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All in News
◢ The US Air Force is deploying massive B-52 Stratofortress bombers to the Gulf in response to an alleged possible plan by Iran to attack American forces in the region, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The US move comes in response to intelligence about a threat orchestrated by Iran, officials said, but details of the threat have not been disclosed.
◢ Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif in Moscow on Wednesday, the Russian foreign ministry said Tuesday. The two diplomats, longtime allies on a number of issues including the Syrian conflict, will discuss "key issues of the international and regional agenda" as well as bilateral cooperation, the ministry said in a statement.
◢ Fears of conflict rose Monday as the United States vowed to send a message to Iran by deploying an aircraft carrier strike group, amid a report that Tehran would scale back its commitments under a nuclear deal after mounting pressure by President Donald Trump. Patrick Shanahan, the acting US defense secretary, said he approved the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to unspecified waters in the vicinity of Iran.
◢ Tehran has appointed a new CEO to head national airline Iran Air, state news reported, replacing its first female CEO with a US-blacklisted pilot. Touraj Dehghani Zanganeh, a former air force commander who features on a US treasury sanctions list, was named for the post at a Sunday cabinet meeting.
◢ Iran signaled Monday that it may scale back some commitments made as part of the 2015 nuclear deal in response to tightening U.S. sanctions. Iran does not plan to follow Trump in abandoning the accord, which curbed its nuclear program in return for an end to some sanctions, but is set to make minor and general reductions to some of its commitments.
◢ The Trump administration will renew several key waivers that allow Iran to keep operating a limited civilian nuclear program. The U.S. is extending waivers that the administration had previously granted allowing nations that remain in the deal to engage in nonproliferation activities and nuclear research at three sites—Fordow, Bushehr and Arak.
◢ “Who’s not acting like a normal state?” The rhetorical question from Iran’s foreign minister to a New York audience took aim at President Donald Trump’s administration for exiting global treaties on issues from arms control to climate change. Yet foremost in Mohammed Javad Zarif’s mind was the U.S. decision to rip itself free from the 2015 nuclear accord.
◢ The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has received a USD 2 million contribution from the Republic of Korea to support over the coming two years 30,000 of the most vulnerable Afghan refugees living in settlements in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
◢ An Iranian tanker was forced to seek repairs at a Saudi port after suffering "engine failure and loss of control,” the Iranian oil ministry's SHANA news agency reported Thursday. The rare docking in Iran's regional arch-foe, came as Washington was poised to end all remaining exemptions to crippling sanctions on Iranian oil exports, a move strongly supported by the kingdom.
◢ The end on Thursday of US sanctions waivers for purchases of Iranian oil is likely to hit India's economy hard, increasing fuel costs and quickening inflation, analysts say. "US sanctions on Iran is a double whammy for India after the Venezuelan sanctions," said Vandana Hari, founder of Vanda Insights, a global energy markets portal.
◢ OPEC is determined to avoid a global "energy crisis" as some of its members are facing international sanctions and others struggling with unrest, the cartel's secretary-general said in Tehran on Thursday. "As an organization, we will remain focused on our goal of avoiding an energy crisis that may affect the global economy," Mohammed Barkindo said on the sidelines of an oil and gas exhibition.
◢ Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh on Wednesday claimed two neighboring countries were "exaggerating" their production capacity to reassure markets after the US ended sanction waivers for buyers of Iranian crude. Zanganeh also said Washington's stated aim to bring Iran's oil exports "to zero" was "an illusion.”
◢ French prosecutors on Tuesday urged an appeals court to approve the extradition of an Iranian engineer to the United States after his arrest for violating American sanctions against Tehran. Jalal Rohollahnejad, 41, was detained at the Nice airport on February 2 after arriving from Tehran via Moscow, having obtained a French visa for professional reasons.
◢ President Hassan Rouhani called on Iranian workers Tuesday to boost non-oil exports and import substitution, telling them they were "on the front line" against America and its tightening sanctions. Addressing workers in a south Tehran sports complex on the eve of May Day, Rouhani said that boosting Iran's manufacturing output was vital to shore up the value of the rial.
◢ Turkey is seeking ways to buy more oil from Iraq, already a major supplier of crude to the Middle East’s biggest economy, as the U.S. looks to squeeze exports from Iran, according to two people familiar with the matter. Turkey could consider oil imports from Iraq’s southern port of Basra and may also try to secure more shipments via an existing twin pipeline that runs to the Turkish Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan.
◢ Tighter U.S. sanctions against Iran could fuel inflation to the highest level since 1980, according to the International Monetary Fund, as the Islamic Republic’s economy grapples with a weakening currency and tighter U.S. sanctions on oil exports. Forecasts released before the U.S. decision show Iran’s gross domestic product set to contract 6 percent this year from 4 percent in 2018 before a marginal recovery in 2020.
◢ The US decision to end sanctions waivers for purchases of Iranian oil later this week will backfire by angering Washington's allies, Tehran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday. Zarif said US policy is designed to make life hard for the Iranian people so they will "take action" against the Tehran government.
◢ If President Donald Trump succeeds in cutting Iran’s oil exports to almost nothing, one of the main beneficiaries is likely to be Russia. The economic blow to Iran will ease the Kremlin’s efforts to rein in Iranian influence in Syria, bolstering President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to project Russian power across the Middle East.
◢ President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran could take a dangerous turn if he heeds the advice of allies and aides seeking regime change in the Islamic Republic, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said. “President Trump’s aim is to bring us to our knees and talk,” Zarif said at the Asia Society in New York. “But the ‘B-team’ wants regime change at the very least.”
◢ Turkey is loath to buy more oil from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the U.S. looks to squeeze exports from Iran, currently the third-largest supplier of crude to the Middle East’s biggest economy. “Iranian oil isn’t cheap but there is a big difference” with the price of Saudi and U.A.E crude, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a reception in Ankara.
