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TOP STORIES
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are vowing to counter what they call
Iran's aggression in the Middle East. "We need to increase it,
we need to expand it, and together the United States and Israel are
working in close coordination to roll back Iranian aggression in the
region and around the world," Netanyahu said Wednesday, noting
U.S. pressure on Iran is already having an impact.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on
Thursday in a new year speech broadcast on state TV that the Islamic
Republic successfully resisted "unprecedented, strong" U.S.
sanctions. Iran has faced economic hardship since U.S. President
Donald Trump withdrew from a multilateral nuclear deal last year and
reimposed sanctions. Khamenei also said that economic hardship
and the fall of the currency remain top problems and that the
government should confront these issues by boosting production.
Japanese refiners are unlikely to continue buying
Iranian crude from April onwards, the president of the Petroleum
Association of Japan said as quoted by Reuters. However, Takashi
Tsukuoka added they would continue importing Iranian crude if Tokyo agreed
on a sanction waiver extension, which it was currently negotiating
with Washington. This makes Japan the second country to try and
negotiate a waiver extension, after India entered identical talks
earlier this month.
UANI IN THE NEWS
On Tuesday 12 March, the European People's Party (EPP)
Vice President Sandra Kalniete presented a report to the European
Parliament calling for the EU to reassess its relationship with
Russia. It was a small intervention which many will have missed.
Kalniete said that "the EU should stand ready to consider
adopting further sanctions if Russia's violation of international law
continues." The EPP is right to highlight the aggressive behaviour
of Russia. The recognition of the need to sanction Russia, however,
invariably raises another more worrying issue: the links between
Russia and Iran, and the ways in which sanctions on the two countries
are intertwined. It is the nature of these relationships that
warrants more than ever our very close attention.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Iranian leaders vowed on Thursday to control soaring
prices, bring stability to the national currency and create jobs as
the nation marked the end of a year of economic crisis fueled by
renewed U.S. sanctions. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei said in a new year speech that the Islamic Republic
successfully resisted the U.S. sanctions, and called on the
government to boost national production to face enemy
pressures.
A 90-day U.S. waiver allows Iraq to continue to pay for
electricity from Iran, a State Department official said on
Wednesday. The official said the new waiver extension exempting
Iraq from U.S. sanctions on Iran was granted on Tuesday.
"Mahan Air will have to halt its Paris flights as
of April 1. They notified me in an email," tweeted an
Iranian passenger who had booked a flight to the French
capital. Airline officials have confirmed the cancellations,
saying French government sanctions forced the ban. Mahan is Iran's
second-largest carrier with its Paris schedule covering four flights
on a weekly basis. The airline has already suffered similar bans,
including one imposed by Germany in January.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the
economic difficulties of Iranians the main and most urgent problem of
the country Thursday, and the country's president and top diplomat
also used holiday messages to speak out against sanctions re-imposed
by the US last year. Iran has faced increased economic hardship in
the last 12 months which was aggravated after US President Donald
Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world
powers last May.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards are looking to fill a vacuum
in the energy sector created by western companies that pulled out of
the Islamic republic following the reimposition of US sanctions.
Saeed Mohammad, head of Khatam-ul-Anbia, the construction arm of the
elite force, said his organisation was ready to replace Total, the
French company, in the development of phase 11 of the South Pars
gasfield, the republic's flagship hydrocarbons project.
Iran's Central Bank announced on Wednesday that a
company matching Europe's trade mechanism, INSTEX was registered in
Tehran. Three days earlier, the head of the central bank announced
that Special Trade and Finance Institute (STFI) will be established
in Iran to work with Europe's Instrument in Support of Trade
Exchanges (INSTEX), to facilitate limited trade in the face of U.S.
economic sanctions reimposed on Iran in 2018.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has promised to increase
the salaries of public servants in the country with the start of the
Persian calendar on Thursday. According to Radio Farda, the
announcement was unexpected, as earlier this month the Iranian
government said it was unsure about whether or not salaries would be
raised because "raising salaries and wages is a decision made by
the parliament and the government does not have the authority to
dismiss the legislature's decision."
The trial of Esmaeil Bakhshi, Ali Nejati and other
defendants arrested amid protests and strikes at the Haft Tapeh Sugar
Cane industrial complex in the city of Shush, southwest Iran, has
been referred to the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The Revolutionary
Courts, set up after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, are tasked with
trying those suspected of crimes like espionage, blasphemy,
smuggling, attempting to overthrow the government, and other national
security crimes.
