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FT: "Iran has attempted to
acquire nuclear technology in Germany even after the atomic accord it
reached with western powers in Vienna last July, according to the
German domestic intelligence agency. The annual report of the Bundesamt
für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) said that illegal Iranian attempts to
procure technology 'continued on a quantitatively high level by
international standards' in Germany in 2015. 'This was particularly the
case for merchandise that could be deployed in the field of nuclear
technology,' the report said. There was also an increase in Iranian
efforts to buy parts for missiles that could be fitted with nuclear
warheads, it added... A more detailed assessment of Iran's activities
in Germany was contained in the annual report of the BfV in North
Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, which was published on
Monday. It said that counter-intelligence agents had recorded 141
attempts to acquire technology for 'proliferation' purposes in 2015 -
nearly twice as many as in the previous year. Two-thirds of these - or
nearly 100 - were traced to Iranian entities... The BfV also said that
Iranian agents often used front companies in countries such as the
United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China to conceal the final destination
of the merchandise." http://t.uani.com/29nAgpW
Reuters: "Iran's ballistic missile
launches 'are not consistent with the constructive spirit' of a nuclear
deal between Tehran and world powers, but it is up to the United
Nations Security Council to decide if they violated a resolution, U.N.
chief Ban Ki-moon said in a confidential report seen by Reuters on
Thursday. Ban's reluctance to state whether the March missile launches
flouted the council resolution, which was adopted a year ago as part of
the deal to curb Iran's nuclear work, further weakens the case for new
sanctions that hinged on the interpretation of ambiguous language in
the resolution... Under the U.N. resolution, Iran is 'called upon' to
refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear
weapons for up to eight years. Critics of the deal have said the
language does not make it obligatory. 'I call upon Iran to refrain from
conducting such ballistic missile launches since they have the
potential to increase tensions in the region,' Ban wrote in his first
bi-annual report to the 15-member Security Council on the
implementation of remaining sanctions and restrictions. 'While it is
for the Security Council to interpret its own resolutions, I am
concerned that those ballistic missile launches are not consistent with
the constructive spirit demonstrated by the signing of the (Iran
nuclear deal),' he said. The council is due to discuss Ban's report on
July 18. The United States, Britain, France and Germany wrote to Ban in
March about the missile tests, which they said were 'inconsistent with'
and 'in defiance of' the council resolution. The letter said the
missiles used in the launches were 'inherently capable of delivering
nuclear weapons' and also asked that the Security Council discuss
'appropriate responses' to Tehran's failure to comply with its
obligations." http://t.uani.com/29BDNXu
AP: "A week before the one-year
anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal, the Republican-led House approved
measures aimed at blocking U.S. companies from selling commercial
passenger aircraft to Tehran. By voice vote Thursday, lawmakers passed
two amendments directed at Chicago-based Boeing, which had offered
Iranian airlines three models of new aircraft to replace the country's
aging fleet. The amendment was added to a financial services spending
bill that the House cleared by vote of 239-185. The House must reconcile
differences between its bill and the Senate's version. The Obama
administration is certain to threaten to veto any legislation that
undermines the nuclear agreement with Iran. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill.,
the amendment's sponsor, said the aircraft could be used by Iran's
Revolutionary Guard. 'To give these types of planes to the Iranian
regime, which still is the world's largest state sponsor of terror, is
to give them a product that can be used for a military purpose,' Roskam
said. The Boeing aircraft could be reconfigured to carry 100 ballistic
missiles or 15,000 rocket-propelled grenades, according to
Roskam." http://t.uani.com/29qPKdF
Nuclear
& Ballistic Missile Program
Reuters: "Responding to German
intelligence agency reports that Iran has been trying to acquire
nuclear technology in Germany, Berlin said on Friday that certain
forces in Iran may be trying to undermine its nuclear deal with the
West. Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the
Protection of the Constitution (BfV), 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. A separate
report from the intelligence agency in the state of North
Rhine-Westphalia this week said it had registered 141 attempts to
acquire technology for proliferation purposes last year and that
two-thirds of these attempts were linked to Iran. Asked about the
reports on Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said
