TOP STORIES
IAEA Head Decries ‘Completely Unsatisfactory’ Cooperation After Visit To Iran | Times Of Israel
United Nations atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on Tuesday decried “completely unsatisfactory” cooperation from Tehran after returning from Iran where he urged leaders to adopt “concrete” measures to address concerns over its nuclear program. Grossi’s visit came at a time of heightened regional tensions and with his International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criticizing Iran for lack of cooperation on inspections and other outstanding issues. “The present state is completely unsatisfactory for me. We are almost at an impasse and this needs to be changed,” Grossi told reporters at the airport in Vienna, where the IAEA is based. He said there was no “magic wand” to solve a “very, very complex set of issues,” while he pressed the Islamic Republic to “deliver very soon.” “But of course, for me and also I would say for the international community, there is a need to have some results sooner rather than later,” he said.
No Veil, No Sale: Iran Links Pharmacies' Drug Quotas To Hijab Compliance | Radio Free Europe
Iran has fined and shut down scores of businesses for allegedly flouting the country’s controversial hijab law in recent years. Among them were pharmacies accused of failing to impose the Islamic head scarf on their female staff and customers. Now, in their latest attempt to encourage compliance, the authorities have said that pharmacies could receive reduced drug quotas if they do not adhere to the hijab requirement. A new directive issued by the Health Ministry on May 5 directly links a pharmacy’s compliance with the hijab law to its allocation of medicine. A chronic drug shortage has forced the authorities to allocate medicine among thousands of pharmacies across the country. The move has been widely mocked in Iran, where some have criticized the clerical establishment for politicizing people's access to medicine.
Finally, A Possible Explanation For Why Biden’s Iran Envoy Was Suspended | Washington Post
Considering Iran’s collaboration with U.S. adversaries in the Middle East crisis and the Ukraine war, not to mention the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions, the Biden administration would surely like to have its top diplomat for Iran on the playing field. But the State Department’s special envoy, Robert Malley, has been sidelined while under federal investigation for going on one year — without any official explanation. Now, new information about the case is coming to light. Malley, who was appointed to his role by President Biden in 2021 and was intimately involved in back-channel talks with Iran, was placed on leave and had his security clearance suspended in April 2023.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
UN Nuclear Watchdog Puts Iran On Notice Ahead Of Key Report | Bloomberg
Iran has just weeks to comply with monitoring demands issued by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, or risk being slapped with a new round of diplomatic censure. During a two-day visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s top official, Iran was told to improve monitoring measures and resolve a years-old probe into the provenance of uranium traces discovered at undeclared locations. “There is a need to deliver very soon,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said late Tuesday at a press briefing in Vienna. “For the international community there is a sense of needing to move and having results sooner rather than later.” IAEA inspectors are preparing to draft their quarterly safeguards report, informing diplomats on the state of their investigation and updating data on Iran’s growing nuclear stockpile. Their assessment will be circulated before the agency’s board of governors convenes June 3.
Iran Urges IAEA To Dodge US, Israeli 'Pressure' Over Nuclear Program | Al-Monitor
Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should treat Tehran with neutrality and not let bilateral cooperation be impacted by US pressure. At a meeting with visiting IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in Tehran on Tuesday, the Iranian minister accused the United States of "destabilizing" behavior toward Iran's nuclear program, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. The IAEA chief was on a two-day visit in Iran, starting on Monday, to discuss with Iranian officials stricter verifications of the country's controversial enrichment program and attend an international conference on nuclear technology in the central city of Isfahan, home to leading Iranian nuclear facilities. "Your trip is taking place at a right time," noted Amir-Abdollahian, citing "complicated and sensitive circumstances in the region." He advised Grossi to take "unbiased and professional" positions on Iran's nuclear activities to help with "effective cooperation and restore security and stability to the region."
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
US-Iran Sanctions Swap Deemed Symbolic, Ineffective By Some Analysts | Voice Of America
In a tit-for-tat move, Iran sanctioned five U.S. companies and seven individuals last week, accusing them of fueling terrorism in the Middle East. This largely symbolic announcement served as retaliation against last month’s new batch of U.S. sanctions targeting Iranian cybersecurity and drone industries. The U.S. levels similar accusations against Iran, claiming Tehran supports terrorist groups in the region. Both nations hold significant sway in the Middle East and align with opposing factions in the Israel-Hamas war. “Sanctions from Iran carry little to no weight,” Pedro Labayen Herrera, a research assistant at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told VOA. He said as the world's largest economy, the United States, holds far more sway over the global financial system. “The U.S. dollar, an international reserve currency central to global trade and investment, is what gives its sanctions so much power,” said Herrera. “In contrast, the Iranian rial has little value outside Iran, so sanctions issued by Iran have a negligible effect.”
