of a key government holding
company, whose portfolio he needs to privatize - presumably to friendly
investors like himself. Above him sits Minister of Industries and Trade,
Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, another veteran of the Islamic Republic's
cabinet, who, in between government assignments, ran overseas companies
for Iran's energy industry. Then there's Rouhani's Minister of Justice,
Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, known for his blood-soaked past. In 1988, at the
behest of the late Ayatollah Ruollah Khomeini and with the full knowledge
and backing of former president Rafsanjani, Pour Mohammadi was
responsible for the death of thousands of political prisoners, who were
ultimately executed after infamous one-minute trials. For his solicitude
in efficiently ridding Iran of so many political undesirables, Pour
Mohammadi earned the post of deputy Minister of Intelligence once
Rafsanjani became president in 1989. And his corruption extends beyond
his reputation as a ruthless murderer." http://t.uani.com/1gq5axA
David Keyes in The
Daily Beast: "Who knew the Iranian foreign minister
was such a fan of Frank Sinatra? Shortly after the U.N. General Assembly
last month, in the midst of his New York charm offensive, I asked Javad
Zarif if he thought it was ironic that he enjoys posting on Facebook
while his government bans the website in Iran. 'Ha! Ha!' he laughed
heartily. 'That's life.' Well, life in Iran at least, where the regime
Zarif represents routinely tortures dissidents, bloggers and journalists.
I asked the foreign minister when Majid Tavakoli, one of Iran's most
prominent student leaders and political prisoners, will be free. He
answered with a straight face: 'I don't know him.' If you think Iran is
duplicitous about its nuclear weapons program, just wait till you hear
its deception on human rights. When I asked Iran's ambassador to the
United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee, why the Iranian regime bans Facebook
and Twitter, he looked at an aide and asked incredulously, 'Are the Facebook
and Twitter banned in Iran?' I assured him they were. 'Personally, I
don't do it, so I'm not involved,' he said. I pressed on. 'What is the
Iranian government afraid of, that it bans these websites which are
available in the rest of the world?' The ambassador shot back, 'May I ask
you a question? Why is the American government afraid to let me go to
Washington to talk to congressmen and senators?' Khazaee was referring to
a 25-mile radius travel ban on Iranian diplomats. Khazaee, like the
foreign minister, denied having heard of any of the prominent political
prisoners I raised: Tavakoli, Shiva Ahari and Omid Reza Mir Sayafi,
Iran's first blogger to die in custody. The only prisoner he admitted to
knowing about was human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was recently
released. 'I've only heard the name Nasrin Sotoudeh because of the
media,' he said. A plea to Western media: keep highlighting Iranian
political prisoners. Mention their names. Make them famous. It is,
apparently, the only way senior Iranian officials hear about the human
rights activists they jail. Though I introduced myself to Khazaee as the
head of a human rights organization and a contributor to The Daily Beast,
he claimed he did not hear this and asked that I not publish his words. 'I'm
talking to you as a friend,' he said. 'Your government threatened the
destruction of the state that I'm from [Israel], and therefore I don't
really consider us friends,' I replied. Should journalistic deference be
shown toward the representative of a theocratic regime which kills gays,
jails journalists, and tortures bloggers? I don't think so. Everywhere
Iranian diplomats go, they should be confronted with the names of
imprisoned dissidents. So, Mr. Ambassador, I've decided to publish our
exchange. In the words of your foreign minister, 'That's life.'" http://t.uani.com/1bZl9ja
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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