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Top Stories
WSJ:
"Meanwhile, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in
Europe, where he will hold talks Tuesday with EU foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton and her team in Brussels. Baroness Ashton chairs the six
power group that negotiates with Iran on its nuclear program. Monday
evening, Baroness Ashton said she expected the implementation talks to
resume 'very quickly' and she hopes a target date can soon be agreed for
November's six month deal to take effect. 'We've sorted out most of the
detail but inevitably there are one or two areas where we need to think
very carefully about how the implementation is going to work,' she said
earlier. In a statement Monday, EU foreign ministers welcomed the interim
deal and urged 'swift implementation' of the agreement once the United
Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency,
confirms Iran's compliance. 'Iran has to implement its commitments in
good faith. For its part, the Council is committed to take the necessary
steps and to suspend those EU sanctions' agreed last month 'immediately
after the IAEA has verified' Iran's compliance. EU officials have
previously said the deal is unlikely to take effect before late
January." http://t.uani.com/18LyGb3
AFP:
"Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has expressed Iran's
'discontent' to his US counterpart over the expansion of a blacklist of
Iranian firms following a landmark nuclear accord, media reported Monday.
Iran has accused Washington of going against the spirit of the deal
reached in November by adding a dozen overseas companies and individuals
to its blacklist for evading sanctions imposed on Tehran over its
controversial nuclear programme... US officials maintain the expansion of
the blacklist does not entail additional sanctions, but merely the
enforcement of the existing sanctions regime, which helped bring Iran to
the negotiating table. But on Monday the Fars news agency, quoting a
foreign ministry statement, said Zarif had 'expressed Iran's discontent'
during a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry,
without specifying when the two spoke. The IRNA state news agency said it
was the first conversation between the two top diplomats since the Geneva
agreement was reached on November 24. A State Department official
confirmed the telephone call, saying they 'discussed the importance of
moving forward on implementation of the Joint Plan of Action they agreed
to in Geneva and of maintaining a constructive atmosphere as the
negotiations continue.'" http://t.uani.com/1bNnTAx
AFP:
"A retired FBI agent who vanished six years ago in Iran, reportedly
during a covert CIA operation, was arrested by authorities in the Islamic
state, the last person to see him alive was quoted as saying on Monday.
In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Iran-based American
fugitive Dawud Salahuddin said Iranian agents had detained Robert
Levinson during a meeting between the two men on the island of Kish in
2007. Salahuddin, a convert to Islam who has lived in Iran since carrying
out a 1980 murder in the United States on behalf of the Tehran regime,
said Levinson had been trying to recruit him as an informant before his
arrest. 'They took me away, and when I left - we were down in the lobby -
Levinson was surrounded by four Iranian police,' Salahuddin said...
Salahuddin meanwhile denied suggestions he had orchestrated Levinson's
arrest. 'I've seen all those things, that I set the guy up and all that.
Listen, I don't do things like that -- that's not a part of my makeup,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/1bXflYL
Nuclear
Negotiations
Fars:
"Iranian lawmakers are studying a bill which will require the
government to enrich uranium to the purity level of 60 percent, a senior
MP announced on Saturday. 'Given the method that the other negotiating
side (the US in particular) has adopted during the nuclear negotiations,
the legislators are working on a bill which will require the government
to increase the level of uranium enrichment to over 60%,' member of the
parliament's Energy Commission Seyed Mehdi Moussavinejad told FNA. Noting
that the double-urgency bill will be presented to the parliament's
Presiding Board soon, he said, 'Our country enjoys the necessary
potential for enrichment over the 20% grade.' The lawmaker explained that
'we need to enrich uranium more than 60% to supply fuel for our ships'.
