Monday, August 21, 2017

Eye on Iran: Iran's Top Priority Is To Save Nuke Deal From US: Rouhani


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Iran's President Hassan Rouhani yesterday said the top foreign policy priority for his new government was to protect the nuclear deal from being torn up by the United States. "The most important job of our foreign minister is first to stand behind the JCPOA, and not to allow the US and other enemies to succeed," Rouhani told parliament, using the technical name for the 2015 deal that eased sanctions in exchange for curbs to Iran's nuclear programme. "Standing up for the JCPOA means standing up to Iran's enemies," he said on the last day of debates over his cabinet selections.


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for decisive diplomatic action to foil US attempts at scrapping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying the Foreign Ministry's main task in his second term would be safeguarding the nuclear agreement.  Addressing the parliament on Sunday, President Rouhani said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who has been chosen to assume the office for the second term, will have a heavy duty to protect the JCPOA and not let the US succeed in implementing its obstructive plots. The real Iranian heroes are those trying to maintain the nuclear deal and protect it against hostile attempts by the US, Israel and some minor countries in the region, the president added. 


Iran's UN envoy denounced recent hostile remarks by his US counterpart, which he said were only the latest in a barrage of "provocative" comments and accusations by US officials meant to undermine Iran's global image and the nuclear deal. "The 15th August press statement by US ambassador to the UN [Nikki Haley] on Iran is devoid of any shred of truth," Gholamali Khoshrou said in a statement published by IRNA on Friday. "The rhetoric and baseless accusations against Iran contained therein represent the latest examples of a series of provocative words, outright threats and irresponsible actions from some senior officials of the US administration in demonizing Iran and undermining the JCPOA inconsistent with the US commitments under paragraph 28 of the nuclear deal," he said.

UANI IN THE NEWS


COMING ATTRACTIONS -- United Against Nuclear Iran is hosting a day-long gathering of current and former foreign leaders, lawmakers, and Iran experts at its second annual Iran Summit on Sept. 19 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. Among the speakers: Ret. Gen. David Petraeus, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), former Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Amb. Dennis Ross, former Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Ambassador Mark D. Wallace. RSVP http://bit.ly/2vP6dVb

Jewish Insider's Daily Kickoff: August 18, 2017 | Haaretz

COMING SOON: United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) will host its second annual Iran Summit, on September 19 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. The event will coincide with President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speeches on the opening day of the UN General Assembly. Speakers include General (Ret) David Petraeus, HRH Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, Joe Lieberman, John Bolton, Dennis Ross, former Governors Jeb Bush and Bill Richardson; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, former Congressman Steve Israel, and former Senator Mark Kirk.


Former Sen. Mark Kirk R-Ill., a strong foe of the Iran nuclear deal, will be honored Aug. 27 by an Illinois based pro-Israel PAC and next month will be speaking to a group in New York, "United Against Nuclear Iran." Until now, Kirk has kept a relatively low profile since his November defeat by Sen. Tammy Duckworth D-Ill. Kirk will be honored at a fundraiser "Protect Our Heritage PAC," at the Northbrook Hilton, with the keynote speaker Gil Hoffman, the chief political correspondent and analyst for the Jerusalem Post - and a Chicago native. The PAC has been a Kirk supporter for years. There are many events that occur at the same time the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York takes place, and Kirk will appear at one of them, a forum hosted by "United Against Nuclear Iran" to "examine the political and economic environment" since the deal, a legacy item of former President Barack Obama, signed in 2015.

U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS


A top Iranian lawmaker said the country has a wide range of options to respond to Washington's hostile actions, stressing that Tehran's vow to react to violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not just a slogan.  Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Chairman of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran has "multiple options for responding to US anti-Iran measures." Iran's choices are not limited when it comes to reaction to US breaches of the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), he added.

BUSINESS RISK


Attracting foreign investment for Iran´s oil sector will continue to be a top priority during President Hassan Rouhani´s second term, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Sunday. "Attracting foreign investment and technology is a priority for us in the oil industry, whether in shared fields or for increasing the production of oil at fields that are already operational," he said during a live television interview on state TV. Zanganeh, who won parliamentary approval on Sunday to stay on as oil minister, has been credited with increasing Iran's crude output since many global sanctions were lifted last year following an international deal on Iran's nuclear programme. He has also won praise with a multi-billion-dollar deal with France's Total to develop South Pars, the world's largest gas field.


