Archive for the ‘Iran’ Category

Arab States Issue Ultimatum to Qatar: Close Jazeera, Curb Ties With Iran – New York Times

A Qatar semi-government human rights body said the demands were a violation of human rights conventions and should not be accepted by Qatar.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani had said on Monday that Qatar would not negotiate with the four states until economic, diplomatic and travel ties cut this month were restored.

The countries that imposed the sanctions accuse Qatar of funding terrorism, fomenting regional unrest and drawing too close to their enemy Iran. Qatar rejects those accusations and says it is being punished for straying from its neighbors' backing for authoritarian hereditary and military rulers.

The uncompromising demands leave little prospect for a quick end to the biggest diplomatic crisis for years between Sunni Arab Gulf states, regional analysts said.

"The demands are so aggressive that it makes it close to impossible to currently see a resolution of that conflict," said Olivier Jakob, a strategist at Switzerland-based oil consultancy Petromatrix.

Ibrahim Fraihat, Conflict Resolution Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, forecast a prolonged stand-off.

Qatar will reject the demands as a "non-starter", he said, and its neighbors had already escalated as far as they were likely to go. "Military action remains unlikely at the moment so the outcome after the deadline would be a political stalemate ..."

Washington, which is a close military ally of countries on both sides of the dispute, has called for a resolution. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Qatar's neighbors should make their demands "reasonable and actionable".

TEN DAYS TO COMPLY

An official from one of the four nations, who gave details of the demands on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the offer would be "void" unless Qatar complied within 10 days.

The UAE has said sanctions could last for years. Qatar, the world's richest country per capita, says the sanctions amount to a "blockade", but it has ample reserves to weather the storm.

The dispute is a big test for the United States, which has a large base in Qatar housing the headquarters of its Middle East air power and 11,000 troops.

President Donald Trump has backed the sanctions, even as his Defense and State departments have tried to remain neutral, resulting in mixed signals. Trump called Qatar a "funder of terrorism at a very high level", only for his Pentagon to approve selling it $12 billion of warplanes five days later.

The most powerful country in the region to back the Qatari side in the dispute has been Turkey, whose President Tayyip Erdogan has his roots in an Islamist political party similar to movements that Qatar has backed in the region. Days after the sanctions were imposed, Turkey rushed through legislation to send more troops to its base in Qatar as a sign of support.

Defence Minister Fikri Isik rejected the demand to close the base, saying it would represent interference in Ankara's relations with Doha. Instead, Turkey might bolster its presence.

"Strengthening the Turkish base would be a positive step in terms of the Gulf's security," he said. "Re-evaluating the base agreement with Qatar is not on our agenda."

Qatar has used its vast wealth over the past decade to exert influence abroad, backing factions in civil wars and revolts across the Middle East. It infuriated Egypt's present rulers and Saudi Arabia by backing a Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo that ruled for a year until it was deposed by the army in 2013.

Qatar's state-funded satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera became hugely popular across the Middle East, but has long infuriated Arab governments used to exercising firm control over the media in their countries. Jazeera hit back at the closure order, calling it "nothing but an attempt to silence the freedom of expression in the region".

STOP INTERFERING

The demands, handed to Qatar by mediator Kuwait, tell Qatar to stop interfering in the four nations' domestic and foreign affairs and refrain from giving Qatari nationality to their citizens, the official from one of the sanctioning states said.

They also include severing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Jabhat Fateh al Sham, formerly al Qaeda's branch in Syria, and the surrender of all designated terrorists on Qatari territory. Qatar denies it has relationships with terrorist groups or shelters terrorists.

It was ordered to scale down diplomatic relations with Iran, limit its commercial ties and expel members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Qatar denies they are there.

The sanctioning countries demanded Qatar pay them reparations for any damage or costs incurred due to Qatari policies. Compliance with the demands would be monitored, with monthly reports in the first year, then every three months the next year, then annually for 10 years, the official said.

Although Reuters was told about the contents of the ultimatum by an official from one of the sanctioning countries, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash accused Qatar of leaking the demands.

"There is a price for the years of plotting and there is a price to return to the neighborhood," Gargash said on Twitter. "The leak (of demands) seeks to derail mediation."

Qataris who spoke to Reuters described the demands as unreasonable, particularly the closure of Jazeera, which millions of Arabs see as an important outlet for voices willing to challenge the region's authoritarian rulers, but which neighboring governments call a conduit for Islamist propaganda.

"Imagine another country demanding that CNN be closed," 40-year-old Haseeb Mansour, who works for telecom operator Ooredoo, said.

