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AFP:
"The detention of the Washington Post's Tehran correspondent and
two other journalists is a domestic issue and not a matter for the
United States, a top Iranian official has said. Deputy Foreign Minister
Hassan Ghashghavi's comments concerned reporter Jason Rezaian and a
photographer, both of whom are dual US-Iranian citizens and were
arrested on July 22. 'We do not accept dual nationalities. If a person
enters Iran with an Iranian passport, that person is considered an
Iranian citizen,' Ghashghavi told Vatan-e-Emrooz, a prominent
conservative daily. 'And we do not allow other countries to demand
consular rights on behalf of Iranians,' he was quoted as saying
Wednesday." http://t.uani.com/1AUpCRr
Bloomberg:
"The International Monetary Fund said President Hassan Rouhani's
policies of reducing energy subsidies along with the easing of
international sanctions have helped to steady Iran's economy and cut
inflation. 'The process of stabilization has taken hold and we do see
the results already in a dramatic improvement in inflation,' Masood
Ahmed, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department,
told reporters in Tehran today. Iran's $400 billion economy is forecast
by the Fund to expand 1.5 percent this year, after two years of
contraction. Ahmed said that the lifting of some sanctions under a
preliminary nuclear accord reached in November has helped the recovery,
though he said growth is still 'not what it needs to be to meet the
aspirations of the Iranian people.' Inflation dropped to about 15 percent
last month, according to Iran's central bank, from a peak of about 45
percent reported by the IMF before Rouhani's election last year, partly
driven by cash subsidies handed out under Rouhani's predecessor,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The new government has begun to scale back those
payments." http://t.uani.com/1y5rVg4
AFP:
"Russia and Iran have agreed to discuss next month a contract for
Tehran to export two percent of its annual oil production in an
apparent circumvention of sanctions imposed over its nuclear drive. The
controversial deal is just a tenth the size of that discussed by the
two close partners last year and appears to be aimed at shielding
Russia from additional punitive steps imposed by the United States for
violating international restrictions on the Islamic state. Russia's
energy ministry said Tuesday it had signed a memorandum of
understanding with a visiting Iranian delegation that paves the way for
contract talks to begin on September 9 in Tehran. The five-year
framework agreement covers 'the construction and reconstruction of
(Iranian power) generation capacities, electricity supply network
infrastructure development, as well as oil and gas,' the ministry said
in a statement. It added that Russia was also hoping to supply Iran
with automobiles and equipment and well as consumer and agricultural
goods. Initial Russian and Western media reports said the deal would
see Iran export of up to 500,000 barrels of oil per day (25 million
tonnes per year). But Moscow's Kommersant business daily cited sources
as saying the discussions now focused on Russia's purchase of about
70,000 barrels of oil per day -- a small fraction of the 3.2 million
barrels per day the US Energy Information Administration believes Iran
produced last year." http://t.uani.com/1kmBjey
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Reuters:
"Iran and six world powers will probably discuss a potential deal
on Tehran's nuclear program on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General
Assembly (UNGA) in September, the state news agency IRNA quoted a
senior Iranian negotiator as saying. Negotiations are to resume in
Europe next month after Iran agreed with the powers - the United
States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China - in July to extend
the process by four months after they failed to meet a July 20
deadline. 'A meeting between Iran and the (powers) is very likely to
take place around the UNGA, but the level of the meeting has yet to be
determined,' IRNA quoted senior Iranian negotiator Abbas Araghchi, a
deputy foreign minister, as saying on Monday. He said the Islamic
Republic would take advantage of the opportunity provided by the
General Assembly, where the main high-level session usually attended by
senior officials starts on Sept. 24." http://t.uani.com/XDEgNq
Trend:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says abject flexibility against
world powers is forbidden. Addressing people in the southwestern city
of Shahrekord, Rouhani said: 'As the supreme leader has outlined, we will
have heroic flexibility, and any cowardice against big powers is
forbidden,' Iran's Fars news agency reported on Aug. 6. 'While the big
powers had unjustly blocked assets of [Iranian] people, we pulled $7
billion out of their hands. This is the first step. The world knows
that threat and sanction are no longer effective,' Rouhani said." http://t.uani.com/1ocbwqa
Sanctions
Relief
Bloomberg:
"The U.S. investigation of UniCredit SpA (UCG) on suspicions it
violated economic sanctions with Iran involves far fewer transactions
than those that surfaced in probes of other banks, Chief Executive
Officer Federico Ghizzoni said. Italy's biggest bank is one of several
European financial institutions bracing for the outcome of
investigations for alleged sanctions-busting after France's BNP Paribas
SA (BNP) was fined a record $8.97 billion in June for dealing with
blacklisted countries. French lenders Credit Agricole SA (ACA) and
Societe Generale SA (GLE) and Germany's Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and
Commerzbank AG are also under scrutiny from state and federal
authorities including the U.S. Department of Justice. The UniCredit
case involves volumes 'by far lower than what we have seen with many
other banks,"'Ghizzoni said in an interview with Bloomberg
Television late yesterday, referring to questionable payments the bank
is alleged to have processed and could be fined for. He didn't
