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TOP STORIES
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says
allied countries like the U.K. shouldn't count on winning exemptions
from sanctions against doing business with Iran stemming from
President Trump's decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Gunmen disguised as soldiers attacked an annual Iranian
military parade Saturday in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing
at least 24 people and wounding 53 in the bloodiest assault to strike
the country in recent years. The attack in Ahvaz saw gunfire sprayed
into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders and
government officials watching from a nearby riser.
President Donald Trump is willing to meet with Iran's
Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations this week, said U.S. Secretary
of State Michael Pompeo -- even as another top official took credit
for the U.S. sending Iran's economy into free-fall with crippling
sanctions.
UANI IN THE NEWS
President Trump and his European counterparts square off
at the United Nations this week on key policy issues dividing old
allies: the fate of the Iran nuclear agreement and how to constrain
the Islamic Republic's regional ambitions... Also on Tuesday, Mr.
Pompeo, White House national security adviser John Bolton and Mr.
Hook will speak at a conference held by United Against a Nuclear
Iran, a group that opposed the nuclear accord. The foreign ministers
from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Iran's regional
rivals, are among the others scheduled to speak at the event.
Several of the president´s top lieutenants will address
a meeting on Wednesday billed as a "United Against Nuclear Iran
Summit" that will also feature speakers from Arab allies.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Nations that struck the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, except
for the United States, meet on Monday in what many diplomats fear may
prove a quixotic effort to keep the agreement alive after U.S.
sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports resume in November.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Iran's economy is faltering after the U.S. pulled out of
a nuclear deal earlier this year and Europeans are deciding not to do
business there, said Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations.
Iran appeared on Sunday to soften its stance on
potential increases in OPEC oil output, saying it was the group's
responsibility to balance the market if production from Iran or any
other member declined.
When the Navarin, an oil supertanker carrying 2 million
barrels of Middle East crude, docks at the Malaysian port of
Pengerang on Monday, the arrival will signal the start of a torrid
time for Asia's oil market. The ship is delivering the first cargo to
a new mega-refinery, one of three scheduled to come on line in the
region in the next few months.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
The deputy head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned
U.S. and Israeli leaders on Monday to expect a
"devastating" response from Tehran, accusing them of
involvement in an attack on a military parade in the city of
Ahvaz.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on
Sunday dismissed Iran's assertion that Washington and its Gulf allies
were to blame for a deadly parade attack and said Tehran should look
closer to home.
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said on Sunday that a
Persian Gulf country allied with the United States was behind the
attack on a military parade that killed 25 people and wounded nearly
70 others. Mr. Rouhani did not identify the country he was blaming
for the attack, which was claimed by both the Islamic State and an
Arab separatist group.
A deadly assault on an Iranian Revolutionary Guards
parade dealt a stunning blow to Iran's security establishment, which
has often said it can repel any threat no matter how big, even from
the United States and its chief Middle East ally Israel. Saturday's
shooting attack, among the worst ever on the Guards, illustrated that
Iran's elite force, which answers directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, can be vulnerable to guerrilla-style operations.
A video circulating on the ISIS-affiliated Amaq News
Agency claims to show three of the four assailants accused of
carrying out a deadly terrorist attack on an Iranian military
parade.
Iran summoned the envoys of the Netherlands, Denmark and
Great Britain on Saturday night over the shooting at a military
parade in which 25 people were killed, accusing them of harboring
Iranian opposition groups in their countries, IRNA reported.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
President Donald Trump said Friday that the subject of a
United Nations Security Council meeting he'll chair next week will be
Iran, undercutting administration officials who have insisted the
topic is a broader effort to counter the spread of weapons of mass
destruction. The distinction is important because if the session is
focused on Iran, United Nations rules allow Iran to participate in
the meeting.
President Donald Trump enters the United Nations General
Assembly this week with America's closest allies frustrated over
fraying ties and the entire world wary as it awaits critical U.S.
decisions on Iran and North Korea. Again.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on
Friday that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump was a
threat to the Middle East and to the global community.
[S]ome in Trump's national security circle have another
fear: that Iranian leaders may wise up to the fact that agreeing to
meet Trump directly could lead to immediate sanctions relief-and a
deal that isn't actually that tough.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations,
said Sunday that despite increased tension with Iran, the United
States was not seeking regime change there or anywhere else.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's former Central Bank Governor Valiollah Seif,
who's under investigation, has been banned from traveling abroad,
state-run Tasnim news agency reported, citing a judiciary
official.
Hard-liners batter President Hassan Rouhani over his
faltering nuclear deal, sending his popularity plummeting. Women in
the streets film themselves removing their mandatory headscarves, or
hijabs, in protest. Meanwhile, state television airs moments from a
major corruption trial. Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Iranian
politics.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Brazilian police arrested a fugitive Friday who is
alleged by U.S. authorities to be Hezbollah's financier and who has
repeatedly been accused of illegal activity in a lawless border area
where three South American nations meet. Police took Assad Ahmad Barakat
into custody in the city of Foz do Iguacu, which is home to the
famous Iguazu Falls and sits where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay
converge.
A military alliance between Russia and Iran to back
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is giving way to an economic rivalry
as Syria's war winds down, a contest Moscow is leading.
IRAQ & IRAN
Hajar Youssif was on her daily commute to work, staring
at her phone and flicking through her Instagram account when she
looked up to find herself in an unusual location. The taxi driver had
turned into an alley. When she questioned the driver, he sped up.
"I started to feel uneasy and knew that something bad was going
to happen," said the 24-year-old office administrator, who had
taken part in protests over lack of clean water, frequent power cuts
and soaring unemployment in her hometown of Basra, Iraq's oil capital
and main port... Youssif believes the attack was part of what she and
other activists describe as a campaign of intimidation and arbitrary
detentions by powerful Iranian-backed Shiite militias and political
groups that control Basra, a city of more than 2 million people in
southern Iraq's Shiite Muslim heartland.
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