Archive for the ‘Iran’ Category

Saudi Arabias ambassador attends Nowruz celebration at Iran embassy in Tajikistan – Al Arabiya English

During the event, Waleed Alreshiadan, the Saudi envoy to Dushanbe, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad-Taqi Saberi. (FarsNews_Agency/Twitter)

Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English

Published: 23 March ,2023: 10:59 PM GST Updated: 23 March ,2023: 11:52 PM GST

Saudi Arabias ambassador to Tajikistan has attended a celebration at Irans embassy in the Tajik capital to mark Nowruz the Persian New Year just weeks after the countries agreed to restore diplomatic ties, the official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

During the event, Waleed Alreshiadan, the Saudi envoy to Dushanbe, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad-Taqi Saberi. Pictures posted on IRNAs Telegram channel showed the two envoys shaking hands and embracing each other.

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The relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as two influential and important countries of the Islamic world in the West Asian region, can be the basis for creating a new trend and an increasing role in serving the interests of the countries and nations of the region, IRNA quoted Saberi as saying.

Pictures posted on the Telegram channel of Irans IRNA news agency showed the two envoys shaking hands and embracing each other. (IRNA on Telegram)

The agency did not specify the date of the meeting. However, Irans embassy in Dushanbe said on Tuesday that it had held a celebration at the mission to mark Nowruz, attended by foreign diplomats among others.

This meeting follows an announcement earlier this month by Saudi Arabia and Iran that they had reached an agreement, brokered by China, to reestablish diplomatic relations.

Under the deal, Saudi Arabia and Iran are expected to reopen their embassies and missions within two months, as well as implement security and economic cooperation agreements that were signed over 20 years ago.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with the Islamic Republic in 2016 following an attack by supporters of the Iranian regime on its embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad.

Earlier on Thursday, the Saudi foreign ministry said that Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan had a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, during which they exchanged congratulations for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on Thursday in both countries.

The two ministers agreed to hold a bilateral meeting soon to facilitate the reopening of embassies and consulates between the two countries, the ministry said.

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Saudi FM agrees with Iranian counterpart to hold a bilateral meeting soon

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Saudi Arabias ambassador attends Nowruz celebration at Iran embassy in Tajikistan - Al Arabiya English

Opinion | The U.S. Is Not an Indispensable Peacemaker – The New York Times

There was a time when all roads to peace went through Washington. From the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt brokered by President Jimmy Carter to the 1993 Oslo Accords signed on the White House lawn to Senator George Mitchells Good Friday Agreement that ended the fighting in Northern Ireland in 1998, America was the indispensable nation for peacemaking. To Paul Nitze, a longtime diplomat and Washington insider, making evident its qualifications as an honest broker was central to Americas influence after the end of the Cold War.

But over the years, as Americas foreign policy became more militarized and as sustaining the so-called rules-based order increasingly meant that the United States put itself above all rules, America appears to have given up on the virtues of honest peacemaking.

We deliberately chose a different path. America increasingly prides itself on not being an impartial mediator. We abhor neutrality. We strive to take sides in order to be on the right side of history since we view statecraft as a cosmic battle between good and evil rather than the pragmatic management of conflict where peace inevitably comes at the expense of some justice.

This has perhaps been most evident in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is now increasingly defining Americas general posture. In 2000, when Madeleine Albright defended the Clinton administrations refusal to veto a U.N. Security Council Resolution condemning the excessive use of force against Palestinians, she cited the need for the United States to be seen as an honest broker. But since then, the United States has vetoed 12 Security Council resolutions expressing criticisms of Israel so much for neutrality.

We started to follow a different playbook. Today, our leaders mediate to help our side in a conflict advance our position rather than to establish a lasting peace. We do it to demonstrate the value of allying with the United States. While this trend is more than two decades long, it has reached full maturity now with great-power competition with China becoming the organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy. This rivalry is, in the words of Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, not a competition of countries. It is a competition of coalitions. Following Dr. Kahls logic, we keep our coalition partners close by offering them in addition to military might our services as a partial broker to tilt the scales of diplomacy in their favor.

