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Ramazan Sharif, the spokesperson for the media department of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), addressed the leak of an audio file that includes the force's former commander speaking about corruption.

The audio was published by US-funded Radio Farda.In the nearly hour-long audio file, former head of the IRGC Mohammad Ali Jaffari can be heard speaking with IRGC economic affairs deputy Sadegh Zolgadr about corruption at the Tehran municipality under former Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is now speaker of parliament. The audio also makes references to former Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and IRGC Intelligence chief Hossein Taeb.

In the file, Zolgadr tells Jaffari that Ghalibaf, while he was mayor, was upset about an embezzlement case involving a missing $3 billion. Ghalibaf had met Zolgadr in person and tried to convince him to sign a contract for the missing amount in order to help him cover it up. Zolgadr claims to have responded to Ghalibaf, This is illegal. It will be to my detriment and to your detriment as well.

The issues are linked to various IRGC economic dealings, which in part fund IRGC activities. According to Jaffari, one of the issues was over Yas Holding, a subsidiary of the IRGCs Cooperatives Foundation. He said that Soleimani had complained to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the Quds Force was struggling to acquire funds due to the corruption. Khamenei had ordered that 90% of Yas Holding's earnings go to the Quds Force and the rest go to the IRGC. Yas Holding was dissolved in 2018, and some of its officials were sentenced to prison for corruption.

In addressing the audio file, Sharif downplayed the significance of its publication. He said that the IRGC itself became aware of the mismanagement and corruption of one of its economic subsidiaries. Sharif also added that the IRGC investigated the case themselves, sent the case to the judiciary and helped them prosecute those beyond the mismanagement and corruption. He said that at the time, the national media covered the news.

Meanwhile, the current nuclear negotiations in Vienna are still taking place. Iran is seeking US sanctions removal, and the United States wants Iran to roll back its nuclear program to levels stipulated by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the United States exited in 2018 under the previous administration.

In a press conference, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, The West needs to stop playing with time and the text. He said Western countries are trying to play for shock and time, and they need to show their good intentions and return to their commitments under the JCPOA. When the United States exited the deal and reapplied sanctions, European countries while disagreeing with the decision abided by the sanctions due to fears of secondary sanctions by the US Treasury.

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Iran's IRGC confirms leaked audio of former head discussing corruption - Al-Monitor

Highlights

G7 finance ministers warn of 'massive, immediate' penalties

Russian banks expected to be top targets of initial response

Platts Analytics sees direct energy sanctions as less likely

Russia's top banks are likely to be a key target of Western sanctions in response to a potential invasion of Ukraine, with significant market impact spreading across borders, Center for a New American Security experts said Feb. 14.

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The panel predicted the US, EU and UK governments would act with relative cohesion, leveling penalties within days.

The experts project the 55 Bcm/year Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany would be canceled -- as US and European leaders have threatened in recent weeks -- but no other direct energy sanctions, at least immediately.

G7 finance ministers said in a joint statement Feb. 14 that "any further military aggression by Russia against Ukraine will be met with a swift, coordinated and forceful response."

"We are prepared to collectively impose economic and financial sanctions which will have massive and immediate consequences on the Russian economy," the G7 statement said.

Adjunct fellow Eddie Fishman, who advised on sanctions issues in the Obama administration's State Department, predicted at the CNAS event that the US response would start strong and potentially escalate further to even "Iran-level sanctions" within several months.

"I don't think the Biden administration is going to do that right away, but I do think that's kind of the course of events that will unfold if Putin makes this decision to invade in the coming days or weeks," Fishman said. It was not "tenable for energy to be off the table long term if Russia were to invade Ukraine."

Listing Russia's top state-owned banks on the Treasury Department's blocked list would have "enormous impact" on the country's economy, said Maria Shagina, a visiting fellow at the US Center for Politics and Power.

The economic blowback could cut across borders and sectors, according to Tom Keatinge, director of RUSI's Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies.

"I'm not sure for how long economies would be prepared to take that kind of pressure," Keatinge said. "The reality of this is the integration between Russia and Western economies means that there will need to be a degree of self-harm if we are going to create the sort of pressure on Russia that Western leaders -- particularly UK and US leaders -- have been promising."

CNAS alum Elizabeth Rosenberg, a top sanctions official in the Biden administration's Treasury Department, met with European officials in the week ended Feb. 11 to discuss potential sanctions coordination. She led CNAS's Energy, Economics and Security program after serving in the Obama administration.

