Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Eye on Iran: Iran Says Journalist Arrests Not a Matter for US









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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

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.





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