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Reuters: "Impressive gains by Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani in heavily handicapped elections to parliament
and a clerical body are evidence of an isolated nation eager to move
from theocracy to a more open democracy, but few expect a sudden shift
in power. The Islamic Republic's unique dual system of clerical and
republican rule places decisive power in the hands of a conservative
Islamic establishment, which has shown in the past its ability to
reassert control when it feels threatened. Rouhani may have a stronger
hand to open up an economy ravaged by a decade of sanctions, but his
scope to permit more social and political freedom is constrained by
hardliners' control of the judiciary, security forces and state media.
The scale of gains by Rouhani's supporters was undoubtedly a setback
for hawks opposed to any opening to the West. Prominent critics of
Iran's nuclear deal with world powers were defeated. Centrists and
reformers not only bounced back in a parliament under hardline control
since 2004, but won a stunning 15 out of the 16 Tehran seats in the
88-member Assembly of Experts, which selects Iran's supreme leader. Two
key hardliners including the speaker of the powerful clerical body were
ousted. Rouhani's allies took all 30 parliamentary seats in Tehran,
though their gains outside the capital were more limited, with
conservatives keeping many seats in both bodies. An unofficial tally by
Reuters of first round results for the 290-member Majlis (parliament)
show conservatives won about 112 seats, reformers and centrists 90 and
independents and religious minorities 29. There will be run-offs in
April in 59 districts where no one won more than 25 percent of the
vote. The numbers are approximate because Iran does not have rigid
party affiliations. Some candidates were backed by both camps. The
advances came despite the disqualification of thousands pro-reform
candidates by an unelected clerical Guardian Council that reports
directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'The results in
Tehran reflect a reformist orientation and focus on improvements in the
economy and foreign relations,' said one Tehran-based analyst who
requested anonymity. 'Rouhani will bring more order to the economy and
greater openness in foreign policy but the overall structure and
approach will not be altered. The vocabulary will be different, but the
balance of power will not shift,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1WToQgF
Free
Beacon:
"Early election results from Iran indicate that the country
elected on Friday another crop of hardline officials, including those
who have expressed hatred for the United States and Israel and who
stand accused of planning the murder of political opponents, according
to information provided by organizations that observed the elections.
As the names of those officials who won a seat on Iran's Assembly of
Experts and other governing bodies begins to emerge, experts say it is
becoming clear that hardline extremists will continue to control the
Iranian government. While some western media outlets have claimed that
reformists made inroads in the latest election, regional experts
explained that this is not the case, as moderate political camps
ultimately endorsed on their voting lists more hardline candidates
aligned with the Iranian ruling regime... 'Radicals dominated the
Assembly of Experts, as expected,' said Amir Toumaj, an Iran analyst at
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 'The Guardian Council
engineered the field so it would be that way.' Most of those who were
prevented from running include those who have advocated warmer ties
with Western powers. 'The bulk of the disqualified candidates represent
comparatively pragmatic elements of the ruling elite-among them Hassan
Khomeini, grandson of Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic's late
founder and first supreme leader,' Saeed Ghasseminejad, also an Iran
expert at FDD, wrote in a policy brief last week. 'On the other hand,
most of the approved contenders are radical revolutionaries - devotees
of the supreme leader with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC),' he wrote. 'It is mathematically impossible for the
less-hardline factions to win at the ballot box.'" http://t.uani.com/1WTm8HN
Daily
Caller: "The
Iranian elections are being hailed as a victory for moderates, and
therefore President Barack Obama's nuclear deal, but according to
experts, the so-called moderate victory is not what it seems. Iranians
took to the polls Friday in what could be one of the most important
elections in the country's history. As soon as vote counts rolled in,
it appeared the so-called moderates, led by President Hassan Rouhani
and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, had secured a victory.
The problem is that many of the moderates are moderate in name only,
according to experts. 'There were a number [of candidates] ... that
weren't really moderate,' Matt McInnis, a resident fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute and a former senior analyst for the U.S.
