Iran Digest Week of September 8- September 15
/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
US allows $6 billion transfer as part of Iran prisoner swap
The United States waived sanctions to allow the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar, a step needed to carry out a previously announced U.S.-Iran prisoner swap, according to a U.S. document seen by Reuters on Monday.
The broad outlines of the U.S.-Iran deal under which five U.S. citizens detained by Iran would be allowed to leave in exchange for the transfer of the funds and the release of five Iranians held in the United States were made public on Aug. 10.
According to the State Department document seen by Reuters, Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined that waiving the sanctions was in the national security interests of the United States.
(Reuters)
Nuclear Accord
UK, France and Germany refuse to lift sanctions on Iran under nuclear deal
The UK, France and Germany will not lift sanctions on Iran in line with the timetable set out in the 2015 nuclear deal, the governments have announced in a move that will infuriate Tehran and put the continued viability of the deal at even greater risk.
Under the terms of the original deal, some UN sanctions were due to be lifted on 18 October 2023 as part of a sunset clause that would allow Iran to import and export ballistic missiles, including missiles and drones with a range of 300km (186 miles) or more.
In a letter to the EU external affairs chief, Josep Borrell, the three European signatories to the deal, known as E3, said on Thursday that Iran was in such a serious breach of the deal, in terms of levels of stored enriched uranium and allowing UN inspectors access to its nuclear programme, that sanctions relating to its ballistic missile programme had to remain in force.
Women of Iran
Letters from women protesters inside Iran: One year after #MahsaAmini’s death
“Break the pen that writes,” commanded the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a few months after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He heralded an age of silence in Iran, which his successor, Ali Khamenei, has struggled to maintain. But the people in Iran have refused to be silenced, particularly one year after twenty-two-year-old Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Jina Amini died at the hands of the so-called morality police for allegedly violating mandatory hijab. Since her death, Iranians continue to call for the Islamic Republic’s demise.
Here are three open letters from women in Iran who have risked arrest, torture, and even jail to share their vision of a better future for their motherland. Their first names have been changed out of consideration for their safety.
From the day Jina was killed, the Kurdish city of Saqqez [her hometown in northwestern Iran] was brimming with rage. The city was blanketed with the smell of fire and blood, but hope was also galloping among us. A year has passed since those days—a year in which we shed tears of blood over the killing of our people and died with each of them.
Economy
China's 'teapot' refiners mop up swelling Iranian crude, defying U.S. curbs
Appetite for Iranian crude is growing in China, the world's biggest oil importer, after the extension of supply cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia boosted global prices , while Tehran is stepping up output and exports despite U.S. sanctions.
Although China's "teapots", or small independent refiners, are stocking up on Iran's discounted oil as they exploit robust margins to fill strong seasonal demand, big state refiners are still keeping away.
Iran's crude exports of about 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) stand at their highest in more than four years, with more than 80% shipped to China, data from consultancies FGE and Vortexa shows.
(Reuters)
Inside Iran
Regime Prepares Ahead Of Tehran Protest Anniversary
Ekbatan, in western Tehran, known for its resilience during last year's protests, is facing increased security measures to prevent fresh unrest on the anniversary.
Security forces and their plainclothes agents made their initial appearance in Ekbatan last week. They have already established checkpoints within the extensive middle-class apartment complex and have stationed special forces on motorcycles at various locations in and around the compound, including outside a mega mall and a hospital.
In preparation for the upcoming anniversary of Mahsa (Jina) Amini's death in custody of the morality police on September 16, 2022, residents have already begun nighttime chants from their windows. Slogans such as "Down with Khamenei," "Down with the child-killing regime," and "We will persist until the regime collapses, despite poverty, corruption, and high living costs," have echoed through the neighborhood in recent days.
(Iran International)
In Iran, snap checkpoints and university purges mark the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini protests
Snap checkpoints. Internet disruptions. University purges.
Iran’s theocracy is trying hard to both ignore the upcoming anniversary of nationwide protests over the country’s mandatory headscarf law and tamp down on any possibility of more unrest.
Yet the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini still reverberates across Iran. Some women are choosing to go without the headscarf, or hijab, despite an increasing crackdown by authorities.
(AP News)
Regional Politics
Top Iran official says UAE may ‘destabilise’ security over disputed islands
The foreign policy adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, cautioned that the United Arab Emirates’ claims of ownership over three contested islands could “destabalise the region’s security”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ali Akbar Velayati on Thursday reiterated his country’s stance towards the islands and said they are a part of Iran’s history and are an “integral part of our territory”.
The decades-long dispute is over the Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa – three islands in the Strait of Hormuz that have been governed by Iran since 1971 and are claimed by the UAE as part of its territory.
Iraq starts relocating Iranian Kurdish fighters from Iran border
Iraq has started relocating Iranian Kurdish groups from Iraq's Kurdish region frontiers with Iran to camps far from the border as part of a security agreement between Baghdad and Tehran, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said on Tuesday.
Iraq and Iran signed a border security agreement in March, a move Iraqi officials said was aimed primarily at tightening the frontier with Iraq's Kurdish region, where Tehran says armed Kurdish dissidents pose a threat to its security.
"Based on the agreement between Iraq and Iran, necessary measures were taken to remove these groups from the border areas and they were housed in camps deep inside Iraqi Kurdistan," Hussein told a press conference on Tuesday.
(Reuters)
U.S. Deepens Security Pledge to Bahrain, an Adversary of Iran
The Biden administration signed a security agreement with the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain on Wednesday, pledging its commitment to defend the authoritarian country from attacks.
The format of the agreement could serve as a template for other Gulf Arab governments, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, that have recently demanded stronger security guarantees from the United States to deter threats from Iran.
Bahrain — an island nation that is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet — has a particularly tense relationship with Iran, located just across the Persian Gulf. Under the new agreement, if the kingdom were attacked, the United States would consult with the Bahraini government and determine the best way to “confront the ongoing aggression,” said a senior Biden administration official, who briefed journalists on the condition of anonymity.
Analysis
A last chance for reforms squandered: Iranian regime doubles down after 2022 protests
By: Alex Vatanka
History might very well show that the people’s protests that broke out in September 2022 in Iran were the final opportunity for the Islamist regime to change political course. But as the past year has made clear, the regime in Tehran utterly failed to seize the moment.
From nearly the very beginning, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his cohorts were determined to present the protests, which erupted after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police, as some kind of foreign-concocted conspiracy. The regime’s paranoid messaging has remained consistent, even as many regime loyalists over the course of the last year have openly admitted that the demonstrations were a product of deep anger in Iranian society and not due to foreign interference. Thus, on the first anniversary of the protests, Minister of Intelligence Esmail Khatib, who is a cleric, said on live television that “over 50 foreign intelligence services” had pooled their resources together to support the 2022-23 protest movement in Iran. Khatib provided no evidence to substantiate the purported conspiracy.
And herein lies the core of the regime’s predicament: its refusal to admit to having lost the trust of the majority of Iranian society. For sure, the Islamic Republic probably never enjoyed the support of most Iranian people since this political order was founded in 1979. But in recent years, its unpopularity has reached new heights — as has the willingness of the younger generation of Iranians to confront the ruling system. In that sense, the protests that began in September 2022 were a point of no return for the regime.
