e on Iran: Iran, Criticizing Merkel, Says Will Press on with Missile Program

Join UANI               Top Stories Reuters: "Iran will press on with its missile program 'with full force', a foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying on Saturday, adding that critical comments by Germany's leader were unhelpful. Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament in Berlin on Thursday that missile launches by Iran earlier this year were inconsistent with a U.N. resolution urging it to refrain for up to eight years from missile work designed to deliver nuclear weapons. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said Merkel's remarks were 'not constructive' and would have no bearing on the program, according to state news agency IRNA. Reiterating Tehran's assertion that the missiles are not designed to carry nuclear weapons, he added: 'Iran will continue with full force its missile program based on its defensive plans and national security calculations.' On Friday, Iran rejected as 'unrealistic' a report by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticizing its missile launches as inconsistent with its deal with world powers to curb sensitive nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief. Reuters reported on Thursday that a confidential report by Ban had found the tests to be inconsistent 'with the constructive spirit' of the July 2015 agreement... Germany's domestic intelligence agency said in its annual report that Iranian efforts to illegally procure technology, especially in the nuclear area, had continued at a 'high level' in 2015. The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, criticized the comments by Ban and Merkel and denied Iran had been trying to purchase nuclear technology on the black market. 'I feel they are cooking up a plot against us. We should be vigilant,' he was quoted as saying by Iran's Tasnim news agency." http://t.uani.com/29BKmYQ Reuters: "Iran's judiciary has indicted three detained Iranian dual-nationals and a Lebanese citizen also held in the Islamic Republic, the judiciary's official news website Mizan said on Monday. Several Iranian dual nationals from the United Sates, Britain, Canada and France have been detained in the past few months and are being kept behind bars on various charges, including espionage or collaborating with a hostile government. 'After the issuance of indictments, the cases against (British-Iranian) Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, (American-Iranian) Siamak Namazi, (Canadian-Iranian) Homa Hoodfar and (U.S.-Lebanese) Nizar Zekka ... have been referred to court for processing,' the website quoted Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi as saying. He did not provide details about the charges brought against the four. Dolatabadi also did not say whether the court was a Revolutionary Court, which handles security-related cases. A judiciary source told Reuters their cases had been referred to the court 'within the past two weeks'. 'But it does not mean that they will stand trial soon. Iran's judiciary is reviewing their cases very carefully,' said the official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter." http://t.uani.com/29yNhAg WSJ: "Iran continued trying to illegally procure nuclear equipment from Germany after forging last year's landmark nuclear agreement with world powers, German intelligence officials said, even as the Foreign Ministry in Berlin and the White House played down the reports. German authorities detected repeated efforts by Iran-tied companies and organizations to obtain such equipment in the months after July 2015, when Tehran and six world powers reached the deal in Vienna, officials said... Such efforts continued this year, but at a significantly lower level, the German officials said, elaborating on two recent German intelligence reports covering 2015. However, U.S. and German officials on Friday rejected the suggestion that Iran might have breached the agreement since it went into effect on Jan. 16... On Monday, the annual report from the domestic intelligence agency in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous, said it detected 141 procurement efforts in 2015 that were likely related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. About two-thirds of them were 'attributed to Iranian programs' and more than 90% were blocked before any export took place, the agency said. In its annual report released June 28, the federal domestic intelligence agency said 'Illegal Iranian procurement efforts in Germany remained at a quantitatively high level in 2015,' especially 'for goods that can be used in the area of nuclear technology.'" http://t.uani.com/29CVR1F Nuclear & Ballistic Missile Program Bloomberg: "United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's criticism of Iran's commitment to the nuclear deal may be part of a conspiracy against the Islamic Republic, according to the country's top nuclear official. Iran must be vigilant following the comments from both Ban and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the head of the country's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in an interview to state TV according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. The world leaders this week criticized the country for failing to cooperate on issues including restrictions on its ballistic missile program. 'A conspiracy is underway, otherwise there is no reason for Mr. Ban and Ms. Merkel to make such an outcry,' Salehi said. 