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TOP STORIES
Iran and major powers were set to review adherence to
their 2015 nuclear agreement on Tuesday, as uncertainty grows about
the landmark accord's future under US President Donald Trump. The
regular quarterly meeting was expected to hear, as Washington confirmed
last week, that Iran is sticking to its deal with the US, Russia,
China, Britain, France and Germany. The accord saw Tehran drastically
curb its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of Western and
UN sanctions. However, Trump has ordered a 90-day review, saying last
Thursday that Iran was "not living up to the spirit" of the
"terrible" deal because of its actions in other areas. This
refers to Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, rebels in
Yemen and militias in Iraq and in Lebanon as well as Tehran's
ballistic missile program.
Iran's supreme leader said candidates in next month's
presidential election should pledge not to rely on foreign investment
to strengthen the economy, reinforcing his apparent differences with
incumbent Hassan Rouhani, who has sought to woo international
investors. All candidates need to "promise the people that in
order for the country to progress, for economic growth and to untie
the knots, their eyes won't be set outside our borders but on the
nation itself," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told officials on
Tuesday, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. The
May 19 election will help determine whether Iran remains committed to
Rouhani's engagement with the West. The moderate cleric is facing
mounting frustration over the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that critics
say hasn't yet benefited poor Iranians -- criticism echoed recently
by Khamenei, who has final say over state matters.
President Obama's controversial release last year of
seven prisoners with ties to Iran was presented as a goodwill gesture
linked to the larger nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, but a new
report claims some of those released were deemed threats to national
security. The agreement which freed the U.S. prisoners was part of a
flurry of related deals that unfroze more than $100 billion in
Iranian assets and brought home five Americans held by Tehran. But
Politico, in an exhaustive report, claims there was more to what
President Obama presented as a "one-time gesture" of
releasing prisoners described as businessmen convicted of or awaiting
trial for mere "sanctions-related offenses, violations of the
trade embargo." "In reality, some of them were accused by
Obama's own Justice Department of posing threats to national
security."
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi underlined
after a meeting with Director General of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano in Vienna that Tehran has remained
committed to undertaking under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
The meeting between Araqchi and Amano on Monday came a day before the
seventh scheduled meeting of the Joint Commission of Iran and Group
5+1, which monitors the implementation of the nuclear deal, known as
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). "As the entire
world knows and repeated reports by the agency have confirmed, Iran
has always been committed to its obligations and carefully
implemented the JCPOA," Araqchi, who is the Iranian head of the
commission, said.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
A relative of two Iranian-American citizens imprisoned
in Iran says their health is failing rapidly due to inhumane
conditions and is urging U.S. President Donald Trump to take
"personal responsibility" for their lives. Siamak Namazi
and his father, Baquer Namazi, were sentenced to 10-year prison terms
last year for "collusion with an enemy state" - the United
States. Babak Namazi has been working behind the scenes since then,
seeking the release of his father and brother. Their supporters deny
the charges and say the two are being held as leverage on the U.S.
Their supporters went public with their campaign Tuesday, appealing
to Trump and formally asking the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention for "urgent action" to secure their release.
A senior Iranian official says the United States will be
"explicitly" violating a nuclear deal with Iran and five
other countries if it refuses to extend the suspension of American
nuclear-related sanctions against the Islamic Republic on the due
date. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of
Iran, made the remark on Monday. Iran had a range of sanctions by the
US, the United Nations (UN), and the European Union (EU) terminated
after it reached the deal - known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) - with the P5+1 group of countries, namely the US, the
UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany, in Vienna in 2015.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran ranked as South Korea's second-biggest oil exporter
over the first three months of 2017 as it ramped up output to regain
market share after sanctions were lifted last year, the first time
ever it has claimed the No.2 spot on a quarterly basis. South Korea's
March imports from Iran more than doubled from a year ago to a record
18.54 million barrels, or 597,935 barrels per day (bpd), data from
state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) showed on Monday. For the
January-March period of 2017, Iran seized the No.2 spot with
shipments of 46.73 million barrels, also more than double from the
same period last year and the highest on record for a quarter.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
After Friday prayers April 14, Jordanians gathered in
the northern city of Mafraq burning Iranian flags and pictures of
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while demanding the
expulsion of Iran's ambassador from the Hashemite Kingdom. Jordan's 1994
peace treaty with Israel along with its pro-US orientation seems to
have put the country on a collision course with Iran. The
demonstrations came in response to a war of words between senior
Jordanian and Iranian officials. In a wide-ranging interview with The
Washington Post on April 6, King Abdullah II addressed the challenge
of growing Israeli settlement construction while trying to fight
terrorism. He warned, "These issues give ammunition to the
Iranians, to [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi and ISIS
[Islamic State]."
MILITARY MATTERS
Iran and Russia are moving closer together in their
military alliance, working to boost ties and coordination in Syria
and elsewhere in the region following the U.S. decision to launch a
military strike in Syria, according to regional reports and experts.
Iran's defense minister is slated to visit Moscow at the end of the
month to discuss increased military ties, a move that is meant to
deter U.S. action in the region and show a sign of increased force,
according to regional experts who spoke to the Washington Free
Beacon. The Tehran-Moscow axis has been growing since the landmark
Iran nuclear deal, with Russia making good on a series of weapons
deliveries, including the Russian-made S-300 missile defense system.
