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ANN/THE JAKARTA POST Jakarta and Tehran have concluded the final stage of negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement, the Indonesian Trade Ministry said on Wednesday.

The announcement came after the two sides finished a seventh round of talks, and the ministry said the governments could now proceed to sign the documents on the deal, which is called the IndonesiaIran Preferential Trade Agreement (II-PTA).

The ministry said Indonesia and Iran would sign the trade agreement during a visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Jakarta between May 22 and 24.

Iran is a non-traditional trade partner for Indonesia. With this PTA, we hope to widen our export opportunities and expand our market reach, said the ministrys director of bilateral negotiations Johni Martha.

Indonesia has been looking to new markets to diversify its export options and thereby reduce its reliance on traditional trade partners, many of which have been affected by a weakened global economy and geopolitical risks.

The government aims to speed up the countrys economic recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic by increasing its exports.

Countries of the Middle East are among those considered alternative trade partners for the government, along with countries in Africa, South Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.

In July last year, Indonesia inked a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) with the United Arab Emirates. The government has been pursuing similar cooperation with other Gulf states, including a CEPA with Saudi Arabia since 2018.

The negotiations between Indonesia and Iran come at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions in many parts of the world. The United States (US) government has imposed sanctions on Iran since 1979, following the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, which restricted access for US companies to conduct business in Iran.

The Trade Ministry noted that trade between Indonesia and Iran amounted to USD54.1 million during the first three months of this year.

Last year, the bilateral trade value increased by more than 23 per cent to USD257.2 million.

Motorcycles, vehicle parts, fatty acid industrial monocarboxylates and wood fibre are among the main goods shipped from Indonesia to Iran.

Meanwhile, major Iranian shipments to Indonesia include dates and grapes, carbonates and vegetable alkaloids, among many other products.

The ministry said Indonesia and Iran had also concluded negotiations on an article related to countertrade, which allows the two countries to pay for goods and services from the other side in kind rather than settling transactions with money.

This would allow trade between the two to continue despite possible difficulties in securing currency commonly used in international trade, such as US dollars.

Read more here:
Indonesia to sign trade deal with Iran next week - Borneo Bulletin

Justin Wong/Stuff

About 20 people attended the demonstration against Iranian authorities.

Members of the Iranian community held a silent protest in central Wellington on Saturday after the Iranian government executed three men over last years anti-regime protests.

About 20 people turned up to the protest. Two blindfolded protesters stood in silence and another two held up a banner saying women, life, freedom the slogan of the protests ignited after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in Tehran, three days after being detained by the countrys morality police for having some hair visible under her hijab (headscarf).

Another protester held up a flag known as the Lion and Sun that was used by Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and then banned by the theocratic regime.

On Friday, Saleh Mirhashemi, Saeed Yaqoubi and Majid Kazemi were executed in the central Iranian city of Isfahan for killing three security force officers last November. Human rights groups had said the three men were tortured and forced to confess on camera.

READ MORE:* Government moving at glacial speed to combat Iran, advocate says * Government sanctions more Iranian officials over support for Russia's war * Foreign policy challenge: How to respond to Iran?

New Zealands foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta had condemned the executions, saying on Twitter on Saturday they were a reprehensible violation of human rights.

Iranian authorities executed four other protesters in relation to the protests and dozens more had been sentenced to death. At least 582 people were executed in Iran last year.

Aida Tavassoli, a spokesperson of the Iranian Solidarity Group in New Zealand, said the authorities had been putting on sham trials for protesters and restrictions imposed last year, such as slowing down internet access, has continued.

The disruption meant Tavassoli couldnt even have a WhatsApp voice call with relatives in Iran.

Theyre using all these mechanisms to intimidate people, to stop people from protesting.

Hawar News Agency/AP

Iranian authorities executed three men in relation to anti-regime protests last year.

It was good that Mahuta had spoken against the executions, she said, but the Government needed to do more to pressure Tehran, such as declaring the regime as gender apartheid and designating the countrys Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.