Germany expected Iran to stick to a United Nations Security Council
resolution which sets restrictions on arms-related transfers. But he
also suggested that the procurement attempts may stem from forces in
Iran that oppose last year's nuclear deal, under which Iran agreed to
roll back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of western
economic sanctions. 'There are forces within Iran for which the
policies of the country's president and foreign minister are a thorn in
the eye,' Schaefer said. 'They may be trying, one way or another, to
undermine or torpedo the nuclear deal and the normalization of
relations between us and Iran. We are watching this closely.'" http://t.uani.com/29UGdMR
Congressional
Action
Weekly
Standard: "Democratic
lawmakers are joining their Republican counterparts in expressing
concern that a pending multi-billion dollar deal between Boeing and
Iran will endanger American security... Democratic senator Chris Coons
of Delaware, who supported the Iran deal last summer, told THE WEEKLY
STANDARD that he was wary of the sale. 'Of course I have concerns that
the Iranians will misuse any assets,' Coons said. 'You can't assure
that [the planes] won't be used for terrorism. There would be
consequences if they were. Selling anything to Iran, I think, raises
questions and challenges.' Despite his concerns, the Delaware senator
told TWS that he trusted Boeing would 'do thorough research before
moving ahead with the sale.' Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West
Virginia also told TWS that he was worried about the impact of the
Boeing deal on national security. 'I'm sure that Boeing is happy to
sell airplanes to anybody,' Manchin, one of four Democrats to vote
against the Iran deal, said. 'I'm concerned about [the] support that
Iran has for anybody that wants to do harm to America, or Israel, or
any of us. I'm very much concerned about that.'" http://t.uani.com/29BIa4I
Business
Risk
Bloomberg: "Boeing Co.'s historic
agreement to provide 109 aircraft to Iran's national airline is coming
under increasing pressure from lawmakers in Washington. 'I am extremely
concerned that by relaxing the rules, the Obama administration has allowed
U.S. companies to be complicit in weaponizing the Iranian regime,'
Republican Representative Bill Huizenga of Michigan said Thursday at a
hearing of a House Financial Services subcommittee... Democratic
Representative Denny Heck of Washington state, where Boeing has major
operations, said that if proposed bills to restrict the deal became law
they would also affect other companies' sales to Iran. Because
virtually all modern jets have more than 10 percent U.S. content,
including those Airbus plans to sell, they already require export
licenses from the U.S." http://t.uani.com/29tXP5c
Foreign
Affairs
AP: "German authorities have
arrested a Pakistani man accused of spying for Iran on the former head
of a group that promotes German-Israeli relations. Federal prosecutors
said Thursday that the 31-year-old, identified only as Syed Mustufa H.
in keeping with German privacy rules, was arrested on Tuesday in the northern
city of Bremen. They said in a statement that he was 'in contact with
an intelligence unit attributed to Iran,' without elaborating. He is
alleged to have spied on the former head of the German-Israeli Society
and people close to him, among others, and handed over information to
Iran in October. The ex-head of the German-Israeli group, former
lawmaker Reinhold Robbe, told the Bild newspaper that he wasn't
surprised by the alleged espionage and he 'will not be
intimidated.'" http://t.uani.com/29nzDg0
Human
Rights
FT: "The pounding of drums and
the screech of electric guitars reverberate through the small concert
hall, bringing a rare taste of heavy metal to Iran. This is no typical
rock concert: the audience is seated and headbanging is banned along
with the trademark 'sign of the horns' hand gesture of the heavy metal
set. 'It was the world's best seated heavy metal concert,' said
Shahryar, a young Iranian who had come to see the Farshid Arabi band at
the hall in Tehran at the end of May. Farshid Arabi, the bearded,
long-haired lead singer known as the father of Persian heavy metal,
reminds his fans that it took five years to win permission for the
concert from authorities in the conservative Islamic Republic... The
heavy metal concert by the Farshid Arabi band was allowed if certain
rules were respected - thus the ban on headbanging and the sign of the
horn. 'If you do that you should come to our graves next time rather
than to our concerts,' Mr Arabi told the crowd, warning he could face a
multiyear ban if the restrictions were broken." http://t.uani.com/29DzmbQ
Opinion
& Analysis
Iyad
el-Baghdadi in IBT: "Last
week I sent out a tweet about the state of the Middle East after the
Iran nuclear deal, in which I argued that the agreement 'has made the
Middle East a more violent, unstable, and dangerous place'. The tweet -
viewed over 35,000 times at the time of writing - engendered many
responses, a few in support, but many in outrage: 'How can you be
against an anti-war, anti-nuclear, anti-sanctions deal?' they asked.
