Eye on Iran: Iran Oil Exports Still Above Nuclear-Deal Cap

Join UANI           Top Stories WSJ: "Iran's crude-oil exports have averaged 1.2 million barrels a day over the past three months, a deputy oil minister said, effectively confirming a slight decrease in shipments. The level remained above a cap of one million barrels a day that was agreed to as part of an interim nuclear deal with Western powers. Crude-oil exports, however, had fluctuated over the period, Ali Majedi, Iran's deputy oil minister for international affairs, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The latest export figure is lower that the level of 1.3 million barrels a day previously reported by Iran for February." http://t.uani.com/1hwRvmd Dong-A Ilbo (South Korea): "Iranian Revolutionary Guards are suspected of managing a secret fund in Korea and Malaysia to avoid economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe, the Kyoto News Agency reported. Quoting informed diplomatic sources on Saturday, the Japanese news agency said Iranian energy company 'Petrosina Arya' was found to have 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in won-currency deposits at a large bank in Korea as of the third quarter of last year. Sources said Petrosina Arya is believed to a disguised firm for Iran's largest builder, Hatam al-Anbiya, which is owned by IRG. The sources said Petrosina Arya also has deposits in Malaysia and former Common Wealth of Independent Countries. The sources added Iran seems to be shifting the fund to Asia and other countries to dodge strict monitoring and sanctions by U.S. and European financial authorities." http://t.uani.com/1o64pPC RFE/RL: "Iran's hard-line Fars news agency has removed comments by a commander of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who was quoted as saying that the Islamic republic is militarily involved in Syria. Tehran has repeatedly denied that Iranian combat forces are fighting alongside the troops of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where the conflict has left tens of thousands of dead. 'Today we fight in Syria for interests such as the Islamic Revolution. Our defense is to the extent of the Sacred Defense,' Hossein Hamedani was quoted as saying by Fars. 'Sacred Defense' is the term used by Iranian officials to refer to the bloody 1980-88 war with Iraq. Fars reported that Hamedani made the comments on May 4 at an administrative council meeting in the province of Hamedan... Fars also quoted Hamedani as saying that the Syrian regime was no longer 'at the risk of collapse.'" http://t.uani.com/1qdNUD4         Sanctions Relief AFP: "Iran's oil minister robustly defended the country's production capabilities yesterday and said if sanctions are lifted foreign companies would mostly be confined to a supporting role... With high hopes of an end to the decade-long nuclear dispute between Iran and the West, around 600 foreign companies registered for the International Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Refining Exhibition, three times more than last year. In a 40-minute speech that kicked off the fair, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh talked up Iran's 'resistance economy,' but said it did not mean the country had to be isolated. 'We are ready to engage into contracts with domestic companies,' he said, stating that the Islamic republic is 'open to the outside,' for investment and technology. However, a simultaneous English audio translation of some of Zanganeh's remarks, heard by most of the visiting delegates, appeared more blunt. 'We can work even with sanctions. This has already been proven. There is no need to wait for the foreigners,' he was quoted as saying." http://t.uani.com/1jdckrz Trend: "Iran produced 34,923 sedan cars in the first calendar month of the current Iranian calendar year. The figure shows some 69.2 percent increase compared to the same period of the previous year, Iran's ISNA News Agency reported on May 7. Iran Khodro (with 15,574 cars), SAIPA (with 15,547 cars), and Kerman Motor (with 2,435 cars) were the main manufacturers in the mentioned period." http://t.uani.com/1g7WkSy Syria Conflict Al-Monitor: "A former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps was censored after he made comments about the formation of an Iranian committee to plan for Iranian provinces to rebuild Syrian provinces and the establishment of a second Hezbollah inside Syria. An article published about the comments was taken down. General Hussein Hamedani's comments were made at the administrative council of Hamedan province. The full Fars News article is still available via Google's cache. Hamedani had announced the formation of a committee to help rebuild Syria, saying, 'With consideration of the heavy damages the country of Syria and its people have suffered at the hands of terrorists, this committee has been formed so that the Syrian people know that the Iranian people will always be with you.' He added that the amount of backing that each Iranian province would give to Syria had recently been determined in meetings in Tehran. Under the plan, each Iranian province would be assigned to a Syrian province." http://t.uani.com/1fP4jcq Human Rights Domestic Politics AFP: "Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has vetoed a plan to ban WhatsApp, following a row over censorship of the popular messaging application, media reports said Wednesday. Access to social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, are routinely blocked by Iranian authorities, as are other websites considered un-Islamic or detrimental to the regime. The policy is contentious and the move to filter WhatsApp has caused a rupture between Rouhani's administration and a 13-member committee responsible for Internet censorship. The reformist Sharq daily reported that Rouhani has ordered the WhatsApp ban, proposed shortly after Facebook bought the messaging service for $19 billion in February, be stopped. 'The issue of banning WhatsApp was raised. The president has ordered a halt on (banning) the site,' Telecommunications Minister Mahmoud Vaezi was quoted as saying by Sharq. 'Until the time that we have a replacement for these sites, the government opposes filtering them,' he added. According to an official at the telecommunications ministry, the ban was approved by the Committee for Determining Criminal Web Content, but it was not implemented." http://t.uani.com/1j2urvd Reuters: "Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif survived a censure vote in parliament on Tuesday for his refusal to deny the Holocaust, in the latest battle with hardliners trying to undermine President Hassan Rouhani's overtures to the West... In Tuesday's hearing, broadcast live on state radio, 75 Islamic hardliners in the 290-member assembly questioned him on a range of issues, including his stance on 'illegitimate' Israel and the 'lie of the Holocaust.' ... Holocaust denial has been a theme of public speeches by leaders in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ahmadinejad called the mass killing of Jews by the Nazis during World War Two 'a myth.'" http://t.uani.com/1mC3rqv Foreign Affairs Opinion & Analysis 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.