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TOP STORIES
The meeting between Putin and Rouhani, who have grown
closer through their mutual support of Syrian president Bashar
al-Assad, mostly focused on flourishing economic ties in the fields
of energy and industry. Putin said in televised comments after the meeting
that trade between the countries had "grown more than 70
percent" last year. "This is truly a good result
considering that it was achieved in unstable global conditions and
amid persistent volatility on the commodity and currency markets,"
Putin said. A joint statement published by the Kremlin said that
"special attention" had been paid to cooperation in energy,
with both sides pledging to continue efforts to stabilise the
international market.
Aiming to prove their commitment to Israel, senior U.S.
lawmakers are backing bipartisan legislation that would slap Iran
with new sanctions while maintaining rigorous enforcement of the
landmark nuclear deal. The measures, unveiled ahead of the opening of
the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, seek
to build consensus among Republicans and Democrats who are so often
bitterly at odds on domestic issues. "The United States will
stand with Israel," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said
at the conference Tuesday. But the Kentucky Republican criticized the
nuclear agreement as a "windfall" for Tehran that prevented
the U.S. from taking more aggressive steps against Iran. "But
today we can take a different approach," McConnell said.
"Today, we can combat Iran's capability to fund, arm, and train
terrorists like Hezbollah, Hamas, and its proxies in Syria."
A German court has sentenced a 31-year-old Pakistani to
four years and three months in prison for spying for Iran by seeking
out possible Jewish and Israeli-related targets for attacks in
Germany and France. The German news agency dpa reported Tuesday that
Haider Syed Mustafa was convicted by a Berlin court for collecting
extensive material on the former head of the German-Israeli
Association and on a French-Israeli professor from an economic
university in Paris, for the elite Quds Force unit of Iran's Revolutionary
Guard. No attacks were carried out. Mustafa, who came to Germany in
2012 to study for an engineering degree at the University of Bremen,
received more than 2,000 euros (2,170 dollars) for his spying
activities which included shooting hundreds of photos and creating
presentations on the potential targets. He refused to testify during
the trial.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE
PROGRAM
Addressing a UN conference to negotiate a legally
binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, held in New York on
March 28, Iran's UN Ambassador Gholam Ali Khoshroo deplored certain
nuclear-weapon states for inaction to implement their nuclear
disarmament obligations under article VI of the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). He also reaffirmed Iran's
commitment to obligations under the NPT, including the obligation to
pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to
nuclear disarmament.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Hundreds of Iranian students already accepted into U.S.
graduate programs may not be able to come next fall because of the
uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump's proposed travel ban,
potentially derailing research projects and leaving some science
programs scrambling to find new students. With admission season still
in full swing, 25 of America's largest research universities have
already sent more than 500 acceptance letters to students from the
six affected countries, according to data provided by schools in
response to Associated Press requests. The vast majority of those
students are from Iran, where undergraduate programs are known for
their strength in engineering and computer sciences. The ban, which
would suspend immigration from Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and
Yemen, has been blocked by federal judges. But if the court ruling is
overturned or if Trump issues a new immigration ban, students would
be locked out for next fall, legal experts say.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday charged an executive at a
Turkish state-owned bank with participating in a multi-year scheme to
violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, escalating a case that has added
to tensions between the United States and Turkey. Mehmet Hakan
Atilla, a deputy general manager of Halkbank, is accused of
conspiring with wealthy Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab to conduct
hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal transactions through U.S.
banks on behalf of Iran's government and other entities in that
country. Atilla, a 47-year-old Turkish citizen, looked somber as he
appeared at a brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge James
Francis in Manhattan, a day after being arrested at John F. Kennedy
International Airport. It was unclear whether Atilla has hired a
lawyer or made any bail application. He will remain in federal
custody for now
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Russia and Iran have pledged to continue efforts to rein
in oil production and stabilize markets, the presidents of both
countries said in a joint statement on Tuesday. The Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other large producers,
led by Russia, had agreed in December to cut their combined output by
almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to reduce bloated oil
inventories and support prices. Iran, however, successfully argued
that it should not limit production that was slowly starting to
recover after the lifting of international sanctions in January last
year. "Russia and Iran will continue cooperation in this sphere
(in oil output cuts) in order to stabilize the global energy market
and ensure stable economic growth," the statement from Russian
President Vladimir Putin and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani said.
MILITARY MATTERS
In a statement released on Wednesday, in commemoration
of the Islamic Republic Day, which falls on April 1, the General
Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces hailed the country's remarkable
progress in the military and defense fields. Iran's deterrent power
has reached such a point that the "front of enemies is recoiling
with strategic horror" while the Iranian nation is assured of
sustainable national security, the statement added. It also restated
the Armed Forces' commitment to press ahead with plans to boost
defense capabilities and deterrent power in order to thwart the plots
hatched by the adversaries of Iran. On Saturday, Iran is going to
celebrate the 38th anniversary of the outset of the Islamic Republic
as the country's official ruling system, which was approved by the
overwhelming majority of Iranians in a landmark referendum back in
1979.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Iran has rejected accusations that it is imperiling the
security of the Middle East, saying regional insecurity and terrorism
originates from Saudi Arabia's radicalism and extremism. "The
root cause of terrorism in the region is radical thoughts nurtured in
Saudi Arabia which have today become the scourge of people in the
region and in the world in the form of different terrorist-takfiri
groups," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in a
statement carried on the official website of the ministry on Tuesday.
General Ahmed Hassan Mohammad Asseri, an adviser to Saudi Arabia's
Defense Minister as well as spokesman of the Saudi-led Arab coalition
against Yemen, claimed in an article published by Fox News that Iran
is sharing ballistic missile technology with the extremist Houthi
militia in Yemen and similar groups in other countries, thereby
imperiling the security of the entire region.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
In Iran, there are two main approaches to how to avoid a
looming banking crisis. The first is to get the Central Bank of Iran
(CBI) to implement a major quantitative easing (QE) program - the
introduction of new money into the money supply - in a bid to provide
troubled banks with immediate liquidity. The second, less risky,
solution aims to help out financial institutions without QE.
Advocates of the latter approach are very worried about the
inflationary consequences of the CBI printing money. As such, they
urge banks to embrace structural reforms and address their
nonperforming loans (NPLs) - which are estimated at 1,100 trillion
rials ($33.9 billion) in value - in a more "serious" way.
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