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TOP STORIES
Iran for the first time tied the British seizure of an
Iranian oil tanker to the ailing nuclear deal on Sunday, calling it
illegal and a violation of the agreement. By making that link, Iran
appeared to be trying to press the Europeans to make good on the promised
financial benefits of the 2015 agreement known as the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A. "Since Iran is
entitled to export its oil according to the J.C.P.O.A., any
impediment in the way of Iran's export of oil is actually against the
J.C.P.O.A.," Iran's deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi,
said after emergency talks in Vienna with other parties to the
nuclear deal.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Iran has
rejected his offer made July 25 to go to Tehran to address the
Iranian people. In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg
Television, Pompeo had said, "I'd like a chance to go [to
Tehran], not do propaganda but speak the truth to the Iranian people
about what it is their leadership has done and how it has harmed
Iran". He added that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad
Zarif is often able to communicate with the American people during
trips to New York to visit the United Nations.
The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar
Salehi, told lawmakers on Sunday that Iran will restart activities at
the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor, the ISNA news agency
reported. ISNA cited a member of parliament who attended the meeting.
Heavy water can be employed in reactors to produce plutonium, a fuel
used in nuclear warheads. Iran stopped complying in May with
some commitments in the 2015 nuclear deal that was agreed with global
powers, after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord
in 2018 and re-introduced sanctions on Tehran.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Diplomats from Iran and five world powers recommitted
Sunday to salvaging a major nuclear deal amid mounting tensions
between the West and Tehran since the U.S. withdrew from the accord
and reimposed sanctions. Representatives of Iran, Germany, France, Britain,
China, Russia and the European Union met in Vienna to discuss the
2015 agreement that restricts the Iranian nuclear program. "The
atmosphere was constructive, and the discussions were good,"
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi told reporters
after the meeting ended.
Iran's deputy foreign minister said Sunday that an
emergency meeting in Vienna between Tehran and its partners in
the Iran nuclear deal had yielded positive developments but had not
"resolved everything." "The atmosphere was
constructive, and the discussions were good," Abbas
Araghchi told reporters. Araghchi said he and his partners from
Germany, France, Britain, China, Russia and the European Union remain
determined to save the deal.
Parties to Iran's 2015 nuclear deal are meeting in
Vienna on Sunday for emergency talks called in response to an
escalation in tensions between Iran and the West that included
confrontations at sea and Tehran's breaches of the accord. Below
are some of the key restrictions imposed by the nuclear deal, the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The remaining signatories to the Iran nuclear deal will
meet in Vienna on Sunday to try again to find a way of saving the
accord amid mounting tensions between Tehran and Washington. The U.S.
pulled out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or
the nuclear agreement with Iran in May 2018, leaving the fate of the
accord in question and precipitating tensions following the
reimposition of sanctions by Washington.
The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
(AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi has disclosed that Tehran has enriched 24
tons of uranium after signing the 2015 nuclear deal with world
powers. Earlier, it was said that Iran had limited its stock of
enriched uranium to 300 kilograms since 2015 nuclear agreement.
Salehi made the revelation during Sunday's session of the
"independent conservative" faction of the Parliament to
discuss the latest developments regarding the nuclear accord known as
JCPOA.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Two Iranian ships stranded off Brazil's coast are
refueled and ready to sail home with a cargo of corn after a court
order forced the state-controlled oil company to set aside concern
about the risk of U.S. sanctions. The ships were held up
when Petroleo Brasileiro SA refused to provide fuel in
early June, prompting Iranian threats to halt imports. The shipment
is valued at 100 million reais ($26 million), according to an email
from Kincaid Mendes Vianna, a law firm for Eleva, the Brazilian
company that hired the vessels.
China's crude oil imports from Iran sank almost 60% in
June from a year earlier, Chinese customs data showed on Saturday,
following the end of a waiver on U.S. sanctions at the start of
May. Crude shipment from Iran were 855,638 tonnes last month, or
208,205 barrels per day (bpd), data from the General Administration
of Customs showed. That compared with 254,016 bpd in
May. According to Refinitiv Oil Research assessments, a total of
670,000 tonnes, or about 163,000 bpd, of Iranian crude oil was
discharged in June at Tianjin in north China and Jinzhou in the
northeast.
MISSILE PROGRAM
Iran said on Saturday missile tests were part of its
defensive needs and were not directed against any country, after
Washington said Tehran had test-fired a medium-range missile. A U.S.
defence official said Iran tested what appeared to be a medium-range
ballistic missile on Wednesday that travelled about 1,000 km (620
miles), adding that the test did not pose a threat to shipping or
U.S. personnel in the region.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Iranians sending images to a U.S.-based activist over an
anti-headscarf campaign could face up to 10 years in prison. The activist,
Masih Alinejad, founded the "White Wednesdays" campaign in
Iran to encourage women to post photographs of themselves without
headscarves online as a way of opposing the compulsory hijab. The
semi-official Fars news agency on Monday quoted the head of the
Tehran Revolutionary Court, Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, as saying that
"those who film themselves or others while removing the hijab
and send photos to this woman ... will be sentenced to between one
and 10 years in prison."