Department of Defense specializing in Iran, told The Daily Caller News
Foundation. He explained the idea that moderates won a victory over
hardliners is 'not really accurate' based on the fact that a
significant portion of the true moderates were barred from running
before the election even began... Countering reports of a moderate win,
Saeed Ghasseminejad, a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies specializing in Iranian politics, told TheDCNF, 'in the
Assembly of Experts election the hardliners (radical revolutionaries)
won decisively.' 'The confusion on this issue is caused by the fact
that reformists who did not have enough candidates filled their list
with hardliners, who were already on the hardliners' list, in order to
defeat a handful of hardliners,' said Ghasseminejad. He explained that
though there were some small victories in the districts around the
capital of Tehran, which was expected, those results were not
reflective of the country as a whole. 'In the Majles, the hardliners
and the so-called reformers are tied. However, many candidates
supported by the reformers are anything but reformer, even by the
Islamic Republic standard,' he said. Both experts agree the election
won't prompt any real change to U.S-Iranian relations." http://t.uani.com/21zD7pg
Nuclear
Program & Agreement
PressTV
(Iran): "Iran's
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the Islamic Republic will
continue to develop its missile program and that Tehran needs 'no
permission' to enhance the country's defense capabilities. 'We have
announced that we will not ask permission from anyone to [strengthen]
our defense and missile capability,' Zarif said in an interview with
Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, on Sunday. The top Iranian
diplomat went on to say that the country's missile program does not
breach the July nuclear agreement struck between Tehran and six world
powers and that the deal does not ban Iran from boosting its defense
capabilities... Zarif said that Iran's missile program will continue
apace and will be provided with all necessary materials and equipment.
He further dismissed as 'unacceptable' claims by US officials that the
Islamic Republic's missile tests are in breach of the UN Security
Council Resolution 2231, saying none of the Iranian missiles have been
designed to carry 'nuclear warheads.' On October 11, Iran's Islamic
Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-fired its first guided
ballistic missile dubbed Emad." http://t.uani.com/1TOv2Hh
Military
Matters
FP: "We can add Iran to the list
of countries that have dropped munitions in anger over the past year,
now that an arms researcher has been able to geolocate video of an
Iranian drone striking targets near Aleppo, Syria. On Feb. 4, an
Iranian news show broadcast a short piece highlighting how Iran's
Revolutionary Guards have been using the Shahed 129 drone to monitor
the country's southeast borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. But as
arms researcher Galen Wright points out, 'in addition to footage of the
drones operating out of Konarak airport near Pakistan, the program
featured two short clips of the aircraft striking targets south of
Aleppo.'" http://t.uani.com/1RDu2DV
U.S.-Iran
Relations
PressTV
(Iran):
"Touching upon Iran's relations with the United States, Zarif told
ISNA that the US should abandon its 'mentality of sanctions.' 'We are
still waiting to see whether the US is serious in its commitments' concerning
the lifting of sanctions, he noted. Zarif further criticized
Washington's 'wrong' policies in the Middle East region. 'US policies
even harm their own interests in the region since they have caused
unrest and created Daesh [terrorist group],' he noted. Zarif said that
Iranian officials have reached no agreement with US officials on
regional issues, saying Tehran would take a decision on extending talks
with the US should Americans 'correct their policies.'" http://t.uani.com/1TOv2Hh
The
Hill: "The
House passed a resolution on Monday pressuring Iran to assist with
finding a retired FBI agent who disappeared nearly a decade ago. Robert
Levinson has been missing since March 2007, after traveling to Iran's
Kish Island. 'Whatever information Iran has about Bob needs to be
provided now so that Bob can be brought home,' said Rep. Ted Deutch
(D-Fla.), who represents the Coral Springs-area district where Levinson
lived. The measure, which passed by voice vote, specifically 'urges the
Government of Iran, as a humanitarian gesture, to act on its promises
to assist in the case of Robert Levinson.' ... 'Even as we rejoice in
the safe return of others, we will never forget about Bob,' President
Obama said at the time. 'Each and every day, but especially today, our
hearts are with the Levinson family, and we will not rest until their
family is whole again.'" http://t.uani.com/1pmF2fT
Sun
Sentinel:
"His clothes - folded in the dresser and hanging in the closet -
haven't been touched in nine years. His pillow remains fluffed on his
side of the bed. And his favorite ties - which his sons refuse to wear
- are still in the proper place. Robert Levinson's family wants to make
sure that when he comes home he recognizes his house in Coral Springs.