Its what you do when you see the world through the prism of a Marvel movie: Peace is born not out of compromise but out of total victory.

But just as America has changed, so has the world. Elsewhere in the world, Marvel movie logic is seen for what it is: Fairy tales where the simplicity of good versus evil leaves no space for compromise or coexistence. Few have the luxury of pretending to live in such fantasy worlds.

So while America may have lost interest in peacemaking, the world has not. As the Ukraine crisis has shown, America has been immensely effective in mobilizing the West but hopelessly clueless in inspiring the global south. While the Western nations wanted the United States to rally them to defend Ukraine, the global south was looking for leadership to bring peace to Ukraine of which the United States has offered little to none.

But America not only has moved beyond peacemaking. It is also increasingly dismissive of other powers efforts to mediate. Though the White House officially welcomed the Saudi-Iranian normalization deal, it could not conceal its irritation at Chinas new-won role as a broker in the Middle East. And Beijings earlier offer to mediate between Ukraine and Russia was quickly dismissed by Washington as a distraction, even though President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed it on the condition that Russian troops would withdraw from Ukrainian territory. As Mark Hannah of the Eurasia Group Foundation recently pointed out, there is an inherent hypocrisy in touting Ukraines agency when it prosecutes war, but not when it pursues peace.

Still, Xi Jinping of China seems undeterred. He traveled to Moscow this week and also plans to speak directly to Mr. Zelensky in what appears to be the preparation for an active mediation attempt to bring the war to an end.

Mr. Xi succeeded in bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia together precisely because he was on neithers side. With stubborn discipline, Beijing maintained a neutral position on the two countries squabbles and didnt moralize their conflict or bother with whose side history would take. Nor did China bribe Iran and Saudi Arabia with security guarantees, arms deals or military bases, as all too often is our habit.

Whether Mr. Xis formula will work to end Russias war on Ukraine remains to be seen. But just as a more stable Middle East where the Saudis and Iranians arent at each others throats benefits the United States, so too will any effort to get Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table.

In a multipolar world, shared responsibility for security can be a virtue that reduces the burden on Americans without increasing threats to U.S. interests. It is not security that we would give up, but the illusion that we are and have to be in control of developments far away. For too long, Americans have been told that if we do not dominate, the world will descend into chaos. In reality, as the Chinese mediation has shown, other powers are likely to step up to shoulder the burden of security and peacemaking.

The greatest threat to our own security and reputation is if we stand in the way of a world where others have a stake in peace, if we become a nation that doesnt just put diplomacy last but also dismisses those who seek to put diplomacy first.

In tomorrows world, we should not worry if some roads to peace go through Beijing, New Delhi or Braslia. So long as all roads to war do not go through Washington.

Trita Parsi is the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy and the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute.

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Opinion | The U.S. Is Not an Indispensable Peacemaker - The New York Times

Media Warn About Iran’s Worsening Situation In New Year –

On the first day of the Iranian new year Media in Iran highlighted pessimism about the future, warning about the worsening political and economic situation.

Economic analyst Morteza Afghah told centrist news website Entekhab that tensions in Iran's domestic politics will escalate if the government fails to solve the country's economic problems and eliminate the impact of sanctions on the economy.

Afghah further argued that without resolving Iran's nuclear dispute with world powers and securing the lifting of US sanctions, back-breaking inflation in Iran will continue.

Economic analyst Morteza Afghah

Talks with the West to revive the 2015 nuclear accord known as the JCPOA came to a deadlock last September.

Iran is experiencing an annual inflation rate of more than 50 percent for the second year in a row, with food prices rising between 70-100 percent.

The economist also argued that government officials do not realize how far their legitimacy has declined and people no longer believe their promises and statements. He added that the government expects the improvement in the ties with Saudi Arabia to bring about hope in the future of the economy, but without tackling the issue of the JCPOA and reducing regional tensions cannot solve all of the country's problems.

