Iran Digest Week of February 18- February 25
/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
Iran’s President Tells Putin NATO’s Expansion Is a Threat to Stability
In a phone call with Russia’s President Putin on Thursday evening, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi appeared to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling the eastward expansion of NATO "a source of tension," according to Iranian state media.
“The continued expansion of NATO is a serious threat against the stability and security of independent countries in various regions of the world," Mr. Raisi told Mr. Putin, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.
Russia and Iran are occasional military partners and have fought together to defend President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria. They have in recent years deepened diplomatic ties, and the phone call between the two presidents also focused on the ongoing negotiations between world powers in Vienna to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, which Moscow is also a party to.
(The Wall Street Journal)
Nuclear Accord
Negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal are close to the end, and a deal appears possible
Nearly a year after they began, success or failure in negotiations over a renewed Iran nuclear deal is now expected within the next several days.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, left the Vienna talks Wednesday for consultations in Tehran following a flurry of last-minute sessions with his counterparts from Europe, Russia and China. The U.S. delegations and others remained in place awaiting his return, possibly as early as Friday.
If the negotiations fail, there will be pressure to take action against Iran’s nuclear program. Its “breakout” time for producing enough fissile material to fuel a nuclear weapon is now estimated at only a few weeks, although Iran is still seen as possibly years away from the know-how to actually produce a bomb and deliver it. Tehran has repeatedly insisted its program is intended only for peaceful purposes.
Iran appears to have dropped its demand that Biden “guarantee” that a future administration would not withdraw from any future deal, something U.S. negotiators said was impossible to provide. In recent weeks, Tehran has asked for guarantees from congressional leaders, which is likely to prove equally impossible.
(The Washington Post)
Prisoners who could be freed alongside Iran nuclear deal
Iran has said it is ready to swap prisoners with the United States as months of indirect talks on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal appear closer to reaching agreement.
Tehran released five Americans in January 2016. In return, the United States agreed to free from jail or drop charges against seven Iranians, almost all charged with or convicted in the United States of violating sanctions on Iran, and to drop charges against 14 Iranians living overseas.
Washington also released $1.7 billion to Iran, linked to a separate dispute over arms sales.This time the United States has said that Tehran should release four U.S. citizens if the nuclear pact is to be secured.
Britain has also called on Iran to free two UK detainees. Without explicitly linking the issues, Britain says it is committed to paying hundreds of millions of dollars owed to Tehran for a 1970s arms deal with the then-Shah of Iran.
(Reuters)
Iran to enrich uranium to 20% even after nuclear deal - nuclear chief
Iran will continue to enrich uranium to 20% purity even after sanctions on it are lifted and a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers is revived, Iranian news agencies quoted the country's nuclear chief as saying on Friday.
"(Uranium) enrichment ... continues with a maximum ceiling of 60%, which led Westerners to rush to negotiations, and it will continue with the lifting of sanctions by both 20% and 5%," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, was quoted by the semi-official news agency Fars as saying.
A majority of Iran's hardline-led parliament demanded in a letter last week that the United States should guarantee that they would not abandon a restored agreement. The assembly has not voted on the letter.
Iran insists on the immediate removal of all sanctions imposed under former U.S. President Donald Trump in a verifiable process, including those imposed under terrorism or human rights measures.
(Reuters)
COVID-19
Iran returns ‘US-made’ donated COVID vaccines to Poland
Iran has returned 820,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines donated by Poland because they were manufactured in the United States.
State TV on Monday quoted Mohammad Hashemi, a health ministry official, as saying that Poland donated about a million doses of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine to Iran.
In 2020, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, rejected any possibility of American or British vaccines entering the country, calling them “forbidden”.Iran now only imports Western vaccines that are not produced in the US or Britain.
Iran has relied on Sinopharm, the state-backed Chinese vaccine, but offers citizens a smorgasbord of other shots to choose from – Oxford-AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V, Indian firm Bharat’s Covaxin and its home-grown COVIran Barekat shot.
(Al Jazeera)
Inside Iran
Iran’s internet bill expected to progress despite overturned vote
A controversial snap vote by Iranian lawmakers on progressing an internet restrictions bill has been overturned, but proponents are still expected to move forward with the legislation.
