|
TOP STORIES
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.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment