Thursday, December 20, 2018

Eye on Iran: Israel To Escalate Fight Against Iran In Syria After US Exit: Netanyahu



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Israel will escalate its fight against Iranian-backed forces in Syria after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday. "We will continue to act very aggressively against Iran's efforts to entrench in Syria," he said in a statement. "We do not intend to reduce our efforts. We will intensify them, and I know that we do so with the full support and backing of the United States."


The United States has granted Iraq a 90-day extension to an exemption from reimposed sanctions on Iran to keep on importing energy, a government source said Thursday. President Donald Trump reimposed crippling unilateral sanctions on Iran's energy and finance sectors on Nov. 5 following his May decision to abandon a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Tehran. But he gave Iraq a 45-day waiver to continue buying electricity and natural gas to generate it from its eastern neighbor.


Iran is blaming the United States and Israel for Albania's expulsion of two Iranian diplomats accused of engaging in criminal activities that threatened the small European country's security. The official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi as saying "Albania has become an unintentional victim of the United States, Israel and some terrorists groups."

NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM


The Iran nuclear deal has created new channels for engagement with Iran, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Tuesday, addressing a meeting with members of the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium. "Thanks to the nuclear deal, we now have new channels to engage in a constructive manner as some recent developments in Yemen have shown with Iran to discuss regional issues and to discuss also the security matters," Mogherini said, according to IRNA.


Kamal Kharrazi, head of the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, says Iran would not remain silent if the remaining parties to the 2015 nuclear deal fail to fulfill their commitments. In an interview with ISNA published on Wednesday, Kharrazi said implementation of the special purpose vehicle (SPV) will depend on European countries' determination. "They have taken some steps in this regard and in the dialectic and political arena they have done good things," he said.

MISSILE PROGRAM


Iran's recent nuclear-capable ballistic missile test exploded three myths popular in Washington: that missile development was forbidden by the 2015 Iran nuclear deal; that Saudi Arabia's reckless and heinous killing of Jamal Khashoggi represents the most pressing regional threat to the United States; and that U.S. sanctions are addressing Iran's growing missile threat.

SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS  


With US sanctions heaping further pain on Iran's deteriorating economy, 2018 has been widely viewed by political analysts as the year Tehran was tamed. Sanctions enforced last month have left Iran's shipping, banking, oil, energy and shipbuilding industries floundering. In the fallout, the Iranian rial has lost more than a quarter of its value against the dollar, sending  the prices of food and other basic commodities soaring.


Switzerland is looking for ways to facilitate humanitarian trade with Iran that's been impeded by renewed U.S. sanctions on the Persian Gulf country. "Switzerland is working on establishing a payment channel for the export of food, medicine and medical devices to Iran," the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said in a statement, adding that it's "striving to make this channel operational as soon as possible."
   

Iran denied on Wednesday reports that its exports of crude oil to Chile's state energy company ENAP might have been a possible source of noxious fumes that caused hundreds of people to seek hospital treatment in August.  A total of 508 people, most of them children, sought treatment in Quintero and nearby Puchuncavi in August after residents reported a strong smell in the air. Chilean law enforcement officials are investigating Iranian crude oil as a possible source of the odour.


India will use five escrow accounts in Iranian banks to pay for deliveries of Iranian crude oil amid U.S. sanctions, Bloomberg reports, citing sources close to the situation. The accounts are in the name of state Indian lender UCO Bank. The payments will be made in Indian rupees in a bid to avoid punitive action from Washington, the sources also said.
  
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS


Anger has erupted in Iran's restive Khuzestan province after security forces arrested dozens of striking steel workers. More than 4,000 employees at the National Steel Industrial Group in Ahvaz stopped work on Nov. 9 in a dispute over unpaid wages and benefits. After a series of rallies and protest meetings by the strikers, police raided workers' homes overnight on Sunday and detained at least 30 men.


Iranian authorities should immediately carry out an independent and impartial investigation into the death of an imprisoned activist on a hunger strike, Human Rights Watch said today. Anyone found responsible for wrongdoing in the death of Vahid Sayadi Nasiri should be held accountable. Iranian authorities have systematically failed to conduct transparent investigations into at least prior four deaths in custody during 2018.


Imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh will go on trial again on December 23, her lawyer Payam Derafshan told official news agency IRNA. Sotoudeh, an award-winning activist, was arrested in June and told she had already been found guilty "in absentia" on spying charges and sentenced to a six-year prison term by Tehran's Revolutionary Court. It was not clear what charges she would face in the new trial, which will be heard at Tehran's Revolutionary Court.

U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS


The United States wants the United Nations Security Council to condemn Iran in a draft resolution being negotiated to back a ceasefire deal in Yemen's Hodeidah region, but Russia has rejected the move, diplomats said on Wednesday.  After a week of U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Sweden, the Iranian-aligned Houthi group and Saudi-backed Yemen government foes agreed last Thursday to stop fighting in the Red Sea city of Hodeidah and withdraw forces. The truce began on Tuesday.  


The midterm congressional elections and the polarized politics of America are sparking their own debate within the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many of the regime's hardliners have come to the conclusion that the Trump administration will be weaker in the next two years and thus it is time for a more confrontational policy. President Hassan Rouhani and his battered centrists are also looking at American politics, but instead of an immediate conflict they want to wait out the Trump storm and deal with a more accommodating Democratic president that may come to power in 2020.


Iran's Intelligence Minister has denied the claim that the United States granted green cards to 2,500 Iranian officials during nuclear talks, saying such a claim is "unfounded, invalid, and a lie spread by anti-revolutionary TV channels." He was answering question from MPs in the Iranian parliament on Tuesday, December 18.


The U.S. State Department is looking into complaints from Iranians who say they do not have the same access to U.S. student visas as family members of Iranian officials. In an exclusive interview with VOA Persian at the State Department, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said Washington is reconsidering the student visas of family members of Iranian officials.

IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS

A blaze on Dec. 18 at a girls' school in the southeastern Iranian border town of Zahedan - the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province - that killed at least four 6-year-old girls has thrown the nation into deep mourning. According to official reports, the fire erupted after one of the students accidentally tripped an old oil heater while playing with others during a break. Neighbors and school staff managed to rescue most of the 59 students before firefighters arrived at the scene to extinguish the blaze.


Iranian media say a Tuesday school fire that killed three girls in Iran's impoverished southeast indicates the country has not resolved safety issues that led to a similar tragedy in 2012. Iranian state media said the three girls died after suffering burns over more than 90 percent of their bodies in the Tuesday morning fire at an all-girls preschool and elementary school center in Zahedan, capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province. It is one of Iran's most underdeveloped regions.


Iran has witnessed a turbulent year in regards to the value of its national currency. Between March and October, the rial lost about 70% of its value on the open market, leading to inflationary impacts and economic instability. While it has regained some of its lost value over the past few weeks, there are uncertainties about its future prospects - especially as US secondary sanctions will continue to limit Iran's access to hard currency. 


Iran's economy minister says authorities are looking into a dispute between a lawmaker and customs officers. Speaking to reporters on December 19, Economy and Finance Minister Farhad Dejpasand denied earlier reports that he had apologized to lawmaker Mohammad Baset Dorrazehi, who claimed that customs officers had insulted him. "I said we will look into it and I will comment accordingly," Dejpasand was quoted as saying by Iran's semiofficial ILNA news agency.

IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION


Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi has accused intelligence services of Iran's neighbors, as well as those of countries farther afield, of being directly involved in actions against Iran's national security. Without further elaboration, mid-ranking cleric Alavi said foreign intelligence services are supporting "anti-Islamic Revolution" terrorist groups in full force. Alavi was responding to a question raised by an ultraconservative legislator in the Iranian Parliament on December 18.

RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN


The European Union's counterterrorism coordinator, Giles de Kerchove, said in an interview last week that after Hezbollah operatives murdered five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver in 2012, some European countries sought to classify the entire Lebanese Shi'ite organization as a foreign terrorist entity. De Kerchove told the Brussels-based media outlet EURACTIV, which asked a question in response to an exclusive report from The Jerusalem Post: "Why is it that the military branch was put on the terrorist list - it's because there were divided views, some member states put the whole organization and some member states think that Hezbollah is important for the political and social fabric of Lebanon and they want to keep a line open to keep talking to Hezbollah as a political actor in the Lebanese context."


President Trump ordered a rapid withdrawal of all U.S. military forces from Syria, officials said Wednesday, marking an abrupt shift of the U.S.'s posture in the Middle East. The U.S. immediately began moving a handful of personnel from Syria and will quickly extract about 2,000 forces over the next few weeks, officials said, ending a four-year military campaign against Islamic State on the brink of its defeat.


President Trump startled the world Wednesday, and overrode some of his own advisers, by announcing an abrupt withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria. The decision may fulfill a campaign promise, and it may be popular with many Americans. But Mr. Trump is also sending an Obama-like signal of retreat that will have damaging consequences for his Iran strategy and U.S. interests.  The President announced the withdrawal in a tweet that took credit for defeating Islamic State, which he said was "my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried Hezbollah's development of a network of tunnels across the Lebanon-Israel border on Wednesday, describing it as an "act of war". Netanyahu's speech came after the discovery on Sunday of a fourth Hezbollah tunnel infiltrating Israeli territory from across the Lebanese border. Israel's military launched an ongoing military operation on December 4 to locate and eliminate all such tunnels. But the cross-border subterranean network is merely one manifestation of the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel. Observers say that thanks to significantly bolstered manpower, resources and fighting experience, the Lebanese militant group has strengthened considerably since its 2006 war with the Jewish state.


Donald Trump campaigned on a vow to get U.S. troops out of intractable Middle East wars. He also promised to push back against rising Iranian power in the region. On Wednesday, he took a step toward keeping his first promise -- and triggered a firestorm in Washington as critics said he's going soft on the second.


Hackers accessed the European Union's diplomatic communications network for years, downloading cables that reveal concerns about the Trump administration, struggles to deal with Russia and China and the risk of Iran reviving its nuclear program, the New York Times reported late on Tuesday. The cables also offered insight into Israel's views on Russia and Iran in Syria.
   

The announcement Wednesday by the White House that the U.S. has defeated Islamic State (IS) in Syria and begun withdrawing troops from the country took many by surprise. The Syrian civil war, now in its eighth year, is further complicated by the actions within its borders by four other countries: the U.S., Russia, Iran and Turkey. The U.S. mission in Syria has always been to defeat Islamic State, which in 2014 took over vast swaths of Iraq and Syria.

AFGHANISTAN & IRAN


Nine men in traditional Afghan clothing stand in line against a brick wall as a man in an Iranian police uniform wields a long stick.  "Why did you come here," he shouts as he works his way down the line, slapping each of the nine in turn. The uniformed man then repeatedly orders the men to do squats, as another man can be heard laughing behind the camera.

TURKEY & IRAN


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Thursday held talks with Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, with Syria likely to dominate the agenda after the surprise U.S. decision to withdraw troops from that country. The two leaders sat down for the meeting in Ankara, which was arranged before U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement. Trump stunned allies and American officials on Wednesday with an order to pull ground forces from the war-ravaged nation.

NORTH KOREA & IRAN


North Korea said Thursday it will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the United States first removes what Pyongyang called a nuclear threat. The surprisingly blunt statement jars with Seoul's rosier presentation of the North Korean position and could rattle the fragile trilateral diplomacy to defuse a nuclear crisis that last year had many fearing war.

OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS


Albania has expelled Iran's ambassador and another diplomat for "damaging its national security", the foreign ministry said on Wednesday. Albania did not identify the two, and did not say when they were expelled or if they had left the NATO member country, but told Reuters it had consulted its alliance partners on the decision. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday the move was made under pressure from Israel and the United States.






Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email press@uani.com.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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