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Iran requires a commitment that the US will not again leave the nuclear deal signed with world powers in 2015, the countrys new chief negotiator and deputy foreign minister has told the Guardian.

Ali Bagheri Kani also said that talks in Vienna between Iran and other signatories had failed to reach agreement on a means of verifying that US sanctions had both been lifted and had a practical impact on trade with Iran.

We need verification, and this remains unresolved. It is one of the issues that remains not finalised. It is not enough for the ink to be put on the agreement, he said. Bagheri Kani did not rule out an independent body being responsible for verification.

The Vienna talks are due to recommence at the end of the month after being suspended by Iran, after the June election of a new hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi. Bagheri Kani is touring European capitals to set out the Iranian negotiating position.

Iran has said it will not take its own steps back into full compliance with the deal until verification of US actions has been secured. Iran has been increasing its uranium stockpile and use of advanced centrifuges beyond the limits set in the deal. It has limited the access of the UN nuclear inspectorate.

Defending his demand that the US give a guarantee that it will comply with the agreement, Bagheri Kani said: This is about an agreement not a policy. If there is a peace agreement between two states, it has the effect of a treaty. This is international law. It is not intended that domestic laws of the US can prevail over an international agreement. That is against international law.

He added he wanted European powers to give their own guarantees that they will trade with Iran, regardless of the US position, possibly by using a blocking statute nullifying the effect of US sanctions on European firms that trade with Iran.

Bagheri Kani denied that Iran had been stalling on the talks resumption in an effort to develop its own nuclear program, saying it was natural for a new government to take time to prepare its negotiating position and to hold bilateral talks with the other parties.

The minister repeated calls for all US sanctions linked to the nuclear deal to be lifted. Iran views sanctions that the US says were imposed for Iranian acts of terrorism or human rights abuses as linked to the nuclear deal, and therefore requiring lifting.

He also ruled out discussions on Irans missile and security program being included in the agreement. He said: the JCPOA has a clear framework and other issues are not relevant. We are not going to negotiate on our defence capabilities or our security.

He added: Irans relations with other countries did not need a guardian.

He denied his negotiating stance was so tough that it would be impossible to reach an agreement in Vienna. We are just saying that in accordance with the JCPOA the sanctions should be lifted. We did a deal, and our view is that it should be implemented.

Asked if he was requiring the Vienna talks to go back to the start, he said: What is important is not from where we started, but what is important is that we achieve a deal that has practical results for the parties. Our main objective is to remove the illegal sanctions that they have imposed on the Iranian nation in breach of UN resolutions. Any sanctions in breach of the JCPOA imposed by President Obama and President Trump have to be lifted. That is the agreement set out the JCPOA.

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Irans negotiator wants guarantee US will not leave renewed nuclear deal - The Guardian

Throughout its history, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat has been operated by exactly two nations: the United States, which retired the aircraft in 2006 in favor of the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet; and Iran, whichcontinues to use them.

Throughout the second half of the 1970s and the 1980s, other nations clamored for access to the new jet, but export restrictions prevented Washington from sharing it. Iran ultimately only received the jet in the early 1970s because of concerns that Iraq, which had received cutting-edge fighters from the Soviet Union, could outpace the Shahs forces in the event of a war between the two. The Shah, who had eagerly aligned himself with the West at every turn, was a reliable enough ally that the U.S. government felt it could trust him with one ofthe best fighter aircraft in the worldor, to be more precise, eightyof them.

In early 1979, as the Shahs regime fell and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini installed a revolutionary theocracy in its place, Washington had second thoughts about this decision. But by then it was too late; the newly created Islamic Republic of Iran took control of seventy-nineof the eightyplanesand began to operate them in 1980 whensure enoughSaddam Husseins Iraq invaded Iran. In the first six months of the war, the F-14s superiority quickly became apparent; it reportedly racked up at least fiftyair-to-air victories in the first six months of the war, with only one aircraft damaged in return.

Following this astonishing string of successes, Iraqi pilots changed tactics, by and large refusing to engage the F-14s, and Iranian pilots, knowing their value, likewise remained back from actual combat, using the planes advanced sensors to coordinate the movements of other, lesser aircraft. In spite of the restrictions placed on them, Iranian engineers also made several improvements to the Tomcat, includingthe addition of bomb racksto transform them from air superiority fighters to ground-attack ones.

