Category: iran

  • An independent, bipartisan advisory body has reiterated its call for the U.S. State Department to add Russia to its register of the world’s “worst violators” of religious freedom, a blacklist that already includes Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and six other countries.

    The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), created by Congress to make recommendations about global religious freedom, proposes in its annual report released on April 21 that Russia, India, Syria, and Vietnam be put on the “countries of particular concern” list, a category reserved for those that carry out “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” violations of religious freedoms.

    The blacklisting paves the way for sanctions if the countries included do not improve their records.

    Countries recommended for the State Department’s special watch list, meaning there are still “severe” violations of religious freedom there, include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

    The USCIRF report says that “religious freedom conditions in Russia deteriorated” last year, with the government targeting religious minorities deemed to be “nontraditional” with fines, detentions, and criminal charges.

    A total of 188 criminal cases alone were brought against the banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, while there were 477 searches of members’ homes, with raids and interrogations including “instances of torture that continue to go uninvestigated and unpunished.”

    For decades, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been viewed with suspicion in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin.

    In 2017, Russia outlawed the religious group and labeled it “extremist,” a designation the State Department has called “wrongful.”

    ‘Made-Up Charges’

    Russia’s anti-extremism law was also used to “persecute religious minorities, particularly Muslims,” the report added.

    In Russia’s region of the North Caucasus, “security forces acted with impunity, arresting or kidnapping persons suspected of even tangential links to Islamist militancy as well as for secular political opposition,” it said.

    In occupied Crimea, the enforcement of Russia’s “repressive” laws and policies on religion resulted in the prosecution of peaceful religious activity and bans on groups that were legal in the peninsula under Ukrainian law. At least 16 Crimean Muslims were sentenced to prison terms on “made-up charges of extremism and terrorism,” the report said.

    In Iran, the government escalated its “severe repression”” of religious minorities and continued to “export religious extremism and intolerance abroad,” according to the report, which cites “scores” of Christians being “arrested, assaulted, and unjustly sentenced to years in prison.”

    The government also continued to arrest Baha’is and impose lengthy prison sentences on them, with between 50 and 100 followers of the Baha’i sect reported to be in prisons in Iran during the past year.

    The USCIRF says religious freedom conditions also worsened in Pakistan, with the government “systematically” enforcing blasphemy laws and failing to protect religious minorities from “abuses by nonstate actors.”

    It cites a “sharp rise in targeted killings, blasphemy cases, forced conversions, and hate speech targeting religious minorities” including Ahmadis, Shi’a, Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs.

    Abduction, forced conversion to Islam, rape, and forced marriage “remained an imminent threat for religious minority women and children,” particularly among the Hindu and Christian faiths.

    In Turkmenistan, religious freedom conditions “remained among the worst in the world and showed no signs of improvement,” according to the report.

    The government continued to “treat all independent religious activity with suspicion, maintaining a large surveillance apparatus that monitors believers at home and abroad.”

    “Restrictive state policies have ‘virtually extinguished’ the free practice of religion in the country, where the government appoints Muslim clerics, surveils and dictates religious practice, and punishes nonconformity through imprisonment, torture, and administrative harassment,” the report said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Amnesty International says the use of the death penalty in 2020 was the lowest in at least a decade, though the “unprecedented challenges” of the COVID-19 pandemic were not enough to deter Iran and 17 other countries from carrying out executions last year.

    At least 483 people were known to have been executed globally, a decrease of 26 percent compared with 2019, the London-based human rights watchdog said in its annual global review of the death penalty published on April 21.

    The figure, which showed the fifth consecutive year-on-year decline, does not include countries that classify death penalty data as state secrets or for which limited information is available. Those countries include China, North Korea, Syria, and Vietnam.

    The number of countries known to still use execution decreased by two last year to 18.

    Iran (at least 246), Egypt (at least 107), Iraq (at least 45), and Saudi Arabia (27) accounted for 88 percent of all known executions.

    The number of death sentences known to have been imposed across the world – at least 1,477 – was down by 36 percent compared to 2019.

    “As the world focused on finding ways to protect lives from COVID-19, several governments showed a disturbing determination to resort to the death penalty and execute people no matter what,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard.

    The pandemic “meant that many people on death row were unable to access in-person legal representation, and many of those wanting to provide support had to expose themselves to considerable – yet absolutely avoidable – health risks,” said Callamard, who called the use of the death penalty under these conditions “a particularly egregious assault on human rights.”

    China is believed to execute thousands of people each year, making it the world’s most prolific executioner, Amnesty International said in its report, titled Death Sentences And Executions 2020.

    The group said recorded executions in Iran continued to be lower than previous years, but the country “increasingly used the death penalty as a weapon of political repression against dissidents, protesters and members of ethnic minority groups, in violation of international law.”

    Egypt tripled its yearly execution figure compared to 2019, while recorded executions in Saudi Arabia dropped by 85 percent and more than halved in Iraq.

    The United States was the only country in the Americas to carry out executions in 2020. The administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus and put a “staggering” 10 men to death in less than six months.

    India, Oman, Qatar, and Taiwan also resumed executions.

    Amnesty International recorded decreases in the number of new death sentences imposed in 30 out of 54 countries where death sentences were known to have been imposed.

    In Pakistan, that figure decreased from at least 632 in 2019 to at least 49 last year.

    In 2020, no executions were recorded in Pakistan and five other countries that carried out executions in 2019 – Belarus, Bahrain, Japan, Singapore, and Sudan.

    Chad and the U.S. state of Colorado abolished the death penalty last year, while Kazakhstan committed to abolition under international law and Barbados concluded reforms to repeal the mandatory death penalty.

    As of April 2021, 108 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes and 144 countries have abolished it in law or practice.

    “Despite the continued pursuit of the death penalty by some governments, the overall picture in 2020 was positive,” Callamard said, noting that the continuing decrease of known executions brings the world “closer to consigning the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment to the history books.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran and world powers have made progress in talks to save their 2015 nuclear accord, but “much more hard work” is necessary to rescue the deal, a senior European Union official said on April 20.

    EU envoy Enrique Mora made the statement on Twitter on April 20, adding that talks will resume next week.

    Discussions in Vienna between Iran, China, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, along with the indirect participation of the United States, are being chaired by the European Union.

    “Participants took stock of progress made in the ongoing discussions in Vienna regarding specific measures needed in terms of sanctions lifting and nuclear implementation for the possible return of the U.S. to the JCPOA and its full and effective implementation,” the EU said in a statement, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

    The joint commission overseeing the talks decided to create a third expert group “to start looking into the possible sequencing of respective measures,” the statement added.

    Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to the talks, said on Twitter that the group would seek “practical steps leading to full restoration of the Iranian nuclear deal.”

    Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, said on April 20 that while the talks were moving forward, Tehran would stop the negotiations if faced with “unreasonable demands,” time wasting, or irrational bargaining, according to Iranian state media.

    The talks are aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear accord abandoned by the United States in 2018.

    The EU has been carrying out shuttle diplomacy with U.S. negotiators located in a nearby hotel because Tehran has refused face-to-face talks with Washington.

    The EU statement on April 20 reiterated the participants’ resolve to pursue their joint diplomatic effort and the “continued separate contacts of the coordinator with all participants and the United States.”

    The five world powers and Iran remain parties to the original 2015 accord, which offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limits on the country’s nuclear program. However, since the U.S. withdrew from the deal Iran has consistently breached restrictions imposed under the deal.

    Iran has said it will not return to strict observance of the 2015 agreement unless all sanctions reimposed or added by former President Donald Trump are rescinded first.

    U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has said it is ready to remove “all sanctions that are inconsistent” with the deal, though it has not spelled out which measures it means.

    Separately, the Iranian government said on April 20 that it had launched enrichment of uranium to 60 percent fissile purity in order to show its technical capacity after a sabotage attack at a nuclear plant that Tehran has blamed on Israel. But the escalation of enrichment can be quickly reversible if Washington drops sanctions, the government said.

    Biden has called Iran’s decision to increase uranium enrichment unhelpful but has said the United States is “pleased” that Iran is still participating in indirect talks.

    With reporting by Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Women living in Iranian cities say they face frequent sexual harassment, catcalls, and verbal abuse — and many fear that those incidents mean they’re not safe from violent crimes. Though street harassment is illegal, the law is rarely enforced and few victims are able to prove that a crime has taken place.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The US – with the help of Israel – has been repeatedly waging attacks on the high seas against oil tankers bound for Syria. In recent statements to parliament, Syria’s Prime Minister Hussein Arnous revealed that oil tankers loaded with crude allocated for Syria are being attacked or intercepted on the high seas. The goal is to aggravate the hydrocarbon crisis generated by the economic sanctions and the occupation of over 90% of the territory where Syrian oil wells are located, he detailed.

    Arnous revealed that seven tankers, some of them coming from Iran, were intercepted in the Red Sea and two others were intentionally attacked.  This information was confirmed by the US press when “The Wall Street Journal” reported that Israel attacked at least a dozen ships carrying Iranian oil since the end of 2019. According to unidentified regional and US officials cited by the newspaper, Tel Aviv used water mines and other weapons to sabotage Iranian or other vessels carrying cargo in the Red Sea and other areas in the region. Those actions did not sink any tankers, but forced at least two of them to return to Iranian ports, and delayed the arrival of others in Syria, leading to oil derivatives crises.

    Economic War

    The US-Israel offensive campaign on the high seas is a component of a long-drawn-out economic war against Syria. This war started almost 18 years back. On December 12, 2003, US president George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria unless, among other things, Damascus halted its support for Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups and ceased “develop­ment of weapons of mass destruction.” The sanctions included bans on exports of military equipment and civilian goods that could be used for military purposes (in other words, practically anything). This was reinforced with an additional ban on US exports to Syria other than food and medicine, as well as a prohibition against Syrian aircraft landing in or overflying the United States.

