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TOP STORIES
Shortly after revealing the new Khorramshahr medium
range ballistic missile to the public for the first time, Iran released
a never before seen video showing a successful test of the weapon,
but did not give a date or place for the footage. The new development
will undoubtedly have an impact on whether U.S. President Donald
Trump and his administration decide to scrap a deal with Iran over
its controversial nuclear program, but it also underscores
long-standing concerns that the Iranian authorities have been working
with the North Koreans and other allies to skirt their international
obligations.
One of the strongest forces holding Iran back from
exerting even greater influence in Iraq is the United States and its
military presence in the country - some 5,800 troops. But, now that
ISIS' presence in Iraq has been beaten back to a few beleaguered
pockets, how long will the United States stay, and what does the
future hold if the Trump Administration decides to leave?
Iran's recent ballistic missile launch was fake and
never took place, U.S. officials told Fox News on Monday. Iran state
television claimed that the nation had successfully fired a missile
and aired footage of the launch on Friday, but that video was
actually of a launch that took place in January, according to Fox
News. That missile exploded shortly after launch.
UANI IN THE NEWS
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran will persist with exporting its
oil to global customers, unfettered by Donald Trump's intensifying
offensive against the country, according to the Middle East nation's
state-run producer. The OPEC member is shipping a combined 2.6
million barrels a day of crude and the ultra-light oil known as
condensate, and expects to export more at the end of 2017, said S.
Khoshrou, director of international affairs at National Iranian Oil
Co. The country is "not worried" about its ability to send
cargoes overseas to Asia and Europe despite rising tensions with the
U.S., he said in an interview in Singapore.
The Trump administration wants to
ratchet up economic pressure on Iran, but unless it can persuade
skeptical governments in Europe and Asia to join the effort, it will
be forced to use unilateral measures that would probably prove
ineffective at choking Tehran's economy, former officials, diplomats,
and experts say.
European banks have begun a fresh wave of investment in
Iran, just as Washington launches another attempt at restricting
links between the US and Iran. Over the past week, banks in Austria,
Denmark and France have announced investment deals with Iran worth a
collective €2bn ($2.4bn), while in contrast the White House on
September 24 announced a fresh travel ban on the citizens of Iran and
seven other countries. The wave of European financing began on
September 21, when Austria's Oberbank agreed to extend a €1bn line of
credit to 14 Iranian banks. The money will be used for infrastructure
projects in Iran. On the same day, Denmark's Danske Bank signing a
deal for a €500m line of credit with ten Iranian banks. Since then,
French state-owned bank BPI France has said it will also provide a
€500m credit line to French companies wanting to invest in Iran. Iran
has set up similar arrangements over the past couple of months with
Export-Import Bank of Korea for €8bn and with a number of Chinese
banks covering $35bn worth of financing.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
An economic blockade on Qatar is having the effect of
pushing Qatar closer to Iran economically, Qatar's foreign minister
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told reporters in Paris.
"They said Qatar was now closer to Iran. By their measures
they are pushing Qatar to Iran. They are giving Iran, or any regional
force, Qatar like a gift," he said on Monday. "Is
that their objective, to push one country, a GCC member state toward
Iran? This is not a wise objective," he added. Sheikh
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani also stressed that Qatar still had
political differences with Iran, including over Syria.
IRAQ CRISIS
The leader of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region says a
controversial vote on independence will go ahead as planned on
September 25, despite mounting pressure to call off the referendum.
The president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Masud
Barzani, said on September 24 that the nonbinding vote will be the
first step in a long process to negotiate independence. "The
partnership with Baghdad has failed and we will not return to
it," Barzani told a press conference in Irbil, urging all Kurds
to vote "in peace." The Baghdad government and the
international community have opposed the referendum -- including
neighboring Turkey and Iran, which themselves have sizable Kurdish
minorities.
Iran has closed its border with the Kurdish region of
Iraq at the request of Baghdad, a statement from the Iranian foreign
ministry has said. Land crossings into Iran were shut to Iraqi
Kurdistan on Monday, as Iraq's 8.4 million Kurds lined up at polling
stations to vote in a referendum on creating an independent state.
The decision follows the closure of both Iranian and Turkish airspace
to Iraq on Sunday.
Thousands of Iranian Kurds poured into the streets of
Iran overnight and into early Tuesday in support of the Iraqi Kurds'
landmark referendum for independence from Baghdad, showing the vote's
impact extends beyond Iraq's borders to its nervous neighbors.
Authorities in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region put turnout at
over 70 percent, showing how the nonbinding vote captured the
imagination of Kurds who have longed to have a nation to call their
own. When colonial powers drew the map of the Middle East after World
War I, the Kurds were divided among Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq.
However, to Baghdad, the vote threatens a redrawing of Iraq's
borders, taking a sizeable part of the country's oil wealth with it.
For Turkey and Iran, leaders there fear the move would embolden their
own Kurdish populations. In Iran, widespread demonstrations took
place in the cities of Baneh, Saghez and Sanandaj. Footage shared
online by Iranian Kurds showed demonstrators waving lit mobile phones
in the air and chanting their support into the night. Some footage
also showed Iranian police officers assembling nearby or watching the
demonstrators.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iran has emerged the main victor in post-Saddam Iraq.
Iranian influence permeates all Iraqi political and military
institutions, and Iran's Quds Force Commander, Qassem Soleimani,
commands a powerful network of Iraqi Shiite militia groups that are
not entirely accountable to the Baghdad government. After the 2003
invasion, Tehran's key objective in Iraq was to speed up the
withdrawal of U.S. troops and expand its influence through sponsoring
militant proxies and supporting Iraqi Shiite politicians close to
Tehran.
The weak Iranian nuclear deal, which the former American
administration agreed upon, is partially responsible for North
Korea's surge in developing its nuclear program. Iran was rewarded
with a sum of $150 billion as per the deal and the country managed to
retrieve funds withheld since the days of the Shah, with profits. It
was also granted massive contracts to develop its technical and
manufacturing abilities and most international sanctions against them
were lifted. A besieged North Korea has also chosen to blackmail the
world because it views this as profitable trade. Just like Iran
threatened to burn Israel, North Korea is threatening Japan. Its
second nuclear missile test two weeks ago sailed over Japan's skies.
There are now no doubts over the threats that North Korea poses.
Washington has two options now - either offer North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un an agreement similar to Tehran's or to end the agreement with
the Iranians and propose new ideas to strip Iran and North Korea off
their nuclear capabilities.
No country opposes the Iraqi Kurdish referendum more
than the Islamic Republic of Iran. The reason is clear: Iranian
leaders fear the precedent that Iraqi Kurds might set for Iran's own
restive Kurdish population. With Soviet help, Kurdish nationalists
carved the first modern Kurdish state out of the chaos of post-World
War II Iran, declaring the self-styled Mahabad Republic on Jan. 22,
1946. It managed to survive for a year before Reza Shah - the father
of the Iranian leader ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution - rallied
his forces and crushed the would-be Kurdish state. Mulla Mustafa
Barzani, father of de facto-Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, was
one of four generals serving the short-lived republic. Kurds in Iran
again sought to assert nationalist claims against the backdrop of the
1979 Islamic Revolution, but they were unable to sustain their
autonomy against the onslaught of Iranian forces.
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