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Stories
Fortune: "The continued U.S.
restrictions, say European executives, have caused serious
complications, and are causing fear within some companies that they
could run afoul of U.S. law if they invest in Iran. In recent weeks,
the confusion has boiled over into frustration. U.S. officials, two from
the State Department and two from the Treasury's Office of Foreign
Assets Control, or OFAC, faced a barrage of questions and skepticism in
Paris on Thursday, when they met with major French companies, including
Airbus Group, L'Oréal S.A., Thalys and PSA Peugeot Citroën, to try
explain Washington's rules about investing in Iran. Billed as a
friendly 'roundtable' to ease concerns, people instead aired deep
frustrations over confusing U.S. policies, according to some who were
at the meeting and who spoke to Fortune afterwards; the event was
closed to journalists. A representative from Airbus, for example, said
the company faced difficulties in fulfilling Iran's $25-billion order
from January for 118 new airplanes, because some companies involved
were fearful about U.S. sanctions; Iran urgently needs to upgrade its
national fleet of airplanes, after decades of sanctions. (Boeing last
week began its own talks with Iran.) '[The Airbus rep] said okay, we
are not U.S. persons, but our suppliers come from the U.S., and they
don't want to supply goods headed to Iran,' said one person who was at
Thursday's meeting. Other companies described daunting logistical
complications in getting Iran deals off the ground. Some complained
about a new U.S. rule, introduced in January, requiring anyone who has
visited Iran during the past five years-including dozens of European
executives-to apply in advance for visas to the U.S. And some said that
large financial transactions with Iran are extremely difficult to
execute, because no international bank has yet opened in Iran. Most
fear the ramifications of violating U.S laws. Last year, BNP Paribas
agreed to pay a $8.9 billion fine after the bank pleaded guilty to
doing business in Cuba, Sudan, and Iran." http://t.uani.com/1SjzfVk
NYT: "An opposition leader long
under house arrest has written a letter to President Hassan Rouhani
demanding a public trial, putting the president in a difficult spot and
highlighting a deepening rift in Iran's reformist wing. In the letter,
published Sunday on a foreign-based Persian-language website, Saham
News, the opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi, does not ask the president
to grant him his release, 'since this is not in your power.' Yet even
asking for a trial presents a problem for Mr. Rouhani, a moderate who
in the past has promised to end house arrest for Mr. Karroubi and two
other leaders of the so-called Green Movement, Mir Hussein Moussavi and
his wife, Zahra Raghnavard. Either he grants Mr. Karroubi's request -
risking confrontation with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, and his hard-line supporters - or he denies it and looks
weak. So Mr. Rouhani has chosen to ignore the letter and instead allow
his infuriated supporters to respond to Mr. Karroubi. 'This man is good
for nothing,' said one of those, Farshad Ghorbanpour, a political
analyst with close ties to the Rouhani government. 'His words mean
nothing. We, the mainstream reformists, do not want to distract public
opinion from supporting President Rouhani.' The chilly reception,
analysts say, reflects a divide in the reformist movement between the
older-style reformists like Mr. Karroubi, who are willing to
aggressively challenge the system, and the mainstream moderates now in
ascendancy. The moderates want to concentrate on reviving Iran's
moribund economy, which is the primary concern of average Iranians.
They want to avoid political challenges to the hard-liners and
Ayatollah Khamenei, believing that would open them to accusations of
undermining the Islamic republic. They say they prefer to work within
the system, biding their time until a new, possibly more liberal
Parliament is sworn in this summer." http://t.uani.com/23KFVh9
Fox
News:
"Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani traveled to Moscow
once again to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other high
ranking officials in defiance of a United Nations ban forbidding
him from international travel, multiple intelligence sources tell Fox
News. This marked Soleimani's second trip to Moscow since July, days
after a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers was
reached on July 14. Fox News learned Soleimani has departed Moscow,
opting to return to Tehran after one day instead of a planned two-day
trip. This marks the first face-to-face meeting between Soleimani and
Putin since the Russian president ordered his military to begin a
partial withdrawal of forces from Syria last month. Soleimani arrived
in Moscow from Tehran early Thursday morning via private jet, a charter
operated by Mahan Air, an Iranian airline. This week, Russia sent its
first component of the advanced S-300 air defense system to Tehran, a
delivery planned during Soleimani's last trip to Moscow. Using a
private jet to travel to Moscow indicates that Soleimani wants to avoid
public disclosure of his clandestine travels. Sources say that he
has canceled a number of trips to Moscow recently, fearing that he
would be exposed. Soleimani was first designated a terrorist and
sanctioned by the United States in 2005 for his role as a supporter of
terrorism. He is responsible for coordinating Shia-militias that killed
hundreds of American troops in Iraq during the second Iraq war." http://t.uani.com/1SGoGp4
Extremism
Tasnim
(Iran):
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani slammed the Zionist regime of
Israel for its continued aggression against the oppressed people of
Palestine, describing Tel Aviv as the root source of violence and
extremism in the Middle East. Addressing the 13th summit of the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Turkish city of
Istanbul on Thursday, Rouhani expressed deep sorrow over the negligence
of the international community on the issue of Palestine and Israeli
crimes. 'We should always be vigilant against the danger of the Zionist
regime as the main source of violence and extremism,' he said in his
address, adding that the continued massacre of innocent Palestinian
people, mostly women and children, in the occupied Palestinian
territories and the siege of the Gaza Strip show the violent nature of
the Zionist regime of Israel that continues its brutalities with the
international community, western powers in particular, turning a blind
eye to the atrocities." http://t.uani.com/1SeRrw5
Congressional
Action
Reuters: "U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan
on Thursday said he opposed any effort to give Iran access to the U.S.
dollar, citing concerns about what Tehran would do with any financial
access gained in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal. 'This is one of the
reasons I adamantly oppose any steps this administration may take to
give Iran access to the dollar,' he told reporters at a weekly press
conference. A top U.S. official has said that Iran is not gaining
access to U.S. financial system." http://t.uani.com/1MxIZcc
Sanctions
Relief
EU
Observer: "A
high-level EU delegation will visit Iran to reassure international
banks on doing business with the Islamic Republic, but officials say
they will not have time to meet human rights activists. EU foreign
affairs chief Federica Mogherini will lead a delegation on Saturday and
Sunday (16-17 April), which will also include seven EU commissioners
dealing primarily with energy, trade and industry... A senior EU
official said on Wednesday that the sheer number of commissioners 'is
to give a coherent and unified message' of re-engagement. The official
said the trip was designed to 'reassure everyone that re-engaging in
Iran is possible'. She said international banks, whose services will be
needed to underpin future foreign investment, have been reluctant to
return to Iran due to legal and reputational concerns associated with
the intricate web of EU and US sanctions imposed in recent years...
Ahead of Mogherini's visit, EU states extended a visa ban and asset
freeze for a year on 82 Iranian security and judicial chiefs linked to
internal repression. 'Thirty three [Iranian banks] have reconnected to
Swift so far,' the EU official said, referring to a Belgium-based firm
which handles international wire transfers. 'Major banks have not been
re-engaging [with Iran], it takes to time to rebuild trust and
confidence.' ... The EU official added that 'Iran wants to join the WTO
[World Trade Organisation] and we are willing to play a supporting
role'. She said the wanted more action 'on money laundering and
financing of terrorism - a law has been passed in Iran but more needs
to be done, because it's an impediment to investors' engagement'... She
added that the EU had also drawn up a €5 billion plan for modernising
Iran's civilian nuclear energy programme and that it would target other
opportunities in Iran's aviation and rail sectors." http://t.uani.com/1SbuSWM
FT: "Air France is set to resume
Paris-Tehran flights on Sunday after a row in which the carrier's air
hostesses and female pilots objected to Iran's rules requiring them to
cover their heads whenever they are not on board planes. With sanctions
lifting, the French flag carrier is returning to Iran's market after
eight years. The company said that female staff are allowed to refuse
to work on the Tehran route without facing punishment, but those who do
fly into Iran will have to follow local Islamic law and wear a veil...
