Mediaboss Marketing

1. Banking Is Center Stage as Iran Seeks Nuclear Deal That Delivers  Bloomberg
2. The one that gets away: Joe Bidens jaded romance with Iran  POLITICO
3. Iran will extend deal with IAEA if needed, top negotiator says  Tehran Times
4. Iran upbeat on reviving nuke deal, dismissing Biden's doubts  CGTN
5. View Full Coverage on Google News

See the original post here:
Banking Is Center Stage as Iran Seeks Nuclear Deal That Delivers - Bloomberg

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday he was optimistic over talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and suggested a deal had been reached to lift the main sanctions on Tehran, state media reported.

Only the details remained to be agreed, Rouhani said, though there was no immediate confirmation from U.S. officials or from the other parties to the accord.

"We've reached a point where the Americans and the Europeans are saying openly they have no choice but to lift sanctions and return to the (nuclear deal), and that almost all main sanctions have been lifted and talks continue on some details," Rouhani was quoted by state media as saying. He did not elaborate.

U.S. officials returned to Vienna this week for a fourth round of indirect talks with Iran on how to resume compliance with the deal, which former U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, prompting Iran to begin violating its terms about a year later.

The crux of the agreement was that Iran committed to take steps to rein in its nuclear programme to make it harder to obtain the fissile material for a nuclear weapon in return for relief from U.S., EU and U.N. sanctions.

Tehran denies having nuclear weapons ambitions.

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said earlier on Saturday that the United States had an obligation to help revive the nuclear deal, after U.S. President Joe Biden said it was unclear how serious Tehran was about talks on the accord.

Asked if he thought Tehran was serious about talks, Biden replied: "Yes, but how serious, and what they are prepared to do is a different story."

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read the original post:
Iran's Rouhani upbeat on accord at talks to lift sanctions - Reuters

Robert Gates:

I think he's doing really well.

I think there's a lot of continuity on several of the really big problems. On China, on Russia, North Korea, I think there's a lot of continuity with the previous administration, in fact, and I think that the tough line that he has taken has been the appropriate one.

And on North Korea, they have basically said they're going to try and thread the needle between the strategic patience of President Obama and the maximum pressure of President Trump.

I think, as I write in the book, we have tried we have been down this road before under four presidents, and it hasn't yielded much progress. But there's a lot of continuity there. I think the only area that concerns me is the effort to renew the nuclear agreement with Iran.

I think, first of all, the agreement is half over in terms of its duration. It was supposed to be for 10 years or so. And I was heartened initially by the administration's references to strengthening and lengthening that agreement. I think our objective ought to be for Iran never to have a nuclear weapon, not just time-limited.

And I think we also need better monitoring or verification of their adherence to the agreement. And, finally, I think we need to do something about their ballistic missile capability. So, just picking up the old agreement where we left off, I think, is probably insufficient.

But in the other areas of important areas of foreign policy, I think that they're on a good path.

Here is the original post:
Robert Gates on US action in Iran, Afghanistan and China - PBS NewsHour

BAGHDAD--A leading Iraqi anti-government activist was killed early Sunday, security sources and activists said, sending supporters of a protest movement onto the streets to demand an end to bloodshed. Some of his fellow activists blamed pro-Iran militias for the murder, in social media posts.

Ihab al-Wazni, a coordinator of protests in the Shia shrine city of Karbala, was a vocal opponent of corruption, the stranglehold of Tehran-linked armed groups and Irans influence in Iraq.

He was shot overnight outside his home by men on motorbikes, in an ambush caught on surveillance cameras. His death was confirmed by security forces and activists.

Wazni narrowly escaped death in December 2019, when men on motorbikes used silenced weapons to kill fellow activist Fahem al-Tai as he was dropping him home in Karbala, where pro-Tehran armed groups are legion.

Both were key figures in a national protest movement that erupted against government corruption and incompetence in Iraq in October 2019.

Around 600 people were killed as a result of their association with that movement many on the streets during rallies, others targeted on their doorsteps away from the rallies.

Protests broke out in Karbala, Nassiriya and Diwaniya in southern Iraq in reaction to Waznis killing, as people called for an end to the bloodshed and to rampant corruption.

In a video recording in the morgue where his body was initially held, a fellow activist made it clear who he and colleagues blamed for the killing.

It is the Iranian militias who killed Ihab, said the unnamed activist. They are going to kill all of us! They threaten us and the government remains silent.

Police in Karbala said they will spare no effort to find the terrorists behind Waznis killing.

Politicians, including Shia leader Ammar al-Haki, deplored the killing and called for justice.

Around 30 activists have died in targeted killings and dozens of others abducted, some detained briefly, since October 2019.

Such targeted killings are normally carried out in the dead of night by men on motorbikes, and nobody claims responsibility.

Activists and the UN repeatedly blame militias.

Authorities have consistently failed to identify the perpetrators of these political killings.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi took office a year ago, vowing to rein in rogue factions, fight corruption and roll out long-awaited reforms after years of war and insurgency.

Pro-Iran groups view the premier as being too close to Washington and protesters believe he has failed to deliver on his promises.

Such crimes against activists in Iraq raise again the question about the real steps of the government regarding accountability for (those) responsible for crimes targeting protesters, Ali Bayati, a member of Iraqs Human Rights Commission, tweeted Sunday.

Wazni had himself challenged Kadhimi in a Facebook post in February, asking rhetorically: Do you know what is going on? You know that they kidnap and kill or you live in another country?

Original post:
Pro-Iran militias blamed as Iraqi anti-corruption activist killed | | AW - The Arab Weekly

Much has been written in recent years on the boldness of Western intelligence bodies in Iran, among them the Israeli Mossad. More specifically, the current head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, has said in front of the cameras in the past that the Mossad has "ears and more than that" in Iran. The Israeli Mossad is even responsible for stealing the nuclear archive from Iran. However, it raises the question of why the Mossad and other intelligence agencies in the West are unable to neutralize Iran's advantage over the IAEAby stealing the recordings of the nuclear facilities.

Around February of this year, Iran decided, in a step taken against the U.S. and Europe, that it will prevent U.N. inspectors from accessing the nuclear sites being supervised under the 2015 nuclear accords. Iran told the U.N. that the recordings from the cameras in those facilities will continue to be made for three months (until May of this year), but the inspectors will not have access to them until there are accords that remove the U.S. sanctions.

In the meantime, negotiations started with the U.S. and Europe on the return to the 2015 nuclear accords, but the talks take time. Why does it matter? Because the agreement between the IAEA and Iran will expire towards the end of this month, and Iran is threatening to erase the recordings that it has. "Let's hope it hasn't happened," the director-general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, was quoted as saying by the france24 website.

In other words, Iran is using the recordings and the granting of access to the U.N. inspectors as leverage in the negotiations with the U.S. and Europe. If a Western intelligence service (maybe the Mossad?) succeeds in secretly obtaining those recordings, the Iranian threat would lose its credibility. Even if Iran followed through on its threat, and the recordings were erased, the materials would still be available to the U.N.

Is Biden expected to oppose such an intelligence operation? I wrote a number of times in the past that Biden does not look kindly upon Israeli sabotage or assassinations in Iran that could thwart the negotiations. However, in this case, it is an operation whose objective is only to collect intelligence (obtain the recordings), and one that could give the U.S. an advantage in negotiations. Therefore, Biden is not expected to oppose such an operation.

The rest is here:
Commentary: Iran threatens to prevent UN inspectors from accessing recordings. Why doesn't the Mossad steal them? - IsraelDefense