Reuters: Iran, world powers reach initial deal on reining in Tehran's nuclear program

[visionary]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d8bfeff00c8341caab084841f44d9cde/what-secret-agreement-between-iran-and-un-says

What the secret agreement between Iran and the UN says

 

Iran has agreed to cooperate with the U.N. in answering longstanding allegations about possible past work to develop nuclear weapons at its Parchin plant — but only with the Iranians conducting the inspections themselves. That is raising other questions.

 

One big point to note: This accord is separate from the landmark nuclear agreement, signed by Iran, the U.S. and other world powers last month, that would restrict Iran's present and future nuclear activities in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

 

But opponents of the broader deal are seizing an opportunity to say the entire exercise is flawed, that it foolishly relies on trust of the Iranian government. Disputing that, the Obama administration and other supporters of the wider agreement say it is focused on the future, with ample inspections, while the side accord between Iran and the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency is focused on the past.

 

A draft of the Parchin document, as seen by The Associated Press, essentially cedes the Parchin inspection to Iran, allowing it to collect its own environmental samples on the site and carry out other work usually done by IAEA experts. The IAEA will be able to review the Iranians' work after the fact.

 

Any IAEA inspection of a country suspected of nuclear irregularities is usually carried out by agency experts. They may take swipes of equipment, sample the air or take soil samples in attempts to look for signs of clandestine work on atomic arms or other potentially dangerous unreported activity.

 

The document on Parchin, however, will let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny — past work on nuclear weapons. It says "Iran will provide" the agency with environmental samples. It restricts the number of samples at the suspect site to seven and to an unspecified number "outside of the Parchin complex" at a site that still needs to be decided.

 

The U.N. agency will take possession of the samples for testing, as usual. Iran will also provide photos and video of locations to be inspected. But the document suggests that areas of sensitive military activity remain out of bounds. The draft says the IAEA will "ensure the technical authenticity of the activities" carried out by the Iranians — but it does not say how.

 

In contrast, the main nuclear deal with Iran gives IAEA experts greatly expanded authority compared to what the agency has now to monitor Iranian nuclear activities as it works to ensure that Tehran is hewing to its commitments. Those include reducing the scope and output of programs that Iran says it needs to generate energy but which can also be turned to making the fissile core of atomic weapons.

[Predicto]

As I said in another thread:

 

That is for one site, Parchin, where everyone knows the Iranians were doing nuke research in the past but stopped.  In essence, this is a side deal that allows Iran to save face.  They get to sanitize that site before the inspection deal goes into effect, so that they won't be proven to have been liars when they said all along that they never worked on nuclear weapons (which of course is something that no one believes).  

 

As far as I can tell, in the future all inspections at all sites, including Parchin, will be carried out by international teams.   This side agreement is about Iran being able to maintaining deniability about what happened in the past so that the bigger deal could get done for the future.   Their pride would not have allowed them to admit that they were lying before.

 

At least as far as I can tell.  If you have any additional information, I'd be interested to see it.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/27/us-iran-nuclear-iaea-idUSKCN0QW1M720150827

Iran may have built extension at disputed site: U.N. nuclear watchdog

 

Iran appears to have built an extension to part of its Parchin military site since May, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a report on Thursday, as part of its inquiry into possible military dimensions of Tehran's past nuclear activity.

 

A resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Parchin file, which includes a demand for fresh IAEA access to the site, is a symbolically important issue that could help make or break Tehran's July 14 nuclear deal with six world powers.

 

The confidential IAEA report, obtained by Reuters, said:

 

"Since (our) previous report (in May), at a particular location at the Parchin site, the agency has continued to observe, through satellite imagery, the presence of vehicles, equipment, and probable construction materials. In addition, a small extension to an existing building" appeared to have been built.

 

The changes were first observed last month, a senior diplomat familiar with the Iran file said.

 

The IAEA says any activities Iran has undertaken at Parchin since U.N. inspectors last visited in 2005 could jeopardize its ability to verify Western intelligence suggesting Tehran carried out tests there relevant to nuclear bomb detonations more than a decade ago. Iran has dismissed the intelligence as "fabricated".

 

Under a "road map" accord Iran reached with the IAEA parallel to its groundbreaking settlement with the global powers, it is required to give the Vienna-based watchdog enough information about its past nuclear activity to allow it to write a report on the long vexed issue by year-end.

 

"Full and timely implementation of the relevant parts of the road-map is essential to clarify issues relating to this location at Parchin," the new IAEA report said.

 

According to data given to the IAEA by some member states, Parchin might have housed hydrodynamic experiments to assess how specific materials react under high pressure, such as in a nuclear blast.

 

"We cannot know or speculate what's in the (extended) building ... It's something we will technically clarify over the course of the year," the senior diplomat said. The report said the extended building was not the one that some countries suspect has housed the controversial experiments.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/world/middleeast/obamas-sanctions-chief-to-defend-iran-accord-in-israel.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

Obama’s Sanctions Chief to Defend Iran Accord in Israel

 

President Obama’s sanctions chief will arrive in Israel on Friday to defend the nuclear containment deal with Iran and try to reassure a government and public deeply opposed to the accord that the United States is still prepared to inflict severe financial penalties on Tehran for its sponsorship of terrorism and support for military proxies.

 

The Obama aide, Adam J. Szubin, the top Treasury Department official who helped negotiate the accord between Iran and six world powers, will meet with Israeli government officials and foreign policy experts to make his case during a three-day trip, administration officials announced on Thursday. It is part of Mr. Obama’s full-throated effort to build support for the agreement, which faces a vote of disapproval in Congress within weeks.

 

Mr. Szubin is scheduled to land in Tel Aviv just hours before the president himself is to address American Jews about the deal in a live webcast, the same forum Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel used last month to denounce the agreement as fatally flawed and dangerous.

 

A central task for Mr. Szubin will be to defuse the argument made by Mr. Netanyahu and other opponents that the deal — which removes some sanctions on Iran in exchange for new restrictions intended to block its ability to obtain a nuclear weapon — will provide a financial windfall for the worst actors in a regime that openly calls for the destruction of Israel.

 

“I plan to focus on the J.C.P.O.A., but also on Treasury’s continued efforts to target Iran’s malign activities,” Mr. Szubin said, using an abbreviation for the accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

 

The talks will focus on how American and Israeli intelligence and security officials can better contain Iranian-backed groups like Hezbollah, as well as the domestic Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and paramilitary Quds force.

 

“Intensifying those sanctions and ensuring that they bite ever deeper is a core part of my mission,” he said.

 

Mr. Szubin, who requested the meetings, plans to sit down with several senior Israeli officials including Dore Gold, the director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Yossi Cohen, Mr. Netanyahu’s national security adviser; and Yuval Steinitz, the energy minister, who has been a leading spokesman against the Iran deal.

 

 

[visionary]

http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:fe7a67ab7aa64efebe663b94c833e3f5

Iran president opposes parliament vote on nuclear deal

 

President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday he opposes a parliamentary vote on the landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers because terms of the agreement would turn into legal obligations if passed by lawmakers.

 

Rouhani told a news conference that the deal was a political understanding reached with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, not a pact requiring parliamentary approval. The deal also says Iran would implement the terms voluntarily, he said.

 

The historic deal calls for limiting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

 

"If the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is sent to (and passed by) parliament, it will create an obligation for the government . it will mean the president, who has not signed it so far, will have to sign it," Rouhani said. "Why should we place an unnecessary legal restriction on the Iranian people?"

 

A special committee of parliament has already begun studying the deal before putting it to a vote. But the legality of such a move is in doubt because the government has not prepared a bill for parliament to vote on.

 

The president said a parliamentary vote would benefit the U.S. and its allies, not Iran.

 

Rouhani said the Supreme National Security Council, the country's highest security decision-making body, was almost finished analyzing the agreement. The council works independently from the parliament.

 

 

[tshile]

http://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-finds-unexpectedly-high-uranium-104622948.html

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has discovered an unexpectedly high reserve of uranium and will soon begin extracting the radioactive element at a new mine, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said on Saturday.

The comments cast doubt on previous assessments from some Western analysts who said the country had a low supply and would sooner or later would need to import uranium, the raw material needed for its nuclear program.

Any indication Iran could become more self-sufficient will be closely watched by world powers, which reached a landmark deal with Tehran in July over its program. They had feared the nuclear activities were aimed at acquiring the capability to produce atomic weapons - something denied by Tehran.