US President Joe Biden has vowed to impose "swift and severe consequences" on Russia if it attacks Ukraine, including financial sanctions to restrict foreign capital and export controls to block US software and technologies.

Other options include banning Russia from dollar trades and blocking access to the international financial messaging service SWIFT, both of which analysts see as less likely because they would have massive consequences for energy markets and the global economy.

US senators are still negotiating their own sanctions bill, but the White House holds broad executive power to impose sanctions.

Platts Analytics does not expect the US to impose secondary sanctions on Russian oil customers, given Europe's heavy dependence on the flows and oil prices already at $90/b.

"The West is unlikely to jeopardize such large volumes," Platts Analytics said.

Russia was the No. 3 oil supplier to the US in November after Canada and Mexico, US Energy Information Administration data showed Jan. 31, as the Ukraine crisis threatens to disrupt the flows.

Platts Analytics expects any disruption in the Russian crude to have a minor effect, as US refiners could backfill by easing exports of US Gulf Coast sour crudes, such as Mars. Lower US imports of Russian oil feedstocks would have a bigger impact, but Gulf Coast refiners could run Canadian or Latin American heavy grades at the cost of margins.

Excerpt from:
Russia could face 'Iran-level sanctions' within months of potential Ukraine invasion: analysts - S&P Global

MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the positions of Moscow and Berlin on Irans nuclear program are rather close.

At a press conference following the talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday, the Russian head of state said that they discussed some relevant global issues, including the situation around Irans nuclear program.

"We are in constant contact on this issue at the level of the ministries of foreign affairs, and I should point out that our positions are rather close," the Russian leader stressed.

The eighth round of talks continued in Vienna after a New Year break. The negotiations seek to restore the JCPOA in its original form and bring the US back into the agreement. Following a JCPOA Joint Commission meeting between Iran and the five world powers (Russia, the UK, Germany, China and France) on December 27, 2021, the parties agreed to accelerate the process of drafting the agreement in the working groups. This round is expected to be the last, as the parties intend to complete the negotiations by February 2022.

Putin also thanked Scholz "for joint work" at the meeting in Moscow adding that the dialogue was "useful and substantive."

More here:
Russian and German views on Irans nuclear program rather close, Putin says - TASS

Hamed Esmaeilion, a dentist from the northern suburbs of Toronto, admires the 2006 film The Lives of Others, in which an East German secret policeman turns against the regimes secrecy and tries to help its victims. In the epilogue, the regime implodes, Germany reunifies, and the characters are allowed to see state records that reveal the truth surrounding a terrible event.

We are all waiting for the last ten minutes of that movie, said Esmaeilion, who lost his wife Parisa and daughter Reera when Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps shot down Ukrainian Airlines flight PS752 as it took off for Kyiv from Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020.

But Esmaeilion, who is also the spokesperson for the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, which represents most of the victims loved ones, is doubtful about Canadas resolve in seeking the truth.

While most of the 176 victims had ties to Canada55 were citizens, 30 were permanent residents and many were studying hereEsmaeilion says Canada has taken a very conservative approach to the whole process.

The families struggle for truth now appears to have reached a stalemate. Last December, Iranian authorities refused point-blank to negotiate with the International Coordination and Response Group formed by countries that lost citizens in the shooting, which include Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom (Afghanistan was also represented until the Taliban takeover last August). The group has declared further efforts to negotiate with Iran futile.

The families struggle for truth now appears to have reached a stalemate. Last December, Iranian authorities refused point blank to negotiate with the International Coordination and Response Group formed by countries that lost citizens in the shooting, which include Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom (Afghanistan was also represented until the Taliban takeover last August). The group has declared further efforts to negotiate with Iran futile.

Without transparency from the Iranian government, the victims families remain haunted by unanswered questions, which they outlined in a November 2021 report titled The Lonely Fight For Justice.

Among the questions they raised: Why did Iran leave its airspace open amid hostilities with the U.S. on the night of the shooting? How could Irans air defense system mistake a civilian plane for an incoming missile? Why did Iran deny its involvement in shooting down the plane for three days afterwards? Why did authorities bulldoze the crash site? Why have Iranian authorities harassed the victims families and interfered with funerals, as documented by Human Rights Watch last year?

