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Stories
Reuters: "The United States is still
fundamentally hostile to Iran and its policies have undermined the
benefits of sanctions relief, the Islamic Republic's hardline leader said
on Sunday, warning Iranians not to trust their old enemy. Ringing in a
new Iranian year at a televised rally in the Shi'ite holy city of
Mashhad, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said fear of U.S.
regulations was keeping big foreign companies, particularly in the
financial sector, away from Iran. The uncompromising stance of Iran's
most senior figure poses a challenge to President Hassan Rouhani, the
architect of last year's nuclear deal who hopes to open Iran's economy to
the world. In keeping with the deal, many international sanctions on Iran
were lifted in January. Since then foreign business delegations have
flocked to Tehran and billions of dollars of deals have been signed. But
European banks and other companies have stayed away, largely due to
remaining U.S. sanctions. That, Khamenei said, was a sign that Iran
should be economically self-reliant because the U.S. and its allies were
not reliable partners. 'In Western countries and places which are under
U.S. influence, our banking transactions and the repatriation of our
funds from their banks face problems ... because (banks) fear the
Americans,' he said. 'The U.S. Treasury ... acts in such a way that big
corporations, big institutions and big banks do not dare to come and deal
with Iran,' Khamenei said. The Central Bank of Iran has also said remaining
U.S. sanctions have scared off European firms. To drive the point home,
the stage on which Khamenei sat carried a giant banner reading 'the year
of the Resistance Economy: Action and Implementation', his chosen slogan
for the Iranian year 1395 that began on Sunday." http://t.uani.com/22z1iBl
NYT: "Reconnecting Iran to the world
economy is a top priority for President Rouhani. But to fully reconnect,
Iran needs to dismantle the network of thousands of intermediaries that
was devised to get around the sanctions. The problem, economists and
insiders say, is that enough sanctions remain in place that the Iranian
economy still cannot function without the network. The government has
taken some steps. The Ministry of Petroleum is working on a new, more
competitive model for its oil contracts, and the Parliament signed a bill
to fight money laundering, an important step toward more financial
transparency. But there is only so much it can do. Regular financial
transactions continue to be nearly impossible because the United States
has designated the Islamic Republic a 'state sponsor of terrorism,'
stemming from its support for the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. International
banks doing business with Iran can face up to a billion dollars in
penalties if they violate regulations. 'The financial hegemony of the
United States is so influential that European banks are scared to work
with us,' said Saeed Laylaz, an economist close to the Rouhani
government. 'We also don't have enough dollars in foreign bank accounts,
no international credit, so obviously some former sanction breakers
continue to have an intermediary role.' Iran has another reason to not
dismantle the network too hastily. The middlemen it funneled money to for
purchases around the world are sitting on billions of unspent dollars.
Getting that money back is proving to be extremely difficult, experts
say, and will only get harder if the network is dismantled. One financial
consultant who requested anonymity because of his dealings with Iranian
banks said the problem was exacerbated by a lack of record keeping. Mr.
Laylaz estimates that between 5,000 and 10,000 people worked in the
network, handling deals worth between $300 billion and $400 billion over
the past decade." http://t.uani.com/1Rv2vrB
Daily
Telegraph:
"Iran's Revolutionary Guard is planning to build a statue of the US
sailors who were captured in Iranian waters earlier this year, a senior
officer said. The provocative proposal is likely to cause outrage in the
US and be seized on by Republicans opposed to President Barack Obama's
nuclear agreement with Iran. Commander Ali Fadavi, the head of the
Guard's naval forces, said the monument of the surrendering Americans
would be a 'tourist attraction'. 'There are very many photographs of the
major incident of arresting US Marines in the Persian Gulf in the media and
we intend to build a symbol out of them inside one of our naval
monuments,' he told Iran's Defense Press news agency... The statue is
likely to be built on Kharg, a small Iranian island in the Persian Gulf
not far from where the sailors were captured. The monument could feature
as a stop for travelers on the Rahian-e-Nour, a semi-mandatory pro-regime
pilgrimage that takes visitors to historical spots from the Iran-Iraq war
and extols the virtues of the Iranian military." http://t.uani.com/25fEQiV
U.S.-Iran
Relations
AFP: "US President Barack Obama
offered holiday greetings to Iranians celebrating the first Nowruz, or
new year, since a landmark nuclear deal, and welcomed 'a chance for a
different future' between the two countries... 'Every year as president
I've taken this opportunity, the hope of spring, to speak directly with
the people of Iran about how we might open a new window and begin a new
relationship with our countries,' Obama said Saturday in a video message
to the Iranian people, posted online one day ahead of Nowruz. 'Now, for
the first time in decades, there's a chance for a different future.' ...
'The nuclear deal was never intended to resolve all the disputes between
our two nations, and the United States continues to have profound
differences with the Iranian government,' Obama said. 'But even as our
two governments continue to have serious disagreements, the fact that we
are now talking to each other on a regular basis, for the first time in
decades, gives us an opportunity, a window, to resolve other issues.' 'As
we do, I firmly believe we can continue to expand the connections between
the American and Iranian people,' Obama added." http://t.uani.com/1Rv2fcj
Sanctions
Relief
WSJ: "The U.S. government plans to
temporarily lift trade sanctions against China's ZTE Corp., a senior
Commerce Department official said Sunday, easing a source of tension
between Washington and Beijing. The U.S. slapped trade sanctions on the
telecommunications supplier earlier this month, citing evidence ZTE
violated restrictions on exporting American technological goods to Iran
and other nations. 'As part of the effort to resolve the matter, and
based upon binding commitments that ZTE has made to the U.S. government,
Commerce expects this week to be able to provide temporary relief from
some licensing requirements,' the senior Commerce official said. The
official characterized talks with the company as 'active' and
'constructive.' But the official also emphasized that removal from a
blacklist 'would be temporary in nature and would be maintained only if
ZTE is abiding by its commitments to the U.S. government.'" http://t.uani.com/1Rw6Og3
Iraq
Crisis
AP: "It was a tense confrontation
between two forces supposed to be on the same side in Iraq. First,
heavily armed police, led by the interior minister, waded into a Shiite
militia base south of Baghdad and arrested its deputy commander, accused
of organizing attacks on Sunni mosques. They loaded the man, Ali Reda,
into an armored SUV. Then militia reinforcements descended, surrounded
the police and demanded Reda be freed. Weapons were drawn. The minister,
Mohammed al-Ghabban, the highest figure in Iraq's police force,
frantically called Baghdad from inside his SUV. In the end, al-Ghabban
surrendered his prisoner and left empty-handed, angry and humiliated. The
standoff in mid-January, described to The Associated Press by six
different officials and militia leaders, was a stark example of the power
that Shiite militias have accrued in Iraq and their boldness in wielding
it. These militias, many of them backed by Iran, mobilized in 2014 to
fight Sunni extremists from the Islamic State group. However, they are
now showing no intention of standing down after the battle, demanding
instead to be a major force shaping Iraq. That prospect worries not only
Iraq's Sunni minority but also officials in the military and the
Shiite-led government, who fear the militias will dominate Iraq the way
the Revolutionary Guard does Iran and the guerrilla group Hezbollah does
Lebanon. Two top generals warned that the army could eventually come to
blows with the militias, known collectively as the 'Hashd,' Arabic for
'mobilization.'" http://t.uani.com/1Rw6VZa
Reuters: "An Iranian-backed militia said
on Monday it said it would treat U.S. Marines deployed in Iraq to fight
Islamic State as forces of occupation and 'deal' with the foreign troops.
Washington said on Sunday a detachment of the 26th Marine Expeditionary
Unit was in Iraq, bolstering efforts by the United States and a coalition
of allies against Islamic State. 'If the U.S. administration doesn't
withdraw its forces immediately, we will deal with them as forces of
occupation,' the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia said on its TV channel, al-Ahd.
'The forces of occupation are making a new suspicious attempt to restore
their presence in the country under the pretext of fighting their own
creation, Daesh,' the Shi'ite Muslim militia added, referring to an
acronym for Islamic State, a ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim movement." http://t.uani.com/1RaujiU
WSJ: "[U.S. ambassador to Baghdad,
Zalmay] Khalilzad describes in his book the cat-and-mouse game the
Americans played with Gen. Soleimani as the U.S. military occupation of
Iraq stretched on. The general was the mastermind of Iranian efforts to
train and equip Shiite militias that were attacking U.S. and coalition
forces inside Iraq. Gen. Soleimani also told Iraq's former president,
Jalal Talabani, that Mr. Khalilzad himself could become a target. 'I
learned that Soleimani had been ranting about me,' Mr. Khalilzad writes.
''Khalilzad is singularly the worst person in the world,' he said, noting
that he personally wanted to come to Iraq and kill this Khalilzad.'"
http://t.uani.com/22s5hD3
Regional
Destabilization
Daily
Star (Lebanon):
"Prime Minister Tammam Salam justified Arab countries' concerns
about a possible Iranian advancement in the region, describing attempts
to challenge it as 'legal.' 'Iran is expanding vastly in the Arab world,
while Arabs are not intervening in its affairs. The complaints are legal
and based on distrust,' Salam said in an interview with the Saudi-owned
daily Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. The premier said that his government is
relentlessly seeking to rectify Lebanon's gap with Arab countries,
particularly Gulf states, by affirming Lebanon's keenness to preserve
Arab consensus and unity. The Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council has been
alarmed by the international rehabilitation of Tehran since it reached a
deal with major powers last year, ending a 13-year standoff over its
controversial nuclear program. The intensifying battle for influence
between the region's main Sunni and Shiite powers has sparked growing
concern in Lebanon, which is witnessing measures being taken against
suspected Hezbollah-linked individuals and companies in Gulf
countries." http://t.uani.com/25fFblG
Domestic
Politics
Reuters: "Iran's two most powerful
figures offered contrasting visions for the economy in speeches marking
Iranian new year on Sunday, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
calling for self-reliance and President Hassan Rouhani urging cooperation
with the world. In Nowruz speeches, Khamenei and Rouhani looked back on
the past year, which saw sanctions on Iran lifted under a nuclear deal
with world powers, and agreed the economy should be a top priority in the
new Iranian year. But while Rouhani said further engagement with other
countries was the key to economic growth, Khamenei reaffirmed his
commitment to the concept of a 'resistance economy' centred on
self-sufficiency. The competing messages underscore differences between
the two leaders, who both subscribe to the principles of the Islamic
Republic but have divergent ideas about how it should engage with the
global economy and in particular Western powers." http://t.uani.com/1Sd19yP
ICHRI: "Iranians have a constitutional
right to take their government to court and seek damages for worsening
environmental pollution, attorney Mostafa Tork Hamadani told the
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Hamadani previously made
headlines suing the Ahmadinejad government (2005-2013) for allegedly
distributing sub-standard gasoline that contained dangerous particles.
Now he is arguing that Iran's Constitution makes the state responsible
for protecting the environment and therefore liable for deaths caused by
pollution. In an interview with the Campaign, Hamadani referred to
Article 50 of the Constitution, which states: 'The preservation of the
environment, in which the present as well as the future generations have
a right to flourishing social existence, is regarded as a public duty in
the Islamic Republic. Economic and other activities that inevitably involve
pollution of the environment or cause irreparable damage to it are
therefore forbidden.' ... Every hour two people-or more than 17,000 a
year-die in Tehran from air pollution poisoning, Deputy Health Minister
Ali Akbar Sayyari said during Friday prayers in Tehran on April 25, 2014,
as reported by the Jame-e-Jam news website. Transportation official Mehdi
Ghat'ee told the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) on November 18, 2013
that air pollution kills 45,000 people every year in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1pEWSuU
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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