Mediaboss Marketing

Bahareh and Emad Shargi in California in June 2017. Bahareh Shargi hide caption

Bahareh and Emad Shargi in California in June 2017.

Later this month, Bahareh Shargi will mark an anniversary: It will be three years that her husband has been stuck in Iran.

Iranian authorities first imprisoned Emad Shargi, a U.S. citizen, on April 23, 2018. Though they eventually released him on bail, they did not allow him to leave the country and later returned him to Tehran's Evin prison. Now his family hopes that speaking out may help him.

His wife discussed his case at the Washington, D.C., home where they raised two daughters. She sat on their concrete back porch, which overlooks a playground set from the days when their children were little. "I'm so proud to have spent the last 32 years with him," she said. She calls these last three years spent apart "this ordeal."

Emad, Shargi, 56, is one of numerous U.S. citizens who have been arrested in Iran over the years on opaque charges of espionage. He said he was innocent, and Iran made no evidence public.

Iranian diplomats have frequently spoken of exchanging such prisoners for Iranians in U.S. prisons. While the United States formally rejects any such exchanges, some U.S. and Iranian prisoners were released during the Trump administration. But not Emad Shargi.

Bahareh Shargi, 53, said she and her husband were born in Iran, and both moved to the United States when they were young and became citizens. But they maintained family ties to their native country, and when their children went to college a few years ago, they chose to take an opportunity to live in Tehran.

Emad Shargi in 2015 Bahareh Shargi hide caption

Emad Shargi in 2015

"We had this window of time where we thought, 'We can travel,' " she said.

They occupied a house in Tehran belonging to Bahareh Shargi's family. Emad Shargi, a businessman, had previously worked in the Persian Gulf region and briefly worked for the Dutch arm of an Iranian venture capital firm.

His wife insists that they had no hint of trouble with Iranian authorities until after midnight on April 23, 2018, when she woke to find "15, 16, 17 men and a woman, strangers in our home." They took the couple's passports and many other documents, and left with Emad.

She followed him to Evin prison, an imposing mountainside structure in north Tehran. It occupies an outsized place in the Iranian psyche as the destination for many who fall out of favor with Iran's security services. She passed through its gates daily, seeking to meet a senior official, but only reached a secretary who told her to go home. She recounts being told, "We will call you. Your husband will be here for a long, long time."

Emad Shargi was released from prison in December 2018, but his passport was not returned, making it impossible for him to travel. His wife reluctantly returned to the U.S., hoping he could follow. But after nearly two years of waiting, he was rearrested in November 2020.

Bahareh Shargi grew concerned that month when she could not reach him by video conference as she usually did. Finally she learned he was back in prison from the BBC Persian news service. "I opened my phone," she said, and saw "three pictures of a man that looked like Emad, but had aged, I would say, 20, 30 years since the last time I had seen him on FaceTime."

The Shargi family in 2015. Bahareh Shargi hide caption

The Shargi family in 2015.

In February Emad was allowed to begin calling from Evin. He said he had been convicted in a trial he did not attend, and issued a 10-year sentence.

Bahareh Shargi and their daughters, Hannah, 22, and Ariana, 24, gather around the phone when he calls.

"What I've been trying to do lately is let him know we are doing other things and higher up people are doing other things, and 'You are not forgotten,' " Bahareh Shargi said.

On a recent call, she informed her husband that U.S. and Iranian diplomats would be in Vienna this week, passing messages back and forth. It's an effort to find a way for the U.S. to rejoin a nuclear agreement with Iran and other world powers.

When U.S. diplomats last negotiated over Iran's nuclear program during the Obama administration, they worked to keep the talks separate from the discussions of imprisoned Americans. They wanted to avoid being asked to pay a kind of nuclear ransom for prisoners. These most recent nuclear talks are tentative U.S. and Iranian officials are not even in the same room but Rob Malley, the U.S. envoy to Iran, said President Biden "cares deeply" about getting "the American citizens released as soon as possible, reunited with their loved ones."

"They're not part of this negotiation, but they're part, in fact, of our thinking," Malley told NPR in an interview Monday. "And we're determined to see them released regardless of what happens on the nuclear track."

The families of Americans being held in Iran have urged the Biden administration to make their release a priority.

"Looking back," said Bahareh Shargi, "it was one big mistake of going there."

She gestured out into the backyard of their Washington home. "His best times were under this cherry blossom tree, which, if you come back in 20 days, is in full bloom [and] pink." She has no way to know when her husband might return to see their backyard cherry trees.

She remembered when their daughters were small, and "showered themselves with cherry blossoms" as the petals fell. "And the reason I say that is that I want to tell these people [that] you have the wrong person. Why do you have Emad?"

Lisa Weiner and Denise Couture produced and edited the audio story.

The rest is here:
3 Years Later, A Prisoner's Family Still Awaits His Return From Iran - NPR

Robert Malley, pictured in 2018, helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. He's now involved in talks to potentially restart the deal, beginning this week in Vienna. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Robert Malley, pictured in 2018, helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. He's now involved in talks to potentially restart the deal, beginning this week in Vienna.

The U.S. and Iran are holding indirect talks this week in Vienna over a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Diplomats from the two countries won't meet face to face representatives from Europe, Russia and China will serve as a go-between. Both the U.S. and Iran insist the other needs to make a concession first Iran says the U.S. should lift sanctions, while the U.S. says Iran should scale back its nuclear program.

Robert Malley will be one of the people representing the U.S. in the talks. He tells Morning Edition that it's only a first step in a long and difficult process with the goal of bringing both countries back into compliance.

"This is going to involve discussions about identifying the steps that the U.S. has to take and identifying the steps that Iran is going to have to take," he says. "Because they've been increasingly in noncompliance with their nuclear commitments."

Former President Donald Trump broke off from the deal in 2018 and imposed punitive sanctions. Iran in turn began to enrich uranium to higher percentages than was allowed under the deal, getting slightly closer to making the radioactive fuel used in nuclear weapons.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the sanctions imposed by Trump are illegal and that they must be removed before Iran changes its nuclear activities.

Malley, who is serving as a special envoy for the Biden administration, responds that "it's not going to work that way," telling NPR's Steve Inskeep that stance would mean Iran is "not serious" about rejoining the deal.

Malley helped negotiate the deal in 2015 when he served in the Obama National Security Council.

Here are excerpts from the interview, which have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

How out of compliance is Iran at the moment?

Every day that goes by, they're more out of compliance because they have obviously increased their stockpile of enriched uranium. They are experimenting with centrifuges that are more advanced than the ones that they were supposed to be using, they have restricted the access of the International Atomic Energy Organization. So they are doing things that are out of compliance.

And, you know, President Biden has been clear during the campaign and since he's been in the Oval Office that the United States is prepared to come into compliance if Iran does. Unfortunately, ever since the president has been in office, Iran has moved further out of compliance.

Even before these negotiations began, there were groups who are opposed to resuming this nuclear agreement who've been taking out ads in papers and lobbying in different ways. Is there a case to be made for the status quo? It wasn't what you would have done had you been around during the Trump administration. But Iran is still sort of in the deal and it's also sanctioned and restricted in many ways.

Listen, we've had a real life experiment with this. The last three years the Trump administration tested the proposition that putting Iran under maximum pressure and telling it either it needs to come back and forget about the existing nuclear deal and agree to more stringent requirements, or else the pressure would continue.

Well, we've seen what happened. Iran expanded its nuclear program, is getting closer to, sort of, troubling levels of enriched uranium, troubling levels of advanced centrifuges, troubling restrictions on the verification and monitoring, the unprecedented verification that the nuclear deal provided. So, no, we've seen the result of the maximum pressure campaign. It has failed.

You're telling me that this situation gets a little more dangerous each day. Iran comes a little more out of compliance each day. Are we on a trend line where if nothing changes, ultimately there would be a war because the United States is committed never to allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon?

I'm not going to go there. I am going to say that the United States under President Biden is committed to making sure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. We believe the best way to do that is through diplomacy.

Do you have any indication that there could be any bipartisan support? There wasn't for the last agreement.

You know, hope springs eternal. We'll work as closely as we can with Congress. And this is a very polarizing issue. We understand that. At the same time we've stated clearly it was what the president ran on that we would come back into the deal if Iran resumed compliance and then work on it to achieve what I think every member of Congress has said he or she wants to achieve, which is a stronger, longer deal that meets U.S. core interests. But also would have to include further steps that Iran is looking for. And doing this in coordination with our regional allies, our regional partners.

This administration has set a goal for itself of a foreign policy that is in some way connected to Americans. How, if at all, could reentering this nuclear agreement help ordinary Americans?

It would not serve the interests of America or American citizens if there were growing tension in the Middle East because of an expanding Iranian nuclear program. So getting back into the deal is very much, in our estimation, in the interest of the United States and of its citizens.

So that the president and his team could focus on what really matters for the well-being of the American people and a return to an understanding that was working and which could serve as a platform to then get something even stronger for our benefit.

Critics of this deal have said what it did not include: limitations on Iranian missiles or Iran's activities in the region. What is something stronger that you could get in a follow-on agreement if you resume this agreement?

What we would pursue is, first of all, a longer agreement. Even though this one lasts quite some time and some of its provisions last forever, of course, it would be better, as in any arms control agreement, to see whether we could get a follow-on deal that extends the timelines. ...

And, you know, we have concerns about Iran's ballistic missile program. We have concerns about their activities in the region. We want to talk about all that. But we're much better off talking about all of that if we could at least put the current nuclear issue to the side and not have to worry every day about what the latest Iranian announcement will be.

Iran has its own presidential election coming up in June. Is it necessary for you to get any agreement started before that election?

It's not necessary. And we will negotiate with whoever is in power in Iran. And if we could reach an understanding before the elections, fine. And if we can't, we'll continue after that with whoever is in office in Tehran. So we can't ignore the reality of an election, but we can't let it dictate our pace either.

Lisa Weiner and Denise Couture produced and edited the audio interview. James Doubek produced for the Web.

See the article here:
Biden Envoy To Iran On What To Expect In Renewed Nuclear Talks - NPR

WASHINGTON (AP) The Biden administration on Thursday welcomed a European Union announcement that the participants in the Iran nuclear deal will meet this week to discuss a possible return of the United States to the 2015 accord.

Fridays virtual meeting of officials from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran comes as the U.S. is exploring ways to rejoin the deal that former President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. The State Department praised the meeting and said it would be watched closely by U.S. officials.

We obviously welcome this as a positive step and thats precisely because we have been clear for weeks now that we are ready to pursue a return to compliance with our (nuclear deal) commitments consistent with Iran also doing the same, spokesman Ned Price said. Its a positive step, especially if it moves the ball forward on that mutual return to compliance that weve talked about for a number of weeks now.

Earlier Thursday, the EU said one of its top diplomats, Enrique Mora, would chair the meeting. Participants will discuss the prospect of a possible return of the United States to the (nuclear deal) and how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the agreement by all sides, it said.

President Joe Biden has said the U.S. will to return to the deal if Iran comes back into compliance with it. Thus far, Iran has refused to entertain the offer unless the U.S. rescinds sanctions that Trump imposed on it. Iran already rejected an EU proposal for a meeting that included the United States. That proposal came in response to a Biden administration statement that it would accept an invitation to attend such talks.

Meanwhile, the State Department said it had extended a waiver that allows Iraq to continue to buy power from Iran without being subject to U.S. sanctions. penalties. The waiver was renewed for 120 days, an increase in shorter extensions that had become commonplace during the Trump administration.

Price said the extension was granted because of progress Iraq is making in developing its own electricity generation to reduce its reliance on outside sources of power. U.S. and Iraqi officials are resuming a strategic dialogue soon that places energy near the top of priorities and Washington hopes will ultimately allow Iraq to develop its energy self-sufficiency, and we hope to end its reliance on Iran, Price said.

In the interim, renewal of the sanctions waiver is appropriate, until the agreement and development of the Iraqi energy sector can be fully realized and implemented., he said. Price added that the U.S. believed the four-month extension was long enough for Iraq to take meaningful action to promote energy self-sufficiency and to reduce its dependence on expensive Iranian energy.

The Trump administration had only reluctantly approved such extensions because they ran counter to its maximum pressure campaign on Iran. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been granting the waivers but reducing their length to push Iraq to wean itself from Iranian electricity.

Continue reading here:
Biden admin lauds talks on readmitting US to Iran nuke deal - Associated Press

JERUSALEM The sun was rising on the Mediterranean one recent morning when the crew of an Iranian cargo ship heard an explosion. The ship, the Shahr e Kord, was about 50 miles off the coast of Israel, and from the bridge they saw a plume of smoke rising from one of the hundreds of containers stacked on deck.

The state-run Iranian shipping company said the vessel had been heading to Spain and called the explosion a terrorist act.

But the attack on the Shahr e Kord this month was just one of the latest salvos in a long-running covert conflict between Israel and Iran. An Israeli official said the attack was retaliation for an Iranian assault on an Israeli cargo ship last month.

Since 2019, Israel has been attacking ships carrying Iranian oil and weapons through the eastern Mediterranean and Red Seas, opening a new maritime front in a regional shadow war that had previously played out by land and in the air.

Iran appears to have quietly responded with its own clandestine attacks. The latest came on Thursday afternoon, when an Israeli-owned container ship, the Lori, was hit by an Iranian missile in the Arabian Sea, an Israeli official said. No casualties or significant damage were reported.

The Israeli campaign, confirmed by American, Israeli and Iranian officials, has become a linchpin of Israels effort to curb Irans military influence in the Middle East and stymie Iranian efforts to circumvent American sanctions on its oil industry.

But the conflicts expansion risks the escalation of what has been a relatively limited tit-for-tat, and it further complicates efforts by the Biden administration to persuade Iran to reintroduce limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

This is a full-fledged cold war that risks turning hot with a single mistake, said Ali Vaez, Iran program director at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization. Were still in an escalatory spiral that risks getting out of control.

Since 2019, Israeli commandos have attacked at least 10 ships carrying Iranian cargo, according to an American official and a former senior Israeli official. The real number of targeted ships may be higher than 20, according to an Iranian Oil Ministry official, an adviser to the ministry and an oil trader.

The Israeli attacks were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Most of the ships were carrying fuel from Iran to its ally Syria, and two carried military equipment, according to an American official and two senior Israeli officials. An American official and an Israeli official said the Shahr e Kord was carrying military equipment toward Syria.

The Israeli government declined to comment.

The extent of Irans retaliation is unclear. Most of the attacks are carried out clandestinely and with no public claims of responsibility.

The Israeli ship attacked last month was a car freighter, the Helios Ray, carrying several thousand German-made cars to China.

As the ship rounded the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage off the coast of Iran, a speedboat that had been trailing in its wake accelerated, zipping alongside the freighter. Commandos affixed two timed explosives to the port side of the ship, a meter above the water, according to a person with knowledge of the subsequent investigation.

Twenty minutes later the explosives ripped two holes in the hull.

Several tankers were similarly attacked in the Red Sea last fall and winter, actions some officials attributed to the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel movement in Yemen.

Iran has denied involvement in all of these attacks which, like the Israeli ones, appeared intended not to sink the ships but to send a message.

You attack us here, well attack you there, said Gheis Ghoreishi, a political analyst who has advised Irans Foreign Ministry on Middle Eastern affairs. Iran and Israel are bringing their covert war to the open waters.

The long-running shadow war between Israel and Iran has accelerated in recent years. Iran has been arming and financing militias throughout the region, notably in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza and Lebanon, where it supports Hezbollah, a Shiite militia and political movement that is a longtime enemy of Israel.

Israel has tried to counter Irans power play by launching regular airstrikes on Iranian shipments by land and air of arms and other cargo to Syria and Lebanon. Those attacks have made those routes riskier and shifted at least some of the weapons transit, and the conflict, to the sea, analysts said.

Israel has also sought to undermine Irans nuclear program through assassinations and sabotage on Iranian soil, and both sides are accused of cyberattacks, including a failed Iranian attack on an Israeli municipal water system last April and a retaliatory Israeli strike on a major Iranian port.

Irans Quds force was blamed for a bomb that exploded near Israels embassy in New Delhi in January. And 15 militants linked to Iran were arrested last month in Ethiopia for plotting to attack Israeli, American and Emirati targets.

The sum is an undeclared conflict that neither side wants to escalate into frontal combat.

Neither Israel nor Iran want to publicly take responsibility for the attacks because doing so would be an act of war with military consequences, Hossein Dalirian, a military analyst affiliated with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, told The New York Times in a Clubhouse discussion on Thursday. But attacks against ships at this level could not happen without a state behind it.

We are at war but with our lights off, he added.

The dynamic complicates already fraught efforts by the Biden administration to reconstruct the 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on Irans nuclear enrichment program in exchange for sanctions relief. President Donald J. Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, reinstating those sanctions and imposing a raft of new ones.

It jacks up the political price that the Biden administration would have to pay to provide the Iranians with any kind of economic reprieve, Mr. Vaez said. If Iran is engaged in this kind of tit for tat with Israel, while also putting pressure on American presence in the region, it makes restoring the deal much more difficult.

Analysts say that Iran wants to continue to needle Israel and to arm and support its Middle Eastern allies, both to surround Israel with well-armed proxies and to give Iran a stronger hand in any future nuclear negotiations.

Israels leadership believes the previous nuclear deal was insufficient and would like to scuttle any chance of resurrecting a similar pact. An Israeli official said the attacks were part of a broader strategy to strong-arm Tehran into agreeing to tougher and longer curbs on its nuclear ambitions, as well as restrictions on its ballistic missile program and its support for regional militias.

That campaign, The Times previously reported, also included an Israeli attack on a major Iranian nuclear site in July and the assassination of Irans top nuclear scientist last November. Israel has not publicly acknowledged either operation.

The Israeli offensive against Iranian shipping has two goals, analysts and officials said. The first is to prevent Tehran from sending equipment to Lebanon to help Hezbollah build a precision missile program, which Israel considers a strategic threat.

The second is to dry up an important source of oil revenue for Tehran, building on the pressure American sanctions have inflicted. After the United States imposed sanctions on Irans fuel industry in late 2018, the Iranian government became more reliant on clandestine shipping.

The attacks were carried out by Flotilla 13, an elite commando unit of the Israeli Navy that has been involved in clandestine operations since the early years of the Israeli state, according to the two Israeli officials and the American official.

Israeli officials said that two of the ships it attacked were transporting equipment for Hezbollahs missile program.

One, they said, was carrying an industrial planetary mixer, a device used to make solid rocket fuel for missiles. The device was meant to replace an older mixer that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut in August 2019, the Israeli officials said.

Previous Israeli airstrikes on Iranian convoys and cargo in Syria also targeted equipment for making guided missiles.

The tankers targeted by Israel were carrying Iranian oil to Syria, contravening American sanctions and most likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Israeli officials said that Syria paid Iran in cash or by providing logistical assistance to Syrian-based members of Irans Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards, and to Hezbollah.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, also under sanctions, is in dire need of oil. Iran, its economy decimated by American sanctions, needs cash. Hezbollah has also been hit hard by the severe economic and political crisis in Lebanon and a cyberattack on its financial system.

The Israeli attacks are therefore a way to prevent Iran from selling to Syria, and getting money and giving it to Hezbollah, said Sima Shine, a former head of research at Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.

The attacks typically feature limpet mines and sometimes torpedoes, the American official said. They generally target the ships engines or propellers, one Israeli official said. And they are intended to cripple but not sink the ships, the American and Israeli officials said.