elaborate on the number and said the bank isn't considering setting
aside funds to cover possible penalties." http://t.uani.com/1AUoXze
Human Rights
IHR:
"Four prisoners were hanged publicly in the city of Shiraz
(Southern Iran) today August 8. According to the official website of
the Iranian Judiciary in Fars province two of the prisoners were
sentenced to death charged with sodomy... Since there was no mention of
rape in the report there is possibility that these men were sentenced
to death for sexual relationship with the same sex... Iranian media
also reported about execution of two prisoners in Karaj. One of the
prisoners...was hanged publicly." http://t.uani.com/1pCaNwW
AFP:
"A former Iranian student leader and reformist turned journalist
has been jailed for six years for undermining national security and
spreading propaganda, less than 12 months after he returned home. The
sentence handed down to Serajeddine Mirdamadi is the latest in a series
of convictions of academics, activists and reporters for crimes
officially deemed as damaging to the Islamic republic. Mirdamadi 'was
sentenced to five years for acts against national security and one year
for spreading propaganda against the regime,' Ghiti Pourfazel, his
lawyer, told official IRNA news agency. 'We will definitely appeal,'
she added. IRNA did not disclose any details of specific acts that led
to the charges and conviction." http://t.uani.com/X1sgpb
Foreign
Affairs
Tehran Times:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the Israeli occupation and
aggression is the main cause of all the problems in the Middle East,
Press TV reported. In a meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran
Bassil in Tehran on Monday, President Rouhani said that over the past
66 years the Zionist regime of Israel has continued aggressions in the Middle
East. President Rouhani hailed the Lebanese and Palestinian nations for
their resistance against the Israeli regime, saying that unity,
solidarity and cooperation among regional countries are the sole way to
counter the issue of occupation and terrorism in the region." http://t.uani.com/1pXd8Qi
Opinion &
Analysis
Emily Landau
& Owen Alterman in Al-Monitor: "Seyed Hossein
Mousavian, in an Al-Monitor article on July 31, argued for a total
revamping of the geopolitics of the Middle East including closing the
Iranian nuclear dossier 'in the shortest time possible,' to set the
stage for establishing a bilateral US-Iran dialogue to address severe
regional crises. By signing a nuclear deal with Iran, the paths to
US-Iranian cooperation would open, which would ostensibly enable them
first and foremost to coordinate their fight against radical Sunni
jihadism wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq. But what sort of US-Iranian
cooperation does Mousavian suggest, and why should we expect it to
improve in the wake of a nuclear deal, especially if that deal involves
excessive concessions by the P5+1? More fundamentally, from a US point
of view, why is this cooperation even necessary or desirable? The added
value of US-Iranian cooperation is not self-evident. Both states have
an incentive to fight Sunni jihadists, and both are likely to do so
regardless of what the other does. If anything, Iran's incentive to
take on radicals amassing at its border is far greater than America's.
For the United States, the Syrian-Iraqi theater is one among many in
the war against terror. But for Iran, chaos in Iraq poses a supreme
risk to its national security. A scenario in which Sunni radicals set
up camp near Iran's western border could import longstanding sectarian
feuds close to the heart of Iranian population centers. The Iranian
regime for decades has been planting violent proxies throughout the
Middle East, provoking war and promoting extremist ideologies. US
policymakers might wish for limited cooperation with Iran, of the sort
Mousavian and some other pundits encourage, but such cooperation would
risk boosting the entire Iranian proxy network, already emboldened by
an Iranian patron with nuclear threshold status. Such a maneuver would
place the Middle East under even greater risks of extremism, but for
Mousavian, threats seem to emanate only from the Islamic State (IS) and
similar terrorist groups; he not surprisingly totally ignores the
threat stemming from Iran. But while IS has an uncompromising,
nihilistic ideology, it is that very same stubbornness and nihilism
that are its Achilles' heel. Already, local brigades have begun forming
in Mosul to challenge IS after its overreach and barbarity. By
contrast, the Iranian regime and its proxies are much more devious and
far better organized. The Iranian regime uses the tools of statecraft,
shapes its image through soft power and often makes expedient tactical
compromises in exchange for long-term gains. This superficial
sophistication hides the regime's underlying cruelty. Plenty of prominent
diplomats have mistaken Iran's tactical cooperation for moderation, a
mistake that the United States should avoid. For his part, Mousavian
does a full-fledged whitewash of the Islamic Republic's record. Iran,
he says, is 'preventing the total collapse of Syria' and 'preventing
the disintegration of Iraq and its falling into the hands of
extremists.' Hardly: The Iranian regime is the extremist. In Israel, we
understand this dynamic well. The Gazan rockets now fired at our homes
were paid for and supplied, in many cases, by Iran. A recent op-ed in
the Washington Post, which shares Mousavian's sentiments regarding the
need to quickly reach a nuclear deal to enable US-Iranian cooperation,
argues that 'Israel, too, must see that this violent Islamist turbulence
requires it to reconsider which foreign power represents its most
serious threat.' But we, like other long-standing US allies here in the
region, know our priorities very well. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei's recent statement regarding the Gaza fighting, whereby the
only solution is the annihilation of Israel, drives home what our
response to this question is." http://t.uani.com/1mm4A4i
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