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With major U.K. and U.S. banks still struggling to find
reassurances from regulators to resume business with Iran nearly 10
months since "implementation day," a handful of European banks
are forging ahead and sealing transactions with the oil-rich nation.
"I've recently found a new sport, which is hunting for small banks
who want to do business with Iran," said Andreas Schweitzer, senior
managing partner at Arjan Capital Ltd., a Malta-registered investment and
advisory firm that focuses on doing business with Iran. "And we
won't waste our resources looking for large banks; we will do business
with medium sized banks-in Italy, Liechtenstein," he said last week
at the Iranian Trade Conference in London... "I don't think we can
dismiss the remaining sanctions...they do create uncertainty," said
Justine Walker, director for financial crime at the British Bankers'
Association, in a separate panel at the event. Ms. Walker said BBA
members tend to fall into two groups: those considering the due diligence
process to resume business with Iran, and those that are absolutely clear
that as long as there is a risk of breaching sanctions, they won't do
business there. The BBA is working with banks to map the way to tap into
the Iranian market, but it will take "a lot of time," she said.
"We were working with one bank looking to amend their policies...and
they have 100 policies they need to change to actually facilitate this
business with Iran-it is complex and we cannot dismiss that," said
Ms. Walker.
Iran is set to sign a preliminary deal with Total SA
Tuesday to help develop an offshore gas field, the first under its new
oil-contract framework with a foreign company, an oil-ministry official
in Tehran said Monday. The agreement with the French oil giant is a key
step toward the return of Western companies to the Islamic Republic's
giant fields, after a nuclear agreement with world powers ended
international sanctions on its oil industry in January. The so-called
"heads of agreement" to develop phase 11 of the giant South
Pars gas field will also include China National Petroleum Corporation and
Iran's state-owned Petropars, and will represent an investment of $6
billion, a press official at the oil-ministry said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will travel
to Lebanon on Monday for political talks following the election of a new
Lebanese president, a spokesperson announced, saying the top Iranian
diplomat will begin a three-nation tour of Eastern Europe afterwards.
Foreign Minister Zarif will leave Tehran for Beirut on Monday evening and
stay there until Tuesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said
at a weekly press conference... According to Qassemi, Zarif will have
meetings with Lebanese President Michel Aoun and representatives of
various political parties for talks on issues of mutual interest and on
the latest regional developments, including the crisis in Syria... Elsewhere
in the press conference, Qassemi said Zarif will later begin a tour of
Eastern Europe that would take him to Romania, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia. "We worked in good cooperation with these (Eastern
European) countries in the past in economic, technical and industrial
fields," the spokesman noted, saying a lot of Iranian industries
used to employ Czech technologies in the past.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
In the past, Iranians looking to mock the United States
would burn cardboard effigies of Uncle Sam or Lady Liberty. But in recent
months, as the American presidential election took a series of bizarre
turns, Iranians seeking to make fun of the "Great Satan" have
ditched the arts and crafts and simply switched on their TV sets. Iran's
state television, a bastion of conservative ideologues, for once
interrupted its regular programing about the "murders and crimes
committed" by the United States and broadcast all three debates
between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump - live... Live, yes, but some
parts - especially those criticizing Iran - were not fully translated.
After each debate, analysts discussing the outcome were in unanimous
agreement that America, in its current state, "cannot do a damn
thing." ... Ayatollah Khamenei seized on the campaign's tawdriest
details: accusations of infidelity and sexual assault. "The remarks
made by these two U.S. presidential candidates over the last few weeks on
immoral issues - which are, for the most part, not baseless accusations -
are enough to disgrace America," he said during a speech
commemorating the 1979 takeover of the United States Embassy in Tehran.
His supporters responded enthusiastically by shouting, "Death to
America."
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran has reached a deal with a foreign leasing company to
finance the first 17 jets it plans to buy from Airbus, breaking a logjam
in efforts to import aircraft following the lifting of sanctions, people
familiar with the move said. The deal removes a significant hurdle to
securing the first tranche of jets, following uncertainty over financing
and political opposition in the United States and Iran, though the
sources caution months of talking have thrown up new potential hurdles.
Iranian officials declined to name the lessor involved, but industry
sources said in September that Iran was in advanced talks with the United
Arab Emirates' Dubai Aerospace about helping to finance the purchase.
"We have a deal to finance the first 17 aircraft," a senior
Iranian official told Reuters, without elaborating.
Poland's dominant gas firm PGNiG and the National Iranian
Oil Company (NIOC) have singed a letter of intent regarding co-operation
on exploring the Soumar oil deposit in Iran, PGNiG said in a statement on
Monday.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Ahead of what it described as the battle of the bones in
Aleppo, sources close to Iran's Shi'ite Fatimiyoun militias said
yesterday that passengers and cargo aircrafts had transported to the
Damascus airport on Friday a large number of forces from Iran's
Revolutionary Guards and several other militias linked to both Iran and
Iraq. The sources added that as soon as they landed at Damascus International
Airport, those fighters moved to positions in northern and southern
Aleppo. Channels broadcasting news related to Fatimiyoun on the Telegram
network had aired the details of a "Revolutionary Guards" plan
to start a wide battle in the coming few days from the axis of northern
and southern Aleppo.
YEMEN CRISIS
Fars news agency, which is affiliated with Iran's
Revolutionary Guards, said Friday that Houthi missile units pounded the
Yemeni forces' military positions in the capital city of Sanaa on Friday
with the ballistic "Zalzal-2" missile. It added that forces'
gathering in the center of the Malah region of Sanaa came under attack by
the ballistic Zalzal-2 missile, according to the news agency's army
source. "It was a precision missile strike and [it] hit the
target," the source said without expanding on the damage and toll
inflicted. The agency quoted "a prominent analyst" Seyed Sadeq
al-Sharafi as saying that militias "are developing their missile
power to target Riyadh and Dubai in the future, after they increased
their missile and military capabilities and expanded the range of their
military operations against the enemies." The Zelzal-2 is an Iranian
developed long-range unguided rocket in use by the Iranian military,
Hezbollah and the Houthis.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Old disputes between Saudi Arabia and rival Iran
resurfaced at a meeting of OPEC experts last week, with Riyadh saying it
could raise oil output steeply to bring prices down if Tehran refuses to
limit its supply, OPEC sources say.
Northern Nigeria has become the latest battleground in the
proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, after violent clashes between
supporters of rival groups from the two main branches of Islam. Members
of the Izala movement, backed by mainly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, last
month attacked the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), which is
sympathetic to Shiite majority Iran... Those clashes and the recent
escalating tension indicate that the proxy Saudi-Iran conflict --
well-known in places such as Lebanon, Yemen and Syria -- is now being
played out in Nigeria, experts said.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iran's moderate President Hassan Rouhani has appointed a
woman as the head of the country's tourism and cultural heritage
department. His website said Saturday report says Rouhani appointed Zahra
Ahmadipour as deputy president in charge of the tourism and cultural
heritage department. Ahmadipour's previous role was as a middle-rank
official in the country's Interior Ministry. She is now the third female
member of the Cabinet.
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