Meanwhile, in an interview with ILNA, conservative political activist Hossein Kanani-Moqaddam asked, "Why the government can negotiate with the enemies, but it is not prepared to hold dialogue with its own citizens?" Highlighting some of Iran's domestic and international political problems, Kanani called for negotiations between the government and political groups to put an end to the worsening impasse as almost all groups except ultraconservatives have been barred from candidacy in parliamentary and presidential elections.

Conservative political activist Hossein Kanani-Moqaddam

Kanani-Moqaddam further stressed the need for national reconciliation, which would bring various orientations to the forefront of political activity in Iran. "Political groups and organizations should be able to discuss problems with state officials and the peopleas a way of addressing major problems." He also called for boosting political participation and "religious democracy" in Iran.

A report in moderate Rouydad24 website quoted Yahya Ebrahimi, a member of parliament, as saying that if lawmakers had been allowed to impeach some minister, the government would have better realized that the country was in a critical situation.

The remark highlighted complaints by many lawmakers during the past year about parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf preventing impeachment motions.

Ebrahimi warned that the political and economic situation in Iran is likely to be worsen in the coming months. The low-income strata of the society are going to suffer more than others as "wage-earners live under the poverty line as we have only two economic classes in Iran: The rich and the poor."

Ebrahimi further charged that the Iranian government has left the people to their own devices and is not doing anything to improve the situation. He added that "The current economic team is an insult to the nation's intelligence."

Ebrahimi warned that the social implication of this situation is far dangerous than its economic consequences. Students are abandoning schools, and cases of drug addiction and delinquency are on the rise. Officials should be held accountable when impoverished people take to the streets in protest.

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Media Warn About Iran's Worsening Situation In New Year -

Amir H. Fallah Feels the Pull of His Iranian Origins – The New York Times

Amir H. Fallah was born in Iran in 1979, the year that a revolution overthrew the countrys monarchy and replaced it with an Islamic republic. He left with his family when he was 4, and they eventually settled in the United States.

Now a contemporary artist based in Los Angeles, Mr. Fallah makes richly ornamental works that merge his two worlds. They combine the themes and patterns found in Persian myths, miniatures, and carpets with motifs from Western pop culture, cartoons and graphics.

Mr. Fallah has had a busy few months. His most recent solo museum exhibition runs through May 14 at the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles, which Mr. Fallah attended.

In February, he presented an outdoor artwork in Los Angeles inspired by what he described as a second Iranian revolution: the uprising sparked in September by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, while in the custody of the morality police. She had been arrested on the grounds that she was not observing Irans mandatory hijab law. Titled Chant, its a neon sun with the features of a woman and the uprisings slogan, Woman, Life, Freedom, beamed around it in English, Farsi, and phonetically spelled Farsi.

At Art Basel Hong Kong, Mr. Fallah is taking over the booth of the Denny Gallery, a first-time exhibitor, with five paintings. The centerpiece is a monumental work that depicts the battle between good and evil. It shows an amorous couple and cartoon characters, with dragons, menacing demons, and veiled figures.

In a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles, Mr. Fallah spoke about the Hong Kong work, his life and trajectory, and the uprising in Iran.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

What inspired the monumental work you created for Art Basel Hong Kong?

All of my work comes out of issues dealing with immigration, being a refugee, and living in a hybrid culture. But once I started watching the protests in Iran, I really felt compelled to make a body of work that addressed them more specifically. It was just something that was top of mind. So, I shifted gears.

The work is open enough to talk about the broader themes of the struggle for democracy and basic human rights as a whole, because I dont think this issue is isolated to Iran. Hong Kong certainly has had its own bouts of protests and issues around democracy. Democracy is getting attacked no matter where you are, and as humans, we have to constantly be vigilant.

Where do the images in your works come from?

I have a very large database of thousands of images from a wide array of sources from Persian miniatures to 1930s cartoon strips to images that I find in digitized public libraries all over the world. I might find something on Instagram that somebody posts and save it, or something in the digitized British Museum archive. I go through databases and pull images, and much like a puzzle, start trying to fit them together to create some sort of narrative or story.

How has the Iran protest movement affected you?

On a very personal level: I have lots of family in Iran, all over the country, including several cousins in Tehran who were born after I left. Theres this sense of hopelessness and desperation that all young people have there.