"I cannot announce (the level of) Iran's uranium mine reserves. The important thing is that before aerial prospecting for uranium ores we were not too optimistic, but the new discoveries have made us confident about our reserves," Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/10/us-iran-nuclear-deal-idUSKCN0SZ1Z720151110

Iran has stopped dismantling nuclear centrifuges: senior official

 

Iran has stopped dismantling centrifuges in two uranium enrichment plants, state media reported on Tuesday, days after conservative lawmakers complained to President Hassan Rouhani that the process was too rushed.

 

Last week, Iran announced it had begun shutting down inactive centrifuges at the Natanz and Fordow plants under the terms of a deal struck with world powers in July that limits its nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions.

 

Iran's hardliners continue to resist and undermine the nuclear deal, which was forged by moderates they oppose and which they see as a capitulation to the West.

"The (dismantling) process stopped with a warning," Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the National Security Council, was quoted as saying by the ISNA student news agency.

 

Only decommissioned centrifuges were being dismantled to begin with, of which there were about 10,000 at Natanz and Fordow, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran has said.

 

Shamkhani did not specify what he meant by "warning", but the head of parliament's nuclear deal commission, Alireza Zakani, told Mehr news agency that the dismantling had stopped in Fordow because of the lawmakers' letter to Rouhani.

 

Zakani, who was not one of the signatories of the letter, did not mention activities at Natanz.

 

A group of 20 hardline parliamentarians wrote to the president last week complaining that the deactivation of centrifuges contradicted the directives of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 

Khamenei has said that the deal should only be implemented once allegations of past military dimensions (PMD) of Iran's nuclear program had been settled.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to announce its conclusions on PMD by Dec. 15.

[visionary]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/iran-slams-washingtons-illegal-sanctions-plan/

Iran Slams Washington’s ‘Illegal’ Sanctions Plan

 

Tehran responded angrily on Thursday to U.S. plans to impose new sanctions on nearly a dozen companies and individuals with ties to Tehran’s ballistic missile program, with its Foreign Ministry warning the “arbitrary and illegal” measures would violate the Iran nuclear deal signed between Tehran and world powers in July.

 

The Obama administration’s new measures, if enacted, would mark a significant downturn in U.S.-Iranian relations and set back expectations of a detente between the longtime adversaries. The planned action follows calls from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress to bring more pressure to bear on Iran in response to its Oct. 10 launch of a medium-range Emad rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. A U.N. panel confirmed the launch earlier this month.

 

A senior administration official confirmed to Foreign Policy that the United States has prepared sanctions against individuals in Iran, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates, including Mabrooka Trading Co. and its founder Hossein Pournaghshband, for their alleged role in helping Iranian firms obtain carbon fiber for the country’s missile program.

 

Pournaghshband reportedly worked with a subsidiary in Hong Kong, Anhui Land Group Co., to obtain funding and resources for a carbon-fiber production line. The material is an important component for developing missiles. The Treasury Department is also poised to sanction five employees of Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, moves first reported by the Wall Street Journal, for their alleged involvement in the missile program.

 

“As we’ve said, we’ve been looking for some time‎ at options for additional actions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program based on our continued concerns about its activities,” said the official.

 

Earlier this month, U.N. sanctions monitors said Iran’s Oct. 10 launch violated Security Council resolution 1929, which remains valid until the landmark nuclear deal comes into effect. Once it goes into effect, Iran is merely “called upon” not to carry out ballistic missile work that could deliver a nuclear warhead for up to eight years.

 

Some U.S. officials have said Treasury reserves the right to sanction Iranian companies and individuals suspected of involvement in missile activities under the July nuclear deal.

Iranian officials, for their part, say Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, views those measures as violating the nuclear accord.

 

“As we have declared to the American government … Iran’s missile program has no connection to the [nuclear] agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said on Thursday.

 

Iran says international resolutions only ban missiles “designed” to carry a nuclear bomb, not “capable” of carrying one. And because Tehran says it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, it regards the restrictions as not applicable to its military program. (Iran considers Emad a “conventional missile.”)

 

The new sanctions fight highlights the complexities of Washington’s relationship with Tehran, with the two longtime adversaries in a de facto alliance against the Islamic State while simultaneously at odds over the implementation of the historic pact that traded sanctions relief for sharp constraints on Iran’s nuclear program.

On Monday, Iran shipped more than 25,000 pounds of nuclear material to Russia, a major milestone that left the Islamic Republic without enough low-enriched uranium to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

[visionary]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-delays-imposing-new-sanctions-on-iran-for-missile-program-1451604822

White House Delays Imposing New Sanctions on Iran for Missile Program

 

The White House has delayed its plan to impose new financial sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program, according to U.S. officials, amid growing tensions with Iran over the nuclear deal struck earlier this year.

