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Reuters: "A powerful anti-Western cleric was
chosen on Tuesday as the head of Iran's new Assembly of Experts, in a
sign that hardliners are still in firm control of the body in charge of
choosing the next supreme leader. Ahmad Jannati, 90, is a an outspoken
critic of President Hassan Rouhani and his attempts to end Iran's
global isolation by normalizing ties with the West. The 88-member
assembly, consisting mostly of elderly clerics, is expected to choose
the successor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 77 and
rumored to be in frail health... The selection of Jannati, with 51
votes according to state media, as the new head is likely to surprise
voters in the February election who managed to block many hardliners
from keeping their seats in the assembly. Jannati had squeezed in as
the last of 16 members elected in the capital Tehran. Jannati is also
the chairman of the Guardian Council, a hardline vetting body that
disqualified the majority of prominent reformist and many moderate
candidates from running in the February elections. Even by the
standards of Iran's clerical establishment, Jannati stands out for his
virulently anti-Western opinions, once accusing the West of having
created al Qaeda and describing U.S. forces in Iraq as 'bloodthirsty
wolves.'" http://t.uani.com/1TwTSsm
FT: "Iran is fulfilling its
pledge to raise oil production and exports almost six months after
western sanctions on the sector were lifted, surprising many analysts
and commentators. Oilfields pumped almost 3.6m barrels a day in April,
a level last reached in November 2011 before sanctions over Tehran's
nuclear programme were tightened, said the International Energy Agency.
Crude exports surged to 2m b/d in last month, just 200,000 b/d below
late 2011 levels. Iran is engaged in a battle for market share with Saudi
Arabia and other regional rivals in its efforts to regain customers
after years of curbed oil sales that crippled its economy. Mike
Wittner, oil analyst at Société Générale, said: 'Most people felt the
Iranians were talking a big game ahead of the lifting of sanctions.
This was an oil market wild card and they have surpassed our
expectations.' ... Of the chartered tankers that loaded from February
to the first week of May, 16 out of 21 were headed for Europe,
shipbrokers say. About 12 of the National Iranian Tanker Company's
almost 40 very large vessels are taking crude to existing customers in
Asia, while the rest are storing it offshore. 'Selling crude is really
no problem but the issue is on the financial side,' said one Iranian
official, adding that exports could have been higher if it were not for
financiers holding back from doing business with Iran... US banks and
financial institutions are still prohibited from processing payments
related to Iranian oil and many of their European counterparts are wary
of breaching the remaining US restrictions. Shipowners and insurers are
also wary of dealing with the country or clients that want to lift
Iranian oil. Those that do are having to face higher costs to conduct
trades... Tony Foster, chief executive of Marine Capital, the UK
shipping asset manager, said shipowners were also wary of chartering
ships to businesses such as those controlled by the Revolutionary Guard
Corps, which is still subject to sanctions. 'There are lots of
outstanding issues,' said Mr Foster, despite valid international
certificates and removal of shipping and insurance restrictions. 'Even
though sanctions have been lifted, you can't just go steaming in.'
'Until Iran has control over its shipping industry, it won't have
control over its exports. And without that, its moves to secure market
share become tricky,' Mr Foster added." http://t.uani.com/27RdRf5
Reuters: "Hopes that Iran would quickly
reintegrate with world markets after its nuclear deal, bringing
investment and opportunities to a young population, are turning to
frustration. An opaque business environment in Iran and political
uncertainty in the United States are to blame. Tehran's hotels are
buzzing with businessmen keen for a slice of a big new emerging market,
more industrially developed than most oil and gas-rich nations but
isolated since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that turned Iran into a
pariah state for most of the West and many of its Middle Eastern
neighbors. Yet potential foreign investors have found that the removal
of international sanctions in exchange for monitored curbs on Iran's
nuclear program is only part of the story. Barriers to entry include
resistance from hardliners within Iran who worry an opening to the
world will undermine their entrenched interests, and fear among foreign
investors of falling foul of residual U.S. sanctions. Under the nuclear
deal, the U.S. and Europe lifted sanctions in January. But other U.S.
restrictions remain. These include a ban on Iran-linked transactions in
dollars being processed through the U.S. financial system and sanctions
on individuals and entities identified as supporting 'state-sponsored
terrorism'. The chief target of the anti-terrorism sanctions is the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the theocratic
establishment's enforcer at home and strike-force abroad. The IRGC is
also behind a business empire, encompassing construction to banking,
and is expert at hiding its involvement. Investors and top-tier foreign
banks fear U.S. action could shut them out of the international banking
system if they deal, even by mistake, with sanctioned bodies. Foreign
executives scouting for business in Iran say when they examine the tangle
of ownership behind companies they approach, they often detect IRGC
ties. Claude Begle, executive chairman of SymbioSwiss, a logistics and
infrastructure company, says he found that one exploratory project
turned up such links. 'We did a lot of due diligence and we found that
the names of institutions appearing on the OFAC (the US Treasury's
Office of Foreign Assets Control) sanction list are sometimes not far
away,' he said in apparent reference to the Revolutionary Guard. 'When
you look at the shareholders structure at the second or third level,
then you see that such names may appear. They are sitting there.' 'Very
often when you look at Iran's successful companies, you can see that.
And unless those companies are willing to modify accordingly their board
structures, it will be very hard to raise international financing to
work with such entities.' ... Alexander Gorjinia, part of the second
German business delegation to visit Iran since August 2015, says 'the
biggest problem is the banks'. While businesses and banks may have
German go-ahead to operate in Iran, OFAC 'puts the responsibility of
establishing whether the (Iranian) company is clean on the foreign
company.' 'The foreign company has to investigate the Iranian company,
whether it is linked to or is part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,'
Gorjinia told Reuters. 'It has to investigate their dealings, how they
operate behind the scenes. We have to work with companies that have
money in their pocket and most of them are part of the Revolutionary Guard.
This is what our information tells us.'" http://t.uani.com/1qGVck7
U.S.-Iran
Relations
RFE/RL: "For the first time, Iran has
officially acknowledged that it has imprisoned a U.S. permanent
resident who advocates for Internet freedom. Iranian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said Tehran 'will try to speed up' the
case of Lebanese citizen Nizar Zakka, who disappeared in Tehran in
September after attending a government-sponsored conference." http://t.uani.com/1U7Hu1i
Business
Risk
Guardian: "The governor of Iran's
central bank has said obstacles stopping Iranian banks from rejoining
the global financial system show that the US and the EU are failing to
fully comply with their commitments under the landmark nuclear deal.
Four months after the lifting of sanctions against Iran, big European
banks remain reluctant to handle Iranian payments despite recent
efforts by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, to reassure them that
dealing with Tehran is now permissible. Valiollah Seif told the
Guardian that western governments need to translate their words into
action, playing a more active role in making sure that banks are
confident they will not be punished for reestablishing ties with his
country. 'Some movement and western officials have made some positive
pronouncements, but banks need tangible reassurances that they would be
immune from baseless allegations [of sanctions breaches],' he said on
Thursday on the sidelines of the Euromoney Iran Conference in London...
Uncertainty over the US presidential elections and the over-zealous
application of US sanctions - even in countries where they do not apply
- have also exacerbated those fears. 'Banks need enough reassurances,
even if this means rewriting guidelines or revising regulations, or
giving banks written guarantees,' Seif said. 'Until our western
interlocutors have fully fulfilled their obligations under the nuclear
deal, we won't see a real change in our banking relations.' UK firms
such as Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have
refused to serve as clearing banks for their Iranian counterparts,
preventing them from reopening their London branches, the governor
said. 'Our first expectation from Britain is to provide assistance so
that our Iranian banks can start operating in London again,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/1syRNVN
Free
Beacon:
"Members of Congress have summoned the heads of airplane giant
Boeing to a meeting to encourage the company to stop spearheading
efforts to reenter the Iranian marketplace, a business pursuit that is
jointly backed by the Obama administration, according to a letter sent
Friday to Boeing leadership and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Boeing, like its French rival AirBus, has been working to woo the
Iranian government following last summer's comprehensive nuclear
agreement. Officials at Boeing-a top U.S. government contractor-opened
discussions with Iran last month. The company is hoping to sell its
aircraft and other services to Iran's national airline... Three House
members from Washington state, a major base for Boeing operations,
wrote to the company on Friday to request a meeting. The letter also
was sent to the head of AirBus. 'We write to express our serious
concerns over the sale of airplanes, parts, and other aircraft-related
services to the Islamic Republic of Iran,' write Republican Reps. Cathy
McMorris Rodgers, the GOP conference chair, Dave Reichert, chair of the
House committee that regulates trade, and Dan Newhouse. 'With Airbus
already conducting business in Iran and Boeing working with the
Administration to begin its own sales, an extremely dangerous precedent
is being set for Western companies,' the lawmakers wrote, according to a
copy of the correspondence obtained by the Free Beacon. 'We ask both of
your companies to consider the profound moral implications of engaging
a nation that has proven time and time again that it cannot be
trusted.'" http://t.uani.com/1Rnej8J
Sanctions
Relief
WSJ: "Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani signed an agreement
with Tehran on Monday for a transport corridor designed to open up a
new route to Afghanistan via the Iranian port of Chabahar,
circumventing Pakistan. Chabahar port, which India will partially
develop just across the border from Pakistan's Chinese-run Gwadar port,
is the centerpiece of the corridor. India and Iran on Monday signed an
agreement in Tehran that allows New Delhi to begin work on Chabahar
after a delay of more than a decade. 'To carve out new routes for peace
and prosperity is our common goal,' Mr. Modi said. 'Afghanistan will
get an assured, effective and a more friendly route to trade with the
rest of the world,' he said, in a veiled criticism of Pakistan, with
whom both countries share turbulent ties and whose location in between
them has stymied trade. Mr. Modi said the deal could 'alter the course
of history of this region' and help India, Afghanistan and Iran 'to
eventually build what we all desire and deserve-a friendly and healthy
neighborhood.' ... Under the deal with Iran, New Delhi will invest $200
million to develop two terminals and five berths at Chabahar, India's
Foreign Ministry said. An additional $300 million would be available
for the port and development of related infrastructure, according to a
statement from Mr. Modi. Iran is also seeking investment from other
nations to fully develop the port." http://t.uani.com/1NJo9Hl
Press
TV (Iran):
"Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will make an
official visit to Finland next week to hold talks with senior officials
of the country. Zarif is scheduled to hold talks with Finland's
Minister of Foreign Affairs Timo Soini on 31 May, the Finnish
government announced on its website on Tuesday. It added that the two
ministers' discussions will focus on Tehran-Helsinki relations,
regional developments in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, ties
between the European Union and Iran, and other topical international
issues. The Iranian foreign minister will also sit down with Finnish
President Sauli Niinisto and Speaker of Parliament Maria Lohela. A
large business delegation will accompany Zarif in his trip to Finland.
In January, on the sidelines of the 46th annual meeting of the World
Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, the Iranian foreign
minister and Finland's president held a meeting." http://t.uani.com/1WPXGes
Press
Trust of India:
"India has sought a discovered oilfield from Iran for raising
crude oil imports from the Persian Gulf nation as part of efforts to
widen economic and energy ties post lifting of sanctions. Indian Oil
Corp (IOC), the nation's largest oil firm, has proposed to Iran that it
be given rights to operate and produce crude oil from the discovered
field to help move away from buyer-seller relationship to a strategic
partnership, sources privy to the development said... Besides IOC, ONGC
Videsh Ltd has also sought two discovered fields from the 16 fields
that Iran is likely to put on auction shortly. The fields sought by
OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC),
is besides the Farzad-B offshore field for which it is in advanced
talks to secure developmental rights. OVL had in 2008 discovered the Farzad-B
field in the Persian Gulf. The field holds 12.5 Trillion cubic feet of
recoverable reserves... Sources said India has also expressed interest
in investing in chemicals, petrochemicals and fertilizer plants if Iran
provided natural gas at low prices. It also is looking at setting up an
ammonia/urea plant in Chabahar Free Trade Zone with long-term off-take
of urea to India. While Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd
(MRPL) and Essar Oil Ltd - the biggest Indian buyers of Iranian oil -
are likely to maintain buying at around 5 million tonnes each, Bharat
Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) may
begin importing oil from the Persian Gulf nation. HPCL-Mittal Energy
Ltd (HMEL) has indicated it will buy a small quantity with an option to
raise volumes." http://t.uani.com/1OKYYiG
Reuters: "National Aluminium Co Ltd
(NALCO) and Iran's mining development body have agreed to explore the
possibility of building an aluminium smelter in Iran, NALCO said in a
statement on Monday, as New Delhi tries to boost trade ties with Tehran
after the lifting of sanctions. NALCO's Indian refinery would supply
the alumina for the smelter if the project were to go ahead. The
agreement also opens up the prospect of other Iranian smelters using
alumina supplied by India. The deal was signed as Prime Minister
Narendra Modi begins a visit to Iran to further diplomatic and trade
ties." http://t.uani.com/1sySTRo
Reuters: "South Korea's crude oil
imports from Iran rose 113.5 percent in April from a year earlier,
while its total crude oil imports rose 9.1 percent year on year to 89.7
million barrels last month, data from state-run Korea National Oil Corp
(KNOC) showed on Tuesday." http://t.uani.com/1TBfeqL
Terrorism
RFE/RL: "The likely killing of
Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur in a U.S. drone strike in
southwestern Pakistan has attracted attention to Islamabad and its
longstanding covert alliance with the Afghan Taliban. But less
attention is being paid to budding relations between the hard-line
Sunni insurgent movement and Iran's clerical establishment. A
well-placed Afghan source has confirmed to RFE/RL's Gandhara website
that Mansur was targeted on the afternoon of May 21 after returning
from Iran earlier that day. Mansur and his driver were killed on the
outskirts of Ahmad Wal town on the main highway connecting Quetta, the
capital of Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan Province, to Iran. Ahmad
Wal is nearly 500 kilometers or a five-hour drive from the Taftan border
crossing between Pakistan and Iran... The source said Tehran is keen on
keeping the Taliban from becoming a close ally of its regional
archrival, Saudi Arabia. 'Iran's relations with the Taliban can fit
every possible game and strategy for Tehran,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1XtXPmd
Human
Rights
BBC: "A teachers' union leader in
Iran has warned of an intensifying campaign of harassment and
imprisonment by the Iranian authorities against teachers' union
representatives. Hashem Khastar, from Mashhad in north-east Iran, says
there have been hunger strikes staged by teachers in protest against
jailings and the denial of human rights. Mr Khastar, from the teachers'
union in Khorasan Razavi province, says he has been jailed three times.
