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TOP STORIES
France, Germany and the U.K. called on Iran to
"act responsibly" and fully comply with commitments made in
a 2015 international nuclear agreement amid rising tensions in the
Persian Gulf. The trio of nations, which all signed the 2015 deal,
said they continue to support the accord in a statement emailed by
French President Emmanuel Macron's office. Still, they said Iranian
actions were beginning to undermine the agreement, which has already
been disowned by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Iran is ready to hold talks with the United States if
Washington lifts sanctions and returns to the 2015 nuclear deal it
quit last year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised
speech on Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration
has said it is open to negotiations with Iran on a more far-reaching
agreement on nuclear and security issues. But Iran has made any
talks conditional on first being able to export as much oil as it did
before the United States withdrew from the nuclear pact with world
powers in May 2018.
South Korea imported no crude oil from Iran for a second
month in June following the end of a U.S. sanctions wavier, with
Iranian imports for the first half dropping 36.9% from a year
earlier, customs data showed on Monday. South Korea, the
world's fifth-largest crude oil importer and one of Iran's major oil
customers, stopped importing Iranian crude from May after waivers on
U.S. sanctions against Iran ended at the start of that
month. South Korean oil buyers mainly imported condensate, an
ultra-light oil, from Iran.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Iran is beginning to breach some of the limitations
imposed on its nuclear program by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), which it signed in 2015 and from which the United
States withdrew in 2018. Initially, Iran exceeded the stockpile of
low-enriched uranium it was permitted to maintain; then it began to
enrich above the 3.67 percent permitted under the deal. While
enriching to just under 5 percent - well short of weapons-grade 80 to
90 percent enrichment level - the Iranians, nonetheless, are no
longer respecting the limits.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
European foreign ministers will seek to flesh out how to
convince Iran and the United States to reduce tensions and initiate a
dialogue when they meet in Brussels on Monday amid fears that the
2015 nuclear deal is close to collapse. U.S.-Iranian tensions
have worsened since U.S. President Donald Trump decided last year to
abandon the nuclear deal under which Iran agreed to curtail its
atomic programme in return for relief from economic sanctions
crippling its economy.
Iran will return to the situation before its nuclear
deal with world powers unless European countries fulfill their
obligations, the spokesman for Iran's nuclear agency, Behrouz
Kamalvandi, said on Monday, according to IRNA news agency. Iran
says the European countries must do more to guarantee it the economic
benefits it was meant to receive in return for curbs to its nuclear
program under the deal, which Washington abandoned last year.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Monday that
the international deal on Iran's nuclear program "isn't dead
yet," and that while the opportunity to find a resolution to the
current crisis surrounding the agreement is closing, it is still
possible to keep it alive. He spoke ahead of talks with other
European Union foreign ministers in Brussels where they planned to
discuss the Iran situation. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action was agreed to by Iran and a group of world powers that
included Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United
States to allay concerns Iran was working to develop a nuclear
weapon.
While tensions
between Iran and the United States have escalated, Europeans have
implemented a special purpose vehicle - a payment
channel set up to facilitate trade with Iran and avoid US sanctions.
Yet the special purpose vehicle, known as the Instrument in Support
of Trade Exchanges, or Instex, hasn't satisfied Tehran. Iranian
officials have compared Instex to "a car without
gas."
The Iranian regime recently announced its decision to
produce fissile material with a purity of more than 4.5%. Iran's
nuclear program is again on the march. In truth, it never
stopped-contrary to glowing media reports and efforts by some Western
leaders to spin on what the regime was doing. Under the Iran
nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iranians
could ramp up quickly and easily from the enrichment levels necessary
for peaceful nuclear power to levels needed to make a bomb.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Iran will continue its oil exports under any conditions,
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told his British
counterpart Jeremy Hunt in a telephone call on Saturday, according to
a statement on the Iranian foreign ministry website. Zarif also
said Britain should quickly release the Grace 1 oil tanker, which was
seized last week by British Royal Marines off the coast of the
British Mediterranean territory of Gibraltar on suspicion of
violating sanctions against Syria.
Iran's current unemployment is at 10.8%, down from 12.1%
last year, President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday in a speech broadcast
live on state TV. Some 321,000 jobs were created in the 12 months to
spring 2019, Rouhani said in the speech to crowds in the northeastern
city of Shrivan, adding that the U.S. government's "anti-Iran
efforts" had "been defeated."
"Every route the Americans have taken has led to
defeat," Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday, adding
that Iran has stood firm against US sanctions, the semi-official Mehr
news agency reported. Rouhani arrived in Iran's North Khorasan
province Sunday morning for the inauguration of a number of
development projects, according to Mehr.
The latest monthly report by OPEC says Iran's
oil output in June has dropped by 142,000 barrels per day compared to
previous month and reached 2,225,000 barrels. Iran's output was 3.8
million barrels per day before the returning of U.S. sanctions.
Meanwhile estimates show that Iran's oil export has dropped below
300,000 barrels per day. The figure was 2.5 million barrels per day
before the sanctions.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
The simple act of walking has become a display of
defiance for a young Iranian woman who often moves in Tehran's
streets without a compulsory headscarf, or hijab. With every step,
she risks harassment or even arrest by Iran's morality police whose
job is to enforce the strict dress code imposed after the 1979
Islamic Revolution. "I have to confess it is really, really
scary," the 30-year-old fire-safety consultant said in a
WhatsApp audio message, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear
of repercussions.
