Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Eye on Iran: Trump Says Iran 'Playing With Fire' After Exceeding Nuclear Deal Limit



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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday Iran was playing with fire after Tehran said it had exceeded its limit for low-enriched uranium allowed under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.  Asked at a White House event if he had a message for Iran, Trump said he did not have a message, but Iran knew what it was doing and was "playing with fire." 


A week ago, a small tanker ship approached the Persian Gulf after a 19-day voyage from China. The captain, as required by international rules, reported the ship's position, course, speed and another key detail: It was riding high in the water, meaning it was probably empty. Then the Chinese-owned ship, the Sino Energy 1, went silent and essentially vanished from the grid.


Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Monday that Iran is deliberately violating the 2015 nuclear Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Europe now has to decide whether to tolerate this nuclear breakout or join the U.S. in pressuring Tehran to renegotiate. The nuclear deal allowed Iran to store 300 kilograms of uranium, which it could enrich up to 3.67% concentration. Mr. Zarif said in an interview that the country now exceeds the storage limit.

NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM


France's president is urging Iran to immediately reduce its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and stick to the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Emmanuel Macron said in a statement Tuesday that he "took note with concern" of Iran's announcement that it has surpassed the limit of 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of low-enriched uranium laid out in the accord.


Iran said Monday that it has exceeded the stockpile limit for low-enriched uranium allowed under the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers because Europe has failed to mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions, a move that could add to the friction between Tehran and Washington.  The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium exceeded the 300-kilogram (660-pound) limit allowed under the deal, spokesman Fredrik Dahl said. 
  

Iran rejected on Tuesday a White House accusation that Tehran was long violating the terms of its nuclear deal with world powers, after the Islamic Republic said it had amassed more low-enriched uranium than permitted under the accord.  "Seriously?" Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a message on social network Twitter, after a statement by White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham that said, "There is little doubt that even before the deal's existence, Iran was violating its terms."


United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is concerned that Iran has breached part of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and urged the country to continue implementing all its nuclear related commitments, a U.N. spokesman said.  "Such action by the Islamic Republic of Iran would not help preserve the plan, nor secure the tangible economic benefits for the Iranian people. It is essential that this issue ... be addressed through the mechanism established by the JCPOA," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.


U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he thinks Iran is "playing with fire" after the country announced it had exceeded the limit on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium that was part of the 2015 international deal restraining its nuclear program. "They know what they're doing. They know what they're playing with," Trump told reporters at the White House. An earlier White House statement reiterated the U.S. position that it would "never allow" Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.


President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that Iran is "playing with fire," hours after the country effectively acknowledged that it was violating the terms of the 2015 multinational nuclear accord and threatened to pursue weapons-grade uranium as soon as July 7. "No, no message to Iran," Trump said. "They know what they're doing. They know what they're playing with. And I think the're playing with fire. So no message to Iran whatsoever."


Britain said on Monday it was urgently considering its next steps with its partners under the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal after Iran said it had amassed more low-enriched uranium than permitted under the agreement. Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said Iran's announcement was "extremely concerning" and Britain would keep working with its partners to keep the deal in place.


With the Islamic Republic announcing that it has breached uranium-enrichment limits agreed in the 2015 nuclear deal, let's take a quick trip down memory lane, to remind ourselves of how we got here. The first thing to keep in mind-and it is often forgotten-is that Iran has only ever had one reason to start a nuclear program: to menace its neighbors. This was true for Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1950s, and it is true of the theocratic state that has followed.

SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS  


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Europe on Monday to impose "automatic sanctions" on Iran for accumulating more low-enriched uranium than permitted under its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers.  "I say again that Israel will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office. 


Iran is not ready to engage in talks with the U.S. until sanctions are lifted, an Iranian oil minister told CNBC on Monday. "Iran is not ready to open discussions with United States," said Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh at the OPEC meeting in Vienna to CNBC's Brian Sullivan. "If United States and the administration wants to change the environment between the two countries, firstly [it] should leave all sanctions put against Iranian oil and other areas..."