In an underhand move Apple Inc. has once again removed applications of several Iranian companies from the company's iOS App Store. The American company has removed applications of several online businesses including Delion (food delivery service), DigiKala (Amazon-like retailer), AloPeyk (parcel delivery service), Takhfifan (group buying website), and Alibaba (online travel agency). In the early hours of August 19, CEOs of the several local businesses received an email from Apple, which reads as follows: "We are unable to include your app on the App Store. Under the US sanctions regulations, the App Store cannot host, distribute, or do business with apps or developers connected to certain US embargoed countries." The statement further adds "This area of law is complex and constantly changing. If the existing restrictions shift, we encourage you to resubmit your app for inclusion on the App Store." Independent observers are of the strong opinion that Apple is randomly targeting Iranian startups and online applications.

RUSSIA-IRAN COOPERATION


Russia's energy minister Alexander Novak has announced a Russian oil-for-food deal with Iran that will be implemented next month by buying 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Iran, Iranian and Russian media reported. The Russian minister said that the deal will be in accordance with an agreement signed between the two countries earlier, according according to Fars and Westk Caucasus. Novak said that Russia will begin receiving oil shipments at the end of next month, adding that "the details of legal documents are in the final stages." The Interfax news agency quoted Novak as saying that the amount of Iranian oil under the oil-for-goods agreement could reach 100,000 barrels per day, or 5 million tons a year from Iran. For his part, Russian Trade Representative in Iran, Andre Luganski, said that Moscow may in return export to Tehran goods worth $45 billion a year under this program, according to Interfax.


Russian Ambassador to Tehran Levan Dzhagaryan has said that Iran has acted fully in compliance with its commitments under the nuclear agreement, noting that the U.S. should not complain in this regard. "We will insist on our stance when talking with the Americans," Dzhagaryan said in an interview with ISNA, stressing that the nuclear agreement must be fully implemented. He said Russia is deeply concerned about U.S. President Donald Trump's bashing of the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. "The European countries are also very concerned and oppose [such rhetoric]," the Russian diplomat said, adding, "This is not a deal between Iran and America, but rather a multilateral agreement." 

SYRIA CONFLICT


Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said his army has foiled Western attempts to overthrow his government thanks to assistance from allies including Russia, Iran, and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. "Their direct support -- politically, economically, and militarily -- has made possible bigger advances on the battlefield and reduced the losses and burdens of war," Assad said during a televised address on August 20. He stressed, however, that "the battle continues" and that it was too early to speak of victory in the country's 6 1/2-year-old civil war.

IRAQ CRISIS


Turkey and Iran have discussed possible joint military action against Kurdish militant groups, after talks in Ankara last week between the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces and Turkish leaders, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Speaking to reporters before departing on an official visit to Jordan, Erdogan also said a more effective struggle against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its Iranian affiliate, PJAK, would be possible through joint action with Iran. "Joint action against terrorist groups that have become a threat is always on the agenda. This issue has been discussed between the two military chiefs, and I discussed more broadly how this should be carried out," Erdogan said. 


Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan appear to have stepped up their armed activities inside Iran in recent weeks, undermining the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) efforts to promote its upcoming independence referendum as a peaceful development. The increased attacks against Iranian forces by Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraq raise questions about the future of relations between Erbil and Tehran. Iranian Kurdish fighters based in Iraq have repeatedly crossed the border into Iran and engaged in numerous clashes with Iranian security forces, leading to casualties on both sides. Iran has responded by shelling border areas with heavy artillery, causing huge fires, destroying wildlife and forcing many civilians to flee. The recent clashes contradict claims by Iraqi Kurdish officials that the Sept. 25 independence referendum will not lead to instability It also refutes their insistence that Erbil wishes to enjoy cordial relations with its neighbors, including Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara.

