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Angry coal miners besieged a car carrying Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday after he visited the site of a
deadly mine explosion, a rare protest targeting the nation's top
elected official as he campaigns for re-election. Soot-covered
miners, enraged over the disaster that reportedly killed at least 35
miners Wednesday in Iran's northern Golestan province, kicked and
beat the armored SUV carrying Rouhani. The incident offered an
extraordinary sign of very public dissent ahead of Iran's May 19 presidential
poll, a contest largely viewed as a referendum on Rouhani and his
nuclear deal with world powers. Official state media did not
immediately report on the incident, first brought to light by videos
posted online by the semi-official Fars and Tasnim news agencies.
Both are believed to have links to Iran's hard-line Revolutionary
Guard, a paramilitary force that Rouhani criticized during a
televised presidential debate on Friday.
President Hassan Rouhani's trip to the coal mine in
northern Iran was all going to plan, until the crowd massed in front
of his car chanting "it's a day of mourning for workers".
Seconds later, shaky footage of Sunday's protest showed a man jumping
onto the bonnet and stamping hard on the metalwork, a rare direct
confrontation against the background of a highly-charged election
race that keeps returning to one subject - Iran's stuttering economy.
Rouhani was officially there to visit families bereaved by an
explosion at Zemestanyurt mine last week. But the protest slogans
broadened out into other areas - poor safety standards, late
payments, poor insurance coverage and seasonal unemployment.
When Iran last year cemented a landmark nuclear
agreement with six world powers to remove many of the sanctions
against it, Hassan Rouhani, the country's reformist president, said
it would aim to attract at least $30bn a year of foreign investment.
"From today, merchants and entrepreneurs in our country can
benefit from normal ways of banking transactions to start their
exports," he said. "From today, our banks are reconnected
to the world's banking system. Today is the day of victory." The
hope was that as Iran came in from the cold, international banks
would begin to finance business in the country, spurring foreign
investment and driving economic growth that had long been stunted by
widespread trade restrictions.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Each of Iran's six presidential candidates committed
Friday to uphold a nuclear deal with world powers should he win the
May 19 election, a vote widely seen as a potential referendum on the
accord's benefits for average Iranians. The statements of support
came during a debate that was broadcast live on Iranian state
television, the second of three scheduled for the short campaign
season. President Hassan Rouhani, whose government negotiated the
deal in exchange for sanctions relief, is facing five challengers.
His critics have blasted the agreement, whose signatories include the
United States, saying it has failed to usher in economic prosperity.
The moderate Rouhani sought to defend his signature achievement
against such criticisms, saying that without it, "instead of
producing 2 million barrels of oil a day, that number would be as low
as 200,000 barrels a day."
Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, has used a
presidential TV debate to accuse the country's powerful revolutionary
guards of attempting to sabotage its nuclear agreement with the west
by testing ballistic missiles with provocative anti-Israeli messages
written on them. The moderate cleric, who is seeking re-election in a
six-man race scheduled for 19 May, came under attack about his
administration's performance in Friday's three-hour-long televised
debate focused on domestic and foreign policy. But Rouhani defended
his record, and accused his domestic opponents of rooting for Donald
Trump. "We saw what they did in order to disrupt Barjam,"
Rouhani said referring to the Persian acronym for the landmark
nuclear agreement. "They wrote messages on the missiles so that
we won't be able to reap its benefits," he said, mentioning the
elite force's testing of two ballistic missiles in March 2016, just
two months after sanctions were lifted.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
Citing a POLITICO investigation, Republican leaders of
the House oversight committee said Friday they have launched a
sweeping investigation into whether the Obama administration, in
trying to win support for a nuclear deal and prisoner swap with
Tehran last year, undermined an ambitious U.S. counterproliferation
effort to thwart Iranian weapons trafficking networks. Also in
response to the POLITICO investigation, 13 Republican senators have
demanded answers about whether the Obama administration jeopardized
U.S. national security as a result of its protracted top-secret
negotiations with Tehran, and then misled the American public when
disclosing the terms of the two deals in January 2016.
A bipartisan group of House members are pressing
President Donald Trump to take concrete steps to secure the
unconditional, safe return of several U.S. citizens and permanent
residents imprisoned in Iran after the administration leveled
sanctions last month on its prison system and officials who run it.
Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.), Ted Poe (R., Texas), Nita Lowey
(D., N.Y.), and Ted Deutch (D., Fla.), this week introduced a
bipartisan resolution calling on Trump to make the release of at
least six U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents the
"highest of priorities" and urging the U.S. and its allies
who also have citizens detained in Iran to create a multi-national
task force to secure their release. Ros-Lehtinen blamed the Obama
administration for giving Tehran an incentive to take more U.S.
hostages with its $1.7 billion payment to Tehran last year, $400
million of which was paid in cash and timed to ensure the release of
four U.S. hostages.
BUSINESS RISK
A consortium of two French companies that had signed a
memorandum of understanding with Iran last year has failed to develop
the international Imam Khomeini Airport City (IKAC). The investment
agreement came in seven articles, said IKAC CEO Mahmoud Navidi,
adding Iran repealed the contract four months ago when the French
side did not keep up, Fars news agency reported May 6. The
development project related to Iranshahr Terminal of the IKAC and the
French side had agreed to offering financing and engineering services
and more, Navidi said. He nevertheless added that Iran has held a
tender to replace the French consortium, adding currently 50 Iranian
and foreign companies have placed bids. The memorandum of
understanding awarding Bouygues BOUY.PA the contract was agreed in
January 2016.
A preliminary deal signed by Bouygues (BOUY.PA) last
year to build and run a new terminal at Tehran's Khomeini airport has
been canceled, a spokesman for the French construction group said on
Friday. The memorandum of understanding awarding Bouygues the
contract was agreed in January 2016. The project was hindered by the
company's struggle to get financial backing from international banks,
which are still wary of U.S. sanctions over their activities in Iran,
online newspaper La Lettre de l'Expansion earlier reported. "The
MoU is now void but there are still ongoing discussions with Iranian
authorities," the Bouygues spokesman said. Aeroports de Paris
(ADP.PA), initially Bouygues' partner for the Tehran airport terminal
development, said in February it would no longer take part in the
project.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran is buying equipment to avert a possible disruption
in output at its share of the world's biggest natural gas field, in
the event the U.S. decides to impose additional sanctions on its
economy, the head of state-run operator Pars Oil & Gas Co. said.
The company is buying "essential equipment" it would need
to avert a halt in operations at the offshore South Pars deposit, in
case the U.S. imposes new curbs on Iran, Managing Director Mohammad
Meshkin Fam said in an interview in Tehran. Under new sanctions, the
company's purchase of a simple valve for the field would become
"a most challenging task," he said. "They will not be
able to stop our work altogether, but they will greatly slow down the
progress here at South Pars gas field and make it astronomically more
expensive," Meshkin Fam said Sunday.
South Africa's MTN Group has agreed to invest more than
$295 million in Iranian Net, a fixed line broadband network in which
it is to buy an initial 49 percent stake. The outline deal announced
on Monday extends MTN's interests in the Iranian telecoms market that
has opened up to foreigners following the lifting of international
sanctions, which has also allowed MTN to repatriate $1 billion in
accumulated dividends from its 49 percent stake in wireless network
operator Irancell. The latest agreement, which is still at a
non-binding stage, is the second for MTN in Iran this year after
Africa's biggest wireless networks group invested in Iran Internet
Group, which runs a car hailing app called Snapp.ir
SYRIA CONFLICT
Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed in a memorandum signed on
May 4 to establish four separate de-escalation zones in Syria for at
least six months, according to a text detailing the agreement
published by the Russian foreign ministry on Saturday. The largest
de-escalation zone includes Idlib province and adjoining districts of
Hama, Aleppo and Latakia provinces. The other three zones are in
northern Homs province, the Eastern Ghouta region east of the capital
Damascus and along the Jordanian border in southern Syria. The
guarantors will finalize maps of the de-escalation zones by June 4,
and the agreement can be extended automatically if the three
guarantor states agree.
A top Russian general said troops from Iran will join
with Turkey and Russia in securing four safe zones in Syria under an
initiative aimed at shoring up a shaky cease-fire, even as Syrian
rebel groups are resisting the plan because they oppose an Iranian
role. Lt. General Sergei Rudskoi said that Syrian government forces
will refrain from attacking rebel groups, including by air, if
they're observing the truce in the so-called de-escalation zones,
according to an emailed statement from the Defense Ministry in
Moscow. He said that Russia has already halted air assaults in those
areas as of May 1. The zones, which may be expanded to include other
locations, cover areas inhabited by about 2.7 million people, he
said. They're in northern Syria in territory covering parts of the
provinces of Idlib, Latakia, Aleppo and Hama, as well as the north of
Homs province, the east Ghouta suburb of the capital Damascus and in
southern Syria on the border with Jordan.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The head of the Iranian armed forces warned Islamabad on
Monday that Tehran would hit bases inside Pakistan if the government
does not confront Sunni militants who carry out cross-border attacks.
Ten Iranian border guards were killed by militants last month. Iran
said Jaish al Adl, a Sunni militant group, had shot the guards with
long-range guns, fired from inside Pakistan. The border area has long
been plagued by unrest from both drug smuggling gangs and separatist
militants. "We cannot accept the continuation of this
situation," Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the head of the
Iranian armed forces was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
"We expect the Pakistani officials to control the borders,
arrest the terrorists and shut down their bases." "If the
terrorist attacks continue, we will hit their safe havens and cells,
wherever they are," he said.
MILITARY MATTERS
Iran's armed forces warned President Hassan Rouhani
against discussing the country's defence program after he criticized
the anti-Israel slogans written on the side of ballistic missiles,
local media reported Saturday. During an election debate Friday,
Rouhani took the rare step of criticizing the elite Revolutionary
Guards for the provocative messages they wrote on ballistic missiles
before testing them. "We saw how they wrote slogans on missiles
and showed underground (missile) cities to disrupt the JCPOA (nuclear
deal)," he said during the debate, which comes ahead of the May
19 election. Armed Forces spokesman General Masoud Jazayeri responded
that the missile program had "no connection" to the nuclear
deal.
YEMEN CRISIS
Adel al-Shuja, a member of the General People's Congress
which was the party of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused
the Houthis of selling Yemen to Iran for a cheap price. Shuja said on
his Facebook page that the Houthis are linked to Iran as their
statements scandalize them, adding that the slogan "death to
America" is an Iranian tune. He also said that the slogan
represents a ritual of the Khomeini culture and it has transferred
from Tehran to Beirut's southern suburb and then to Sanaa. Shuja also
said that the practices of Houthi militias are based on a racial and
extremist ideology as the Houthis believe that there is no other way
for them persist unless they rely on their dogmatism.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Iran will hit back at most of Saudi Arabia with the
exception of Islam's holiest places if the kingdom does anything
"ignorant", Tehran's defense minister was quoted as saying
on Sunday after a Saudi prince threatened to move the
"battle" to Iran. "If the Saudis do anything ignorant,
we will leave no area untouched except Mecca and Medina,"
Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan was quoted by the
semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying. "They think they can
do something because they have an air force," he added in an
apparent reference to Yemen, where Saudi warplanes regularly attack
Iran-aligned Houthi forces in control of the capital Sanaa. Dehghan,
speaking to Arabic-language Al-Manar TV, was commenting on remarks by
Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said on Tuesday
any contest for influence between the Sunni Muslim kingdom and the
revolutionary Shi'ite theocracy ought to take place "inside
Iran, not in Saudi Arabia".
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Hardline rivals challenged President Hassan Rouhani in a
pre-election debate on Friday over the lack of economic revival since
his nuclear deal with big powers, but he said oil exports had
resurged and the economy only needed more time to recover. Rouhani
was elected by a landslide in 2013 on pledges to end Iran's
international isolation that had crippled the economy and to ease
restraints on society in the Islamic Republic. He seeks re-election
on May 19 against hardline rivals, though even supporters voice
disappointment at his performance in office. In a debate in Tehran
carried live on state TV, Rouhani battled criticism that few Iranians
had enjoyed any tangible benefits from the 2015 deal under which Iran
curbed its disputed nuclear activity in exchange for relief from
global sanctions.
Iran's supreme leader on Sunday criticized the
government of President Hassan Rouhani for promoting a
"Western-influenced" United Nations education plan which
his hardline allies have said contradicts Islamic principles.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's remarks came ahead of May 19 polls, in which
the president is seeking re-election. "In this country, the
basis is Islam and the Koran. This is not a place where the faulty,
corrupt and destructive Western lifestyle will be allowed to spread
its influence," Khamenei told a gathering of educators,
according to his website. "It makes no sense to accept such a
document in the Islamic Republic," Khamenei said, referring to
the Education 2030 plan proposed by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani faced furious protests
from victims' families on Sunday when he visited the site of a mine
accident that claimed dozens of lives, two weeks ahead of an
election. Local news agencies showed people stamping on Rouhani's car
and beating the windows as it tried to make its way through an angry
crowd at the site in the northern Golestan province, where at least
26 people were killed by an explosion on Wednesday. "Why is
there no safety at the mine? Why does no one care?" shouted one
emotional spokesman for the miners at the scene, in a video shared on
social media. "Last year, we gathered in front of the governor's
office together with our wives because we were unpaid for 14 months.
And you, the president, didn't even notice," he added.
Iran's state TV Saturday censored a documentary released
by President Hassan Rouhani's campaign, ahead of the upcoming
presidential election. A report by the semi-official ILNA did not
elaborate but a Rouhani campaign official confirmed to The Associated
Press that state TV had cut parts of "President Rouhani".He
said one censored segment showed supporters chanting for opposition
leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house-arrest since
2011 and whose Green Movement hard-liners oppose. Also omitted was a
picture of former President Mohammad Khatami, whose name and image have
been banned in Iranian media since 2015. He said state TV also cut
out a remark by a student in which he said Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenea supported the 2015 landmark nuclear deal between Iran
and world powers. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
In countries with state-controlled media, being
president usually gives you command of the airwaves. Not in Iran,
where power rests both with elected leaders and guardians of the
Islamic Republic. So as he seeks a second term in the May 19
election, moderate President Hassan Rouhani and his supporters are
increasingly circumventing the nation's censors using social media. A
campaign video released by Rouhani's team was aired on state
television on Saturday only after the broadcaster cut extracts that
it deemed politically sensitive, including chants in favor of a
former premier who's been under house arrest since 2011. Within
minutes, the offending clips had been released by the president's
campaign office and were circulating via the popular messaging app
Telegram, which has some 40 million users in Iran.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
On Apr. 17, 2017, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson
described the Iran nuclear deal as a failure but said Tehran was
complying with its terms. Tillerson stopped short of threatening to
abandon the 2015 accord brokered by the major powers or saying if the
Trump administration would penalize Iran with new sanctions on
ballistic missiles or state-sponsored terrorism. Tillerson announced
the National Security Council (NSC) would review the accord. For
Iran, being a state sponsor of international terrorism and
proliferator of ballistic missiles since Jan. 1984 are two sides of
the same coin. The State Department designated Iran as a State
Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984; Iran continued its terrorist-related
activity through 2014, including support for Palestinian terrorist
groups in Gaza (Hamas), Lebanese Hezbollah, and various groups in Iraq
and throughout the Middle East, which are a threat to allies like
Israel and friends, such as Jordan and the Gulf States. Tehran also
transferred short-and mid-range ballistic missiles to Hamas and
Hezbollah.
Foreign policy has traditionally come second to domestic
issues in Iranian presidential elections. Yet ever since the 2013
presidential election, foreign policy debates have come to the fore.
Four years ago, Hassan Rouhani ran for president with a symbolic key
to open the doors to resolve Iran's mainly economic challenges. As in
the 2013 presidential polls, foreign policy has increasingly become a
key component of Iran's presidential elections. During the 2013
election, Rouhani argued that many difficulties were rooted in the
country's foreign policy, declaring that it's time for foreign policy
to serve Iran's economy. He also said in yet another highly symbolic
sentence that the spinning of uranium enrichment centrifuges is
valuable once the economy's wheels also spin. Therefore, his foreign
policy agenda focused on resolving both the nuclear issue and easing
tensions with Iran's Arab neighbors. Nonetheless, resolving the
nuclear issue through engagement with six world powers came first, paying
off with the signing of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA).
Iranian media outlets voiced their anger following Saudi
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's recent interview. He was
clear and frank as he stated that Iran must choose to either be a
civil state which is possible to agree with within the framework of
mutual interests and according to the pillars of secular work or it
can remain a revolutionary state that bases its foreign policy on
doctrinal myths. The prince also spoke about Moscow during the
interview. He said Russia is a country that's possible to agree with
as no matter how different its projects and orientations are, it's
still possible to agree with it because there is a common background
and because the basis of negotiations is based on developments on the
ground, on the calculations of interests and on seeking points of
weakness and strength.
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