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KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine has said Iran is dragging its feet on investigating the downing of a Ukrainian airliner near Tehran in January by not sharing information and not responding to requests for cooperation.

FILE PHOTO: General view of the debris of the Ukraine International Airlines, flight PS752, Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed after take-off from Iran's Imam Khomeini airport, on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran January 8, 2020 is seen in this screen grab obtained from a social media video via REUTERS

Iran has also rejected Kyivs calls for life sentences for those responsible, Deputy Prosecutor General Gyunduz Mamedov told Reuters on Thursday, in written comments ahead of a third round of talks on the crash next month.

Irans Revolutionary Guards say they shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 by accident on Jan. 8, mistaking it for a missile at a time when tensions with the United States were high; Washington had killed Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani five days earlier with a drone strike in Iraq.

Many of the 176 people killed in the crash were Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

Iranian officials, who could not be reached on Friday, the weekend in Iran, have in the past blamed delays in the investigation on technical issues as well as the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Our preliminary legal assessment of the tragedy is a particularly grave crime, where the killing of 176 civilians took place using military equipment, Mamedov said.

The maximum punishment is life imprisonment, compensation payments to the victims and to airlines for the destroyed plane. This position of ours is unacceptable for Iran, but they do nothing to provide us with details and facts for a different classification of the crime.

Mamedov said Ukraine would pursue a parallel path if its demands were not met, without specifying what that meant.

He said Iran had not responded to requests for joint investigative actions or for permission to contact Iranian military prosecutors directly.

A governing panel at the United Nations aviation agency urged Iran last week to accelerate its investigation, while an Iranian official said a final report on the crash would be circulated soon.

Mamedov said he wanted to see results at the next round of talks on Dec. 3.

We still do not have an official documented position from Iran, he said. They dont say no, but their yes does not bring a development.

Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Kevin Liffey

Originally posted here:
Ukraine says Iran dragging its feet in plane crash investigation - Reuters

In an apparent nod to a potential Biden presidency, Irans Rouhani calls for a return to US commitments under the nuclear deal.

Tehran, Iran As Joe Biden increasingly seems closer to victory in the United States presidential elections, President Hassan Rouhani has called on the next US administration to restart fulfilling commitments under the Iran nuclear deal.

In a televised speech on Saturday, Rouhani said the Iranian people have faced economic terrorism for the past three years and have shown admirable resistance.

Our countrys decision has always been clear and our nation will continue its resistance and patience under any circumstances until the other side bows down to law, he said.

The president said he hopes those who sanctioned Iran will come to the conclusion their methods have been wrong and will bear no results.

We hope that the experience of these three years has been a lesson to them that will make the next US administration follow the law and return to all its commitments, Rouhani said.

President Donald Trump in May 2018 reneged on the nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers in 2015 and unilaterally imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran. Unending sanctions, issued under multiple designations, have now blacklisted the entire Iranian financial sector.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has promised to return to the nuclear deal and ease pressure on Iran in an effort to get it back to the negotiating table.

Iran, which gradually scaled back its commitments under the nuclear deal starting May 2019, has said it will return to full commitments once the US comes back to the deal, lifts sanctions, and pays compensation.

On November 4, when Trump seemed to be leading the election results, Rouhani signalled Iran has planned for tougher conditions in the future.

We have planned based on the assumption that the methods and behaviours of the US will not return to the correct approach, he said.

If the Americans come to a realisation that they must choose another way, so much the better. But if not, our decisions are based on how to run the country if conditions are difficult.

Iranian authorities have maintained the countrys policies do not change depending on who enters the White House, and Iran will continue to resist until the US changes its maximum pressure policy.

In an op-ed in Iran daily newspaper on Wednesday, government spokesman Ali Rabiei reiterated the stance, saying Iran knew surrendering to Trump would not only make him back down but would endanger the countrys long-term policies.

We also knew that such a policy would start an ominous tradition that could turn Irans economy and Iranians livelihoods into hostages of sanctions at any point and with any excuse perhaps for decades, he wrote.

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Iran: Rouhani urges next US govt to return to commitments - Al Jazeera English

Havana meeting between Cubas Bruno Rodriguez and Irans Mohammad Javad Zarif to mark the mutual solidarity between both nations.

Irans foreign minister has arrived in Havana for talks with his Cuban counterpart, in a visit aimed at reinforcing their countries mutual support in the face of punishing United States sanctions.

Cubas official newspaper Granma said on Friday Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and Irans Mohammad Javad Zarif would mark the mutual solidarity between both nations, faced with the toughening of sanctions by the current US administration on countries that dont bend to its will.

In 2018, US President Donald Trumps administration pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers three years earlier and reimposed crippling sanctions as part of Washingtons maximum pressure campaign to choke off Tehrans ability to export its oil.

The US government, meanwhile, has also announced more than 130 measures to reinforce the embargo Cuba has faced since 1962.

Cuba will support the peaceful use of nuclear energy and technology to contribute to socio-economic development, and will condemn the decision of the United States government to unilaterally withdraw from the Nuclear Agreement with Iran, added Granma.

