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TOP STORIES
Iran will ask "no one's permission" to build
up its missile capability, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday,
in what appeared to be a defiant response to U.S. efforts to hamper
the Iranian military. Facing an election in May where he hopes to
secure a second four-year term, Rouhani has had to defend himself
from opponents who say he has been too eager to appease the West,
after agreeing to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the
lifting of sanctions. U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized the
nuclear deal and said during his election campaign he would stop
Iran's missile program. After Iran test-fired a new ballistic missile
in January, Trump tweeted that it was "playing with fire".
Addressing an event showcasing some locally built military hardware,
broadcast on state TV, Rouhani said: "The strengthening of the
capability of the Iranian armed forces ... is only for defending the
country and we will ask no one's permission to build up the armed
forces, and to build missiles and aircraft."
The power struggle in Iran ahead of next month's
presidential election is intensifying as both pro-reform and hardline
groups select two main candidates and speculation mounts over whether
centrist president Hassan Rouhani will be allowed to run for a second
term. Amid concern among Mr Rouhani's allies that hardline opponents
may try to have him disqualified, Iran's first vice-president, Es'haq
Jahangiri, threw his hat into the ring at the weekend as the second
main reformist candidate. Mr Jahangiri said he would not compete
against the president. "I will stand by Mr Rouhani and
complement him," he said after his nomination.
Registration for next month's Iranian presidential
election closed on Saturday, with more than 1,600 hopefuls signing
up, including a last-minute entry by Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher
Ghalibaf. The 55-year-old conservative mayor had given mixed signals
about whether he would make a third bid for the presidency, but
showed up at the interior ministry just before the deadline for
registration. There was also a surprise last-minute entry from first
vice-president Eshaq Jahangiri, a close confidante of President
Hassan Rouhani who registered on Friday. It is assumed Jahangiri, a 60-year-old
reformist, is running to offer an alternative in case Rouhani is
disqualified by the Guardian Council, which vets the candidates.
Others speculate he could be trying to raise his profile ahead of a
more concerted bid in 2021.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iran has censured the United States' role in spreading
terror in the Middle East region, saying Washington should pay for
its wrongdoings. Speaking at a news briefing on Monday, Foreign
Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said US officials have shown in recent
decades that they have not learned from their previous experiences
and have consistently contributed to the escalation of terrorism in
the region through their wrongful policies and indecent behavior.
Qassemi said that Washington's policy continued under the new
administration. "This is a mistake, which the US government
should pay for like its other mistakes," the official asserted.
As a case in point, he cited Republican US Senator John McCain's
meeting with the head of the terrorist anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq
Organization (MKO), Maryam Rajavi, in the Albanian capital Tirana on
Friday.
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the
recent US missile strike on Syria did not faze him in a recent
interview with the Associated Press. "I do not think it has a
message for Iran. Iran is a powerful country and people like Mr.
(Donald) Trump or the United States administration cannot hurt
Iran," said Ahmadinejad in his northern Tehran office on
Saturday. Iran is an ally to the Syrian government in the ongoing
conflict and its military is in Syria alongside Syrian government
forces. The US supports rebel groups while also fighting the so
called Islamic State (IS). Ahmadinejad, who announced a few days ago
he was running for a third presidential term, added the US air strike
would have occurred even if Hillary Clinton won the US presidential election
in November. He also considered the Trump administration was
posturing in its tough talk against Iran, suggesting Trump would
rather avoid war with his international interests.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
The Trump administration is leveling new economic
sanctions against senior Iranian officials and its prison system for
widespread human rights abuses, including the systematic torture of
those being held in these facilities, according to White House
officials familiar with the matter. The latest sanctions target the
Tehran Prisons Organization and Sohrab Suleimani, a senior official
in the prison system and the brother of Qassem Soleimani, a senior
Iranian military figure responsible for operating Iran's rogue
activities in Syria and elsewhere. Sohrab Soleimani is responsible
for overseeing Iran's notorious Evin Prison, which is known for
torturous interrogations, forced interrogations, and widespread
mistreatment of inmates. The latest sanctions are certain to rankle
Tehran, already the subject of a range of new sanctions under the
Trump administration, which is currently conducting a widespread
review of all matters related to the landmark nuclear agreement.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
UK firms are cautiously eying opportunities in Iran
ahead of an expected $600bn boom in trade and infrastructure
investment over the next ten years. The Islamic Republic is embarking
on an ambitious investment drive as it emerges from decades of
isolation imposed by international sanctions. The key infrastructure
projects required includes the expansion of its 10,223km long
state-owned rail network which supports industrial and commercial
corridors and is expected to expand to over 25,000km by 2025,
according to consultancy firm Ipsos. In addition, all 54 of Iran's
airports are expected to require significant upgrades and Iran is
planning to build 7 new international airports over the next decade.
The state carrier, Iran Air, has already placed orders with Airbus
for 114 new aircraft and it is estimated that another 600 new
airplanes will be needed in the next decade.
Most oil producers support an extension of output cuts
by OPEC and non-OPEC countries, and Iran would also back such a move,
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh was quoted as saying.
"(Zanganeh) stressed that most countries want OPEC's decision to
be extended," the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported.