The lawyer who saved my life was just sentenced to
38 years in prison and 148 lashes in Iran. I first met Nasrin
Sotoudeh - an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, and
our country's foremost campaigner for women's rights and against
child executions - when I was being harassed and violently
intimidated by Iran's intelligence services.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Wednesday lauded the
White House's warm ties with Israel during a visit to the country and
promised to step up pressure on Iran, giving a public boost to
Israel's prime minister at the height of a tight re-election
campaign. Pompeo was on a regional tour focused largely on Iran, but
the meeting and his cushy words on Netanyahu's leadership will likely
be seen as support from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration
amid the Israeli premier's re-election fight.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Four of the Iranian border guards kidnapped last year by
a Sunni militant group on the border with Pakistan were released on
Wednesday, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said. Spokesman
Bahram Qasemi thanked the Pakistani government for its efforts to
facilitate the release of the guards, the semi-official Fars news
agency reported.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the
economic difficulties of Iranians the main and most urgent problem of
the country in a message aired Thursday on state TV. Iran has faced
increased economic hardship in the last 12 months, which was
aggravated after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear
deal between Iran and world powers last May. The renewal of American
sanctions, which had been eased in exchange for curbs on Tehran's
nuclear program, sent shockwaves through Iran's economy.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on the country's
political factions to end infighting and unite against foreign
enemies in a new year speech broadcast on state TV on
Thursday. Hardliners in Iran have criticized Rouhani after U.S.
President Donald Trump withdrew from a multilateral nuclear deal,
which Rouhani supported, and reimposed sanctions last year.
Wedged in the corner of a squat brick building in this
holy Muslim city, Sheikh Aladdin al-Jazari's cramped office belies
his ties to a powerful patron: the supreme leader of Iran. The
furniture is sparse, and the rooms dimly lit. But Jazari is a key
liaison to the office of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian leader,
whom Jazari says he has met multiple times.
Iranians on Wednesday were preparing for the annual
Nowruz holiday that marks the Persian new year and the arrival of
spring. The holiday, dating back to at least 1700 B.C. and
incorporating ancient Zoroastrian traditions, is the most important
evIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged on Wednesday that
Iran could blackmail his main election rival, Benny Gantz, after
hacking the former armed forces chief's phone, even as Tehran denied
doing so.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
In January, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on a
diplomatic mission to scuttle Syria's readmission to the Arab League.
On Thursday, he is expected in Lebanon, where he is set to target
another one of Iran's allies, Hezbollah. Pompeo is scheduled to hold
talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and is expected to ask
him to make greater efforts to shield Lebanese policies from Iranian
influence - while knowing that that may be hard to achieve since
Hezbollah has three appointees in Hariri's cabinet and, along with
its allies, controls 70 of the 128 seats in parliament.
A Hezbollah commander who allegedly headed a 2007 raid
on an American base in Iraq, which ended with the slaying of
kidnapped American soldiers, is now building a secret force that
could attack Israel from Syria, according to an Israeli military
intelligence report. Their report was released in the days leading up
to a visit to Israel by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also
is stopping in Kuwait and Lebanon, where discussions will include the
threat of Iran and Hezbollah.
Cellphones of Sara and Yair Netanyahu, the wife and son
of the Israeli prime minister, were not hacked by Iran, the Prime
Minister's Office asserted Tuesday. Netanyahu accused rival Israeli
sources in the elections of being responsible for such rumors to
divert attention from the scandal of Blue and White Party leader
Benny Gantz's whose phone was hacked. Earlier, a report stated that
Iran hacked the phones of Netanyahu's wife and son in an attempt to
eavesdrop on conversations with the premier.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
The U.S. ambassador to Yemen blamed the Iran-aligned
Houthi movement on Thursday for the stalling of a U.N.-led peace deal
in the main port of Hodeidah and said the group's weapons pose a
threat to other countries in the region.
The Association of Abductee Mothers condemned Houthi
militias for kidnapping dozens of their children four years ago and
transferring them to secret prisons dubbed "exchange
houses." They also accused the insurgents of starving and
neglecting the health conditions of their love-ones, leading to the
spread of diseases, especially infectious ones.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has returned from his
first-ever trip to Iraq with a raft of agreements for expanded trade,
cross-border infrastructure, and pledges of greater cooperation with
Baghdad. Leaders of both countries embraced strengthening ties -
something Washington has been watching closely. Iran is upping its
game in Iraq as U.S. influence recedes, deepening ties with its
war-weary neighbor and betting on bilateral economic activity to help
offset tough sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
TURKEY & IRAN
Turkey said on Wednesday Turkish and Iranian military
commanders had agreed to continue "simultaneous and coordinated
operations" against Kurdish militants, though Iran's armed
forces later said there were no joint operations. Earlier this week
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey and Iran were carrying
out a joint operation against Kurdish militants.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Under cover of the predawn darkness of April 21, 2018,
two tall, burly men lay in wait for Fadi al-Batsh. He took no special
precautions as he left his apartment building to head for the mosque
where he often prayed. Spotting him, the two men approached and shot
him 14 times at close range. He didn't stand a chance. The security
cameras in the area did not pick up anything, and the pair - who
were carrying false passports from Serbia and Montenegro -
fled on a motorbike.
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