'I sense that they are in the process of laying groundwork and concocting.'" http://t.uani.com/29yR3dd AP: "Iran is hoping to join an international project in southern France that hopes to build the first machine to generate significant amounts of energy using nuclear fusion, which is considered a clean, safe and virtually limitless form of nuclear power. Laban Coblentz, spokesman for the ITER project, said a high-level Iranian delegation led by nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and Vice President for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari visited St. Paul Lez Durance on June 30-July 1, where the fusion device is being built... Salehi was quoted by the Mehr news agency as telling reporters on Wednesday that during the visit 'we discussed possibilities of Iran's joining to ITER, and the other members welcomed a prospective Iran membership.'" http://t.uani.com/29y7zaM Business Risk WSJ: "Boeing's commercial jetliner chief said Sunday that if its deal to sell Iran passenger aircraft is blocked by the U.S. Congress, all other U.S. companies that supply to its rivals should be prohibited as well. Ray Conner, the chief executive of Boeing's commercial jetliner unit, said in a media presentation Sunday on the eve of the biennial Farnborough Air Show outside of London that any effort to legislatively block its 80-jet deal with Iran Air shouldn't unfairly disadvantage the plane maker against its rivals. The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed amendments that would block the use of Department of Treasury funds for granting licenses for export or re-export of commercial passenger aircraft and their parts and services as enabled by the six-nation Iran Nuclear Deal. A further amendment would prohibit any U.S. financial institution from participating the export of passenger aircraft to Iran. Airbus has said it, too, requires Washington's approval to export airliners to Iran because the planes involve U.S.-made parts... The amendments passed last week by the House 'will be between Congress and the administration and we'll follow the lead of which the government tells us what we can do and what we can't do,' Mr. Conner said. 'If we're not allowed to go forward, then sure as heck no other U.S. company should be allowed to go forward either. That would mean any other U.S. supplier to any other manufacturer.'" http://t.uani.com/29HffLi Regional Destabilization NYT: "The first news report, to a nation usually kept in the dark about military matters, was shocking: 13 Iranian soldiers, all with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, had been killed in an ambush near the Syrian city of Aleppo. What followed this spring may have been even more surprising. Details about the soldiers appeared extensively in the Iranian news media, which not only gave the names of the dead but lionized them with sweeping life stories. Poster-size portraits were plastered all over their hometowns. For years, Iran covered up its military activities in Syria and Iraq, so the government could deny any official involvement on the ground. Coffins arrived with the bodies of soldiers who went unidentified, referred to only as 'defenders of the shrines' of the Shiite saints. When the bodies began to come home in larger numbers, the state news media began calling them 'volunteers.' No longer. Now every Iranian killed in action is named, his picture published, his valor lauded in elaborate tributes in the hard-line news media and on Instagram accounts dedicated to the fighters. The reason for the change, analysts say, is not some newfound dedication to transparency but a rift between the Iranian establishment's hard-liners, who control the military, and the moderates." http://t.uani.com/29zcQQP Saudi-Iran Tensions Reuters: "Iran on Sunday accused Saudi Arabia of backing terrorism after a senior Saudi prince, a former intelligence chief, addressed a Paris rally held by exiled Iranian rebels and told them he wanted the Iranian government to fall. Shi'ite Muslim power Iran and Saudi Arabia, bastion of Sunni Islam, are longstanding religious and political arch rivals. Relations are fraught as they back each other's foes in regional wars such as in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. 'The Saudis are resorting to well-known terrorists ... as they have also done in Iraq, Yemen and Syria. This shows that they use terrorism and terrorists to further their aims against regional Islamic countries,' an unnamed Iranian Foreign Ministry source was quoted by Iran's state news agency IRNA as saying. The rally addressed by Prince Turki al-Faisal on Saturday was held by the political wing of the exiled People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which seeks the overthrow of Iran's clerical leadership established by the 1979 Islamic revolution... 'Your legitimate struggle against the (Iranian) regime will achieve its goal, sooner or later,' Prince Turki, also an ex-ambassador to Washington and London, had said in his speech. 'I, too, want the fall of the regime,' he added." http://t.uani.com/29y7S5A Human Rights AFP: "Prominent Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli said Sunday he stood accused of disturbing the public peace, the ILNA news agency reported, after he was prevented from leaving the country last week. 'I learnt this morning in court that the police had accused me of publishing false information and disturbing the public peace,' he told ILNA, after visiting Iran's special court for culture and media. 'They told me my sculptures are examples of disturbing the public peace,' the 79-year-old said, although the police did not immediately confirm this. The authorities confiscated Tanavoli's passport last week as he attempted to fly to London for the launch of his new book, European Women in Persian Houses." http://t.uani.com/29zbt4y Domestic Politics NYT: "Gunmen ambushed a car carrying a lawmaker and a local governor on Sunday in Iran's restive Kurdish region, state news media reported. Both men were wounded, and the driver and a veterinarian traveling with them were killed. The lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of a key foreign council in Iran's Parliament, escaped with minor injuries, according to the Mizan news agency. Mr. Falahatpisheh and the others were traveling in a sport utility vehicle near Iran's border with Iraq, apparently without security forces protecting them. As they were driving near the county of Dalahu, four men fired on their car. The governor, Faramarz Asghari, was hit several times and was reported to be in critical condition. In recent weeks, Iran's Kurdish regions have seen an upsurge in violence, with several clashes erupting between Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Kurdish fighters belonging to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and Pejak, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, better known as P.K.K." http://t.uani.com/29BKpny         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. 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