|
TOP STORIES
In the battle against Islamic State, the U.S. and Iran
have become de facto allies in Iraq, a convergence of interests that
permitted both nations to tacitly cooperate and avoid open conflicts.
Once Islamic State is defeated, however, Washington's and Tehran's
interests are likely to diverge, especially if President Donald Trump
makes good on his pledge to aggressively contain Iranian power in the
region. To many Iraqis, this poses a challenge: will their country,
just as it emerges from the devastating war against Islamic State,
get sucked into in a new round of rivalry between its two most
important partners? Such a conflict in Iraq, after all, has the
potential to reverberate across the Middle East-and to set off a new
wave of bloodshed. "Iraq has a divided loyalty-between the
Unites States and Iran-and it has to find its balance," Hoshyar
Zebari, a senior Kurdish politician who served as Iraq's foreign
minister for more than a decade after the 2003 U.S. invasion,
explained the dilemma.
Rosatom said that the construction and installation
work phase was started on March 14. Representatives of the Russian
general contractor participated in the official ceremony. In November
2014, Nuclear Power Production and Development Company of Iran (NPPD)
and Russia's Atomstroiexport signed two contracts for the
construction of units 2, 3 of Bushehr-2. The total capacity of two
units of WWER-1000 (Water-Water Energetic Reactor) will be 2,100 megawatt.
Back in September 2016, Iran and Russia started the construction of
the second unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in a ceremony
attended by the head of the country's Atomic Energy Agency (AEOI) Ali
Akbar Salehi, Iranian First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, and
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russian state nuclear energy corporation
Rosatom. The second unit is expected to take 9 years to complete
(October 2024). A third unit will also begin to be built 18 months
later after that (April 2026).
Iran's official news agency is reporting that
authorities have detained two Iranian nationals and charged them with
spying. The Wednesday report by IRNA said the two had "espionage
devices" while pretending they were on a tourist visit to Abu
Musa Island in the Persian Gulf. It is the largest in a three-island
cluster controlled by Iran but also claimed by the United Arab
Emirates. The report said there would be further investigation but
did not elaborate. In the past, espionage devices have included
communications, camera and GPS devices. Iran occasionally announces
the arrest of spies without further reporting their fates. More than
a dozen suspects have been arrested and jailed for spying in recent
years. Last month, Iran said it sentenced a 62-year-old man to 10
years on espionage charges.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran is on track to out-produce Qatar, the world's
biggest LNG exporter, at the vast natural gas deposit they share in
the Persian Gulf. But as much as they might want, the Iranians won't
have much gas to export because they are likely to use most of the
new production themselves.
"I believe this trend will be maintained in the
next two or three years and bilateral trade volume will reach $10
billion," Russia's Rossiya Segodnya quoted him as saying on
Wednesday. According to Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of
Asian Affairs, trade turnover between Iran and Russia rose 80% to
more than $2 billion in 2016, with energy, agriculture and defense
sales forming the bulk of the transactions. President Rouhani is
about to visit Moscow soon, during which 11 documents are expected to
be signed for cooperation, Iran's Minister of Communications and
Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi has said.
Iranian petrochemical production could increase by
more than 50% by 2020, according to industry consultants
AmanpourConsult Iran currently produces 60 million mt of
petrochemical products, but this could increase by at least 28
million mt between 2016 and 2020 with about half of the expansion
coming through production of methanol. Speaking at S&P Global
Platts European Petrochemical Conference in Dusseldorf on Wednesday,
Aman Amanpour said that investments in Iran would see ethylene
production expand by 5 million mt, propylene by 5 million mt,
methanol 15 million mt, MEG by 2 million mt and aromatics and
derivatives by at least 2 million mt. "The methanol figure of 15
million mt a year is particularly mind-boggling. It is high, but even
if it is 10 million mt then it is huge and will have a big
impact," Amanpour told the conference.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
According to Commander of Iran's First Naval Zone
Admiral Hossein Azad, the Pakistani flotilla comprising Navy ships
Tippu Sultan and PNS Jurrat and a chopper on Wednesday left the
southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas for the east of the Hormuz
Strait where the drills will be held. The Iranian Navy's Jamaran
Destroyer as well as a missile-launching frigate and a helicopter
will join the Pakistani fleet, he added. The commander noted that
some 800 personnel of the Iranian and Pakistani navies will
participate in the drills. The Pakistani flotilla berthed at Bandar
Abbas on Sunday and was officially received by the Iranian Navy's
officers.
Turkey shares Jerusalem's concern about Iran's
regional ambitions and nuclear potential but differ when it comes to
strategy, the country's new ambassador to Israel, Kemal Okem, told
The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. Iran's "nuclear file is a
concern for everyone," said Okem, speaking briefly to the Post
after delivering a wide ranging policy speech at Tel Aviv University
that was followed by a question and answer session. Ankara, he said,
believes the best way forward is through containment not isolation.
"We have had a common border [with Iran] for hundreds of years
which remains unchanged. They see us as a strategic competitor... We
saw the need for engaging and containing their ambitions," he said.
MILITARY MATTERS
Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan
hailed on Wednesday Iran's military achievements in the current
Iranian year which will end on March 20, saying that the Islamic
Republic will continue boosting its defensive capabilities, ISNA
reported. Iran's defense capabilities, including its new weapons and
warfare products, show a huge growth compared to the previous year,
he emphasized, announcing plans to bolster the country's defense
capabilities and the Armed Forces' combat and operational power in the
incoming year. "In the coming year, the efforts by Iranian
experts in the area of military technology will bear fruit and the
combat and operational power of the Armed Forces will boost
remarkably," he said. General Dehqan further said that defense
industries have made huge progress in different missile, aerospace,
telecommunications, electronics, optics and engineering fields in
recent years.
PROXY WARS
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels working to take power in
Yemen are using a new weapon that is raising fears of seaborne
attacks on both military and commercial shipping in the region. The
weapon is an Iranian-designed remotely piloted small boat filled with
explosives, a defense official told Inside the Ring. The exact number
of the explosive drone boats is not known, but the rebels are
believed to have enough to threaten ships that pass through the
strategic sea lanes off the Yemeni coast. The Navy has intelligence
photos of the deadly boats but declined a request to release them.
The boats were first detected after one was used in an attack Jan. 30
on a Saudi frigate in the Red Sea. Iran is backing Houthi rebels as
part of a strategy of seeking to encircle its rival, Saudi Arabia,
and ultimately to take control of the peninsula.
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are looking
forward to the day when they see no Iranian interference in their
domestic affairs, a senior Kuwaiti official has said. "We always
stress that the Iranian interference must come to an end and we
insist that our dialogue with Tehran must be based on the
non-existence of any Iranian interference in the domestic affairs of
our countries," Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Al Jarallah said.
"What is happening in Bahrain is interference that impacts
dialogue, relations, security and stability in the region. Therefore,
we look forward to the day when we do not see any form of Iranian
interference in our affairs," Al Jarallah said, quoted by
Kuwaiti daily Al Rai on Thursday. The deputy minister was talking to
reporters on the sideline of the meeting of the international
anti-Daesh coalition in Kuwait City on Wednesday.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Iran has officially become a country guaranteeing the
truce in Syria, along with Russia and Turkey, Head of the Russian
delegation and Presidential Envoy for Syrian settlement Alexander
Lavrentyev said on Wednesday in Kazakhstan's capital Astana.
"Very importantly, today's consultations have resulted in the
Iranian delegation's decision to officially sign a document on
joining the agreement in the form of a guarantor country," the
envoy said. The next expert consultations on the Syrian peace talks
will be held in Tehran in April, according to Kazakhstan's Deputy
Foreign Minister Akylbek Kamaldinov. The fourth round of
Astana-hosted peace talks is scheduled for May 3-4. According
to Lavrentyev, there is no threat of disruption of the intra-Syrian
negotiations in Astana.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
My neighbors in my building complex in west Tehran
debate just about everything - the dogs taken for walks around the
grounds, the young people who have too many guests over, the
screaming children who wake up the elderly during their afternoon
naps. Tuesday night was different. All of the neighbors gathered in
the small square between the 26-story buildings to jump over fires,
hoping for fresh energy for the new year. Iran's authorities, led by
conservative Muslim clerics, strongly dislike the pre-Islamic festival
of Chaharshanbe Suri, or Fireworks Wednesday, as it would be called
in English. They call it dangerous and against Islam. But my
neighbors, young and old, love it. The preparations for Fireworks
Wednesday started Tuesday afternoon when the gardeners carefully laid
out seven small piles of sand near the square. Seven is regarded as a
holy number in Iran's pre-Islamic Zoroastrian faith. They then
brought over several wheelbarrow loads of firewood. I noticed several
of my neighbors peeking down from their balconies.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Forging a coherent policy on Syria would tax any
administration. One critical priority is defeating ISIS in a way that
neither leaves a vacuum nor fosters deeper sectarian differences
after liberating Raqqa. Another is managing Turkey's opposition to
our arming and use of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Forces in
fighting ISIS - and making sure that Turkey does not confront the
Kurds instead of the so-called Islamic State. And, of course, this
says nothing about the efforts to bring to an end the war that the
Assad regime has largely inflicted on the Syrian people. In this
connection, Russia with the help of Turkey has worked out a tenuous
ceasefire in Syria; the odds of its holding and turning into a real
political process are poor. Assad has killed too many Syrians for any
significant part of the opposition to accept his long-term presence.
President Trump's hardline but pragmatic approach to
Iran is paving the way for the restoration of a semblance of order
and regional stability. That's a significant accomplishment for an
administration still in its first 100 days. Effective foreign policy
is not necessarily a matter of complicated treaties that take years
to negotiate or opaque theories on international relations that only
PhDs can understand. A simple message and tone set at the top is
often all that's needed. By making known that under his watch, the
U.S. will be taking a more traditional, "realistic" and
conservative approach to the Middle East, Trump has already restored
a stronger sense of order. The message is clear to everyone from Gulf
monarchs to illiterate conscripts in the Iranian army, and marks a
clear improvement in two big elements of Middle East policy.
Do you know about the Iranian Feast of NowRuz? It's
the Persian New Year, and falls on March 21. Now means new and ruz
means day, so NowRuz means new day. Here we know it as the vernal
equinox and the start of springtime. In Iran, it's also a pre-Muslim
holy day for Zororastrians, a day when Iranian families visit each
other and talk about what they hope to see in the new year. It would
be a good opportunity for President Trump to mark a new day in
US-Iran relations - one that corrects his predecessor's poor
treatment of the Iranian people. March 21, 2017, will be the 38th
NowRuz since the 1979 fall of the shah and the Khomeinist revolution.
How cruel the promise of a happy new year must have seemed during all
those years! Have you seen photos from pre-Khomeini Iran? They're
heartbreaking. They show women fashionably dressed in the city or in
bathing suits at the beach, boys and girls together on the sidewalks
of Tehran.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment