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Reuters: "It was stupid, clumsy and
inappropriate for someone to edit the video of a State Department
briefing in 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday as
two U.S. lawmakers demanded information about the incident. A
Republican congressman asked the State Department inspector general to
investigate why part of a public briefing that dealt with Iran nuclear
talks was cut before it was posted online while another demanded
documents about the incident. The excised portion of the Dec. 2, 2013,
briefing included a question about whether an earlier spokeswoman for
the department had misled reporters about whether the United States was
holding secret direct nuclear talks with Iran. The spokeswoman had
denied there were such talks, which were later made public. The State
Department this week said she did not know about the secret talks when
she denied their existence. Speaking to reporters in Paris, Kerry
sounded chagrined about the episode, which has drawn Republican
criticism. 'Whatever happened was both clumsy and stupid and
inappropriate,' Kerry said. Asked if he wanted people who tampered with
the historical record working for him, he replied: 'Of course not. I
just said, it's inappropriate.' ... 'In tampering with this video, the
Bureau of Public Affairs has undermined its mission to communicate
timely and accurate information with the goal of furthering U.S.
foreign policy,' House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said
in a letter released by his office that asked the department's
inspector general, Steve Linick, to investigate the matter. Separately,
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason
Chaffetz, also a Republican, on Tuesday wrote to Secretary of State
John Kerry asking for documents related to the edited video to be
turned over to his panel by Wednesday." http://t.uani.com/1TRACWI
Reuters: "More than 25 European and
Asian-owned supertankers are shipping Iranian oil, data seen by Reuters
shows, allowing Tehran to ramp up exports much faster than analysts had
expected following the lifting of sanctions in January. Iran was
struggling as recently as April to find partners to ship its oil, but
after an agreement on a temporary insurance fix more than a third of
Iran's crude shipments are now being handled by foreign vessels.
'Charterers are buying cargo from Iran and the rest of the world is OK
with that,' said Odysseus Valatsas, chartering manager at Dynacom
Tankers Management. Greek owner Dynacom has fixed three of its
supertankers to carry Iranian crude. Some international shipowners
remain reluctant to handle Iranian oil, however, due mainly to some
U.S. restrictions on Tehran that remain and prohibit any trade in
dollars or the involvement of U.S. firms, including banks and
reinsurers... The resumption of international shipping of Iranian oil
has been made possible by an increase in interim, limited, insurance
cover by 'P&I clubs' - maritime mutual associations that provide 'protection
and indemnity' insurance to shippers. The International Group of
P&I Clubs, which represents the world's top 13 ship insurers,
increased the amount covered by so-called 'fall-back' shipping
insurance from 70 million to 100 million euros ($113.36 million) in
April... Indeed, while the partial lifting of sanctions means foreign
tankers can now transport Iranian oil, risks remain because large
accidents might not be fully covered. As a result, insurers say many
first-tier oil shippers, many of them publicly listed such as Euronav,
Teekay Group or Frontline, still shy away from carrying Iranian
oil." http://t.uani.com/28fbH8Y
Reuters: "Lockheed Martin Corp, the
largest U.S. arms maker and parent of Sikorsky, has begun to study the
possibility of selling commercial helicopters to Iran, but said the
market may be small and the company still needed guidance from the U.S.
government. Lockheed, along with Boeing Co , is one of the first major
U.S. aerospace companies looking into selling to Iran for the first
time since U.S. sanctions were imposed following Iran's Islamic
Revolution of 1979. European aircraft manufacturers already are starting
to get orders from Iran after sanctions were lifted on Jan. 16.
Nathalie Previte, vice-president of sales and marketing for Sikorsky,
said the company had received numerous inquiries from existing
customers, including leasing companies and operators, interested in
possible helicopter operations in Iran.Sikorsky's S-76 and longer-range
S-92 commercial helicopters could be options for Iran, Previte said,
although she added that the country has little of the offshore drilling
activity that drives helicopter demand in the oil and gas sector. 'I
want to understand the U.S. government's policy about what can be done
and what can we not do, and really clear everything with the U.S.
government even before we start completing the analysis,' Previte told
Reuters at the Berlin Air Show. Previte's comments marked the first
time Lockheed has acknowledged looking into possible sales to Iran...
AgustaWestland, a unit of Italy's Leonardo Finmeccanica SpA, also has
seen interest in its helicopters from operators looking to do business
in Iran, industry sources said." http://t.uani.com/25IzrDN
Nuclear
& Ballistic Missile Program
WashPost: "The head of the United
Nations nuclear agency says Iran appears to be hewing to the letter of
last year's landmark nuclear agreement but says his inspectors are
stretched thin by the task of monitoring compliance across a country
the size of Alaska. Yukiya Amano, director general of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, said the hard work of verifying the controversial
pact will likely continue for years, strongly hinting that he intends
to seek a third term as head of the watchdog agency to see the task
through. 'It is still fragile,' Amano said of the accord during an
interview at the IAEA's Austrian headquarters. 'Reaching an agreement
was very important, but making it sustainable requires a lot of
effort.'" http://t.uani.com/1Um1LR1
ABC: "In the wake of the admission
from the State Department that it intentionally edited and deleted
video from an archived press briefing to hide statements it made about
the nuclear negotiations with Iran, ABC News has found that the White
House has recently omitted a line from a transcript of a May 9 briefing
that also involved questions from Fox News about Iran. Where the State
Department deleted eight minutes of video from its website and YouTube
page, the White House omitted part of an answer from press secretary
Josh Earnest on its official transcript -- without any footnote or
reference to why it was omitted. The question from Fox News reporter
Kevin Corke went like this, according to ABC News' own recording of the
briefing: Corke: Can you state categorically that no senior official in
this administration has ever lied publicly about any aspect of the Iran
nuclear deal?' Earnest: No, Kevin. However, the words 'No, Kevin' never
made it into the official White House transcript. Instead it picked up
with the rest of Earnest's response, comments about how the White House
believes the deal has made America safer." http://t.uani.com/1TWfFzd
U.S.-Iran
Relations
Reuters: "Iran rejected terrorism
charges raised against it in an annual U.S. State Department report,
Iranian media outlets reported on Sunday, saying the Islamic Republic
merely supported nations fighting for freedom. 'The legitimate struggle
of nations which are occupied ... are not examples of terrorism, and
such charges in the American report are rejected,' said Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari, quoted by state news agency
IRNA. Ansari in turn condemned 'U.S. military interferences and
destructive support for terrorist groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,
Libya and Yemen', the agency said. As in previous years, the report
cited Iran as the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism, saying
Tehran supported conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and was implicated in
violent Shi'ite opposition raids in Bahrain." http://t.uani.com/1subwX5
Fars
(Iran):
"Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali
Shamkhani blasted the West's double-standard policies in fighting
terrorism, and said the US State Department's report will no way stop
Tehran's efforts in the war on terrorism in the region. 'Today, the US
is using the ISIL as an instrument and defends the Zionist regime but
puts Iran in the list of terrorists because the Islamic Republic has
stood against and confronted their main strategy and hegemony,'
Shamkhani told reporters in Tehran on Sunday. 'But this will not affect
the Islamic Republic of Iran's policies in defending the regional
states and it shows the West's double-standard policy on terrorism,' he
added." http://t.uani.com/24tfYkA
NYT: "Thomas E. Schaefer, a
retired Air Force colonel who endured death threats, harsh
interrogation and solitary confinement as the ranking military officer
among the 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days in Iran in the closing
stages of the Carter administration, died on Tuesday in Scottsdale,
Ariz. He was 85. The cause was congestive heart failure, his son David
told The Associated Press. Colonel Schaefer was the American military
and air attaché in Tehran when Iranian students stormed the United
States Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, nine months after Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini had returned to Iran from exile in Paris to lay the groundwork
for a revolutionary government... Colonel Schaefer showed defiance
early on, beginning a hunger strike on Thanksgiving to protest
deprivations, including the lack of mail. On the fifth day, he told The
New York Times soon after his release, his captors placed a plate of
spaghetti in front of him, pointed an automatic rifle at him and said,
'You will eat now.' 'I was so hungry, I was going to eat anyway,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/22IZmGm
BBC: "This story is a detailed
account of how Khomeini brokered his return to Iran using a tone of
deference and amenability towards the US that has never before been
revealed. The ayatollah's message was, in fact, the culmination of two
weeks of direct talks between his de facto chief of staff and a
representative of the US government in France - a quiet process that
helped pave the way for Khomeini's safe return to Iran and rapid rise
to power - and decades of high-stakes tension between Iran and America.
