Thursday, April 21, 2016

Eye on Iran: U.S. Top Court Rules Iran Bank Must Pay 1983 Bomb Victims








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Reuters: "The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that almost $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets must be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran. The court's 6-2 ruling dealt a setback to Iran's central bank, finding that the U.S. Congress did not usurp the authority of American courts by passing a 2012 law stating that the frozen funds should go toward satisfying a $2.65 billion judgment won by the families against Iran in U.S. federal court in 2007. Bank Markazi had challenged a 2014 ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the assets, bonds held in a trust account overseen by former federal judge Stanley Sporkin, should be handed over to the more than 1,000 American plaintiffs. With the legal questions resolved, lawyers for the plaintiffs said all that is left is for a federal judge to allow Sporkin to distribute the funds. The lead plaintiff was Deborah Peterson, whose brother, Marine Lance Corporal James Knipple, died in the Beirut bombing. Peterson said for her the legal fight has never been about the just money. 'The mission was for those responsible for the bombing to be held accountable and for the world to understand what happened in Beirut,' Peterson said. Ted Olson, the lawyer for the victims who argued the case before the Supreme Court, said the ruling brings 'long-overdue relief to more than 1,000 victims of Iranian terrorism and their families, many of whom have waited decades for redress.' ... Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who authored the 2012 legislation in question, called the ruling 'a long-awaited victory for justice.' 'So long as Iran continues its support for terrorism, its regime will be held liable for its actions,' Menendez said. The Obama administration filed court papers backing the families. The assets held in New York were part of the Iranian bank's foreign currency reserves. They were traced to a Citibank account in New York held by Luxemburg-based Clearstream Banking, which acted as a intermediary for Banca UBAE, an Italian bank of which Bank Markazi is a customer." http://t.uani.com/23LsSiO

WSJ: "President Barack Obama was holding talks Thursday with leaders from the six-nation bloc of Persian Gulf countries in an effort to repair relations and bridge differences over issues ranging from Iran to the fight against terror. During the summit in the Saudi capital, Mr. Obama was expected to reassure the Gulf Cooperation Council that the U.S. remains committed to supporting the security and sovereignty of its Gulf partners. But with deep divisions between Washington and Gulf governments over how to calm sectarian tensions and respond to Iranian aggression, the president was also expected to face frustration toward the U.S. and its evolving approach to the region. Mr. Obama and leaders from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman were expected to spend about four hours working their way through an ambitious agenda that includes Iran, ongoing regional conflicts and the fight against Islamic State and al Qaeda. The president was scheduled to deliver a statement at the conclusion of the talks and then depart for London... The summit came one year after Mr. Obama met with Gulf leaders at Camp David to address concerns about the Iran nuclear deal, a meeting that Saudi's King Salman chose not to attend in what was seen as a show of his government's displeasure over the pact. Tensions have continued to build since the group last assembled, and expectations remained low for major announcements at the summit's conclusion... Washington and Riyadh both say they want to contain Iran's destabilizing regional role, but their approaches are fundamentally different. While the Obama administration has pursued a policy of dialogue, culminating in last year's nuclear deal, the kingdom has done the opposite, pushing to isolate Tehran... Mr. Rhodes said Thursday that U.S. and Saudi Arabia have similar assessments of Iran's destabilizing activities, but the president still is urging Gulf states to remain open to diplomatic solutions. 'We certainly understand this is their neighborhood, that they're worried about Iran and what its agenda is and the actions that they've taken,' he said. 'My point is simply that concern with Iran should not foreclose the potential for diplomatic engagement if there's an ability to resolve problems.'" http://t.uani.com/1MKjaFT

Reuters: "U.S. President Barack Obama met Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Wednesday to seek joint action on security threats including Iran and Islamic State - and to talk through tensions between the two allies that have been laid bare in recent weeks. Obama's fourth and likely last visit to the world's top oil exporter has been overshadowed by Gulf Arab exasperation with his approach to the region, and doubts about Washington's commitment to their security. Most of the Gulf Arab monarchies have in private been sorely disappointed by Obama's presidency, regarding it as a period in which the United States has pulled back from the region, giving more space to their arch rival Iran to expand its influence. Obama met for two hours with Salman and a group of top princes and officials at the opulent Erga palace, a meeting that had been forecast to be awkward... 'The two leaders reaffirmed the historic friendship and deep strategic partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia,' the White House said in a statement... 'More broadly, the president and King discussed the challenges posed by Iran's provocative activities in the region, agreeing on the importance of an inclusive approach to de-escalating regional conflicts,' the White House said." http://t.uani.com/1U6EaIq

Nuclear & Ballistic Missile Program

Fars (Iran): "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned the world powers of Tehran's serious reaction to their lagging and delay in implementing their undertakings under the Vienna nuclear agreement. 'We should monitor and verify the other side's performance,' Rouhani said, addressing a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday. 'If we see any lagging and shortages from the other side, we should certainly show serious reaction,' he added." http://t.uani.com/23Lt15U