    On top of these sanctions, Bush imposed two more. Under the USA Patriot Act, the US Treasury Department ordered US financial institutions to sever connections with the Commercial Bank of Syria. And under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the US president froze the assets of Syrians involved in supporting policies hostile to the United States, which is to say, supporting Hezbollah and groups fighting for Palestinian self-determination and refusing to accept as valid the territorial gains which Israel had made through its wars of aggression.

    The sanctions devastated Syria. In October 2011, The New York Times reported that the Syrian economy “was buckling under the pressure of sanctions by the West.” By the spring of 2012, sanctions-induced financial hemorrhaging had “forced Syrian officials to stop providing education, health care and other essential services in some parts of the coun­try.” By 2016, “U.S. and E.U. economic sanctions on Syria” were “causing huge suffering among ordinary Syrians and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid, according to a leaked UN internal report.” The report revealed that aid agencies were unable to obtain drugs and equipment for hos­pitals because sanctions prevented foreign firms from con­ducting commerce with Syria.

    In order to strengthen internal opposition to the Syrian gov­ernment, Bush signed the Foreign Operations Appropriation Act in 2005. This act required that a minimum of $6.6 million “be made available for programs supporting” anti-government groups in Syria “as well as unspecified amounts of additional funds.” By 2006, the Bush administration had been quietly nur­turing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian govern­ment in an effort to undermine the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Part of the effort was being run through the National Salvation Front. The Front included the Muslim Brotherhood. Front representatives were accorded at least two meetings at the White House in 2006.

    Another Muslim Brotherhood front organization that received US funding was the Movement for Justice and Development. Founded by for­mer members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the group openly advocated regime change. Washington gave the Islamists money to set up a satellite TV channel to broadcast anti-government news into Syria. Hence, from 2005, the US government was secretly financing Syrian political opposition groups and related projects to topple the Syrian government.

    In 2019, USA introduced the Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act – a sanctions regime aimed at punishing those individuals and corporations assisting Syria in its revival of specific economic sectors. These sectors are:  construction, electricity, and oil. Any company that deals with the Syrian government in any reconstruction effort will be sanctioned by the US Treasury Department and prohibited from accessing the US banking system- a virtual economic death sentence.

    Since the law came into force on 17 June, 2021, the suffering of Syrians has greatly increased. Those who are close to starvation rose to 12.4 million, or 60% of the population, according to the UN. Already, more than half a million children under the age of five are suffering from stunting as the result of chronic malnutrition. As the Syrian currency collapsed and prices rose by 230% in 2020, Syrian families could no longer afford to buy basic foodstuffs such as bread, rice, lentils, oil and sugar.

    Aborting Reconstruction

    After former president Donald Trump’s incomplete withdrawal from Syria in October 2019, the American agenda altered from fighting ISIS to “protecting” Syrian oil fields. Syrian oil and gas reserves and the infrastructure needed to exploit them are mostly located on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in the Deir Ez-Zur and Hasakeh Governorates, although some oil wells are located elsewhere in the occupied Jazira region.

    American corporations and contractors, keen to exploit Syria’s oil wealth, have infiltrated the area in an effort to plunder Syria while undermining government efforts to raise revenue for reconstruction. Only a handful of oil wells and gas fields remain in the hands of the central government. By occupying Syrian territory, US forces and their European allies hope to starve the Syrian government of desperately needed revenue as a means of subverting reconstruction efforts. While pre-war Syria was a modest oil exporter compared to its neighbors, Syrian oil reserves easily met domestic demand while accounting for nearly 20% of the state’s annual budget revenues between 2005 and 2010.

    In addition to the illegal occupation of Syria’s sovereign territories, American troops maintain a garrison at the border outpost of Al-Tanf in the Homs Governorate. This isolated piece of land extends beyond the reaches of Al-Tanf into the surrounding desert on the Syrian side of the border, spanning a total area of 55 kilometers. The value of the area lies in its proximity to the main highway linking Damascus to Baghdad. The American presence at Al-Tanf has closed this highway for most trade and traffic between the two countries. Before the outbreak of the war in 2011, Syria’s trade with Iraq alone was valued at $3 billion. The loss of the Al-Walid border crossing located inside the town thus represented a devastating blow to the Syrian efforts at economic reconstruction.

    The Syrian government has on several occasions asked the US to withdraw from this area, although these requests have been ignored. In response, Syrian government troops have periodically tried to move into the Al-Tanf occupied zone as a means of persuading the squatters to pack up and leave. In one instance in May 2017, American fighter jets retorted to these maneuvers with a barrage of airstrikes; dozens of Syrian soldiers were killed. The Syrian government condemned the attack, while Russia’s deputy foreign ministry slammed the action as a “completely unacceptable breach of Syrian sovereignty”.

    No End in Sight

    The US has not only occupied Syrian territories that are rich in oil – thus foreclosing the state from using oil revenues to rebuild its war-torn land – but has also seized regions that grow great fields of wheat, preventing the Assad administration from accessing harvests to feed bread to its population. There seems to be no end in sight to this brutal strangulation of Syria. The involvement of external powers in the country has produced a complex scenario marked by competing and conflicting interests.

    The US, reflecting its “revolving door”  approach to al-Qaeda, has been unclear whether it wants the jihadist group to dominate the landscape in Syria but it has also been unwilling to be on the sidelines of the war. Israel wants Assad to be hit hard in order to hurt Iran and Hezbollah, its adversaries. On the other hand, it does not want Assad’s regime to be fatally wounded since this could possibly bring an al-Qaeda group to power in Damascus. Such an outcome is too dangerous. The West and Israel have been content to see Syria bleed and weaken. No outcome is desirable to them.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The US – with the help of Israel – has been repeatedly waging attacks on the high seas against oil tankers bound for Syria. In recent statements to parliament, Syria’s Prime Minister Hussein Arnous revealed that oil tankers loaded with crude allocated for Syria are being attacked or intercepted on the high seas. The goal is to aggravate the hydrocarbon crisis generated by the economic sanctions and the occupation of over 90% of the territory where Syrian oil wells are located, he detailed.

    Arnous revealed that seven tankers, some of them coming from Iran, were intercepted in the Red Sea and two others were intentionally attacked.  This information was confirmed by the US press when “The Wall Street Journal” reported that Israel attacked at least a dozen ships carrying Iranian oil since the end of 2019. According to unidentified regional and US officials cited by the newspaper, Tel Aviv used water mines and other weapons to sabotage Iranian or other vessels carrying cargo in the Red Sea and other areas in the region. Those actions did not sink any tankers, but forced at least two of them to return to Iranian ports, and delayed the arrival of others in Syria, leading to oil derivatives crises.

    Economic War

    The US-Israel offensive campaign on the high seas is a component of a long-drawn-out economic war against Syria. This war started almost 18 years back. On December 12, 2003, US president George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria unless, among other things, Damascus halted its support for Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups and ceased “develop­ment of weapons of mass destruction.” The sanctions included bans on exports of military equipment and civilian goods that could be used for military purposes (in other words, practically anything). This was reinforced with an additional ban on US exports to Syria other than food and medicine, as well as a prohibition against Syrian aircraft landing in or overflying the United States.

    On top of these sanctions, Bush imposed two more. Under the USA Patriot Act, the US Treasury Department ordered US financial institutions to sever connections with the Commercial Bank of Syria. And under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the US president froze the assets of Syrians involved in supporting policies hostile to the United States, which is to say, supporting Hezbollah and groups fighting for Palestinian self-determination and refusing to accept as valid the territorial gains which Israel had made through its wars of aggression.

    The sanctions devastated Syria. In October 2011, The New York Times reported that the Syrian economy “was buckling under the pressure of sanctions by the West.” By the spring of 2012, sanctions-induced financial hemorrhaging had “forced Syrian officials to stop providing education, health care and other essential services in some parts of the coun­try.” By 2016, “U.S. and E.U. economic sanctions on Syria” were “causing huge suffering among ordinary Syrians and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid, according to a leaked UN internal report.” The report revealed that aid agencies were unable to obtain drugs and equipment for hos­pitals because sanctions prevented foreign firms from con­ducting commerce with Syria.

    In order to strengthen internal opposition to the Syrian gov­ernment, Bush signed the Foreign Operations Appropriation Act in 2005. This act required that a minimum of $6.6 million “be made available for programs supporting” anti-government groups in Syria “as well as unspecified amounts of additional funds.” By 2006, the Bush administration had been quietly nur­turing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian govern­ment in an effort to undermine the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Part of the effort was being run through the National Salvation Front. The Front included the Muslim Brotherhood. Front representatives were accorded at least two meetings at the White House in 2006.

    Another Muslim Brotherhood front organization that received US funding was the Movement for Justice and Development. Founded by for­mer members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the group openly advocated regime change. Washington gave the Islamists money to set up a satellite TV channel to broadcast anti-government news into Syria. Hence, from 2005, the US government was secretly financing Syrian political opposition groups and related projects to topple the Syrian government.

    In 2019, USA introduced the Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act – a sanctions regime aimed at punishing those individuals and corporations assisting Syria in its revival of specific economic sectors. These sectors are:  construction, electricity, and oil. Any company that deals with the Syrian government in any reconstruction effort will be sanctioned by the US Treasury Department and prohibited from accessing the US banking system- a virtual economic death sentence.

    Since the law came into force on 17 June, 2021, the suffering of Syrians has greatly increased. Those who are close to starvation rose to 12.4 million, or 60% of the population, according to the UN. Already, more than half a million children under the age of five are suffering from stunting as the result of chronic malnutrition. As the Syrian currency collapsed and prices rose by 230% in 2020, Syrian families could no longer afford to buy basic foodstuffs such as bread, rice, lentils, oil and sugar.