Hours after the outlines of the so-called “Protection Bill” were approved in a controversial meeting of 19 lawmakers on Tuesday, the parliament’s regulations department overturned the vote.
Proponents of the bill, who maintain its aim is to safeguard the population from harmful content on the internet and support local businesses, have repeatedly said they wish to finalise it before the Iranian calendar year ends on March 20.
Opponents of the legislation believe it will introduce significant new restrictions on online freedoms in Iran while also stifling competition and harbouring corruption with its myriad new state permits and funding.
An online petition to scrap it garnered more than 1.1 million signatures last year. Online backlash against the bill has been consistent since, and continued after Tuesday’s vote, with several related hashtags trending.
(Al Jazeera)
Fighter jet crashes in Iran’s Tabriz
Three people have been killed after an army warplane crashed in an urban area in Iran’s Tabriz.
Two pilots and a civilian sitting in a parked vehicle were killed in the incident.Local army official Reza Yousefi told state media at the site of the crash that the aircraft – an F5 model used for training – crashed due to technical issues.
He lauded the two pilots for “sacrificing” themselves as they managed to avoid residential areas and land the plane in an open area next to a sports complex.
An army spokesman confirmed Yousefi’s account and said the incident took place at approximately 8am (04:30 GMT), and identified the pilots as Sadegh Falahi and Alireza Hanifehzad.
(Al Jazeera)
An Iranian Director's Rule: "Always Focus on Ordinary People."
Asghar Farhadi made his first film at age 13, shot with an 8-millimeter camera, about two boys who agree to share an abandoned radio on alternate days, but who then discard it because neither can listen to their favorite nightly program.
The film — which won him a new bicycle as a prize — is a story of children grappling with trivial challenges. But like all stories Mr. Farhadi has scripted and directed to wide acclaim as one of Iran’s pre-eminent filmmakers, it deployed the mundane to convey the profound.
“It is very valuable for me to always focus on ordinary people,” Mr. Farhadi, who at 49 is a two-time Oscar winner, said in an interview from Los Angeles where he was visiting from his home base in Tehran. “I don’t think my work will ever be about people who are special or famous because they are not part of my emotional bank.”
He went on to win two Oscars in the category of best international feature for “A Separation” in 2012 and “The Salesman” in 2018. Mr. Farhadi now belongs to an elite club of just a handful of iconic directors — Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman — who have won multiple Oscars in the foreign film category.
(The New York Times)
Regional Politics
Iran, Qatar sign major agreements on Raisi’s Doha trip
Qatar and Iran have signed 14 agreements during President Ebrahim Raisi’s two-day trip to Doha this week.
Raisi was accompanied by oil minister Javad Owji and foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on the trip, which also included participation in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) in the Qatari capital.
On economy and trade, an agreement was signed between the two countries’ free trade zone authorities while another was between the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran and its Qatari counterpart.
An agreement on tourism, a two-year agreement on sports and youth, and one on education were also signed while an energy deal was reached between Iran’s Tavanir and Qatar’s Electricity and Water Company.
Three agreements on ports and maritime affairs included one on maritime transport, one between the two countries’ port authorities, and another on an idea to connect Iran and Qatar via an underwater tunnel were also reached.Two more agreements dealt with culture and media; one was a two-year deal for cultural cooperation with the other outlining television and radio cooperation.
(Al Jazeera)
Analysis
Analysis: U.S. Congress may squawk over a new Iran deal but is unlikely to block it
By: Arshad Mohammed
Despite threats from nearly three dozen Republican senators to thwart a revived Iran nuclear deal and the misgivings of some top Democrats, there is little chance the U.S. Congress can block a new accord if one comes to fruition.
Lawmakers, congressional aides and former officials noted that Congress failed to quash the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the pact is titled, in 2015 when Republicans controlled both the House of Representatives and Senate.
Talks resumed in Vienna last week about getting both sides to resume compliance with the deal under which Iran curbed its nuclear program to make it harder to get a bomb - an ambition Tehran denies - in return for relief from economic sanctions.
As the talks near their endgame, a simmering U.S. debate has flared anew over reviving the deal, which then-President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. He began a "maximum pressure" campaign reimposing U.S. sanctions and prompting Iran to start violating its nuclear limits about a year later.