The decision was taken after Washington breached the recent Geneva deal
between Iran and the world powers by blacklisting a dozen companies and
individuals for evading US sanctions. 'By imposing new sanctions, the US
has breached the Geneva agreement,' Moussavinejad said." http://t.uani.com/1gDBsXH
Sanctions
Reuters:
"India has asked Iran to provide financial guarantees before Delhi
continues to allow vessels with Iranian insurance cover to enter Indian
waters, the latest sign of difficulties Iran is facing in exporting
oil... India's latest request, however, shows the struggle OPEC member
Iran still faces in maintaining steady oil shipments. International
sanctions on Iran have made it difficult to insure refineries and ships
involved in trade with Iran and forced India to settle 45 percent of oil
payments in rupees through state-owned UCO Bank while refiners are
withholding the remainder... India has asked Iran to provide a bank
guarantee for 23 billion rupees ($369.98 million) from its account with
UCO Bank as 'a precautionary measure to cover any potential claims that
may arise due to maritime incident in Indian waters'. India imports oil
from Iran in Iranian vessels, while Indian exports to Iran of non-oil
commodities and industrial goods use the vessels of Iran's Hafiz Darya
Shipping Lines (HDS) and Safiran Payam Darya Shipping Lines
(SAPID)." http://t.uani.com/1jeqDx9
Bloomberg:
"Iranian Ambassador to Turkey Ali Reza Bikdeli said in an interview
in Ankara yesterday that Halkbank, which handles payments for Iranian
energy transactions, would maintain a key role in trade ties. Turkish
exports to Iran slumped to $3.4 billion in the first nine months of this
year, compared with $9.9 billion in the whole of 2012, as sanctions
barred Tehran from accepting gold as payment for oil, according to data
from Turkey's statistics office last month. Precious metals accounted for
66 percent of direct exports to Iran in 2012, the data show." http://t.uani.com/1bNn4ri
Human Rights
Baha'i World News
Service: "Among the many acts of persecution to
which the Baha'is in Iran are being subjected, one of the most heartless
is the wanton desecration of their cemeteries. Most recently, attackers
have destroyed portions of the Baha'i cemetery in Sanandaj, Iran, which
has in recent years been threatened by local authorities who have sought
to raze the site and repossess its land. The attack follows recent
efforts by local officials to reclaim the site, which had been officially
allocated to Baha'is some 20 years ago. Reports from Iran say the morgue,
where bodies are washed, along with the prayer room, a water tank, and
the walls of the cemetery were destroyed sometime in the morning on 12
December 2013." http://t.uani.com/1c9gKx6
ICHRI:
"The Iranian Police publicly paraded a large group of alleged theft
suspects early Sunday morning. In a set of photos published on the
Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency (IRNA) website, a group of dozens of
young men appears disheveled, some without shoes and the rest wearing
slippers, most of them are wearing light clothing in near-freezing Tehran
temperatures. 'Arrest of 123 thieves and muggers in Tehran: In the early
moments of the morning of Sunday [December 15, 2013], Police
Investigative Unit forces arrested 123 thieves, fences, and several
leaders of theft gangs in Tehran,' read the description on the photo
album published on the IRNA website today... General Sajedinia did not
disclose whether the men had been informed of their charges and tried in
a court of law. The arrests appear to have resulted from police
surveillance and intelligence work, without indictment and fair judicial
process in which the victims had access to lawyers and a chance to defend
themselves." http://t.uani.com/1bNov94
Foreign Affairs
AP:
"The Obama administration should make any diplomatic agreement with
Iran contingent on Tehran's help finding missing CIA contractor Robert
Levinson, a lawyer for his family said Monday. 'He's your guy and you put
him there,' attorney David McGee said. 'Raise the ante.' ... 'Mostly what
we've gotten is lip service. We want them to make him the priority,'
McGee said. 'I'd like us to move to the top of the pile, and not the
bottom of the pile where we've been.'" http://t.uani.com/1dk12eS
Opinion
& Analysis
Anthony Cordesman in CSIS:
"The report provides an in-depth analysis of US and Iranian
competition focusing on four interrelated areas - sanctions, energy, arms
control, and regime change. It shows this competition has been steadily
building since the fall of 2011, when the IAEA issued a new report on the
possible military applications of Iran's nuclear program. Iran has
continued to issue threats to 'close the Gulf,' and has stalled
negotiations, spurring a renewed round of sanctions that have had an
increasingly significant impact on Iran's economy throughout 2012 and
continuing into 2013. The report shows this competition takes place at
levels ranging from the bilateral to the multilateral, and encompasses
the UN, EU, US, and IAEA. The patterns in this competition have become
extremely complex; in practice the patterns of interaction between each
form of competition have acquired a cyclical consistency that seems
likely to go on indefinitely into the future. It traces the history and
impact of US application of a wide range of sanctions on Iranian banks;
targeting Iranian companies involved in the nuclear, petrochemical, and
oil industries, as well as non-Iranian companies that conduct financial
transactions in Rials or are involved with Iran's petrochemical
industries, arms industries, transport, and precious metal trafficking.
It also shows the impact when the EU joined the US in sharply increasing
its sanctions on Iran by imposing an embargo on Iranian petrochemical
imports and banning European investment in Iran's petrochemical industry,
cutting Iran out of the international banking system, and banning
insurance agreements and loans. In spite of the November 2013 interim
agreement reached in Geneva, it is still not clear that these pressures
and sanctions can succeed in altering Iranian nuclear ambitions or
bringing stability to US and Iranian competition over nuclear weapons and
security in the region. It is clear, however, that the push toward
enhancing sanctions and growing international isolation had a real impact
on the Iranian economy. Iran's recent actions also indicate that new
sanctions, along with international and domestic pressure, has had
serious effects... It still remains far from clear, however, that
sanctions and negotiations can stop Iran from moving toward a nuclear
weapons capability. It is already clear that Iran is building up its
long-range missile forces and is steadily building up its capabilities
for asymmetric warfare in ways that can be used to deliver a wide range
of attacks. It also continues to use its Al Quds force, intelligence
services, and diplomats to pose a growing threat to the Arab states and
Israel and to seek an axis of influence that includes Iraq, Syria, and
Lebanon." http://t.uani.com/18OnScf
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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