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TOP STORIES
Iran's enriched uranium stockpile has passed the
300-kilogram limit set by the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers,
the semi-official Fars news agency reported Monday. The agency attributed
its report to an unnamed source, who said U.N. inspectors had
recently weighed Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium. Iran had
recently quadrupled its production of low-enriched uranium to be on
pace to break one of the deal's terms.
The U.S. special representative for Iran said Friday
that European companies have a choice: Do business with the United
States or do business with Iran, as Europe announced that a new
system to allow trade with Tehran was in place. The comments by Brian
Hook came as European countries made a last-ditch effort to prevent
Iran from breaching the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, a move that
could add to soaring tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Four civilians were killed and 21 injured in Israeli missile
strikes near the Syrian cities of Damascus and Homs, Syrian state
media said. The Syrian military responded to missiles launched by
Israeli warplanes, the Sana news agency said. Israeli jets targeted
military bases from Lebanese airspace at around midnight on Sunday,
it reported. Israel's military has not commented. It periodically
attacks what it says are threats to Israeli security in Syria.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Europe has no immediate plans to follow the U.S. and
impose sanctions on Iran, even if the regime in Tehran makes good on
its threat and breaches a nuclear accord President Trump pulled out
from last year, French President Emmanuel Macron said. U.S. officials
in recent days have urged Europeans to toughen their stance on Iran
after the U.S. administration imposed fresh sanctions on Monday in
response to recent oil-tanker attacks, rocket launches and the
downing of a U.S. military drone.
Iran will soon exceed an enriched uranium limit under its
nuclear deal, after remaining signatories to the pact fell short of
Tehran's demands to be shielded from U.S. sanctions, the
semi-official Fars news agency cited an "informed source"
as saying. Iran's envoy to a meeting of the remaining
signatories to the 2015 nuclear accord said on Friday that European
countries had offered too little at last-ditch talks to persuade
Tehran to back off from its plans to breach limits imposed by the
deal.
It is up to Europe to shield Iran from U.S. sanctions
and prevent it from further scaling back its compliance with its 2015
nuclear agreement with world powers, Iranian state TV said on
Saturday, with only days left on Tehran's ultimatum. Iran's
envoy to a meeting of the remaining signatories to the nuclear accord
said on Friday that European countries had offered too little at
last-ditch talks to persuade Tehran to drop its plan to breach limits
imposed by the deal.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
The Trump administration's threat to sanction Iran's top
diplomat, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, singles out the official
European allies have looked to as they try to keep the clerical
government in compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement. Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday the administration would levy
penalties by the end of the week against Mr. Zarif, one of Iran's
most recognizable government officials.
OPEC and its allies look set to extend oil supply cuts
next week at least until the end of 2019 as Iraq joined top producers
Saudi Arabia and Russia on Sunday in endorsing a policy aimed at
propping up the price of crude amid a weakening global
economy. Iran is the only major OPEC nation yet to have spoken
publicly about a need to extend production cuts. Tehran has in the
past objected to policies put forward by arch-rival Saudi Arabia,
saying Riyadh was too close to Washington.
Iran's news media was filled with
upbeat economic reports last week. Several tankers of oil had been
exported to China.
The Iranian foreign minister said on Saturday that Iran
would resist any U.S. sanctions, just as it persevered during the
1980s Iran-Iraq war when the forces of the then Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein launched a chemical attack on an Iranian town. "We
persevered then, and will now," Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted in
reference to the chemical attack on Sardasht. "We'll never
forget that Western world supported & armed Saddam ... Security
Council never condemned his gassing of our people."
Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) should have unity among themselves, Iran's Oil
Minister Bijan Zanganeh was quoted as saying on Monday, adding that
Tehran backed cooperation with non-OPEC oil exporter states. "Without
unity among members of OPEC, it is meaningless to plan cooperation
between OPEC and non-OPEC countries," the Oil Ministry's website
SHANA quoted Zanganeh as saying before leaving Tehran to attend an
OPEC meeting in Vienna.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh believes
"unilateralism" among some OPEC members could
ultimately lead to the death of the Middle East-dominated producer
group. OPEC is set to debate an extension of oil production
cuts when it meets on Monday, before getting the deal endorsed
by non-members such as Russia on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said over the weekend
that the non-OPEC leader had agreed with Saudi Arabia to
extend supply cuts by at least six months.
While the EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini
insists that a special mechanism to allow trade with Iran (INSTEX)
has become "operational," Iran's permanent representative
to the UN says the new device is a car without gas. In a joint press
conference after talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood
Qureshi on June 25, in Brussels, Mogherini had said the Instrument
for Trade and Exchanges, INSTEX may soon be ready and operational.
Poor Hassan Rouhani: Iran's president is so
inconsequential that the Trump administration didn't even bother to
impose sanctions on him. The US has now levied them on supreme leader
Ali Khamenei and eight military commanders, and is preparing similar
measures against Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. It had
already sanctioned Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, and
designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist
group.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
They had been fasting together for more than two weeks:
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman detained in
Tehran, who went on a hunger strike in prison, and her husband,
Richard Ratcliffe, who was outside the Iranian Embassy in London. On
Saturday, the 15th day of their campaign, they suspended the strike
demanding Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe's unconditional release. Mr.
Ratcliffe told BBC Radio's "Today" program on Saturday that
he had talked to his wife on the phone, and that she had told him she
would end the hunger strike.
An official with an Iran-backed militia says members of
his group comprised the majority of protesters outside the Bahrain
embassy in the Iraqi capital that was attacked this week. But he says
he doesn't know who stormed the mission. Jaafar al-Husseini,
spokesman for the Kataeb Hezbollah, said that storming the embassy
was a "natural right for the protesters" to express their anger
over Bahrain's hosting of a U.S.-backed conference to promote peace
between Arabs and Israelis.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran will not be pressured into negotiations by the
United States, but if authorities in Washington act towards it with
respect, Tehran will respond accordingly, Foreign Minister Mohammad
Javad Zarif said on Monday. The two countries have been drawn
into starker confrontation since May, when Washington mounted
pressure on Tehran by ordering all countries to halt imports of
Iranian oil, and the future of Iran's 2015 nuclear pact with world
powers hangs in the balance.
Iran will never succumb to US pressure and if Washington
wants talks with Tehran it should show respect, Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday. "Iran will never yield to
pressure from the United States ... America should try to respect
Iran ... if they want to talk to Iran, they should show
respect," Zarif said in a speech broadcast live on state TV.
The United States has deployed F-22 stealth
fighters to Qatar for the first time, its military said,
adding to a buildup of US forces in the Gulf amid tensions with
Iran. The Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters have been deployed
"to defend American forces and interests", the US Air
Forces Central Command said in a statement on Friday.
Americans have never been worthy of negotiations and
they never will be, a member of the Iranian parliament's National
Security and Foreign Policy Commission said on Sunday, adding that
recent US sanctions against Iran show that "American officials
are distressed." "America has never been worthy of
negotiations and it will not be in the future either," the
chairman of the parliament's Nuclear Committee, Mohammad Ebrahim
Rezaei, said. The US has "lost its international
reputation," he added.
President Obama was dishonest while empowering
Iran. President Trump is incoherent while squeezing Iran. Obviously,
the latter is better. But can it work in the long term? Trump wisely
renounced Obama's non-binding nuclear deal with the mullahs, the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Even if its murky terms were
followed, the JCPOA would put Iran on a glide path toward
becoming a nuclear-weapons power.
"I have two groups of people," President Trump
told NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday. "I have doves, and
I have hawks." News of a planned foray against Iran, which Trump
canceled at T-minus 10 minutes, suggests that he is torn between some
advisers who recommend restraint and others who advocate aggression.
His next move should be a defensive armed action that promises the
benefits of these two approaches.