"A LOT ON THE LIST"

Abdullah al-Muhanadi, a retired public sector worker shopping for groceries in Doha on Friday morning, said the boycott must be lifted before negotiations to resolve the dispute could start.

"There's a lot on the list that is simply not true or unreasonable, so how can we comply?" he said. "There are no IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) elements in Qatar and the agreement with Turkey is a long-standing diplomatic agreement so we cannot ask them to leave."

Qatar has only 300,000 citizens enjoying the riches produced by the world's largest exports of liquefied natural gas. The rest of its 2.7 million people are foreign migrant workers, mostly manual laborers employed on vast construction projects that have crowned the tiny desert peninsula with skyscrapers as well as stadiums for the 2022 soccer world cup.

The sanctions have disrupted its main routes to import goods by land from Saudi Arabia and by sea from big container ships docked in the United Arab Emirates. But it so far has avoided economic collapse by quickly finding alternative routes, and it says its huge financial reserves will meet any challenges.

Qatar says the sanctions have also brought personal hardship for its citizens who live in neighboring countries or have relatives there. The countries that imposed the sanctions gave Qataris two weeks to leave, which expired on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Tom Finn and Tom Arnold in Doha, and Daren Butler in Istanbul; Writing by Rania El Gamal and Peter Millership; editing by Peter Graff and Jonathan Oatis)

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Arab States Issue Ultimatum to Qatar: Close Jazeera, Curb Ties With Iran - New York Times

Iran and the United States’ Competition in Eastern Syria – HuffPost

Co-written with Daniel Wagner (@CountryRiskMgmt) of Risk Cooperative (@RiskCoop).

An official response to ISIS deadly twin attacks in Tehran on June 7, Irans medium-range missile strikes were a clear message not only to many in the region, but to Washington as well, that the Islamic Republic will not hesitate to respond decisively to forces hostile toward Iran.

Irans strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) targets in Syrias Deir ez-Zor governorate on June 18 marked the Islamic Republics first missile strikes in a foreign country since Tehran attacked the Peoples Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a militant political organization, in Diyala, Iraq, with ballistic missiles in 2001.

Though the Iranian missiles hit targets in Syria, Tehran was most intent on delivering a message to Saudi Arabia. Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) blamed Riyadh (and Washington, too) for the ISIS attacks in Irans capital. For years, Tehran has also accused Saudi Arabia of sponsoring terrorism in Irans peripheral provinces where Sunni-majority ethnic communities (Baloch, Kurdish, Arab, etc.) live, and where there has been a history of militancy against the Islamic Republic waged by groups with grievances stemming from marginalization in the country as well as some with separatist ambitions.

With Saudi and Iranian leaders having recently exchanged increasingly heated threats about direct military confrontation, Tehrans launch of missiles at a foreign country marks yet another sign of escalation in the Saudi-Iranian geopolitical rivalry for dominance in the Middle East. Saudi King Salmans decision to elevate his son Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) to crown prince, several days after Irans strikes on eastern Syria, can only further inflame bilateral tensions based on MBS anti-Iranian and increasingly sectarian foreign policy vision for the Middle East.

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Iran and the United States' Competition in Eastern Syria - HuffPost

White House will step up lobbying against Iran, Russia sanctions bill now stalled in Congress – Chicago Tribune

The Trump administration is planning to step up its lobbying against parts of a bipartisan Senate bill slapping new sanctions on Russia and Iran, a senior official said - an effort that comes as Congress works to clear up an unexpected roadblock to the measure that could give the White House more time to air its concerns to sympathetic House Republicans.

The White House opposes provisions that could be seen as pre-empting the president's powers, the official said. Of particular concern is a congressional review process that would allow the House and Senate to block the president from lifting sanctions.

The House blocked progress on the Senate-passed Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act earlier this week, arguing that it flouted the constitutional provision requiring revenue-raising bills to originate in the House. That prompted accusations from Democrats that the House Republican leaders were trying to stall the bill at Trump's request.

While the procedural snag could be cleared as soon as next week, it remains unclear when the House will take final action.

The Trump administration has publicly warned against impeding presidential prerogatives to relieve sanctions. "We would ask for the flexibility to turn the heat up when we need to, but also to ensure that we have the ability to maintain a constructive dialogue," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week.

The White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk more freely, said the administration's concern is one of separation of powers and not policy toward Russia. The official said the White House expects to see previous officials from Democratic administrations voicing the same concern as the debate plays out in the House.

