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TOP STORIES
The surprise
resignation of Iran's foreign minister last week was a rare
public display of the jockeying between hard-liners and the more
moderate camp within the clerical leadership, a divide that has been
exacerbated by the country's deepening economic crisis, analysts
said. Hard-liners have long had the edge. But Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif's open show of frustration was a sign that he
and his ally, President Hassan Rouhani, find themselves further
weakened after the collapse of their biggest foreign policy project -
the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers.
The United States has sanctioned
Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, a radical Muslim militia group of about
10,0000 fighters, as well as its leader Akram Kaabi, the Treasury
Department said on Tuesday. Active in Iraq and Syria, Nujaba,
which is known by various names including the "The Movement of
the Noble Ones," is also loyal to Iran. Reuters reported in 2017
that it was helping Tehran create a supply route through Iraq to
Damascus, and its leaders have publicly acknowledged Iran's support.
The U.S. Representative to the
Vienna Office of the United Nations and Representative to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Washington is
looking forward "to concluding a comprehensive agreement with
Iran that addresses the totality of our concerns". Ambassador
Jackie Wolcott told the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna on March 5
that Iran should end "its destabilizing conduct and return to
the negotiating table."
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Australian Permanent
Representative to IAEA Brendon Hammer has highlighted his country's
"continued support" for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). "Australia
attaches highest importance to the IAEA's activities in Iran under
the JCPOA. Australia's continued support for the JCPOA is informed by
ongoing advice from the Director General that Iran is fully
implementing its nuclear commitments under the Plan," Australian
Permanent Representative to IAEA Brendon Hammer said in a tweet on
Tuesday.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
China is still Iran's top trade partner, leading oil customer, a
key technology exporter, a major political ally and one of the
signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) still
committed to the deal. All of this has given Beijing an increasingly
central position in Iran's "Look to the
East" doctrine, a key foreign policy strategy actively
pursued by the Islamic Republic after the US withdrawal from the
nuclear deal in May 2018.
French seed maker Vilmorin, said
on Tuesday it was continuing some exports to Iran with the backing of
a French bank, and will participate in efforts to implement a
European scheme to avoid U.S. sanctions targeting trade with
Tehran. Vilmorin, one of the world's largest suppliers of seeds
for grain and vegetable crops, has cited the U.S. sanctions against
Iran as among the short-term risks to its activities in emerging
markets, along with currency volatility.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
A prominent human rights lawyer
in Iran who defended protesters against the Islamic Republic's
mandatory headscarves for women has been convicted and faces years in
prison, an activist group said Wednesday. The conviction of Nasrin
Sotoudeh, who previously served three years in prison for her work,
underlines the limits of challenging Iran's theocracy as it faces
economic pressure exacerbated by the U.S. pulling out of Tehran's
nuclear deal with world powers.
The United States and rights
activists are criticizing Iran for selecting as its new judiciary
chief a conservative cleric allegedly involved in mass executions of
dissidents in the 1980s. An Iranian judiciary spokesman confirmed in
a Sunday news conference that Ebrahim Raisi will succeed another
conservative cleric, Sadeq Amoli Larijani, as judiciary chief on
Friday. Iranian media had predicted the move since Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promoted Larijani to the role of head of
Iran's Expediency Council in December.
Dozens of teachers staged
sit-ins in schools across Iran for the third consecutive day to
protest against low salaries and the jailing of teachers' rights
activists. The strikes were organized by the Coordinating Council of
Teachers Syndicates in Iran (CCTSI), which said on March 5 that
educators at more than 1,000 primary and secondary schools in Tehran,
Isfahan, Hamadan, Karaj, Kermanshah, Shiraz, Yazd, and dozens of
other cities and towns had participated in the protests.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe
(R-Okla.) said Tuesday he'd like to include language in the annual
defense policy bill that codifies President Trump's withdrawal from
the Iran nuclear deal. Inhofe was speaking to reporters in his office
about a congressional delegation trip last month that included stops
in Germany, Israel, Kosovo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Algeria.
Iran's president says there's no
chance of negotiations or compromise with the United States, because
Washington allegedly is seeking to topple the government in Tehran.
Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Wednesday that "the
United States says Iran should change" back to the way the
country was before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Rouhani says:
"We say we won't go back." He says the differences between
Iran and the U.S. are so wide, they are "neither negotiable nor
can there be a compromise."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
accused the United States on Wednesday of plotting to use economic
pressure to overthrow the Islamic republic's clerical establishment,
and ruled out the possibility of talks with Washington.
"Iran is in economic and psychological war with America and its
allies. Their aim is to change the regime but their wish will not
come true," Rouhani said in a speech in the northern province of
Gilan.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo had separate telephone conversations with Britain's foreign
Secretary and the French foreign minister to discuss Iran, Syria and
other issues. The Deputy Spokesperson of the State
Department, Robert Palladino announced that Pompeo spoke
with Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt o discuss countering
Iranian malign behavior", securing progress in Syria and
"pursuing shared goal to denuclearize" The People's
Republic of Korea.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Qassem Soleimani's role in a
political crisis in Iran highlights the influence of the leader of
the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, who has acquired celebrity
status at home after being largely invisible for years. The
resignation of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif last week was
quickly rejected by President Hassan Rouhani, but a week on, tension
over Zarif's absence from meetings with Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad that Soleimani attended is still evident.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
A 1970s building on
Tehran's Enghelab (Revolution) Avenue that ends in Azadi (Liberty)
Square has recently been the site for a series of meetings on an
unusual subject given Iranian social norms. Every
Tuesday, experts and members of the public come together there
to talk, sometimes heatedly, about sex. Since Dec. 4,
"Forums on Sexual Crisis in Iran" has been bringing
together academics, documentary filmmakers, clerics, journalists,
students and women activists to discuss such issues as polygamy,
sex education, homosexuality and transsexuality.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif's much-publicized resignation was largely
attributed to the existence of parallel power structures in Iran
that adversely affect many areas of policymaking and governance,
including foreign policy. One policy issue that has caused a great
deal of controversy among Iran's ruling elite is whether to implement
requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money
laundering, terrorism financing and transnational organized crime.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Yemen and its Saudi and UAE
allies are accusing the Houthi rebels of breaking their agreement to
withdraw from two ports. Ambassadors from the three countries sent a
letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, asking him to
demand the Houthis carry out their commitments.
The Iranian government has
approved a generous plan to facilitate participation in the
hajj, offering Saudi-bound travelers the opportunity to pay for the
voyage - estimated to cost over $3,000 - in local
currency at rates far below the open market. As of March 5, the
US dollar cost around 130,000 rials on the open market, over
three times the official rate, which has stood at a fixed 42,000
rials for almost a year now. The subsidized rate offered to pilgrims
will be just over half that on the open market, or 70,000 rials per
dollar.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
"France and Iran have
appointed ambassadors to each other's capitals, ending a six-month
absence during which relations have remained tense between the two
countries. Philippe Thiebaud will take up the role of France's top
diplomat in Tehran "in the coming weeks," the French
embassy said in a Tweet on Wednesday. Iranian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Bahram Qassemi will become his counterpart in Paris, Agence
France-Presse news agency reported, citing an Iranian official.
Iran has released three Jordanians
it arrested in December after they strayed into Iranian territorial
waters in the Gulf, Jordan's foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
"Iranian authorities released the three Jordanians and handed
them over to the acting charge d'affairs at the kingdom's embassy in
Tehran," it said. The three men were detained during a fishing
trip from the United Arab Emirates late last year.
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