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TOP STORIES
Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday
there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear
deal with world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year
after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
John Bolton, long a hawk on Iran, also claimed - without offering
evidence - that the alleged sabotage of four oil tankers off the
coast of the United Arab Emirates came from naval mines placed
"almost certainly by Iran."
The White House isn't planning a military offensive
response to a U.S. assessment that Iran was behind recent
attacks on tankers off the United Arab Emirates, national
security adviser John Bolton said Wednesday, mirroring a conciliatory
tone taken by President Trump toward Tehran. The national security
hawk said the U.S. responded to Iran's alleged actions by deploying
1,500 troops and military equipment to the Persian Gulf as a
deterrent.
Facebook and Twitter each said on Tuesday they had
disabled a sprawling disinformation campaign that appeared to
originate in Iran, including two accounts on Twitter that mimicked
Republican congressional candidates and may have sought to push pro-Iranian
political messages. Some of the disabled accounts appeared to target
their propaganda at specific journalists, policymakers, dissidents
and other influential U.S. figures online.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
On the first anniversary of the US unilateral withdrawal
from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran's Supreme
National Security Council announced that Tehran will partially
cease performing its commitments under the accord, in accordance
with Articles 26 and 36. The statement continued that further
steps may be ahead, unless the European signatories uphold their
obligations within 60 days. "We had agreed to cap our uranium
enrichment at the 3.6% level.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signaled on Wednesday
that talks with the United States might be possible if Washington
lifted sanctions and met its commitments under a nuclear deal, state
television said. "Rouhani says door not closed if U.S. lifts sanctions,
fulfills its commitments," state run Press TV said.
The U.S. warned Hong Kong that it could face penalties
if it does business with an oil tanker headed for the city that
allegedly violated sanctions on Iran. Washington wants to put China
and the autonomous city on notice that it will aggressively and
consistently enforce its Iran sanctions, a senior U.S. official said
on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said
China would be informed that any entity doing business with the ship
would expose it to U.S. sanctions.
The United States has warned Hong Kong to be on alert
for a vessel carrying Iranian petroleum that may seek to stop in the
Asia financial hub, and said that any entity providing services to
the vessel will be violating U.S. sanctions. The news comes
nearly a month after U.S. President Donald Trump's administration
stepped up moves to choke off Iran's oil exports by scrapping waivers
it had granted to big buyers of Iranian crude oil, including China.
The Trump administration's restored Iran sanctions have
started strong and are likely to become even stronger in the future.
The US Treasury Department's recent announcement that the so-called
"significant reduction waivers," which allowed certain
foreign countries to continue buying Iranian oil in reduced
quantities, were ended and that no new waivers were forthcoming was a
major positive development.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
The Trump administration has expressed concern about
reports that Iranian authorities have made progress in developing a
domestic intranet and firewall system to shield Iran from the global
internet. In a written response to VOA Persian questions, a
State Department spokesperson said its concern centered on new
measures in Iran to create a "so-called National Information
Network" and "repress internet freedom through draconian
surveillance."
A woman jailed in Iran for one year for removing her hijab
in public to protest against the country's Islamic dress code has
been released early, her lawyer said Tuesday. "Vida Movahedi was
summoned by prison authorities on Sunday evening and told that her
sentence had been commuted, and combined with some accumulated
furlough she was free to go," Payam Derafshan told AFP.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran's "absolute power" in its region has
sapped the capacity of arch-enemy the United States to wage war
against it, the commander of its elite Revolutionary Guards said on
Tuesday, according to semi-official Mehr news agency. He was
speaking a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not
seeking regime change in Iran following moves to beef up U.S. forces
in the Middle East, and that a new deal on Iran's nuclear program was
possible.
Iran's influential Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday it
doesn't fear a possible war with the United States and claimed that America
hasn't grown in power in recent years -- the latest tough talk from
Tehran amid escalating regional tensions and a crisis with
Washington. "The enemy is not more powerful than before,"
said the Guard spokesman, Gen. Ramazan Sharif.
Iran said Tuesday there would be no negotiations with
the US anytime soon. "We currently see no prospect of
negotiations with America. Iran pays no attention to words; what
matters to us is a change of approach and behavior," Iranian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, according to
state news agencies. Abbas' comments were a blunt reply to
President Trump's statement on Monday, when he predicted that the Islamic
Republic's mullahs wanted to "make a deal" with him over
their nuclear program.
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton warned Iran's
proxies not to attack U.S. interests, saying any assault on their
patron's behalf would "risk a very strong response."
Bolton, in a briefing with reporters in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, said
the U.S. is "very concerned" that the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps would use allied Shiite militia groups in Iraq to attack
U.S. targets such as the American Embassy in Baghdad. Iran also has
surrogates in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip.
"We're not looking for regime change. I just want
to make that clear. We're looking for no nuclear weapons. ... I'm not
looking to hurt Iran at all," said the US president during a
joint press conference with Japan's prime minister in Tokyo
May 27. Donald Trump expressed some confidence that a deal with
Iran with "tremendous economic potential" was
possible.
The US State Department spokesperson, Morgan Ortagus,
said on Tuesday that the US will maintain a campaign of extreme
pressure on Tehran. Washington is ready for negotiations with Iran
under the condition that the 12 US terms are taken seriously,
Ortagus added. Following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal with
Iran last year, Washington announced a new strategy with 12 terms.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton has said
"naval mines almost certainly from Iran" were to blame for
the damage to oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier this month. Mr Bolton
provided no evidence to support the allegation, which Iran said was
"laughable". The attacks off the eastern coast of the
United Arab Emirates on 12 May left holes in the hulls of four ships.
The incident came amid an escalation in tensions between Iran and the
US.
The United States clinched a strategic port deal with
Oman last week which US officials say will allow the US military
better access the Gulf region and reduce the need to send ships
through the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime choke point off Iran. The US
embassy in Oman said in a statement that the agreement governed U.S.
access to facilities and ports in Duqm as well as in Salalah and
"reaffirms the commitment of both countries to promoting mutual
security goals."
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
While European powers still
claim Iran's regime is in compliance with the nuclear deal,
a new German intelligence report accuses the Islamic
Republic of seeking to build weapons of mass destruction. Fox
News obtained a May 2019 intelligence document from
the state of Bavaria detailing Iran's nefarious weapons
activities in the southern German state during the previous
year.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Last week the Islamic Republic of Iran reached a new low
in its suppression of the press - and almost no one noticed. It's
already widely known that Iran is home to one of the most closed
media landscapes on Earth. As the regime faces mounting domestic and
foreign challenges, however, it's becoming more cavalier than ever in
its attempts to control how news gets covered. In recent months, more
domestic news outlets are closing from a lack of funds. Others have
shut down because they have lost their permission to publish.
Iranian MP Ezatollah Yousefian-Mullah has announced that
he and a number of other MPs have prepared a letter addressed to the
Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The letter requests a
review of the constitution and includes a proposal to form a
parliamentary body called "The Great Assembly." "If
the number of signatures on this letter exceeds 200, we will send it
to the Supreme Leader," said Yousefian-Mullah, to ILNA news
agency. He claimed the letter is "without any political
orientation."
Friday Prayer Imam of the city of Kazeroun, in Fars
province, southern Iran, has been stabbed to death, the town's police
announced on Wednesday, May 29. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps
(IRGC)-run news agency, Fars, cited the provincial deputy police
commander for social affairs, IRGC Colonel Kavous Mohammadi, as
saying, "Hojat ol Eslam (a mid-ranking cleric title) Mohammad
Khorsand was stabbed an hour ago in front of his residence. He was
taken to the city's hospital but died of deep injuries."
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
With tensions mounting in the Middle East, Iranian and
Israeli fighters could be facing off in the near future, much to the
delight of the International Judo Federation, or IJF. After 40 years
of boycotting Israeli athletes, Iran appears to have reversed course.
In a letter to the IJF on May 9, the heads of the Iranian
judo federation and the Olympics committee declared that they would
"fully respect the Olympic Charter and its non-discrimination
principle."
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
President Trump is taking heat for bypassing Congress
and selling billions of dollars in arms to Middle Eastern allies. The
President often undermines his own agenda by reducing American foreign
policy to commercial interests, but in this case he's on firm legal
and strategic ground. On Friday the White House told Congress that it
is declaring an emergency and selling $8 billion in arms to Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Jordan will also receive
precision-guided missiles.
John R. Bolton, President Trump's national security
adviser, on Wednesday accused Iran of playing a key role in recent
attacks on ships off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, the
latest instance in which he has articulated a more hawkish view than
his boss toward Iran. Ratcheting up his criticism of Tehran, Mr.
Bolton tied the attacks this month on four oil vessels at the mouth
of the Persian Gulf to "naval mines almost certainly from
Iran."
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on
Tuesday that his country was ready to engage in dialogue with Gulf
Arab countries in order to address escalating tensions in the
region. Araqchi met Qatar Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin
Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Doha, where the two sides "expressed
their concern about escalations and problems in the region", a
Qatar Foreign Ministry statement said.
Iran is still supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with
ballistic missiles and unmanned aircraft despite warnings of
retaliation by the Arab Coalition, it said on Tuesday. "We have
documented information on the supply of rockets by the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to Yemen's Houthi militias,"
said Arab Coalition spokesman Col Turki Al Malki during a press
conference in Riyadh.
CYBERWARFARE
A network of fake social media accounts impersonated
political candidates and journalists to spread messages in support of
Iran and against U.S. President Donald Trump around the 2018
congressional elections, cybersecurity firm FireEye said on
Tuesday. The findings show how unidentified, possibly
government-backed, groups could manipulate social media platforms to
promote stories and other content that can influence the opinions of
American voters, the researchers said.
Facebook has dropped 51 accounts, 36 pages, and seven
groups after the cybersecurity firm FireEye revealed they were fake
accounts originating in Iran. Three Instagram accounts were also
deactivated. The FireEye report Tuesday says the phony accounts
pretended they came from the United States and impersonated
legitimate Middle Eastern news sources to push a pro-Iranian agenda.
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