Iran Digest Week of January 28 - February 4
/AIC’s Iran digest project covers the latest developments and news stories published in Iranian and international media outlets. This weekly digest is compiled by Communications Associate Elizabeth Kos. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US-Iran Relations
U.S. restores sanctions waiver to Iran with nuclear talks in final phase
President Joe Biden's administration on Friday restored sanctions waivers to Iran to allow international nuclear cooperation projects, as indirect American-Iranian talks on reviving the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran enter the final stretch.
The indirect talks are aimed at having the United States return to the agreement and Iran resume compliance. The agreement was reached under former President Barack Obama, and Biden has pledged to try to bring the United States back to it.
The waiver was needed to allow for technical discussions that were key to the talks about a return to the deal, said a senior State Department official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. The official added that restoring the waiver was not a signal that the United States was on the verge of reaching an understanding to return to the deal.
(Reuters)
Nuclear Accord
U.S. and Allies Close to Reviving Nuclear Deal With Iran, Officials Say
The United States and its European allies appear on the cusp of restoring the deal that limited Iran’s nuclear program, Biden administration officials said on Monday but cautioned that it is now up to the new government in Tehran to decide whether, after months of negotiations, it is willing to dismantle much of its nuclear production equipment in return for sanctions relief.
The State Department official said that the negotiations to restore the 2015 agreement were “in a final stretch” and that “all sides” needed to commit to returning to full compliance. In fact, the United States violated the original accord first, when it withdrew and reimposed sanctions against Iran. Mr. Trump then added hundreds of additional sanctions, and it is unclear how the negotiation now underway would deal with those.
Still, returning to the accord is sure to anger hard-liners in Iran who have warned that the United States could renege again when Mr. Biden is no longer president. They sought a written assurance that the United States would never leave the arrangement, something Mr. Biden said he could not provide.
COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2 in domestic cats (Felis catus) in the northwest of Iran: Evidence for SARS-CoV-2 circulating between human and cats
This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of COVID-19 in domestic cats, focusing on the disease in the northwest of Iran and then showing the natural transmission of SARS-COV-2 circulating between domestic cats and humans.
After receiving ethic codes from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (IR.TUMS.VCR.REC.1399.303) and confirmed by the Center of Communicable Diseases Control (CDC) of Iran, 124 domestic cats were collected from the homes and only one hospital of Meshkin -Shahr district from northwestern Iran where SARS-CoV-2 patients were hospitalized and quarantined during 2020. Samples were prepared from fluid materials of oropharynx and nasopharynx. All samples were tested by real-time PCR (RT-PCR) using specific genes N and ORF1ab in Pasteur Institute of Iran, and then partial sequence analyses of S gene were performed. All collected cats were kept in separated cages until SARS-COV-2 infection was confirmed with the RT-PCR.
Economy
Raisi’s Hollow Ploy to Stem Iran’s Brain Drain
According to Article 989 of Iran’s Civil Code, the government does not recognize dual nationality, and the second nationality of people of Iranian origin who have obtained a foreign passport after 1901 is deemed null and void.
Legislation aimed at supporting Iranians abroad is one of the Raisi administration’s many publicity campaigns that are, by no means, guaranteed to produce any meaningful results. That is first and foremost because enticing Iranians to return would require reforming the underlying orthodoxies that have driven thousands of Iranians from their homes—such as the government’s heavily politicized discourse on mandating modest Islamic dress for women, the shrinking freedoms of student unions and mass media, and the extravagant nuclear enterprise backed up by a truculent diplomacy. Nor is Raisi the sort of leader to champion such reforms.
(Foreign Policy)
Women in Iran
Women allowed to watch Iranian football match for first time in three years
Supporters of the Iran national team were finally allowed back into stadiums to watch their team play on Thursday, with women admitted to watch for only a second time in over 40 years.
A ban put in place by the Islamic republic was in place for around four decades to prohibit female spectators from stadiums, including but not restricted to football, before a Fifa-enforced mandate removed that barrier for this sport in late 2019.
That meant availability of tickets to women who wanted to watch matches and Iran at the time guaranteed over 3,000 tickets for females to a World Cup qualifying match against Cambodia. The fixture, which took place in October 2019, marked the first occasion Iranian women lawfully entered a stadium for a match since 1981 - and the national team certainly put on a show, winning 14-0.
(Independent)
Inside Iran
Rights group: Iran executes 2 gay men over sodomy charges
Iran has executed two gay men who were convicted on charges of sodomy and spent six years on death row, a rights group reported. Homosexuality is illegal in Iran, considered one of the most repressive places in the world for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
According to a report on Sunday by the Human Rights Activists News Agency, the two men were identified as Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi.
They were sentenced to death for “forced sexual intercourse between two men” and hanged in a prison in the northwestern city of Maragheh, some 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital, Tehran.
(AP News)
Regional Politics
Over a Million Flee as Afghanistan’s Economy Collapses
Since the United States withdrew troops and the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan has plunged into an economic crisis that has pushed millions already living hand-to-mouth over the edge. Incomes have vanished, life-threatening hunger has become widespread and badly needed aid has been stymied by Western sanctions against Taliban officials
From October through the end of January, more than a million Afghans in southwestern Afghanistan alone have set off down one of two major migration routes into Iran, according to migration researchers. Aid organizations estimate that around 4,000 to 5,000 people are crossing into Iran each day.
As the economic crisis has worsened, local Taliban officials have sought to profit off the exodus by regulating the lucrative smuggling business. At the Terminal, a Taliban official sitting in a small silver car collects a new tax — 1,000 Afghanis, or about $10 — from each car heading to Pakistan.
Crossing the border is just the first hurdle that Afghans must overcome. Since the takeover, both Pakistan and Iran have stepped up deportations, warning that their fragile economies cannot handle an influx of migrants and refugees.
(New York Times)
Analysis
Iran’s economy reveals power and limits of US sanctions
By: Maziar Motamedi
The Trump administration targeted Iran’s economy with more than 960 sanctions, according to CNAS – a barrage that continued unabated as Iran’s healthcare system buckled under the most brutal waves of COVID-19 infections seen in the Middle East, and despite myriad appeals by world leaders to offer Tehran a temporary reprieve for humanitarian reasons.
All of those sanctions are still enforced by the current administration of US President Joe Biden.
Annual inflation is running north of 42 percent, according to Iran’s statistical office. The national currency, the rial, has lost more than half of its value in the past three years. Oil exports fell from roughly 2.5 million barrels per day in 2017 to less than 0.4 million barrels per day in 2020, according to the US Energy Information Administration – though they did start to slightly recover last year.
But Iran’s economy did not totally collapse. It started to return to growth – albeit from a low base – last year, thanks to an easing of cross-border trade, COVID-19 restriction rollbacks, and a sharp rebound in the price of oil.
Having proven more resilient and diversified than some predicted, Iran’s economy grew 2.4 percent in 2020-21, said the World Bank, and is forecast to grow 3.1 percent in 2021-22.
