|
TOP STORIES
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
kicked off a week of high-level meetings across the Middle East aimed
at increasing financial pressure on Iran and cracking down on terror
financing in the region. On Wednesday, he launched a new regional
antiterror-finance center in Saudi Arabia called the Terrorist
Financing Targeting Center, which brings together the U.S., Saudi
Arabia, Qatar and five other Gulf states to cut off the flow of money
to terror networks in the region... Mr. Mnuchin and other senior Trump
officials also are seeking to bolster a new Iran policy, announced
earlier this month, which aims to confront the U.S. adversary more
aggressively, particularly over its weapons programs and links to
terror groups in the region.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday backed
new sanctions on Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, part of an
effort to take a tough line against Tehran without immediately moving
to undermine an international nuclear agreement... The House will
vote on Thursday on another bill, to impose additional sanctions on
Iran related to its ballistic missiles program.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog will
visit Iran on Sunday for talks with senior officials there, as
opposition from the United States threatens to undermine an
international accord to curtail Iran's nuclear program.
UANI IN THE NEWS
"Today, right now, let's designate the Qods Force
as an FTO and [Maj. Gen.] Qassem Soleimani as its head," United
Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) chief executive officer Mark Wallace told
hearing of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East
and North Africa.
During testimony before the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, Mark Wallace, former ambassador to the U.N who now heads
the activist group United Against Nuclear Iran, said the decision by
the Trump administration will now allow the U.S. government to deal
with issues left out of the agreement. "The sky didn't fall with
certification or not certification," Wallace told lawmakers.
"Now we have to deal with Iran's behavior, as Iran and our
government did not want to include a variety of issues in its
negotiations in the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], it carved
out everything from missiles to terrorism to human rights, let's now
readdress those."
TRAILBLAZER - In an appearance before a House Foreign
Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East hearing on the Iran nuclear
deal, former United Nations Ambassador and fellow Floridian Mark
Wallace paid tribute to outgoing Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen as
"a trailblazer as the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress
and the first female chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee."
Video is here.
Mark Wallace, CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran,
endorsed the administration's call for legislation that would
automatically reinstitute sanctions if Iran does not agree to address
its concerns. He said the administration should also develop a more
comprehensive strategy to deal with Iran's growing influence in the
Middle East that is disconnected from the agreement. "We
have to push Iran back and we have to use our economic pressure to do
that," said Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations for management and reform. "And it's worked in the past.
It can work again, but it requires a bipartisan consensus."
One of these is David Daoud, a researcher analyst for
the United Against a Nuclear Iran think tank and advocacy group, who
argues that by attacking Lebanese national infrastructure, Israel
could end up helping Hezbollah by proving to the Lebanese population
that the terrorist group is, as it claims, the country's defender
against the "Zionist regime."
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
"If international efforts led these days by U.S.
President Trump don't help stop Iran attaining nuclear capabilities,
Israel will act militarily by itself," Intelligence Minister
Israel Katz said in an interview in Tokyo. "There are changes
that can be made (to the agreement) to ensure that they will never
have the ability to have a nuclear weapon."
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
Once again, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
has emphasized that Tehran will not negotiate with the West over
Iran's ballistic missile program.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
The US Treasury Department's recent move to designate
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) under terrorism
authority has put the military organization back in the spotlight.
The subsequent tweet by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad
Zarif, in which he declared that "all Iranians are IRGC"
ready to defend their homeland in response to US pressure, gave rise
to spirited debate on social media about the Guard Corps and its role
in Iranian society. The US Treasury's action and Zarif's response
illustrate the dual character of the IRGC as it exists in Iran today.
On one hand, it is a political and military organization and the
principal actor behind Iran's internal and external security posture.
On the other hand, it is an organization of great social
significance, motivated by the ideology of the 1979 Islamic
Revolution, and a patron of institutions and bodies that define the
orthodoxy of Iranian patriotism.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The BBC said on Wednesday it had filed an urgent
complaint to the United Nations after Iran began a criminal
investigation into 152 BBC Persian staff and contributors, accusing
them of "conspiracy against national security" in Iran and
abroad. Iran has frozen the assets of BBC Persian staff, meaning they
cannot inherit family assets and preventing them and their families
from selling assets, such as property or cars, in Iran. All
individuals on the list work, or have worked, for BBC Persian, part
of the BBC World Service. A Reuters correspondent who was working for
the BBC until 2015 was also on the list. "This is the latest in
a sustained campaign of harassment and persecution which is designed
to pressure journalists against continuing their work for the
BBC," Britain's publicly funded broadcaster said in a statement.
PROXY WARS
US National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster has
said that Washington is determined to confront Iran's proxies,
including Hezbollah. In an interview with Alhurra news network,
McMaster also accused Iran of taking advantage of divisions within
the Kurdish Regional Government, to promote its own interests.
"The most dangerous course of action to take is to not confront
Hezbollah, to not confront these Iranian proxies who are propping up
the (Bashar) Assad regime, and helping that regime continue to murder
its own people. To not confront Iran's support for Houthis in Yemen
in a way that was perpetuating that civil war there," he said.
IRAQ CRISIS
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi insisted he would
keep close ties with both the U.S. and Iran even as tensions rise
between the two, and warned them both away from competing on Iraq's
turf as he reclaims it from the retreating forces of Islamic State
and the Kurds. Mr. Abadi also said he wants U.S. forces to remain in
Iraq after the last remaining Islamic State redoubts are liberated,
and he pledged to disarm Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias that
refuse to come under his control. In an interview with The Wall
Street Journal and two other U.S. publications, he issued a plea to
Washington and Tehran not to involve Iraq in their growing
confrontation over Iran's nuclear deal and missile program, and the
U.S. threat of renewed sanctions. Iraq, like Iran, is majority Shiite
and Mr. Abadi's predominantly Shiite party has been allied with
Tehran for decades.
As Iraqi forces reclaim the last stretches of territory
held by the Islamic State, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he
would not allow his country to become an arena for the United States,
Iran and Sunni powers to fight out their rivalries. "We would
like to work with you, both of you," Abadi said of the United
States and Iran. "But please don't bring your trouble inside
Iraq. You can sort it anywhere else."
GULF STATES & IRAN
A United Nations official threatened to call in security
guards to calm a committee meeting on Iran's human rights violations
after delegates from Saudi Arabia and Syria started shouting at each
other. After a Saudi delegate had praised Asma Jahangir, the special
rapporteur for Iran, for her report that highlighted Iran's continued
human rights violations, Syrian diplomat Amjad Qassem Agha called for
the UN to investigate Saudi Arabia for its bombing campaign in Yemen.
The Saudi delegate then interrupted to object. Other diplomats
watched as the Saudi and the Syrian officials shouted at each other,
even after both their microphones were cut off.
Neutral Switzerland's embassies in Riyadh and Tehran
have signed agreements to represent Iranian interests in Saudi Arabia
and Saudi interests in Iran, the Swiss government said on Wednesday.
After the Middle Eastern rivals severed relations at the
beginning of January 2016, both countries agreed to Switzerland's
offer of its traditional policy of good offices to "undertake a
protecting power mandate on both sides", Switzerland said. The
Swiss government gave its approval to the arrangement at a meeting on
Wednesday, with the mandate covering consular services for both
nations. "Switzerland has a long history of representing
foreign interests whereby it covers partial consular services and
sometimes diplomatic tasks for countries that have broken off
relations, if requested by the states in question," the
government said.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment