Iran Digest Week of August 12-19
/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 associate Samuel Howell. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US-Iran Relations
Iran ready to swap prisoners, urges U.S. to free jailed Iranians
Iran is ready to swap prisoners with the United States, its foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying on Wednesday, calling on President Joe Biden's administration to "act instead of performing theatrical shows".
Tehran has sought the release of over a dozen Iranians in the United States, including seven Iranian-American dual nationals, two Iranians with permanent U.S. residency and four Iranian citizens with no legal status in the United States.
"We are ready to swap prisoners with Washington ... The U.S. must release jailed Iranian citizens without any conditions," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying.
(Reuters)
Nuclear Accord
A Nuclear Iran Will Be A Safer Iran, Tehran Politician Claims
A key member of the centrist Executives of Construction Party in Iran has dismissed the value of a nuclear agreement, saying that peace comes out of a gun.
Some of the opinions expressed in an interview by Saeed Laylaz, an economic columnist turned politician, were so controversial that that the Etemad newspaper in a rare move had to distance itself from it and put a disclaimer saying, the opinions expressed were totally those of the interviewee and did not necessarily conform to the views of the daily's editors.
Laylaz said among other things that "Peace comes out of gun barrels, not out of agreements," and opined that "the know-how of making nuclear bombs is Iran's geopolitical shield." Meanwhile, he said that "all possible achievements of an agreement about the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal would be temporary."
Economy
Iran oil exports could rise further after June-July increase, trackers say
Iran increased its oil exports in June and July and could raise them further this month by offering a deeper discount to Russian crude for its main buyer China, firms tracking the flows said.
Despite U.S. sanctions Iran has boosted oil exports, largely to China, during President Joe Biden's term, but shipments have recently slowed due to competition with Russian crude.
"Iran has been exporting more since the new U.S. administration - oil, products and petrochemical goods," Sara Vakhshouri of Energy consultant SVB International said.
(Reuters)
Crypto has an Iran-shaped problem
How are governments supposed to stop crypto from being used to evade the rules?
It's a growing point of tension as regulators increasingly focus on the technology. One example is the continuing fallout from the Treasury Department's sanctioning of Tornado Cash, a decentralized protocol that obscures the provenance of crypto tokens. In recent days, there's news of an arrest of a suspected Tornado Cash developer in the Netherlands and a potential legal challenge to the sanctions in Washington.
But that ongoing hubbub has distracted from another development with implications for crypto compliance: Iran appears to be openly using cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions.
Last week, a state-affiliated media outlet in Iran, citing a tweet from a senior trade official, reported that the country’s government had purchased $10 million worth of imports using cryptocurrency, with plans to make wider use of crypto and smart contracts by the end of September. Exchanging value over a cryptocurrency network lets Iran bypass the traditional banking system, where unauthorized international transactions would be blocked.
(Politico)
Environment
Iranian Regime Won’t Survive If Lake Urmia Disappears
A former vice president and head of the environment department says the fate of the Iranian regime is contingent on saving the country's largest lake that has shrunk by 95 percent.
In a conference on Monday about ways to revive Lake Urmia (Orumiyeh), near Western Azerbaijan Province capital of the same name, Isa Kalantari highlighted that the lake has lost 95 percent of its water over the past three decades, despite government claims that it has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent the environmental disaster.
If the lake is not restored, it will have security consequences, and no government can survive in the country because it cannot withstand the flood of migration of millions of people who reside near it, he said.
Inside Iran
Nearly Half Of Young People Want To Leave Iran - Poll
Almost half of Iranian youth want to leave the country amid pessimism about their future, a recent opinion survey conducted from abroad shows.
Asked if they would go and live in a foreign country given the chance; 49 percent of people aged 18-29 said yes. The percentage among the general population was fully one-third.
Statis Consulting, a US based opinion research outfit focusing on Iran, conducted the poll among 1,246 Iranian residents aged 18 and older in July.
“Based on the sample, there is a 95 percent confidence that the margin of sampling error is within ± 2.7 percentage points,” Stasis said
Execution rate doubled in Iran, says Amnesty
Statistically speaking, Iran executed at least one person a day in the first half of 2022. According to a recent report by human rights organization Amnesty International, Iranian executioners have killed some 251 people since the beginning of the year. That's about twice as many as the same time last year, Amnesty said.
In 2021, Iran was responsible for the second-highest per-capita rate of executions worldwide, with an estimated 314 individuals killed. The country was likely only surpassed by China. However, as the People's Republic handles executions as state secrets, independent verification is impossible.
In Iran, the "horrific spree" of executions has continued, said Diana Eltahawy, expert for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. On one day in July alone, three women from three separate prisons across the country were all put to death for murdering their husbands.
(Deutsche Welle)
Regional Politics
Iran calls for release of haj pilgrim detained in Saudi Arabia
Iran demanded the immediate release of an Iranian arrested in Saudi Arabia during the haj pilgrimage in July, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Thursday during a call with his Omani counterpart, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
The pilgrimage remains one of the only areas of cooperation between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, which severed ties in 2016.
"If the Saudis do not show goodwill and release the pilgrim, Iran will naturally take countermeasures," Mojtaba Zolnour, a member of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, was separately quoted by Fars as adding on the issue.
(Reuters)
Israeli strikes hit Iranian targets near Russia's Mediterranean bases
Israel hit Iranian targets in a series of strikes on Sunday near the ancestral home region of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, and close to Russia's main Syrian bases on the Mediterranean coast, regional intelligence and Syrian military sources said.
The Syrian army earlier said three servicemen were killed and three were wounded in two simultaneous Israeli attacks south of the province of Tartous, and another on the capital of Damascus. It gave no details of the specific locations.
The strikes on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus hit outposts run by Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah group, two Syrian military defectors familiar with the region said.
(Reuters)
Analysis
Tehran should take the deal on the table
By: Barbara Slavin
There are many reasons why Iranian officials have been hesitant about whether to accept a new European Union proposal for reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The dominant political faction in Iran is full of officials who opposed the plan and saw their views vindicated when the United States withdrew from the deal in 2018 — while Iran was in full compliance. And they are understandably wary of trusting the promises of another U.S. administration.
Given that the relief from sanctions that the deal provides relies on executive orders rather than a Senate-approved treaty, there are few guarantees that President Joe Biden’s team can offer that a future U.S. president couldn’t reverse. However, that doesn’t mean Tehran should turn away from this opportunity, as a revived JCPOA would provide important benefits to the country, even if of short duration.