Hundreds of retired teachers in Iran held rallies on
Sunday, July 28, in front of the Islamic Republic's Majles
(parliament) and offices of Plan and Budget Organization (PBO), to
demand adjustment pays. The enraged pensioners chanted,
"Teachers Die, But Will Never Accept Abjection!", "We
Will Not Step Back, Until Receiving Our Bonuses!" Earlier on
Saturday, the teachers had also held similar rallies outside the PBO,
and the Ministry of Education.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran doesn't think the U.S. is seeking talks or an
agreement with the Islamic republic, Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for
the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, said days after Secretary of State
Michael Pompeo expressed willingness to travel to Tehran to address
the Iranian people. This is a "defensive move" by American
officials in response to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's
recent trip to New York where he addressed the U.S. public, Mousavi
said in comments aired live on state-run Press TV news channel.
Talks between Iran and the United States would be
possible if based on an agenda that could lead to tangible results,
but Washington is not seeking dialogue, Iran's Foreign Ministry
spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Monday. U.S. President Donald
Trump has said he would be willing to hold talks with the Islamic
Republic. "Dialogue and negotiation can be held when we
have a certain agenda in place and when we could get some tangible
and practical results out of it," Mousavi said in a news
conference broadcast live on Press TV.
Surprising new signs are emerging that President Donald
Trump's controversial "maximum pressure' campaign on Iran could
set the table for new negotiations toward a better agreement. To get
there, however, Trump will have to navigate the greatest perils in U.S.-Iranian
relations in recent memory - something he has done so far with a
military restraint that has confounded his critics and gained him
praise for "prudence " even from Iran's foreign
minister.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said they lost one
soldier and killed a number of "anti-revolutionaries" in
clashes Friday near the western border with Iraq. A Guards
border patrol "encountered and fought with an anti-revolutionary
group in Sarvabad," in Kurdistan province, the semi-official
Fars news agency reported. The report said an unspecified number of
the "anti-revolutionaries were killed and wounded and a
considerable amount of their weapons and ammunition was destroyed".
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has voiced his
opposition to having to respond to Parliament's questions about his
performance in a letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran's state
TV reported on Sunday July 28. The Speaker of Iran's Parliament
(Majles) has quoted Rouhani as saying in the letter that presenting
annual reports to the Majles by his administration is against the
law. Rouhani pointed out that it is only the internal regulations of
the Majles, and not the Constitution that calls for the report.
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
Iran accused its neighbors of making talks impossible
through their "hasty and arrogant moves," during a meeting
between Tehran's top security official and Oman's chief diplomat on
Saturday amid a tanker crisis. Oman, a past mediator between Iran and
its foes, sent its minister in charge of foreign affairs, Yusuf bin
Alawi, to the Islamic republic amid amplified tensions between Iran
and the United States and its allies, including in the Gulf.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
The foreign minister of Oman has arrived in Tehran for
talks with Iranian officials, in a visit that comes amid mounting
tensions in the Gulf between the United
States and Iran. Iran's state television said on Saturday
that Yusuf bin Alawi would meet his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad
Javad Zarif, and other officials to discuss the latest developments
in the region.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group said it launched on
Sunday a drone attack on Saudi Arabia's Abha airport, Houthis' Al-
Masirah TV reported citing the group's military spokesman. There was no
immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities.
The Houthi rebels' shelling in Yemen's war-torn port
city of Hodeidah on Sunday killed a man and injured four children, a
government security source and a medic said. The shelling targeted a
dairy factory and government military positions in the area of Kilo
16, as well as residential quarters in Jiraybah area, they said. The
killed man, identified as Mohammed Wanis, was a worker of the dairy
factory in Kilo 16, while the four children were wounded by the
shelling in Jiraybah area. Both areas are on the southern outskirts
of the port city.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Britain's seizure of an Iranian oil tanker off Gibraltar
was illegal and will be detrimental for Britain, Iran's President
Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday, according to the official presidency
website. British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker in early
July near Gibraltar, accused of violating sanctions on Syria. On July
19, Iranian commandos seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait
of Hormuz, the world's most important waterway for oil
shipments.
Iran rebuffed European efforts to defuse
tensions in the Persian Gulf, calling military escorts to secure
shipping a provocation and rejecting U.K. terms for resolving a
crisis over seized tankers. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had
hinted last week that a tanker exchange would lower the pressure with
the U.K. after Iran seized the Swedish-owned,
British-flagged Stena Impero tanker earlier this month in the Persian
Gulf. The move was widely viewed as retaliation for the detention of
Iranian tanker Grace 1 in the British overseas territory of
Gibraltar.
European countries forming a naval coalition for the
Gulf would send a hostile message, Iranian government spokesman Ali
Rabiei said on Sunday, according to the semi-official Fars news
agency. France, Italy and Denmark gave initial support for a British
plan for a European-led naval mission to ensure safe shipping through
the Strait of Hormuz, proposed after Iran's seizure of a
British-flagged tanker, three senior EU diplomats said last week.
A second British warship arrived in the Persian Gulf as
Iran has called Britain's proposal for a European-led maritime
mission to escort tankers in the area "provocative."
Britain's Defense Ministry said that the HMS Duncan destroyer joined
the HMS Montrose frigate to "support the safe passage of
British-flagged ships" through the Strait of Hormuz that bisects
the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
Britain's refusal to go along with the Trump
administration's fiery approach to recent Iranian aggression has
experts and lawmakers concerned about the state of the "special
relationship" between two historically close allies. The
United Kingdom on Monday shunned the United States' call for
a multi-nation effort to protect non-Iranian ships in the
Persian Gulf, despite the fact that the country had its own oil
tanker seized in the region.
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