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AP: "The deputy commander of Iran's powerful
Revolutionary Guard said Iranian forces will close the strategic Strait
of Hormuz to the United States and its allies if they 'threaten' the
Islamic Republic, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday. The comments
by Gen. Hossein Salami, carried on state television, follow a long
history of both rhetoric and confrontation between Iran and the U.S. over
the narrow strait, through which nearly a third of all oil traded by sea
passes. The remarks by the acting commander of the Guard also follow
those of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who on Monday criticized
U.S. activities in the Persian Gulf. It's unclear whether that signals
any new Iranian concern over the strait or possible confrontation with
the U.S. following its nuclear deal with world powers. In his remarks,
Salami said that 'Americans should learn from recent historical truths,'
likely referring to the January capture of 10 U.S. sailors who entered
Iranian waters. The sailors were released less than a day later, though
state TV aired footage of the sailors on their knees with their hands on
their heads. 'If the Americans and their regional allies want to pass
through the Strait of Hormuz and threaten us, we will not allow any
entry,' Salami said, without elaborating on what he and other leaders
would consider a threat. He added: 'Americans cannot make safe any part
of the world.'" http://t.uani.com/24xEQcM
Fox News: "Any deal between Boeing and
Iran 'would effectively subsidize the world's leading state sponsor of
terrorism' and would turn American airplanes into Iranian 'warplanes,'
according to three members of Congress in a strongly-worded letter sent
to the aircraft giant Monday. The letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg
implores the company to refrain from a reported deal with Tehran to
supply planes and other services. Under the terms of the Iran nuke deal,
commercial aircraft can be sold to Iran, a concession made 'at the behest
of Tehran,' the letter said. The Islamic Republic's ruling regime holds a
majority ownership stake in the country's national airline, Iran Air.
'This is not about doing what is legal - it is about doing what is right,'
the letter said. The authors, Illinois Republican members of Congress
Peter Roskam, Bob Dold and Randy Hultgren, repeatedly cite Iran's
well-documented links to terror financing and allege that passenger air
flights have played a particular role in Iran being able to supply deadly
weapons - such as rockets or missiles - to notorious groups. 'We urge you
not to be complicit in the likely conversion of Boeing aircraft to IRGC
warplanes,' the letter said, using an acronym for the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps." http://t.uani.com/1VJN2oG
AFP: "Iran has stopped placing
orders to import U.S.-made cars after criticism from supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, news agencies in the Islamic republic reported
Tuesday. The industry, mining and trade ministry had previously allowed
24 models manufactured by the General Motors-owned Chevrolet to be
brought in via a third country. 'Import order placement for American
Chevrolet cars has been disabled since Sunday' on the government's online
imports website, Farhad Ehteshamzadeh, head of the Association of Auto
Importers, told the Fars news agency. 'After Chevrolet order placements
were removed from the system, no orders will be allowed for (Chevrolet)
cars,' he said, without giving figures for the number of vehicles
imported previously. The order to halt the imports came from Industry,
Mining and Trade Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, following a call by
Khamenei last week, the Mehr news agency said. 'Americans themselves
don't use U.S.-made cars,' Khamenei said Wednesday during a speech
related to Labor Day on the importance of domestic production. 'We have
seen this reflected in American media. They argue that fuel consumption
is high and the cars are heavy.' If this is the case, why import vehicles
from America, Khamenei asked. 'Who should stand against them? Officials
themselves, respected ministers.'" http://t.uani.com/1Oe5E8z
Business
Risk
WashPost: "A plan to import 200
Chevrolets - the first official crop of new American-brand cars since the
1979 Islamic revolution - has been blocked by officials, an Iranian news
agency reported Tuesday. The report by the Mehr news agency gave few
details of the shipment or the decision to call it off by Iran's Ministry
of Industry, Mines and Trade. But it's yet another cautionary tale for
any company looking for footholds in the Iranian market after last year's
nuclear accord with Tehran eased international sanctions. Import codes,
trade regulations, commercial priorities - and the mood of Iranian
leaders - are all constantly shifting. What's left for foreign businesses
is a landscape both tempting and frustrating: lots of headaches and
uncertainties but potentially big rewards among a vast, young and
well-educated consumer market hungry for whatever Western goods make it
their way." http://t.uani.com/1rUc7RZ
Tasnim
(Iran): "A US
Department of State official said the government cannot order banks to
take 'risky' actions and reengage with Iranian financial entities
following a lasting nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. Jarrett
Blanc, the deputy of lead coordinator for the nuclear agreement
implementation Stephen D. Mull, pointed to recent reports on a US plan to
relax financial restrictions on Iran and said the government cannot order
banks to take actions that they view as risky, al-Monitor reported. He
made the remarks on Tuesday during the Europe-Iran Forum in Zurich."