It said the US decision violates the rules of coexistence between states, and could provoke serious consequences for stability and security in the Middle East.

Zarifs visit to Cuba comes two days after he visited Venezuela, another regional ally subject to US sanctions.

Granma said Zarif and Rodriguez will talk about possible commercial links and cooperation with Cubas Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas.

The US embassy in Havana responded to Zarifs visit with a tweet from Washingtons top diplomat in Latin America, Michael Kozak.

Irans Zarif and the Castro regime have a lot in common: human rights abuses, authoritarianism, stealing Venezuelas wealth, and the propagation of their malign influence throughout the world. Their relationships underscore their lack of legitimacy, said Kozak.

Granma said Zarif would end his visit to the region by attending the inauguration of Bolivias president-elect Luis Arce on Sunday.

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Cuba and Iran FMs to mark alliance against US sanctions - Al Jazeera English

Image: Department of Justice

The United States announced on Wednesday it has seized 27 domains that were used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to spread global covert influence campaigns.

According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), four of the 27 domain names -- "rpfront.com", "ahtribune.com", "awdnews.com", and "criticalstudies.org" -- were seized as they breached the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires website holders to submit periodic registration statements containing truthful information about their activities and the income earned from them.

The four domains purported to be genuine news outlets, but they werecontrolled by the IRGC and targeted audiences in the United States with pro-Iranian propaganda, the department said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the remaining 23 domains were seized as they targeted audiences in other parts of the world, the department added.

The domains were identified by the DoJ through ongoing collaboration with Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).

This follows an earlier crop of similar seizuresmade by the DoJ last month. For that earlier crop, the DoJ shut down 92 domains that were also used by the IRGC for disinformation campaigns.

"Within the last month we have announced seizures of Iran's weapons, fuel, and covert influence infrastructure," said John Demers, assistant attorney general for National Security.

"As long as Iran's leaders are trying to destabilise the world through the state-sponsorship of terrorism and the taking of hostages, we will continue to enforce US sanctions and take other legal steps to counter them."

In the past two months, the United States has made concerted efforts to publicly disclose Iranian foreign interference. In late October, the US Treasury department issued sanctions against five Iranian entities for allegedly attempting to influence the 2020 presidential elections. The five entities were allegedly controlled by the Iranian government and disguised themselves as news organisations or media outlets.

On the same day of the sanctions being issued, high-ranking government officials accused Iran of being behind a wave of spoofed emails that were sent to US voters. Spoofing the identity of violent extremist group Proud Boys, the emails threatened registered Democrat voters with repercussions if they didn't vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential election.

Meanwhile, Twitter said at the start of October that it removed around 130 Iranian Twitter accounts as they attempted to disrupt the public conversation following the first presidential debate.

Twitter said it learned of the accounts following a tip from the FBI.

"We identified these accounts quickly, removed them from Twitter, and shared full details with our peers, as standard," the social network said at the time.

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US seizes another crop of Iranian propaganda domains masked as news outlets - ZDNet

The Iranian government has adopted bitcoin for international trade as the countrys economic crisis deepens, with rising Covid-19 cases, depreciating rial, and intensifying sanctions imposed by the U.S. government.

Iran is undergoing a severe economic crisis as Covid-19 cases surge in the country. The Iranian health ministry says that the number of daily Covid-19 infections has more than quadrupled in less than two months. In addition, an increasing number of sanctions have been placed on Iran by the U.S. government, while the local fiat currency, the rial, continues to dramatically fall.

Steve H. Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University and a hyperinflation expert, described the situation in Iran as a classic death spiral. He detailed on Wednesday:

Since 1/1/20, the rial depreciated 54.23% against the USD in the free market & Inflation rose from 21.89%/yr to 158.31%/yr by my measure.

While Iran has long been pro-bitcoin, having regulated the crypto industry since August 2019, the country made a major move last week to take cryptocurrency adoption to the next level. IRNA publication reported that the Iranian cabinet amended cryptocurrency legislation based on a joint proposal by the CBI and the Iranian Ministry of Energy to enable the central bank to use cryptocurrency to pay for imports. This could also help the central bank evade restrictions imposed by the U.S. government.

While the government is still working out the details of how this will be done, the publication reported that licensed bitcoin miners in the country will have to sell their coins directly to the central bank. Iran Daily described:

The Iranian government amended its regulations on cryptocurrencies to allow them to be exclusively used for funding imports at a time of increased pressure on the countrys normal use of hard currencies.

Based on the laws, cryptocurrencies legally mined in Iran will only be exchangeable when they are used to finance imports from other countries, the news outlet continued. The miners are supposed to supply the original cryptocurrency directly and within the authorized limit to the channels introduced by the CBI. Furthermore, the legal cap for the amount of cryptocurrency for each miner would be determined by the level of the subsidized energy used for mining and based on instructions published by the Ministry of Energy.

What do you think about the Iranian government using bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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Iran Adopts Bitcoin for International Trade Amid Heavy Sanctions, Falling Rial, Soaring Inflation | Regulation - Bitcoin News