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An Iranian appeals court has confirmed a five-year
jail sentence for British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe on security charges, Iran's judiciary spokesman
said on Sunday. Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family said in September that a
Revolutionary Court had handed down the sentence on undisclosed
charges. Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said the term
had been upheld. "The five-year prison verdict against the
security defendant Nazanin Zaghari has been finalised," the
judiciary's website Mizan quoted Ejei as telling a weekly news
conference. Ejei also said Farhad Abd-Saleh was handed a five-year
sentence on appeal on security charges, without elaborating. Iranian
authorities have given few details about Abd-Saleh, who was named in
October along with five others, some of them Iranian dual nationals,
who had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for "espionage and
collaborating with the American government".
In his first phone conversation with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening, new US President Donald Trump
pledged close consultation in "addressing the threats posed by
Iran," unprecedented support for Israel's security, and a
determination to help Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians...
The two agreed to "closely consult on a range of regional
issues, including addressing the threats posed by Iran," the
White House said. The pledge of close consultation, and the active
reference to addressing the Iranian threat, contrasted sharply with
President Barack Obama's friction-filled dealings with Netanyahu on
the Iran issue; the nuclear deal the last president negotiated with
Iran in 2015 was bitterly attacked by the Israeli prime minister.
Gulf Arab states are quietly applauding the arrival in
the White House of a hawkish leader opposed to their adversary Iran,
even if they suspect Donald Trump's short temper and abrasive Tweets
may at times heighten tensions in the combustible Middle East. While
many countries around the world listened with concern to his
protectionist inaugural address, Gulf Arab officials appear
optimistic. They see in Trump a strong president who will shore up
Washington's role as their main strategic partner in a region central
to U.S. security and energy interests. In Gulf Arab eyes, that
involves above all checking what they see as a surge of Iranian
support for paramilitary allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon and
for fellow Shi'ite Muslims in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia's
oil-producing Eastern Province.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Turboprop maker ATR has completed commercial
negotiations with IranAir for the sale of at least 20 aircraft and
expects to be able to sign a contract very soon, the head of the
Franco-Italian aircraft maker said on Friday... "We have
concluded the negotiations and we should sign the contract
imminently," ATR Chief Executive Christian Scherer said. Scherer
was responding to some Iranian media reports on Friday that ATR had
already announced the signature of the keenly awaited deal... IranAir
and ATR have spent months negotiating a firm order for 20 ATR 72-600
aircraft worth 540 million euros ($576 million) at list prices, with
options for another 20.
SYRIA CONFLICT
A Syrian rebel group called on Russia to withstand
pressure from Iran and the Syrian government to help ensure that a
ceasefire agreed last month holds, the head of a delegation at peace
talks told Reuters on Sunday. Mohammad Alloush said a failure by
Moscow to end what the opposition says are widespread violations of a
Turkish-Russian brokered ceasefire would be a blow to its influence
in Syria. "It's a real test of the power of Russia and its
influence over the regime and Iran as a guarantor of the deal, so if
it fails in this role there will follow bigger failures,"
Alloush said in the Kazakh capital, where talks are due to begin on
Monday. The Syrian opposition says the government and Iranian-backed
militias are continuing military offensives in several areas in Syria,
including in Wadi Barada near the capital, regardless of the
ceasefire.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The family of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been sentenced to five years in jail in
Iran on undisclosed charges, said she has been accused by a Revolutionary
Court of acting against national security by cooperating with the
BBC... Her family said in a statement that the appeal "was held
in secret, in the presence of a large number of Revolutionary
Guards". Neither Zaghari-Ratcliffe nor her lawyer had been
allowed to tell the family what happened at her trial. However, the
family said that at the appeal hearing two new accusations have been
raised against her: being the head of recruitment for the BBC Persian
service, and knowingly being married to a British spy.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Israel's leader has recorded a conciliatory message to
the people of Iran, saying, "we are your friend, not your
enemy." In the video uploaded to his Facebook page Saturday,
Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the people of Iran in English, with
Farsi subtitles... "You have a proud history. You have a rich
culture. Tragically, you are shackled by a theocratic tyranny,"
he says.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI) released 98 additional items from Osama bin Laden's compound
today. If the ODNI has its way, then these files will be the last the
American people see for some time. The accompanying announcement is
titled, "Closing the Book on bin Laden: Intelligence Community Releases
Final Abbottabad Documents." The ODNI says today's release
"marks the end of a two-and-a-half-year effort to declassify
several hundred documents recovered" during the Abbottabad raid.
But the total number of files released thus far, including today's
document dump, is just a drop in the bucket compared to what was
found in the al Qaeda master's compound. And if the public and the
media care about transparency, then they should push to see more...
Transparency is important for a number of reasons. Consider the
ODNI's own statement on today's release, and how it provides a
remarkably incomplete picture regarding al Qaeda's decades-long
relationship with Iran. Why would ODNI attempt to portray bin Laden's
views as fixed and negative-"hatred, suspicion"-when
documents written by bin Laden himself tell a more nuanced, yet
troubling story? There's no question that some of bin Laden's files
document the tensions and problems in al Qaeda's relationship with
Iran. Bin Laden worried that members of his family would be tracked
by Iranian intelligence. At one point, al Qaeda even kidnapped an
Iranian diplomat in order to force a prisoner exchange. Some senior
al Qaeda leaders have been held in Iranian custody for years. But
there is much more to the story, including the documents detailing
Iran's longtime collusion with al Qaeda. The ODNI is essentially
asking readers to focus on the bad days in al Qaeda's marriage with
Iran, while ignoring the good days.
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