http://t.uani.com/1UyLyfV
Al-Monitor: "Iran's largest bank is eager
to resume ties with major European banks, but only smaller financial
institutions have been willing to return to the Iranian market in the
aftermath of a landmark nuclear deal. In an interview May 3 with
Al-Monitor on the sidelines of a conference in Zurich, Mostafa Beheshti
Rouy, an executive board member of Bank Pasargad, attributed this
reluctance to multibillion-dollar settlement agreements reached by major
European banks with the US Justice Department over prior sanctions
violations... Beheshti Rouy said the sanctions undercut Iranian banks and
forced trade financing into murky channels. His bank, which was founded
in 2005, handled $11 billion worth of trade financing in 2011-12, he
said, but its market share collapsed to $1 billion the following year
under sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1W7r7Ia
Sanctions
Relief
Mehr
(Iran): "German
Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel has sent letters to the country's banks,
encouraging them to expand cooperation with Iran, his deputy minister
said Tuesday. Uwe Beckmeyer made the remark in Iran-Germany's joint
economic commission's meeting in Tehran on Tuesday, adding 'I will use
this opportunity presented to us due to the lift of sanctions to call on
German banks to make the most of developing ties and cooperation with
Iranian banks.' He expressed hope that the guarantee offered by Hermes
insurance company will encourage German banks to expedite their efforts
in reactivating banking relations with Iran. Meanwhile, an economic MoU
was signed between Iranian deputy economic minister Mohammad Khazaei and
his German counterpart Uwe Beckmeyer here in Tehran on Tuesday. Other
MoUs signed between the two countries include one between Iran's Chamber
of Commerce and German Institute of Consulting Services, one between UT
National Laboratory of Brain Mapping and the medical sector of German
Siemens, two MoUs between Siemens GA and the Iranian side on steel and
industrial machinery cooperation, as well as one agreement between German
Linde Group and National Iran Gas Company. Iran-Germany Joint Economic
Commission's meeting was held May 3, for the first time after 15 years.
German Deputy Economy Minister Uwe Beckmeyer co-chaired the session in
the absence of German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who canceled his
trip due to illness." http://t.uani.com/1W7sBSs
Press TV
(Iran): "Iran
and Germany have signed some memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on
cooperation in sectors of oil and natural gas. The MoUs were sealed by
the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Tehran-based Oil Turbo
Compressor Company (OTC) and Germany's Siemens. NIOC chief Rokneddin
Javadi and OTC director Sa'eed Mohtadi struck the energy cooperation
deals with Siegfried Russwurm, member of the managing board of Siemens AG
and its chief technology officer, IRNA reported. Under the agreements,
the parties involved will work jointly to overhaul equipment and facilities
at Iran's oil operations and refineries and also to develop
higher-capacity turbines used in the industry. IRNA added that Siemens on
Tuesday singed a separate MoU with Iran's National Gas Company to develop
compressors and increase the existing system's output capacity." http://t.uani.com/1Y88D8f
Reuters: "Austria's OMV signed a
memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Iranian Oil Company
(NIOC) on Wednesday as it looks to revive its activities in Iran. OMV
Chief Executive Rainer Seele, who took the helm at Austria's biggest
company last July, has singled out Iran, Russia and the United Arab
Emirates in a push away from expensive North Sea field exploration.
Wednesday's deal signed in Tehran covers several areas from oil and gas
field evaluation to crude oil and petroleum product swaps... OMV's envisaged
projects are located in the Zagros area in western Iran, including the
Cheshmeh Khosh and Band-E-Karkheh fields where OMV had started operations
in 2001, and the Fars field in the south, OMV said. 'This Memorandum of
Understanding is an important first step in resuming OMV's activities in
Iran and in the long-term cooperation with the NIOC,' Seele, who is also
pushing for closer ties with Russia's Gazprom, said in a statement. 'We
look forward to evaluating the opportunities of OMV in Iran and the cooperation
with NIOC to evaluate whether there are areas of potential cooperation in
the exploration and development of oil and gas,' Seele said. Last
November, Seele said OMV was not interested in gas projects in Iran,
citing high costs." http://t.uani.com/26T4kU5
Press TV
(Iran): "Iran
on Monday awarded a deal to South Korean's energy giant KOGAS over the
development of one of its key gas fields in the Persian Gulf. Rokneddin
Javadi, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC),
has been quoted by the media as saying that KOGAS will as per the deal
conduct technical studies of Balal gas field. Javadi added that the South
Korean energy company will then present its proposals over the
development of Balal project to the NIOC. The proposals, he said, will
also include the possibility of using the gas from the field to produce
liquid natural gas (LNG). The Korean company had earlier signed a basic
agreement with the NIOC over the production of LNG, its marketing as well
as the transfer of its experiences to Iran in the same area. A separate
agreement had also been signed over providing engineering services for
the construction of two key gas pipelines for Iran - Iran Gas Trunk-Line
7 (IGAT 7) and Iran Gas Trunk-Line 9 (IGAT 9)." http://t.uani.com/1TtHOas
Reuters: "Turkish energy company Turcas
Petrol is looking at entering the Iranian energy market through
investments in oil, gas or renewables following the lifting of most
sanctions against the Islamic Republic, its chief executive said on
Tuesday. 'We believe we definitely must be in Iran,' Batu Aksoy told
reporters. 'At a time when growth in the world is stalling, a market like
Iran could be a driving force both globally and for Turkey,' he said.