The mechanism set up by European powers to help Iran skirt US sanctions will be of limited use but it has highlighted a welcome distance between Washington and its allies, Tehran's top diplomat said Monday. The EU said Friday after a crisis meeting aimed at salvaging a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that the INSTEX payment mechanism was finally "operational" and that the first transactions were being processed.


OPEC and its allies are presenting a unified front in their quest to stabilize the oil market. But beneath the surface, opposition is rising within OPEC against the way that Russia and Saudi Arabia are dominating the group's decision making. Iran on Monday threw its weight behind an apparent agreement in Vienna by OPEC to extend production cuts for another six to nine months. But Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh warned the unilateral way that decision was reached is "threatening the existence of OPEC."

TERRORISM & EXTREMISM


As tensions between Washington and Tehran continue to escalate to the point of a possible confrontation between military forces, current and former US national security officials remain focused on the potential threat posed by proxy groups affiliated with Iran should war break out between the two nations. Last month, the New York Times reported the White House had set in motion an attack on Iranian military assets in response to Tehran's downing of a US surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz, but President Donald Trump reportedly called it off.


Hamza Abu Shanab, a Gaza-based political analyst detailed Iran's long history of support for the organization in the Gaza Strip in the Hamas-run newspaper Al-Resalah on Monday. "Since its inception, the Iranian Islamic Revolution has been building a special relationship with the parties of the Palestinian revolution," wrote Shanab, who, according to the New York Times, is close to Hamas.

PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS


Iranian media are reporting authorities have dismissed prison officials following an investigation into the June death of a jailed activist. The Tuesday report by the hard-line Mashregh news website says the prisons director for the province of Tehran, Mostafa Mohebi, was replaced, along with two unnamed prison officials. The move followed a report by a fact-finding committee on the death of Alireza Shirmohammadali, a 21-year-old activist sentenced to eight years in prison over insulting the country's Islamic rulers and identity.


A Lebanese U.S. permanent resident released by Iran last month after almost four years in prison says he formed close bonds with other inmates, including a little-known Iranian who also has U.S. residency. In a VOA Persian interview at his Washington home last week, Nizar Zakka shared new details of his interactions with the other detainees at Tehran's Evin prison, where he spent a year in solitary confinement after his September 2015 detention before being moved to a cell with 50 other people.

U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS


President Trump, after calling off a military strike on Iran following the downing of an American drone last month, delivered a stern warning to the regime during an interview with Fox News. Speaking exclusively with Tucker Carlson, Trump said he "built up a lot of great capital" after his decision -- but said that means "if something should happen, we're in a position to do far worse by not doing it." He quickly added, "But, hopefully, we don't have to do anything."


A former joint chiefs' commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) had said that Iran should negotiate with the United States, on its own initiative. Hossein Alaee in a speech on June 30 told his audience that "we cannot leave aside negotiations, whether at the apex of power or in a position of weakness", the official IRNA news website reported.


Iran's announcement Monday that it has surpassed the limit of low-enriched uranium it could stockpile under the 2015 nuclear agreement is an important development. But in the long and twisted history of U.S. tensions with the Islamic republic, it's not that big a deal. In fact, in light of the military strikes that were being planned in response to Iran's downing of a U.S. drone, this latest raising of the stakes was to be expected.


President Trump touched on an important moral and legal issue when he said he called off a planned strike against Iran because it was "not proportionate." Iran's shooting down of a U.S. drone, he said, did not warrant an attack that might kill 150 people. That forbearance, however, was nowhere to be found, just days later, when Trump threw caution to the wind and threatened Iran with "overwhelming force" if it dared to attack "anything American."

IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION


Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi says the current crisis in Iran is the result of Islamic Republic's policies in the past four decades and its interventions in regional countries. Reza Pahlavi, who is one of Iran's top opposition leaders in a statement published on his Twitter account says the policy of interfering in the affairs of neighboring countries are aimed to export a revolution "which has failed inside Iran".

RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN


The head of Israel's intelligence service said flatly on Monday that Iran was directly responsible for the repeated attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, along with other targets in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, that have raised tensions in the Middle East. "They are a single campaign initiated by a single party," Yossi Cohen, the chief of the Mossad, said in a speech at a conference on national security at the Interdisciplinary Center, a college in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. 


Israel will be destroyed in half an hour if the United States attacks Iran, a senior Iranian parliamentarian said on Monday, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.  Weeks of tensions culminated last month in U.S. President Donald Trump's last-minute decision to call off planned strikes on Iran after Tehran downed a U.S. drone. Washington also accused Iran of being behind attacks on ships in the Gulf, which Tehran denies. 


Israel's energy minister said on Monday Iran was carrying out "nuclear blackmail" by amassing more low-enriched uranium than permitted under a deal with world powers, according to Israel's Kan public broadcaster. Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told Kan that continued international pressure would cause Tehran to back down. "It's a blatant violation of the agreement. Iran is carrying out nuclear blackmail. It is saying, 'Look how close we are to a nuclear weapon'," Steinitz was quoted as saying. 


Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said after meeting his Iranian counterpart Bijan Zanganeh in Vienna on Monday that Moscow was interested in Iran remaining an equal player in the global energy market, according to a statement released by the Russian energy ministry.  Washington has demanded that Saudi Arabia pump more oil to compensate for lower exports from Iran after the United States slapped fresh sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme.


Russia on Monday said Iran's announcement that it had exceeded a limit on its enriched uranium reserves was a cause for "regret", but added this was a consequence of US actions. Iran said earlier Monday it had "crossed the 300-kilogram limit" set under a 2015 nuclear deal that was unilaterally abandoned by US President Donald Trump last year. "(This) of course is a cause for regret but one must not dramatize the situation," Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in comments reported by news agencies.

CHINA & IRAN


China has expressed regret over Iran's move to break limits on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, but says Washington's pressure campaign is the root cause of tensions. Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters Tuesday that Beijing remains committed to the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. He said all parties should exercise restraint and safeguard the agreement to "avoid escalating tensions."

GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN


Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told leaders of the G20 countries that the Kingdom does not want a war with Iran, said a senior official. The crown prince is currently touring Japan, after heading the Kingdom's delegation at the 14th G20 summit in Osaka. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir said the crown prince told the leaders of the summit they need to take a strong attitude toward Iran, reported Al Arabiya.


A member of France's Senate, who led a commission investigating extremist networks in Europe and wrote a report for Nato on the financing of terrorism, has criticised Qatar for enabling terror financiers to use its banking system to carry out their transactions. Writing in The Hill, Nathalie Goulet took as example the case of Khalifa Al Subaiy, a Qatari financier who the US says long provided financial support to senior Al Qaida leadership, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad.


Nine people were reported injured on Tuesday after Houthi rebels launched a drone attack on a civilian airport in southern Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen, Saudi officials said. According to Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting Houthis since 2015, all of those injured in the attack were civilians and are currently in hospital in a stable condition. Among the injured were eight Saudis and one Indian passport-holder. The attack took place at around 12:30 a.m. local time (2130 UTC/GMT).  

IRAQ & IRAN


Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi sought on Monday to curb the powers of influential Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militias, a politically risky move apparently aimed at placating the United States. Two weeks after the first of several unclaimed attacks on bases in Iraq hosting U.S. forces and on a site used by a U.S. energy firm, Abdul Mahdi issued a decree ordering militias to integrate more closely into the formal armed forces. 

CYBERWARFARE


Amid an intensifying standoff between Washington and Tehran, hackers linked to Iran have in recent weeks stepped up their operations in cyberspace in what appear to be preparations for possible attacks on U.S. businesses, according to American security firms and government officials.  The increased Iranian activity in cyberspace comes as Tehran announced on Monday that its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium have exceeded limits established in the 2015 nuclear agreement inked by Iran and world powers. 


After the U.S. launched a cyber strike on Iran's weapons systems last month, military warfare could increasingly look like a loss of connectivity - rather than a loss of life, according to a cybersecurity expert. The attack on Iran's security systems - used to control its rocket and missile launches - was a "game changing" event for both the cyber-security industry and "how we think about geopolitics," Splunk's Haiyan Song told CNBC Tuesday. "A military action got diverted to really becoming a cyber action," said Song.






Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email press@uani.com.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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