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Rouhani Writes to Russian Counterpart
‘Saudi Raid Aimed at Weakening Awakening’
TEHRAN (Press TV) -- President Hassan Rouhani
on Friday called for expansion of ties between Tehran and Moscow, stressing the need for the promotion
of bilateral and multilateral cooperation in various
fields. Rouhani made the comments in a message to his
Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the occasion
of Russia Day. “I believe the current situation in the
region and the world has necessitated all-out cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation all the more,” said President Rouhani.
TEHRAN (Press TV) -- The Iranian interior minister has described the Saudi military aggression against Yemen as impetuous and part of a campaign by the U.S. and its allies to undermine the Islamic Awakening in the region. “Their last ploy was
the blind military attack on the oppressed and defenseless Yemeni people,” said Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli in a meeting with
Syrian Ambassador to Tehran Adnan Mahmoud. RahmaniFazli also lashed out at the reactionary regimes in the region,
saying their support for extremist groups, including ISIL, has
led to terrorism spreading in the region like “plague”.
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Viewpoint
By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
U.S. Escalation:
The Breakup of Iraq
3
‘Russia and Muslim
World’ Int’l Conference
Kicks Off in Moscow
Iran Not Surprised
by Spying on Talks
TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Tehran
is not surprised by reports that a
cyber-espionage campaign targeted
hotels that hosted nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, Iran’s
envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog
agency said Thursday.
Reza Najafi told Iran’s state TV
that Iranian nuclear negotiators
took “precautionary measures” to
protect their secrets.
His remarks were the first from
Tehran after Kaspersky, a cybersecurity firm with close ties to Russian intelligence, said Wednesday
the malware it had uncovered at
the hotels was so sophisticated that
it must have been created by a government.
Citing former U.S. intelligence
officials, The Wall Street Journal
attributed the spying to the occupying regime of Israel.
Najafi also appeared to put the
blame on the Zionist regime.
“These talks have enemies, especially the Zionist regime, which
doesn’t want the negotiations to
succeed,” said Najafi, referring to
Israel. “They won’t spare any efforts” to undermine the talks.
“We are not surprised by the issue of espionage,” he said, adding
that Iran is always careful to protect its secrets — irrespective of
efforts by the occupying regime of
Israel and others to spy on them.
“Iran’s negotiators have taken
and are taking all the precautionary
measures during the negotiations,”
he was also quoted as saying.
Switzerland and Austria are investigating the allegations of spying at the nuclear talks.
Najafi also said a final nuclear
deal between Tehran and the P5+1
group of world powers is “achievable” by the end of the June 30
deadline.
“If the political will of our interlocutors continues to exists and
they commit to the agreed parameters, … an agreement by the end
of June is achievable,” he said in a
statement in Vienna.
Najafi added that the agency’s
monthly reports have all proven
that Iran has fulfilled its obligations under an interim accord
reached with six world powers under Joint Plan of Action in November 2013.
“Iran has continued to adhere to
implementation of the voluntary
measures of the Joint Plan of Action which has been continuously
monitored and confirmed by the
Agency and reported on a monthly
basis,” he said.
He also pointed to transparency
undertakings Iran has accepted to
implement over its nuclear program under an agreement with the
IAEA, saying the two remaining
measures can be “easily concluded
and we can start discussing new
Saturday, June 13, 2015, Khordad 23, 1394, Sha’ban 25, 1436, Price 10000 Rials
practical measures”.
Najafi touched upon the latest
IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program, saying the document once
again corroborates Tehran’s “full
transparency” in its nuclear activities.
The Iranian official rejected as
“repetitive,”“unsupported”
and
“manipulated” the report’s accusations on the so-called Potential
Military Dimension (PMD) of
Iran’s nuclear program.
Najafi called for a quick resolution of the PMD issue, warning
that “otherwise it is not possible to
have the implementation of other
measures”.
He also referred to the recent revelations that the venues of Iran’s
nuclear talks had been attacked by
malware, widely used by Israeli
spies, before hosting the negotiations.
“There are enemies to these talks
and they will do whatever they can
do, so it’s not a surprise for us,” he
said, underscoring the importance
of adopting “precautionary measures not to let any details of the
discussion go to the public and I
should say that we have been successful in that regard.”
Iran and the six world power - the
U.S., Britain, France, Germany,
China and Russia – have been negotiating to reach a comprehensive
agreement over Iran’s civilian nuclear activities, and have set June
30 as the deadline for the conclusion of the deal.
On Thursday, Russian Deputy
Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov
said the ongoing talks between
Iran and the six world powers on
drafting the text of a final deal over
Tehran’s nuclear program have
lost momentum.
“Unfortunately, the progress pace
… is slowing down. It worries us
more and more because the time
left to the deadline is getting short,
and we must step on the final
stretch as soon as possible,” Ryabkov told reporters upon arrival
in Vienna for a fresh round of negotiations at the level of political
directors.
Iran and its negotiating partners
have been working on the text of
a final deal since they reached a
mutual understanding on the key
parameters of a final deal in the
Swiss city of Lausanne on April 2.
Ryabkov, who is Russia’s senior
nuclear negotiator at Iran’s nuclear
talks, said that among the thorny
issues in the talks was the Arak
heavy water reactor.
Iran and the P5+1 group of countries “have reached understanding
about the future configuration of
the heavy water reactor in Arak,
but the sides are still unclear on
who will reconfigure the reactor,
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Iran wins
Friendly Against
Uzbekistan
8
Saudi Warplanes
Pound Areas in
Yemen’s Capital
‘Economy of Resistance’ Blunts Sanctions
Iran’s blueprint to neuter sanctions and stimulate growth is the idea of Leader of the
Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
the government’s policies than U.S.TEHRAN (Press TV) -- President dia and politicians.
Many experts blame sanctions just led sanctions.
Hassan Rouhani has made removal of
A key legacy of Ahmadinejad in ofsanctions on Iran a centerpiece of his for 20% of Iran’s economic troubles
presidency but the Iranian economy is and attribute the rest to mismanage- fice, however, was his subsidy reform
program for which has won plaudits
set to log a moderate growth rate with ment and other internal factors.
Under former President Mahmoud from many financial quarters, includor without those restrictions for the
Ahmadinejad, Iran saw petrodollars ing the International Monetary Fund
years to come.
That is because the economy, for gushing through its doors which he and World Bank.
the most part, has been put on a used in a series of greenfield projDespite being criticized as a halfsound footing in the face of the sanc- ects, leading to a hyperinflation.
hearted measure, the program has
tions whose impacts, many analysts
As a result, the national currency relieved the government from paying
believe, have been blown out of pro- lost two-thirds of its value, but the billions of dollars in subsidies for baportion by the alarmist Western me- depreciation was more a making of sic commodities.
But Iran’s blueprint to neuter the
sanctions and stimulate growth is its
“economy of resistance”, proposed
by Leader of the Islamic Revolution
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
It calls for establishing a knowledge-based economy relying on
domestic capacities and cutting dependence on oil revenues which
have emerged as the principal tool of
Western powers to pressure Iran.
Under the sanctions, the Iranian
government has halved the state budget’s dependence on petrodollars.
On Tuesday, Government spokesman Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht
said the administration is taking in
stride an 80% drop in oil revenues
from record levels to around $24 billion.
“The country’s petrodollars have
declined, but we will run the country
even with this revenue,” he said.
Government officials have said
they had braced for the worst scenario as nuclear negotiations are heading to the last stretch.
According to projections, the Iranian economy will forge ahead with
a growth rate of five percent for the
coming years if sanctions are retained. If the restrictions are voided,
the economy will spurt ahead at an
annual growth rate of eight percent.
In hindsight, the “economy of resistance” is aimed at insulating it
against external factors and maintaining growth.
Sanctions have taught that the Iranian economy is too massive to be
brought to its knees and what the
country needs is proper management
to keep it on its feet.
U.S. Oil Companies Push for End to Sanctions
WASHINGTON (Daily Star) -- Oil
producers pushing for an end to the
U.S. crude export ban have a new line
of attack: If Iran gets to sell oil in the
world market, why can’t we?
Should Iran strike a deal with the
U.S. and five other nations in the
coming weeks to limit its nuclear
program, more Iranian oil could
flow onto the market as sanctions
are eased. Iranian producers will
then be freer to sell oil than their
American competitors, the argument goes.
“If Iranian oil sanctions are lifted,
it, in my view, imposes sanctions on
U.S. oil producers if we keep the
oil export ban in place,” Sen. Lisa
Murkowski, an Alaska Republican
who’s become the chief advocate
for lifting limits, said Tuesday.
The oil companies in their lobbying have shifted their arguments to
link exports to national security and
U.S. geopolitical influence and are
downplaying the effect on gasoline
prices, the issue that’s made some
members of Congress wary.
World powers including Russia
and the U.S. plan to complete talks
with Iran by June 30 to end the decade-long impasse over its atomic
program. Momentum is building in
Congress to lift the export restrictions, with Representative Joe Barton of Texas and Murkowski, both
Republicans, gaining support for
their bills to repeal the trade limits.
Whether they can win enough
votes to send a bill to the president
this year is in question, and electoral politics in 2016 may complicate
the debate.
A complete end to the ban “seems
unlikely before 2017,” analysts
from JP Morgan Chase & Co. said
in a June 8 research note, after
meetings in Washington.
Iran has at least 30 million barrels
in storage that could be exported
this year if sanctions are lifted, and
it may add 500,000 barrels a day to
global inventories by the end of next
year, the U.S. Energy Information
Administration estimates. The U.S.
could export more than 1 million
barrels a day if the ban were lifted,
EIA administrator Adam Sieminski
told a congressional committee in
December.
Pioneer Natural Resources Co.
Chief Executive Officer Scott Sheffield said U.S. supplies to global
markets need to continue to grow as
Iran, Iraq, Kuwait Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates vie for
market share.
“The world’s going to become dependent on the Middle East again
very significantly if we do not lift
the oil-export ban,” he said during
a briefing this month with House
Republicans. Sheffield questioned
whether it’s “fair” for Iran to be able
to export crude while the U.S. has
crude-export restrictions in place.
The effect on geopolitics of ending
the ban needs more study, said Jay
Hauck, a spokesman for a group of
refiners, including Delta Air Lines
Inc.’s subsidiary Monroe Energy
LLC, that wants to keep the trade
restrictions in place.
“Oil markets are incredibly com-
plex,” Hauck said by telephone. “It
makes all the sense in the world
to approach this more slowly than
we’re currently doing.”
Oil producers have idled hundreds
of U.S. rigs and slashed thousands
of jobs in the past year to contend
with falling prices in the world oil
markets. Now they are watching the
June 30 deadline for a deal with Iran,
which could ease the economic sanctions that have shriveled its oil exports for at least the past three years.
“If the export ban is going to be
lifted in whole or in part in the next
12 months, it’s going to happen because of these national security arguments,” said Jeff Navin, a former
acting chief of staff at the Energy
Department who is now consultant
based in Washington.
“The broader national security
argument is predicated on the idea
that countries putting their oil on
the global market have an ability to
influence the countries participating
in those markets.”
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