European airlines that left Iran due to the country's tensions with the
western world over its nuclear activities, have been gradually coming
back since the centrist government of Hassan Rouhani swept to power in
2013 and sought a detente policy. Austrian Airlines was the first to
relaunch its services to Tehran in 2014 and British Airways will start
offering six flights a week to Tehran on July 14. Lufthansa and
Alitalia never left Iran... Passengers on Air France's maiden flight on
Sunday include a number of dignitaries, including the airline's chief
executive Frédéric Gagey, French minister of state for transport,
marine affairs and fisheries, Alain Vidalies, former French foreign minister
Huber Vedrin, according to a western diplomat in Tehran." http://t.uani.com/1Xzq8xT
Reuters: "South Korea's imports of
Iranian crude oil surged 81 percent in March from the same month a year
earlier in the wake of sanctions being lifted targeting Tehran's
nuclear programme, customs data showed on Friday. Seoul brought
1,032,938 tonnes of Iranian crude oil last month, or 244,240 barrels
per day (bpd), compared with 570,338 tonnes imported a year ago, the
data showed. In the first three months of the year, the world's
fifth-largest crude importer brought 2,956,497 tonnes, or 699,068 bpd,
of crude from the Middle Eastern country, versus 1,401,138 tonnes in
the same period in 2015, according to the data. Iran, which wants to
regain market share after the lifting of sanctions in January, told
OPEC it raised output last month by a minor 15,000 bpd to 3.40 million
bpd." http://t.uani.com/1VpDvTk
Syria
Conflict
BBC: "As the five-year conflict in
Syria grinds on, BBC Persian has found evidence that Iran is sending
thousands of Afghan men to fight alongside Syrian government forces.
The men, who are mainly ethnic Hazaras, are recruited from impoverished
and vulnerable migrant communities in Iran, and sent to join a
multi-national Shia Muslim militia - in effect a 'Foreign Legion' -
that Iran has mobilised to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Many have since fled the battlefield and joined the refugee trail to
Europe. In a small town in Germany, we meet 'Amir', an Afghan man in
his early twenties. He was born to refugee parents in Isfahan, Iran,
and is now himself an asylum seeker in Europe. Like most of the almost
three million Afghans in Iran, he lived as a second-class
citizen." http://t.uani.com/1Sjyiw2
Foreign
Affairs
AP: "President Barack Obama will
strategize with his Middle Eastern and European counterparts on a broad
range of issues during a weeklong trip to Saudi Arabia, England and
Germany with efforts to rein in the Islamic State group being the
common denominator in all three stops. Obama, who begins traveling next
week, recently said defeating IS his No. 1 priority. He paid a rare
visit to CIA headquarters this week for a national security team
meeting focused on countering the group. The president is scheduled to
arrive in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Wednesday, where he will hold
talks with King Salman. Obama will also attend a summit hosted by
leaders of six Persian Gulf countries that are members of the Gulf
Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates,
Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. The summit follows a similar gathering that
Obama hosted with the Gulf leaders last year at the Camp David
presidential retreat. The White House arranged last year's meeting
largely to reassure Gulf leaders who were unnerved by a deal the U.S.
and other world powers negotiated with Iran to ease economic sanctions
in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. The Iran deal is now in
force, and the meeting next week will focus on defeating the Islamic
State militants and al-Qaida, as well as regional security issues that
include Iran." http://t.uani.com/1Sbt7sN
Opinion
& Analysis
WSJ
Editorial:
"It's been nearly two years since Hassan Rouhani vowed to free the
two leaders of Iran's pro-democracy movement. Such promises were at the
heart of the Iranian president's 'moderation' pitch, yet today both
opposition leaders remain under house arrest without charge. Now one has
written a public letter calling Mr. Rouhani to account. Mehdi Karroubi
was a reform candidate for president in 2009's fraudulent election that
saw regime favorite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected. Millions poured
into the streets to protest, and Mr. Karroubi and ally Mir Hossein
Mousavi found themselves leading a mass uprising that became known as
the Green Movement. In 2011, amid the violent crackdown against the
movement, the two were placed under house arrest. 'I am not asking you
to lift my house arrest,' Mr. Karroubi wrote to Mr. Rouhani in a letter
published on a reformist website over the weekend and translated into
English by the United States Institute of Peace. 'I want you to ask the
despotic regime to grant me a public trial,' adding 'even if the court
is constructed the way that the potentates want.' 'These days,' Mr.