And, 'we want to continue from where we left off,' said his wife,
Christine Levinson. Next week marks nine years since Levinson - a
retired FBI agent who was on a rogue CIA mission - was taken hostage in
Iran. On Saturday, the family is hosting a rally asking the U.S.
government and Iranian governments to work together to get him
released. The Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI is a sponsor
of the event, with current and former agents expected to attend. 'We
want Bob Levinson's name to remain front and center in every discussion
that takes place about Iran,' said U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton,
who will be speaking at Saturday's rally. 'We have to keep reminding
everyone in our country, our allies around the world and especially
Iran it's just not acceptable there is an American citizen that
continues to be held.' ... Saturday's rally is open to the public and
will be held at 2 p.m. at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts, 2855
Coral Springs Drive." http://t.uani.com/1oMhjVI
Fox
News: "The
Christian pastor from Idaho who was freed from Iran in January after
more than three years told Fox News Monday his faith kept him strong in
prison, and that he now plans to tour churches across the U.S. and
document his harrowing experience in a book. Saeed Abedini, who
converted from Islam to Christianity in 2000, was arrested and
imprisoned in 2012 for opening churches in the Islamic Republic.
Speaking to Martha MacCallum on 'America's Newsroom,' he said Iranian
officials accused him of plotting regime change. Abedini recounted that
he prayed in prison on America's behalf for 100 hours... Abedini said
that seeing Hekmati in solitary confinement reduced him to tears.
Abedini claimed he himself had just left solitary, and saw that the
Marine had been a victim of torture at the hands of the Iranian regime.
The pastor saw 'how much they really hate us, hate Americans, hate
Christians,' he told Fox News." http://t.uani.com/1QRHAP7
Sanctions
Relief
Straits
Times:
"Singapore has signed an investment treaty with Iran to support
Singapore companies in investing in the newly re-opened market. The
treaty will also provide a legal framework to protect investors and
promote investments between both countries. Singapore's Minister for
Trade and Industry (Industry) S Iswaran signed an Agreement on
Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments, also known as a
bilateral investment treaty, with Iran's Minister of Finance and
Economic Affairs Ali Tayyebnia on Monday (Feb 29) in Tehran. Singapore
is the second country, after Japan, to sign a bilateral investment
treaty with the Islamic Republic following the lifting of United
Nations sanctions in mid-January this year. 'We look forward to
strengthening bilateral economic ties with our businesses collaborating
on opportunities of mutual interest in Iran and other markets,' said Mr
Iswaran. He is in Tehran for a three-day visit from Feb 28 to explore
new business and investment opportunities. His trip coincides with
Singapore Business Federation (SBF)'s one-week mission to the capital
city of Iran... According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry,
Singapore's bilateral trade with Iran was S$6.6 billion in 2011, before
the sanctions were imposed. They fell to S$2.6 billion in 2012 after
the sanctions kicked in. By last year, bilateral trade had shrunk to
S$171.4 million, with Singapore's exports to Iran at S$158 million
while imports from Iran amounted to S$13.4 million... A total of 51
companies from various sectors such as oil and gas, petrochemicals,
logistics and information communications technology have been in Tehran
since last Friday, gaining first-hand knowledge about the business
environment and investment opportunities here." http://t.uani.com/1QpYYII
Guardian: "Iran sold a light
hydrocarbon liquid pumped from its South Pars fields to South Korea's
Hanwha Total Petrochemicals Ltd., as the removal of sanctions help it
challenge producers of similar supplies such as Qatar. The National
Iranian Oil Co. will load in April a cargo of condensate to be shipped
to the South Korean petrochemical maker, according to an official from
the state-run producer in the Middle East nation. That's the first
shipment of supply from the offshore South Pars natural gas fields to
the Asian company, which had been purchasing Qatar's competing
Deodorized Field Condensate while sanctions were in place on the
Persian Gulf state." http://t.uani.com/1L2oMud
AP: "Iran's president on Tuesday
called for foreign partnerships to boost the country's car industry and
said the sector must be privatized to improve its competitiveness.
