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TOP STORIES
Iran and Russia have stepped up challenges to U.S. power
in Afghanistan, American and Afghan officials say, seizing on the
uncertainty of future U.S. policy to expand ties with the Taliban and
weaken the country's Western-backed government. The moves come as
tensions have flared between the United States, Iran and Russia over
the conflict in Syria, and officials worry that the fallout could
hurt Afghanistan's chances for peace. For years, Iran and Russia have
pushed for a U.S. withdrawal. Now, as the Taliban gains ground and
the White House appears to lack a clear Afghan policy, Iran and
Russia have boosted support for insurgents and sidelined the United
States from regional diplomacy on the war. Russia on Friday will host
high-level talks on Afghanistan with Iranian, Pakistani and Chinese
diplomats, the Kremlin said. But the United States, irked by Moscow's
recent outreach to the Taliban, has not confirmed whether it will
attend.
In mid-2015, German prosecutors say, Iran set in motion
a spying operation that targeted a prominent pro-Israeli politician
and a Jewish newspaper in Berlin. Details of the alleged plot-which
authorities said appeared aimed at gathering information for
"possible attacks" on them-emerged during a trial in
Berlin's highest court that ended late last month with the conviction
of a 31-year-old Pakistani man, Syed Mustafa Haider, on espionage
charges. Prosecutors said Mr. Haider was guided by a person believed
by German intelligence to be part of the Quds Force, an arm of Iran's
Revolutionary Guard Corps. He spent months tracking Reinhold Robbe, a
former lawmaker who was then chairman of the German-Israeli Society,
they said. Mr. Haider, who was sentenced to four years and three
months in prison, denied the charges and has instructed his attorneys
to appeal the verdict against him, his lawyers said. The lawyers
declined to comment further.
European airplane manufacturer ATR said Thursday it
sealed a $536-million sale with Iran Air for at least 20 aircraft,
the latest aviation firm to strike a deal following Iran's nuclear
accord with world powers. ATR spokesman David Vargas confirmed the
finalized deal for the 20 ATR 72-600s, a twin-propeller aircraft, and
said Iran Air had an option to purchase another 20. "They will
definitely help Iran Air to modernize and develop regional
connectivity across the country," Vargas told The Associated
Press. Home to 80 million people, Iran represents one of the last
untapped aviation markets in the world. However, Western analysts are
skeptical that there is demand for so many jets or available
financing for deals worth billions of dollars. Vargas declined to
offer a value for the deal with Iran Air. The confirmed portion of
the deal is worth $536 million at list prices, though buyers
typically negotiate discounts on bulk orders. Iranian state TV
described the deal as being worth about $400 million.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE
PROGRAM
"The Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes that its
defense missile program is in no way related to the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the nature and design of
Iran's ballistic missiles are such that the tests do not contravene
UN Security Council's Resolution 2231," Iranian Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Resolution 2231 was adopted on July 20, 2015 to endorse the JCPOA.
Obviously, the Islamic Republic will continue to enhance its defense
capacities to safeguard its national security and boost regional
peace and stability regardless of how Western parties perceive the
country's defense program. Qassemi's remarks came in response to a recent
statement by the G7 countries, which claimed that Iran's missile
tests were "inconsistent" with Resolution 2231.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Mr. Alaeddin Boroujredi addressed a ceremony in Hotel
Esteghlal of Tehran Thursday to commemorate Pakistan's National Day
(on 23 March 1940), where a group of foreign envoys, dignitaries, and
Pakistani ambassador to Tehran Mr. Asif Ali Khan Durrani. The
Principlist MP hailed historical relations with Pakistan and believed
that the ties will be strong forever; "Iran's official line of
policy is to support stability in the region especially its
neighbors; we hope to see that peace embrace Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Yemen," Boroujerdi told the ceremony, criticizing the recent US
missile attack against an airfield in Syria. "Americans should
have sent messages of peace rather than to attack the region with
aggression and destruction," he added.
TERRORISM
One of the most important policies of the Islamic
Republic of Iran is to continue its serious fight against the ominous
phenomenon of terrorism in the region, Chairman of the Iranian
Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin
Boroujerdi said in a speech at a ceremony held in Tehran on Wednesday
marking Pakistan's National Day. A number of Iranian and foreign
officials, including ambassadors of Pakistan, Russia, Ecuador, Syria,
Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and Cuba were present at the event. The
Iranian official further expressed the hope for sustainable peace and
security in the Middle East, calling on the US to, instead of
dropping bombs, send a message of peace and friendship and help
enhance security in the volatile region.
IRAQ CRISIS
To understandhow mightily Iran once dominated Iraq, head
to Ctesiphon, Persia's old capital, just south of Baghdad. A
millennium and a half old, its ruined palace still features the
world's largest unsupported brick arch. Until Arab armies seized it
at the dawn of Islam, the city was twice the size of imperial Rome
and the centre of a Sassanid empire that stretched from Egypt to the
Hindu Kush.Few Iraqis seem eager to remember that history today. The
Persian ruins lie behind rusting barbed wire, as if ties with Iran,
past and present, were an embarrassment. Officially, Iran has only 95
military advisers in the country, compared with America's force of
some 5,800 soldiers, several vast military bases and control of the
skies. (In reality, an adviser to the prime minister confides, Iran's
forces outnumber America's at least five to one.)
