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TOP STORIES
The US will on Thursday ramp up pressure on European
countries to "fix" a landmark Iran nuclear deal that
president Donald Trump has threatened to scrap.
The Iran nuclear deal was in near terminal condition and
on life support even before President Donald Trump fired Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson. Tillerson's dismissal this week may hasten its
demise. As CIA chief and Iran hawk Mike Pompeo prepares to run the
State Department, the Trump administration is weighing a speedier
withdrawal from the agreement than even the president has threatened,
according to two U.S. officials and two outside advisers briefed on
the matter.
A dual citizen of Iran and the United States was
sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in prison after he was found
guilty of trying to buy surface-to-air missiles and aircraft
components for the government of Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
UANI IN THE NEWS
"[The selection of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as the
new secretary of state] comes at a crucial moment when the White
House has to decide whether to keep the Iran agreement in place while
they begin a diplomatic process with North Korea," said [UANI
Advisory Board Member] Gary Samore of the Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs at Harvard University. "On the
positive side, it is a good time to bring in a secretary of state
that the president has more confidence in," he said. "If
they are not careful, though, they could have two simultaneous
diplomatic setbacks." [...] "[Mr. Pompeo's] instinct aligns
more with Trump's," said [UANI Advisory Board Member] Dennis B.
Ross, who served in several Republican and Democrat administrations.
"But now that he is going to be secretary of state, he has to
focus on relations with allies.
NUCLEAR DEAL
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's sacking shows
that Washington is set on quitting the nuclear deal between Tehran
and world powers, Iran's deputy foreign minister said
Wednesday.
Iran played down the potential impact on its landmark
2015 nuclear deal with world powers of the appointment of the hawkish
Mike Pompeo as the new U.S. secretary of state, saying the change was
an internal U.S. matter.
The departure of Rex Tillerson from the State Department
is an unwelcome development for America's adversaries, particularly
Tehran and Pyongyang... [Incoming secretary and current] CIA Director
Michael Pompeo has a clear-eyed view of the threats emanating from
Iran and North Korea, and reportedly has President Trump's trust. It
is therefore hard to think of a candidate more suited to fixing the
flawed nuclear accord with Iran and wrangling with Kim Jong Un, both
of which are top diplomatic priorities for the Trump administration.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iranian naval forces appear to have deliberately halted
their provocations of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf in recent
months, a U.S. military official said Thursday.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNAL DISCONTENT
Scores of members of Iranian religious minorities left
their homeland more than a year ago at Washington's invitation with
the intention of coming to America. But now they may be barred from
the U.S. for security reasons and could be placed in imminent danger
of deportation back to the Islamic dictatorship - where they likely
would face persecution, or even imprisonment and death... Also at
risk are two signature Trump administration policies: protection of
religious minorities as a U.S. National Security Strategy priority
and the highlighting of the Iranian regime's repression. Allowing
these refugees to be sent back to ugly fates in Iran would recast the
administration's noble policies as mere political propaganda.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
US President Donald Trump's sudden firing of Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson has sparked comparisons in the Iranian media
to the behavior of former hard-line President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran and Russia signed a deal on Wednesday to develop
two oilfields in Iran, according to Iranian state TV.
OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
President Donald Trump's decision to replace his
secretary of state with a more hawkish figure should have been
bullish for oil prices since it increases the probability the nuclear
deal with Iran will be abandoned in May... But the decision to
replace the secretary of state barely registered on the spot price of
Brent crude and the six-month calendar spread continued to soften,
suggesting that traders see little impact for the moment. In theory,
failure to recertify could remove hundreds of thousands of barrels of
crude from the market and cause a significant tightening of the
supply-demand balance.
Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said OPEC was
unlikely to change before the end of the year a deal among oil
producers to reduce output, Iran's English language Press TV reported
on Thursday.
NORTH KOREA & IRAN
Defying precedent and conventional wisdom, President
Trump says he'll meet in May with North Korean dictator Kim Jong
Un... [I]f there's one thing that would help Mr. Trump to succeed,
it's fixing the fatally flawed nuclear deal with Iran. The Iran-North
Korea axis dates back more than 30 years.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Escalating street protests by Iranians against water
shortages in a rural part of central Iran have inspired more domestic
criticism of the government's handling of the nation's water
resources.
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