By the end of the war, the plane had made at least two hundredkills, losing only eight to enemy action. The second part was more due to the planes lack of availability as to its supposed invincibility; because of U.S. sanctions, spare parts for the aircraft were impossible to import, meaning that they werecannibalized from other aircraft; in 1988, the number of operational aircraft had dwindled to around thirty. Today, that number is estimated to have increased to forty, though even these vary in readiness.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for theNational Interest.

Image: Flickr

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Iran's Jury-Rigged F-14s Saved the Day Against Iraq - The National Interest

Iranian President Raisi says no conditions for talks but Tehran expects the lifting of US sanctions in return.

Tehran, Iran Irans President Ebrahim Raisi said seriousness on the part of the United States in upcoming talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal would mean lifting sanctions against Iran.

In a late-night interview aired by state television, the president said Iran is serious and committed to return at a still unspecified time to Vienna to resume result-oriented talks aimed at restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

For the other side, a readiness to lift sanctions can be a sign for its seriousness, Raisi said.

Raisi also said when Enrique Mora, the European Unions top representative to the Vienna talks, travelled to Tehran last Thursday for discussions, he was told the same.

The Islamic Republic is serious in this. We must also see seriousness on the other side, Raisi said.

Irans foreign ministry said earlier this month the country has no pre-conditions for returning to the negotiating table.

Mora led a delegation that held talks with Ali Bagheri Kani, Irans new deputy foreign minister for political affairs and its top nuclear negotiator.

After the meeting, Iranian officials said the talks were positive and constructive and they would continue in Brussels within two weeks.

But as Iran says it will come back to the Austrian capital soon and is still reviewing records of six rounds of negotiations that ended in June, the US and EU continue to push Iran to commit to a return date.

On Monday, EUs Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said, We made it clear to the Iranians that time is not on their side and its better to go back to the negotiating table quickly.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said challenges and obstacles that remained after the six rounds of talks will need to be discussed with EU officials in Brussels prior to returning to Vienna.

In a tweet on Sunday, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russias top negotiator to Vienna, said talks in Brussels could be viewed as a preparatory step towards resumption of real negotiations in Vienna and not as a substitute.

The US unilaterally abandoned the JCPOA in 2018, imposing waves of sanctions that blacklisted the entire Iranian financial system as part of former US President Donald Trumps maximum pressure campaign.

In response, Iran restarted aspects of its nuclear programme and it is now more advanced than ever with uranium enrichment reaching a purity of 60 percent.

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Iran: Seriousness in nuclear talks means lifting sanctions - Al Jazeera English

For all the sanctions on Iran, Tehran has secured willing customers for its crucial oil and gas exports in the worlds leading authoritarian and communist regimes: Venezuela and China. Caracas has taken a creative route, first paying gold for oil and then bartering its own heavy crude for Iranian gas condensates. Beijing, by contrast, pays cash straight up $280 billion in 2019, followed by a deal worth $400 billion this year. Naturally, this illicit trade weakens efforts to compel Iran to moderate its destructive behavior and end its pursuit of nuclear weapons, potentially harming U.S. interests and national security.

Yet Irans success in courting Venezuela and China does not mean that U.S. sanctions have failed. Sanctions have forced the regime to trade with a few like-minded authoritarian regimes. And crucially, sanctions have forced Iran to go to extraordinary lengths to conceal its illicit shipping commerce: satellite tracking deceptions, doctoring of records, flag- and name-switching, physical camouflage, and a host of other maritime violations.

With a better understanding of the shipping subterfuge, the U.S. and its allies can make the whole rogue enterprise prohibitively costly for all parties, plugging enforcement gaps and truly squeezing Tehran.

For instance, FELICITY was the first Iranian-flagged vessel to load Venezuelan crude, according to TankerTrackers.com. It reportedly journeyed to Venezuelas Jose Anchorage using subversive and illegal techniques, including a shutdown of its tracking beacon. Before arriving in Venezuela, FELICITY was last seen via its satellite transponder 13 months prior in Taizhou Anchorage in China, according to Marine Traffic meaning that the vessel sailed all the way to Venezuela with its transponder off. Disabling the transponder is a favored tactic to obscure the movement of goods, but its also a dangerous violation of International Maritime Organization safety rules. FELICITY even turned to more rudimentary methods to hide its activities undergoing a fresh paint job in Venezuela.

Vessels moving Iranian oil carry falsified records that attest to their cargo originating in countries such as Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq and Malaysia. By engaging in ship-to-ship (STS) transfers of oil from Iranian-flagged vessels to tankers owned by non-Iranian firms, Iran can obscure the origin of the oil and gas, as well as the trade itself for its customers. STS transfers are often preceded by vessels spoofing their location to fake their position, sometimes by thousands of nautical miles, creating yet another dangerous situation.

Smaller and under-resourced nations are routinely duped into the illicit trade by foreign-flagged rogue vessels, such as those included in Irans Ghost Armada, our organization, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), has found. These national flagging authorities are often unable to adequately patrol the activities of their flag-bearers, and so are targeted in order to fulfill ship registration requirements. Ships that are part of the Ghost Armada repeatedly switch flags, change names and alter their physical markings.

When advocacy groups such as ours notify maritime authorities of illicit activities of registered vessels, we find that most are eager to comply with U.S. sanctions. Some even have come to rely upon nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to serve as their eyes and ears. Through our work, dozens of vessels have been stripped of their flags, making it more difficult to continue their subterfuge.

The whole gamut of shipping deceptions perpetrated by commercial facilitators and their enablers must be made far more costly prohibitively so. As a first step, we recommend the Treasury Department broaden the scope of sanctions-triggering activities that constitute significant support to Irans shipping sector. The U.S. should punish bunkering specialists, port authorities, importing agents, management firms, charterers, operators, marine insurers, classification societies and all other maritime services providers involved with Iran. The Treasury also should expand and delineate the range of sanctionable maritime services and work to identify and target any Venezuelan or Chinese firms complicit in smuggling.

Sanctions have slowed the flow of foreign capital and reduced Irans trading partners to the worst-of-the-worst. But U.S. sanctions are only as robust as the enforcement mechanisms that come with them. Iran and its dubious allies are perpetuating a vicious cycle that undermines global compliance and further allows the Iranian regime to continue its destructive and malign behavior. A sharper focus on the specific methods and their perpetrators is needed to cut off Irans oil spigot.

Daniel Roth is the research director and Claire Jungman is the chief of staff of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy organization based in New York that was formed in 2008 to combat the threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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Let's plug the sanctions gaps that enable Iran to sell oil to China and Venezuela | TheHill - The Hill

Iran has set a third date for the execution of a man convicted of a murder he committed at the age of 17 after the sentence was twice postponed amid an international outcry.

Arman Abdolali, now 25, is due to be executed on Wednesday after he was convicted of killing his girlfriend, rights group Amnesty International reported.

Iran has signed an international agreement banning the death penalty for people who committed crimes while under the age of 18.

Campaigners say Abdolali was sentenced to death in December 2015 following an unfair trial marred by confessions obtained under torture.

The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said Abdolali confessed to the murder at the time of his arrest, but the body was never found and he later withdrew his confession.

The sentence was upheld in 2016 and he lost an appeal last year.

He has been moved to solitary confinement for a third time at Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, on the outskirts of Tehran, in preparation for his execution, said Amnesty.

Abdolali was due to die last Wednesday and at the weekend but the execution was postponed on both occasions.

Iran executes more people each year than any other nation except China. Iran Human Rights said at least 64 juvenile offenders have been executed in the country over the past 10 years, with at least four executed in 2020.

In a sign of international concern over the case, Germany's human rights commissioner Baerbel Kofler said carrying out the execution would be an unacceptable breach of international law".

Arman Abdolali was a minor at the time of the alleged crime. There is credible evidence that his confession was obtained under torture and that the conviction thus contradicts fundamental principles of the rule of law, she said in a statement released by the German foreign ministry.

The UN has repeatedly condemned Iran for executing child offenders, saying it is a breach of international law.

Iran signed a UN deal banning the practice in 1968 that was ratified seven years later.

Updated: October 19th 2021, 5:16 AM

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Iran sets third execution date in eight days for convicted killer - The National