In the official Iranian narrative of the revolution, Khomeini bravely
defied the United States and defeated 'the Great Satan' in its
desperate efforts to keep the Shah in power. But the documents reveal
that Khomeini was far more engaged with the US than either government
has ever admitted. Far from defying America, the ayatollah courted the
Carter administration, sending quiet signals that he wanted a dialogue
and then portraying a potential Islamic Republic as amenable to US
interests." http://t.uani.com/1Y39VDj
Business
Risk
AFP: "A $10 billion deal between
Iran and European aircraft manufacturer Airbus for 118 aircraft is
still pending authorization from the United States, Deputy Transport
Minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan told AFP Friday. Iran has ordered about
200 planes from three Western manufacturers since nuclear-related
sanctions were lifted in mid-January. However, the Airbus deal still
needs approval from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) because
more than 10 percent of components in Airbus planes are of American
origin... Airbus sales chief John Leahy was recently quoted by the
specialized Aviation Daily website as expressing concerns about the
Iran deal. 'We have to have a reliable international banking system' to
ensure that the agreement is not endangered, Leahy said. The issues
'need to be sorted out in the next few months, otherwise there will be
no deals,' he added, stressing that 'banks are very shy' of doing
business with Iran." http://t.uani.com/1Y38gh4
Reuters: "When sanctions on Iran were
lifted in January, Russia might have expected to be near the front of
the queue for business opportunities. Moscow, after all, was one of
Tehran's oldest allies and is now its partner on the battlefield in
Syria. On the evidence of the commerce passing through the Caspian Sea
port of Astrakhan, the main jumping-off point for Russian sea-borne
trade with Iran, it's not playing out like that. The value of goods
shipped from the Astrakhan region to Iran in the first four months of
this year was down 16 percent on the same period last year, according
to the regional government... That, according to traders and shipping
industry sources, is partly because Russian red tape is choking trade
at a time when Iranians can do deals with Western countries that were
effectively closed off to them before because of sanctions... the mood
at the port chimes with a more general atmosphere of tension in ties
between Iran and Russia. Some Iranian officials are wary of getting too
close to Russia, which occupied Iran twice in the 20th century. Russia
for its part is wary of Iran becoming too powerful and of alienating
Iran's rivals in the Middle East." http://t.uani.com/1RVhJjg
Sanctions
Relief
Reuters: "Turkish energy company Unit
International has reached a $4.2 billion deal with Iran's energy
ministry to build seven natural gas power plants there, in what it said
was the biggest investment in Iran since the lifting of sanctions. The
power stations, to be built in seven separate regions of Iran, Turkey's
eastern neighbor, would have a combined installed capacity of 6,020
megawatts, the company said in a statement... 'Unit International has
reached a deal with the Iranian Energy Ministry worth some $4.2 billion
to build natural gas combined cycle power plants,' Unit said, adding
the agreement was signed at a ceremony in Tehran on June 1." http://t.uani.com/1XwPa4A
Platts: "Japan and Iran will review
the current state of bilateral trade and investment, among other topics
to be discussed, during talks in Tehran over Monday-Tuesday, a Japanese
foreign ministry official said Monday. The talks are part of working
group sessions under the Steering Committee of the 1st Japan-Iran
Cooperation Council. The council was agreed to be launched in October
last year. The talks will be attended by Tsukasa Uemura,
Director-General, Middle Eastern and African Affairs Bureau at Japan's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Mahmoud Farahzandeh, Director General,
Department of East Asia & Oceania at Iran's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. The latest talks come after Japan and Iran signed a bilateral
investment treaty, which is designed to protect investments by Japanese
companies across various sectors of the Iranian economy, in February,
when the two countries also signed Tehran's debt guarantee of up to $10
billion of investments by Japanese companies." http://t.uani.com/1U9oVya
Forbes: "Iran is to launch an
offshore bank on one of its Gulf islands 'within a month', according to
a report by the official IRNA news agency, as it continues to seeks
ways around restrictions on international payments. The bank will be
set up on Kish Island, which has been developed as a tourism
destination and a free trade zone over the past few decades. The aim is
to tap into rising demand for cross-border banking transactions,
according to comments by Ali Jirofti, deputy head of the Kish Free Zone
Organization. He told IRNA on June 5 that the new, unnamed offshore
bank will be able to transfer money and facilitate domestic and foreign
investment activities. As yet there has been no confirmation from the
Central Bank of Iran about a new institution being licensed, but
Jirofti says it will be established in July. If that does indeed
happen, it could play a useful role for a country which is still searching
for ways to tap into the international financial system... Perhaps
coincidentally, a recent news report suggested that the US government
is considering altering its rules to allow Iran to transact in dollars
using offshore financial institutions." http://t.uani.com/1TWfRyi
Regional
Destabilization
Reuters: "Bahrain's coast guard has
arrested eight people who were trying to escape to Iran by boat, state
news agency BNA reported on late on Saturday. Bahrain's official agency
said two other men it described as 'fugitives' had organized the escape
from Iran. The eight men had already been convicted - in absentia - and
sentenced to between 10 to 15 years in prison, BNA said." http://t.uani.com/1r9JNJQ
Iraq
Crisis
WashPost: "Iraqi soldiers are battling
to drive the Islamic State out of Fallujah. But just beyond the edges
of the flashpoint city are Shiite militias that many Iraqis fear could
undermine the campaign against the radical group. These
government-aligned militiamen have helped push the Islamic State out of
key areas of the country but also have become a complication for the
U.S.-backed military coalition assembled to destroy the hard-line Sunni
group. They filled an important void left by Iraq's weakened armed
forces, but their religiously motivated agenda has aggravated Iraq's
combustible sectarian divisions... The militias 'are sectarian just
like Daesh is sectarian,' said Majid al-Juraisi, a tribal leader from
the city who fled to Baghdad when the Islamic State took control...