Turcas is interested in teaming up with a local company but is also open
to cooperating with Turkish firms, Aksoy said... 'We have been shuttling
back and forth between Iran and Turkey for the past five years. We have
established networks before the lifting of sanctions. Now the embargo is
lifted, they are more sympathetic to doing business with us,' he said. Supplying
natural gas from Iran, as well as projects for oil and its derivatives,
as well as renewable investments, were all on the agenda, he said." http://t.uani.com/1Oe5oXj
Human
Rights
HRW: "An Iranian court convicted
three journalists and a family member of another journalist on April 25,
2016 on vague national security charges. The four, along with a fifth
journalist, have been detained since November, 2015. The authorities
should quash their convictions and release them. The revolutionary court
sentenced the journalists, Afarin Chitsaz, Ehsan Mazandarani, and Saman
Safarzaei, to terms of ten, seven, and five years respectively, and
Davoud Assadi, the brother of Houshang Assadi, a journalist who lives in
France, to five years. The trial of the fourth journalist, Isa Saharkhiz,
who is hospitalized, was postponed. The five appear to have been
prosecuted on overly broad charges that are inconsistent with human rights
law, including charges of insulting the Supreme Leader, Human Rights
Watch said. 'It seems these journalists have done nothing other than
exercise their right to free speech,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle
East director. 'Iran should vacate these apparently unfair convictions
and stop targeting journalists and others with these overly broad and
vague national security charges.'" http://t.uani.com/1Oe6EcM
Opinion
& Analysis
David
Gardner in FT:
"Whatever the hopes for the future, right now an Iran whose young
population wants to open up to the world, and taste the opportunities
denied them by the regime's isolation, is still stuck. The opening is
constricted by 'secondary' sanctions still in place on the IRGC and
'state-sponsored terrorism'. The IRGC is not just a praetorian guard at
home and a strike force abroad. It is a business empire with tentacles
everywhere; western banks - some of them already fined billions by the US
for sanctions-busting - are chary of entering Iran lest they come into
contact with it. Not just Mr Rouhani, therefore, but above all Ayatollah
Khamenei, who threw his decisive weight behind the nuclear deal and now
feels short-changed, has choices to confront. At the centre of this is
the regional activity of the IRGC. The IRGC and its expeditionary branch,
the al-Quds Force, along with Iran-allied Shia militia in Iraq, Syria and
Lebanon, have cut a swath through Arab land and forged an axis of power
from Baghdad to Beirut. For the most part, Tehran has taken advantage of
opportunities opened by others. Hizbollah, for example, the powerful
Lebanese Shia paramilitary force, emerged after Israel's 1982 invasion of
civil war Lebanon. The main Iraqi militias came after the 2003 US-led
invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's minority dictatorship and
propelled the local Shia majority to power. There is plenty of blame to
spread around. The present regional mayhem is marked by proxy wars pitting
Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Wahhabi ideology against Shia Iran. The
emergence of sulphurous jihadist groups such as Isis, imbued with
Wahhabist ideas, means that minorities such as the Arab Shia, Syria's
Alawites or many Lebanese Christians look to Iran for protection against
their savagery - just as Iran's perceived aggression pushes many Sunni
towards extremists such as Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate.
But the Islamic Republic of (Shia and Persian) Iran is plainly seen as an
aggressive interloper by Sunni Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia. Unless
that changes it looks as if the economic potential opened by the nuclear
deal cannot be fully realised." http://t.uani.com/1T1g17c
Post
& Courier Editorial: "President Barack Obama got a chilly reception in
Saudi Arabia last month after his public comments suggesting that its
leaders were overreacting to the threat from Iran. But the Iranian threat
is real throughout the Mideast. Consider Iraq, where a political mess
threatens the success of U.S.-backed efforts to expel the Islamic State
from Iraq's second city, Mosul. Iran is a major source of the continuing
trouble in Iraq, though the Obama administration would rather not say
so... The New York Times reports that Iranian-backed Shia militias are
acting as death squads in Sunni areas, leaving hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis homeless despite modest gains by the U.S.-supported Iraqi military
against Islamic State. Iran is actively working against the
U.S.-supported policy of reconciliation between Sunnis and Shias,
according to the report, despite U.S. diplomatic efforts to gain Iran's
help. Late last month, a Shia militia group attacked Kurdish militia, which
has been a key U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS. Iran's efforts to
expand its power in the Mideast have not been moderated by last year's
nuclear deal, which was strongly supported by President Obama. If
anything, its aggression has accelerated." http://t.uani.com/1TlZKUd
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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
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