President Hassan Rouhani told a car industry conference in a nationally
broadcast speech that partnerships with international carmakers offer
quick way to improve the industry's technology and safety. 'There is a
shortcut ... We have to start partnerships with prominent world
carmakers. We will reach to the optimum point in technology, protecting
the environment, saving energy and safety,' Rouhani said. He said
partnerships with foreign carmakers will serve the best interests of
all sides, and increasing the competitiveness of the local market can
only help strengthen the industry. 'The government will never be a good
manager in industry, including the car industry. The sector should be completely
privatized and competitive,' he said. 'The partnership will drive us
ahead.' But he also warned that plan would mean removing government
protections of the domestic car market such as prohibitions or heavy
tariffs on imported vehicles. Rouhani said the days of the
state-sponsored auto monopoly must end." http://t.uani.com/1QRGymi
Reuters: "Gains by reformist
candidates in Iranian elections open the way for changes to economic
policy that will boost foreign investment and trade with the West,
businessmen and analysts said on Sunday. Friday's vote ended more than
a decade of conservative domination of the legislature and the Assembly
of Experts, a body that oversees the Islamic republic's supreme leader.
The outgoing parliament, filled with hardliners suspicious of detente
with the West, had acted as a brake on President Hassan Rouhani's plans
to strengthen the private sector, tackle corruption and welcome foreign
investors. Rouhani, the architect of last year's nuclear deal with
world powers, is now expected to find it easier to push legislative
reforms making the economy more attractive to foreign firms. 'In
economic affairs the next parliament will be much better than the
current parliament,' said Saeed Leylaz, an economist who served as
advisor to reformist former president Mohammad Khatami. Iran faces deep
problems including corruption, a shortage of investment and a lack of
productivity, but 'all these problems can be solved through
liberalizing the economy,' he said. Iranian investment banker Ramin
Rabii said he expected the new parliament to address issues crucial to
the business sector such as updating the country's commercial code,
modernizing labor laws and improving stock market regulation. 'If you
have a parliament that is friendlier to the executive branch, things
tend to move forward more easily,' said Rabii, chief executive of
investment group Turquoise Partners. 'When business-related regulations
need to be passed, or joint venture agreements are signed with foreign
partners and are scrutinized by parliament - it all goes more
smoothly.' One early result of the elections could be to allow the
government to offer new oil and gas contracts to foreign firms." http://t.uani.com/1oVXMCR
Business
Risk
Reuters: "Iran still faces constraints
on oil exports as buyers are cautious about boosting trade immediately
because of banking and ship insurance difficulties, a senior Iranian
oil official said, despite seeing a 'tangible' rise in shipments this
month... The sanctions had cut Iranian crude exports from a peak of 2.5
million barrels per day (bpd) before 2011 to just over 1 million bpd in
recent years. Iran is working to regain market share after sanctions
relief and exports had already risen by 500,000 bpd in February, Mohsen
Ghamsari, director of international affairs at National Iranian Oil Co
(NIOC), told Reuters on Tuesday. But the country's crude shipments,
particularly to Europe, have been complicated by a lack of clarity on
ship insurance, dollar clearance and European banks' letters of credit.
