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All in News
◢ The EU effort to save the Iran nuclear accord by building a mechanism to buy Tehran's oil despite the return of US sanctions has run into difficulty. Brussels supports the deal struck in 2015 to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, which was dealt a blow in May when the US President Donald Trump pulled out. But Washington has announced the reimposition of broad sanctions from November 4, including on Iran's oil sector, scaring off European traders.
◢ Denmark said Wednesday it was consulting with its allies about possible sanctions against Iran after accusing Tehran of plotting an attack against Iranian dissidents living in the Scandinavian country. Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen was to begin contacting his European counterparts on Wednesday to discuss possible sanctions against Iran—most likely economic ones, a diplomatic source told AFP.
◢ Befitting his bull-in-a-china-shop reputation, John Bolton's whirlwind tour of the Caucasus left a trail of geopolitical wreckage that his hosts are still trying to pick up even after Bolton himself is back in Washington. As expected, the visit of Bolton, the U.S. National Security Adviser, focused on getting the states of the South Caucasus—Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan—on board with Washington's efforts to isolate Iran.
◢ Denmark on Tuesday recalled its ambassador to Iran after it accused Tehran of plotting a foiled "attack" against three Iranians living in the Scandinavian country. "It is the Iranian government, it is the Iranian state that is behind" the plot, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told reporters. He added that he was consulting with "partners and allies", including the EU, about possible sanctions.
◢ A hardline member of Iran's powerful Guardian Council was facing a backlash on Sunday after criticizing one of the country's top religious figures for meeting with reformist politicians. The dispute reflects the diversity of views within Iran's religious elite and the fact that, well after the 1979 Islamic revolution, some senior Shiite clerics fiercely defend their independence.
◢ Iran sold oil to private buyers through its energy exchange for the first time on Sunday, as part of its efforts to counter the imminent return of US sanctions. Only 280,000 barrels were sold out of one million offered, and went for USD 74.85 per barrel, more than USD 4 below the initial asking price.
◢ President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday that the divisions between the US and Europe over renewed sanctions on Iran were a "rare historical victory" for the Islamic republic. EU countries have fiercely opposed the decision by US President Donald Trump to abandon their landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions—the last of which will return on November 5.
◢ At the border town of Mehran between Iran and Iraq, a sea of pilgrims surges forwards, en route to one of the biggest religious pilgrimages on the planet. Iranian organizers say more than 1.8 million Iraqi visas have been issued for Iranians this year for the Arbaeen pilgrimage which culminates on Tuesday as the devout head, many by foot, to Karbala and one of the holiest sites of Shiite Islam, the shrine of Imam Hussein.
◢ Four detained Iranian environmental activists could face the death penalty after the charges leveled against them were changed, the Tehran prosecutor said on Wednesday. "After completion of the investigation, the charges against four of the defendants have been changed to corruption on earth," said Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, cited by Mizan Online, a news outlet run by the judiciary.
◢ A senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump is visiting the Caucasus, where he is expected to try to enlist the region's three governments in Washington's campaign of isolating Iran. But leaders in the Caucasus, wary of confronting Tehran, will likely instead be promoting their own interests to an administration that has thus far largely neglected the region.
◢ European nations are seeking to ensure at least one Iranian bank stays connected to the world after the US imposed new sanctions against the country, a French senator said in Tehran on Sunday. The United States pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in May and has been reimposing punishing sanctions on the Islamic republic, targeting in particular its financial system.
◢ Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has accepted the resignation of the embattled ministers of industry and roads, a statement on the presidential website said Saturday. The president thanked industry minister Mohammad Shariatmadari and roads minister Abbas Akhoundi's "selfless service" and "sincere efforts" during their tenures and appointed two acting ministers.
◢ The Financial Action Task Force has granted Iran until February to complete necessary reforms in the area of anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism. In a statement issued following the conclusion of the group’s plenary meeting in Paris, the FATF announced that it had “decided at its meeting this week to continue the suspension of counter-measures.”
◢ Iran called new US sanctions against its paramilitary Basij group an act of "blind vindictiveness" on Tuesday. "America's new sanctions are a clear insult to international and legal mechanisms and a result of the American government's blind vindictiveness against the Iranian nation," said foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi.
◢ Iran has been playing it cool as it watches the furore over the disappearance of writer Jamal Khashoggi create a crisis for its regional rival Saudi Arabia. As of Wednesday, the government had yet to make any official comment on the alleged murder of Khashoggi who vanished after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
◢ The US Treasury Department on Tuesday slapped sanctions on an Iranian paramilitary group along with a network of businesses that were providing it financing, as part of Washington's campaign of maximum economic pressure against Tehran. In announcing the sanctions, Treasury said a network of more than 20 businesses known as the Bonyad Taavon Basij was financing the Basij Resistance Force.
◢ In a relatively new approach for Iran, where social welfare has often been left to informal groups based around the bazaar and mosque or fallen to large-scale government-controlled organizations, privately-run charities are emerging, with managers, targets and buzzwords such as "empowerment" and "skills-training", and funded by wealthy business people who have made fortunes in booming industries such as private healthcare.
◢ Iran's president boasted Sunday that the United States has lost against the Islamic republic's "righteousness and wisdom" by walking out of the landmark nuclear deal. "Everyone knows that America has lost legally and politically by giving up on its international obligations and that we have achieved victory," said President Hassan Rouhani in a speech at the University of Tehran to mark the beginning of the school year.
◢ Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab rebels are profiting from the illegal trafficking of charcoal exports produced in Somalia and transiting through Iran, United Nations experts said in a report recently shared with the UN Security Council. The document, which has not yet been made public, said Iranian ports in the Kish and Qeshm free zones have been the main destinations of the shipments since March 2018.
