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Iran vowed Saturday to respond to President Donald
Trump's suspension of U.S. visas for citizens of seven countries
including the Islamic Republic, as the president's new executive
order tripped up travelers across the Middle East. Iran's Foreign
Ministry, in a statement carried by the official Islamic Republic
News Agency, called Mr. Trump's immigration ban "an obvious
insult to the Islamic world and especially the great Iranian
nation" and warned it would be a "gift to the extremists
and their supporters." The statement promised proportionate
legal, consular and political consequences, but it didn't say what
those would be.
Two days after moving to block the entry of citizens
of seven majority Muslim countries, President Donald Trump's talks
with two Gulf Arab leaders contained no public mention of the ban.
The focus, instead, was on anti-terrorism efforts and confronting a
mutual foe: Iran. Trump spoke by phone on Sunday with Saudi Arabia's
King Salman, whose country is home to Islam's holiest shrines, as
well as Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. The call
with the Saudi monarch lasted more than an hour, according to a
senior Saudi person who spoke on condition of anonymity. In addition
to fighting terrorism, they agreed to tackle Iran's
"destabilizing regional activities," the White House said.
The remarks shed more light on Trump's Middle East policy by
signaling he wants to improve ties with the Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab
monarchies that felt shunned by the U.S. under the Obama
administration, which focused on clinching a nuclear deal with Iran.
The new U.S. president, however, stopped short of repeating his
earlier vows to repeal the accord, saying he agreed with the Saudi
king on "the importance of rigorously enforcing" it,
according to the Trump administration.
Two juvenile offenders were executed in Kerman
(southeastern Iran) and Tabriz (northwestern Iran) prisons. This is
in addition to the more than 70 people who have been executed since
the beginning of 2017. Iran Human Rights calls for international
reactions to the wave of executions and in particular juvenile
executions in Iran... The Iranian authorities lead the world in the
most executions of minors, despite the revisions made to the Islamic
Penal Code and that child executions violate Iran's international
obligations.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iran said on Saturday it would stop U.S. citizens
entering the country in retaliation to Washington's visa ban against
Tehran and six other majority-Muslim countries announced by new U.S.
President Donald Trump. "While respecting the American people
and distinguishing between them and the hostile policies of the U.S.
government, Iran will implement the principle of reciprocity until the
offensive U.S. limitations against Iranian nationals are
lifted," a Foreign Ministry statement said. "The
restrictions against travel by Muslims to America... are an open
affront against the Muslim world and the Iranian nation in particular
and will be known as a great gift to extremists," said the
statement, carried by state media.
But there is little doubt that the demand for
information will be a challenge for Iran, which sends far more people
to the United States each year, around 35,000, than any other country
on the list. While Iran willingly allows its citizens to travel to
the United States, it is ideologically opposed to sharing information
with Washington. But if it does not, many of its citizens will be cut
off from visiting relatives who are among the estimated one million
Iranian-Americans living in America. The visa ban will provide an
early indication of where relations between Tehran and the Trump
administration are headed, one analyst said. "Trump will regard
the Iranian reaction as a test," said Farshad Ghorbanpour, who
is close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani. "If Iran
doesn't comply, they won't do so either on other issues. We will see
in 30 days."
Austria has shut its door to about 300 non-Muslim
Iranians hoping to use the country as a way station before
establishing new homes in the United States, The Associated Press has
learned. The action is an early ripple effect of U.S. President
Donald Trump's effort to clamp down on refugee admissions. Under a
27-year-old program originally approved by Congress to help Jews in
the former Soviet Union, Austria had been serving until recently as a
conduit for Iranian Jews, Christians and Baha'i, who were at risk in
their home country and eligible to resettle in the United States.
Iran has banned the Baha'i religion, which was founded in 1844 by a
Persian nobleman considered a prophet by followers. U.S. officials
had been interviewing the candidates in Austria because they cannot
do so in Iran. But the United States suspended the so-called
"Iranian Lautenberg Program" in recent days, according to
Austrian officials, who in turn stopped Iranians from reaching their
territory. It's unclear when the program might restart.
Duke University professor and Iranian dissident Mohsen
Kadivar left his home in North Carolina 10 days ago to attend a
fellowship program in Germany. Now, stranded in Berlin as a result of
new U.S. immigration rules, the longstanding critic of Iran's ruling
clerical establishment does not know whether or when he can rejoin
his wife and two children in the United States... Kadivar, once an
active participant in Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution who later fell
foul of its leaders, told Reuters from Berlin he was concerned about
his family and career in America.
The Iranian government is to stop using the US dollar
in its official statements, according to a report in the local
English-language daily the Financial Tribune. The decision was
announced by Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif during a
television interview on the evening of January 29 and, according to
the paper, is due to take effect from the start of the new fiscal
year on 21 March. It will affect all official financial and foreign
exchange reports... This leaves open the question of what Iran will
use to replace the dollar. Seif said in the television interview that
"we have to set a currency as the basis of financial reporting
that has better stability and greater application in our foreign
trade," according to the Financial Tribune. He added that Iran
has the option of "selecting a basket of currencies or choosing
the currency that plays the biggest part in foreign trade". That
suggests that the euro could be a logical alternative for the dollar.
However, the decision to drop the dollar could prove to be
complicated for Iran, given that its most important export is oil
which is priced in dollars.
As Iranians woke on Saturday to the news that none of
them would be able to enter the United States for at least 90 days,
on the orders of President Trump, panic reigned. They were turned
back from flights to the United States in Tehran and in the major
transfer hubs of Istanbul and Dubai. Some of those who arrived in the
United States after midnight, when the decree went into effect, were
held or deported, rights groups and airline representatives said. No
one, not passengers, airline representatives or even United States
border control officials, seemed to know how to interpret the
executive order that went into effect at midnight on Friday. Under
the new policy, refugees, immigrants and almost anyone from seven
countries deemed to be hotbeds of terrorism are banned from the
United States for 90 days, pending a review of policies.
Iran's foreign minister has described Donald Trump's
decision to ban entry to the US from seven Muslim-majority countries
as "a gift to extremists". Javad Zarif said on his Twitter
account that the Islamic Republic would no longer issue visas to US
nationals, in retaliation to an executive order that "will be
recorded in history as a great gift to extremists and their
supporters". Mr Trump's executive order bars people from Iran,
Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US for
90 days. This "shows the baselessness of US claims of friendship
with the Iranian people", said Mr Zarif... The ban is a blow to
Hassan Rouhani, Iran's centrist president, who had promised during
his 2013 election campaign to "bring back dignity to the Iranian
passport".
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday it
was no time to build walls between nations and criticized steps
towards cancelling world trade agreements, without naming new U.S.
President Donald Trump. Trump on Wednesday ordered the construction
of a U.S.-Mexican border wall, a major promise during his election
campaign, as part of a package of measures to curb illegal
immigration. "Today is not the time to erect walls between
nations. They have forgotten that the Berlin wall fell years ago,"
Rouhani said in a speech carried live on Iranian state television.
"To annul world trade accords does not help their economy and
does not serve the development and blooming of the world
economy," Rouhani told a tourism conference in Tehran.
"This is the day for the world to get closer through
trade."
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
France's foreign minister travels to Iran on Monday,
seeking to reaffirm Europe's commitment to the nuclear deal that U.S.
President Donald Trump has threatened to annul... "Jean-Marc
Ayrault is going to underline the importance that all sides which
backed the deal strictly respect their commitments," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal told a daily briefing... "That
the Iranians have been destabilized by Trump's election and
statements is certain and I think they must be worried," a
French diplomatic source said. "But developing commercial ties
strengthens the moderates in Iran. We want to reinforce them to show
the population that the deal is good for them because the radicals
won't be able to say that they have got nothing from it."
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi has
released details on the agenda of French FM Jean-Marc Ayrault during
his official visit to Tehran on Monday. Bahram Ghasemi noted that the
French Foreign Minister heading a high-ranking political delegation
accompanied by representatives from economic enterprises is scheduled
for an official visit to Iran on Monday evening. "Foreign
ministers of Iran and France will convene a joint economic and trade
commission's meeting on Tuesday," Ghasemi said, adding that
taking part in the economic commission's meeting is among the main
programs of Ayrault's visit to Tehran. There is the possibility that
the two sides sign a number of documents at the end of the meeting,
he added... Ayrault is accompanied by representatives from 60 French
companies, directors of Middles East and African affairs at Foreign
Ministry, managers of entrepreneurship and international economic
institutions, officials in charge of Iranian affairs at Foreign
Ministry, heads of Department of Treasury Office, and a number of
governmental officials and media persons.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Lukoil, Russia's No.2 oil producer, hopes to reach a
decision on developing two new oilfields in Iran and wants to expand
its operations further in the Middle East this year, a senior
executive said on Sunday. Lukoil is talking with the National Iranian
Oil Company (NIOC) on taking part in development of the Abe Timur and
Mansuri fields in central-western Iran, said Gati al-Jebouri, vice
president and head of upstream operations in the Middle East.