The crisis over the Iranian downing of an American
Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has cooled somewhat but could
flare up at any time. President Trump was right
to call off a strike on Iranian facilities, even if his
last-minute decision upset the process-oriented Pentagon. It was
hardly the first time a president called off a strike just as the
military was ready to move: Bill Clinton did exactly the same thing
in November 1998, when he called off a missile strike on Iraq.
Amid the rhetoric exchanged between Iran and the United
States over how most key figures do not want a direct conflict,
actually one party does - Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
(IRGC). Each time President Donald Trump or Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei escalates the crisis, the Guards are
that much closer to getting perhaps a contained, limited conflict
that would benefit them domestically, as opposed to a total war that
would pose a risk to the regime's survival.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Members of the Iranian Parliament (Majles) have recently
tabled motions that can adversely affect President Hassan Rouhani's
administration. Most recently, on Sunday June 30, several members of
the Parliament called for amending the internal regulations of the
Majles in a way that would strengthen the parliament's supervisory
role, and give it a better leverage on the administration, Tasnim
news agency reported.
The Islamic Republic's Deputy Health Minister says Iran
is suffering from a "serious shortage of physicians," since
thousands of local doctors have emigrated. Speaking to the state-run
Iran Students News Agency (ISNA), Iraj Harirchi disclosed, "For
every 1,000 Iranians, there are only 1.6 general practitioners,
dentists, and specialists, while the least ratio to meet the
country's demands should be 2.5 doctors per 1,000 persons."
After detecting an unusual spike in energy consumption,
Iranian authorities seized nearly a thousand computers being used to
mine cryptocurrency, according to the country's state
media. Authorities discovered two bitcoin farms operating in
abandoned factories in Yazd province, which caused a seven percent
spike in the country's power consumption this month. Iran's central
bank banned cryptocurrencies last year, citing concerns
over money laundering.
CHINA & IRAN
Iran's government has decided to allow Chinese citizens
to travel to Iran without a visa, while Iranians still need a visa to
enter China. Vali Teymouri, a senior tourism official has announced that
the decision was made by President Hassan Rouhani's cabinet, and
after due process it will be announced officially. Visa protocol is
usually bilateral, whereby two countries reciprocate in asking for
visas or allowing free travel for the citizens of their countries. In
this case, China has not announced suspension of visa requirement
from Iranian citizens.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
A Yemeni military official said Sunday that Houthi
militias have been struck with heavy military and economic losses since
the US administration imposed new sanctions on their Iranian backers
last month. Such challenges have limited their capabilities to
mobilize and carry out military operations, the official said.
"Recent developments, mainly sanctions imposed on the Iranian
regime, put a heavy strain on the Houthi militias," assistant of
Chief Service at the Yemeni Defense Ministry's Counseling Departing
Lieutenant General Khaled Al Karni told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Saudi Arabia has intercepted two drones launched by
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a Saudi-led coalition spokesman
has said. The first drone targeted the province of Jizan, while the
second was aimed at a residential area in Asir province, the coalition
said in a statement released by the state-run Saudi Press Agency late
on Saturday.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group attacked military
positions and aircraft hangars at Saudi Arabia's Jizan airport, the group's
Al Masirah TV said on Saturday, citing a military spokesman. There
was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities. The Houthis,
who ousted the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government
from power in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in late 2014, have stepped up
missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities this month.
Thursday's edition of the Wall Street Journal and their
exposure of financial loopholes exploited by blacklisted terror
suspects shows that when it comes to acting tough on combating
extremism, Qatar's money is not where its mouth is. The links between
Qatar and top-level blacklisted terrorists have been exposed once
more, in revelations that are shocking but not at all surprising. The
Gulf emirate has long been criticized for allowing terror financing
to flourish within its borders, as well as for assisting terrorist
groups abroad. Beyond al-Qaeda, Qatari citizens have been flagged for
suspicious financing of Islamic State, Hamas, and al-Qaeda offshoot
Jabhat al Nusra - all globally listed terrorist organizations.
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