Iran Digest Week of September 9 - September 16
/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
U.S. Considers Sanctions on Iran-Linked Entities After Salman Rushdie Attack
The Biden administration is considering sanctions targeting entities linked to Iran for encouraging attacks on Salman Rushdie, people familiar with the matter say, after the acclaimed novelist was stabbed last month at a New York event.
The sanctions under consideration include restricting the access of these entities to the global financial system, according to these people. Some of them have offered rewards to kill Mr. Rushdie, which the U.S. believes motivates such attacks, these people said.
Mr. Rushdie, who spent years under police protection after Iranian leaders called for his execution over the 1988 book “The Satanic Verses,” was stabbed multiple times before a planned lecture in New York’s Chautauqua Institution on Aug. 12. Federal authorities are investigating what motivated the suspected attacker, Hadi Matar, a New Jersey man of Lebanese descent.
Nuclear Accord
Israel sees no new Iran nuclear deal before U.S. November mid-terms
Israel does not anticipate a renewal of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers before the U.S. mid-term elections in November, an Israeli official said on Sunday, after European parties to the negotiations voiced frustration with Tehran.
Having supported then-U.S. President Donald Trump's withdrawal from a 2015 Iranian nuclear deal which it deemed too limited, Israel has similarly been advocating against the re-entry sought by the current U.S. administration.
On Saturday, Britain, France and Germany said they had "serious doubts" about Iran's intentions after it tried to link a revival of the deal with a closure of U.N. watchdog probes into uranium traces at three of its nuclear sites.
(Reuters)
Economy
Higher Tax Collection In Iran Compensating For Lost Oil Revenues
Iran’s government is supposed to double tax collection this year to compensate for lack of oil revenues, putting pressure on businesses that prefer to emigrate.
President Ebrahim Raisi’s hardliner government, that has so far refused to reach an agreement in the nuclear talks with the United States that would lift oil sanctions, has been insisting on collecting more taxes to bridge a budget deficit that is estimated to be at least 50 percent.
Aftab News, a relatively independent website in Tehran, said Wednesday that to compensate for lost oil export revenues the current budget calls for collecting 5.26 quadrillion rial in taxes, (that is 15 zeros).
That is hard to calculate in US dollars since there are a variety of exchange rates in Iran, but the sum is in the neighborhood of $20 billion. That might not seem like a big amount by Western standards, but in rials it is larger than the whole government budget was just three years ago.
UN rapporteur calls for an end to sanctions against Iran
A special United Nations rapporteur has called for the removal of unilateral sanctions on Iran in a report that details the effect of decades of embargos on the country.
In the report, published on Monday, Alena Douhan, whose role is focused on the negative result of the sanctions, said that they had affected nearly every aspect of life in the country, and called for them to be lifted.
According to Douhan, even as medicines and food are supposed to be exempt from sanctions, general licenses issued by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) aimed at ensuring exemptions “appeared to be ineffective and nearly non-existent”.
Inside Iran
Iran makes arrests in Guards commander killing blamed on Israel
Iranian authorities have arrested several people over the assassination of a Revolutionary Guards colonel in May that Tehran has blamed on Israel and its Western allies, judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said on Tuesday.
The Guards, Iran' elite security force, said the shooting of Hassan Sayad Khodai in the capital Tehran by two people on a motorcycle was the work of "terrorist groups affiliated with global oppression (West) and Zionism (Israel)".
"Several people have been arrested in the case of the assassination of martyr Khodai. The necessary legal orders have been issued for them and the case is under investigation," Setayeshi told a news conference, according to state media.
(Reuters)
Iran’s Supreme Leader Cancels Public Appearances After Falling Ill
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, canceled all meetings and public appearances last week after falling gravely ill and is currently on bed rest under observation by a team of doctors, according to four people familiar with his health situation.
Mr. Khamenei, 83, had surgery some time last week for bowel obstruction after suffering extreme stomach pains and high fever, one of the people said. The four people, two of whom are based in Iran, including one who has close ties with the country’s Revolutionary Guards, requested anonymity for discussing a sensitive issue like Mr. Khamenei’s health.
Mr. Khamenei underwent the surgery at a clinic set up at his home and office complex and is currently being monitored around the clock by a team of doctors, the person familiar with the operation said. The ayatollah’s condition was considered critical last week, but has improved, and he is currently resting, the person said. His doctors are monitoring him around the clock and remain concerned that he is still too weak to even sit up in bed.
(New York Times)
Regional Politics
Iran Warns Against 'Border Changes' As Armenia, Azerbaijan Clash
Iran has reacted to military clashes between neighbors Armenia and Azerbaijan, reiterating that it would not accept any border changes between the two countries.
Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted by the official government news website IRNA as saying that Tehran was following “this issue carefully” and offered Iran’s help to resolve differences.
Armenia said on Tuesday that at least 49 of its soldiers had been killed in clashes along the border with Azerbaijan after a sharp escalation in hostilities which prompted Russia and the United States to call for restraint.
The escalation of decades-old hostilities between the south Caucasus countries has fuelled fears that a second fully-fledged war could break out in the post-Soviet world in addition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
(Iran International)
Global Relations
UK backs Ukraine’s claim it downed Iran-made drone used by Russia
The United Kingdom’s defence ministry has backed a Ukrainian claim that Ukraine’s forces likely shot down an Iranian-made drone that was used by Russia in its offensive against its neighbouring country.
In its latest military intelligence update on Wednesday, the ministry said it was “highly likely” that Russia has deployed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) made by Iran in the nearly seven-month war in Ukraine.
“Russia is almost certainly increasingly sourcing weaponry from other heavily sanctioned states like Iran and North Korea as its own stocks dwindle,” it said.
The statement came a day after the Ukrainian military published several images and said it had likely shot down a drone near Kupiansk in Kharkiv that appeared to be an Iranian Shahed-136 model.
Iran ready to participate in investigation into Albania’s cyberattack: statement
A high-level Iranian cyberspace center has rejected allegations about Iran’s involvement in a cyberattack against Albania, saying it is ready to dispatch a technical team to the European country to investigate the attack.
Iran’s National Center for Cyberspace (NCC) said in a statement on Tuesday that Iran was not involved in the alleged cyberattack against Albania. It rejected “baseless accusations” against Iran with respect to Albania’s cyberattack.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, while underlining that it pursues peaceful goals and purposes in cyberspace and information and communication technology by all countries, rejects baseless accusations against it with respect to alleged cyberattacks against Albania and expresses readiness to coordinate the dispatching of a technical delegation to investigate the issue and exchange information among computer emergency response teams (CERTs),” the NCC said in the statement.
Analysis
How the fighting in Ukraine could lead to a war crimes case against Iran
By: Claire Parker
More than two years after Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing all 176 people onboard, family members of the victims are asking the International Criminal Court to investigate the incident as a war crime.
Lawyers representing the families filed Wednesday a formal submission with the court, which is seated in The Hague, arguing that Tehran intentionally downed the airliner in January 2020 in the context of a military confrontation between the United States and Iran.
The move represents an unusual legal strategy made possible in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has drawn renewed attention to the international justice system.
Iran is not an ICC member — but Ukraine has accepted the court’s jurisdiction for crimes committed on its territory since November 2013. This includes alleged crimes involving Ukrainian aircraft, which count as “territory” for legal purposes, according to Haydee Dijkstal, an international lawyer with the Britain-based firm 33 Bedford Row who is representing an association of 140 of the victims’ families.
(Read More Here)