The two countries have been signing an additional number of military
deals in recent months and that cooperation is likely to increase in
light of the Trump administration's decision to launch strikes
against embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is being
backed by both Russia and Iran.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Of all the places one might encounter
Shirin Ebadi, Tallahassee should not be one. I was to meet her in the
state capital of what is officially known as America's sunshine
state, but is more widely regarded as America's weirdest state. Ebadi
was in Florida for PeaceJam, which connects Nobel peace prize laureates
with youth. But I found it hard to imagine the greatest Iranian human
rights icon spending Persian New Year week at a teen camp on the
Florida panhandle. "I go everywhere, I live on planes," she
tells me on the phone and indeed days later I'm scheduled to meet her
closer to my home in New York City. On the phone I hold my breath
every time we speak - her informal, easy Persian contrasts with mine,
layered with too much cloying etiquette, the kind you prepare for
some relative of your dreams. Persian is my first language - I use it
to speak to my family and Iranian friends, but recently I feel
anxious. I consider the prospect of translating Persian for those
trapped in legalese at airports during the "Muslim ban",
and I don't trust my tongue.
Iran's Supreme Court has upheld a
five-year jail sentence for a British-Iranian charity worker who was
convicted on unspecified charges relating to national security, her
husband said on Monday. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager
with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested by the elite
Revolutionary Guards in April 2016 at a Tehran airport, as she was
about to return to Britain with her two-year-old daughter after a
family visit. Iranian media have said she was convicted of plotting
the "soft overthrow" of Iran's clerical establishment, a
charge denied by the Foundation and her family. She was sentenced to
five years' imprisonment in September.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Unemployment in Iran weighed heavily on the fourth day
of the presidential campaigns as candidates exchanged accusations and
contested with numbers. While conservative candidate Mohammad Bagher
Ghalibaf vowed on Monday to provide five million jobs if he wins the
election, he was accused by the Iranian president's ally and vice
president, candidate Eshaq Jahangiri of "duping the
people." Without naming Ghalibaf, Jahangiri said: "Some
people present slogans about creating job opportunities at specific
levels. Those launching the promises had either never offered job
opportunities, or had missed the numbers and statistics of
unemployment." Jahangiri added: "Those speaking about
creating millions of job opportunities clearly want to fool the
people." However, Ghalibaf quickly fired back from Qom by
saying: "Those saying there is an impossibility to provide five
million job opportunities are looking at other places (the West)
Today, brokers manage the economy."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iran's presidential election next month was all set to
be a routine exercise of power in which Hassan Rouhani would be
returned to office. He has ended the nuclear crisis with the great
powers, and replenished the treasury. And he certainly has history on
his side: no Iranian president has ever lost a re-election bid. That
history was upended with the announced candidacy of Ebrahim Raisi, a
protégé of Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader. A looming succession
crisis and a contentious economic debate may yet doom Mr Rouhani to a
single-term presidency. The 56-year-old Mr Raisi is a former student
of the supreme leader and has spent much of his life in the
enforcement arm of the Islamic Republic. Soon after the revolution,
the young Mr Raisi was appointed to a succession of positions in the
judiciary, rising to become the prosecutor-general and the head of
the General Inspection Office. In 1988, he proved his mettle by
serving on the "Death Commission" that sanctioned the
massacre of thousands of political prisoners.
In two statements in August 2014, Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah claimed that the Islamic State was a threat to the
region. "The danger does not recognize Shiites, Sunnis,
Christians, or Druze, Yazidis, Arabs, or Kurds," he said.
"This monster is growing and getting bigger." He argued
that ISIS threatened the Arab monarchies stretching from Jordan to
the Gulf. Then he revealed the real goal of his Iranian-backed
Hezbollah movement. "Going to fight in Syria was, in the first
degree, to defend Lebanon, the resistance in Lebanon and all
Lebanese." Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Iran,
Hezbollah, and the various Shia militias in Iraq that make up the
Hashd al-Shaabi are riding a wave of victories. Never before have
Iran's proxies, extremist militias, had such legitimacy and power in
some areas, while in others they play a polarizing role.
Geopolitics appears to be entering into a new phase in
the Middle East region. Although Iran's role on geopolitical issues,
more specifically on the fate of Syria, increased steadily during
Obama administration, it seems that Trump will reverse policies
adopted by the previous administration. This appears to be aimed at reducing
Iranian influence in the region. Furthermore, in case a conservative
candidate wins the presidential elections scheduled to be held in
May, 2017, Iran's isolation will probably go to the next level. Yet
Iran continues to have considerable influence in the region. Its
place in world politics are relative to the following factors as they
shape the country's foreign policy.
Ties between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
have been strained for years. Incidents such as the stampede during
the Hajj pilgrimage in 2015, in which hundreds of Iranian pilgrims
were crushed to death; the execution of prominent Saudi Shiite cleric
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in January 2016; and the subsequent attacks on
Saudi diplomatic compounds in Iran ultimately led to a cut in
diplomatic relations between Tehran and Riyadh. This cooling soon
engulfed other GCC member states, except Oman, which has
traditionally enjoyed good ties with Iran. Despite the efforts of
smaller players such as Kuwait and Oman to defuse tensions between
Saudi Arabia and Iran, there is little on the horizon suggesting an
end to Riyadh's determination to directly confront Tehran. In Iran's
view, the Arab states have little desire to create tensions but are
rather under Saudi pressure to follow Riyadh's policies.
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