Eye on Iran: Iran's Khamenei Says US Lifted Sanctions Only on Paper

Join UANI           Top Stories AFP: "Iran's supreme leader and president accused the United States of hostility and bad faith Wednesday, saying the implementation of its nuclear deal with world powers was not being honoured. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei echoed other officials in Tehran who allege that Washington is creating hurdles for European financial institutions, more than three months after the agreement came into force. With nuclear-related sanctions lifted, US and European diplomats have said there is no bar on non-American banks doing business with Iran. But it is not happening in reality, Khamenei said. 'On paper they say that foreign banks can do business with Iran but, in practice, they are fomenting Iranophobia to prevent relations. The United States creates disruptions and then asks us afterwards: 'Why are you suspicious'?' Khamenei told workers in the capital. European officials have told AFP their bankers fear they could face fines or even criminal cases against their US subsidiaries if they rush back to Tehran. At a separate event, President Hassan Rouhani criticised a decision by the US Supreme Court last week to make $2 billion of frozen Iranian assets available to American victims of terror attacks. US officials blame Tehran for attacks including the bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. Tehran threatened on Monday to take action in the International Court of Justice against the US if the $2 billion belonging to Iran's Central Bank is 'diverted' to 1,000 Americans affected by the ruling. 'This is a totally illegal action and contrary to international rules and immunity of central banks,' Rouhani said, calling it 'a violation and open hostility by the United States against the Iranian people.'" http://t.uani.com/1YTACsl NYT: "An Iranian revolutionary court handed down long prison terms on Tuesday to four journalists supportive of the government of President Hassan Rouhani, Iranian news media reported. All were convicted on charges of having acted against national security. Noting that Mr. Rouhani has called for more press freedom in several speeches, analysts said the prison sentences were a warning by Iran's conservative-dominated judiciary that it would not accept any relaxation of the rules for journalists. A prominent reporter and actress, Afarin Chitsaz, was sentenced to 10 years, the Iranian Students' News Agency reported... All of the journalists worked for reformist newspapers. They included the editor in chief of Farhikhtegan, Eshan Manzandarani, who received a seven-year sentence. The other two were Davood Asadi, who received five years, and Eshan Safarzaiee, who received seven years. The four were arrested in November by the intelligence unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on suspicion of assisting the United States in ''infiltrating' the country. Ms. Chitsaz was also convicted of 'having connections with foreign governments,' her lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, said in an interview... International press freedom groups denounced the punishments. 'Convicting journalists for 'acting against national security' underlines the need to change the overbroad laws that lead to the harassment and jailing of the media,' the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement. 'Iranian authorities must cease imprisoning journalists.'" http://t.uani.com/1MZ9gAh FT: "The first neighbourhood they unplugged was Olaya, Riyadh's wealthiest and gaudiest central district. By the time they had finished their rampage through the computer systems behind the power grid, the infiltrators believed they had left millions without electricity, crippling hospitals and military facilities. What the hackers, whose use of Farsi and bespoke malware gave away their Iranian origins, did not realise was that the critical computer networks they had compromised were fake... The model MalCrawler designed to replicate the Israeli power grid was hit just as hard as the Saudi one. The hackers, again displaying tell-tale signs of Iranian origin, fatally compromised the safety systems of what they thought was one of Israel's nuclear power stations... Iran is rapidly emerging as the sixth member of the cyber superpower club. Denuded of its nuclear ambitions by the landmark deal struck last year to limit uranium and plutonium enrichment, some fear Tehran will wield its cyber arsenal as an equally long-range weapon with which to menace its adversaries. 'Before the [nuclear] deal, cyber was just one option they used for leverage, but now, post deal, it is even more central to their toolkit,' says one senior Middle Eastern intelligence official. 'Iran is poised to do something in cyber that will change the way the world looks at it ... the US knows this. [The US] saw what they [Iran] did during the agreement and they know what they are doing after it.'" http://t.uani.com/1SK31zs U.S.-Iran Relations AP: "Iran's state TV is reporting the country's president has harshly criticized a recent U.S. court ruling that allows the seizure of Iranian assets. The Wednesday report on the state TV website quotes President Hassan Rouhani as calling the ruling a blatant theft and an example of enduring American hostility toward Iran. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the families of victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran can collect nearly $2 billion of frozen funds from Iran as compensation. Addressing a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Rouhani added, 'The move indicates Washington's continued hostility against the Iranian nation.'" http://t.uani.com/1TdLZqX Congressional Action The Hill: "A Republican senator is trying to block the Obama administration from buying nuclear materials from Iran. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) this week filed an amendment to an energy and water appropriations bill that would bar the government from using federal funds to buy Iran's heavy water, which can be used in nuclear reactors. 'It seems the president will go to any lengths to protect his nuclear deal,' Cotton said in a statement. 'We've given the terror-sponsoring Iranian regime enough concessions at the risk of our security; we should not further subsidize its enrichment activity by making repeated purchases of this material.' The measure is not scheduled to come up for a vote, and it is unclear whether it will hit the Senate floor before lawmakers take up the underlying appropriations bill on Wednesday." http://t.uani.com/1NT52F9 Free Beacon: "Obama administration officials are declining to provide specific details about an unprecedented upcoming purchase of Iranian nuclear materials, an $8.6 million exchange that is likely to be funded using American taxpayer dollars, according to conversations with multiple administration officials and sources in Congress. The administration is preparing to purchase from Iran 32 tons of heavy water, a key nuclear material, in a bid to keep Iran in compliance with last summer's comprehensive nuclear agreement. But administration officials have declined to provide specific details to Congress and reporters about how exactly it will pay for the purchase, as well as other information, until the deal has been completed. The effort to withhold key information about the purchase, which is likely to be paid in some form using U.S. taxpayer dollars, is causing frustration on Capitol Hill, according to multiple sources who disclosed to the Washington Free Beaconthat the administration is rebuffing congressional attempts to discern further information about the deal... 'We cannot discuss details of the payment until after the purchase is complete,' a Treasury Department official who was not authorized to speak on record told the Free Beacon. 'The Department of Energy's Isotope Program plans to pay Iran approximately $8.6 million dollars for 32 metric tons of heavy water.' The administration will use an offshore third party to facilitate the transfer of cash to Iran, according to officials in both the Treasury and Energy departments." http://t.uani.com/1VC2KCs Free Beacon: "The Obama administration faces accusations it has been misleading Congress about the amount and destination of sanctions relief being provided to Iran as part of last summer's nuclear agreement, according to lawmakers and congressional sources who expressed anger at the administration over a range of contradictory facts being offered about the payouts. Secretary of State John Kerry came under scrutiny last week after saying in a statement that Iran has received only about $3 billion in sanctions relief to date-a figure far smaller than the $100 billion estimate administration officials had previously said Iran would receive under the deal. It also contradicts statements from top Iranian officials that they had regained control of $100 billion in foreign reserves unfrozen under the deal... The State Department has been unable to provide congressional officials with specific details regarding the source of Kerry's claim, prompting accusations from some that the administration is obfuscating details about the amount of money Iran will gain access to under the nuclear deal... 'While bragging to J Street, Secretary of State Kerry inexplicably claimed Iran has only 'received' $3 billion in sanctions relief under the nuclear deal,' Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) told the Free Beacon. 'The administration and its supporters won't hold Iran fully accountable for ballistic missile tests and now they are obfuscating the nuclear deal's financial benefits to Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/1WpM2Fa Military Matters TASS (Russia): "Russia may supply additional types of armaments not subject to existing bans to Iran, the chief of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Alexander Fomin, said Tuesday. 'We have contracts with Iran, other contracts are also possible, but the talk is only about the permitted objects of supply, which are not on the UN's ban list,' Fomin said when asked whether the delivery of other weapons besides S-300 missile systems was discussed. The service chief said that the permitted armaments include small arms and other products, including non-lethal, radiolocation and electronic warfare systems etc. According to the official, the supply of Russia's S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran is meeting the schedule, even going partly ahead of schedule." http://t.uani.com/1SAzWnW Human Rights AP: "Tehran resident Sousan Heidari has stopped letting her headscarf slip casually down over her neck and shoulders while driving in the Iranian capital. These days, the 22-year-old with a taste for bold makeup makes sure to pull it tightly over her dark hair, fearful of running afoul of a newly established undercover division of the morality police. 'Every single man or woman could be a member of the unit,' she cautioned. 'I don't know. Maybe some plainclothes have already reported me because of heavy makeup.' Tehran police chief Gen. Hossein Sajedinia recently announced his department had deployed 7,000 male and female officers for a new plainclothes division - the largest such undercover assignment in memory. Authorities say the division, which started work last week, will patrol major Tehran streets and intersections, policing transgressions including harassment against women and excessive car honking and engine noise. Critics fear the unit's main focus, however, will be enforcing the government-mandated Islamic dress code, which requires women be modestly covered from head to toe... Influential ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani alluded to those concerns about moral erosion during a recent Friday sermon in Tehran, saying that a woman driving without a veil, 'cannot be called freedom.'" http://t.uani.com/1T4tLYx Opinion & Analysis Eli Lake in Bloomberg: "Many Western journalists, diplomats and others seem desperate to believe that Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, is a moderate in a sea of hardliners, a rare Iranian with whom the West can and has done business. Take Secretary of State John Kerry. It seems that every other day he is in contact with Zarif, implementing the spirit of the nuclear deal the two men have been negotiating since 2013. Zarif himself told the New Yorker in an interview published Monday that they are usually talking at least two to three times a week, sometimes two to three times a day. If only Zarif were worthy of Kerry's attentiveness. He is not. Kerry is sincere in his desire to resolve past differences between the U.S. and Iran and place the relationship on a sounder footing. Zarif has a very different mission. The Iranian foreign minister's job is not to change Iran's behavior, but to pretend that Iran is no different from any other Western country, with hardliners and moderates, national interests and diplomatic imperatives. If Zarif were foreign minister of Belgium, he wouldn't have to work so hard at getting people to believe him. But he is the top diplomat for the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, whose security services marked the completion of the nuclear deal by arresting an Iranian-American dual national businessman a couple months later. So Zarif has to engage in the ancient art of lying, to put it undiplomatically. Consider Zarif's New Yorker interview. He complains that the U.S. is not holding up its part of the Iran deal because it is not guaranteeing that any bank or company that invests in Iran will have no problems with the U.S. Treasury down the road. And yet, Zarif must know that the nuclear deal lifted only the sanctions levied for Iran's nuclear program, but left in place U.S. sanctions for Iran's support for terrorism and human rights abuses. Zarif is most brazen when he is asked about Iran's upcoming Holocaust cartoon contest. His first answer is that the government of Iran is not hosting the contest. 'It's an N.G.O. that is not controlled by the Iranian government. Nor is it endorsed by the Iranian government,' he said. Zarif then went onto compare the contest's organizers to the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. 'Why does the United States have the Ku Klux Klan?' he asked. 'Is the government of the United States responsible for the fact that there are racially hateful organizations in the United States? Don't consider Iran a monolith. The Iranian government does not support, nor does it organize, any cartoon festival of the nature that you're talking about. When you stop your own organizations from doing things, then you can ask others to do likewise.' For good measure, Zarif acknowledged that the government granted visas to the Holocaust-mocking cartoonists coming to Iran in June. But don't worry, he assured: 'We take into consideration that people who have preached racial hatred and violence will not be invited.' Zarif is counting on readers to not scrutinize his claims. The website of the organization hosting the contest for example says it was founded in 1998 and is sponsored by 'municipality of Tehran,' the capital of Iran. Nik Kowsar, an Iranian cartoonist who fled Iran in 2003 under death threats for his anti-government cartoons, told me that the Cartoon House also must receive permission from Iran's interior ministry to host its biennial exhibition.  Zarif's attempt to draw a Klan parallel also fails. He's pretending Iran has free speech protections like the U.S. does. The First Amendment makes the Klan possible, the logic goes, and so Iran's society allows a few Holocaust deniers, he says. But this is nonsense. Iran arrests cartoonists for drawings that do not please the state, while its supreme leader is an avid Holocaust denier... Perhaps the time has come to try a different approach and to begin treating Zarif with the same lack of respect he has shown his Western audiences." http://t.uani.com/26tXWCE         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.