Eye on Iran: Iranian President: Regional Conflicts Aimed at Diverting Attention from Israeli Crimes

Join UANI               Top Stories Fars (Iran): "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani underlined that the main goal of the current turmoil and crises in the regional states is diverting attentions from the Zionists' 70 years of occupation and crimes against the Palestinian nation. 'By behind-the-scene attempts, terror, and creating conflicts among the regional and Muslim world countries and Muslim against Muslim and Muslim against Christian wars in recent years, the Zionists are trying to make others forget their crimes and make the Muslims, the regional people and the world forget the oppressed Palestine and the savagery of the Zionists,' Rouhani said, addressing a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday. 'We shouldn't let the Zionists' big crimes be forgotten, and the oppressed Palestinian nation which has been displaced and forced out of its own home feel disappointment,' he added. Rouhani called on all Iranian and world nations to show massive turnout in the International Quds Day rallies on Friday." http://t.uani.com/292J70b The Hill: "Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) wants the Obama administration to quash Boeing's planned sale of aircraft to Iran, and block future sales, saying it is 'virtually certain' they would be used for nefarious purposes, such as ferrying arms to the Syrian regime. 'Iran Air's aircraft will undoubtedly be used in the future to continue to funnel lethal assistance to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, to Hezbollah, and to other terrorist entities,' he wrote in a letter on Wednesday. Last week, Boeing announced an agreement for Iran Air to purchase 80 aircraft for $17.6 billion, and lease another 29 aircraft. The move came under harsh criticism from Republican lawmakers, but Sherman's letter signifies there is Democratic opposition, as well. Sherman, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees, said that although Iran Air was removed from a sanctions list as part of the Iran nuclear deal, the airline is aligned with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which remains under sanction... 'It is almost certain that Iran Air continues to support the IRGC and the Quds Force,' he wrote in the letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker." http://t.uani.com/2951d2p Guardian: "Iran is covertly recruiting hundreds of Afghan Shias in Afghanistan to fight for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, drawing them out of their own conflict-ridden country and into another war in which Afghanistan plays no official part. The Afghan fighters are often impoverished, religiously devout or ostracised from society, looking for money, social acceptance and a sense of purpose that they are unable to find at home. Iran's recruitment of Afghan migrants and refugees within its own borders has been documented. But similar Iranian activities inside Afghanistan had previously gone unreported. Iran denies using 'any kind of allurement or coercion', or to otherwise recruiting Afghans to fight in Syria, according to an embassy spokesman in Kabul. But a Guardian investigation can reveal both how Iran coaxes Afghan men into war, and the motives that prompt these men to travel thousands of miles to join a battle they might not return from." http://t.uani.com/295W5M1 U.S.-Iran Relations NYT: "Nine naval officers and enlisted sailors will be disciplined for their actions in connection with an incident in January that led to 10 American sailors being taken captive by the Iranian government, according to senior Defense Department officials. A review of the incident - which occurred when two 50-foot Navy boats strayed into the waters near Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf as they were moving from Kuwait to Bahrain - will be released at a news conference at the Pentagon on Thursday morning. The review found that there were widespread mistakes made by the officers and sailors in the way they had planned and executed the mission to move the boats through the gulf. While Iran was within its right to investigate why the boats were near the island, the review will say, the Iranians violated international law in how they subsequently treated the sailors, who were held for a day, according to senior Pentagon officials. It was illegal for the Iranians to have held the sailors at gunpoint, the review will say, and to videotape interviews with them and damage equipment on the boats." http://t.uani.com/29cl97R CNN: "Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday deemed Iran's presence in Iraq to be 'helpful' to American attempts to beat back the threat of ISIS, given their common enemy. The measured praise for a country with which the U.S. has a fraught relationship came at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where the secretary of state was asked to assess whether Iran was 'more helpful or more harmful' there. 'Look, we have challenges with Iran as everybody knows and we are working on those challenges,' Kerry said. 'But I can tell you that Iran in Iraq has been in certain ways helpful, and they clearly are focused on ISIL-Daesh, and so we have a common interest, actually.' ... Brent McGurk, the U.S. special envoy tasked with defeating ISIS, said earlier Tuesday that Iran-backed Shi'ite militias are mostly helpful in Iraq, though some go rogue. 'We think most of these popular mobilization forces do operate under the control of the Iraqi state, but about 15-20% of them actually do not,' McGurk said. 'And those groups are a fundamental problem.'" http://t.uani.com/29cv4ef WSJ: "Perhaps it's a Persian riddle. Or a game of diplomatic footsy. Or just spyworld now-you-see-me-now-you-don't headfakes. Whatever it was, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan gave an elaborate and cryptic response to a question about his current working relationship with Iran. 'I don't communicate with Iran,' he told journalist Judy Woodruff at an event Wednesday hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. Ms. Woodruff seemed skeptical, 'There's zero communication - indirect?' 'I do not personally have any interaction,' he followed. Ah, personally. He went on: 'I do not have any interaction, any formal liaison relationship or engagement with Iran,' he said, starting to sound like he was regurgitating something he had memorized. Ms. Woodruff asked if others at the CIA communicated with Iran if Mr. Brennan did not. 