HUMAN RIGHTS
Iran Wednesday condemned a decision by
the European Union to extend sanctions imposed over its human rights
record for one year. "The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns the
repetitive and unhealthy process of double standards and political
abuse of human rights as a tool by the EU, including the renewal of
unilateral sanctions," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi
said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the EU has shown that it
has no true understanding of the human rights situation ... in the
religious democratic system of Iran." The sanctions renewed on
Tuesday include an asset freeze against 82 individuals and one
entity, plus a ban on exports to Iran of equipment "which might
be used for internal repression and of equipment for monitoring
telecommunications," an EU statement said.
Iranian social media activists arrested
ahead of next month's presidential elections are being held on
security and obscenity charges, the judiciary said Wednesday.
"Some of these people have been arrested on national security
charges and some... for committing crimes against public decency and
publishing obscene content," deputy judiciary chief
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie told the Mizan Online news agency. Twelve
people who run reformist and pro-government discussion forums on the
popular messaging app Telegram were arrested last month Authorities
released no information at the time of their arrests and the
detainees have not appeared in open court. Local media said the
Telegram channels were shut down after the arrests. At least one was
restored within a few days, but has not posted anything since March
17.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad surprised
Iran's clerical establishment by registering for the May 19
presidential election, defying the Islamic Republic's Supreme
Leader's warning not to enter the race. Vilified in the West for his
barbs against America and Israel and questioning of the Holocaust,
the blacksmith's son Ahmadinejad has upset predictions before by
stealing the show in 2005 when he defeated powerful former president
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a run-off vote. Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei revealed last year that he had recommended to
Ahmadinejad not to enter the contest. But after his registration on
Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told journalists that Khamenei's
recommendation was "just advice", Iranian media reported.
Khamenei praised Ahmadinejad as "courageous, wise and
hard-working" after his re-election in 2009, which ignited an
eight-month firestorm of street protests. His pro-reform rivals said
that vote was rigged.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's re-election is in
doubt thanks to an unassuming cleric who only recently entered the
public spotlight. On April 9, Ebrahim Raisi, a longtime
behind-the-scenes operative of the Islamic Republic closely
associated with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared his
candidacy in Iran's May 19 presidential election. Though he is the
most likely consensus candidate of Iran's array of
"principlists," the umbrella term for the country's roughly
dozen smaller hard-line political parties, he is neither charismatic
nor widely recognized by the Iranian public, and unless there is mass
vote-rigging, his chances of unseating Rouhani are next to nothing.
But Rouhani's camp has reason to fear that Khamenei's inner circle
will resort to just such tactics. That would set the stage for a
potentially explosive showdown over the future of the country.
In a move that surprised many observers as well as
politicians around the world, US President Donald Trump ordered a
targeted missile attack against a Syrian air base on April 6. The
strike, which the United States said was in retaliation for the April
4 chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, marked a shift from former
President Barack Obama's policy of restraint toward the Syrian
crisis. The US military strike on a Syrian air base has created room
at the table for more Russian and Iranian cooperation in Syria as the
last allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad standing. As expected,
the strike sparked sharply varied reactions around the world. While
the dominant reaction among the Europeans was a welcoming of the
strike as "punishment" for the chemical attack, other US
allies, and especially Turkey and Saudi Arabia, went even further,
calling for more comprehensive US military strikes to overthrow
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The world is watching on as Iran plans to hold its
presidential elections in less than six weeks, but it's important to
look at its consequences through the prism of human rights. While
critics point out, correctly, that an election whereby all candidates
must prove their loyalty in heart and deed to the Supreme Leader, and
are filtered stringently by a Guardian Council whose members are
themselves appointed by the Supreme Leader, can hardly be considered
to represent the free will of the nation, the prospective choice of
candidates offered to the Iranian people is itself a stark indicator
of the fate that Iranians are expected to face. One expected
candidate is current President Hassan Rouhani, who though billing
himself as a 'moderate' in the 2013 election, has, according to a
report last year by the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights
situation in Iran, presided over the highest rate of executions in
the country in the past quarter of a century.
The Iranian regime's role in enabling Syrian dictator
Bashar Assad's chemical attacks on civilians last week has sadly been
ignored, in part because of Tehran's accurate assertion that its
forces were themselves the victims of nerve agent warfare during the
1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif termed
Assad's chemical warfare, which killed 86 people and injured several
hundred in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, as "bogus." He added
on Twitter: "As the only recent victim of mass use of chemical
weapons (by Saddam in the 80's), Iran condemns use of all WMD by
anyone against anyone." And a scarcely read report in the
Kurdish news outlet Rudaw this past October alleged that Iran used
chemical weapons on 12 Kurdish fighters. Iranian Kurds have waged a
low-intensity insurgency against the repression of the mullah-regime
in western Iran.
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