Speaking to my cousins in Tehran, I asked, What can I do from here? The number one thing that they said was: Amplify our voices. Let people know whats going on in Iran.

In the American media, you barely see any mention of whats happening in Iran, which is shocking, because its the biggest feminist movement ever.

I felt like I needed to do something. I couldnt not do it.

Would you describe what we are witnessing right now as a revolution?

I would describe it as a revolution. My father was, like many Iranians, a supporter of the 1978-79 revolution. He thought he was bringing in democracy.

And then once it happened, he realized that the wool was pulled over his eyes and that he was tricked.

When I speak with people like him, who lived through the first revolution, they say this is how it started. There were ebbs and flows; it was not an overnight thing. I think theres a boiling point where everyone has had enough. And when you have nothing to live for, youre willing to die for freedom. Its just a powder keg waiting to explode.

You were 4 years old when you left Iran. Why is being Iranian so central to your identity?

All of my work comes out of my disconnection and desire for connection with Iran. I feel like I have to respond to whats directly affecting me.

No one meets me and thinks Im American. Even though I sound American, they see my name, they look at the color of my skin and immediately say, Where are you from? So, Im always reminded on a daily basis that this is not my place of origin. I always feel like Im in cultural limbo. Every immigrant, regardless of where theyre from, feels a strong pull back to their culture of origin.

I make art about my own personal experiences, only because I know myself best. I want to make work thats a marker for this time, for this moment, where, 100 years from now, maybe somebody looks at one of my paintings and says, This is what it must have felt like to be an Iranian living in America during this moment.

Do you hope to be able to go back to Iran in the not-too-distant future?

Absolutely. I think about it all the time. I have a 7-year-old son. Hes half Iranian, half Puerto Rican. I would love to take him to Iran. My wife is dying to go there, and Im dying to go there. I only have faint memories of my country. Iran is one of the oldest places in the world. Its got such a rich history and such incredible culture, food, art.

Yet, I want to experience the place where I was born as a free person. I dont want to go there and be depressed, and feel sorry for the population. I want to go there and really enjoy it the way its meant to be enjoyed, and see family. The second I can, I will.

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Amir H. Fallah Feels the Pull of His Iranian Origins - The New York Times

Iran hostages bitter that Connally stalled release to help Reagan – The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON For 444 days, Iranian militants held 52 Americans hostage in Tehran, leaving emotional scars for them and their loved ones and dooming Jimmy Carters presidency.

The revelation that five months before their release, former Texas Gov. John Connally encouraged Iran to prolong the ordeal left hostages bitter.

444 days, Rocky Sickmann, a 22-year-old Marine guard when the U.S. embassy fell, said Monday. I will never regain those lost days. ... Each day you didnt know if you were going to live or die.

Ben Barnes, a protg of Connally who served beside him as lieutenant governor, told The New York Times about a three-week trip they took to Middle East capitals during the crisis.

Connally, angling to impress Republican nominee Ronald Reagan in hopes hed be named secretary of state or defense, asked leaders to send word to Iran not to release hostages before Election Day.

With Carter, 98, receiving end of life hospice care, Barnes told The Times, he needed to unburden himself of the secret.

History needs to know this happened, Barnes, now 84, said. Carter didnt have a fighting chance with those hostages still in the embassy in Iran.

To survivors, the revelation was more appalling than stunning. Democrats and hostages suspected the Reagan camp had a hand in prolonging the ordeal, given the obvious political benefits.

Its just typical. Politicians do all sorts of things to achieve whatever political agenda they have in mind, said William Royer Jr., now 91 and a resident of Katy in suburban Houston.

On Nov. 4, 1979, when militant college students overran the embassy after the fall of the U.S-backed shah, Royer was an English teacher at the U.S. Information Agency.

Over the years hes recounted the torture being stripped naked and forced against a wall in front of a firing squad, testing his faith that he was more valuable alive than dead.

I have a lot of respect for Reagan and his policies. And I thought he was a great president, Royer said, calling Carter one of the few relatively honest men to hold the job. I have a great deal of appreciation for President Carter. He had a bad deal.

David Roeder, a 41-year-old deputy Air Force attach when the ordeal began, said Tuesday he was baffled that anyone went out of their way to make him and his colleagues suffer longer than necessary.

Its hard for me to understand how any American can do that to any other American, Roeder, now 83 and a retired Air Force Colonel, said from his home in Pinehurst, N.C.

He still has the utmost respect for Reagan, whose knowledge or involvement in Connallys moves may never be proved or disproved, given that most of those involved died long ago.

His regard for Carter has grown in light of Barnes revelations. As for Reagan, he said, I cant accept the fact that he would be involved in something like that.

The crisis spawned ABCs Nightline, providing a nightly update on Carters inability to end the humiliation.

Politically, Election Day Nov. 4, 1980 was the deadline to save his presidency.

If we had gotten the hostages home, wed have won, Carters White House communications director, Gerald Rafshoon, told The Times in response to Barnes account. Its pretty damn outrageous.

Thomas Lankford, a lawyer for the hostages and their families since 1999, said Monday that delaying the release could only have inflicted harm.

In the last four to six months as captives, many deteriorated physically and mentally, he said. You dont want to add even a day to that kind of treatment.

The first 30 days, Sickmann was tied to a chair and forbidden to speak outside of interrogations. He spent more than a year in a room with two others, often subjected to physical and mental abuse. Until his release, he only went outside seven times.

Rumors circulated among the hostages that theyd become victims not only of the militants but of domestic U.S. politics. Sickmann refused to believe that anyone could do such a thing to fellow Americans diplomats, military personnel and civilians no matter the prize.

If it did happen, we must make sure that this never happens again, said Sickmann, now 66 and a resident of St. Louis, where he works for Folds of Honor, a group that provides scholarships to families of fallen and disabled service members.

It was traumatic for a hostage, but it was traumatic for my poor family and everybody else involved, he said. We as America, were much better than this.

Barnes did not respond to a message left at his office by The Dallas Morning News.

Records dug out by The Times showed that he and Connally left Houston on July 18, 1980, on an oil company jet. The trip included stops in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. They returned on August 11.

The Times report included a photo provided by Barnes of a meeting with President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt. Its unclear who else they met with, or whether the message reached Tehran.

The hostages remained captive another five months and nine days until Reagan took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981.

Barnes said he only realized the purpose of the trip after the first meeting with an Arab leader.

Connallys message to each, he recounted to The Times, was: Look, Ronald Reagans going to be elected president. And you need to get the word to Iran that theyre going to make a better deal with Reagan than they are Carter. It would be very smart for you to pass the word to the Iranians to wait until after this general election is over.

Connally, who died in 1993, served two terms as Texas chief executive. He ran Lyndon Johnsons campaigns in Texas and served briefly as secretary of the Navy under John F. Kennedy before running for governor. Hed held the job for 10 months when Kennedy was assassinated in downtown Dallas. Connally, in the front seat, was badly wounded.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon named him treasury secretary. Two years later he switched parties and as a Republican, sought the nomination for president in 1980. When he dropped out that March, he threw himself into helping Reagan.

Barnes told The Times that hes certain Reagans campaign chair William Casey, later CIA director, knew about the mission to undermine Carters efforts to free the hostages, because they met just after the trip, at an American Airlines lounge at what was then known as Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport.

Casey, who died in 1987, wanted to know whether they were going to hold the hostages, Barnes recalled.

Kathryn Koob, one of two women among the hostages and a 42-year-old embassy cultural officer at the time, said Monday that if someone felt that that was important for them to do at that time, I feel sorry for them, that they would use other peoples lives in that way.

By phone from her home in Iowa, Koob who penned an account titled Guest of the Revolution said shes not interested in recriminations against Connally or anyone else.

Were home safe and thats the important thing, she said. When youve been through something like that you realize what people are capable of doing, and you move forward with your life. It happened and its over and anything we say today is not going to change what happened.

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Iran hostages bitter that Connally stalled release to help Reagan - The Dallas Morning News