There is nothing for us to lose here we dont have significant trade, she said.

There is a chance for us to play a role in the international community.

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Wellington protesters stand in silence against executions in Iran - Stuff.co.nz

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The Shell-backed gas project poised to profit Iran - Financial Times

Unconfirmed reports in Irans press suggest the country may take delivery of the first batch of Su-35 Flanker-E fighter jets it ordered from Russia in the coming weeks.

In an article that has since been removed, Irans official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that the jets, also known as Super Flankers, will soon arrive in Iran. In light of the articles deletion and past rumors that the aircraft began arriving in April, and statements, such as one affirming the jets would begin arriving in March, ultimately proving premature or outright false, one should take this news with a grain of salt.

Still, the arrival of the Super Flankers in the not-too-distant future will undoubtedly mark a milestone for Irans long-neglected air force, officially known as the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF). The IRIAF hasnt imported any new fighter jets in 33 years. But one has to go back 47 years to find a fighter procurement this significant for Tehran.

In 1976, Iran began receiving the first of 80 F-14A Tomcats it ordered from the United States in a historic deal. Tehran ultimately received 79 of them before the 1979 Islamic Revolution ended close ties between Washington and Tehran.

Despite a U.S. arms embargo and chronically unreliable TF30 engines, F-14As inherited by the IRIAF, and often flown by pilots previously imprisoned and tortured by the new Islamist regime, fought throughout Irans lengthy eight-year war with Saddam Husseins Iraq, downing many enemy jets.

Outfitted with the powerful AWG-9 radar and armed with the long-range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missile, which could hit targets up to 100 miles away, the Tomcat was a formidable opponent and a true air superiority fighter.

While the fourth-generation fighter, truly cutting-edge for its day, served Iran well, time has ultimately taken its toll. Irans rivals have acquired more advanced and modern jets in the intervening decades.

Iran bought a fleet of MiG-29A Fulcrum fighters from the Soviet Union in 1990. However, its F-14s out-flew the much newer Fulcrums, which was one reason the IRIAF did not buy large numbers of those Soviet jets.

The following year, Iraqi Air Force jets, including French-built Mirage F1s, flew to Iran to evade destruction by the juggernaut of the U.S.-led multinational coalition in the Persian Gulf War. Tehran confiscated them, putting most into service with the IRIAF. Iraqi Su-25 Frogfoot attack planes served in Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air arm and were later returned to Iraq in 2014 to help Baghdad combat the Islamic State group.

Iran previously contemplated buying the Su-30 Flanker from Russia. There have also been intermittent rumors since at least 2016 that Tehran wanted to co-produce that fighter aircraft.

Following Russias fateful February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow and Tehran expanded their defense relationship to an unprecedented level. The latter supplied the former with hundreds of the single-use drones infamously used against Ukrainian cities. In return, Russia will provide Iran with at least two dozen Su-35s, most likely the ones initially built for export to Egypt in recent years in a deal Cairo is widely believed to have canceled.

Its unclear if Tehran will seek to import additional fighters or some co-production arrangement to assemble more in Iran. The Su-30 co-production rumor appeared again in early May, this time in Turkish media.

Su-35s in Russian service have proven lethal adversaries for their Ukrainian opponents. A well-known Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot recently told BBC that their biggest enemy is Russian Su-35 fighter jets.

While those super-maneuverable Russian jets are far more advanced than fighters in Ukraines current air force, which relies on early models of the Fulcrum and Flanker built in the 1980s, they are still limited in many ways. For example, the Su-35 is the only 4.5-generation aircraft that lacks an electronically scanned array radar (AESA) radar. That, along with many other potentially severe shortcomings, most likely means that the Su-35 will not enable Tehran to establish air superiority over the Persian Gulf, especially if it receives only 24. They will, on the other hand, bolster the IRIAFs aged fighter fleet and enhance Irans national air defense.

Whether they arrive in the coming weeks, months, or even in the next couple of years, the Su-35s will most likely become the most advanced fighter aircraft Iran has imported in the past half a century, something that, in and of itself, certainly is not insignificant.

I am a journalist/columnist who writes about Middle East military and political affairs.

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Tomcats To Super Flankers: Iran Might Soon Receive Its Most Advanced Fighter In Almost 50 Years - Forbes

Two French citizens detained by Iran were released on Friday on humanitarian grounds and made their way back to France, according to French and Iranian authorities.

One of the men, Benjamin Brire, a 38-year-old French tourist, had been held for three years. The other, Bernard Phelan, a 64-year-old French-Irish travel consultant, was arrested in October 2022. The two men left the prison in Mashhad, a city in northeastern Iran, where they had been kept and flew back to France, landing at an airport near Paris on Friday evening.

President Emmanuel Macron of France called their return a relief.

Free, finally, Mr. Macron said on Twitter, adding that France would continue to work for the return of our compatriots still detained in Iran.

Mr. Brire and Mr. Phelan had been accused of spying on Iran and acting against its security interests, charges that the two men and French authorities strenuously denied. The men had gone on intermittent hunger strikes to protest their detention, weakening them and worrying their families, who had urged Iran to free them.

They were provided with medical care immediately after their release, Catherine Colonna, the French foreign minister, said in a statement on Friday.

Ms. Colonna said that in a phone conversation with her Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, she had reiterated Frances determination that the other French citizens still detained in Iran should also regain their full freedom quickly and enjoy their right to consular protection.

Four French citizens are still in Iranian custody, according to French authorities. A fifth person, Fariba Adelkhah an academic who holds an Iranian passport as well as a French one was arrested in 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison; she was released in February but has not yet been able to leave Iran.

Iran has detained several foreigners and dual citizens since 2018, when President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from a nuclear deal with the country and reimposed sanctions.

Western and European countries have accused Iran of using detained people as diplomatic bargaining chips or to press for the release of Iranian prisoners abroad.

In 2020, for instance, the French government secured the release of an academic who had been held on national security charges, as part of a prisoner swap.

It was not immediately clear whether the release of Mr. Brire and Mr. Phelan had been secured by a similar deal. On Friday, French, Irish and Iranian authorities made no mention of one.

IRNA, Irans state-run news service, said that the two men were released on humanitarian grounds, while Irans embassies in Paris and Dublin said on Twitter that it was a humanitarian and friendly gesture.

Saeid Dehghan, one of the four Iranian lawyers for Mr. Brire, said that he had become extremely weak and frail because of his hunger strike.

If the release wouldnt have happened by now, Benjamin would be at a major life risk, Mr. Dehghan said.

Mr. Phelan, Irish-born but based in Paris, was in Iran consulting for a tour operator when he was arrested during a wave of antigovernment protests and accused of disseminating anti-regime propaganda and taking pictures of security services, according to his family. Mr. Phelan, who according to his family has hypertensive heart disease and chronic bone and eyesight issues, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in March.

Caroline Mass-Phelan, Mr. Phelans sister, told Agence France-Presse in January that he was an innocent man who loved Iran, who is 64 years old, who is sick, who just wants to go home.

Michel Martin, Irelands minister for foreign affairs and minister of defense, said in a statement on Friday that the last seven months have been a very difficult ordeal for Bernard and for his family.

Many people have worked tirelessly for this outcome over many months, he added.

Mr. Brire was arrested in May 2020 in northeastern Iran and accused of taking photographs in a prohibited area with a drone, leading to charges of espionage, which is punishable by death. He was also facing a propaganda charge because he had asked in a social media post why head scarves were required for women in Iran but optional in some other predominantly Muslim countries.

Mr. Brire was sentenced to eight years in prison but was then acquitted in February by an appeals court, though he was not released from prison at the time.

After almost 1,000 days of harrowing captivity, Benjamin Brire is finally free, Philippe Valent, Mr. Brires lawyer in France, said in a statement, adding that Mr. Brire now needed time to physically and mentally recover.

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.

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Iran Releases 2 French Citizens From Detention - The New York Times