Abadi appears even more vulnerable to the whims of the militias, which
appear to be itching to exact revenge on Fallujah for the Islamic State
bombings in the capital, said Michael Pregent, an Iraq expert at the
Hudson Institute. 'Shiite militias want to punish Fallujah for
continued [Islamic State] attacks on Shiite areas in and around
Baghdad. Abadi is powerless to stop the IRGC-backed Shiite militias,'
he said, using initials to refer to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps,
which is believed to fund and train the militias." http://t.uani.com/1ZrplA0
Saudi-Iran
Tensions
Reuters: "Under King Salman, Saudi
Arabia is expanding its confrontation with Iran well beyond the Middle
East, no longer relying heavily on Western allies to smother Tehran's
ambitions outside the Arab world. Since Salman came to power early last
year, and Tehran struck a nuclear deal with world powers, Riyadh has
adjusted its strategy for countering the efforts of its Shi'ite Muslim
rival to build influence in Africa, Asia and even Latin America. Most
notably, the Sunni power has used Muslim networks to push states into
cutting off contacts with Iran, including by creating an Islamic
Coalition against terrorism without inviting Tehran to join. 'Iran is
the one that isolated itself by supporting terrorism,' Foreign Minister
Adel al-Jubeir told a recent news conference. 'That is why the world
reacted to Iran, and particularly the Islamic world, and basically said
enough is enough.'" http://t.uani.com/1ZrkVcl
WSJ: "Saudi Arabia on Sunday cut
its oil prices to Europe, signaling mounting competition after OPEC
failed to cap its output amid Iran's exports ramp up... The the
European price cut on Sunday also exemplifies their intense competition
for oil markets. Iran resumed its crude exports to the European Union
in February after an EU embargo on its oil was lifted and is now
heavily competing there with Saudi Arabia, which had partly replaced
Iran as a source of European supply during the sanctions. Shipments
from Iran to the EU have now reached 400,000 barrels a day. They are
set to increase to 700,000 barrels a day in the coming months after
Iran clinched deals with Greek, French and Italian refiners, according
to Iranian officials. By contrast, Saudi Arabia exported 800,000
barrels a day on average to Europe last year, according to the
International Energy Agency. As a result, Saudi Arabia and Iran have
been matching each other's price cuts, though they deny offering
special, private discounts to individual buyers. Iran believes it will
ultimately have the upper hand, as its finances are less dependent on
oil. 'Saudi Arabia will be big loser in the price war,' Akbar
Nematollahi, the head of public relations at Iran's oil ministry, wrote
last month in the ministry's in-house magazine." http://t.uani.com/1TWer6U
BBC: "When Iran's top civil defence
official said his country was preparing for major cyber-attacks from
Saudi Arabia, perhaps even he did not think it would take such a short
time for his warnings to become reality. In mid-May, Gen Gholamreza
Jalali, the head of Iran's Civil Defence Organisation, said he saw the
mainly Sunni kingdom as his chief threat in the coming year. Mainly
Shia Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been regional rivals but tensions
worsened dramatically last year, partly because of the conflicts in
Syria and Yemen. Within days of Gen Jalali's remarks, Iranian and Saudi
hackers were attacking websites in each other's countries in what
Iranian media called 'all-out cyberwar'. On 25 May, a self-proclaimed
hacker from Saudi Arabia calling himself 'Da3s' apparently attacked the
websites of Iran's Statistical Centre and Registration Office, defacing
the homepages with a photo of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who
fought an eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s." http://t.uani.com/1Y3bPnp
Opinion
& Analysis
Elizabeth
Rosenberg & Richard Nephew in Politico: "The Iran nuclear deal was
destined to be controversial in its negotiation, conclusion and
implementation. Nowhere is the deal more complex than in the area of
sanctions relief. But blaming sanctions for the failure of a windfall
for Iran to materialize - as critics and supporters alike are saying -
misplaces attribution and undermines prospects for the deal's success.
