|
TOP STORIES
The Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has called
on the head of Iran's judiciary to step down after a string of hunger
strikes by political prisoners. Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani is also
facing mounting pressure from the government of Hassan Rouhani, which
is demanding greater financial transparency. Larijani was appointed
by the supreme leader, cannot be summoned by MPs for questioning and
is not directly accountable to the public. Under his watch the
judiciary has made a number of high-profile arrests of dual nationals
that are seen as undermining the president Rouhani's advances on
foreign policy. Ebadi, a human rights lawyer and women's rights
activist living in exile in the UK, said she considered Larijani to
be "directly responsible for the injustices and corruption"
in the system. She said that "in the name of religion and with
the excuse of national security", the judiciary was
"overseeing a miscarriage of justice".
Senior Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said
Friday that his country was serious in its offer to arm the Lebanese
military. "This matter lies within the [Lebanese]
government," the chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National
Security and Foreign Policy Committee, MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said.
The Iran MP's remarks came during a visit to the graves of slain
Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh and his son in Ghobeiri.
Four prisoners were reportedly executed at Karaj
Central Prison (northern Iran) and three prisoners were reportedly
executed at Karaj's Ghezel Hesar Prison (northern Iran). All seven
prisoners were sentenced to death on drug related charges.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
The Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the
United Nations will hold a meeting to discuss the achievements of
last year's nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of
countries. The meeting will be held in New York in mid-January in
cooperation with the Russian Center for Energy and Security Studies
on the eve of the first anniversary of the implementation of the
nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA). Participants at the meeting will exchange views about the
achievements made through the implementation of the JCPOA over the
past year and the prospects that the deal has created for sustainable
development. The Russian deputy foreign minister and senior
negotiator, Sergei Ryabkov, and Director of the Center for Energy and
Security Studies Anton V. Khlopkov will address the meeting, IRNA
quoted Iran's Ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei as saying on Friday.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Jan 6 National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is
negotiating with the Philippines over exporting four million barrels
of crude per month to the country, Iran's English-language Press TV
quoted a statement published on Friday by the NIOC as saying.
"The National Iranian Oil Company is in talks with Philippines'
National Oil Company (PNOC) to export 4 million barrels per month,"
the statement said. PNOC is one of the 11 companies in a consortium
of international companies, known as Pergas, which has signed a
non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the National Iranian South Oil
Company (NISOC) for carrying out studies over two oilfields in Iran,
Press TV said. "Based on the deal, the consortium will have 6
months to hand over the result of its studies on the fields to the
NISOC. Pergas may submit its proposal for development of the fields
sooner if it is ready," it said.
Daelim Industrial Co., a major construction firm in
South Korea, said on December 29 that it has received a letter of
award (LOA) from Iran's Esfahan Oil Refining Co. (EORC) to improve
oil refinery facilities. The deal, which is worth 2.3 trillion won
(US$2.0 billion), is the largest contract secured by a domestic
construction company in Iran. The project is to add facilities that
will be used to produce high value-added products to the oil refinery
in Isfahan, located 400 kilometers south of Tehran, the capital of
Iran. Under the deal to be officially signed in January 2017, Daelim
Industrial will be in charge of design, equipment and material
procurement, construction and financing. Construction will take 48
months after groundbreaking.