    Aborting Reconstruction

    After former president Donald Trump’s incomplete withdrawal from Syria in October 2019, the American agenda altered from fighting ISIS to “protecting” Syrian oil fields. Syrian oil and gas reserves and the infrastructure needed to exploit them are mostly located on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in the Deir Ez-Zur and Hasakeh Governorates, although some oil wells are located elsewhere in the occupied Jazira region.

    American corporations and contractors, keen to exploit Syria’s oil wealth, have infiltrated the area in an effort to plunder Syria while undermining government efforts to raise revenue for reconstruction. Only a handful of oil wells and gas fields remain in the hands of the central government. By occupying Syrian territory, US forces and their European allies hope to starve the Syrian government of desperately needed revenue as a means of subverting reconstruction efforts. While pre-war Syria was a modest oil exporter compared to its neighbors, Syrian oil reserves easily met domestic demand while accounting for nearly 20% of the state’s annual budget revenues between 2005 and 2010.

    In addition to the illegal occupation of Syria’s sovereign territories, American troops maintain a garrison at the border outpost of Al-Tanf in the Homs Governorate. This isolated piece of land extends beyond the reaches of Al-Tanf into the surrounding desert on the Syrian side of the border, spanning a total area of 55 kilometers. The value of the area lies in its proximity to the main highway linking Damascus to Baghdad. The American presence at Al-Tanf has closed this highway for most trade and traffic between the two countries. Before the outbreak of the war in 2011, Syria’s trade with Iraq alone was valued at $3 billion. The loss of the Al-Walid border crossing located inside the town thus represented a devastating blow to the Syrian efforts at economic reconstruction.

    The Syrian government has on several occasions asked the US to withdraw from this area, although these requests have been ignored. In response, Syrian government troops have periodically tried to move into the Al-Tanf occupied zone as a means of persuading the squatters to pack up and leave. In one instance in May 2017, American fighter jets retorted to these maneuvers with a barrage of airstrikes; dozens of Syrian soldiers were killed. The Syrian government condemned the attack, while Russia’s deputy foreign ministry slammed the action as a “completely unacceptable breach of Syrian sovereignty”.

    No End in Sight

    The US has not only occupied Syrian territories that are rich in oil – thus foreclosing the state from using oil revenues to rebuild its war-torn land – but has also seized regions that grow great fields of wheat, preventing the Assad administration from accessing harvests to feed bread to its population. There seems to be no end in sight to this brutal strangulation of Syria. The involvement of external powers in the country has produced a complex scenario marked by competing and conflicting interests.

    The US, reflecting its “revolving door”  approach to al-Qaeda, has been unclear whether it wants the jihadist group to dominate the landscape in Syria but it has also been unwilling to be on the sidelines of the war. Israel wants Assad to be hit hard in order to hurt Iran and Hezbollah, its adversaries. On the other hand, it does not want Assad’s regime to be fatally wounded since this could possibly bring an al-Qaeda group to power in Damascus. Such an outcome is too dangerous. The West and Israel have been content to see Syria bleed and weaken. No outcome is desirable to them.

    The post Tightening the Noose around Syria first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A high-ranking general responsible for Iran’s regional military activities and an architect of its repressive internal security apparatus has died.

    Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced on April 18 that Brigadier-General Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi died of heart disease at the age of 65. The statement provided no further details about his death.

    Hejazi served as deputy commander of the IRGC’s Quds force, an elite unit leading Iran’s external operations in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

    Hejazi was appointed deputy commander of the Quds force in January 2020 after leading the IRGC’s activities in Lebanon, where Iran backs its Shiite ally Hizballah.

    A statement from the IRGC said he was also active fighting against the so-called Islamic State and “Takfiri terrorists,” meaning he played a role in Iraq and Syria.

    Born in 1956 in the city of Isfahan, Hejazi joined the IRGC after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was involved in suppressing a Kurdish uprising and then held various command positions during the Iran-Iraq war.

    In one of his most prominent positions, the ultra-hardliner led IRGC’s paramilitary Basij force from 1998 for almost nine years. During this time, he helped turn the omnipresent domestic security force and its affiliated vigilante organizations into a tool to crack down on dissent and reformist politicians.

    With reporting by AP and Tasnim

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Talks on Iran’s contentious nuclear program have reportedly made progress, despite Tehran’s announcement that it was increasing uranium-enrichment levels closer to weapons-grade levels.

    The April 17 discussions, the second round of talks aimed at salvaging the Iran nuclear accord abandoned by the United States in 2018, were held in Vienna without the presence of a U.S. delegation because Tehran has refused face-to-face talks with Washington.

    The talks were chaired by the European Union, which carried out shuttle diplomacy with U.S. negotiators located in a nearby hotel.

    China, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, and Iran remain parties to the accord, which offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limits on the country’s nuclear program. However, since the U.S. withdrawal from the deal, Iran has consistently breached restrictions imposed under the 2015 deal.

    “Progress has been made in a far-from-easy task. We need now more detailed work,” European Union envoy Enrique Mora said after the April 17 talks.

    Chinese envoy Wang Qun said that “all parties have agreed to further pick up their pace in subsequent days by engaging [in] more extensive, substantive work on sanctions-lifting, as well as other relevant issues.”

    The talks have been complicated by Iran’s recent announcement that it was enriching uranium to 60 percent, up from the 20 percent it had achieved previously.

    The announcement came after an attack on its Natanz nuclear facility, which Tehran blamed on Israel.

    U.S. President Joe Biden has called Iran’s decision to increase uranium enrichment unhelpful, but has said the United States is “pleased” that Iran is still participating in indirect talks with Washington aimed at getting both countries back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

    Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iranian state television has identified a suspect in an April 11 attack on the Natanz nuclear site that damaged centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

    The television report on April 17 said the suspect was Reza Karimi, a 43-year-old native of Kashan, Iran. The report did not explain how Karimi might have gained access to Natanz, one of the country’s most secure sites.

    Karimi has reportedly left Iran, and state television said Tehran was seeking his return through legal channels.

    AP reported that Interpol did not respond to a query as to whether a “red notice” had been issued for Karimi.

    Tehran blamed Israel for the incident and has vowed “revenge.”

    Israel has not confirmed any role in the incident and generally does not comment on clandestine operations, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has described Iran as the greatest threat facing his country.

    Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. President Joe Biden has called Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 60 percent purity unhelpful but said the United States is “pleased” that Iran is still participating in indirect talks with Washington aimed at getting both countries back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

    “We do not support and do not think it’s at all helpful that Iran is saying it’s going to move to enrich to 60 percent,” Biden told reporters at the White House during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

    “We are, though, nonetheless pleased that Iran has continued to agree to engage in discussions — indirect discussions — with us and with our partners on how we move forward and what is needed to allow us to move back into the [nuclear deal]…without us making concessions that we are just not willing to make,” Biden added.

    Asked if Iran’s move was a sign that Tehran is not serious about returning to the nuclear deal, Biden said: “The discussions are under way. I think it’s premature to make a judgment as to what the outcome will be. But we are still talking.”

    Iran announced earlier that it had begun enriching uranium to 60 percent, higher than it has ever done before and a step closer to the 90 percent that is weapons grade.

    Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on state television that the centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear site were now producing 9 grams at 60 percent purity an hour, adding: “Any enrichment level that we desire is in our reach at the moment and we can do it at any time we want.”

    Iran announced on April 13 that it planned to start enriching uranium at up to 60 percent purity in reaction to an alleged attack on the Natanz nuclear site two days earlier that they have blamed on Israel.

    Tehran has repeatedly denied it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear ambitions are purely for civilian purposes.

    Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran committed to keep enrichment to 3.67 percent. Recently it has been enriching up to 20 percent, saying the deal was no longer enforceable.

    Iran and global powers have been meeting in Vienna to try to rescue the nuclear deal, which former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from in 2018.

    The talks will carry on for several more days before breaking so that Iranian and U.S. officials can return home for consultations, a European Union official said on April 16.

    Iran’s decision to go up to 60 percent enrichment “is not making the negotiation easier,” the EU official told reporters, calling an explosion that occurred at the Natanz site “deliberate sabotage.”

    Few details have emerged about the April 11 attack.

    Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement, but multiple Israeli media outlets quoted unnamed intelligence sources as saying that the country’s Mossad spy service carried out a successful sabotage operation at the Natanz site.

    Israel plans to hold a meeting of its top security officials on April 18 over the Iranian announcement on enrichment.

    With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iranian officials say the country has begun enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, higher than it has ever done before, despite ongoing talks between Tehran and world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

    State television quoted parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf as saying that Iranian scientists had successfully started enriching 60 percent uranium after midnight local time on April 16.

    His comments were backed up by Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization, who was quoted by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency as saying that “the enrichment of uranium to 60 percent is under way” at the Natanz nuclear site.

    The move raises the stakes as Iran negotiates with world powers in Vienna over a way to bring Washington and Tehran into full compliance with the 2015 agreement, abandoned by the United States under former President Donald Trump three years ago.

    Iran announced on April 13 that it planned to start enriching uranium at up to 60 percent purity in reaction to an alleged attack on the Natanz nuclear site two days before that they have blamed on archenemy Israel.

    The UN’s nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran was preparing to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity at an aboveground facility at the site.

    Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran had committed to keep enrichment to 3.67 percent. Recently it has been enriching up to 20 percent, saying the deal was no longer enforceable.

    While enriching uranium to 60 percent would be the highest level achieved by Iran’s nuclear program, it is still short of the 90 percent purity needed for military use. Tehran has repeatedly denied it is seeking nuclear weapons and that its nuclear ambitions are purely for civilian purposes.

    Iran and other parties to the accord — Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia — last week launched what has been described as “constructive” talks aimed at reviving the nuclear agreement, with European countries working as intermediaries between Washington and Tehran.

    After more talks in Vienna on April 15, diplomats said two working groups would continue discussions and refine details on how to lift U.S. sanctions and bring Iran back into compliance with restrictions on its nuclear program.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late on April 14 that Tehran’s “provocative” announcement on enrichment “calls into question Iran’s seriousness with regard the nuclear talks.”

    Britain, France, and Germany have expressed “grave concern” over Tehran’s “dangerous” announcement, saying it was “contrary to the constructive spirit and good faith” of ongoing efforts to revive the 2015 pact.

    Few details have emerged about the alleged April 11 sabotage, which Iranian officials said knocked out power at the enrichment plant in central Iran.

    Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement but multiple Israeli media outlets quoted unnamed intelligence sources as saying that the country’s Mossad spy service carried out a successful sabotage operation at the Natanz site.

    Lawmaker Alireza Zakani, who heads the research center of Iran’s parliament, said in an interview that “several thousand centrifuges were damaged and destroyed.” Other officials said that only first-generation machines had been affected.

    Citing two intelligence sources, The New York Times has reported that production at Natanz could be set back by at least nine months due to the attack.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • It was clear from the outset: Returning to the Iran Nuclear Deal was not a matter of nuclear technicalities or diplomatic savvy. It was and remains primarily a matter of political will and political capital. 

    Though all eyes will be on the start of formal talks in Vienna this week, the real test will take place in Washington D.C. where President Joe Biden must muster the political will to tear down the “sanctions wall” his predecessor put in place for the sole purpose of preventing an American return to the nuclear agreement, lest the talks in Vienna will be for naught. 

    With only two months left until the Iranian elections, Washington and Tehran find themselves in agreement on at least one issue: There is no time for a lengthy negotiation on how the two can return to full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the JCPOA).

    The post For JCPOA Re-entry, Biden Must Tear Down This Sanctions Wall appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Iran’s ambassador to Moscow says Tehran has signed a contract with Russia to purchase 60 million doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.

    Kazem Jalali told the state-run IRNA news agency on April 15 that the deal with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is responsible for marketing the vaccine abroad, would provide enough shots to fully vaccinate 30 million people.

    Jalali said 60 million doses would be sent to Iran between June and December.

    He added that so far two Iranian companies have signed a contract with Russia for the joint production of vaccines in Iran.

    Sputnik V, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, overcame international skepticism in February after peer-reviewed results published in the medical journal The Lancet showed it to be safe and 91.6 percent effective against COVID-19. Sputnik V is a vector vaccine based on the human adenovirus, which causes the common cold.

    Iran is struggling to stem a new wave of COVID-19 infections, with the coronavirus killing one person every four minutes in the country, state TV reported on April 15. The country of 83 million people has recorded a total of 65,680 coronavirus-related deaths and more than 2.1 million infections since the pandemic began.

    Authorities imposed a 10-day lockdown on April 10 across most of the country to curb the spread of a fourth wave of the coronavirus, triggered in part by people ignoring health protocols during a two-week public holiday for Norouz, the Persian New Year.

    In some cities, hospitals are inundated with the sick and running out of beds.

    Businesses, restaurants, schools, and other public institutions have been forced to shut and gatherings are banned during the holy month of Ramadan.

    Iran is testing a homemade vaccine that may be ready for distribution in the spring. The country has also began working on a joint vaccine with Cuba. It is also planning to import some 17 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine under COVAX, an international collaboration to deliver the vaccine equitably across the world. COVAX delivered its first shipment of 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses this week.

    With reporting by AP, IRNA, and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Denmark’s public prosecutor has charged three members of an Iranian Arab opposition group with financing and supporting terrorist activity in Iran and aiding Saudi intelligence services.

    “This is a very serious case, where people in Denmark have carried out illegal intelligence activities and financed and promoted terrorism from Denmark in other countries,” Lise-Lotte Nilas, a Copenhagen prosecutor, said in a statement on April 15.

    “Of course, this cannot take place on Danish soil, and therefore I am satisfied that we can now bring charges in the case.”

    The three members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) were arrested in February 2020 and have been in custody since.

    At the time of their detention, Danish officials said the three “collected information about individuals in Denmark and abroad and passed on this information to a Saudi intelligence service,” among other things.

    The prosecutor said the case was linked to a 2018 police operation over an alleged Iranian plot to kill one or more opponents of the Iranian government.

    They said it was also connected with a criminal case that is currently pending against a Norwegian citizen of Iranian origin who is charged with having helped the Iranian intelligence service plan the murder in Denmark of one of the three.

    A jury trial will start on April 29 for the three and be held at the Roskilde district court, the statement said.

    The defendants face prison sentences of up to 12 years if convicted.

    ASMLA, which has an armed branch and seeks a separate state for ethnic Arabs in Iran’s oil-producing southwestern province of Khuzestan, was accused by Tehran as being behind a deadly 2018 terror attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz that left at least 25 dead, including civilians.

    With reporting by Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal are set to resume in Vienna amid renewed tensions as Tehran prepares to ramp up uranium enrichment following an alleged sabotage attack on the country’s main nuclear site.

    Iran and other parties to the 2015 agreement -– Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia — last week launched what has been described as “constructive” talks to bring Washington and Tehran into full compliance with the accord.

    But on April 13, Iran announced it would start enriching uranium at up to 60 percent purity, higher than it has ever done before, casting a shadow on the negotiations at which European countries have worked as intermediaries between Washington and Tehran.

    Iranian officials say the move comes in reaction to an alleged attack on the Natanz nuclear site two days earlier that they have blamed on archenemy Israel.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tehran’s “provocative” announcement on enrichment “calls into question Iran’s seriousness with regard the nuclear talks.”

    Britain, France, and Germany expressed “grave concern” over Tehran’s “dangerous” announcement, saying it was “contrary to the constructive spirit and good faith” of ongoing efforts to revive the 2015 pact.

    Under the deal, abandoned by the United States under former President Donald Trump, Iran had committed to keep enrichment to 3.67 percent. Recently it has been enriching up to 20 percent, saying the deal was no longer enforceable.

    While enriching uranium to 60 percent would be the highest level achieved by Iran’s nuclear program, it is still short of the 90 percent purity needed for military use. Tehran has repeatedly denied it is seeking nuclear weapons and that its nuclear ambitions are purely for civilian purposes.

    Few details have emerged about the April 11 alleged sabotage attack, which Iranian officials said knocked out power at the enrichment plant in central Iran.

    Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement but multiple Israeli media outlets quoted unnamed intelligence sources as saying that the country’s Mossad spy service carried out a successful sabotage operation at the Natanz site.

    Lawmaker Alireza Zakani, who heads the research center of Iran’s hard-line parliament, said in an interview that “several thousand centrifuges were damaged and destroyed.” Other officials said that only first-generation machines had been affected.

    Citing two intelligence sources, The New York Times has reported that production at Natanz could be set back by at least nine months due to the attack.

    Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, have visited the site but have not commented on the extent of the damage caused by the alleged attack.

    However, the IAEA did say that Iran had “almost completed preparations” to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity.

    The 2015 nuclear deal lifted international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. But the Trump administration imposed a raft of sanctions under a “maximum pressure” campaign after it withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018.

    Iran responded by gradually breaching many of the nuclear restrictions, saying the deal no longer applied.

    U.S. and Iranian officials have publicly clashed over the sequencing of possible U.S. sanctions relief and Iran reversing its breaches of the deal.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on April 15 said the Natanz attack had unleashed a “dangerous spiral” and warned Biden the situation could only be contained by lifting the sanctions Trump imposed.

    “No alternative. Not much time,” he wrote on Twitter.

    Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group think tank, said that events of the past few days had “added urgency” to the talks.

    “It is clear that the more the diplomatic process drags on, the higher the risk that it gets derailed by saboteurs and those acting in bad faith,” he added.

    Eric Brewer, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFE/RL that “enriching to 60 percent is a significant Iranian step and will further shorten Iran’s breakout timeline.”

    However, the Iranian move was “unlikely to have the intended effect of forcing the U.S. to accept Iran’s demands,” said Brewer, who served as a deputy national intelligence officer and was responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear program.

    With reporting by AFP, dpa, and RFE/RL’s Radio Farda

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • An alleged act of sabotage against a key Iranian nuclear site appears to have complicated newly launched negotiations aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.

    Two days after the attack — which Iran has blamed on Israel –Tehran announced it will start enriching uranium at 60 percent purity, higher than it has ever done before.

    Iranian President Hassan Rohani said on April 14 that the decision to sharply boost the enrichment was a reaction to the alleged attack at the secretive underground facility in central Iran.

    “Enabling IR-6 [centrifuges] at Natanz today, or bringing enrichment to 60 percent, this is the response to your evilness,” Rohani, apparently alluding to Israel, said at a cabinet meeting. “What you did was nuclear terrorism. What we do is legal.”

    Iranian authorities have called the damaging attack on Natanz an act of “nuclear terrorism,” suggesting it was aimed at undermining recently launched, indirect negotiations between Tehran and Washington held to try to find a way for the United States to rejoin the deal it left in 2018 in exchange for Iran strictly adhering to the agreement.

    “You wanted to leave our hands empty during the talks but our hands are full,” Rohani said, suggesting that Tehran was attempting to gain leverage in the talks in Vienna, which are due to resume later this week.

    Tehran’s decision to enrich uranium at unprecedented levels was announced two days after the April 11 incident at Natanz. Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Kazem Gharibabadi, said on April 14 that 60 percent enrichment would begin next week.

    Under the nuclear deal agreed between six world power and Iran, Tehran is allowed to enrich uranium at 3.67 percent. Nuclear enrichment of 90 percent purity is needed to produce a nuclear bomb.

    Tehran began enriching uranium to 20 percent in January after parliament passed a law requiring the government to boost enrichment levels. The bill was adopted following the November assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh amid suspicions that Israel was behind the killing near Tehran.

    Analysts have warned that the incident at Natanz — which involved a carefully timed disruption of the site’s power — was likely to make it more difficult for Iranian negotiators to compromise in the nuclear talks, at which European countries have worked as intermediaries between Tehran and Washington.

    “Domestic politics in Iran were already making compromise hard, this is just going to pour gasoline on that problem,” Eric Brewer, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFE/RL. “Enriching to 60 percent is a significant Iranian step and will further shorten Iran’s breakout timeline,” said Brewer, who served as a deputy national intelligence officer and was responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear program.

    He added that the move was “unlikely to have the intended effect of forcing the U.S. to accept Iran’s demands.”

    A satellite image shows the Natanz uranium enrichment facility on April 12.


    A satellite image shows the Natanz uranium enrichment facility on April 12.

    Who Profits?

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said sabotaging Natanz was “a very bad gamble” that he claimed would strengthen Tehran’s hand in the nuclear talks. He also said Tehran will retaliate if it determines that Israel was behind the sabotage. “The Zionists want to take revenge for our progress on the way to lift cruel sanctions,” Zarif said earlier in the week, adding that “we will not fall into their trap.”

    The extent of the damage to the underground nuclear site is not clear. Citing two intelligence sources, The New York Times reported that production at Natanz could be set back for at least nine months due to the attack, which reportedly caused fires.

    Lawmaker Alireza Zakani, who heads the research center of Iran’s hard-line parliament, said in an interview that “several thousand centrifuges were damaged and destroyed.”

    Israel has neither denied nor confirmed a role in the attack. Unnamed intelligence sources have told Israeli media that Mossad was responsible for the sabotage.

    The White House has denied that the United States had any involvement in the incident while declining to comment on whether the major power outage might undermine efforts to restore the nuclear accord.

    ‘Not A Small Signal’

    Brewer said the attack at Natanz signals to Iran that “its adversaries can still ‘reach out and touch’ its nuclear program whenever they feel like it.”

    “After years of attacks against Iranian facilities and scientists and efforts Iran has taken to prevent them, [that attack is] not a small signal,” he said, adding that more events, “deliberate and otherwise,” are expected that could test the talks.

    “For diplomacy to work we have to weather those events, and we’ve done so before. But that’s a lot harder right now given that we’re probably a ways off from a deal and there’s a lack of trust,” he added.

    Damage is seen to a building after a fire broke out at the Natanz facility in July 2020.


    Damage is seen to a building after a fire broke out at the Natanz facility in July 2020.

    Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, said the attack at Natanz appeared to be “a win-win scenario for Israel.”

    “If Iran doesn’t retaliate out of fear of derailing nuclear diplomacy, it grants Israel a cost-free but devastating blow to Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran retaliates, then it risks derailing nuclear diplomacy, which is in line with Israel’s objectives,” he told RFE/RL.

    Complicating Talks

    Dalia Kassa Kaye, a fellow at the Wilson Center and the former director of the Rand Center for the Middle East, believes undermining diplomacy was not the only aim of the attack at Natanz, which was also targeted in July in an act of sabotage that was also blamed on Israel as part of shadow efforts undermining Iran’s nuclear program, which Israeli officials see as an existential threat.

    “But such incidents certainly complicate diplomacy for the [administration of President Joe Biden] and are only likely to further erode trust between the United States and Iran,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine the administration welcomed this action in the midst of this particularly sensitive time in nuclear diplomacy.”

    The incident resulted in a call by Iran’s Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, for Rohani’s government to leave the Vienna talks that the news outlet said were taking place “under the shadow of terror.” Tasnim suggested the Natanz attack must have been coordinated with the United States.

    Lawmaker Mojtaba Zolnur, who heads the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, called on Rohani not to trust Washington, saying Israel’s “involvement” in the incident did not clear the United States, which he claimed had been working “to inflict more severe blows” on Tehran.

    But Reza Noroozpur, the head of the official IRNA state news agency, warned against halting the negotiations, saying it was “the demand of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.” He added that Tehran should follow the policy of “strategic patience” and retaliate at an appropriate time.

    U.S. President Donald Trump exited the landmark agreement in May 2018 while reimposing crippling economic sanctions at the same time. Tehran reacted by gradually decreasing its commitments under the deal.

    The Biden administration has expressed its readiness to rejoin the nuclear deal — also co-signed by Germany, France, Russia, Britain, and China — if Tehran returns to full compliance with the agreement.

    Washington said last week it would be prepared to lift sanctions that are inconsistent with the nuclear agreement.

    But Tehran has called for the removal of all sanctions in refusing any direct talks with Washington, saying that it is no longer a party to the agreement.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran says it will start producing uranium enriched to 60 percent purity by next week following an alleged attack on the country’s main Natanz nuclear site that Tehran has blamed on archenemy Israel.

    Iran’s envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), tweeted on April 14 that the country will use two cascades of advanced IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges in Natanz to enrich uranium hexafluoride up to 60 percent.

    Enriching uranium to 60 percent would be the highest level achieved by Iran’s nuclear program, although it is still short of the 90 percent purity needed for military use. Tehran has repeatedly denied it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear ambitions are purely civilian.

    “The modification of the process just started and we expect to accumulate the product next week,” Kazem Gharibabadi wrote.

    Iran had flagged the move a day earlier when it announced it would enrich uranium to its highest level ever, with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif saying the alleged attack on the nuclear site south of Tehran was a “very bad gamble” that would strengthen Tehran’s hand in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

    Under the agreement, Iran had committed to keep enrichment to 3.67 percent. Recently, it has been enriching up to 20 percent, saying the deal was no longer enforceable.

    The White House has said it remains committed to talks with Iran despite Tehran’s “provocative” statement that it will ramp up uranium enrichment.

    In a message aimed at Israel, Iran’s President Hassan Rohani said during a cabinet meeting on April 14: “You wanted to make our hands empty during the talks, but our hands are full.”

    “We cut both of your hands, one with IR-6 centrifuges and another one with 60 percent,” he added.

    IR-6 centrifuges enrich uranium at a far faster rate than the IR-1 first-generation centrifuges that were taken out in the suspected sabotage attack.

    On April 13, the IAEA’s director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, confirmed that Iran had informed the agency that the country “intends to start producing UF6 enriched up to 60 percent.”

    The White House is “certainly concerned about these provocative announcements,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “We believe that the diplomatic path is the only path forward here and that having a discussion, even indirect, is the best way to come to a resolution.”

    Few details have emerged about the April 11 alleged attack; no images of the aftermath have been released.

    Iranian officials have said an explosion caused a power failure at Natanz that affected Iran’s first generation of centrifuges, and vowed it would take “revenge” and ramp up its nuclear activities.

    In a state television interview, Alireza Zakani, head of the Iranian parliament’s research center, referred to “several thousand centrifuges damaged and destroyed.”

    While no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Israel is widely believed to have carried out the still-unexplained assault, which came a day after new uranium-enrichment equipment was unveiled at Natanz, an underground site key to Iran’s uranium-enrichment program that is monitored by IAEA inspectors.

    It also occurred amid diplomatic efforts to revive the nuclear agreement, abandoned by the United States under former President Donald Trump, and which Israel fiercely opposes.

    “Israel played a very bad gamble if it thought that the attack will weaken Iran’s hand in the nuclear talks,” Zarif said on April 13. “On the contrary, it will strengthen our position.”

    Last week in Vienna, Iran and the global powers held what they described as constructive EU-hosted talks centering on overcoming an impasse between Washington and Tehran to bring both parties into full compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord.

    Further discussions are scheduled in the Austrian capital on April 14.

    The pact lifted international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear program. But the Trump administration imposed a raft of sanctions on Tehran under a “maximum pressure” campaign after it withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018.

    Iran responded by gradually breaching many of the nuclear restrictions.

    U.S. and Iranian officials have publicly clashed over the sequencing of possible U.S. sanctions relief and Iran reversing its breaches of the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

    Multiple Israeli media outlets quoted unnamed intelligence sources as saying that the country’s Mossad spy service carried out a successful sabotage operation at the Natanz site, potentially setting back enrichment work there by months.

    Israel is suspected of carrying out sabotage against Iran in the past, including cyberattacks and assassinations of nuclear scientists.

    With reporting by AP and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran’s Natanz nuclear site suffered a blackout in a suspected act of sabotage committed by Israel, an incident that could overshadow diplomatic efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), called the April 11 blackout an act of “nuclear terrorism” and urged the international community to stand up against the threat.

    He did not mention who may have been behind the alleged sabotage or what caused it, but said Iran “reserves the right to take action against the perpetrators.”

    “To thwart the goals of those who commanded this terrorist act…Iran will continue to improve its nuclear technology on the one hand and to lift oppressive U.S. sanctions on the other hand,” Salehi said.

    Israel’s Kan public radio cited intelligence sources who said Israel’s Mossad spy agency had carried out a cyber-attack.

    But The New York Times, citing American and Israeli intelligence officials, reported Israel had a role in what it described as a “large explosion” that destroyed an internal power system that supplies underground centrifuges that enrich uranium. The blackout occurred a day after Tehran launched new advanced centrifuges with the potential to accelerate uranium enrichment.

    The intelligence officials said the damage to the power system was enough to knock out Natanz’s uranium enrichment for at least nine months.

    The underground Natanz site is key to Iran’s uranium enrichment program and monitored by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.

    Israel, Iran’s archenemy, is suspected of carrying out sabotage against Iran in the past, including cyber-attacks and assassinations of nuclear scientists. Last year, a fire broke out at an aboveground part of the Natanz nuclear facility, which Iran said was an attempt to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. Then in November, Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in an attack on his car near Tehran. Iran blamed Israel for the assassination.

    Israel generally does comment on clandestine operations, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has described Iran as the greatest threat facing his country.

    The latest development comes as Israel is intensifying a long-running shadow war against Iran, ranging from upping airstrikes on Iran-aligned forces in Syria to a suspected mine attack earlier this month on a ship used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps off the coast of Yemen.

