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All in News
◢ Iran's Hassan Rouhani met Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq's Najaf on Wednesday, an AFP photographer reported, in the first encounter between an Iranian president and the country's chief Shiite cleric. Sistani famously called Iraqis to arms against the Islamic State group in 2014, giving rise to the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance, which includes Iran-backed Shiite groups.
◢ In the contest for Iraq’s loyalty, geography is proving irresistible. Baghdad is being urged to take sides in the U.S.-Iran confrontation that’s escalated into one of the Middle East’s top flash-points. President Donald Trump is pushing Iraq to stop buying natural gas and electricity from its neighbor. President Hassan Rouhani wants it to purchase more to ease the pain imposed by American sanctions.
◢ Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrived Monday in Iraq for his first official visit, as Baghdad comes under pressure from Washington to limit political and trade ties with its neighbor. Shiite-majority Iraq is walking a fine line to maintain good relations with its key partners Iran and the United States who themselves are arch-foes.
◢ Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has demanded Pakistan act "decisively against anti-Iranian terrorists" in a phone call with the country's premier, Tehran said, a month after a bloody attack on security forces. Iran says a Pakistani suicide bomber was behind the February 13 attack that killed 27 Revolutionary Guards in its volatile southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.
◢ The trial has started in an Iranian court for 13 petrochemical industry executives charged with embezzling EUR 6.6 billion USD 7.4 billion) in one of the nation’s biggest corruption cases, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
◢ Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday appointed ultra-conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi, a one-time presidential hopeful, as head of the judiciary, the leader's website said. Former judge Raisi, who currently heads the holy shrine of Imam Reza, was the leading rival to President Hassan Rouhani at Iran's 2017 election and has close ties to the supreme leader.
◢ International monitors reminded Saudi Arabia this week that it still has work to do before delving deeper into an ambitious nuclear program that could transform how the kingdom generates its energy. Focus on Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program has risen in the last month after the U.S. Congress opened an investigation into the potentially illegal transfer of sensitive technologies to the kingdom.
◢ Iran hopes to have its part of a new payments vehicle—devised to bypass US sanctions—ready within a fortnight, its Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday. "We hope it will be before the end of the Iranian calendar year," Araghchi told reporters in Vienna, referring to March 20 when the Iranian year ends.
◢ Iran and France are set to exchange ambassadors, officials said on Wednesday, after months of tensions including over an alleged Iranian plot to bomb an opposition rally near Paris. Bahram Ghasemi, a former envoy to Spain and Italy and current spokesman of the foreign ministry, has been appointed as Iran's new ambassador to France, an official source in Tehran told AFP.
◢ The world’s atomic watchdog said it’s ready to meet shortages of nuclear medicines in Iran created by the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions, as top diplomats gather to salvage a 2015 deal with Tehran. The Islamic Republic has struggled to obtain some humanitarian goods as suppliers worry over contravening U.S. penalties, prompting Switzerland and the European Union to open new trade channels.
◢ The Netherlands has recalled its ambassador from Tehran in a dispute over an alleged Iranian plot to
assassinate regime opponents on Dutch soil, the Dutch foreign minister said Monday. Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the envoy was called back "for consultations" after Iran expelled two Dutch diplomats in February in a row over the murders of two Iranian dissidents in 2015 and 2017.
◢ A state visit by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to Iran has resulted in an agreement between the two countries to cooperate on the potential transiting of Iranian gas through Armenia to Georgia. The possible export of Iranian gas to Georgia was first raised in 2016 with the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) making successive claims of a deal with both the Georgian state and an unnamed private sector company.
◢ Iran will merge five lenders linked with military institutions into state-run Bank Sepah amid a wider push by President Hassan Rouhani for the armed forces to divest from businesses. The entities being consolidated include Ansar Bank, Ghavamin Bank, Hekmat Iranian Bank, Mehr Eqtesad and the Kowsar financial credit institution, the Central Bank of Iran said in a report on its website Saturday.
◢ Sanctioned by the U.S., Iran has found a sweet way to use the cash it is accumulated from trading oil: Purchase sugar from India. The Government Trading Corporation of Iran will buy 150,000 tons of raw sugar from Indian mills for delivery in March-April, paying in rupees from escrow accounts held at UCO Bank.
◢ Iran on Tuesday banned reformist newspaper Ghanoon for publishing an article about a meeting between Iran's supreme leader and visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. "Ghanoon daily has received notification and its publication has been halted due to its (front page) headline on Tuesday," ISNA said.
◢ Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who led his country’s nuclear negotiations with world powers, signaled that his surprise decision to resign was because he was undermined in his role. About 150 Iranian lawmakers, or a third of the chamber, signed a letter addressed to the president petitioning to keep Zarif in his role, state-run media reported.
◢ Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was the lead negotiator in the 2015 nuclear deal, announced his resignation on Instagram on Monday, which can only take effect once President Hassan Rouhani accepts it. "I apologize for my inability to continue serving and for all the shortcomings during my term in office," Zarif said in a message posted on his verified Instagram account.
◢ German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier came under fire for a congratulatory telegram sent to Iran for the Islamic revolution's 40th anniversary, with a Jewish leader on Monday joining a chorus of criticism. At the government's weekly briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said there had been a "misunderstanding.”
