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TOP STORIES
France is ready to impose
further sanctions on Iran if no progress is made in talks over its
ballistic missile program, the French foreign minister said on
Friday. Jean-Yves Le Drian, who this week reiterated support for
a European-backed system to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran and
circumvent U.S. sanctions, said France wanted to see Tehran rein in
its missile activity. "We are ready, if the talks don't
yield results, to apply sanctions firmly, and they know it," Le
Drian told reporters.
Iran is likely to expand its cyber espionage activities
as its relations with Western powers worsen, the European Union
digital security agency said on Monday. Iranian hackers are behind
several cyber attacks and online disinformation campaigns in recent
years as the country tries to strengthen its clout in the Middle East
and beyond, a Reuters Special Report published in November found.
The Trump administration is
closely eyeing efforts in Europe to set up an alternative money
payment channel to ease doing business with Iran and avoid running
afoul of sanctions the U.S. has levied on the Islamic republic. The
White House is putting the Europeans on notice, saying that if they
try to do an end-run around U.S. sanctions on Iran, they will be
subject to stiff fines and penalties. Unfazed, the European Union is
marching forward with the plan, which, if implemented, could further
strain trans-Atlantic relations.
UANI IN THE NEWS
One year ago, Iranians of all stripes took to the
streets en masse to express their grievances with the regime. While
Tehran suppressed those demonstrations, protesters were undeterred,
continuing such public gatherings throughout 2018. But while the Iranian
people continue to risk their lives to publicly demand a better and
freer future, the United States and Europe must do more to have their
backs.
As the graph above shows, P2P trading website
Localbitcoins.com saw record volume in Iran during December 2017, the
month when the protests against the government started. Around the
time when the U.S. ended the nuclear deal with the Iran, and it was
predicted that the country's economy could fall into a death spiral,
bitcoin trading again peaked. Volume on Localbitcoins.com has since
been at its highest since the United Against Nuclear Iran summit in
September 2018, which saw a number of countries push for regime
change in the Islamic Republic.
The Hezbollah terror organization slammed the U.S. on
Wednesday for recognizing the Venezuelan opposition under Juan Guaidó
as the legitimate government - though Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, is
active there and throughout Latin America. In a statement, Hezbollah
reportedly condemned "blatant American intervention" and
reiterated its support for the autocratic government of Nicolas Maduro,
who succeeded strongman Hugo Chavez and has been crushing dissent.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Nine months after the Trump
administration pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, it seems
that the EU is finally holding a serious negotiation with Iran over
its ballistic missile testing and global support of terrorism. Last
week, France announced that it would impose new sanctions on the
Islamic Republic if it did not make concessions regarding its ongoing
ballistic missile tests.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Three European powers are set to
make good on a plan to help companies trade with Iran, defying
President Donald Trump with a bid to bypass U.S. sanctions. The
entity, which could be presented as early as Monday, is key to the
European Union's effort to save a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran after
Trump withdrew the U.S. Whatever the economic impact, the push by the
U.K., France and Germany is another sign of European exasperation
with the president.
The Trump administration on
Thursday took its first significant move against 2 of
Iran's non-Arab Shiite militias in Syria with two different executive
orders - one related to human rights and the other
to terrorism. Both groups,
the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun, support Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force (IRGC-QF), which was sanctioned over
a decade ago but remains active across the Middle East.
Shut out of the global financial
system, Iran is inching closer to a workaround to US
sanctions with the possible unveiling of its first state-backed
cryptocurrency in the near future. The virtual currency is
anticipated to be announced at the annual two-day Electronic Banking
and Payment Systems conference, which kicks off on January 29 in
the capital, Tehran. The theme of this year's gathering is
"blockchain revolution".
MISSILE PROGRAM
Iran said on Monday it was not
holding talks with France over its ballistic missile development,
after Paris said it was ready to impose more sanctions if European
attempts to address the program in discussions with Tehran made no
progress. "There has been no talks, whether secret or not
secret, about our missile program with France or any other
country," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi told
a weekly news conference, broadcast live on state TV.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
The Committee to Protect
Journalists has called on Iran to stop persecuting journalists for
their work after Tehran's Revolutionary Court sentenced Yashar
Soltani to five years for his coverage of Tehran land deals. Mr
Soltani, the editor-in-chief of Memari News, was investigating
corruption in municipal real estate sales in the Iranian capital. He
revealed that the mayor's office in Tehran illegally sold public land
to political allies at discounted rates.
The lawyer of an
Australian-based academic detained on charges of trying to
"infiltrate" Iranian institutions said on Sunday she
was freed a few days ago, Iran's state news agency reported. Meimanat
Hosseini-Chavoshi, a population expert, is affiliated with the
Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, according to the
University of Melbourne's website.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
The Trump administration is
pushing to re-open a special investigation into the military
dimensions of Iran's past nuclear work. But it's not gaining traction
among the international officials who can make it happen. American
officials have been ratcheting up pressure at the International
Atomic Energy Agency in recent weeks, threatening new sanctions and
advocating for more aggressive inspections, according to documents
obtained by Bloomberg and interviews with diplomats.
The mystery over the
incarceration of a Navy veteran in Iran last July deepened on Friday,
when an Iranian prosecutor said that the case had been based on an
"individual plaintiff" and that the prisoner might face
security-related charges. The veteran, Michael R. White of Imperial
Beach, Calif., is the first American to be imprisoned in Iran since
the Trump administration took office two years ago.