The attacks escalated toward the end of 2020, as Mr. Trumps term drew to close. In response, Irans Revolutionary Guards began to discreetly escort the tankers through the Red Sea, before ships from Russia, an Iranian ally, accompanied them at a distance through the Mediterranean, the American official said.

The attack on the Shahr e Kord occurred when the Russian escort was far enough away for the Israelis to strike, the official added.

The effectiveness of the Israeli campaign is unclear. Some of the targeted ships were forced to return to Iran without delivering their cargo, the American official said.

The Iranians associated with the Iranian Oil Ministry said that in all cases the vessels sustained minor damage, the crews were not hurt and repairs were conducted within a few days.

The American and Israeli officials said there was no connection between the Israeli campaign and a recent oil spill that left tons of tar on the beaches of Israel and Lebanon.

Within Israel, there is concern among maritime experts that the cost of a sea war may exceed its benefit.

While the Israeli Navy can make its presence felt in the Mediterranean and Red Seas, it is less effective in waters closer to Iran. And that could make Israeli-owned ships more vulnerable to Iranian attacks as they pass Irans western shores on their way to ports in the Gulf, said Shaul Chorev, a retired Israeli admiral who now heads the Maritime Policy and Strategy Research Center at the University of Haifa.

Israeli strategic interests in the Persian Gulf and related waterways will undoubtedly grow, he wrote in a statement, and the Israeli Navy does not have the capabilities to protect these interests.

Patrick Kingsley reported from Jerusalem, Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv, Farnaz Fassihi from New York, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

See the original post here:
Israels Shadow War With Iran Moves Out to Sea - The New York Times

The Saudi ceasefire initiative in Yemen will not be approved by the Houthis. There is no surprise there. The Houthis view their own position and the regional situation through Iranian eyes. They are satisfied with what meets Iranian interests and opposed to whatever is inconsistent with those interests.

And since Iran has used the war in Yemen as a card to pressure the United States, because of the danger that the Houthi military movement poses to American interests, it is neither acceptable nor permissible from their standpoint for the Yemeni crisis to be handled in a way that serves all Yemeni parties, including the Houthi side itself, which will certainly not come out as a loser from any negotiations between Yemenis.

The problem with the Houthis is that they identify their interests with those of Iran. They even put these ahead of their own, as they are ideology-driven. They look at their cause in terms of sectarian expediency even if it separates them from others, not in terms of national necessity that unites them with other parties. Therefore, they do not see compliance with Iranian dictates as a deviation from their principles.

However, there is an obstacle that the Houthis will face when they eventually declare their categorical rejection of the Saudi initiative. It is the fact that the initiative has received the blessing of the largest part of the international community, from which Iran is seeking to concessions in a new nuclear agreement.

The international community has become more convinced than before of the need to end the war in Yemen. That is not because of the humanitarian motives which the Houthis advance publicly while working to end the arms embargo, but rather because of genuine world concern at the fate of people in Yemen, who are on the edge of the abyss if they have not fallen into it already.

The United States and the European Union are convinced of the need to end the war. Realising this, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia cut to the chase and announced its peace initiative that removes the Iranian cover from he Houthis. It would also put them in direct confrontation with the world. It is not unlikely that the international community will impose a peace settlement on Yemen, as it has in Libya. Will the Houthis be able to confront the world militarily, for example?

The Houthis, having fallen into the ideological pit that ensured them supplies of Iranian money and weapons throughout the years of their war, cannot think rationally in a way that would guarantee their future within a national framework that brings together all Yemeni parties.

They are just a sectarian gang that was previously defeated in six wars. They have more than once violated signed agreements and continued to do so, taking advantage of the chaos of the Arab spring that led to the collusion of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh whom they later killed. This gang has fought over for many years in defence of Irans interests, acting as Tehrans proxy on the Red Sea.

See the original post here:
Iran and not peace is what matters for Houthis | | AW - The Arab Weekly