"Iran also supports such a decision and if others comply, so
would Iran," Zanganeh told reporters late on Saturday, according
to ISNA. The market has been oversupplied since mid-2014, prompting
members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and
some non-OPEC producers to agree to cut output in the first six
months of 2017. OPEC meets on May 25 to consider extending the cuts
beyond June. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and most other OPEC members are
leaning towards this if agreement is reached with other producers,
OPEC sources told Reuters last month.
Iran said Sunday that it has more than doubled
production at a giant undersea gas reservoir over the last four
years. President Hassan Rouhani, who will stand for re-election next
month, had campaigned in 2013 on promises to boost Iran's natural gas
production. He said daily Iranian production at the South Pars Gas
Field, which Iran shares with Qatar, has reached 540 million cubic
meters, up from just 240 million when he was elected in 2013, state
media reported. Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said $20 billion has been
invested in the field over the past decade, and that another $15
billion would be invested in the coming years, without providing
specific details.
YEMEN CRISIS
In an interview with Al Arabiya General Manager Turki
Aldakhil this week, General Ahmed Asiri, the spokesman for Arab
coalition forces fighting in support of the legitimate government in
Yemen, revealed the existence of an "Iranian plot to strike the
security and stability of Saudi Arabia." This plot would have
been initiated from the Yemeni border, which prompted Saudi forces to
move to protect the kingdom's territory, Asiri said, referring to the
military intervention launched by Saudi Arabia and a coalition of
Arab countries in 2015 codenamed Operation Decisive Storm.
The coalition are battling against Houthi militias and bolstering
Yemeni government forces after a Houthi takeover of the capital Sanaa
and surrounding areas in recent years.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Iranian human rights activist Darya
Safai on Friday demanded sports sanctions against her country as
punishment for banning women from stadiums, a policy she described as
"intolerable sexual apartheid". Speaking in front of the
Eiffel Tower in Paris, one of the two cities bidding for the 2024
Olympics, the 42-year-old, wearing a tee-shirt bearing the slogan
"Let Iranian women enter their stadiums", demanded an end
to segregation. "We want to tell the International Olympic
Committee and the international sports bodies that they must put an
end to the discrimination and segregation that women face in sport,
to say nothing is to condone it," Safai told AFP. Alongside
other activists, she unveiled a banner which read: "Paris 2024
Against Sexual Apartheid -- Boycott Saudi Arabia and Iran".
The candidacy in Iran's upcoming
presidential election of Ebrahim Raisi, who played a leading role in
crimes against humanity during the 1980s, is a serious setback for a
country striving to rejoin the international community. In 1988,
Raisi was part of a four-man commission that implemented the
extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners. Current
President Hassan Rouhani, Raisi, and the former President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad are considered at present to be the most serious
contenders for the presidency, which will be decided in Iran's
elections on May 19. "A man who should be on trial for the most
heinous crime in contemporary Iranian history, is instead seeking the
presidency," said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the
Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). "Allowing him to run for
president is yet another grievous wound for the families who unjustly
lost their loved ones in 1988," he added.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iranian hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi Friday registered
to run for next month's presidential election, state television
showed. The 56-year-old has emphasized his concern for the poor and
the high levels of unemployment - considered a weak spot for
President Hassan Rouhani who also registered on Friday. "Despite
all the efforts of previous governments, the situation of the country
is such that people ask why is there so much unemployment?"
Raisi told reporters at the interior ministry where registration was
being held. He said he would announce detailed economic
policies at a later date. "I have come to be the candidate for
the whole of Iran. I don't limit myself to a certain group, party or
faction," he added.
A brother of late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has
registered to run in the upcoming Iranian presidential elections in
May. Associated Press journalists watched as Mohammad Hashemi
Rafsanjani, 75, registered Saturday - the last day of the registration
period. Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani was head of Islamic Republic of
Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) for 10 years until 1994. He was also a
member of the Expediency Council, an administrative assembly that
plays an advisory role to Iran's Supreme Leader, or head of state.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
When US Tomahawk missiles struck Syria's Shayrat air
base in retaliation for the Assad regime's barbaric chemical-weapons
attack on rebel-held territory, Pentagon officials stressed their
efforts to avoid hitting Russian military personnel located nearby.
What the briefers didn't say was that units from Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps were also present at Shayrat, having been
buttressing Bashar al-Assad long before significant Russian
involvement. This is more than a little ironic given the IRGC's long
campaign of terrorism against the United States and its allies.
Indeed, Washington is currently debating whether to designate the
Guard as a "foreign terrorist organization." President
Ronald Reagan listed Iran itself as a state sponsor of terrorism in
1984. In 2007, George W. Bush named the Quds Force, the tip of the
IRGC spear internationally, terrorists as well.
The U.S. has signed agreements with three rogue regimes
strictly limiting their unconventional military capacities. Two of
those regimes-Syria and North Korea-brazenly violated the agreements,
provoking game-changing responses from President Trump. But the third
agreement-with Iran-is so inherently flawed that Tehran doesn't even
have to break it. Honoring it will be enough to endanger millions of
lives. The framework agreements with North Korea and Syria, concluded
respectively in 1994 and 2013, were similar in many ways. Both
recognized that the regimes already possessed weapons of mass
destruction or at least the means to produce them. Both assumed that
the regimes would surrender their arsenals under an international
treaty and open their facilities to inspectors. And both believed
that these repressive states, if properly engaged, could be brought
into the community of nations. All those assumptions were wrong.
After withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
Pyongyang tested five atomic weapons and developed intercontinental
missiles capable of carrying them.
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