Free Beacon: "Iran this week conducted the first launch of a new rocket that the Pentagon views as a key element of Tehran's effort to build long-range missiles. The launch of the Simorgh space launch vehicle on Tuesday was judged by U.S. intelligence agencies to be partly successful but did not reach orbit, said defense officials familiar with reports of the test. 'It was either an unsuccessful launch, or a test of third stage' not meant to place a satellite in orbit, said a U.S. defense official familiar with reports of the test. No other details of the test launch could be learned... The large liquid-fueled rocket has been under close surveillance by U.S. satellites and other intelligence assets at a launch pad at Iran's Semnan satellite launch center, located about 125 miles east of Tehran. The Simorgh launch had been anticipated since March and comes amid growing worries about Iran's development of long-range missiles." http://t.uani.com/1NDbtMC

U.S.-Iran Relations

NYT: "Iran's foreign minister on Wednesday disputed suggestions that Iran now wanted access to the American financial system as part of the nuclear accord, which has not yet yielded the economic infusion that Iranians foresaw after the deal took effect in January. But the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, also said American officials must be 'much more proactive' in assuring other countries that they could do business in Iran without risking penalties from the United States. 'We never asked to have access to your financial system,' Mr. Zarif said. 'What we asked was to implement the nuclear deal, which requires the United States to allow European financial institutions to have peace of mind for dealing with Iran.' Mr. Zarif spoke in an interview with members of The New York Times editorial board, one day after he met with Secretary of State John Kerry at the United Nations to discuss the financial complications that have now become an issue in ensuring that the nuclear accord's intentions are fulfilled." http://t.uani.com/1VDZVAY

Politico: "President Barack Obama is unlikely to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran before leaving office, one of the president's top national security aides said Thursday. 'I think the trip to Cuba was probably enough in terms of, you know, breaking a longstanding taboo,' deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters at a news briefing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Rhodes suggested that the administration would continue to 'engage with Iranians where we see an opportunity to make progress,' mostly through the diplomatic channel between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. 'The president has always indicated that he is willing to engage the Iranian leadership if he believes that that could make progress on different issues. He's spoken to President Rouhani on the phone,' Rhodes said. 'The fact of the matter is, we haven't seen from the Iranians, I think, a desire for that level of engagement. They've really focused on the channel between our foreign ministers. And so, that's where I think it's most likely to continue.'" http://t.uani.com/2445Ct5

Free Beacon: "President Barack Obama has sent two letters to senior Iranian leaders in recent months requesting a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, according to Persian language reports recently translated by a Middle East research organization. 'President Obama asked to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in two secret letters sent in late March to both Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rouhani,' according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, which translated a Farsi-language report published Tuesday by a website affiliated with Iran's Green movement. Obama purportedly wrote in the correspondence 'that Iran has a limited-time opportunity to cooperate with the U.S. in order to resolve the problems in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and promised that if Iran agreed to a meeting between him and Rouhani, he would be willing to participate in any conference to this end,' according to MEMRI's translation of the report." http://t.uani.com/23Lsl0i

Business Risk

AFP: "Iran may technically be open to foreign investors after a nuclear deal with Western powers, but many sanctions remain, deterring potential business partners who fear the US could hit them again with punishing fines. In January, the United States and other Western powers lifted sanctions related to Tehran's nuclear programme, mostly on oil exports and financial transactions. But it remains on Washington's sanctions list in other areas, notably for allegedly supporting terrorism and its human rights record. 'Iran sanctions are still very much alive,' Farhad Alavi, a US-based lawyer specialising in sanctions application, told AFP... 'As we offer banking services through our US operations we are required to continue to restrict business activity with Iran,' Barclays chief executive Jes Staley said." http://t.uani.com/2444LZx

Sanctions Relief

Reuters: "Italian engineering firm Maire Tecnimont is upbeat on prospects in Iran after signing a memorandum of understanding this year worth around 2 billion euros ($2.27 billion) with more in the pipeline, its chief executive said. 'We feel especially confident because we're the only western contractor that stayed in Iran after the sanctions,' Pierroberto Folgiero told Reuters." http://t.uani.com/1qEWBrC

Trend: "German Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for the Economy and Energy, Sigmar Gabriel will visit Iran May 2, the Iranian oil ministry's SHANA news agency reported. Leading an economic delegation, which consists of the country's major companies' representatives, Gabriel is scheduled to take part in the joint Iran-Germany economic commission's meeting. Iran's Economy Minister Ali Tayebnia will head the Iranian side at the event which will be held May 2-4. The upcoming meeting will be the first session of Iran-Germany joint economic commission after 15 years. The last meeting was held in 2001. After the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the world powers last July, Gabriel led the first top level German delegation to Tehran in 13 years." http://t.uani.com/210q789

AP: "Iran won't consider a production freeze until it reaches its pre-sanctions level of output of 4.2 million barrels a day, a senior energy official said Thursday. Mehdi Hosseini, who heads the oil contracts revision committee at Iran's Petroleum Ministry, said a freeze at anything less than that would be a continuation of the sanctions imposed on his country as a result of its disputed nuclear program. 'Our pre-sanction production was something around 4.2 (million barrels per day), and our exports was something around 2.5, 2.6 (million barrels per day) or so' Hosseini said on the margins of an oil conference in Paris. 'Therefore any other figure less than that it means another sanction against ourselves. It is something we cannot accept.'" http://t.uani.com/1MKiQH6