'The agency does not,' he quickly answered. That seemed to settle it, until he added, 'no formal intelligence liaison relationship.' This elicited laughter from the audience. Ms. Woodruff seemed willing to leave it at, but Mr. Brennan felt compelled to add, 'But we know the Iranians very well. Just saying.'" http://t.uani.com/297BMmi AFP: "Iranian police cancelled a catwalk show set to mark the opening of an unofficial Levi's store in a Tehran shopping center, the Tasnim news agency reported Thursday. The event was cancelled by 'a last-minute police intervention' just before male models were set to walk on stage before a crowd of about 150 Wednesday night, the news agency said... Most U.S. companies are still banned from doing business with Iran despite a nuclear deal that lifted some sanctions in January... Posters advertising the event and using the Levi's logo were still available on the shopping center's Instagram and Telegram pages." http://t.uani.com/29hRB6C Sanctions Relief Reuters: "Imports of Iranian oil by four major buyers in Asia in May jumped 34.5 percent from a year ago to the highest in at least 4-1/2 years, reflecting Tehran's aggressive moves to recoup market share lost under international sanctions. The four countries, South Korea, Japan, China and India, imported 1.62 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, government and ship-tracking data showed.  Japan's trade ministry on Thursday released official data showing imports of 307,691 bpd from Iran in May, the highest since January 2012, before sanctions kicked in." http://t.uani.com/2988cvi Reuters: "Iran's oil exports in July are set to fall from June levels as the country battles Saudi Arabia and Iraq for market share but are about 70 percent higher than a year ago, according to a source with knowledge of the country's crude lifting plans. Exports will be about 2.14 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, down from about 2.31 million bpd in June, the highest since January 2012, the source said. The decline is mostly attributable to a fall in condensate exports as South Korea cuts purchases of the ultra-light oil and reduced crude liftings from European customers. Iran's oil exports have nearly doubled since December, the last month before sanctions targeting its disputed nuclear program were lifted, but it is facing ever tougher competition from its rival Saudi Arabia and neighbor Iraq." http://t.uani.com/294LPT6 Reuters: "Essar Oil, the top Indian buyer of Iranian oil, has this month cleared $500 million of a debt owed to Tehran, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Essar, which operates a 400,000 barrels per day oil refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat, owed about $3 billion to Iran for oil purchases made when tough Western sanctions had choked banking channels." http://t.uani.com/292GATA Extremism Tasnim (Iran): "The Islamic Republic of Iran Army, in a statement released on Wednesday on the occasion of the International Quds Day, reiterated the country's support for the Palestinian nation and said the Zionist regime of Israel is 'doomed to collapse'. 'The International Quds Day is the day of supporting the oppressed people of Palestine and shouting for the liberation of the holy Quds from the clutches of the Zionist occupying regime,' the Army's statement read. 'Despite the claims and false dreams of evil politicians of the Zionist regime, it is doomed to collapse,' the Army said. The statement further called on the Iranian people from all walks of life to attend the rallies due to be held across the country on Friday to mark the international Quds Day." http://t.uani.com/2953dYv Human Rights AFP: "Iran sentenced to death two Afghans convicted of raping a French tourist hiking in the high mountains just north of Tehran, a government newspaper reported on Thursday. Two other defendants, who absconded during the trial, remain at large, the Iran daily said. Both men convicted had pleaded not guilty to the charge of raping the 24-year-old tourist as she was hiking in the Farahzad district on September 19 last year." http://t.uani.com/297Aurb Domestic Politics Reuters: "Executive pay, a source of controversy at shareholder meetings in the West, has become a political issue in Iran where revelations of high compensation packages at state-owned firms are being used to attack moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Over the last several weeks, local media have published the pay-slips of top managers at banks and other companies, showing their compensation to be dozens of times the average monthly income of an Iranian urban household, about $650. In a country that portrays the 1979 Islamic revolution as a revolt of the poor against exploitation and oppression, the revelations have triggered outrage. National newspapers and television are criticising income inequality in the country, and people are denouncing executives' salaries on social media. Rouhani's conservative opponents are using the uproar to highlight the fact that living standards for ordinary Iranians have improved little since he took office in late 2013, with the official unemployment rate near 12 percent... 'The government says the Treasury is empty of funds...but it has enough money to pay astronomical salaries and huge bonuses,' the YJC news agency quoted Hamid Rasaei, a former lawmaker who is a strong critic of the nuclear deal, as saying on Wednesday." http://t.uani.com/2959FTj Asharq Al Awsat: "The assistant of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the Iranian regime has regressed over the past 37 years, adding that it could no longer pretend to be a role model to other countries. Ali Akbar Natiq Nouri, who also serves as head of the Supreme Leader's Special Inspection Office, accused Iran's judicial authority of corruption, questioning whether the Judiciary was abiding by the principles of Islam. Iran's Jamaran news website quoted Nouri as saying that statistics published by the Iranian government on addiction, homelessness and bribery have been used by 'enemies' to criticize the regime. Nouri's comments were made following corruption reports that spread in the country earlier in June... This is the second warning made by an Iranian official over Iran's regime regression this year. In August 2015, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Mohammed Ali Jaafari said that the Iranian regime did not achieve any progress in its third decade and warned against the collapse of the country's moral and cultural standards." http://t.uani.com/2989C99         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. 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