The mother of a U.S. Navy
veteran detained in Iran believes he has a recurrence of
life-threatening cancer and she is calling for his immediate release
to seek treatment, a spokesman said Friday. Joanne White based her
belief that Michael White, 46, has cancer on "first-hand
evidence provided to her by Iranian nationals who were incarcerated
with Michael," spokesman Jonathan Franks said in a statement.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran staged war games on Friday
involving newly developed rapid redeployment units focused on
fighting enemy aggressors and armed militants, state media reported,
amid increased tensions with the United States and following a
militant attack. Around 12,000 elite troops, armoured vehicles,
fighter jets and drones were taking part in the two-day exercises,
staged in the central province of Isfahan, state television said.
Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed
Forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri announced on Sunday that Iran
would change its defense strategy to "offensive" to defend
its national interests. He stressed that his country will not remain
idle against any threat, denying any ambitions to impose hegemony on
the interests and territories of other countries.
Iranian leaders preach that nations should respect the
sovereignty of other states and therefore should not interfere in the
domestic affairs of Iran or its allies, such as Syria. Such
statements appear to be pure rhetoric, as recent developments clearly
reveal that the regime does not practice what it preaches.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran says Arab separatists have
killed two policemen who were on patrol in the country's oil-rich
south. The semi-official Fars news agency quoted police official Ali
Ghasempour on Sunday as saying the Arab Struggle Movement for the
Liberation of Ahvaz, a "terrorist and separatist group,"
was behind the killings. The two policemen were shot dead early
Saturday in the southern Khuzestan province.
Turbulent fluctuations in the value of the Iranian currency on the
open market in 2018 led to the establishment of the Supreme
Economic Coordination Council. Economic pundits at the time were of
the opinion that this new body - bringing together the heads of the
three branches of power - would prepare the ground for major and
broad long-awaited economic reforms, as this entity was deemed to
foster the convergence of uniform policymaking among the country's
three branches of power to save the downbeat economy from tanking
deeper.
While the clock is ticking for
the deadline that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has set for
Iran to join international conventions combatting money laundering
and financial assistance to terrorist organizations, Friday Prayer
leaders have barraged President Hassan Rouhani's administration with
criticism for insisting on compliance with international
requirements.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
The "axis of resistance" of Iran, Syria and
Hezbollah could respond to Israeli strikes on Iran and Hezbollah in
Syria with their own attack on Tel Aviv, Hezbollah's leader said on
Saturday. They were deliberating a response to escalating Israeli
strikes and could change their approach "at any moment"
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with al-Mayadeen TV.
The video shows a skier in a
blue jacket slaloming down a slope before the camera pans upward, an
ominous score playing in the background. "This is what families
skiing on Mount Hermon in northern Israel saw when they looked
up," reads the on-screen caption on a 37-second clip the Israeli
Defense Force (IDF) posted to Twitter Monday, as two vapor trails cut
across a dusky sky. "An Iranian rocket fired towards them from
Syrian soil."
Immigration Minister Yoav
Gallant on Saturday said Israel has a plan in place to expel Iranian
forces from Syria, as Bloomberg reported Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is urging the United States to keep American troops at a
base seen as essential to countering Iran. Gallant, a fresh addition
to the ruling Likud party, did not provide further details but
credited Israeli actions with preventing the emergence of an Iranian
military presence in the Golan Heights.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
told Israeli public radio that it was "important and right"
that Israel defends itself from Iranian forces in Syria. "Iran
has policies that are threatening to Israel," Merkel told Kan
Reka radio. Asked about recent Israeli airstrikes against
Iranian targets in Syria, she said "Israel must secure its
existence."
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
United Nation Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths
will kickstart the new round of peace efforts in the region in Sanaa,
where he is scheduled to advise Houthi leaders against breaking the
UN-brokered Stockholm agreement, the latest breakthrough in
long-stalled Yemeni peace talks. This will be the Griffiths' third
visit to Sanaa this month, in an effort aimed at convincing Houthis
to agree to fully hand over the key port city of Hodeidah, as
stipulated by the Stockholm agreement. Retreating and turning over
the control of the strategic city comes as part of
confidence-building measures between Yemeni warring parties.
Two residents were killed and several others injured
when a house was bombed twice by the Houthi militia in Al-Sab'a
Al-Olya village, south of Heis district in Hodeidah. One woman was
killed and two of her children were seriously injured during the
first bomb attack on the house, UAE state news agency WAM reported.
The foreign
secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has agreed to attend a summit organised
by the US in Warsaw originally billed as an alliance to confront
Iranian aggression, but only on the condition that the US secretary
of state hosts a meeting on Yemen on the summit's margins.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iraq must wean itself off
economic reliance on Iran and become more energy self-sufficient,
Britain's foreign office minister for the Middle East said on
Sunday. Alistair Burt visited Iraq after a flurry of
high-profile diplomacy in Baghdad this month that followed U.S.
President Donald Trump's surprise announcement he was pulling
American troops out of Syria.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iran reacted angrily to
Germany's announcement last Monday (Jan. 21) that it would ban
Iranian airline Mahan Air from German airports, according to a report
in Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency. "This measure is
a blatant violation of all international rules, including the Chicago
Convention, and there is no doubt that it has been adopted under the
US pressures," said the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation
Organization, Ali Abedzadeh, on Wednesday (Jan. 23).
Iran has accused France of being
a destabilising force in the region after its foreign minister
threatened new sanctions against Tehran over its missile programme.
"The Islamic republic has always called for the strengthening of
peace and stability in the region," the Iranian foreign ministry
said in a statement released overnight Friday.
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