The report concludes that Iran left its airspace open so that civilian aircraft could serve as human shields against possible U.S. retaliation for an Iranian missile strike on a U.S. base in Iraq. Iran struck the base in retaliation for a U.S. drone strike that killed the commander of the Revolutionary Guards expeditionary Qods Force, General Qassem Soleimani. The report also speculates that the shooting of the plane could have been intentional, part of an asymmetric warfare strategy designed to forestall further military escalation with the U.S.

While the latter claim might seem shocking or conspiratorial, it has received varying degrees of support from outside observers. Agnes Callamard, the United Nations former special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, wrote to Iran in December 2020 that, while she had not found concrete proof that the shooting was premeditated, the question needs to be further investigated. In a controversial civil court ruling last May, an Ontario Superior Court judge labelled the shooting an intentional terrorist act. In December, he awarded six of the victims families $107 million, which they can try to collect from Irans assets.

The six families lawyer, Mark Arnold, told the CBC this could include claims on Iranian oil tankers in foreign ports or as-yet-unnamed Iranian assets in Canada. He has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help the families collect on those assets.

Javad Soleimani, the chair of the Association of Familiess fact-finding committee, and who lost his wife Elnaz in the attack, said he and the majority of PS752 families believe Iran targeted the plane intentionally.

The Islamic Republic, he said, is not a normal regime. While he welcomed the Ontario courts ruling, he said he and most of the families put truth above compensation.

We cant talk about compensation without knowing what happened, he said.

Whether one believes the shooting was intentional or not, Soleimani said, there is a need for an impartial investigation, and since negotiations with Iran have failed, Canada should list the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation and apply Magnitsky-style sanctions to Iranian officials.

Two years of living without answers, he said, have hindered his ability to grieve. His wifes clothes and shoes are still at his home, but, he said, I dont dare to even touch them.

Navaz Ebrahim, also a member of the families association, lost her older sister Niloufar and brother-in-law Saeed, who were newlyweds living in the UK. Her parents, she said, are not doing well.

They have aged several years in just two years, she said, and Iran is now trying to close the case by offering compensation on its own terms, in lieu of disclosing all the details of the incident. The official government line also describes the victims as shahidsIslamic martyrs akin to those who died fighting in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

A shahid is someone who goes to war, but our loved ones were not going to war, she said.

Esmaeilion, Soleimani and Ebrahim now pin their hopes on Canadas involvement with international institutions: Canada, they say, should take the case to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Other options, Esmaeilion says, are also under consideration, such as offering an award to encourage a whistleblower within the Iranian regime to come forward with what could be a smoking gun.

We are fighters to the end of this story, Esmaeilion says. But I am a different person now. I have to go in front of cameras and talk about our strategy, our demands, how we feel about this or that news, instead of taking my daughter to school every day.

See more here:
'We are fighters to the end of this story': PS752, two years on - OpenCanada

Liz Truss admitted she fears Europe is on the brink of war as attempts to defuse tensions with Russia over Ukraine have so far failed to bear fruits. The Foreign Secretary said there are concerns failure to prevent an invasion could send a disastrous signal to countries such as Iran and China about European weakness. Speaking to Sky News, Ms Truss said: "We could see the undermining of security more broadly in Europe and we could also see other aggressors around the world see it as an opportunity to expand their ambitions too.

"This is a very dangerous moment for the world.

"This is, of course, about Ukraine which is an important sovereign nation but it's also about the wider stability of Europe and it's about wider global stability and the message we give to aggressors.

"We have to give the message to Vladimir Putin that there can be no reward for aggression, there can be no reward for lining up troops on somebody else's border and threatening to invade."

Asked about which countries could be emboldened by a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ms Truss said: "We're currently in negotiations with Iran over stopping them acquiring a nuclear weapon in Vienna.

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Russia denies planning to invade and accused the West of hysteria after sending a flurry of officials to Moscow and Kiev.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday suggested to Putin that Moscow continue along the diplomatic path in its efforts to extract security guarantees from the West.

UK officials reportedly believe Russia is sending thousands more troops to the border.

The Guardian reported officials estimate a further 14 Russian battalions are heading towards Ukraine, each numbering about 800 troops, on top of 100 battalions massed on the borders.

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Alliance of evil! Truss warns Russia invasion to embolden Iran and China against Europe - Daily Express