Karroubi wrote, 'the regime uses thugs everyday across the country to
attack the homes of religious authorities, religious and political
figures who have been critical of the regime, embassies and artistic
and cultural centers in the name of values.' Even if he was inclined to
free the Green leaders, Mr. Rouhani lacks the authority to do so in a
system in which unelected institutions wield absolute power over
popular branches. The puzzle is how Western powers came to imagine that
Mr. Rouhani could bind such a regime to its nuclear promises." http://t.uani.com/1RYxxGS
UANI
Advisory Board Member Michael Singh in WSJ: "In a recent speech on economic
sanctions and what the Obama administration has learned from their use,
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew stressed the importance of broad
multilateral support for any sanctions arrangement and the value of
credibly providing relief when goals have been met. This was most
likely a response to those who have advocated new sanctions on Iran or
criticized the administration over relief for Tehran. Mr. Lew also
called for committing sufficient resources to implementation, perhaps a
reflection of how the increasing-and increasingly novel-use of
sanctions and the associated reporting requirements have weighed on the
Treasury Department's capacities... Mr. Lew also warned of the
consequences of overuse, arguing that there are risks 'that sanctions
overreach will ultimately drive business activity from the U.S.
financial system' and that employing 'secondary sanctions'-those
directed at foreign persons doing business with a target country or
entity-accentuates this threat. This concern was shared by Hank
Paulson, Mr. Lew's predecessor as Treasury secretary, and probably
accounted for at least some of the Obama administration's initial
opposition to financial and oil sanctions Congress enacted against
Iran. While concern about overreach is not without basis, it risks
painting a misleading picture of U.S. policy. As Mr. Lew noted, the
U.S. has employed sanctions for decades. The sort of secondary
financial sanctions imposed on Iran are a more recent innovation-and
not one that Washington has imposed capriciously but, rather, in line
with a strong international consensus in instances regarding Iran,
Syria, and North Korea." http://t.uani.com/1SGnP7S
Post
& Courier Editorial: "When President Barack Obama visits Saudi Arabia
next week to meet with the heads of the Arab nations bordering the
Persian Gulf, he will hear a litany of complaints. Topping the list
will be those leaders' fully warranted concerns about Iran's support of
terrorism, its efforts to destabilize Arab governments, its continued
support of warfare in Yemen and Syria - and the United States' naive
notions of easing those threats with appeasement. The president will be
told that his effort to promote better relations between Iran and its
neighbors as an outgrowth of his nuclear deal with the ayatollahs has
so far failed. He will hear that the lifting of sanctions on Iran in
January is funding its continuing warfare against the Arab states. And
he will be asked if the U.S. is leaving the other Persian Gulf nations
on their own to face these growing threats. Secretary of State John
Kerry made an advance visit to the region last week, stopping in
Bahrain, where the United States has a huge naval base to support its
Persian Gulf operations. At a joint press conference with Secretary
Kerry, Bahrain's foreign minister, Sheik Khalif bin Ahmed al Khalifa,
frankly expressed the frustrations - and fears - of the Persian Gulf Arab
states. He pointed out that, as expected following the nuclear deal,
Iran is moving forward with its missile program, which threatens its
neighbors. Iran also is intervening in the internal affairs of the Arab
nations - and sending fighters to help the Assad regime in Syria's
civil war. Secretary Kerry said he shared the concern about 'Iran's
destabilizing actions in the region,' adding that the United States
will continue to 'push back' against them. He cited the recent seizure
of a number of arms shipments from Iran, apparently bound for Yemen.
But Mr. Kerry ducked a question about the continuing lack of clarity in
the U.S. position on security in the Persian Gulf. And that question is
bound to be posed to President Obama when he arrives in Saudi Arabia.
President Obama exacerbated the gulf state leaders' worries about
American resolve with his assertion, in a recent Atlantic magazine
interview, that they should find a way to co-exist with Iran. That view
clashes with the menacing reality of Iran's aggressive language and
behavior. And no, the president didn't ease the Persian Gulf states'
worries Wednesday by hailing the U.S.-led coalition's air campaign
against the Islamic State in Iraq. Iran remains belligerent. When
Secretary Kerry offered last week to negotiate with Iran on its recent
missile tests (including one with a missile marked 'Death to Israel')
to avoid further sanctions being demanded by members of Congress, Iran
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif responded that his nation's missile and
defense programs are non-negotiable. The nuclear accord was pitched by
the Obama administration as a step toward a new era of peaceful
relations between Iran and the Sunni Arab nations on the one hand, and
the United States on the other. Yet Iran, as critics of the deal had
predicted, has intensified its pursuit of dominating the Middle East -
and its rash rhetoric about destroying Israel. Even President Obama
recently said that Iran was violating 'the spirit' of the nuclear
agreement. The question now is what he intends to do about that - and
what answers he will give to reassure the justifiably wary leaders of
Iran's Persian Gulf neighbors." http://t.uani.com/1qLAIYi
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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