For Trump, however, the issue is politically fraught because his relationship with Russia and whether Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election have become central themes of his presidency and is the subject of investigations by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and congressional committees. The sanctions bill was passed by the Senate in response to Russia's continued involvement in the wars in Ukraine and Syria and for its alleged meddling in the election.

The president continues to express anger and annoyance at the focus on Russia's role in the election even as his public comments on the matter, such as calling it "all big Dem HOAX!" in a series of tweets earlier this week, have kept the issue in the news.

White House aides this week said the president isn't denying Russia tried to meddle in the election.

"I think he's made it clear and been consistent that while everyone agrees the result of the election wasn't influenced, he think that it probably was Russia," deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Thursday.

House aides said Thursday a solution was being crafted in coordination with the Senate to address the constitutional issue, which dealt with possible revenue from fines that could be levied under the bill.

"Absent Senate action to return the bill and cure the Origination Clause issue, the House will act to preserve its Constitutional rights and 'blue slip' the Senate-passed bill," a Ways and Means Committee aide said, using Capitol Hill lingo for the constitutional objection.

Senate leaders have not said whether they will accept the House's proposed fix, and House leaders have not committed to schedule the bill for a floor vote. But if senators sign off on the proposed changes - which one House GOP aide described as "technical, not substantive" - the bill could be on the floor in July. While the four House committees with jurisdiction over sanctions have not committed to whether they will formally review the legislation a course of action, at least some, including the Foreign Affairs Committee, are expected to waive their right to hold hearings to expedite its passage.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce, R-Calif., told reporters this week that he was prepared to move the bill. "One way or the other, we have to do it very quickly," he said Wednesday, according to the Hill.

If the House takes up the measure, it could set up a veto fight with the White House that Congress is likely to win. A veto-proof majority of senators already voted in favor of the measure. But a showdown between Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress over Russia sanctions would be politically problematic for the party.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters Thursday that he personally supports the new sanctions and that Royce is "very eager to move this bill."

"So we want to get this bill cleaned up. We need Foreign Affairs to do their scrub of this legislation, which is what we do every time a bill comes over from the Senate," he said. "But Chairman Royce has indicated he wants to get moving on this quickly, and we want to honor that."

Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

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White House will step up lobbying against Iran, Russia sanctions bill now stalled in Congress - Chicago Tribune

Education for all? Not in Iran – Deutsche Welle

A profound disappointment. The reform-oriented and recently re-elected president, Hassan Rouhani, has capitulated. A member of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, it was he after all who approved the decision not to implement the UNESCO education agenda in Iran.

Many Iranians tweeted comments such as: "Rouhani said: I will forgo many things, but not the Education 2030 agenda. Today, as chairman of the Council of the Cultural Revolution, he definitively scrapped the agenda's action plan."

The global Education 2030 agenda was approved by ministers from all over the world in 2015. The Iranian government, led by President Rouhani, also signed on. Signatories committed themselves to - among other things - guaranteeing access to education for all people, irrespective of age, sex and religion. The Education Agenda is one of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

For Iran's most senior political and religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this is tantamount to a conspiracy. "What was conceived as sustainable development is merely a plan to spread Western values and culture throughout the world," Khamenei declared abruptly last spring, shortly before the presidential election. He sharply criticized Rouhani for his cooperation with UNESCO. Iran would "not bow" to the UNESCO education agenda, said Khamenei. Rouhani responded that the religious leader had been wrongly informed - the agenda would be adapted to the Islamic culture of Iranian society.

This was the start of a battle between the government and the conservative opposition for and against the UNESCO education agenda, which has ended with the aforementioned defeat for Rouhani. Khamenei, who has the last word on everything in Iran, declared tersely, "We ourselves know best what's good for us!'

Angry Iranians gave free rein to their sarcasm on social media. "The religious leader doesn't like the Education 2030 agenda because it was written in the West. What he's happy to take from the West are ballistic missiles, nuclear energy and cranes for public executions," tweeted one user.

Baha'i banned from studying

For many Iranians, the rejection of the education agenda has tangible consequences. "Our children are not allowed to study. Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran this has been forbidden to all adherents of the Baha'i religion," said Simin Fahandej in an interview with DW. Fahandej is the spokesperson for the international Baha'i community at the UN in Geneva. The Baha'i are one of the biggest religious minorities in Iran. There are no official statistics, but Iranian media estimates that there are between 40,000 and 300,000 Baha'i in the country.

Other religious minorities, such as Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Jews and Christians, who make up 2 percent of the country's 80 million people, are protected in Iran. However, the Iranian government does not recognize Bahaism as a religion, because its founder, Baha'u'llah, lived after the Prophet Muhammad, whom Muslims believe was the last of the prophets. The Islamic Republic regards Baha'u'llah's followers as apostates, and subjects them to numerous forms of repression.