The Farsi caption has unfurled across the black screen
of a channel of Iranian state television every night for days now,
promising viewers that what they are about to witness is "based
on a real case." But the slick graphics, chase scenes and gunfights
of "Gando" serve a far different purpose - trying to offer
justification of Iran's detention, closed-door trial and imprisonment
of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
The European Union supports an Iraqi proposal to hold a
regional conference amid rising tensions between the United States
and Iran, the group's foreign policy chief said Saturday. Iraq is an
ally of the two rival nations, which are on a collision course as the
Iran nuclear deal threatens to unravel. Iraq has offered to mediate
between Tehran and Washington, while Iran has pressed European
parties to the nuclear agreement to offset the effects of U.S.
sanctions.
The United States has granted a visa to Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to attend a U.N. meeting in New York
this week, two sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday,
saying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had approved the decision.
Had Pompeo not approved giving a visa to Zarif, Iran's top diplomat
and nuclear negotiator, it could have been a signal that the United
States was trying to further isolate the Islamic Republic and perhaps
closing the door to diplomacy.
Iran's breaching of caps on its uranium enrichment after
the United States pulled out of world powers' nuclear deal with
Tehran was "a bad reaction to ... (a) bad decision",
raising fears of a stumble into war, France's foreign minister
said. Tensions have risen as Washington has blamed Iran for
several attacks on oil tankers and Tehran shot down a U.S.
surveillance drone, prompting President Donald Trump to order air
strikes that he called off only minutes before impact.
As tensions rise between Iran, the US and its allies,
the BBC has been given rare access to Iran. Iranians remain
furious that US President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal
last year and has imposed crushing sanctions on the country. BBC correspondent
Martin Patience, along with cameraman Nik Millard and producer Cara
Swift, have been in Tehran and the holy city of Qom, talking to
Iranians about the escalating crisis.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's battered currency is starting to recover in the
unregulated market as government policies to defend it against U.S.
sanctions take effect. The rial has stabilized, Abdolnaser Hemmati,
the head of Iran's central bank, was cited as saying by the
semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency. It strengthened about 8%
in the open market over the past month to 125,450 per dollar,
according to prices compiled by Bloomberg from foreign-exchange
websites and traders in Tehran.
A person was killed in a shooting in northern Tehran on
Saturday, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported. The
agency did not provide details about the shooting that occurred in
Tehran's Argentina Square. Such shootings are rare in the Iranian
capital.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has dismissed critics'
claims about his administration's inefficiency as
"unfair." Speaking in the northern Khorasan Province
town of Shirvan on July 14, Rouhani said that "any claim about
Iran's Islamic system and the current administration being
inefficient would be both incorrect and unfair." Rouhani did not
mention any particular person who had said so, but many Iranian and
foreign critics have accused his administration of being responsible
for a large part of Iran's economic and political problems.
The former acting deputy to the secretary-general of
reformist party National Trust has disclosed that Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei has agreed after a long time to receive letters from some
reformists. Rassoul Montajabnia told Khabar Online website on
Saturday July 13 that reformist are happy about Khamenei's move and
"take it as a privilege" although he does not reply to
their letters. Montajabnia said that he and another reformist, Mohsen
Rohami met with Khamenei last year.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Iran won't stand alone in fighting the U.S. if war
breaks out between the two nations, the Islamic Republic's Lebanese
ally Hezbollah said. Groups backed by Iran are currently in talks
about the possibility of such a conflict, Hassan Nasrallah, chief of
the militant organization, said in an interview broadcast Friday on
its Al Manar TV. "Are we going to sit back and watch? Iran won't
be alone in the war, that is clear," he said.
Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the
only army ready to combat Iran is the IDF. Speaking to members of the
National Security College at the Prime Minister's Office, Netanyahu
slammed the 2015 nuclear deal, and said that only he was against it
at the time. "The only thing that the terrible nuclear agreement
gave is a strong and sweeping rapprochement with major Arab
countries," Netanyahu said. "Iran says simply: 'We will
destroy you and destroy you first by nuclear weapons.'"
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
The US on Sunday voiced concern over the unfair sentence
issued by Yemen's Houthi militias to execute 30 political prisoners
in Sanaa. US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus tweeted
that "the US is seriously concerned by the Iranian-backed
Houthis' sentencing of 30 political prisoners to death in
Yemen", including academics and political figures who were
arrested on baseless charges and physically tortured during the
arrest.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Britain will work for the release of an Iranian
supertanker seized near Gibraltar if Iran guarantees the ship will
not travel to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions, the
British foreign secretary said, in a move that could ease soaring
tensions between Iran and the West. Jeremy Hunt said late
Saturday that he had held a "constructive call" with
his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in regards to the oil
tanker's detention in the Mediterranean this month.
The U.K. and Iran sought to defuse tensions over a
detained Iranian oil tanker in the British overseas territory of
Gibraltar, but failed to resolve an issue that has raised new fears
about military conflict over commercial-shipping lanes. The renewed
diplomacy included a call between the two countries' top diplomats,
demonstrating how both sides wanted to de-escalate a crisis that
flared up after Gibraltar authorities and the Royal Marines
seized the Grace 1 on July 4.
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