'For March, definitely our volumes are going to be higher than February
... but it depends on the logistics situation and the banking channels.
Still, some shipping companies are somehow reluctant to come and banks
also,' he said in a telephone interview from Tehran... Litasco, the
trading arm of Russia's Lukoil, Spanish refiner Cepsa and France's
Total have become the first buyers in Europe since the lifting of
sanctions, trading sources told Reuters. Ghamsari said those cargoes
were trial shipments and NIOC had started negotiations for term
contracts with potential buyers. 'Definitely in March you are going to
see some good news for additional barrels or cargoes destined to
Europe,' he said." http://t.uani.com/216HYc9
Reuters: "Frontline, one of the
world's largest independent tanker firms, says securing insurance for
cargoes carrying oil from Iran is likely to take another two to three
months, potentially limiting Iran's ability to quickly ramp up oil
exports... 'We have not lifted anything yet, there are still terms of
insurance and payments. There are still some outstanding (issues).
(But) we expect that to be in place within two to three months,' said
Robert Hvide Macleod, chief executive of Oslo-listed Frontline. 'That
could change, but two to three months (is) our estimate,' he told a
conference call with investors on Monday. The United States still
prohibits U.S. individuals or companies from trading with Iran and
insurers are trying to clarify details on the parameters of the U.S.
sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1OLJRns
Tasnim
(Iran):
"Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major
General Mohammad Ali Jafari said development of the phases 15 and 16 of
the South Pars gas field in southern Iran was a testimony to the IRGC's
engineering skills and technical expertise. The world now acknowledges
the IRGC's engineering and technical capabilities, which led to the
glorious completion of two South Pars gas field phases after years of
hard work, the top general said at a meeting in Iran's southern coastal
region of Assaluyeh on Tuesday. He noted that inauguration of the two
phases opened the way for the IRGC to undertake other engineering
projects. According to the general, Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base,
a conglomerate belonging to the IRGC, is working on three other phases
of the offshore gas field." http://t.uani.com/1TkG2Or
Human
Rights
IranWire: "An Iranian appeals court has
sentenced two musicians and a filmmaker to three years in prison and a
three-year suspended sentence on charges of 'insulting the sacred' and
'propaganda against the regime' in connection with the production and
promotion of underground music. Branch 54 of Iran's Revolutionary
Court, presided over by Judge Hassan Babaee, handed down the sentences
to Mehdi Rajabian, a musician and founder of BargMusic, his brother
Hossein Rajabian, an independent filmmaker, and Yousef Emadi, manager
of BargMusic, on Sunday, February 28, 2016, according to the Human Rights
Activists News Agency. The BargMusic website distributes
alternative music across Iran and promotes the work of Iranian
artists and lyricists, including female soloists. The three artists
were initially given a six-year prison sentence in December 2015 by
Judge Mohammad Moghiseh of the 28th branch of the Revolutionary Court.
They were also ordered to pay a fine of 200 million rials ($6,600),
which was upheld by the appeals court... Emadi and the Rajabian
brothers are among dozens of Iranian journalists, writers and artists
arrested or sentenced to prison in the last couple of months." http://t.uani.com/1UwqdD2
Journalism
Is Not a Crime:
"The International Press Institute (IPI) has named Iranian
journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi as its 68th World Press Freedom Hero for his
courageous fight for freedom of expression, human rights and democracy
in Iran. He was according to IPI's Executive Director Barbara Trionfi chosen
for the award 'because of his exceptional courage, resilience and
commitment to press freedom and freedom of expression in Iran, which in
recent years has been one of the world's biggest jailers of
journalists.' Zeidabadi, a prominent Iranian journalist, academic and
political analyst, has suffered multiple arrests, imprisonment in
solitary confinement, internal exile, and a lifelong ban on engaging in
political activities and practicing journalism, due to his journalistic
work. 'Zeidabadi has shown great bravery and determination in
supporting reform in Iran in the face of continued oppression by an
autocratic regime,' Trionfi said in a statement on February 29. 'We
hope that recent political developments in the country signal positive
change and that this award will serve to bring renewed attention to his
story, as well as that of all journalists in Iran who have been
persecuted for seeking to report the news and inform the public.'"