Unlike the Baha'i people, religious minorities like Jews and Christians are protected in Iran

After the Iranian government rejected the action framework of the Education Agenda, activists posted photos online of Baha'i people who were executed in 1983 on account of their faith. One of the photos shows 17-year-old Mona Mahmudnizhad. She taught children who had had to leave school because they were Baha'i. For this, she was condemned to death.

"In 1993 a secret Iranian government memorandum found its way into the public domain. It said that the Baha'i should be kept illiterate and uneducated. The Iranian authorities don't want to change that," said Fahandej.

Discussion of women's rights is banned

Women are also discriminated against in matters of education. The UNESCO agenda's demand that they be granted equal rights also provoked fierce debate in Iran. The UNESCO Education 2030 Agenda aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, and the regime hardliners don't like that one bit.

"As soon as people start talking about women and their rights, all conversations and any kind of cooperation are over," Farideh, a women's rights activist, told DW. "The rulers see any kind of discussion about women's rights as an attack on their culture."

Women are barred from majoring in numerous subjects at Iranian universities

Farideh is one of the activists who started an initiative for women to have equal status under Iranian law - the "One Million Signatures Campaign for Women's Rights." Many of her associates, like the human rights activist and journalist Narges Mohammadi, are now in jail. Many of them also supported President Rouhani in the election, because he promised equal rights for women. He frequently spoke out against segregation of the sexes in universities, giving rise to hope that he would put an end to gender-specific education. Iranian women students are currently excluded from majoring in 77 subjects, such as accountancy and engineering.

"There could be many advantages for us in working with UNESCO," said Farideh. "We don't have to implement every item; the Iranian government isn't obliged to do this, anyway. But we could have greatly improved our education system through this international exchange."

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Education for all? Not in Iran - Deutsche Welle

Iran’s Nuclear Chief Warns US Against Tilting Power Balance In Middle East – RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Irans atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi, who helped forge the 2015 nuclear agreement, warned the United States on June 23 against upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East by siding with arch-rival Saudi Arabia.

Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Salehi said Tehran views a lavish" deal U.S. President Donald Trump's administration recently announced to sell Saudi Arabia $110 billion in weapons as "provocative."

"This is especially the case if the national defense efforts of Iran...are simultaneously opposed and undermined," he said, alluding to steps the Trump administration has taken to increase U.S. sanctions on Iran for developing ballistic missiles even as it has ramped up arms sales to Riyadh and its allies.

"It would be unrealistic to expect Iran to remain indifferent to the destabilizing impact of such conduct," said Salehi, an MIT graduate who has also served as Iran's foreign minister and was a senior negotiator on the nuclear deal.

Salehi stressed that Washington's strong tilt toward Tehran's rivals in the Middle East not only risks setting off a regional arms race and "further tension and conflict" in the region, but it imperils the "hard-won" nuclear deal, which took two years to negotiate.

If the nuclear deal is to survive, he said the West must change course. "The moment of truth has arrived."

Trump, who visited Saudi Arabia on his first trip as president earlier this month, seems largely unconcerned that his showy support for the kingdom threatens to blow up the nuclear accord or set off a renewed arms race in the Middle East. He has openly shown disdain both for Iran's leaders and the nuclear deal.

Trump and the Saudis frequently blame Iran for wars ranging from Yemen to Syria, as well as for restive minority Shi'ite populations within the borders of the kingdom and other Persian Gulf states ruled by Sunni Muslims.

The Saudis, like Trump, were strongly opposed to the nuclear deal. But while Trump has promised to dismantle the disastrous deal, he has not so far taken any concrete steps to do so.

His administration has indicated it will adhere to the deal, which requires Iran to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions, as long as Tehran continues to do so.

But Salehi's article in the Guardian suggested that Iran's so far strict honoring of the deal may come into doubt in the future if the United States continues to disregard Irans "genuine security concerns" and "stokes Iranophobia" in the region.

Salehi urged the United States and its Western partners to "save" the nuclear deal with "reciprocal gestures" showing a commitment to engagement with Iran.

Iranian voters recently showed their preference for engagement with the West by re-electing President Hassan Rohani with his pro-Western platform, but engagement is simply not a one-way street and we cannot go it alone," Salehi said.

"Unfortunately, as things stand at the moment in the region, reaching a new state of equilibrium might simply be beyond reach for the foreseeable future, he said.

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Iran's Nuclear Chief Warns US Against Tilting Power Balance In Middle East - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty