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Top Stories
Reuters: "The Syrian government of President Bashar
al-Assad has received substantial imports of Iraqi crude oil from an
Egyptian port in the last nine months, shipping and payments documents
show, part of an under-the-radar trade that has kept his military running
despite Western sanctions. Assad's government has been blacklisted by
Western powers for its role in the two-and-a-half year civil war, forcing
Damascus to rely on strategic ally Iran - itself the target of Western
sanctions over its nuclear programme - as its main supplier of crude oil.
A Reuters examination based on previously undisclosed commercial
documents about Syrian oil purchases shows however that Iran is no longer
acting alone. Dozens of shipping and payment documents viewed by Reuters
show that millions of barrels of crude delivered to Assad's government on
Iranian ships has actually come from Iraq, through Lebanese and Egyptian
trading companies... The cache of documents describing the trade between
March and May this year was shown to Reuters by a source on condition of
anonymity. Many details were corroborated by a separate Middle Eastern
shipping source with long-standing ties to the Syrian maritime industry.
Publicly available satellite tanker tracking data, provided by Thomson
Reuters, parent company of Reuters, was used to confirm the movements of
ships." http://t.uani.com/JaRcTU
TIME: "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says he wants to rebuild
diplomatic relations with Western powers, even as he insists the country
will 'never never give up our right to nuclear energy.' Rouhani's
comments, in an op-ed in a German newspaper on Monday and accompanying
Twitter messages on an account associated with him, came during a
Christmas break in talks over Iran's nuclear program... 'We must now concentrate
on the present and orientate ourselves towards the future,' read the
messages on a closely followed Twitter account that has never been
verified as belonging to Rouhani but has broken news of his policy
positions and actions before. 'We'll never give up our right to #nuclear
energy. But we're working towards removing all doubts and answer all
reasonable questions.'" http://t.uani.com/1bomPzL
WashPost: "After suffering steep declines in trade starting in 2012,
seaborne transfer of goods between Iran and Dubai is picking up again,
highlighting the U.A.E.'s delicate balancing act in maintaining important
commercial ties and satisfying its Western allies. A combination of
economic factors in Iran - attributed to tough international sanctions
over its contested nuclear activities - resulted in a decrease in trade
with the U.A.E. from $24 billion in 2011 to $15 billion last year,
threatening the livelihood of thousands of Iranian sailors. According to
statistics published in November by Iran's customs authority, the U.A.E.
is still the leading source of imports to Iran, accounting this year for
just over 20 percent of all imports, followed by China and India...
'Things are much better for us since [Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani
took office, and we believe they will continue to improve,' said Ahmad
Hajjian, one of an estimated 40,000 Iranian sailors employed in the
transport of goods between Iran and Persian Gulf ports." http://t.uani.com/1ld2oeG
Sanctions
WSJ: "The Pentagon's criminal investigations arm is probing one of
the American military's largest suppliers in Afghanistan over allegations
that it violated U.S. law by moving supplies through Iran, the Defense
Department told lawmakers. Anham FZCO, a company based in Dubai and
Virginia, won a contract in 2012 worth an estimated $8.1 billion to
supply food and water to American forces inside Afghanistan, one of the
largest of the 12-year war in the Central Asian country. An article in
The Wall Street Journal in September, which prompted the investigation,
disclosed that Anham relied on the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and on
Iranian supply routes to move steel, tractors and refrigeration panels
into Afghanistan to build warehouses and other logistical centers.
Anham's actions may have violated strict U.S. sanctions laws that
prohibit American entities from conducting trade with Iran or Iranian
companies by moving materials through the country, Obama administration
officials said." http://t.uani.com/K2i09K
Reuters: "Qatar wants to help Iran to develop its share of the
world's biggest gas field so both countries can reap the maximum
long-term rewards, sources at state-run Qatar Petroleum (QP) say. The
Gulf state has offered its support in response to a request from Iran
amid signs that western sanctions might ease after it signed a deal in
November that offers more transparency over its nuclear programme...
'After Iran signed the nuclear deal this has opened the door for us to
help them with making more use of South Pars, and the plan is to give
them advice on technology and exploring the geology of the field,' a QP
source said." http://t.uani.com/1ifH2Qv
Syria Conflict
Reuters: "A Syrian state purchasing agency has issued a tender to
buy 50,000 tonnes of flour with payment through an Iranian credit line, a
tender document showed. It was the second time Syria had asked to buy
food through Iran this month after asking for quantities of sugar, rice,
flour, oils and various other commodities in a tender which closed on
Dec. 17. Syria's General Foreign Trade Organisation (GFTO) said sellers
must accept payment through an Iranian credit line under an agreement
between the Commercial Bank of Syria and the Export Development Bank of
Iran. The deadline for the flour tender is Jan. 6 and all offers should
be submitted in euros on a cost and freight basis, the document showed. A
Syrian trading source said offers submitted for rice and sugar in the
tender that closed on Dec. 17 were currently being negotiated. 'Most of
the offers made for the tender are being done by Iranian firms who are
offering rice and sugar that are already available inside Iran,' one
Syrian trading source said." http://t.uani.com/1gUl8SA
Domestic
Politics
Reuters: "In the fall of 2009, two of Iran's most powerful entities
teamed up to participate in the largest deal in the history of the
country's stock exchange. The partners were the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps, Iran's elite military unit, and a multi-billion dollar
business empire known as Setad that is controlled by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guards and Setad formed a consortium to bid
on a controlling stake in Telecommunication Co of Iran, or TCI, which had
a near monopoly on landline telephone services. The partners won the stake
for $7.8 billion, Iran's largest privatisation ever. The deal stirred up
controversy when Iranian media reported that another bidder for TCI had
been eliminated the day before the sale by the regulator, the Iranian
Privatisation Organisation, or IPO. The man then heading up the IPO was
Gholamreza Heydari Kord Zanganeh. One local news organisation dubbed him
'Mr. Privatisation.' Kord Zanganeh, Reuters has learned, soon got another
job: In 2010, shortly after leaving office as privatisation tsar, he was appointed
managing director of a giant holding company. That holding company
belongs to one of the winners of the TCI stake - the Khamenei-controlled
business empire, whose full name in Persian is Setad Ejraiye Farmane
Hazrate Emam." http://t.uani.com/19noFGQ
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Advisory Board Member Olli Heinonen & Orde Kittrie in Arms
Control & Regional Security for the Middle East: "Nearly a month
since the six-month Joint Plan of Action with Iran was announced in
Geneva on November 24, the deal has yet to go into effect. The two sides
have not even agreed on a start date for implementing the deal.
Meanwhile, Iran says it is continuing to advance its nuclear program.
Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Reza
Najafi, says that Iran will not begin implementing its Joint Plan of
Action commitments, including its pledge to stop enriching uranium to 20
percent, until the still-unspecified start date. In the past, Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani has boasted repeatedly of how he used a 2003 set
of nuclear negotiations with the West, for which he was Iran's lead
negotiator, to buy time to advance Iran's program. History appears to be
repeating itself. Rather than implementing the deal in good faith, Iran
is playing games with it, manipulating the Joint Plan of Action to alter
to Tehran's advantage both the circumstances on the ground and the terms
of the deal itself. The start date delay is particularly worrisome
because the Joint Plan of Action text appears to commit Iran to freezing
its program at its magnitude not on November 24, but rather on that
still-unspecified date of implementation. This includes Iran's
commitments not to produce additional uranium enriched above 5 percent;
not to 'make any further advances of its activities at the Natanz Fuel
Enrichment Plant, Fordow, or the Arak reactor;' and to convert to oxide
any additional uranium enriched up to 5 percent. As of November 24, the
day the Joint Plan of Action was announced, Iran was estimated to be less
than 6 months away from breakout capability, the point at which it could
dash to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb so quickly that
the International Atomic Energy Agency or a Western intelligence service
would be unable to detect the dash until it is over. European Union
officials say that they hope negotiations over implementation of the
Joint Plan of Action will be concluded in time for the deal to go into
effect in late January. A start date of late January will apparently
leave Iran's uranium and plutonium production programs significantly
closer to breakout capacity than if the Joint Plan of Action had been
implemented on November 24. At the rates at which Iran was enriching in
September and October 2013 (the most recent months covered by the IAEA's
quarterly public reports), Tehran will, by December 24, have created at
least an additional 230 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 5 percent and
an additional 15 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent. By January
24, Iran will have created at least an aggregate additional 460 kilograms
of uranium enriched up to 5 percent and an aggregate additional 30
kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent. In addition, Iran is very
likely continuing producing more centrifuges, and its uranium mines and
milling facilities are almost certainly continuing to produce and process
uranium ore. Iran may also be continuing to create fuel for the Arak
reactor. And what if the Joint Plan is never implemented? Then Iran will
apparently have succeeded in significantly advancing its uranium and
plutonium production programs while negotiating with the P-5 plus 1, and
won't have to roll any of it back. Continued Iranian advancement of its
uranium and plutonium programs is particularly striking because Iran has,
since 2006, been legally obligated by various UN Security Council
resolutions to 'without further delay suspend... all enrichment-related'
activities and 'all heavy-water related projects,' including construction
of the Arak reactor.... At the same time Iran is declaring itself free of
its actual Joint Plan of Action commitments until the start date is set
and occurs, Iran is insisting that the U.S. must not take
sanctions-related steps that clearly fall outside the U.S. commitments
under the Joint Plan of Action, even if it were in effect. For example,
the Joint Plan of Action states that the U.S. 'will refrain from imposing
new nuclear-related sanctions.' The Iranian Foreign Minister
threatened that 'the deal is dead' if there was movement on the Senate
bill, discussed last week, that would not have imposed new sanctions but
merely specified what sanctions would be imposed on Iran if the deal
collapses. Then, Iran's diplomats stormed out of the negotiations
in protest of the December 12 action, by the U.S. Treasury and State
Departments, to designate additional companies and individuals for
evading existing international sanctions against Iran. Neither the Senate
bill nor the designations would have violated the Joint Plan of Action,
even if it were in effect, which it is not. Ironically, the U.S.
designations are in implementation of various Security Council
resolutions which require UN member states to 'take the necessary
measures to prevent the provision to Iran' of assistance, services, or
financial resources related to its illicit nuclear program. Thus, Iran
was protesting Washington's compliance with the U.S.'s international
legal obligations while Iran continues to flagrantly violate its own
international legal obligations, imposed by the Security Council, to
suspend all enrichment-related and heavy water related activities." http://t.uani.com/1gUlc4J
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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