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TOP STORIES
A document seized the night Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin
Laden suggests that Al Qaeda and Iran had a relationship more
complicated and intimate than previously known - one that included
threats and kidnappings, but also occasional cooperation.
The United States is Iran's "number one enemy"
and Tehran will never succumb to Washington's pressure over a
multinational nuclear deal, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei said in a televised speech on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday strongly
backed Iran and its nuclear deal with world powers, saying Moscow
opposed "any unilateral change" to the accord after U.S.
President Donald Trump refused to re-certify it. Putin made the
comments on a one-day trip to Tehran for trilateral talks between
Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, a meeting largely focused on improving
road and rail links to the neighboring countries on the Caspian Sea.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
More than 700 participants from over 67 IAEA member
states have gathered in Abu Dhabi to "engage in dialogue at a
high ministerial and international experts' level on the role of
nuclear power in meeting future energy demand, contributing to
sustainable development and mitigating climate change". One
party, however, is conspicuous by its absence: Iran. Tehran, which
earlier indicated that it would attend the International Ministerial
Conference on Nuclear Power in the 21st Century, was a no-show as
discussions began. Why would a country that never tires of
proclaiming that its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful
purposes fail to appear at an IAEA conference whose primary objective
is to find ways to put nuclear power to peaceful uses?
Boris Johnson will travel to Washington next week in a
bid to persuade US senators not to abandon the Iran nuclear deal or
to impose fresh sanctions against Tehran that could jeopardise the
deal. While describing the deal as an "amazing triumph of diplomacy",
the foreign secretary acknowledged that it had not led to wider
changes in Iranian policies in the Middle East, such as in its
support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The mandate for the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) does not
provide for inspections of Iranian military facilities, Russian
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday.
"We see eye to eye with Iran's position on this matter. The IAEA
mandate does not authorize inspections under Section T [which covers
those technologies that can be used to make an atomic bomb, including
the simulation of a nuclear charge explosion by a computer]," he
said.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
The diplomacy of smiles between the United States and
Iran has come to an end. Not even regular old diplomacy seems to be
an option anymore, with US President Donald Trump clearly stressing
the importance of countering what he calls the Iranian regime's "destabilizing
activity and support for terrorist proxies in the region."
BUSINESS RISK
Kenyan banks are reluctant to have
anything to do with Iranian lenders even after lifting of sanctions
against the Middle East country leaving tea traders scratching their
heads on how to recover their debts. Officials from the Kenya Tea
Directorate were in Iran last week to try and solve the stalemate
that has locked Sh120 million that Iranian buyers owe tea traders.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
On June 6, 2017, Iranian citizen Alireza Jalali was
arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy airport upon his arrival from
Malaysia. Ten days later, Australian authorities made a related
arrest of another Iranian citizen, Negar Ghodskani, based on a U.S.
extradition request. Both Jalali and Ghodskani were apprehended for
illegally procuring and sending export-controlled technology from the
United States to Iran between 2010 and 2012. Within weeks of their
arrests, a nearly two year-old indictment charging Kuala Lumpur-based
Greenwave Telecommunication, Jalali, and Ghodskani was unsealed.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration ended a
decade-long debate in Washington by using the Treasury Department's
anti-terrorism authorities to sanction the entirety of Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). But that will not be
sufficient if the administration is serious about combatting Tehran
on every front. There remains an equally nefarious actor that has
built fortunes by exploiting the Iranian people and reports not to
the IRGC, but directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Fortunately,
Washington has the necessary tools - created by the Global Magnitsky
Act - to expose and punish this entity for the corrupt actor it
is.Headquarters for the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order -
popularly known as EIKO or Setad (the Persian word for headquarters)
- is a massive holding company that has become one of the Islamic
Republic's most infamous economic forces.
Turkey's finance
minister has put forward a forceful defence of the activities of the
country's troubled banks during a period being investigated by US
authorities for violating sanctions against Iran. A probe into
executives of state-owned Halk Bank has damaged relations between
Turkey and the US and riled President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who says
it is part of a conspiracy against his country.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Russian oil producer Rosneft and the National Iranian
Oil Company have agreed an outline deal to work together on a number
of "strategic" projects in Iran together worth up to $30
billion, Rosneft's head Igor Sechin said on Wednesday.
Russia and Iran will prepare by the year-end a legal
framework for a project aimed to deliver natural gas from Iran to
India and will get down to practical work in 2018, the RIA news
agency cited Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak as saying on
Wednesday. Novak also said that Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM) plans to
produce natural gas in Iran and will build a 1,200 km (750 mile) gas
pipeline from Iran to India, RIA reported.
Armenia and Iran are looking for a new
investor for the construction of a hydropower plant on the River of
Arax near the town of Meghri in southern Armenia, Deputy Minister of
Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources Hayk Harutyunyan said
today during a parliamentary discussion on the draft budget for 2018.