Washington Pressures Malaysia To Thwart Iran’s Circumvention Of Oil Sanctions | Asharq Al Awsat
The United States sees Iran's capacity to move its oil as reliant on service providers based in Malaysia, with oil being transferred near Singapore and throughout the region, a senior US Treasury official said on Tuesday. Washington has imposed significant sanctions on Iran and its proxies aimed at choking financial flows it said were being used to foment instability in the Middle East. Iran relies on the so-called “ghost” fleet of tankers that belong to shadowy parties with an aim to export oil and circumvent US sanctions, which have blocked Iran's exports since May 2019, a year after former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal. Brian Nelson, the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and Neil MacBride, Treasury General Counsel, are in Singapore and Malaysia from Monday until Thursday.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
France Denounces 'State Hostage-Taking' By Iran As Couple Mark Two Years In Jail | France 24
Activists have long accused Iran of having a deliberate hostage-taking strategy aimed at extracting concessions from the West, but it is rare for a Western government to make such a strong statement. Teacher Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris were detained in Iran in May 2022. They are accused of seeking to stir up labour protests, accusations their families vehemently deny. "France condemns this policy of state hostage-taking and this constant blackmail by the Iranian authorities," the French foreign ministry said in a statement. Aside from Kohler and Paris, two other French citizens are held by Iran: a man identified only by his first name, Olivier, and Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant who was travelling in Iran and was last year sentenced to five years in jail on national security charges.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Top Iran Commander Threatens To Block Off Eastern Mediterranean | Asharq Al Awsat
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Gen. Hossein Salami suggested on Tuesday expanding battlefronts against Israel and blocking off the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Israel’s war on Gaza has heightened regional tensions, threatening the eruption of a direct war between it and Iran. Salami made his remarks during a ceremony honoring General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was in charge of IRGC operations in Syria and Lebanon. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus last month. In retaliation, IRGC launched an unprecedented rocket and drone attack from Iran on April 13. Israel said the operation failed almost entirely. It then responded with a limited strike on a radar system near sensitive nuclear sites in central Iran. Despite Israeli claims, Salami insisted the IRGC attack was a “success”, saying a “limited strike” exposed the region’s vulnerability despite the deployment of heavy air defense systems backed by the US, UK, France, and regional powers.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Daily Fines For Employers Of Iran's Unauthorized Foreign Workers | Iran International
In a move to regulate the employment of foreign nationals, Iran has introduced a daily fine of 12 million rials (approximately 20 USD) for employers hiring unauthorized foreign workers. The General Directorate of Employment of Foreign Nationals of the Ministry of Labor announced the new directive on Tuesday, targeting employers who utilize foreign labor without the requisite permits. Iran has experienced a significant influx of foreign workers since the 1980s, attributed mainly to regional conflicts and economic instability in neighboring countries. Despite existing laws aimed at penalizing unlawful employment practices, these have proven insufficient in curbing the reliance on unauthorized foreign labor, thus failing to bolster the employment of domestic job seekers. Currently, official estimates indicate that about three million foreign nationals are employed illegally within the country. Afghans make up the majority of the foreign workforce, with numbers potentially as high as 10 million, particularly following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. The surge has ignited debate and controversy, with some media and political figures suggesting that the increase is being facilitated by certain authorities, thereby posing a potential threat to national security.
Hardliners At Odds With Ordinary Iranians Over Fate Of Tehran Park | Financial Times
Relaxing in the shade of a willow tree in one of Tehran’s largest and oldest parks, local pensioner Majid was fretting that municipal diggers would soon arrive to begin excavating the ground ready for construction of a spacious mosque. “Why a park, of all places?” he said. “Just as it’s inappropriate to shout or joke in a mosque, it’s equally inappropriate to put up a mosque in a park where people go for a walk or picnic.” His disquiet over Tehran city council’s plan for an 800 sq m complex in the Iranian capital’s Qeytarieh Park is widely shared, with a petition opposing the project so far garnering nearly 150,000 signatures. The controversy has not only drawn in political and environmental activists desperate to preserve the polluted city’s few green spaces. It has also pitted ordinary Iranians against regime hardliners, in a dispute that highlights the divisions and mistrust of the authorities in Iran’s increasingly polarised society.
