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Once dependent on Beijing during the years of international isolation imposed by the West for its nuclear program, Iran is now critical to Chinas ability to realize its grandiose ambitions. Other routes to Western markets are longer and lead through Russia, potentially a competitor of China.

It is not as if their project is canceled if we dont participate, said Asghar Fakhrieh-Kashan, the Iranian deputy minister of roads and urban development. But if they want to save time and money, they will choose the shortest route.

He added with a smile: There are also political advantages to Iran, compared to Russia. They are highly interested in working with us.

Others worry that with the large-scale Chinese investment and Chinas growing presence in the Iranian economy, Tehran will become more dependent than ever on China, already its biggest trading partner.

China is also an important market for Iranian oil, and because of remaining unilateral American sanctions that intimidate global banks, it is the only source of the large amounts of capital Iran needs to finance critical infrastructure projects. But that, apparently, is a risk the leadership is prepared to take.

China is dominating Iran, said Mehdi Taghavi, an economics professor at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, adding that the Iranian authorities do not see any drawbacks to being dependent on China. Together, we are moving ahead.

It is not just roads and rail lines that Iran is getting from China. Iran is also becoming an increasingly popular destination for Chinese entrepreneurs like Mr. Lin. With a few words of Persian, as well as low-interest loans and tax breaks from the Chinese and Iranian governments, he has built a small empire since moving to Iran in 2002. His eight factories make a wide variety of goods that find markets in Iran and in neighboring countries.

You can say that I was even more visionary than some of our politicians, Mr. Lin said with a laugh. Since 2013, when the One Belt, One Road plan was started, he has had dozens of visitors from China and multiple meetings with the Chinese ambassador in Tehran. I was a pioneer, and they want to hear my experiences, he said.

Mr. Lin established his factories along what will be a key part of the trade route a 575-mile electrified rail line linking Tehran and Mashhad, financed with a $1.6 billion loan from China. When completed and attached to the wider network, the new line will enable Mr. Lin to export his goods as far as northern Europe, Poland and Russia, at much less cost than today.

I am expecting a 50 percent increase in revenue, Mr. Lin said. He lit another cigarette. Of course, Irans economy will also grow. China will expand. Its power will grow.

He played Chinese pop music in his car and tapped his fingers on the wheel. Life is good in Iran, he said. The future is good.

Iranians who spotted Mr. Lin driving between his factories waved and smiled. Having mastered a few basic phrases in Persian over the years, he said hi and goodbye to some of his 2,000 employees. Iranians are hard workers, he said, but he does not like their food. We grow our own vegetables and eat Chinese food, he said. Just like home.

Even when the boss was out of earshot, workers in his factories said that they were very happy with the Chinese. They pay every month on time and only hire people instead of fire, Amir Dalilian, a guard, said. If more will come, our economy will flourish.

When finished, the proposed rail link will stretch nearly 2,000 miles, from Urumqi, the capital of Chinas western region of Xinjiang, to Tehran. If all goes according to plan, it will connect Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, Chinas state-owned paper, China Daily, wrote. Track sizes need to be adjusted and new connections made, as well as upgrades to the newest trains.

In a 2016 test, China and Iran drove a train from the port of Shanghai in eastern China to Tehran in just 12 days, a journey that takes 30 days by sea. In Iran, they used the existing track between Tehran and Mashhad, powered by a slower diesel-powered train. When the new line is opened in 2021, it is expected to accommodate electric trains at speeds up to 125 miles an hour.

Mr. Fakhrieh-Kashan, an English speaker who oversees negotiation of most of the larger international state business deals, said the Chinese initiative would do much more than just provide a channel for transporting goods. Think infrastructure, city planning, cultural exchanges, commercial agreements, investments and tourism, he said. You can pick any project, they are all under this umbrella.

Business ties between Iran and China have been growing since the United States and its European allies at the time started pressuring Iran over its nuclear program around 2007. China remains the largest buyer of Iranian crude, even after Western sanctions were lifted in 2016, allowing Iran to again sell oil in European markets.

Chinese state companies are active all over the country, building highways, digging mines and making steel. Tehrans shops are flooded with Chinese products and its streets clogged with Chinese cars.

Irans leaders hope that the countrys participation in the plan will enable them to piggyback on Chinas large economic ambitions.

The Chinese plan is designed in such a way that it will establish Chinese hegemony across half of the world, Mr. Fakhrieh-Kashan said. While Iran will put its own interests first, we are creating corridors at the requests of the Chinese. It will give us huge access to new markets.

A version of this article appears in print on July 25, 2017, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinas Push to Link East and West Puts Iran at Center of Everything.

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For China's Global Ambitions, 'Iran Is at the Center of Everything ... - New York Times

By aligning the U.S. with Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump is foolishly looking only to the short term. Iran is already the most influential country in Iraq. Its ally, Hezbollah, is the greatest force in Lebanon. Together, they are the primary reason why Bashar al-Assad is holding on in Syria.

Iran is behind the rebellion in Yemen. Its influence is growing in Afghanistan. Irans vision of the future as no longer dependent on oil has already won over the leaders of Qatar. Even the Trump administration has twice certified that Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement and many countries have renewed trade with it since the agreement took effect. Iran is destined to dominate the Middle East.

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The American public needs to better understand why many Iranians mistrust the United States. It was the CIA that overthrew Irans popular leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953. It was the U.S. that installed Reza Shah Pahlavi, who ruled for 25 years in an increasingly cruel and despotic manner. When he was overthrown in 1979, the Shah fled to the United States. We tried unsuccessfully to bribe some of the revolutions leaders to assure continuing U.S. influence. When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, we sided with Iraq and eventually furnished it with intelligence and arms. Over 2 million Iranians were killed or wounded in that war but Iran won. By 2003, the U.S. had occupied the two major countries on either side of Iran Afghanistan and Iraq and impliedly threatened Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil. Some Iranians remain convinced that the U.S. continues to have designs on control of Irans internal affairs.

Nevertheless, Irans anti-U.S. actions have been measured. Some Iranian students and leaders have called America the Great Satan and street crowds have chanted Death to America but we should judge the country and its people by their actions, not a few politically inspired words. Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979, but, unlike subsequent events in Benghazi and Nairobi, no embassy personnel was killed or seriously injured in Tehran. Although Saddam Husseins Iraq used poison gas against Iranians, Iran refused to do so because such weapons were considered unacceptable under the Koran. There were eight Saudis among the eleven terrorists that brought down the World Trade Centers; no Iranians.

No Iranian has been implicated in any terrorist attack in Western countries except a hard-to-believe allegation that an Iranian-American tried to hire a drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. According to U.S. and Israeli intelligence reports, Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, when the Supreme Leader of Iran said the use of such weapons violates the Koran. Iran supplied arms and training for Shia militants in Iraq and Lebanon. Americans were killed in those countries, but we put our soldiers at risk when we foolishly invaded the countries in the first place.

Ironically, Iranians mistrust Russia as much or more than they mistrust America. Russia or the Soviet Union has occupied Iran on at least three occasions. Russia now fears Irans growing power. The limited cease-fire in southwest Syria is more about Russia wanting to limit the influence of Hezbollah and Iran over Assad than about peace.

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A common misconception about Iran is that it is not democratic. In fact, both local officials and members of parliament the Majlis are elected. Even the members of the Assembly of Experts that selects the Supreme Leader are elected. The current president, Hassan Rouhani, was elected with 50.9 percent of the vote in 2013 over five opponents largely because of his pledge of rapprochement with the world. He was re-elected in 2017. Iran has too few female candidates and too much influence from Muslim clerics to meet the U.S. ideal of democracy, but in comparison to some of its neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia, it is a bastion of democracy.

Irans 79 million people compared to Saudi Arabias 32 million are generally well-educated, well-led and enterprising. They are a natural ally for America. There are bad actors in Iran, but the most effective way for America to affect that countrys direction in the future is as a friend to its people, not as an enemy. America should attempt to understand Iran by building on the nuclear agreement with that country and working for peace in the region not foolishly aligning itself with the ultimately losing side like Saudi Arabia of an internecine dispute within the Muslim community.

Bickerstaff is co-author of International Election Remedies and retired from teaching law at the University of Texas.

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Commentary: Why Iran is positioned to dominate the Middle East - MyStatesman.com

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's top judge called on the United States on Monday to release Iranians held in U.S. jails and billions of dollars in Iranian assets, days after Washington urged Tehran to free three U.S. citizens.

The statement by Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani capped a week of heightened rhetoric over the jailing and disappearance of Americans in Iran and new U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

"We tell them: 'You should immediately release Iranian citizens held in American prisons in violation of international rules and based on baseless charges'," Larijani said in remarks carried by state television.

"You have seized the property of the Islamic Republic of Iran in violation of all rules and in a form of open piracy, and these should be released."

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Tehran to return Robert Levinson, an American former law enforcement officer who disappeared in Iran more than a decade ago, and release businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer, jailed on espionage charges.

Trump said Iran would face "new and serious consequences" if the three men were not released. U.S. authorities imposed new economic sanctions on Iran on Tuesday over its ballistic missile program.

Earlier this month, Iran said another U.S. citizen, Xiyue Wang, a graduate student from Princeton University, had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for spying.

According to former prisoners, families of current ones and diplomats, Iran sometimes holds on to detainees for use for prisoner exchanges with Western countries. Tehran has denied this.

In a swap deal in 2016, Iranians held or charged in the United States, mostly for sanctions violations, were released in return for Americans imprisoned in Iran.

Also that year, Iran filed an International Court of Justice complaint to recover $2 billion in frozen assets that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled must be turned over to American families of people killed in bombings and other attacks blamed on Iran.

Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; editing by John Stonestreet

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Iran top judge demands US release assets, jailed Iranians - Reuters

After the war with Iraq ended, Iranian prisoners returned home. Their families had been totally unaware of their whereabouts during the conflict. Photographer Sasan Moayyedi created a scene with a soldiers clunky blood stained boots alongside a dressy pair of womens shoes. There is a combat knife at the clean and neat home dining table war has become a part of everyday life.

These images are on display in the French town of Arles along with hundreds of others from more than 60 photographers from Iran. The exhibition is a part of the famous annual Les Rencontres dArles festival, taking place in the south of France since the 1970s. This presentation of Iranian modern photographers work is called Iran, Year 38 and aims to show Iran as it is now, 38 years after the Islamic revolution.

For centuries Iran has been known for its poetry, a way to say things that cannot be said directly. The modern version of poetry is photography, a visual poetry. It is not a coincidence that Iran has so many photographers- the curators of the exhibition, Anahita Ghabaian Etehadieh and Newsha Tavakolian, say.

Revolution and war prompted questions about the identity of Iranian society. Its a thousand-year-old civilisation that most recently has put on the shape of the Islamic Republic, with a stress on the religious dimension of Irans legacy. The sanctions and isolation the revolution provoked have also played a role. But now lifestyles are changing, exhibition contributors say. Young Iranians face a choice: follow tradition or adopt modernity. People have become more lonely than ever, states photographer Nazanin Tabataee Yazdi. In his works he shows the young Iranians who try to overcome their loneliness by owning a pet. The practice that is frowned upon by religious authorities. But in the big cities, it is now common to see people walking dogs that was unimaginable just after the revolution.

After China, Iran has the highest execution rate in the world. Executions happen early in the morning and people from the neighbourhood where it takes place often come to watch. Photographer Ebrahim Noroozi captured the scene in 2012. And Arash Khamooshi in the image from the series Act of forgiveness shows how the family of a victim helps to remove a noose from a convicted murderer in front of the crowd assembled to witness the punishment.

Tahmineh Monzavi was taking pictures in the government-run womens shelter for three years. There she met women of all ages, most of them substance abusers. The photographer keeps in touch with a transgender woman who on seeing the photos of her past was stunned at how she had since managed to return to life.

Gohar Dashti in her Modern Life and War series shows the intimate scenes of everyday life and a deadly context bearing the signs of conflict.

Halya Shyyan, an exhibition visitor, was especially impressed by the works of Saba Alizadeh from his Light and soil series.

This exhibition is really impressive because of the many thought-provoking pictures based on the situation of the country at the war and after the war. The project which impressed me the most is the one with the projection of the soldiers pictures on a sofa or a bed in the interior. These are soldiers who became heroes. The images try to show the life they could live but didnt because of the war.

The opening week of the festival also held an evening screening event Iran now where Iranian photographers described their projects and spoke about the changes happening in their country.

Iran, year 38 is open in Arles until August 27.

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Iran's complex identities speak through photography like once through poetry - euronews

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran has demanded that the United States release all detained Iranian citizens, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.

The report quotes Irans deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi as saying he raised the issue Friday during a meeting with an American delegation in Vienna, on the sidelines of a meeting on 2015 nuclear deal.

We raised the issue of the release of Iranians who are detained under the meaningless accusation of bypassing sanctions, on Iran, Araghchi was quoted as saying. He did not elaborate.

Earlier on Friday the White House threatened new and serious consequences for Iran unless it releases all U.S. citizens who are detained there.

The White House says President Donald Trump is prepared to act in an attempt to end Irans practice of using detentions and hostage taking as state policy, but it provides no specifics about potential consequences.

Washington is urging the return of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007 and Princeton graduate student Xiyue Wang, who was arrested last year.

Xiyues confinement became public this week after Irans judiciary announced his 10-year sentence.

Later on Saturday the spokesman for Irans foreign ministry, Bahram Ghasemi, rejected the U.S. demand calling it intervention in Iranian internal affairs, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ghasemi said Irans judiciary and judges are independent and such statements would not deter the judiciary from punishing violators of Iranian law and national security.

However he added that Levinson left Iran after visiting Iran and Tehran has no information about him.

Ghasemi also reiterated the demand for the quick release of Iranian detainees in the U.S., and said one of the wanted Iranian by the U.S. has already died abroad. He did not elaborate.

Also detained by Iran are Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his 81-year-old father, Baquer Namazi. They were taken during the Obama administration and are also serving 10-year sentences.

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Tehran seeks release of detained Iranian citizens in US - The Seattle Times