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TOP STORIES
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on
Wednesday Tehran would stick to its 2015 nuclear deal with world
powers as long as the other signatories respected it, but would
"shred it" if the United States pulled out, state TV
reported.
Nikki Haley will seek to focus world attention on Iran's
actions in the Middle East in an early test of whether President
Donald Trump's toughening position on the Islamic Republic is
alienating allies and leaving the U.S. isolated internationally.
President Donald Trump's hawkish new
approach towards Tehran, coupled with banking worries and domestic
political turbulence in both countries, are causing growing
uncertainty over Iran's $36 billion deal to buy airliners from
Boeing, Airbus and ATR.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Amid the hand-wringing this weekend over President
Trump's decision to decertify the Iran nuclear deal, a curious theme
arose among defenders of the Obama administration's agreement with
the mullahs. They seem to be rather certain that Iran is in
compliance with the terms of the 2015 agreement... What they don't
mention is that no one knows whether Iran is complying with the deal
because Iran will not allow nuclear inspectors access to military
sites.
Iran is not only violating the spirit of the no-nukes
deal, it is violating its letter. The prologue to the deal explicitly
states: "Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran
ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons." This
reaffirmation has no sunset provision: it is supposed to be forever.
Yet the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently stated
that it could not verify that Iran was "fully implementing the
agreement" by not engaging in activities that would allow it to
make a nuclear explosive device. Yukiya Amano of the IAEA told
Reuters that when it comes to inspections, which are stipulated in
Section T of the agreement, "our tools are limited." Amano
continued to say: "In other sections, for example, Iran has
committed to submit declarations, place their activities under
safeguards or ensure access by us. But in Section T, I don't see any
(such commitment)."
Iran's supreme leader on Wednesday urged Europe to do
more to back the 2015 nuclear deal after President Donald Trump
refused to re-certify the pact. European companies have rushed into
the Iranian markets since the landmark accord. Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei's comments show the supreme leader's hope that he can
leverage European business interests into protecting the nuclear
deal.
Extricating the United States from all of the
concessions that Obama made to Iran will be a difficult, long-term
task. President Trump's advisers may well have the guts to see this
through. But does the president?
President Donald Trump may find it difficult to prevent
Iran from selling its oil, a proven way to pressure the U.S.
adversary, if he decides to renew sanctions on Tehran, analysts
warn.
A top aide to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said today
that Iran will not accept European powers' proposal to supplement the
2015 nuclear deal with new provisions on the country's missile
program and regional ambitions. "If they say they accept the
JCPOA but we need to negotiate over regional issues and the missile
program, this means setting conditions on the JCPOA and is not
acceptable for us under any circumstances," Ali Akbar Velayati
told reporters on the sideline of his meeting with France's special
envoy on Syrian affairs. "JCPOA has no conditions and should
continue in line with what has been agreed upon between Iran and
5+1," he added, referring to the United States, Britain, France,
China, Russia and Germany. Velayati said Iran will not negotiate over
its presence and actions in the region. "The Europeans and
Americans have no rights to express views about our presence or lack
of presence in the region." He argued that Iran's military
presence in Syria and Iraq are on based on requests from the
governments of the two countries. Velayati further noted that the
Islamic Republic will not accept to extend the duration of the
nuclear agreement.
CONGRESS & IRAN
There are four elements in Iran that bear on United
States foreign policy interests: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the
"Supreme Leader;" his theocratic power base, the
Revolutionary Guards and its Quds Force unit; President Hassan
Rouhani and his elected government; and the Iranian people
themselves, which includes a broad middle class. The distinction
between the first three and the final element could possibly create
an opportunity for some form of American outreach to the segment of
these people who may have something in common with United States
values of economic and personal freedom. The analogy here is our
experience with the people in Eastern European in Warsaw Pact nations
during the Cold War, where enough commonality between the United
States and these people existed that they turned to us when the
Berlin Wall finally fell.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
French oil and gas major Total will try
to push ahead with its Iran gas project if the United States decides
to impose unilateral sanctions on Teheran after President Donald
Trump said he will not certify the landmark Iran nuclear deal. Total
Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said in an interview with
International Oil Daily the company would examine the consequences of
Trump's decision, and if there are any laws that obliges it to
withdraw from Iran, then it will comply.
Iran is ready to do business with U.S. oil and gas
companies, oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Tuesday, according to
SHANA, the news site of the Iranian oil ministry. "American
companies can come to Iran and benefit so Mr. Trump won't be
upset," Zanganeh said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump,
according to SHANA. "They've (the United States) put up
obstacles for American companies to come to Iran," he said.
Norway's Saga Energy has signed a 2.5 billion-euro
($2.94 billion) deal to build solar power plants in Iran, the company
said on Tuesday, just days after U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled
a more confrontational policy toward Teheran. Saga's preliminary
agreement with Iran's state-owned Amin Energy Developers was the
latest in a flurry of deals by foreign companies since the easing of
international sanctions on the country in 2016 after it agreed to
limits on its disputed nuclear program. The deal, which still depends
on finalizing economic guarantees from Tehran, would see the
construction over a four- to five-year period of 2 gigawatts of power
generation capacity, Saga Energy spokesman Rune Haaland said. The
company will rely on banks, pension funds and Norwegian state export
guarantees to fund the plan, and aims to recoup its investment
through a 25-year deal on electricity prices, he added.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Tehran's prosecutor general has said that a letter from
David Cameron pleading for the release of a British-Iranian woman
serving a five-year jail term in Iran on charges relating to national
security was "confirmation that she had links with the UK
government". In his first explicit comments spelling out reasons
for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's arrest in April 2016, Abbas Jafari
Dolatabadi said on Tuesday that her arrest was important to the
British establishment.
SYRIA CONFLICT
A senior Iranian military delegation arrived in Damascus
today to assess the current state of the Syrian war and discuss ways
to boost defense ties between the two countries, the Iranian media
reported.
Israel's prime minister warned Tuesday that he will not
tolerate an Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria. Benjamin
Netanyahu said his meeting with visiting Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday focused mostly on Iran's efforts to
establish a presence next door, where both Tehran and Moscow have
provided crucial support to President Bashar Assad's forces.
IRAQ CRISIS
After a frenetic 24 hours the U.S.-led coalition against
the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Iraq looks to be on the
verge of collapse with the Iraqi military, backed by local militias,
swooping in on positions held by the country's autonomous Kurdish
forces. But as Baghdad gains the upper hand over the Kurdish
forces-both sides are equipped and backed by the United States-it is
Iran, identified by President Donald Trump in recent weeks as the
principal disruptor of stability in the Middle East, that has gained
the most.
Officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government are
accusing Iran of playing a key role in the fall of disputed
territories in northern Iraq including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a
claim rejected by Iranian officials. This week the Iraqi government
forces backed by Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) marched into the
Kurdish-controlled disputed territories after Kurdish forces known as
Peshmerga withdrew from the region.
On Sunday, Qassem Suleimani, Iran's chief spymaster,
travelled to the Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya to meet with the leaders
of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., one of the two main
Kurdish political parties. For years, the P.U.K. and its sister
party, the Kurdish Democratic Party, or K.D.P., have been struggling
to break away from the rest of Iraq and form an independent state. A
Kurdish republic is opposed by all the region's countries-the
governments in Baghdad, Turkey, and Iran-which fear that sizable
Kurdish minorities in all three nations will begin to act
autonomously. Only weeks ago, in a region-wide referendum, Iraq's
Kurds voted overwhelmingly to secede. The Kurdish dream, it seemed,
was tantalizingly within reach.
On Monday of this week, what had been feared transpired:
Paramilitary units supported by elements of the Iraqi army attacked
in the vicinity of Kirkuk. Baghdad's putatively federal army put into
action the threats of the country's leaders and, at the risk of
ruining any chance of future coexistence with the Kurds, responded to
the peaceful referendum of Sept. 25 with a dumbfounding and vengeful
act of force.
The political wing of Asai'b Ahl al-Haq (A.A.H.), an
Iranian-sponsored Iraqi militia group, has called for military
operations to seize the Kurdish cities of Dohuk, Erbil and
Sulaymaniyah. Hassan Salim, a member of Iraqi parliament and
affiliated with A.A.H., said the "Barzani militias" are
defeated, stressing that "all areas of northern Iraq are Iraqi
and will be under the control of the federal government." Salim
also accused Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim of inciting the people
of the province to resist Iraqi security forces on the streets of
Kirkuk. He must be tried for treason against the Iraqi state, Salim
added.
GULF STATES & IRAN
On Monday, a high-ranking Iranian military leader joined
a number of the country's officials in condemning President Donald
Trump's use of the term "Arabian Gulf" to refer to a region
traditionally called the Persian Gulf in the U.S. and many countries
around the world. At the commencement of a four-day naval symposium
in Italy, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari
called into question Trump's motivation for using the often
politically charged phrase during the president's announcement of a
new U.S. strategy toward Iran on October 13. While a number of Arab states
that rival Iran in the strategic region refer to it as the
"Arabian Gulf," most U.S. officials-including Trump's
presidential predecessors-have historically used the more commonly
known and U.N.-recognized name, Persian Gulf, or simply "the
Gulf."
Bahrain's interior minister accused Iran of harbouring
160 Bahrainis convicted of terrorism and stripped of their
citizenship, in an interview published Wednesday. All 160
"fugitives" had been stripped of citizenship in
"terrorism cases" targeting Bahraini police and security
forces, Sheikh Rashed Al-Khalifa told the Arabic-language daily
Asharq Al-Awsat. He accused Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards of
having trained the group, who were convicted of attacks that killed
25 security personnel and wounded 3,000 others, according to Asharq
Al-Awsat.
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