Iran has already received some benefit from the nuclear deal. The
stabilization of its economy, which began after President Hassan
Rouhani was elected, has permitted some reforms and economic
regeneration. But expectations of the deal were high and have yet to be
satisfied. Iranians have struggled to access $100 billion (€88 billion)
of their assets unfrozen under the nuclear deal; even Secretary of
State John Kerry says they have wrangled only $3 billion (€2.6 billion)
of this sum. Moreover, most foreign companies and banks are hanging
back, unwilling to do deals in such a high-risk jurisdiction. The
finger-pointing has already begun: Iranian critics of the deal blame
Rouhani and his diplomats for having been suckered. In the United
States, some critics are crowing that Iran's struggles prove that had
President Barack Obama stayed the course on sanctions, Iran would be
collapsing. And, they decry any indication that the Obama
administration should expand sanctions relief for Iran to aid Iranian
reformers and ensure the nuclear deal is sustained. The reality is that
Iran was always going to have trouble reconnecting with the global
economy thanks to systemic weaknesses in its economy and its regulatory
structure. No amount of sanctions relief would change that. But the
U.S. still should work with Iran to overcome those problems and reap
benefits from the deal. Further isolating Iran's banking system would
serve only to undermine the nuclear deal and potentially damage the
U.S. financial system. Fundamental economic challenges in Iran run
deep. Basic banking problems - including corruption and illiquidity of
banks, and banks' inability to follow modern standards for financial
disclosure, taxation, capital requirements and due diligence - exist in
many emerging markets. But Iran is an extreme example because of what
the International Monetary Fund has called a 'high' number of
nonperforming loans, weak central bank liquidity, and a history of
supporting terrorism and allowing security services to involve
themselves in the financial system (complicating any due diligence
process). Moreover, a cumbersome bureaucracy and regulatory regime help
make Iran No. 118 on the World Bank's ease of doing business index.
Iran has augmented these difficulties by involving its banking sector
in ongoing regional destabilization in countries such as Yemen and
Syria. Supporters of the deal cannot argue that Iran has abandoned its
support for terrorism, or that it is reasonable for international
investors to be wary about going back there. The incentives for doing
so are particularly muted when prolonged low oil prices make Iran's
largest economic sector relatively unattractive." http://t.uani.com/1TRBpH0
Julian
Lee in Bloomberg:
"Saudi Arabia needs to open up a little. If it wants to ensure its
own low-cost oil gets to market before higher-cost crude from
elsewhere, it should allow foreigners to invest directly in its oil
industry. Speaking before last week's OPEC meeting, Saudi Arabia's new
oil minister, Khalid Al-Falih, said the kingdom was concerned about how
future oil production could be affected by a lack of investment. Given
the falling price of crude has forced oil companies to cut spending for
two years running, that's understandable.Letting overseas oil companies
from ExxonMobil to China's CNPC invest directly in exploration or
production in the kingdom would ensure that the diminished pot of
investment capital is put to the most efficient use -- and diverted
away from rivals like Iran... The kingdom wouldn't be alone in taking
this step. Mexico and Iran -- both vociferously opposed to foreign
investment in their upstream oil industries in the past -- are in the
process of opening up their long-closed industries. They are following
a path trodden by Iraq a decade ago and by Venezuela in the 1990s. Both
those countries saw considerable benefits from their openings... For
Saudi Arabia, such a policy could have added fringe benefits: Inward investment
by U.S. oil companies would put the kingdom back at the heart of that
country's policy in the region. Furthermore, every dollar that oil
companies invest in Saudi Arabia is a dollar that they can't invest in
the industries of rival producers.Taken a step further, what better way
would there be to crimp the ambitions of regional rival Iran than by
offering companies a choice between investing there or investing in the
kingdom?Faced with that choice, European and Asian companies beating
paths to Tehran might think twice about where to spend their
diminishing upstream investment budgets." http://t.uani.com/1r9KX8n
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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