He says this followed his defence of the right of teachers to belong to
an independent union and that he was jailed for 'trying to bring out
the voice of the innocent teachers of Iran'. 'The teachers want,
through this teachers' movement, to achieve democracy,' he says." http://t.uani.com/1XtUuUn
Domestic
Politics
AP: "A hard-line Iranian cleric
who has been in the country's power structure since its 1979 Islamic
Revolution was chosen on Tuesday to lead the Assembly of Experts, a
clerical body that picks the country's next supreme leader. The
selection of 89-year-old Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, an ultraconservative
who called for the execution of opposition activists after Iran's
disputed 2009 election and asked Iraqis to be suicide bombers against
U.S. forces in Iraq in 2003, signals the power hard-liners still wield
in Iran despite a recent nuclear deal with world powers... After the
vote, Jannati reiterated recent comments by Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei that the Assembly should remain 'revolutionary,' state TV
reported. 'I hope to work in a way that leads to happiness of the
almighty God, the supreme leader and the people,' Jannati said...
Tehran-based political analyst Saeed Leilaz said he believed Jannati's
election showed Khamenei's influence on the panel, as well as Jannati's
own in being able to vet and pick candidates from his post on the
Guardian Council. 'Jannati is symbol of continuation' of hard-line
policies, Leilaz said. Jannati's biography shows that as well. He
traveled the world in 1989 to seek Muslim nations' support for the
death fatwa, or edict, issued by clerics against author Salman Rushdie
for his book 'The Satanic Verses.' He accused Qatar in 2002 of
'committing treason against all Muslims' by hosting a U.S. air base,
and urged Iraqis in 2003 to 'resort to martyrdom operations to expel
the United States.' In 2009, he remarked during Friday prayers that he
wanted someone to shoot then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi
Livni." http://t.uani.com/20vszTj
AFP: "The 88-member assembly has
proven well beyond the reach of reformists, although moderate President
Hassan Rouhani and heavyweight former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani topped the election to it in Tehran. Rafsanjani, a senior
figure in the moderate and reformist camp, did not have enough
confidence to run for the chairmanship of the conservative-dominated
body. Media said he could not even muster a quarter of the votes... In
the vote for the assembly chairmanship, the reformist camp reportedly
threw its support behind Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, a moderate
conservative who is a prayer leader in the Shiite clerical centre of
Qom. But he won just 21 votes to Jannati's 51. The new assembly could
have a major say in Iran's future political direction because of
Khamenei's advancing age." http://t.uani.com/1qGTUpo
Opinion
& Analysis
Nazanin
Boniadi in CNN: "Once,
I hoped to return to Iran. Like Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the woman
who now sits in an Iranian jail, I longed to visit family, friends, the
land of my birth. Her arrest last month, the latest in a string of
arrests of dual nationals lured back to Iran, has thrown cold water on
my hopes, for now. The oppressors, for the moment, have won. But it's a
hollow victory, and I do not believe a permanent one, as it only serves
to starve Iran of the vitality and engagement with the world its
citizens want and need. When I read about Nazanin's arrest in Iran, I
was struck by the deep connection I felt to this woman - and to the
enormity of what sets us apart. Both of us are Iranian-born young
women, sharing the same given name, who made Great Britain our home and
philanthropy our life's work. Yet she sits in a detention center, while
I enjoy the comforts of home. She has been virtually incommunicado and
in isolation, deprived even of her 22-month-old daughter, while I am
surrounded by family and friends. Why? Because she returned to the
Islamic Republic of Iran, to visit her parents, and to allow them to
see their granddaughter, while I live in an open society, where such
philanthropic work is celebrated, not criminalized. How many more of
Iran's best and brightest, who return home to see their loved ones, or
even to offer their talents to assist with the country's growth, will
be snatched off the streets and imprisoned, because the Islamic
Republic's security and intelligence apparatus wants to keep dual
nationals - and their notions of freedom of speech and freedom of the
press - out of Iran? ... As the Islamic Republic seeks to normalize its
relations with the world, let the global community state clearly that
these detentions are not lawful or acceptable. The international
community must speak out loudly and with one voice against this
injustice. If Iran wants to stand among the community of nations as
something other than a pariah, these seizures must stop." http://t.uani.com/1s78rvM
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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
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
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