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Iran said on Wednesday it would take "reciprocal
action" in response to the U.S. Supreme Court allowing a partial
implementation of President Donald Trump's travel ban on six
Muslim-majority countries. Lower U.S. courts had completely blocked Trump's
executive order issued on March 6, which includes a blanket 90-day
ban on people from countries including Iran and Libya and a 120-day
ban on all refugees. But the Supreme Court on Monday ruled there
could be partial restrictions placed on refugees. The decision
is "an indication of the decision of the leaders of that country
to discriminate against Muslims," Iran's Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Bahram Qassemi was cited as saying by the official Islamic
Republic News Agency (IRNA). "The Islamic Republic of Iran, after
carefully examining the recent decision of the Supreme Court of
America, will take proportional and reciprocal action," Qassemi
said. He did not elaborate.
Iran is accusing U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
of "a brazen interventionist plan" to change the current
government that violates international law and the U.N. Charter.
Iran's U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter to Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres circulated Tuesday that Tillerson's comments are
also "a flagrant violation" of the 1981 Algiers Accords in
which the United States pledged "not to intervene, directly or
indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal
affairs." Tillerson said in a June 14 hearing before the House
Foreign Affairs Committee on the 2018 State Department budget that
U.S. policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons
"and work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that
would lead to a peaceful transition of that government."
"Those elements are there, certainly as we know," he said.
As congressional negotiators attempt to clear a key
technical hurdle preventing a popular Russia and Iran sanctions bill
from final passage, some lawmakers are expressing new concerns over
the breadth of energy sanctions in the legislation. Oil industry executives
and some foreign diplomats are prodding them to water down the
measure, approved in the Senate earlier this month on a 97 to 2 vote.
The bill would codify and step up existing sanctions on Russia's
energy, banking and defense sectors, while adding new restrictions on
intelligence, metals, mining and railways industries as punishment
for Moscow's aggressive actions in Ukraine and Syria and alleged
meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections. Aides in both parties describe
behind-the-scenes worries over a change to a 2014 prohibition against
U.S. companies participating in oil development ventures on Russian
territory. The bill broadens that to restrict participation in any
potential oil production project, anywhere, in which a Russian energy
company is involved.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Advocates of sanctions against Iran for its human rights
abuses and support of terrorism applauded the FATF announcement.
"Myriad risks, including the funding of terror proxies like
Hezbollah, the use of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps front
companies to launder money, and cybersecurity hacking, show that Iran
has a long way to go before becoming a responsible and trustworthy
business partner," said Amb. Mark Wallace, CEO of United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) On Tuesday, Iran expressed its frustration with
FATF. "Even though we regard the recent FATF decision as a step
forward, we announce that this positive measure does not satisfy Iran
so we will continue to follow up the matter to provide the Iranian
people with their full rights," Iran's Economy Ministry declared
in a statement.
The Economy Ministry has issued a statement through its
anti-money laundering division, providing a mixed reaction to the
recent verdict of the Financial Action Task Force concerning Iran.
"Even though we regard the recent FATF decision as a step
forward, we announce that this positive measure does not satisfy Iran
so we will continue to follow up the matter to provide the Iranian
people with their full rights," the statement reads, according
to Shada, the ministry's official news outlet...A number of officials
had stressed before the meeting of the global AML/CFT
standard-setting body that the US is using its influence to sway FATF
members in making a decision against Iran. They cited an article in
the Wall Street Journal by former US senators Joseph Lieberman and
Mark Kirk with the lobby group United Against Nuclear Iran, which
called for stricter measures against Iran as the latest string of
evidence.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif blasted the Trump
administration's temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority
countries, but the response in the rest of the Middle East to the
U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow its partial implementation was
more muted. After the Supreme Court on Monday narrowed the scope of
the ban but allowed it to go into place, Mr. Zarif on Tuesday tweeted
that it was discriminatory and didn't accomplish its objectives.
"A bigoted ban on Muslims will not keep [the] U.S. safer,"
he said. "Instead of policies empowering extremists, [the] U.S.
should join the real fight against them."
Iran says the US. Supreme Court's decision to reinstate
parts of a travel ban applied to six Muslim-majority countries is
"racist" and "unfair." Foreign Ministry spokesman
Bahram Ghasemi was quoted by state TV Wednesday as saying it is
"regrettable" that Washington "closes its eyes to the
main perpetrators of terrorist acts in the U.S," without
elaborating. The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Donald
Trump to forge ahead with a limited version of his ban on travelers
from Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. The justices will
hear full arguments in October in the case. Critics say the ban is
intended to meet Trump's campaign promise of keeping Muslims out of
the country. The administration says the restrictions are needed to
keep out terrorists while it tightens vetting procedures.