'Do you not want peace and prosperity for the Iranian people?' I didn't
always feel this way about the Iran deal. Although I had occasional
doubts, I was mostly supportive, even optimistic... My optimism about
the Iran deal was based upon two main reasons - the first being the
potential economic and political liberalisation it would bring, and the
second being the belief that it would catalyse a wider regional drive
to reduce violence and war. I thought that the momentum created by the
lifting of sanctions would be used by Iran's regime reformists to push
for economic and political liberalisation. Sanctions rarely change the
behaviour of a committed regime and instead punish and weaken society,
critically reducing its ability to push against its own regime, and
hence leading to entrenchment rather than change. I had hoped that the
lifting of sanctions and the return of foreign trade could create a
momentum that can lead to an 'opening up' of economic and political
space within Iran, allowing civil society and native reformers some
breathing space. I now see I was wrong in that hope. Iran's regime -
even its presentable faces - continue to mock those who call for human
rights or political liberalisation. In this astounding clip (recorded
last month in Oslo), Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif responds to a
question posed by an Iranian academic with accusations of
'Iranophobia'... Well - perhaps the human rights situation won't
immediately improve, but maybe the renewed economic dynamism can lead
to an economic liberalisation that can improve the lot of many
Iranians? Unfortunately, it now looks increasingly more likely that the
prime benefactors of new business contracts will be none other than
Iran's Islamic Republican Guards Corps (IRGC), which control an
increasing sector of Iran's economy, especially in heavy industry and
infrastructure (the very industries that will probably see the first,
and largest, business contracts)... In short, I had initially hoped
that the Iran deal would give Iran's entrepreneurs, reformists, and
civil society at large more breathing space, but I now see that it's
more likely that we'll see exactly the opposite, with existing powers
entrenching themselves even further... I was also initially optimistic
about the Iran deal due to my belief that it would lay the groundwork
for a wider regional agreement that would reduce violence and defuse
war... I now see that I was wrong about this as well. The region, post
Iran deal, has become even more unstable and more violent, due to
choices made by both Iran and its regional competitors, the GCC block.
Iran's foreign policy was not at all tempered by the deal - it only
became more aggressive, ramping up support for Syria's Assad and with
the IRGC even going to the extent of recruiting and training Afghani
refugees to fight in return for asylum for their families.
Simultaneously, the GCC countries felt so threatened by the Iran deal
that they intensified the regional conflict in Syria, and opened a new
front in Yemen... So what is the alternative? It's commonly argued that
to reject the Iran deal is tantamount to advocating war - but I reject
this view. The alternative to a short-sighted deal is a better and
wider deal, one that is sustainable and that stands to empower the
region's societies rather than precipitating f
urther war and empowering tyrants and terrorists."
Patrick Clawson in WINEP: "While
European businesses were starry-eyed about the El Dorado awaiting them
in post-sanctions Iran, the Iranian people themselves were seemingly
resigned to slow progress at best. Yet even that will be difficult
given the collapse in international oil prices and the degree to which
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other vested domestic
interests are resisting the reforms needed to fully participate in the
global economy... Iran's basic economic problem is that cronyism is
deeply embedded in the system, so reforms come slowly. Its problems
reconnecting with the international financial system are symptomatic of
how little it has done to prepare for reintegration into the world
economy. Tehran apparently does not recognize that the world has changed
over the past decade, and that the Islamic Republic must bend to fit
the times. Besides banking, the oil sector has also been greatly
affected. Rouhani swept into office pledging to attract international
oil companies (IOCs) to invest in Iran, but his team has not been able
to make the changes needed for that to happen. The committee drafting
the Iran Petroleum Contract finished its work in February 2014, but due
to infighting, the document has yet to be published, much less approved
by the Majlis. The hardliners insist that its terms be modified to meet
their populist objections, oblivious to the fact that IOCs have slashed
investment everywhere because of the oil price decline. The model
contract may finally be released this year, but that will just be
another phase in a long process -- while the Oil Ministry predicts that
a headline-grabbing deal could be announced in the next few months, it
would be an agreement in principle, not a contract. The National
Iranian Oil Company, which negotiates contracts with IOCs, has a
difficult relationship with the Oil Ministry, whose top official just
replaced the NIOC chief. Moreover, the first contracts are unlikely to
be for investment; instead, they will probably focus on infrastructure
work by oil service companies (e.g., for gas compression facilities and
trunk pipelines). So far, Iranians seem prepared to wait for the fruits
of the JCPOA. Cynicism appears to be the prevailing popular mood --
cynicism about reforming cronyism, and also about the international
community's willingness to see Iran prosper. Ideally, Washington could
persuade the people that their country's main economic problems stem
from their government's policies rather than from U.S. hostility, but
that is utterly unrealistic." http://t.uani.com/29tWATc
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