HUMAN RIGHTS
On Oct. 21, Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali, a renowned expert on
disaster medicine and resident of Sweden, was sentenced to death by
the Iranian Revolutionary Court. Tehran prosecutor Abbas Dolatabadi
accused Djalali of providing Mossad with the information about Iran's
nuclear sites that led to the assassination of Iranian nuclear
scientists in 2010-2012... A source close to Djalali revealed that in
2014 he was approached by agents of the Iranian military intelligence
that asked him to collect information on Western chemical,
biological, radiological, and nuclear sites, as well as on critical
infrastructures and counter-terrorism operational plans. Djalali
refused.
RUSSIA & IRAN
Russian President Vladimir Putin is heading to Iran to
sign a joint statement with the country's leaders Wednesday, Moscow
said - a move that signals the Kremlin is prepared to remain close to
the increasingly isolated state. Putin is due to meet Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani and the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei with talks expected to deepen the countries' economic
and political ties. Azerbaijan's President Iham Aliyev will also be
present at the meetings.
On the face of it, any improvement in diplomatic
relations between countries that are friendly to Israel and the
Iranian regime would be considered bad news for Jerusalem. In this
context, you may have expected to hear grumblings about the scheduled
visit Wednesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tehran. Putin
will be in Iran to attend a trilateral summit along with Azerbaijan
President Ilham Aliyev. But, intriguingly, Israeli officials have
remained silent.
CHINA & IRAN
As the Trump administration works out the specifics of its
strategy to contain Iran, China is looking for ways to bring Iran
into the global system. After the recent party congress, which
cemented President Xi Jinping's grip on power, those efforts will
likely take the form of the completion of his most ambitious foreign
policy plan, the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, of which
Tehran will be one of the key beneficiaries. Beijing has said that
OBOR is needed to create the infrastructure to encourage trade, but
the initiative is about much more. It is also a way to build
political confidence among participating states. And it seems to be
working in Iran. There, OBOR is seen as a project that will make Iran
an indispensable partner not only for China but also for India,
Russia, and the states of Central Asia.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The visit comes as France is hoping to salvage the
nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers after President
Donald Trump refused to certify the agreement, leaving its fate to
Congress. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York,
Le Drian again defended the nuclear deal saying it "removes the
possibility for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon." "But
that does not prevent us from being firm and demanding on the other
issues" such as Iran's missile program and it regional
activities, he said.
PROXY WARS
In the shadowy world of covert proxy wars, Iran is
taking centre stage, both as a target and a player. A series of
incidents involving Iranian ethnic and religious minorities raise the
spectre of the United States and Saudi Arabia seeking to destabilize
the Islamic republic. Not to sit back passively, indications are that
Iran beyond its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, and Shiite militias in Iraq, may
be strengthening its relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan. In
the latest signal of escalating proxy wars, Iran's Islamic Revolution
Guards Corp announced that it had "dismantled a terrorist
team" that was "affiliated with global arrogance," a
reference to the United States and its allies, in the Islamic
republic's north-western province of East Azerbaijan.
SYRIA CONFLICT
The state that was once known as Syria has ceased to
exist. The nominal central government of President Bashar al-Assad
controls only sections of the country, with other portions in the
hands, variously, of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), al-Qaeda
tied to Fatah alSham (otherwise known as Jabhat al-Nusra), People's
Protection Units, the Democratic Union Party, and the Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces. In addition, that which is in Assad's hands
remains so thanks only to the combined intervention of Iranian
conventional and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and
IRGC-Quds Forces, Hezbollah fighters, and the military support of the
Russian Federation.
IRAQ CRISIS
Akram al-Kaabi, the leader of Iranian-sponsored Iraqi
militia group Harakat al-Nujaba, visited prominent Lebanese Shiite
cleric Sheikh Afif al-Nabulsi to discuss regional affairs, Iranian
and Arab media reported today. Nabulsi is the head of Shiite
religious scholars in southern Lebanon. "Iraq must remain united
in all national and religious components, and Iraqis should reject
the designs of countries that are conspiring against their unity and
sovereignty, especially America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, which
sponsored the worst forms of terrorism to make the country
weak," Kaabi was quoted as saying in the meeting.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC POLITICS
A person accused of roughly $146 million overdue payback
related to the Teachers Savings Fund, TSF scandal has fled Iran, says
a member of parliament. Jabbar Kouchakinejad who is a member of
parliament's Education and Research Commission divulged the news in
an interview with Iran Labor News Agency, ILNA, on Monday, October
30.
Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has invested a large
amount of money into the construction of dams. In addition to power
generation, dams were considered an important tool for water
management during times of hardship. However, in recent years, dams
have been at the crux of one of the country's most serious
environmental crises. While conducting research on water
mismanagement, Small Media -- a London-based organization supporting
civil society and human rights in the Middle East -- discovered that
the data for hundreds of Iranian dams is missing.
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