YEMEN CRISIS


Yemeni Vice President Lt. Gen. Ali Mohsen Saleh has described Iran as a "source of danger" and said it poses a threat to Yemen's future. The official Yemeni news agency on Sunday quoted Saleh as saying that the Houthi militia is an Iranian instrument in Yemen. The Lt. noted that all Yemenis are aware of the Houthis' dependence on and loyalty to Iran. Saleh also expressed his confidence in knowing that all Yemenis are aware of the danger at hand and its source. He also pointed out that the Yemeni army will refuse to respond to the orders of those who have targeted their lives and military equipment. They will also not respond to those who have replaced them with the militias and tried to engage them in futile wars with the Yemeni civilians and neighboring countries, added the Lt. Gen.

SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS


Pictures displaying Iran's Quds Force commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani during the battles with the Islamic State stopped circulating online with the military phase that ended in the liberation of Mosul. The Iranian presence and support for the Iraqi forces were absent in the liberation battles. Iraq's rapprochement with Arab Sunni countries including Saudi Arabia is putting increased pressure on Iran. Simultaneously, Iraqi officials visited Saudi Arabia and Arab Sunni states that cheer for the Saudi axis. Sadrist leader Muqtada al-Sadr visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Aug. 13-15, with clerics and politicians welcoming him as an Iraqi leader. Prominent Sunni Iraqi cleric Ahmed al-Kubaisi and leading politicians met with Sadr during his visit to the UAE. This was only a few days after his visit at the end of July to Saudi Arabia, where Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other officials had welcomed him. In the wake of the visit, Saudi Arabia took various measures in favor of Iraq, such as announcing the opening of a Saudi Consulate in Najaf, where Sadr lives. Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, did not object to this proposition, as in the past he had called for openness in relations. 


Relations between Saudi Arabia and Hamas have been teetering on the brink of complete collapse in light of recent stances by Saudi officials and media outlets against the Palestinian movement. The Saudis are increasing pressure on Hamas, which might win them points with US President Donald Trump and Israel, but drive the Palestinian movement and its allies toward Iran. The Saudi daily Al-Riyadh called the Palestinian movement "terrorist" in the headline of a website story the day after a Hamas delegation attended the Aug 4 inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The website soon removed the story, however, after it prompted a storm of angry tweets, especially in response to Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee, who took to Twitter to support the terrorist label for Hamas. Hamas condemned the article in a statement Aug. 6. This was not Saudi Arabia's first attack against Hamas. In a July 11 TV interview, Saudi Ambassador to Algeria Sami Saleh also described Hamas as a terrorist group.

DOMESTIC POLITICS


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won lawmakers' approval for all but one of his new cabinet, in an overwhelming show of support for an agenda criticized by some conservatives at home and threatened by an increasingly confrontational U.S. Parliament on Sunday voted to reappoint Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, top Rouhani allies during his first term, as well as 14 other ministers. The only candidate to lose a vote of confidence was Energy Ministry nominee Habibollah Bitaraf.


Iranian lawmakers on Sunday approved 16 Cabinet members nominated by recently re-elected President Hassan Rouhani, including the first defense minister unaffiliated with the elite, hard-line Revolutionary Guard in 25 years. Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said 16 of 17 proposed ministers were approved, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Oil Minister Began Zanganeh was also approved. The most votes went to Gen. Amir Hatami for Defense Minister, with 261 out of 288 who voted. He will be the first defense minister with no ties to the hard-line Revolutionary Guard in nearly 25 years. However, Hatami told parliament that he is committed to advancing Iran's ballistic missile program, which has drawn Western sanctions. In July, Iran launched a rocket capable of carrying a satellite, a move that provoked international condemnation, including from France, Britain and the U.S. All three countries were among the world powers that reached the nuclear deal with Iran.


Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami has called on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to end the house arrest of opposition leaders, Khatami's website reported Sunday, the first such public call by a senior political figure. The continuing detention of Mirhossein Mousavi and fellow reformist Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom disputed the results of the 2009 presidential election that triggered mass protests, is one of the most divisive political issues in Iran. "By citing your issues and your requests and in your name, I would like to ask the Supreme Leader to issue an order to solve the issue of the house arrests," Khatami was quoted as saying after a meeting of former prisoners from the Iran-Iraq war, adding that action would benefit the regime and present a sign of its security and power. Khatami's statement is the first time a senior political figure has publicly asked Khamenei to intervene on the issue of house arrests.


What made this whole rather short-lived saga remarkable was the level of reaction from politicians to activists and supporters of the detained leaders of the Green Movement, which was long thought to be over and ended. Rouhani, who had been under fire from reformists for not satisfying their requests for cabinet ministers, was suddenly faced with a united and belligerent front from his supporters demanding action. Just as he begins his second term, he is already being torn between the demands of reformists, and the constraints of the state.
It may be too soon to say whether the incident marks the return of a resurgent Green Movement, but it has serious implications for Rouhani's second term. If Karroubi and Mousavi continue to be held without trial, the President's perceived inability or unwillingness to do anything about it will harass him throughout the next and final four years of his presidency.And if either of these now elderly men should die in the meantime, public anger against Rouhani and the state could boil to levels not seen since the 2009 protests that birthed the Green Movement in the first place.

OPINION & ANALYSIS


Despite much heated rhetoric, the Trump administration is doing little to counter Iranian aggression. In Syria, its strategy of striking deals with Russia has opened the way for Tehran's forces to establish control over a corridor between Damascus and Baghdad. In Afghanistan, Iran is steadily building a strategic position even as President Trump balks at a plan to strengthen U.S. support for the Afghan government. In Yemen, the United States enables its Persian Gulf allies to pursue an unwinnable proxy war with Tehran whose main result has been the world's worst humanitarian crisis. In only one area has the Islamic Republic's toxic ambition been relatively contained: the production of material for use in nuclear warheads. According to international inspectors and the U.S. intelligence community, Iran has largely abided by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which greatly reduced its stockpile of enriched unranium and placed strict limits on its nuclear activities. If the regime continues complying, it could be a decade or more before Iran could again threaten to become a nuclear power. Yet perversely, Mr. Trump is matching his passivity toward Iran's regional meddling with an apparent determination to torpedo the nuclear pact.


Even if the Iran nuclear deal remains intact, says Heshmat Alavi at Forbes, "the mullahs are hell-bent to continue wreaking havoc and expanding influence" across the Middle East. And critics are right to point out that the deal does not address this "destructive belligerence." But the pro-deal camp is wrong when it claims "Washington has no evidence to hold Tehran in violation." Tehran has "exceeded its heavy water production cap, necessary for a plutonium nuclear bomb, and is testing more advanced centrifuges." It is also "illicitly procuring highly sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile technology in Germany" and "surpassing its uranium enrichment cap, another key non-compliance factor." The Iran deal is "very similar" to the one Washington signed with North Korea, which "left the world with a rogue state now equipped with at least 20 nuclear bombs."


President Donald Trump likes a good war of words with foreign leaders. And besides the North Koreans, the leadership in Iran makes a first-rate target for him. After all, one of his signature campaign pledges was to undo the 2015 nuclear deal that Barack Obama's administration signed with Tehran and five world powers. Since Trump's earliest days in office, he has kept alive the threat that he might unilaterally withdraw the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a multilateral agreement unanimously endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. This represents a challenge to Trump's counterpart in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani, who made the deal his administration's central accomplishment and is now banking that the U.S. president will stick to it despite Trump's rhetoric.


As Iran is the world's premier terror backer, we cannot engage in serial winks any longer. An anti-terror Gulf coalition cannot be effective if some of its members are themselves supporting Iran and terrorism. Qatar has been playing a double game, but admittedly this is a game played (but now diminished) by other regional actors. Also important is to end the tendency to excuse terrorism.


A new and surprising player has recently entered the Syrian arena and has already contributed to establishing local cease-fires: Egypt received Saudi and Russian "permission" to conduct negotiations between the rebel militias and the regime, both in Ghouta al-Sharqiya (east of Damascus) and the northern neighborhoods in the city of Homs. In both cases, it managed to get a cease-fire deal signed - in the former on July 22, in the latter in early August. Both areas are part of the de-escalation zones on which Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed in May, in consultation with the United States. But this is the first time Egypt has played an active role in diplomatic negotiations between the warring parties that produced positive results.








Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email press@uani.com.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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