Domestic Politics

Reuters: "Campaigning for Iran's parliamentary runoffs next week began on Thursday, state radio reported, when allies of President Hassan Rouhani and their hardline rivals will compete to secure a majority after an inconclusive election earlier this year. Rouhani supporters made big gains in a general election in February, especially in Tehran. They fell short of a parliamentary majority but won enough seats to ensure conservatives lost the upper hand in the house... The race on April 29 could decide who will control the 290-seat house. Some 136 candidates will run for 68 seats representing constituencies where in February nobody secured a required 25 percent of votes... In February, conservatives won about 112 seats in parliament, reformers and centrists 91 seats and independents and religious minorities 18 seats, a tally by Reuters showed, compiled in the absence of official numbers... The new parliament and the Assembly of Experts will start work on May 27." http://t.uani.com/2443hhM

Opinion & Analysis

Foreign Minister of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif in WashPost: "Nearly three years ago, the newly elected Iranian president called for constructive engagement on a momentous undertaking: resolving the nuclear crisis dividing Iran and the West. The fruit of 22 months of unprecedented diplomacy - the historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - wasformally implemented in January. Yet despite this important achievement, the worrying reality is that we now face a far greater challenge. Those who once hid behind the smoke screen of the artificial crisis over my country's peaceful nuclear program have stepped up their damaging adventurism. Driven by desperation, they have resorted to measures that all of us will have to live with over the coming years and, possibly, decades. Allow me to explain... During the intensive negotiations over complex issues surrounding Iran's nuclear energy program, my country insisted at every turn that our defenses were not on the table. But our argument was not centered on sovereignty, nor on the fact that our military is vastly outspent by those of many of our Western-allied neighbors. We simply made reference to the recent past. In 1980, in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, Iraq's Saddam Hussein launched a war against Iran fully supported financially and militarily by almost all of our Arab neighbors and by the West. Unable to secure a quick victory, Hussein used chemical weapons against our soldiers and civilians. The West not only did nothing to prevent this, it armed Saddam with sophisticated weapons, while actively preventing Iran from getting access to the most rudimentary defensive necessities. And during the eight long years that this war continued, the U.N. Security Council did not issue a single condemnation of the aggression, the deliberate targeting of civilians or the use of chemical weapons. This may have been forgotten by most in the West, but it is not forgotten by our people. They remember the missiles raining down, the horrific images of men, women and children murdered with chemical weapons and, above all, the lack of a modern means of defense. On top of this, having listened to the outdated U.S. mantra of 'all options are on the table' for 37 years, our people understand that we need to be prepared to prevent that illegal and absurd threat from ever becoming a reality. The words 'never again' resonate with Iranians, too... Iran is blessed. At a time when bombs go off in public places throughout the Middle East and war is at our doorstep, we have a stable, safe and healthy environment for our citizens and for those visiting and doing business with us." http://t.uani.com/1NDdFUe

Eli Lake in Bloomberg: "Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, is angry. For some reason Iran's Arab neighbors, not to mention many U.S. politicians and journalists, think his country is an aggressor, unworthy of international investment and entry into the global community of nations.  It's enough to make you want to arrest an American businessman on phony espionage charges. But Zarif is a man of reason. So he has taken to the pages of the Washington Post to make his case that despite Iran's ballistic missile tests, and its supreme leader's threatening speeches, and its support for Syria's dictator ... his country really just wants peace and harmony. It all comes down to a simple misunderstanding, according to Zarif. During the nuclear negotiations, he writes, 'my country insisted at every turn our defenses were not on the table.' ... Zarif in his op-ed uses the history of the Iran-Iraq war to justify what he calls the development of his country's 'indigenous defense capabilities.' But this is misleading, because Iran keeps testing ballistic missiles, which can deliver a nuclear warhead. They are not a defensive weapon like the missiles the U.S. sold Iran through the Israelis. Speaking of Israel, the Jewish state is particularly concerned about Iran's ballistic missiles because some of them were inscribed with Hebrew words promising to wipe Israel off the earth. That doesn't sound very defensive, does it? But this is not even the most galling element of Zarif's op-ed. After rehashing the history of the Iran-Iraq war and complaining about how U.S. presidents for 37 years have stated that 'all options are on the table' when it comes to countering Iranian aggression, Zarif writes, 'The words never again resonate with Iranians, too.' 'Never again' is of course most associated with preventing another Holocaust against the Jews. It is the title of Martin Gilbert's history of that crime. Zarif is the front man of a regime that not only threatens to wipe out the world's only Jewish state, but also actively denies the Holocaust. In June, Iran will host a competition where it will give a $50,000 award to the cartoonist who best mocks the Nazi genocide. An earlier winner of the contest was a cartoon that depicted Hitler and Anne Frank in bed with the fuhrer saying, 'Put that in your diary.' This is the Iran that Zarif complains is unfairly demonized in the West. It's enough to make one appreciate the bluntness of Iran's fanatical leaders at home. At least there they say what they actually mean." http://t.uani.com/2448CFS
       

Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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