"We are in active discussions with them with respect to budget
cost structure, and subsequently we will start negotiations on
contractual terms if the development plans that we proposed are
accepted and agreed by the Iranian party," Jebouri told
reporters on Sunday. Lukoil signed several memorandum of
understanding with NIOC last year, and "had site visits and have
done significant amount of analysis as to how we potentially can
develop the project," he said.
REGIONAL DESTABILIZATION
The air force of the United Arab Emirates shot down an
Iranian-made drone in Yemen, state news agency WAM reported on Saturday,
quoting a Yemeni military officer. The UAE is a member of a mostly
Gulf Arab military coalition led by Saudi Arabia that is backing
Yemen's internationally recognized government in a nearly two-year
war against the Iran-allied Houthi group. It appeared to be the first
time the coalition had accused the Houthis of deploying drones made
by their regional arch-rival Iran. "Yemeni forces ... spotted
preparation to launch the plane from atop a light transport vehicle
and coordinated and communicated with the UAE air force operating in
Yemen, which did its part in dealing with the plane, destroying it
with an air-to-land missile," WAM quoted the officer saying.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iran's new charter of rights outlining freedoms of
speech, protest and fair trials does not apply to the detention of
opposition leaders and dual nationals, the bill's architect says. The
Charter of Citizens' Rights, released last month by the office of
President Hassan Rouhani, embodies freedoms including the right to
trial in open court without arbitrary detention. But Elham Aminzadeh,
special assistant to Rouhani on citizens' rights, told AFP in an
interview that the bill has no power over the judiciary or
Parliament, and only covers the civil service and other parts of the
executive. "I cannot put an article in this charter for the
judiciary or legislative," said Aminzadeh, who spent three years
compiling the document. Asked about the continued house arrest
without trial of opposition leaders since anti-government protests in
2009, she said: "It is not very related to the executive or
administrative power. It is something else. I cannot answer to
this." On the trials of dual nationals, who have recently been
jailed in closed-door courts, Aminzadeh said: "Security
prisoners have a special process inside the judiciary. We cannot say
anything about special security prisoners.
The final death toll in the deadly collapse of a
burning building in the Iranian capital is 26, including 16
firefighters, Iran's semi-official ILNA news agency reported Friday.
Hassan Abbasi, public relations director of the Tehran Emergency
Center, told the state-run IRNA news agency that 235 were wounded at
the Plasco building fire and collapse in Tehran on Thursday.
"Tehran Emergency Center has provided outpatient and recovery
treatment for 180 injured and 55 others have been taken to Tehran
hospitals," he said.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
President Trump's travel ban on Iranians is a gift to
the Islamic republic and its hard-line rulers. It will not deter
terrorism on U.S. soil. Not a single terrorist involved in the 9/11
attacks or other fatal terrorist attacks in the United States since
then has been of Iranian origin. Instead, Trump's policy is a
collective punishment of a diverse and changing nationality, and will
ironically serve the purposes of Iran's hard-line rulers. Who are the
Iranians who will be harmed by this policy? I have been helping
Iranian refugees reach safety for more than a decade. A recent case
is that of Reza, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter. Reza, whose
full name I cannot use for security reasons, is a victim of torture
at the hands of Iranian Revolutionary Guards at Tehran's notorious
Kahrizak prison. Reza fled to Turkey in 2013, and after years
waiting, he and his family were recently approved for resettlement in
the United States. He hoped to arrive sometime this year, once
security vetting by U.S. agencies was complete. His hopes are
shattered. He and his family are suddenly rendered effectively
stateless and homeless, with nowhere to turn. Instead of welcoming a
regime opponent to the United States, we are effectively throwing
Reza and his family back into the treacherous hands of Iranian
Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian refugees who have settled in the
United States over the past decade are chiefly victims of the
regime's harsh crackdowns, including students, journalists, women's
rights activists and lawyers. These are the Iranians who have vocally
and ferociously opposed the Islamic republic.
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