Iran Digest Week of April 29 - May 6
/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 associates Tony Liu and Cynthia Markarian.. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
Nuclear Accord
U.S. says it is now preparing for a world both with and without an Iran nuclear deal
The United States is now preparing equally for both a scenario where there is a mutual return to compliance with Iran on a nuclear deal, as well as one in which there is not an agreement, the State Department said on Wednesday.
"Because a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA is very much an uncertain proposition, we are now preparing equally for either scenario," Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a briefing.
(Reuters)
Environment
Iran Reports Rare Birth Of Asiatic Cheetah Cubs
An Asiatic cheetah gave birth to three cubs in Iran, the head of the environment department said on May 1, calling it a first in captivity for the endangered species.
Iran is one of the last countries in the world where Asiatic cheetahs live in the wild and began a United Nations-supported protection program in 2001.
An Iranian official said in January that only a dozen Asiatic cheetahs are left in the wild in the country, describing the situation for the highly endangered species as “extremely critical.”
Environmentalists say the world’s fastest animal has been the victim of drought, hunting, habitat destruction, and scarcity of prey due to hunters in the remote and arid central plateaus.
The Iranian Cheetah Society says the only remaining habitats left for the majestic cats is the Miandasht Wildlife Refuge and the Touran Biosphere Reserve in northeast Iran.
(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Inside Iran
How Ramadan affects nightlife in Iran’s capital Tehran
Hundreds of people – mostly young men and women, but also families with children and people walking their dogs – had gathered to watch the match of Gol Koochik (small goal), played in one of the emptied pools of the large park.
Gol Koochik is a variation of street football popular in Iran that uses a small net and a light-weight, makeshift plastic ball.
For the tournament, 20 four-man teams signed up and went head-to-head during the event that was organized for the first time during the holy Muslim month.
While food and drink businesses can legally only remain open until midnight on normal nights, during Ramadan they are allowed to operate until dawn, when fasting begins.
Changing hours during Ramadan, which this year ends at the beginning of May with the celebration of Eid al-Fitr, Tehran and cities across Iran undergo a number of changes.
Tehran at night is a dynamic city with a life of its own and collective mood, said Parsa Shahrivar, who heads Peeyade, an online media outlet dedicated to exploring the metropolis.
(Al Jazeera)
Eight die in Iran after drinking homemade alcohol
Eight people have died after drinking tainted homemade alcohol in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas, local media say.
Seventeen of them were in a critical condition in intensive care, while 30 were undergoing dialysis, she added.
Police said they had arrested eight people on suspicion of producing and distributing the alcohol.
The manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol is strictly forbidden in the Islamic Republic, with exceptions only for certain religious minorities. The punishment for consumption of alcohol by a Muslim is 80 lashes.
The officials in Bandar Abbas did not identify the toxic substance that was in the homemade alcohol, but in recent years hundreds of Iranians have died after drinking beverages containing lethal levels of methanol.
(BBC News)
Regional Politics
Venezuela's Maduro, others meet with Iran oil minister
President Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials have met with the oil minister of Iran to discuss cooperation in energy matters and efforts to defeat economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies.
Officials from both oil-producing nations ratified agreements in this week's meetings in Venezuela, according to a statement from that country’s Petroleum Ministry. Iran’s delegation was led by Oil Minister Javad Owji.
Since late President Hugo Chávez won power in 1999 and founded the current leftist government, Venezuela has strengthened relations in the energy, commercial, financial and industrial areas with Iran. In recent years, Iran has shipped gasoline and other products to the country amid a U.S. sanctions campaign.
(ABC News)
Ahmadreza Djalali: Sweden alarmed by Iran's reported plan to execute doctor
Sweden's foreign minister says a report that Iran plans to execute a Swedish-Iranian doctor convicted of espionage this month is "extremely worrying".
Foreign Minister Ann Linde tweeted that Sweden and the EU condemned the death penalty and demanded Djalali's release.
The emergency medicine specialist was arrested during a business trip in 2016 and accused of spying for Israel.
He was sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran the following year, after what human rights groups called a grossly unfair trial.
Djalali said he had been forced to "confess" while being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including threats to kill or otherwise harm his children, who live in Sweden with his wife.
(BBC News)
As Iran-Taliban tensions rise, Afghan migrants in tinderbox
The Taliban members who killed her activist husband offered Zahra Husseini a deal: Marry one of us, and you’ll be safe.
Husseini, 31, decided to flee. Through swaths of lawless flatlands she and her two small children trekked by foot, motorcycle and truck until reaching Iran.
As Afghanistan plunged into economic crisis after the United States withdrew troops and the Taliban seized power, the 960-kilometer (572-mile) long border with Iran became a lifeline for Afghans who piled into smugglers’ pickups in desperate search of money and work.
But in recent weeks the desert crossing, long a dangerous corner of the world, has become a growing source of tension as an estimated 5,000 Afghans traverse it each day and the neighbors — erstwhile enemies that trade fuel, share water and have a tortured history — navigate an increasingly charged relationship.
(Associated Press)
Iran-Saudi tensions near end, Iraq PM says
An end to years of tension between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia is near, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi said in an interview published on Saturday.
Iraq, a neighbour to both countries, has hosted five rounds of talks over the past year aimed at restoring ties between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, and Shiite-majority Iran.
Following the latest round in Baghdad, Iraqi officials have sounded increasingly optimistic, talking of an imminent sixth session and even going so far as to raise the prospect of a resumption in diplomatic relations severed in 2016.
Iran and the Saudi kingdom support rival sides in several conflict zones across the region, including in Yemen where the Huthi rebels are backed by Tehran, and Riyadh leads a military coalition supporting the government.
(France24)
Book Review
Why the US and Iran hate each other
By:Daniel Larison
A new book dives into the origins of animosity between Washington and Tehran and offers ideas on how to work toward normalizing relations.
The United States and Iran have had a troubled relationship marred by distrust and violence for more than 40 years, and they have struggled to cooperate even when both governments recognized that they had some interests in common.
Devising a better and more constructive Iran policy is important to making much-needed changes to the U.S. role in the Middle East and to preventing another unnecessary war in the future, but there is little appetite in Washington to make the effort or to take the political risks that it would require.
Fortunately, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman have written a very valuable study of U.S.-Iranian relations and the national narratives that have led to many missed opportunities and avoidable clashes. Well-researched and engagingly written, “Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the U.S.-Iran Conflict” is essential reading for anyone interested in Iran policy and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East more broadly. As the negotiations to revive the nuclear deal with Iran hang by a thread, a deeper understanding of the causes of U.S.-Iranian conflict could not be timelier.
(Read More Here)
Analysis
Opinion: Before going back to Iranian prison, she has a message for Americans
By:Jason Rezaian
Narges Mohammadi, one of Iran’s most influential civil rights activists, is on the verge of being taken to Iran’s notorious Evin Prison. Before she is once again placed behind bars for her advocacy, she has a message for Western leaders as they contemplate next moves in negotiations with the Islamic republic.
“The West must respect Iran’s civil society, commit itself to the issue of democracy in my country and help us work toward achieving it,” Mohammadi told me in one of three telephone interviews we’ve had in recent days. “Make human rights a priority in negotiations.”
Mohammadi, 49, has spent most of her adult life engaged in the struggle for rights and liberties in Iran. For her outspoken advocacy in support of abolishing the death penalty and solitary confinement — two of the Islamic republic’s favored tools of repression — and her support for the advancement of women, she has been arrested a dozen times and sentenced in total to more than 30 years in prison and 154 lashes, another barbaric punishment used by Iran’s judiciary.
(The Washington Post)
