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TOP STORIES
The Obama administration agreed to back the lifting of
United Nations sanctions on two Iranian state banks blacklisted for
financing Iran's ballistic-missile program on the same day in January
that Tehran released four American citizens from prison, according to
U.S. officials and congressional staff briefed on the deliberations.
The U.N. sanctions on the two banks weren't initially to be lifted
until 2023, under a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and world
powers that went into effect on Jan. 16. The U.N. Security Council's
delisting of the two banks, Bank Sepah and Bank Sepah International,
was part of a package of tightly scripted agreements-the others were
a controversial prisoner swap and transfer of $1.7 billion in cash to
Iran-that were finalized between the U.S. and Iran on Jan. 17, the
day the Americans were freed. The new details of the delisting have
emerged after administration officials briefed lawmakers earlier this
month on the U.S. decision.
Renault has reached a deal with Iran's government to
open a plant making at least 150,000 vehicles a year, as European
companies race for a share of Iran's market now that international
sanctions have been lifted. The French carmaker announced the deal
with the Industrial Development & Renovation Organization of Iran
on Friday, during the Paris auto show. The plant in a Tehran suburb
will produce Duster and Symbol cars starting in 2018. Renault will be
majority shareholder, and have its own distribution network in Iran
for the first time, according to a company statement. Financial
details were not released. Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said Iran
could have demand for 2 million cars in 2020, making it a market with
"undeniable potential." "The Iranian government wants
to attract foreign investment in the Iranian car industry to bring
competitive new products benefiting Iranian customers with respect to
standard, quality and safety," Industry Minister Mohammad Reza
Nematzadeh said in the statement.
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel plans to raise
concerns about Iran's role in the war in Syria and its human rights
record during his upcoming visit to Tehran, weekly news magazine Der
Spiegel reported on Friday. The magazine quoted Gabriel, Germany's
vice chancellor, as saying Iran could have normal, friendly relations
with Germany only when it accepted Israel's right to exist. Gabriel,
who will travel to Iran for two days from Sunday, said he planned to
use his meeting with Iranian officials to address not only economic
ties, but also growing horror about the situation in Syria, as he did
during a recent visit to Russia... Gabriel is leading a large
delegation of business executives to Iran to discuss potential
business deals after a historic nuclear accord paved the way for
ending sanctions that had been in place for years. He said he
expected some agreements to be signed during the visit but gave no
details.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE
PROGRAM
Iran warns the West to keep its end of the bargain in
last year's nuclear agreement, saying any failure could prompt Tehran
to radically reverse the steps it has taken under the deal.
"Should the West fail to live up to its promises, our reversion
would not be one to the previous state, but to a state which would be
much different from how we used to be prior to the JCPOA," said
head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Turkish investment bank Unlu & Co aims to complete
the acquisition of an Iranian brokerage in the next six months and
become the first Turkish financial services firm to operate in Iran
since the easing of sanctions, its chairman said on Friday...
"We aim to conclude the acquisition in the next three to six
months," Mahmut Unlu, chairman and chief executive of
Istanbul-based Unlu & Co, told a news conference. The bank, which
specialises in mergers and acquisitions and portfolio management, has
also established an open-ended fund to invest in Iranian companies
and has been hired by a Turkish consumer goods firm to find
acquisition targets in Iran, Unlu said. "The Turkish company we
are advising is in talks to buy a majority stake in an Iranian firm.
It will be a $60-70 million deal," he said, without giving
further details.
Skoda, Volkswagen's (VW) mass-market brand, will start
deliveries in Iran, South Korea and Singapore next year and will take
time until the end of 2017 or later to decide whether to enter the
United States, Skoda's chief executive, Bernhard Maier, said... Skoda
will start importing fully built cars to Iran sometime next year and
has signed preliminary accords with local partners to prepare partial
CKD production in the country, the CEO said.
Imports of Iranian oil by four major buyers in Asia in
August jumped 81 percent from a year earlier, the biggest percentage
gain since April 2014, as the producer recoups market share from
rivals Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Some of the world's top female chess players are upset
that the next world championship will be held in Iran, where players
are expected to wear head scarves. The US women's champion, Nazi
Paikidze-Barnes, will not be taking part in the event in Tehran next
February due to her concern over the issue. Meanwhile former Pan
American champion Carla Heredia -- who did not qualify for the Tehran
tournament -- also called for the 64 women who are playing there to
protest against the hijab rule. "Iran has hosted chess
tournaments before and women were always forced to wear a
hijab," Paikidze-Barnes told CNN. "We don't see this event
being any different, forced hijab is the country's law."
This, she said, is "religious and sexist
discrimination."
Concerns are growing about the fate of an Iranian
journalist, Sadra Mohaghegh, who was arrested at his house last week.
It is not clear whether the authorities had a warrant for his arrest.
Mohaghegh is editor of the social affairs pages of the reformist
Shargh newspaper. His arrest on 19 September was first reported by
the semi-official Mehr news agency, which referred to him as a
"collaborator in contact with the anti-revolutionary media
outlets". The agency illustrated its story with a graphic
featuring the word "infiltration", which has become a
codeword for alleged links with the west. Mehr's report alleged that
Mohaghegh had been arrested for "producing reports about the
country's internal issues for the anti-revolutionary media", a
reference to exiled media outlets.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Terrorists want cash, and the Administration just
handed over billions in cash to Iran, a regime the State Department
calls the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. News reports revealed
the U.S. secretly airlifted cash to Iran, $400 million in January
2016 and another $1.3 billion weeks later, under a controversial
settlement of a nearly 40-year-old legal dispute. As chairman
of the Senate banking subcommittee that oversees the Treasury
Department's Iran sanctions, I held a hearing last week to examine
the dangers of giving cash to Iran. "If I were still in government
and had been participating in the interagency deliberations, I would
have seen this as providing continued support to Iran's militarily
disruptive and destabilizing activities throughout the region,"
Ambassador Eric S. Edelman, former Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy, warned my subcommittee. "The only reason to insist that
cash in the form of Euros and Swiss francs be provided to Iran-in
Iran-is to permit that money to be distributed outside its borders in
a way that cannot be traced," former Attorney General Michael B.
Mukasey added. "There is only one purpose for which cash
in that amount is useful, and that is to do what Iran has been doing
around the world, which is acting as a sponsor of terrorism."
While the White House claims cash was the only way to legally pay
Iran, we learned last week this isn't true... The American people
deserve honest answers from the White House about the
terrorism-financing dangers of the billions it transferred to
Iran. Giving cash to the world's biggest state sponsor of
terrorism is a tremendous mistake by the Administration, and a
decision that I disagree with. Iran is in a better position to
inflict more harm on Americans and the free world.
The next U.S. president is likely to be met with
multiple international crises after assuming office, and Iran may be
one of the most challenging of them. Despite the heated partisan
rhetoric, the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (United States,
UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) has been beneficial for the
United States as Iran has shipped out most of its uranium stockpile,
reduced the number of its centrifuges, and accepted intrusive
international inspections, making it much more difficult for Tehran
to develop nuclear weapons. But the JCPOA has not eliminated the
fundamental differences between America and the Islamic Republic. The
Iranian regime continues to support terrorism, back the regime of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and violate the rights of its people
at home. The election of Hassan Rouhani as president in 2013, while
making JCPOA possible, has not led to any major changes in Iran...
Bottom line: The continuing climate of repression, the next Iranian
presidential election, and Khamenei's eventual demise may provide
some important opportunities for America's next president.
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