http://t.uani.com/1oMhQqP
IranWire: "It all begins with a simple
photograph on social media, an image that very quickly goes viral. It's
a photo of yet another actor or director who is fleeing in Iran to
pursue their dreams and a better life abroad, to escape to a place that
promotes creative freedom and where theater and film professionals are
assured they can work without interference. This mass exodus of movie
and television stars and directors is, sadly, nothing new, dating back
to the birth of the Islamic Republic itself. Recently, it has become a
hot topic again, mainly because of social media and greater amounts of
information being shared online. In fact, the free flow of information
has in turn greatly accelerated the number of actors and directors
leaving Iran, to the extent that it has become a considerable problem
for the national broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
(IRIB), and for the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Over the
past few months, this wave of emigration has begun to worry officials,
who refuse to accept that they are in any way responsible for it. But
it is they who - rather than identifying the problem and solving it -
have caused this war. Authorities clamp down on artists, and pick and
choose who can and cannot appear on television. They issue strange and
baffling directives and make unreasonable demands on artists. They
block many actors from appearing on Iranian state-run television.
Iranian female actors are very much on the frontline of this battle...
Here, IranWire highlights the female actors who have made a stand,
refusing to put up with the situation any longer." http://t.uani.com/24yQKUJ
Opinion
& Analysis
Azadeh
Moaveni in NYT:
"I remember vividly the first time I ever voted in an Iranian
election. It was a balmy summer day in June 2001, in the election that
won the reformist president Mohammad Khatami a second term. The blue stamp
was the first on the voting page of my identification card, and I felt
a sharp, exhilarating pride. That election is much on my mind now, as I
watch the results of Friday's voting with my family, disagreeing on
what it might mean for the future. Back in 2001, Iran was heading down
an irrevocable path toward internal reform, a process untainted by any
Western intrusion, with citizens and progressive-minded leaders showing
the way. Those leaders seemed, at the time, as exciting as Vaclav Havel
and the revolutionary cleric Musa al-Sadr rolled into one. Elections
felt - unlike the vote this past weekend - full of consequence, a
genuine chance to recast political power rather than an exercise in
slightly recalibrating it. Tehran then was a naïve young intellectual's
paradise... The reformists in those days were punchy; they invoked Karl
Popper, and said one day freedom would come to Iran, and we would all
support the Palestinians and thumb our noses at the West and be a
beacon of progress for the rest of the Middle East, which in those days
was a political wasteland, the kind of place that 'didn't have
politics.' In Tehran, dissidents didn't cower in the shadows as in
Tunis or Cairo... But the seasoned correspondents in the Western press
corps, I recall, were distinctly unmoved by all this fizz. They asked
pedantic questions about constitutional reform, unelected institutions
and parallel security services. They were no fun at all, and seemed to
me, at the time, calcified cynics, immune to the buoyancy of Iranian
youth and the vitality of the Tehran intelligentsia. They were
unaffected by the revolutionary songs the students used to sing, songs
that would bring me to tears, and didn't seem to appreciate how radical
painting, avant-garde theater, and a highly sophisticated population,
were reshaping Iran from below. A country was its people, I used to
think. Today, I am the cynic. When anyone under 25, or anyone
compulsively protective of the Islamic Republic, writes passionately
about the state reforming on its own terms, about the choice between
'bad and worse,' I go cold. If the past 15 years have made anything
clear, it is that meaningful, legislated change does not emerge out of
grass-roots evolution. Iran has had it all: hadith-driven feminism,
vibrant civil society, a culture of engagement with politics and a
patience for slow, internal reform. If these were the key ingredients
required for political change, Iran would have had it by now. The hard
truth is that those things are not enough. A country is both its people
and its leaders. Iran had important elections this past Friday, for
Parliament and a key state institution, the Assembly of Experts.