Iranian Railway Company has signed contract with
Siemens of Germany to acquire some 3,000 wagons by the end of March,
Babak Ahmadi Naqedi, senior official with Islamic Republic of Iran
Railways said on Wednesday. The company decided to put out of service
all the wagons built more than 55 years ago, Ahmadi Naqedi was quoted
as saying in an Irna report.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iran's attempts to develop nuclear capabilities have
occupied less of the recent international security conversation,
particularly in the wake of terror attacks around the world and the
rise of so-called 'Islamic State' in Syria and Iraq. Progress was
made late last year with the agreement of the joint comprehensive
plan of action (JCPOA) by the EU, Iran and the P5+1 - China, France,
Russia, the UK and the US, plus Germany. Nevertheless, there are
concerns about Iran failing to adhere to its commitments. The US has
recommended taking a diplomatic approach, lifting certain sanctions
under the JCPOA and unfreezing Iranian overseas assets in exchange
for Iran complying with the deal. Nevertheless, organisations such as
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a non-profit organisation in the
US dedicated to preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, have
criticised particular tenets of the deal which make it easy for the
country to leave certain commitments unfulfilled: Iran is able to
leave the deal if sanctions are re-imposed, meaning that the involved
countries would likely be reluctant to trigger this mechanism for
minor violations. UANI has undertaken a number of key efforts,
including campaigning for companies to suspend business ties with
Iran. One such project involved calling for crane companies to cease
trading because the machines can be used for public executions,
an initiative which saw a number of international companies
withdrawing their business from the country. UANI has extended its
efforts towards Europe, campaigning to prevent European businesses
from exploring opportunities in Iran once sanctions prohibiting this
are lifted. Mark Wallace, former US Ambassador to the United Nations
and the CEO of UANI, spoke to PEN about the progress made in the
campaign so far, the organisation's concern over Iran's actions
outside of nuclear non-proliferation, and the compromises it believes
are necessary to future business dealings with the country.
Short of last-minute diplomacy, Donald Trump will
inherit another hostage crisis with Iran on Inauguration
Day-thirty-five years after the first hostage drama at the U.S.
Embassy in Tehran ended, as Ronald Reagan was sworn in, and exactly
one year after the Obama Administration's swap to free five more
Americans. The Islamic Republic has quietly arrested more Americans
since the nuclear deal went into effect in January, 2016, which
coincided with a separate U.S. payment of $1.7 billion, transferred
in three planeloads of cash, to settle a legal case from the Shah's
era. The deals were designed to curtail Tehran's cyclical seizure of
Americans, which had been a problem for both Bush Administrations,
too. Only they didn't. At least six Americans and two green-card
holders are now imprisoned or have disappeared in the Islamic
Republic. One is now the longest-held civilian hostage in U.S.
history. An undisclosed number have not been publicly identified.
In late November, Iran made an unusual announcement:
it said it was planning to build naval bases in Syria and Yemen,
which, as a state-run paper later posited, "could be ten times
more efficient than nuclear power." Although Iran has long
striven to establish itself as a leading regional power, and naval
outposts have been key to reaching that goal, this was the first time
Tehran officially declared its intentions to build such bases beyond
its own borders. Bases in Syria and Yemen would be particularly
important to Iran. Yemen sits on the strategic shipping route of the
Bab el Mandeb Strait, one of the world's most heavily trafficked
waterways, and a naval outpost there would give Tehran unfettered
access to the Red Sea and put it in a more advantageous position to threaten
its main regional rival, Saudi Arabia. A base in Yemen would also
enable Iran to better support the Houthi rebels, one of its proxies,
who took over Sanaa in September 2014. The Saudi-led blockade on
Yemen has prevented Iran from accessing Yemen's shores. And in late
October, Iranian ships carrying supplies to the Houthis were forced
to turn back after U.S. warships intercepted them-Iran's fifth
shipment of weaponry to the Houthis that the United States has
blocked in the past year and a half. This has forced Iran to reroute
its smuggling operations through Oman. An Iranian base in Yemen would
resolve that problem, to some extent... A base in Syria, if it ever
materializes, would stretch Iran's naval arm to the Mediterranean and
strengthen the Iranian military presence near Europe's shores. It
would also help Tehran's allies in Lebanon, Palestine, and
Syria-Hezbollah, Hamas, and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad,
respectively. A naval base in Syria would enable Iran to transport
regular supplies and provide other assistance to Hezbollah without
being dependent on overland convoys or aerial transport through Iraq
or Turkey.
Even if the next U.S. administration downsizes our
military presence in the Middle East, it must work more effectively
with our Arab Gulf partners to counter Iran's growing asymmetric
threat.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment