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TOP STORIES
The Trump administration is preparing to designate
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist
organization, U.S. officials said, a step that would vastly escalate
the American pressure campaign against Tehran but which has divided
U.S. officials. The decision, which could be announced as early as
Monday following months of deliberation, would mark the first time
that an element of a foreign state has been officially designated a
terrorist entity.
Mahan Air, a private Iranian airline accused by the West
of transporting military equipment to Middle East war zones, on
Monday launched a direct flight to Venezuela, as Tehran voices
support for Caracas against a U.S. backed opposition. Mehr news
agency quoted the spokesman of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization
Reza Jafarzadeh as saying that the route was launched in the early
hours of Monday, and the plane will carry foreign ministry officials
to Caracas.
Germany's government will pull the plug at the end of
2019 on public funding for a radical pro-Iranian-regime organization-
the Islamic Community of Shi'ite Communities of Germany - that is
packed with antisemitic representatives who urge the destruction of
Israel. After a series of exposés in Germany's top selling
paper Bild, the newspaper reported on Thursday that the interior
ministry announced in a letter the stoppage of funds for the Shi'ite
umbrella organization.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
As many as 114 achievements in the field of nuclear
technology will be unveiled on Tuesday during a ceremony marking
Iran's National Nuclear Technology Day. A ceremony will be held on
Tuesday April 9 at Iran International Conference Center in capital
Tehran to mark the country's National Nuclear Technology Day. The
ceremony will be attended by President Hassan Rouhani and a number of
ministers, officials and commanders, during which 114 nuclear
achievements that came to fruition last year.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
U.S. sanctions have prevented the Iranian Red Crescent
from obtaining any foreign financial aid to assist victims of
flooding that has killed at least 70 people and inundated some 1,900
communities, the group said on Sunday. U.S. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo said last week that Washington was ready to help via the
Red Cross and Red Crescent, but accused Iran's clerical establishment
of "mismanagement in urban planning and in emergency
preparedness."
Iran and Iraq have reached an understanding about
developing two oilfields on their mutual border, Iran's oil minister
was quoted saying on Sunday, a day after Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani called for increased trade between the two countries. The focus
of the understanding is the development of the Naft Shahr and
Khorramshahr oilfields, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said according to
a report on Iran's oil ministry website on Sunday, without giving any
details of the plan.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi visited Tehran
over the weekend and assured Iran over US sanctions against its
military presence. On the sidelines of his Sunday meeting with his
Iraqi counterpart, Chief of General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri said Iraq has guaranteed for
Tehran that the presence of the US troops is merely restricted to
training Iraqi forces and they are doing their job under the control
of the Iraqi military force.
Tomato prices have doubled in Iran in two days after the
government lifted a ban on its export, official news outlet IRNA
reported. In recent weeks, other vegetables, such as onions and
lettuce suddenly became expensive until their export was banned and
prices decreased somewhat. One kilo of tomatoes is now around 40 US
cents, but the export price is around 70 cents, pushing merchants to
send the produce to neighboring countries. It is not clear why the
government lifted the export ban on tomatoes.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Top Iranian officials have threatened retaliation
against American forces in the Middle East in response to the U.S.
plan to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a
terrorist organization, amplifying tensions between countries that
have clashed repeatedly over the Islamic Republic's footprint in the
region. The Trump administration is expected to make the declaration
on Monday in an effort to squeeze the IRGC's financial resources and
shrink its military presence in the Middle East.
The Trump administration is preparing to
designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist
organization," an unprecedented move against a national armed
force that could have widespread implications for U.S. personnel and
policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. Officials informed of the
step said an announcement was expected Monday, after a monthslong
escalation in the administration's rhetoric against Iran, its support
for militia groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen,
as well as anti-Israel groups in the region and beyond.
Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday U.S. officials
aiming to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist
group want to "drag the U.S. into a quagmire" on behalf of
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. "#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for
FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisaton) of the IRGC fully understand its
consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag
US into a quagmire on his behalf," Mohammed Javad Zarif said on
his Twitter account.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
A submarine battery exploded in an Iranian military
shipyward on Saturday, killing three workers, state broadcaster IRIB
said. "Three Defense Ministry staff were martyred after a
submarine battery exploded at the Shahid Darvishi shipyard in (the
Gulf port of) Bandar Abbas..., which builds and repairs military
ships and submarines," IRIB said on its website.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Nationwide floods in Iran have displaced tens of
thousands of people and left dozens dead in the past two weeks. More
rain is forecast in the coming days. Heavy rain began in mid-March in
the northeastern province of Golestan, which received 70 percent of
its average annual rainfall in one day. The flooding has steadily
spread across the nation, inundating communities in at least 26 of
Iran's 31 provinces.