    The incident at Natanz casts additional uncertainty over ongoing efforts in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Tehran, an accord long opposed by Israel.

    President Joe Biden has expressed a willingness for the United States to reenter the accord first abandoned by the Trump administration, which imposed a raft of sanctions on Tehran under a “maximum pressure” campaign. Iran responded to the U.S. exit from the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by gradually breaching many of the nuclear restrictions.

    The EU-hosted talks in Vienna center on overcoming an impasse between the United States and Iran to bring both parties into full compliance with the 2015 agreement, which lifted international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. and Iranian sides have publicly clashed over the sequencing of possible U.S. sanctions relief and Iran reversing its breaches of the deal.

    With reporting by AFP, AP, and The New York Times, and Reuters.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Amnesty International has called on Iran to halt the execution of a man sentenced to death for the rape of a minor.

    The London-based rights watchdog said Farhad Salehi Jabehdar, 30, is scheduled to be executed on April 13 in the northern province of Alborz.

    His execution has been scheduled even though a request for a judicial review of his case is pending before the Supreme Court.

    Iran’s Supreme Court on April 11 informed Jabehdar’s lawyer that the judicial review request will be examined in several weeks but rejected the lawyer’s request to order a stay.

    In a statement on April 11, Amnesty said that “in addition to the fact that the use of the death penalty for the crime of rape is prohibited under international law, the death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment and is never the answer.”

    Jabehdar was arrested in June 2018 in connection with the sexual assault of a 10-year-old child in 2017.

    He was convicted of “forced male-male intercourse” and sentenced to death in 2019. The conviction and sentence were upheld by Supreme Court.

    The parents of the child have formally requested that the authorities not impose the death penalty on Jabehdar.

    Iran is the world’s second-most-active executioner after China, according to Amnesty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • An electrical problem has been reported at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site, a day after Tehran launched new advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium more quickly.

    It was the latest incident to strike one of Tehran’s most secure sites amid negotiations over the tattered atomic accord with world powers.

    “The incident caused no casualties or pollution,” Iranian Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said, adding that “electricity was affected at the Natanz facility.”

    Last year, a fire broke out at the Natanz nuclear facility that the government said was an attempt to sabotage its nuclear program.

    The underground Natanz site is key to Iran’s uranium enrichment program and monitored by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.

    Israel, Iran’s regional archenemy, is suspected of carrying out an attack there, as well as launching other assaults.

    Iran also blamed Israel for the killing of a scientist who began the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier. Israel has not claimed any of the attacks, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly described Iran as the major threat faced by his country in recent weeks.

    The incident at Natanz comes amid efforts to revive the international 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from three years ago. Trump reimposed sanctions that were lifted on the Islamic republic, and brought in many more.

    In reaction, Iran breached many restrictions imposed by the accord. Tehran has abandoned all the limits of its uranium stockpile. It now enriches up to 20 percent purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.

    Earlier this week, talks began in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States and Iran back into full compliance with the deal.

    On April 10, Iran announced it had launched a chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges at Natanz, injecting them with the uranium gas and beginning their rapid spinning.

    Officials also began testing the IR-9 centrifuge, which they say will enrich uranium 50 times faster than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, the IR-1. The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only IR-1s for enrichment.

    Iran maintains its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, but fears about Tehran having the ability to make a bomb saw world powers reach the deal with the Islamic republic in 2015.

    The deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for it limiting its program and allowing inspectors from the IAEA to keep a close watch on its work.

    With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • An electrical problem has been reported at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site, a day after Tehran launched new advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium more quickly.

    It was the latest incident to strike one of Tehran’s most secure sites amid negotiations over the tattered atomic accord with world powers.

    “The incident caused no casualties or pollution,” Iranian Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said, adding that “electricity was affected at the Natanz facility.”

    Last year, a fire broke out at the Natanz nuclear facility that the government said was an attempt to sabotage its nuclear program.

    The underground Natanz site is key to Iran’s uranium enrichment program and monitored by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.

    Israel, Iran’s regional archenemy, is suspected of carrying out an attack there, as well as launching other assaults.

    Iran also blamed Israel for the killing of a scientist who began the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier. Israel has not claimed any of the attacks, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly described Iran as the major threat faced by his country in recent weeks.

    The incident at Natanz comes amid efforts to revive the international 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from three years ago. Trump reimposed sanctions that were lifted on the Islamic republic, and brought in many more.

    In reaction, Iran breached many restrictions imposed by the accord. Tehran has abandoned all the limits of its uranium stockpile. It now enriches up to 20 percent purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.

    Earlier this week, talks began in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States and Iran back into full compliance with the deal.

    On April 10, Iran announced it had launched a chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges at Natanz, injecting them with the uranium gas and beginning their rapid spinning.

    Officials also began testing the IR-9 centrifuge, which they say will enrich uranium 50 times faster than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, the IR-1. The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only IR-1s for enrichment.

    Iran maintains its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, but fears about Tehran having the ability to make a bomb saw world powers reach the deal with the Islamic republic in 2015.

    The deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for it limiting its program and allowing inspectors from the IAEA to keep a close watch on its work.

    With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iranian President Hassan Rohani oversaw the launch of a production line of advanced centrifuges on April 10 in an apparent new violation of the 2015 nuclear deal after talks began earlier this week in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States and Iran back into full compliance with the accord.

    Rohani was seen in a live state TV broadcast at the Natanz nuclear plant ordering the injection of uranium gas into the centrifuges and mechanical tests on its newest advanced nuclear centrifuge.

    The ceremony marked National Nuclear Technology Day and unveiled 133 advances over the past year in the country’s nuclear industry mostly in the fields of medicine, power, agricultural, and energy, state television said.

    “Once again, I stress that all our nuclear activities are peaceful and for non-military purposes,” Rohani said. “We continue to be committed to our pledge to NPT (nonproliferation treaty) and to the world not to deviate militarily from our nuclear program,” he added.

    Although Tehran says it nuclear program is for civilian purposes, there have long been concerns in the international community that the country is inching ever closer to producing enough fissile material for an atomic bomb.

    The April 10 broadcast showed no images of the injection of uranium hexafluoride gas but showed a link with engineers at the plant who said they had started the process.

    The centrifuges that were started up on April 10 allow uranium to be enriched more quickly and in greater amounts than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, which are the only ones that the 2015 deal allows it to use.

    Iran has breached many restrictions imposed by the deal since former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it in 2018.

    ‘Good Start’ To Vienna Talks

    The talks in Vienna are aimed at restoring restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of U.S. and other international sanctions.

    All sides said the talks, in which Washington is not participating directly but has the European Union as an intermediary, had got off to a good start.

    Two working groups have been formed to hammer out a compromise, which if reached could still be weeks away. One expert group is focused on how to lift U.S. sanctions to bring Washington back into compliance with the accord. Another group is tasked with detailing a path for Iran to comply with restrictions on its nuclear program, including limits on uranium enrichment and centrifuges.

    An EU statement after the last session on April 9 said the so-called Joint Commission on JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) had been “briefed on the work of the two expert groups on sanctions lifting and nuclear implementation measures and participants noted the constructive and results oriented exchanges.”

    It said “the participants emphasized their resolve to further pursue the ongoing joint diplomatic effort” and that a coordinator under EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell “will continue his separate contacts with all JCPOA participants and the United States.”

    In addition to reimposing nuclear-related sanctions, the Trump administration slapped a web of sanctions on Tehran over a range of issues such as terrorism, human rights, and ballistic missiles. They include sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a part of Iran’s armed forces that the Trump administration labeled a terrorist organization.

    Briefing reporters after talks wrapped up on April 9, a senior State Department official said the initial talks were encouraging but that the United States would not meet Iranian demands to lift all sanctions.

    “If Iran sticks to the position that every sanction that has been imposed since 2017 has to be lifted or there will be no deal, then we are heading towards an impasse,” the senior U.S. official told reporters on a conference call.

    The official said the Trump administration’s sanction policy on Iran had a “purposeful and self-avowed intent to make it difficult for any future administration” to return to the nuclear deal.

    With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Diplomats and negotiators have wrapped up four days of talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the hobbled 2015 agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear activities, saying this week’s meetings were “constructive” and provided “positive momentum.”

    A return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) has been a priority for U.S. President Joe Biden since taking office in January following his predecessor’s withdrawal from the JCPOA three years ago.

    The EU-hosted talks involved teams from Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. U.S. and Iranian diplomatics reportedly declined to hold face-to-face meetings so the other other parties conducted shuttle diplomacy.

    An EU statement after the last session on April 9 said the so-called Joint Commission on the JCPOA had been “briefed on the work of the two expert groups on sanctions lifting and nuclear implementation measures and participants noted the constructive and results-oriented exchanges.”

    It said “the participants emphasized their resolve to further pursue the ongoing joint diplomatic effort” and that a coordinator under EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell “will continue his separate contacts with all JCPOA participants and the United States.”

    Expert groups, it said, will resume meetings “in the course of next week.”

    The U.S. and Iranian sides have publicly clashed over the order of possible U.S. concessions on sanctions reimposed under then-President Donald Trump and moves to reverse Iranian deviation from noncompliance with the JCPOA before a new deal can be achieved.

    Russia’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said the other sides “took stock of the work done by experts over the last three days and noted with satisfaction the initial progress made.”

    He later tweeted that representatives “will reconvene next week in order to maintain the positive momentum.”

    Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who has ultimate political and religious authority in Iran — has demanded that Washington withdraw its crippling sanctions on Iran before any new agreement.

    Iranian President Hassan Rohani said this week that “all parties have come to the conclusion that there is no better alternative.”

    Biden has said Trump’s abandonment of the deal in 2018 has left Tehran closer to possessing nuclear weapons — a goal that Tehran says it rejects. Biden floated hopes for a return to the agreement along with pledges to do all he could to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear-bomb capability.

    Iran has released a South Korean oil tanker it seized three months ago amid a dispute over billions of dollars in funds frozen due to U.S. sanctions.

    During this week’s talks, suspicion fell on JCPOA opponent Israel after an Iranian ship used by its powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had been struck with an attached mine in the Red Sea.

    And overnight on April 8-9, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the Hankuk Chemi and its captain had been released and the vessel had left an Iranian port near Bandar Abbas.

    The ship had spent months in Iranian custody in an incident seen by many as part of tit-for-tat shows of force in the region with ties to billions of dollars in frozen assets in South Korea linked to Iran.

    With reporting by Reuters and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran has released a South Korean oil tanker it seized three months ago amid a dispute over billions of dollars in funds frozen due to U.S. sanctions.

    South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in an April 9 statement that the Hankuk Chemi and its captain had been released and the vessel left an Iranian port near Bandar Abbas. Twelve of the crew who had previously been released stayed on the ship for maintenance while it was impounded.

    Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) seized the Hankuk Chemi on January 4 near the Strait of Hormuz. At the time of its seizure, Iran said the vessel was leaking oil in violation of environmental laws.

    The move was widely considered a response to around $7 billion frozen in Iranian bank accounts in South Korea, although Tehran officially denied its actions had anything to do with the money.

    The United States reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 after former President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

    South Korea was a major buyer of Iranian oil until Washington ended a sanctions waiver on the Asian economy’s imports of Iranian oil in 2019. That left the Iranian funds sitting frozen in two South Korean banks.

    South Korea’s Foreign Ministry made no mention of any deal or the funds. But in February the two sides agreed to speed the way forward for Iran to receive its money pending U.S. approval. Iran has said it needs the money so it can purchase medicine, medical equipment, and COVID-19 vaccines.

    The development comes as negotiators from Iran and world powers have been meeting in Vienna to overcome an impasse over U.S. sanctions on Iran and Iranian breaches of the nuclear agreement.

    With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and Yonhap

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • On April 1 — appropriate date, perhaps, for a saga of unending western foolishness and villainy — the EU announced that officials from Iran, Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany would be meeting virtually to discuss a possible return of the USA to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Later announcements indicated that representatives of both the USA and Iran would meet with European partners in Vienna in the first week of April, although possibly from different rooms to separate US and Iranian representatives. Talks began on August 6.

    A State Department spokesman welcomed the move, indicating the Biden administration’s preparedness to return to the 2015 deal tortuously negotiated over several years between Iran, the US Obama administration and European powers, and that former President Donald Trump later unilaterally abrogated in May 2018. A pretense by the USA and Europe that resumption of JCPOA requires arduous negotiation camouflages the reality that it has always been obvious that removal of US sanctions on Iran would automatically prompt its immediate return to the JCPOA framework.

    The use of the potential (but not the actuality) of nuclear weapons in the form of weapons development capability has arguably been an instrument of Iranian foreign diplomacy from the days of the Shah, first as a defense against nuclearization of regional neighbors and, since the Islamic revolution in 1979 — and in the guise of varying percentages of uranium enrichment and the construction of centrifuges (many unused) — against US and European opposition to Iranian independence from Washington.

    The 2015 deal itself was the outcome of a long-standing, bullying, propaganda campaign by the USA, Israel, and Europe (UK, France, and Germany) to smear Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program (including the slight enrichment of uranium for scientific and medical purposes, far below the 90%+ required for nuclear weaponry) as a meaningful threat of nuclear war. Yet Iran, a signatory in 1968 of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), had over several decades conceded detailed scrutiny of its energy program (perfectly legitimate, under the NPT) to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Israel, on the other hand, in possession of one hundred or more nuclear warheads, never signed the NPT.

    Israel, with a far smaller population (9 million) than Iran (82 million) and a far smaller territory (22,145 sq.km to Iran’s 1,648,195 sq km), is and has consistently shown evidence of being by far the more likely nuclear aggressor in the Middle East. In June 1981, an Israeli airstrike destroyed an unfinished suspected Iraqi nuclear reactor located 17 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. In 2007, Israel struck a suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria. In the period 2009 to 2012 the Israeli administration of Benjamin Netanyahu several times threatened to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. In addition, the US and Israeli administrations collaborated in a cyberattack on Iranian facilities (“Stuxnet”) in 2009. There have been several assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists – the latest reported in November 2020 – mostly attributed to Israel’s Mossad.

    Through JCPOA, Iran — which has never possessed nuclear weapons and which has never formally revealed evidence of wanting or planning them — was cowered into conceding an implicit but false admission to being at fault in some way. Iran’s Supreme Leaders have consistently stated their belief that such weapons are immoral.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, confirmed a fatwa against the acquisition, development and use of nuclear weapons in October 2003. “Evidence” of Iranian scientists’ planning for nuclear weaponry is based on forgeries.
    The bullying gang was a cabal of more prosperous nations that unlike Iran, did possess nuclear weapons and, in the case of the USA, had actually used them and, from time to time, demonstrated continuing willingness to consider their use.

    Furthermore, Washington has never shown a fraction of the hysteria it regularly performs on account of Iran’s (non-existent) nuclear “threat” as it did with the actual nuclear weaponization of India from 1998 (with possibly 150 nuclear warheads today) and Pakistan in 1972.

    Iran’s misleading concession to the West’s false narrative was the product of Western coercion through sanctions’ regimes. US-driven sanctions’ terror over Iran, both primary (involving relations between Iran and U.S. actors) and secondary (involving relations between Iran and non-U.S. actors), started from the early 1980s and extended in 1995 to cover bilateral trade and foreign investment in Iranian oil and gas development. Sanctions were further extended in 2002 to include nuclear and missile technology, financial services, transportation, foreign banks operating in Iran, and purchase of Iranian oil. Although many sanctions were lifted by JCPOA, others were retained, including Iranian support for terrorism, development of ballistic missiles, arms-related transactions, violations of human rights and corruption. The slipperiness of concepts such as “terrorism,” “human rights,” and “corruption” in the hands of U.S. and allied states and state-compliant “NGO” agencies provides ample room for continuing sanctions aggression on false or misleading pretext. This is particularly worrisome in the contexts of covert and proxy wars between the US, European powers, Gulf States, Israel, and Salafist rebels in Syria, on the one hand and, on the other, the Syrian government, Russia, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, as also in the case of Iranian support for the Houthis in Yemen. Even a return to JCPOA, therefore, would exercise considerable restraint on Iranian exercise of its legitimate, sovereign power.

    Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program originated from imperial machinations in Iran. It was launched in 1957 with US and European assistance in the administration of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, in the wake of the US-UK orchestrated coup d’etat of 1953 that toppled democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Shah approved plans to construct up to 23 nuclear power stations by 2000. It is possible that the Shah always entertained the possibility of transitioning from a nuclear energy to a nuclear weapons program should neighboring states do the same. The USA supplied the country with a reactor fueled by highly enriched uranium in 1967. After a two-year hiatus, the Shah’s program was resumed by the revolutionary administration in 1981. The regime intended to continue collaborating with a French-owned consortium, but France succumbed to pressure from the Reagan administration in 1984 to end all nuclear cooperation with Iran, despite the absence of any evidence for US claims that Iran’s then only reactor presented a risk of proliferation. In the 1990s, Russia formed a joint research organization with Iran, providing Iran with Russian nuclear experts and technical information.

    Sanctions have a negative impact on the Iranian economy and the welfare of its people. The value of Iranian petroleum exports fell from $53 billion in 2016-2017 to $9 billion in 2019-2020. Iranian GDP shrank by between 5% and 6.5% each year in the period 2018-2020, and inflation rose each year between 30% and 41%. The value of the Iranian currency, the rial, fell from 64,500 rials to the dollar in May 2018 to 315,000 to the dollar in October 2020.

    As strategies of control, sanctions have significant other weaknesses, even from the western point of view. Since the revolution of 1979, first, there is a clear correlation between western aggression towards Iran and the influence on the Iranian polity of anti-western Iranian conservatives and their control over Iranian society through the clerical hierarchy and its exercise of superordinate power over Iran’s parliamentary democracy by the Office of the (non-elected) Supreme Leader, the Council of Guardians, the religious foundations (or bonyads) and Revolutionary Guards. Second, sanctions encourage Iranian strategies of import substitution and technological independence. Third, they help consolidate Iran’s relations with global powers that rival Washington, including Russia and China, and its relations with sympathetic powers in the region, including Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. In March 2021 Iran and China agreed a deal whereby China would invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel. The deal represented a further incursion of Chinese influence in the Middle East (extending to an offer by China to broker peace between Israel and Palestine) at the likely expense of the USA, promising further escalation of tensions between China and the USA and the ultimate threat of nuclear war.

    Oliver Boyd-Barrett is Professor Emeritus of Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He is a scholar of international media, news, and war propaganda. Read other articles by Oliver.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • On April 1 — appropriate date, perhaps, for a saga of unending western foolishness and villainy — the EU announced that officials from Iran, Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany would be meeting virtually to discuss a possible return of the USA to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Later announcements indicated that representatives of both the USA and Iran would meet with European partners in Vienna in the first week of April, although possibly from different rooms to separate US and Iranian representatives. Talks began on August 6.

    A State Department spokesman welcomed the move, indicating the Biden administration’s preparedness to return to the 2015 deal tortuously negotiated over several years between Iran, the US Obama administration and European powers, and that former President Donald Trump later unilaterally abrogated in May 2018. A pretense by the USA and Europe that resumption of JCPOA requires arduous negotiation camouflages the reality that it has always been obvious that removal of US sanctions on Iran would automatically prompt its immediate return to the JCPOA framework.

    The use of the potential (but not the actuality) of nuclear weapons in the form of weapons development capability has arguably been an instrument of Iranian foreign diplomacy from the days of the Shah, first as a defense against nuclearization of regional neighbors and, since the Islamic revolution in 1979 — and in the guise of varying percentages of uranium enrichment and the construction of centrifuges (many unused) — against US and European opposition to Iranian independence from Washington.

    The 2015 deal itself was the outcome of a long-standing, bullying, propaganda campaign by the USA, Israel, and Europe (UK, France, and Germany) to smear Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program (including the slight enrichment of uranium for scientific and medical purposes, far below the 90%+ required for nuclear weaponry) as a meaningful threat of nuclear war. Yet Iran, a signatory in 1968 of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), had over several decades conceded detailed scrutiny of its energy program (perfectly legitimate, under the NPT) to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Israel, on the other hand, in possession of one hundred or more nuclear warheads, never signed the NPT.

    Israel, with a far smaller population (9 million) than Iran (82 million) and a far smaller territory (22,145 sq.km to Iran’s 1,648,195 sq km), is and has consistently shown evidence of being by far the more likely nuclear aggressor in the Middle East. In June 1981, an Israeli airstrike destroyed an unfinished suspected Iraqi nuclear reactor located 17 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. In 2007, Israel struck a suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria. In the period 2009 to 2012 the Israeli administration of Benjamin Netanyahu several times threatened to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. In addition, the US and Israeli administrations collaborated in a cyberattack on Iranian facilities (“Stuxnet”) in 2009. There have been several assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists – the latest reported in November 2020 – mostly attributed to Israel’s Mossad.

    Through JCPOA, Iran — which has never possessed nuclear weapons and which has never formally revealed evidence of wanting or planning them — was cowered into conceding an implicit but false admission to being at fault in some way. Iran’s Supreme Leaders have consistently stated their belief that such weapons are immoral.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, confirmed a fatwa against the acquisition, development and use of nuclear weapons in October 2003. “Evidence” of Iranian scientists’ planning for nuclear weaponry is based on forgeries.
    1 The bullying gang was a cabal of more prosperous nations that unlike Iran, did possess nuclear weapons and, in the case of the USA, had actually used them and, from time to time, demonstrated continuing willingness to consider their use.

    Furthermore, Washington has never shown a fraction of the hysteria it regularly performs on account of Iran’s (non-existent) nuclear “threat” as it did with the actual nuclear weaponization of India from 1998 (with possibly 150 nuclear warheads today) and Pakistan in 1972.

    Iran’s misleading concession to the West’s false narrative was the product of Western coercion through sanctions’ regimes. US-driven sanctions’ terror over Iran, both primary (involving relations between Iran and U.S. actors) and secondary (involving relations between Iran and non-U.S. actors), started from the early 1980s and extended in 1995 to cover bilateral trade and foreign investment in Iranian oil and gas development. Sanctions were further extended in 2002 to include nuclear and missile technology, financial services, transportation, foreign banks operating in Iran, and purchase of Iranian oil. Although many sanctions were lifted by JCPOA, others were retained, including Iranian support for terrorism, development of ballistic missiles, arms-related transactions, violations of human rights and corruption. The slipperiness of concepts such as “terrorism,” “human rights,” and “corruption” in the hands of U.S. and allied states and state-compliant “NGO” agencies provides ample room for continuing sanctions aggression on false or misleading pretext. This is particularly worrisome in the contexts of covert and proxy wars between the US, European powers, Gulf States, Israel, and Salafist rebels in Syria, on the one hand and, on the other, the Syrian government, Russia, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, as also in the case of Iranian support for the Houthis in Yemen. Even a return to JCPOA, therefore, would exercise considerable restraint on Iranian exercise of its legitimate, sovereign power.

    Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program originated from imperial machinations in Iran. It was launched in 1957 with US and European assistance in the administration of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, in the wake of the US-UK orchestrated coup d’etat of 1953 that toppled democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Shah approved plans to construct up to 23 nuclear power stations by 2000. It is possible that the Shah always entertained the possibility of transitioning from a nuclear energy to a nuclear weapons program should neighboring states do the same. The USA supplied the country with a reactor fueled by highly enriched uranium in 1967. After a two-year hiatus, the Shah’s program was resumed by the revolutionary administration in 1981. The regime intended to continue collaborating with a French-owned consortium, but France succumbed to pressure from the Reagan administration in 1984 to end all nuclear cooperation with Iran, despite the absence of any evidence for US claims that Iran’s then only reactor presented a risk of proliferation. In the 1990s, Russia formed a joint research organization with Iran, providing Iran with Russian nuclear experts and technical information.

    Sanctions have a negative impact on the Iranian economy and the welfare of its people. The value of Iranian petroleum exports fell from $53 billion in 2016-2017 to $9 billion in 2019-2020. Iranian GDP shrank by between 5% and 6.5% each year in the period 2018-2020, and inflation rose each year between 30% and 41%. The value of the Iranian currency, the rial, fell from 64,500 rials to the dollar in May 2018 to 315,000 to the dollar in October 2020.

    As strategies of control, sanctions have significant other weaknesses, even from the western point of view. Since the revolution of 1979, first, there is a clear correlation between western aggression towards Iran and the influence on the Iranian polity of anti-western Iranian conservatives and their control over Iranian society through the clerical hierarchy and its exercise of superordinate power over Iran’s parliamentary democracy by the Office of the (non-elected) Supreme Leader, the Council of Guardians, the religious foundations (or bonyads) and Revolutionary Guards. Second, sanctions encourage Iranian strategies of import substitution and technological independence. Third, they help consolidate Iran’s relations with global powers that rival Washington, including Russia and China, and its relations with sympathetic powers in the region, including Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. In March 2021 Iran and China agreed a deal whereby China would invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel. The deal represented a further incursion of Chinese influence in the Middle East (extending to an offer by China to broker peace between Israel and Palestine) at the likely expense of the USA, promising further escalation of tensions between China and the USA and the ultimate threat of nuclear war.

    1. Kiriakou, J. and Porter, G. (2020) The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis: From CIA Coup to the Brink of War. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
    The post Limitations of JCPOA Negotiation first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Iranian authorities say COVID-19 cases have surpassed 2 million, with a new daily record of more than 22,000 infections, following the Persian New Year holiday.

    “Unfortunately, with 118 new fatalities since yesterday, we have recorded a total of 63,884 coronavirus deaths,” Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state television on April 8, adding that the number of infected people had reached 2,006,934 with 22,586 new cases.

    Some critics say they believe the government has suppressed reporting and that the actual numbers are much higher.

    Iran is battling the Middle East’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, and officials have blamed the latest surge on trips made by millions of Iranians during the Norouz holiday, which ran for two weeks from March 20, despite health guidelines warning them not to travel.

    Last year, officials enacted tight restrictions on gatherings and the movement of people across the country during the Persian New Year.

    Iran has avoided imposing a full lockdown on its population of 82 million since the pandemic started more than a year ago, resorting instead to temporary bans on travel or businesses.

    The country launched its vaccination drive in February.

    With reporting by AFP and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the Iran nuclear deal—resumed talks in Vienna on Tuesday, with the lifting of sanctions on Iran and nuclear implementation measures at the center of the agenda.

    Representatives from Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union met for an hour. Although not at the session, the US envoy remained a few meters away from the venue, which was understood as a gesture of willingness to rescue the agreement.

    Several participants qualified the meeting as positive, including Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, who stressed the “success” of the meeting.

    The post Meeting To Revive Iran Nuclear Deal Begins In Vienna appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • An Iranian command ship stationed in the Red Sea was damaged in an Israeli mine attack on Tuesday, a US official has told the New York Times (NYT).

    The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “The Israelis had notified the United States that its forces had struck the vessel at about 7.30am local time.” 

    The official said the ship was damaged below the water line and that Israel had called the attack a retaliation for earlier Iranian strikes on Israeli vessels.

    Iran’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that the vessel, the Saviz, had been targeted in the Red Sea, a day after media reports that the ship had been attacked with limpet mines.

    “The explosion occurred on Tuesday morning near the Djibouti coast and caused minor damage with no casualties,” said foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh.

    “The vessel was a civilian ship station

    The post Israel Attacks Iranian Command Ship In Red Sea appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • As international talks to revive a major nuclear agreement with world powers continued in Vienna, Iranian President Hassan Rohani said that he hoped negotiations led to a “renaissance” of the 2015 deal.

    The day-old talks are U.S. President Joe Biden’s first major effort to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) since taking office on pledges to curb Iran’s nuclear program following his predecessor’s withdrawal from the agreement three years ago.

    “Once again, all parties have come to the conclusion that there is no better alternative,” Rohani said in a statement on April 7, referring to the JCPOA, which was reached over hard-liners’ opposition in the Austrian capital five years ago. .”Thus, we can hope for a renaissance of the Vienna nuclear agreement.”

    The U.S. and Iranian sides have publicly clashed over the order of possible concessions on U.S. sanctions and Iranian nuclear activities before a new deal can be achieved.

    Rohani staked heavy political capital on the 2015 deal during his first presidential term despite resistance from hard-liners allied with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate political and religious power in Iran.

    “The U.S. says it wants to return to the agreement,” Rohani said. “Fine, let’s see how serious they are.”

    U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said after the first day of talks on April 6 that Washington saw the discussions in Vienna as a “constructive” and “welcome step,” even though “we are not meeting directly with the Iranians.”

    European diplomats are acting as intermediaries facilitating indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian officials, whose delegations are staying in nearby hotels.

    Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, told state television that his talks with envoys from the remaining parties to the agreement — Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia — were “constructive.”

    Russia’s Vienna-based envoy to international organizations, Mikhail Ulyanov, said the negotiators got off to a “successful” start.

    Ulyanov also said two expert-level groups on sanctions lifting and nuclear issues had been tasked “to identify concrete measures to be taken by Washington and Tehran” to restore the deal.

    The Russian envoy predicted in a separate tweet that it would take “some time” to restore the nuclear agreement.

    With reporting by dpa

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.