The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from survivors of
a 1997 terrorist attack who want to seize museum pieces in U.S.
collections to help pay a $71.5 million default judgment against
Iran. The justices said Tuesday they will review a lower court ruling
that said the U.S. victims of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem couldn't
go after collections of Persian artifacts at Chicago's Field Museum
of Natural History and the University of Chicago. The victims accused
Iran of providing training and support to Hamas, which carried out
the attack They won a judgment and sought assets to pay it after Iran
refused to pay The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Iran
didn't own some of the collections and said other artifacts were
immune under U.S. law.
President Trump's top diplomat at the United Nations
said Tuesday that she's worried Iran will acquire nuclear weapons and
provide them to terrorist groups, with the tacit support of the
Russians. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley told a House
Appropriations subcommittee that she believes the Iran nuclear
agreement reached under the Obama administration will only
"delay something that's going to happen," which is Iran's
achievement of a nuclear weapon. She said that poses the risk that
Iran could share that technology with terrorist groups it supports. "They're
going to continue their nuclear capabilities and we just gave them a
lot of money to do it with," she said. "And my concern is
they are associating with are all the groups we're trying to
defeat." "So, not only did we give that capability to Iran,
we are now giving it to those terrorist organizations we're trying to
defeat," she added.
A warning from the White House to Syrian President
Bashar Assad about another possible chemical weapons attack was also
aimed at two of Assad's key backers, Russia and Iran, the U.S
ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday. During testimony
before the House panel on foreign operations, Nikki Haley also called
Assad "barbaric" and said she can't envision a
"healthy Syria" if he remains in power. "The goal is
at this point not just to send Assad a message, but to send Russia
and Iran a message," Haley said. "That if this happens
again, we are putting you on notice. My hope is that the president's
warning will certainly get Iran and Russia to take a second look, and
I hope that it will caution Assad." Her comments come about 12
hours after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the U.S. had
"identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons
attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass
murder of civilians, including innocent children."
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is making a
quiet appeal to Iran's leaders to release an elderly American citizen
detained on what the U.S. claims are trumped up charges of espionage,
according to several officials. Guterres, a former Portuguese prime
minister and U.N. refugee chief, wrote a highly confidential letter a
week ago to the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, to ask for the
release on humanitarian grounds of Baquer Namazi, an 81-year-old
retired UNICEF official. The U.N. chief's secret diplomacy provides a
powerful illustration of how his much-maligned institution often
provides unnoticed benefits to the United States. It also presents
the U.N. chief with an opportunity to prove the U.N.'s value to
skeptics at a time when he is seeking to bolster his relationship
with the Trump administration, which wants to radically slash the
U.N.'s budget.
EXTREMISM
The Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies abroad on
Friday commemorated Qods (Jerusalem) Day, an annual event held on the
last Friday of Ramadan and established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
to express support for Palestinians and opposition to Israel. The
regime has not shied away from reiterating its call for Israel's
destruction during the annual event. While the majority of people
inside and outside of Iran (including Sunni Arabs) do not partake,
Qods Day events held in several continents highlight the Islamic
Republic's soft-power influence and global reach.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel appealed to all
sides involved in the Qatar crisis to meet for direct talks to avoid
a further escalation. At a news conference with his Iranian
counterpart, Gabriel also said he expected Tehran to play a
constructive role in the Qatar crisis and said he was working closely
the KfW bank to make sure that business deals can be completed with
Iran. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia and its allies cut ties with
Qatar, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants, an allegation
Qatar denies. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran
and Germany must use all means to strengthen their financial ties.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel says a nuclear
deal with Iran has helped lower the risk of a major conflict in the
Mideast and that Germany will do whatever is possible to hold all
parties to it. After talks in Berlin with Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Gabriel told reporters Tuesday that the deal
was "a great sign of hope" for the region and had opened a
"historic window" for rekindling relations with Tehran. He
says: "Our clear position is we stand by this agreement."
U.S. President Donald Trump has condemned the agreement. Gabriel did
not mention any other countries in his comments. Zarif said he was
"very happy to hear Germany takes it seriously."
HUMAN RIGHTS
Hundreds of members of the European
Parliament have strongly condemned human rights violations by the
Iranian government and also called for the blacklisting of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) involved in multiple
regional conflicts. According to Amnesty International, "Iran
alone accounted for 55% of all recorded executions" in the world
in 2016. Evidence by a senior cleric inside Iran confirmed that the
current Iranian Justice Minister was a key member of the so called
"Death Committee" that approved the mass executions of over
30,000 political prisoners, including several thousand women, in Iran
in 1988 - a massacre which Amnesty International has described as a
crime against humanity. Most of the victims were affiliated with the
opposition PMOI. "We therefore call on the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council, to set
up a commission of inquiry on the 1988 massacre of political
prisoners in Iran," a statement from the European Parliament
read.
Before she begins her Wednesday
morning, Iranian activist Masih Alinejad spends hours sifting through
scores of videos and photos sent to her of women in Iran wearing
white headscarves or white clothing as part of a growing online
protest. To campaign against the obligatory wearing of headscarves -
or hijabs - Alinejad last month encouraged women to take videos or
photos of themselves wearing white and upload them on social media with
the hashtag #whitewednesdays. "My goal is just empowering women
and giving them a voice. If the government and the rest of the world
hear the voice of these brave women then they have to recognize
them," Alinejad told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Under Iran's Islamic law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women
are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes
for the sake of modesty. Violators are publicly admonished, fined or
arrested.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
On June 23, Iranian hard-liners once again attacked
moderate President Hassan Rouhani, but this time was different. A
group of hard-liners approached the president and chanted harsh
slogans while he was marching in the streets to mark International
Quds Day. Iranian hard-liners step up their attacks on recently
re-elected moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Every year, Iranians
take to the streets on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan to
decry Israel for "occupying Palestinian lands." Various
figures, including high-ranking officials, take part in the marches,
but this time, a group of hard-liners came close to the president and
chanted slogans against him that were interpreted as impolite and
insulting. Among the slogans shouted at Rouhani, who was re-elected
by a landslide on May 19, were "The American sheikh,"
"Rouhani, Banisadr, congratulations on your linkage" (in
reference to Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran's first president who was
impeached and later exiled), and "Down with hypocrites" (in
reference to the outlawed opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq).
Iranian Revolutionary commander Mohammed Jaafari
criticized President Hassan Rouhani's for accusing Tehran's elite
guard of intervening in national economic decision-making processes.
Jaafari said that the Rouhani administration has inexcusably failed
to deliver on its financial commitments to the guard amid rising
regional tensions. He said that the short-coming is at a time in
which Iran needs more missile power than ever. He vowed his forces
have both missiles and guns needed to protect the country, but
stressed that "the Revolutionary Guards' silence will be
exercised for purposes of national unity." Iran's Supreme
National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani warned of the
internal conflict rising over what party is held accountable for the
rocket fire targeting Iranian posts last week on sites in Syria.
Jaafari bashed Rouhani's leadership, saying that the re-elected
leader is seeking to polarize the Iranian people whilst failing to
deliver promises he made on advancing Iran's economic standing and
public living.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iran and North Korea have long cooperated in some
aspects of their missile development and probably in some aspects of
their nuclear programs as well. Some of the details of this
cooperation are clear, but many are not-at least at the open-source
level of data available outside the intelligence community. This
raises critical issues in evaluating the progress each country is
making in the development of its nuclear forces, and how much
cooperation they still have in shaping their missile forces. It also
raises the issue of how possible it is to establish effective
arms-control efforts and stable structures of deterrence when key
aspects of each country's military development can be affected by the
actions of a distant and very different power. Containing, deterring,
and defeating either Iran or North Korea is difficult enough when
each nation is treated separately. It becomes far more difficult to
the extent they are cooperating to develop missile and nuclear
forces.
Immediately following the reelection of Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani last month, the country's Oil Ministry began
boasting about its expectations that new investment deals with
European nations would be signed before Rouhani took the oath for his
second term later this summer. There doesn't appear to be much
concrete information to back up these claims, and the Islamic
Republic of Iran has a demonstrated track record of exaggerating its
own prospects, both in terms of economic outcomes and military
development. Yet, the latest rhetoric reflects political and
diplomatic realities, including the likelihood of some Western
policymakers and businessmen taking Rouhani's reelection as a cue to
expand their relations with the Iranian regime. This is something
that the whole world should be alarmed about.
On July 1, the Iranian opposition will be holding its
annual rally to give voice to the Iranian people and their popular
resistance movement and to reiterate the call for regime change in
Iran. This is, of course, a message reflecting the true desire of the
Iranian people and is widely endorsed by policymakers around the
world, as evidenced by the hundreds of dignitaries who will attend
the event. The "Free Iran" rally has significant
implications for the policies being advanced around the world by
persons with a clear understanding of the danger the Iranian regime
poses to global security and the stability of the Middle East. This
is especially important in the current historical moment, when
assertive policies regarding the clerical regime in Iran are
returning to the mainstream the world over. The gathering, with the
National Council of Resistance of Iran at its center, takes place at
the Villepinte Exhibition Center outside of Paris, and brings
together critics of the totalitarian theocracy, including those whom
the regime has brutally suppressed in the past 38 years.
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