Flood damage in western Iran exceeds the government's
budget for disaster relief and officials will have to tap the
country's sovereign wealth fund to cover reconstruction costs, the
semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency reported. Around 9.5
trillion rials -- equivalent to $230 million at Iran's official
exchange rate -- of damage has been caused to agricultural fields in
the southwestern province of Khuzestan alone, Keykhosro Changlavaee,
head of the Agricultural Administration of Khustanestan said,
according to ISNA.
Iran continued to evacuate more people on Saturday from
flood-hit regions as the death toll from the flooding hit 70. Many
residents of Susangerd, with a population of about 50,000, and five
other communities in the oil-rich southwestern province of Khuzestan
were being moved to safer areas, state TV reported. "An
evacuation order has been issued and we are recommending women and
children to leave but we are asking the men and youth to stay and
help us build floodwalls so we can keep the water out of these
cities," the provincial governor, Gholamreza Shariati, told
state TV.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
An Iranian news portal in Latin America has published an
article claiming that Israel uses Palestinian prisoners for "new
medical trials." Despite citing no evidence for the claim, the
HispanTV report Wednesday has spread to outlets across Latin America,
including the El Ciudadano monthly in Chile and the website of an
association of Cuban jurists. It was published on Uruguay's La
Republica website but taken down Friday after a reader
complained.
Barely a fortnight after US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo visited Lebanon and threatened Hezbollah's political allies to
contain the group or face US sanctions, some of them have flown to
Washington, DC, to lobby against them and assuage US concerns.
Officially, however, the Lebanese delegation is travelling to attend
the 2019 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
The tolerance shown by some actors in the international
community towards the Houthis militias in Yemen reflects a lack of
deep understanding and awareness of the nature of the dilemma that
the Yemenis suffer by this ideological militia. In the sense that,
this is not just a bloody, sectarian and racial coup by
Iranian-backed militia against the state and its institutions,
rather, it is most serious, where the militia, besides the aggressive
and cruel war against Yemenis, is waging another brutal war against
all coexistence, equality and civil values in a systematic way, using
state institutions and potentials that they seized by force and
intimidation.
Details of the lavish payments made by Qatar to Muslim
Brotherhood organisations in Europe, including furnishing funds the
academic Tariq Ramadan has used for legal fees to fight rape
allegations, have emerged in a new book. Qatar Papers - How the
emirate finances Islam in France and Europe, written by two French
journalists, publishes evidence that cheques and money transfers from
Qatar have been used to underwrite more than 140 projects around
Europe, where the Muslim Brotherhood has sought to expand its
influence.
The Arab Coalition in Yemen intercepted and destroyed a
drone launched by the Iranian-aligned Houthi militias toward Asir
city in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Press Agency said late on Sunday. No
injuries or damage were reported, SPA added.
Yemeni Minister of Information Muamer al-Iryani has
slammed Iran-backed Houthi militias for indoctrinating students in
their ideology. Such measures present a threat to the country's
social fabric, said al-Iryani during talks with the head of the
German parliament's human rights committee in Berlin. The minister
told Gyde Jensen that Yemen's humanitarian situation has become very
difficult since the Houthis carried out their coup in 2015.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Iraq on
Saturday to demand U.S. troops leave "as soon as possible",
during a visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi that showed
off Tehran's strong influence in Baghdad despite U.S.
pressure. Iran and the United States have been competing for
clout in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled
dictator Saddam Hussein, an enemy of both countries.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi has visited Tehran
for talks with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, marking a
further deepening of ties between the two neighbours. At a joint news
conference on Saturday, Rouhani hailed Iran and Iraq's
shared stance on key regional issues. "We hold common
viewpoints on Al-Quds [Jerusalem] being the permanent capital of
Palestine, Golan being an inseparable part of Syria and that the war
in Yemen should finish soon and that the solution to the Yemeni
crisis should be a political one," he said.
President Hassan Rouhani called on Saturday for Iran and
neighbouring Iraq to expand their gas and electricity dealings and
boost bilateral trade to $20 billion, state TV reported, despite
difficulties caused by U.S. sanctions against Tehran. "The
plans to export electricity and gas and hopefully oil continue and we
are ready to expand these contacts not only for the two countries but
also for other countries in the region," Rouhani said after a
meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, in
remarks carried by state television.
Iraq on Saturday closed its Sheeb border crossing with
Iran to travellers and trade until further notice, Iraqi security
sources said, as flooding continues to submerge villages in the south
of Iran. The Sheeb crossing is in Iraq's southern Miysan
province.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations broadly
agreed on issues during a two-day meeting, but were unable to bridge
differences on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how to deal with
Iran, France's top diplomat said on Saturday. "Despite the
crisp air of Dinard, we couldn't overcome some of our
differences," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said at the
end of a two-day meeting in western France. "I think the talks
were constructive and pleasant both in tone and in the
fundamentals."
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