Iran Digest Week of December 24 - December 31
/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 Launches Rocket into Space Amid Vienna Nuclear Talks
Iran launched a rocket with a satellite carrier bearing three devices into space, authorities announced Thursday, without saying whether any of the objects had entered Earth’s orbit.
It was not clear when the launch happened or what devices the carrier brought with it. Iran aired footage of the blastoff against the backdrop of negotiations in Vienna to restore Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers. An eight round had been underway this week and is to resume after New Year’s holidays.
Previous launches have drawn rebukes from the United States. The U.S. State Department, Space Force and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday’s announcement from Iran.
Former Iran Hostage Files Lawsuit Against Princeton University for 'Abandoning Him'
Middle East scholar Xiyue Wang sued Princeton University for failing to ensure his security in Iran and allegedly running a campaign to prevent media coverage about the regime’s illegal imprisonment of the academic.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported Thursday on the lawsuit, citing sections from the legal document: “Everything Princeton did and abstained from doing was centered around absolving its institutional responsibility, protecting its institutional reputation, and maintaining its political relations with Iran.”
Wang arrived in Iran in early 2016 to work on his dissertation, and the authorities arrested him that summer.
Nuclear Accord
Israeli PM Says Not Opposed to ‘Good’ Nuclear Deal with Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday he is not opposed to a “good” nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, but voiced skepticism that such an outcome would emerge from the current negotiations.
Bennett spoke a day after negotiators from Iran and five world powers resumed talks in Vienna on restoring Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal. He reiterated that Israel was not bound by any accord, leaving it room to maneuver militarily.
“At the end of the day, of course there can be a good deal,” Bennett told Israeli Army Radio. “Is that, at the moment, under the current dynamic, expected to happen? No, because a much harder stance is needed.”
Iran Presses on Oil Exports as Nuclear Talks Resume
Negotiators from Iran and five world powers resumed negotiations Monday on restoring Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal, with Iran insisting that the United States and its allies promise to allow it to export its crude oil.
The latest round of talks in Vienna, the eighth, opened 10 days after negotiations were adjourned for the Iranian negotiator to return home for consultations. The previous round, the first after a more than five-month gap caused by the arrival of a new hard-line government in Iran, was marked by tensions over new Iranian demands.
COVID-19
Iran Bans Travelers from Four European Countries
Iran’s national airline banned today travelers coming to Iran via four European countries.
IranAir said it will not receive non-Iranian citizen passengers coming from the United Kingdom, France, Norway and Denmark, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The United Kingdom, France and Denmark are all experiencing relatively high numbers of new COVID-19 cases as the contagious omicron variant spreads around the world. Denmark is averaging 2,200 cases per 1 million people, the United Kingdom is averaging 1,670 cases per million people and France is averaging 1,295 cases per million people, according to Our World in Data.
Economy
Iran Orders Crypto-Mining Ban to Prevent Winter Blackouts
Iran for the second time this year ordered a shutdown of authorized cryptocurrency mining centers as part of efforts to ease the strain on the country’s power plants and avoid blackouts, according to Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, director of the state-run Iran Grid Management Co. and a spokesman for Iran’s power industry.
The ban, which will be in place until March 6, will free up 209 megawatts of power for consumption in the household sector, Rajabi Mashhadi said in an interview with state TV. Authorities are also cracking down on illegal mining carried out by both individuals at home and larger-scale industrial units, he added. These unlicensed operators account for the largest share of crypto mining in the country, consuming more than 600 megawatts of electricity.
How Venezuela This Year Almost Doubled Its Oil Output
Venezuela this year almost doubled its oil production from last year’s decades-low as its state-owned company struck deals that let it pump and process more extra heavy crude into exportable grades.
The surprising reversal began as state-run Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, won help from small drilling firms by rolling over old debts and later obtained steady supplies of a key diluent from Iran. The two lifted output to 824,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November, well above the first three-quarters of the year and 90 percent more than the monthly average a year earlier.
The main turning point came from a swap deal between state-run firms PDVSA and National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) that began in September. It proved crucial for generating exportable grades from the extra-heavy crude produced at Venezuela’s top region, the Orinoco Belt.
Iran Sanctions: Sri Lanka to Pay Off $251M Iranian Oil Debt with Tea
Sri Lanka is to pay off a $251m Iranian oil debt by sending the country $5m worth of tea every month.
Ramesh Pathirana, a government minister, said the payment method would circumvent sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations and the United States because tea is deemed to be a foodstuff.
Sri Lanka has a major debt burden that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated the island’s vital tourism industry.
Regional Politics
Houthis Announce Temporary Resumption of UN Flights into Sanaa
Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they have allowed the temporary resumption of United Nations flights into the airport in the capital, Sanaa, a week after a halt due to Saudi-led coalition air raids.
The Houthis also accused the Saudi-led coalition of preventing the entry of “communication and navigation devices … into Sanaa airport to replace the old ones."
“The UN and international organisations have been informed that the long-term operation of these devices are not guaranteed, given how old they are,” the report said.
Analysis
US Sanctions Push Iran and Afghanistan’s Taliban Together
By: Sune Engel Rasmussen
Two decades ago, Iran helped the U.S. topple the Taliban regime to remove what it saw as a threat to its national security and fellow Shia Muslims in Afghanistan.
Now, four months after the Taliban seized power in Kabul, Iran and Afghanistan are both struggling under crippling U.S. sanctions—a predicament that is pushing them to put longstanding ideological and political differences aside as they seek to fill the vacuum left behind by American troops.
“The countries have already grown closer,” said Ghulam Noorzai, a businessman in Nimroz, a trade hub in Afghanistan’s southwestern border region, who imports fuel and construction materials from Iran. “They have no other choice.”
