Eye on Iran: German Business Looks to Renew Iran Contacts

Join UANI           Top Stories WSJ: "German businesses are cooling on Russian investments amid anger over Russia's role in the Ukrainian conflict while simultaneously warming on another big country hit by Western sanctions: Iran. Companies across Germany have quietly rekindled once-strong commercial ties with Iran, industry officials said... 'The market will explode when the embargo gets lifted,' predicted Stephanie Spinner-König, managing director of high-tech component maker Spinner GmbH and a participant in one of two German business delegations that visited Iran this year... Around 100 German companies have branches in Iran and more than 1,000 businesses work through sales agents, according to the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Many want information after Iran's years of isolation. A two-day July conference on Iran in Frankfurt drew 40 companies from the machine and factory-engineering industries. Topics included market entry options, investment rules, sanctions and Iranian politics. 'Companies are already trying to sign letters of intent with Iranian trading partners to get a foot in the market,' said Juliane Emami, project manager at conference organizer Management Circle AG... Some industrial giants such as automotive parts producer Bosch GmbH, which signed its first contract. are already venturing back. 'We've already signed our first contracts,' said spokeswoman Trix Böhne. 'But this is all at very early stages and we will have to see how things develop.'" http://t.uani.com/UWrvf0 AFP: "Iran's President Hassan Rouhani denounced Monday the 'inaction' of the UN Security Council on Gaza, describing the conflict as a genocidal massacre of Palestinians by Israel. His comments came at a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement's (NAM) committee for Palestine, with several foreign ministers among officials from Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Sudan, Uganda and other member states. 'The savage aggression by the army of this child-killer regime (Israel), continues with a deliberate policy to commit genocide and massacre civilians and destroy infrastructure, houses, hospitals, schools and mosques,' Rouhani said in Tehran. 'The inaction of international bodies, in particular the Security Council, to prevent the crimes against humanity of the Zionist regime' is to be condemned, he added." http://t.uani.com/1khGFaH Reuters: "In early July, hundreds of mourners gathered for the funeral of Kamal Shirkhani in Lavasan, a small town northeast of the Iranian capital Tehran. The crowd carried the coffin past posters which showed Shirkhani in the green uniform of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and identified him as a colonel. Shirkhani did not die in a battle inside Iran. He was killed nearly a hundred miles away from the Iranian border in a mortar attack by the militants of the Islamic State 'while carrying out his mission to defend' a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, according to a report on Basij Press, a news site affiliated with the Basij militia which is overseen by the Revolutionary Guards. Shirkhani's death deep inside Iraq shows that Iran has committed boots on the ground to defend Iraqi territory. At least two other members of the Guards have also been killed in Iraq since mid-June, a clear sign that Shi'ite power Iran has ramped up its military presence in Iraq to counter the threat of Sunni fighters from the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that seized much of northern Iraq since June." http://t.uani.com/1pz2iCy     Sanctions Relief Reuters: "It should have been a routine delivery of vegetable oil to Iran for making margarine; instead the tanker spent months in the Gulf as banks held up payment for the cargo, fearing they would run foul of international sanctions. The sanctions regime, imposed by the United States and European Union over Tehran's nuclear program, permits trade in humanitarian goods such as food and pharmaceuticals. Yet many banks are steering clear of financing any deals with Iran due to a series of fines handed out by U.S. authorities for dealing with sanctioned countries, including a recent $8.97 billion penalty for BNP Paribas of France. So from January to March this year the Greek-run tanker lay at anchor before it was forced to head to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates to refuel - this also being difficult in Iran due to the sanctions. Eventually, a sale of goods bill for the transaction came through and the tanker discharged its cargo in Iran, but only after months of wasted time and mounting costs... The fines on banks in the past two years have made many fear U.S. regulators. Apart from the BNP Paribas penalty for breaches including trade with Iran, Germany's Commerzbank AG is expected to pay $600 million to $800 million to resolve investigations into its dealings with Iran and other countries under U.S. sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1ueTtzh Human Rights AFP: "A well-known Iranian academic who had a death sentence overturned a decade ago has been convicted and sentenced to a year in jail for spreading propaganda against the regime. No other details of pro-reform activist Hashem Aghajari's offences were mentioned in Iranian media reports of his conviction, published Sunday. Aghajari, a university professor, was convicted of apostasy and given a death sentence in 2003 for declaring Muslims were not 'monkeys' who should 'blindly follow' their religious leaders." http://t.uani.com/1zNoCNn ICHRI: "Journalist, political activist, and close relative of the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader Serajeddin Mirdamadi has been sentenced to six years in prison by Judge Salavati of Section 15 of the Revolutionary Court on July 27, 2014, found guilty of 'propaganda against the state' and 'conspiracy against national security.' Mirdamadi will likely appeal against the decision within the next 20 days, his lawyer Giti Pourfazel told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Mirdamadi has been held in solitary confinement in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards' Ward 2-A at Evin Prison since May 10, 2014... Mirdamadi is not only a cousin of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his father, Hossein Mirdamadi, is one of the most prominent religious figures of Khorasan Province. He was interrogated several times upon his return to Iran in the summer of 2013 and eventually arrested." http://t.uani.com/1pTtdq5 IHR: "Three prisoners were hanged in public in the city of Shiraz (Southern Iran) today August 3, reported the Iranian state media. According to the official website of the Judiciary in Fars province, the three prisoners who were not identified by name were charged with 'Moharebeh' (waging war against God) through armed robbery." http://t.uani.com/1qLNa3R Opinion & Analysis Tony Badran in NOW Lebanon: "In analyzing the conflict in Gaza, many observers have focused on the role of Hamas's backers, Qatar and Turkey. But this analysis misses a key player. To understand Hamas' strategy, the place to look is Iran. After the war broke out, senior Iranian officials, including Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, expressed strong support for the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah also phoned the head of Hamas's politburo, Khaled Mashaal, and Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Shallah. Iran's relationship with Hamas has been strained for the past couple of years, so these statements mark a reinvigoration of the 'Resistance Alliance.' The rebirth of the Iranian-led axis provides the essential ingredient for a new explanation of Hamas's decision to go to war with Israel... This was not an attempt to revive the pro-Brotherhood regional camp on which certain factions in Hamas bet the house three years ago. Rather, it was the opposite. Having witnessed its regional gambit hit a catastrophic dead end, Hamas, or perhaps a faction therein, sought to return the movement back to its place within the resistance axis. A week into Operation Protective Edge, pro-Iranian media was framing the war precisely in those terms. To be sure, this is a move that's been in the making for a while. Certain figures within Hamas, most prominently the Gaza-based Mahmoud Zahar, have consistently maintained that the group cannot squander its ties with Iran. Zahar, along with military commanders from Hamas's Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades - with whom Iran deals directly - like Marwan Issa have been working in the last few months to get the relationship with Tehran back on track. There were signs in early March that the relationship was on its way to being restored. Ali Larijani, president of Iran's Shura Council, stated back then through the pro-Iranian al-Mayadeen TV that the relationship with Hamas had 'returned to what it was in the past.' In late May, Mashaal met with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Doha. The message from the meeting that Abdollahian wanted to put out was that the two sides had buried their differences over Syria. Hamas made it clear that the strategic relationship was on the mend, and there was talk at the time of an impending visit by Mashaal to Tehran. But that didn't materialize, as the circumstances were apparently not yet ripe. A little over a month later, Hamas sparked the conflict with Israel. The war was a necessary gateway for Hamas to resume its place in the resistance axis. Notwithstanding Larijani's characterization from March, however, there are changes in how Iran will deal now with Hamas. If the Gaza war is the obligatory portal for reconstituting the Iranian bloc and for Hamas's repentant return to the fold, it's not a cost-free homecoming. It carries with it structural and hierarchical modifications in the relationship with Tehran. A notable detail in the Iranian rhetoric in support of Hamas was how it positioned the group on a par with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad - a wholly owned Iranian subsidiary whose allegiance to Tehran never wavered. In addition to the elevation of Islamic Jihad's stature, the Iranians will now privilege ties with Hamas's military commanders, bypassing the politburo. Mashaal may even now need the mediation of Islamic Jihad's Ramadan Shallah in his dealing with Tehran. A visit might soon be granted to Mashaal, but not before he is made to understand his place and atone for his choices over the last three years. Hamas has had to pay a steep price in finally deciding to reorient its ship back toward Iran. It has taken a beating and it will have to compete more with Islamic Jihad, whose profile the Iranians will now raise further. After Hamas's unsuccessful attempts to diversify its regional options, Iran's grip over the movement will tighten. Moreover, the prominence of the politburo will be diminished in favor of military commanders who answer directly to Tehran. Still, the war has served to clarify Hamas's mission and place on the regional map. After a period of failed choices, the group will emerge battered, but no longer strategically adrift." http://t.uani.com/1zNpQID ISIS: "The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reportedly expressed concerns that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not address by a late August deadline two key outstanding issues concerning allegations of Iran's past and possibly ongoing work on nuclear weapons, or the so- called 'possible military dimensions' (PMD) to its nuclear program. Unless Iran addresses the IAEA's concerns before the deadline, the chance is reduced of successfully negotiating a long term nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran. They are negotiating on a separate track and are expected to resume their negotiations in the coming weeks. In May 2014, Iran and the IAEA agreed on a third of a series of measures under their November 2013 Joint Statement on a Framework for Cooperation aimed at addressing the IAEA's concerns with regard to Iran's nuclear program; two of these measures are directly related to the PMD file. With less than a month left until the August 25 deadline for fulfilling the third tranche of commitments, Iran has reportedly done little to meet its commitments on these two PMD issues. Since 2002, the IAEA has voiced concerns about the nature of Iran's nuclear program. These concerns, substantiated by over a thousand pages of technical information corroborated by secondary sources and supplied by more than ten IAEA member states, led the agency to issue a detailed account of Iran's alleged military nuclear work in its November 8, 2011 safeguards report. The IAEA listed twelve areas of Iran's nuclear activity which could potentially be linked to military nuclear programs. Although the IAEA had earlier discussions with Iran about military nuclear activities, these discussions stopped in September 2008 despite the IAEA's repeated calls for cooperation. When the Joint Plan of Action was signed in November 2013, the IAEA, received support for its mandate to work towards resolving 'past and present issues of concern.' ... For Iran, admitting that it once had a nuclear weapons program and that some of those activities even continued past 2003 may seem politically unpalatable. However, the purpose of such an admission is not to publicly humiliate Iran as some have suggested. There are many ways in which Iran can admit past nuclear weapons work and minimize embarrassment; other historical cases can provide lessons for methods to accomplish these dual goals. But ignoring this issue to spare the Islamic Republic of Iran embarrassment, or allow it to somehow 'save face,' makes no sense. To do so puts the United States and its allies at unacceptable risk. Equivalently, ignoring this issue or leaving it unresolved reduces the issue to a matter of trust. Given Iran's history of violations of its non-proliferation commitments and strong evidence of past military nuclear efforts, such a gamble would be imprudent. The Iranian regime must decide soon whether it is willing to make the type of concessions needed to secure a long term deal. One senior negotiator stated near the end of recent negotiations in Vienna that Iran must 'come to terms with reality.' Part of that reevaluation must include the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programs. This issue is not the only major stumbling block to a long term deal-there are plenty of others. However, unless there is verified assurance that Iran is no longer developing nuclear weapons, and gaining this assurance requires an understanding of the history of Iran's military nuclear efforts, any deal will be inadequate, possibly destabilizing, and bad for U.S. and international security. A fundamental question will not have a satisfactory answer: Does the deal provide sufficient assurance that Iran will not build nuclear weapons someday and possibly use them against the United States and its allies?" http://t.uani.com/1smAaER 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.