NORTH KOREA & IRAN
North Korea And Iran — A New Alliance? | DW
North Korea is building new ties with like-minded nations and entrenching older alliances beyond its powerful neighbors Russia and China. Recently, the Iranian regime seems to be of particular interest to Pyongyang and the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un . "Just as in the Cold War, two blocs are emerging and North Korea sees this as a good opportunity to stand with Iran and repeat its opposition to the US," said Kim Sung Kyung, a professor of North Korean society and culture at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. "The North probably also sees this as a good opportunity to sell weapons and military technology to Tehran and obtain some sort of economic benefit in return, as there are powerful sanctions on both countries that limit what they are able to obtain," she said. In late April, North Korea sent a high-level delegation of economic and trade experts on a nine-day visit to Tehran, the first such mission since 2019. As both nations remained tight-lipped on the details, analysts have speculated the talks involved military technology, including nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Iran’s Auto Industry, Buoyed By Sanctions, Finds A Potential Customer In North Korea | New York Sun
Add motor vehicles to the military ventures that are fueling relations between North Korea and Iran. The latter’s second largest motor vehicle maker, Saipa, may be picking up where the Reverend Sun-myung Moon’s Unification Church gave up 11 years ago as a North Korean car maker. That’s the upshot of a visit by North Korea’s minister for external economic relations, Yun Jong-ho, to Tehran, where he was photographed in a Saipa car during the first mission by a North Korean trade delegation to Tehran in five years, North Korea might well “cooperate in the automotive industry given favorable bilateral political ties,” according to a posting on Saipa’s Instagram account as quoted by the South Korean newspaper, JoongAng Ilbo. Pyeonghwa, for “Peace,” netted several hundred thousand dollars in 2009 and 2010, according to chiancarhistory.com. The Unification Church, having shared ownership with North Korea, got out in 2013 after producing a few hundred cars a year — fewer than South Korea’s Hyundai empire churns out worldwide in half an hour.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iran Says It Has No Blocked Funds In Iraq | Iran International
A top Iranian official said on Wednesday that Tehran has no blocked funds in Iraq, after the Biden administration issued sanction waivers in 2023 and this year to allow Baghdad to release the Iranian funds. After a cabinet meeting in Tehran, President Ebrahim Raisi’s legal affairs deputy Mohammad Dehghan told reporters, “We do not have blocked assets in Iraq. Sometimes some obstacles are created that are resolved through dialogue.” Iran is exporting natural gas and electricity to Iraq, but according to US banking sanctions on Tehran since 2018, Baghdad was not able to transfer hard currency payments for its debts. In June 2023 and again earlier this year, the Biden administration issued waivers, allowing Iraq to send the money abroad. As of June 2023, Iraq owed Iran an estimated $11 billion, which Iraq could only pay by financing Iran’s food and medicine purchases from its domestic markets. Iran always insisted on receiving the hard currency cash. The US administration claims that Iran can use the funds only for buying non-sanctionable goods, but critics argue that money is fungible, and if Iran can spend the Iraqi payments to purchase civilian necessities, it can use other funds for malign and military activities.
AFGHANISTAN & IRAN
Iran Seeks To Tighten Crackdown On Afghan Refugees | Radio Free Europe
Iran says it has expelled some 1.3 million foreigners over the past year, highlighting a significant crackdown by the government on unauthorized migrants, primarily Afghan refugees. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told a press briefing that the efforts to regulate foreign nationals needs to be bolstered with legislative reforms to tighten border controls and prevent any future influx of unauthorized migrants. "To stop unauthorized nationals from entering Iran, it is necessary to amend the relevant laws in parliament," Vahidi said in an indication the government doesn’t plan to heed calls from human rights groups to ensure a fair immigration policy. Vahidi added that "effective” laws must be enacted to deal with expelled individuals who have managed to re-enter Iran after being deported. He did not elaborate. Iranian officials typically use the term "unauthorized nationals" to refer to Afghan refugees and Vahidi’s statement is seen as an indication that the government plans to continue with its efforts to deport those who have fled the Taliban regime.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Pakistan Will Not Succumb To Pressure On Iran Gas Pipeline, Foreign Minister Says | Voice Of America
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said Tuesday his country will not back off from building a much-delayed gas pipeline with Iran. “We will not let anyone use their veto,” Dar said at a press briefing Tuesday, without naming the United States. Pakistan and Iran signed a Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement in June of 2009 for a pipeline that would supply 750 million to 1,000 million cubic feet per day of gas to energy-starved Pakistan from Iran's South Pars Field. While Iran claimed in 2011 that it had completed its side of the pipeline, construction delays continue on the Pakistani side, primarily for fear of invoking U.S. sanctions. The Biden administration has repeatedly said it does not support the Pakistan-Iran pipeline as Tehran is under U.S. sanctions for its nuclear program.
MISCELLANEOUS
What Is Former Iranian Leader Ahmadinejad Doing In A Secret Visit To Budapest? | Euronews
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's guest lecture at a Hungarian university has sparked condemnation from the Israeli Embassy in Budapest and the country's Jewish community alike. Ahmadinejad, who is known for his hostility to Israel and Holocaust denial, is to hold two lectures at the National University of Public Service (Nemzeti Közszolgálati Egyetem, or NKE) on Tuesday and Wednesday at the invitation of its dean, Gergely Deli. According to Iranian newspapers, NKE invited the politician to a scientific meeting on "common values in the global environment". Persian outlet Hammihan noted that Ahmadinejad is set to speak as a "special guest" on the importance of dealing with threats against the environment. The meeting is expected to be closed, as it is not advertised on NKE's website. In the meantime, images of Ahmadinejad together with Deli in Budapest have appeared on Iranian social media accounts.