Moderate candidates won resoundingly in Tehran and they topped the list
for the Assembly of Experts, a small humiliation for the hard-liners.
But outside the capital, initial results indicate that the showing was
not so buoyant, and we must remember that Iran has had a pro-reform
Parliament and a moderate president before; that synergy did little in
the face of the overwhelming structural and economic advantages the
system affords hard-liners and their institutions. And now, they have
had to make electoral deals with pragmatists, diluting the very notion
of 'reformist' as a political category. The reform-minded in Tehran are
energized, but their strategists talk of making the economy a priority
and taming the extreme hard-liners, rather than pursuing social or
political liberalization. The reformists who used to shake their fists
and claim that Islam was on their side now speak about the importance
of moving slowly, grateful simply to be out of prison. Genuine
reformism, as a relevant intellectual and political culture or
strategy, is effectively stalled, waiting for some major shift of
circumstance, or the much dreamed-for hard-line retrenchment, to make
it viable again... Now that Iran has rehabilitated itself by signing a
nuclear deal with the West, the unyielding media images of a death-cult
totalitarian land that I used to push back against have given way to
elegant fashion spreads, lists of Persian foods that blow your tastes
buds away and features touting skiing in Iran over the Alps. There is
too little outrage that Tehran is holding another American citizen and
imprisoning his aged father. Is the image of Iran that holds sway at
any given moment tethered to any reality, or is it simply a projection
of what we wish and require of it at the time? Many years ago, I was
determined to see only the light in Iran, but now, perhaps like those
before me who had friends imprisoned or had been watching long enough
to know better, my gaze is drawn mostly to the shadows." http://t.uani.com/1L2qSdw
Katherine
Bauer in WINEP:
"In its first public statement on Iran since sanctions relief went
into effect following implementation of the nuclear deal last month,
the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), whose thirty-seven members
include Russia and China, in mid-February urged member states to warn
their banks about the risks of doing business with Iran. Coming only a
month after Iran received nuclear-related sanctions relief from the
United Nations, United States, and European Union, the statement
underscores the risks for European and Asian banks in renewing
financial ties with Iran... Iran has been the subject of such
statements since 2008, when the FATF revised its processes for dealing
with 'high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions.' However, despite
the January lifting of U.S. and EU nuclear-related sanctions on Iran,
the consensus-driven intergovernmental organization did not revise the
statement it has issued three times a year since calling for member
states to impose countermeasures on Iran in February 2009. The
statement again urged Iran to 'immediately and effectively address its
AML/CFT deficiencies,' noting that if Iran failed to do so, the FATF
would consider calling on member states to strengthen countermeasures
at its June 2016 meeting... The new FATF statement -- which continued
to press member states to 'protect against correspondent relationships
being used to bypass or evade counter-measures and risk-mitigation
practices' -- came only days after the Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) confirmed Iranian banks had been
reconnected to the secure financial-messaging platform after having
been cut off by EU sanctions in March 2012. Even with messaging
services restored, however, the FATF's identification of Iran as a
high-risk jurisdiction subject to FATF countermeasures will continue to
complicate efforts by Iranian banks to reestablish ties upon which the
majority of SWIFT messaging is predicated -- those with
correspondents... What this all means is that sanctions relief and
SWIFT readmission notwithstanding, significant impediments remain for
those banks looking to reestablish financial ties with Iran. At a
minimum, banks will continue to face illicit-finance and regulatory
risks -- both conditions of Iran's own making." http://t.uani.com/1oMj8BZ
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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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