 

https://twitter.com/pandagulu

IRGC affiliated Tasnim reports that US calls off new sanctions on Iran for now due to 'intense consultations b/w US & Iranian officials.'
3:59 PM

 

Breaking: White House delays imposing new financial sanctions on Iran http://www.wsj.com/
6:21 PM

 

Wow...embarrassing.

[Larry]

I get the impression that Tehran thinks that this nuclear deal makes them sanction-proof. 

 

I get the impression that the US disagrees with this. 

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-missiles-idUSKBN0UF21G20160101?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Defiant Iran pledges to ramp up missile program, in challenge for Obama

 

A series of Iranian officials vowed on Friday to expand Tehran's missile capabilities, a challenge to the United States which has threatened to impose new sanctions even as the vast bulk of its measures against Iran are due to be lifted under a nuclear deal.

 

"As long as the United States supports Israel we will expand our missile capabilities," the Revolutionary Guards' second-in-command, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

 

"We don't have enough space to store our missiles. All our depots and underground facilities are full," he said in Friday Prayers in Tehran.

Defence Minister Hossein Dehqan said Iran would boost its missile program and had never agreed to restrictions on it.

 

"Iran's missile capabilities have never been the subject of negotiations with the Americans and will never be," he was quoted as saying by Press TV, an Iranian state channel.

 

The defiant comments are a challenge for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama as the United States and European Union plan to dismantle nearly all international sanctions against Iran under the breakthrough nuclear agreement reached in July.

 

Iran has abided by the main terms of the nuclear deal, which require it to give up material that world powers feared could be used to make an atomic weapon and accept other restrictions on its nuclear program.

 

But Tehran also test-fired a missile in October, which the United States says would be capable of carrying a nuclear payload and therefore violates a 2010 U.N. Security Council resolution which is still in place.

 

Iran does not accept that the U.N. resolution bars it from testing missiles, as long as it has no nuclear weapons to place on them.

 

The standoff has turned into a diplomatic and political test for both Washington and Tehran, even as the lifting of sanctions under the nuclear deal draws closer.

 

Early in the new year, the United States and European Union are expected to unfreeze billions of dollars of Iranian assets, allow Iranian firms access to the international financial system and end bans that have crippled Iran's oil exports.

 

The deal was a risky diplomatic achievement for both Obama and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, leaders of countries that have been enemies for nearly 40 years. Both men are under pressure from hardliners at home to demonstrate that they have not compromised on wider issues.

 

U.S. officials have said they are permitted to respond to the missile test by imposing fresh sanctions against a list of Iranian individuals and businesses linked to the missile program.

 

Any such sanctions would be far narrower than the broad measures scheduled to be lifted under the nuclear deal. But Iran says any new sanctions could torpedo the wider accord.

 

http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_russia-starts-delivery-of-s-300-missile-systems-to-iran_408554.html

Russia starts delivery of S-300 missile systems to Iran

 

Russia has started the delivery of S-300 missile systems to Iran after Russian President Vladimir Putin in April lifted an export ban on Iran.

 

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 news TV channel on Dec. 30 that it had started the shipping of the S-300 missile systems to Iran.

 

In 2010, Russia froze the fulfillment of a contract for the sale of three S-300 missile systems to Iran, linking the decision to UN sanctions.

 

In April, Putin lifted the suspension after a framework agreement was reached between Iran and six major world powers led by the US that would restrict Iran's capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The Russian move has been strongly criticized by the US and Israel.

 

In July a deal was reached with Iran limiting Iran's nuclear capability significantly in exchange for lifting international oil and financial sanctions, and Russia gave the go ahead for the S-300 missile systems to be sent to Iran.

[visionary]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/16/iran-reportedly-frees-u-s-journalist-jason-rezaian-and-three-others.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29

Iran Frees U.S. Journalist Jason Rezaian and Four Others

 

After years of negotiations, Iran has freed Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and three other Americans held captive.

 

Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian has been released from an Iranian prison along with three other U.S. citizens in a prisoner swap with Iran, a U.S. official has confirmed to The Daily Beast. The release was part of a prisoner swap which included seven Iranians held on sanctions charges. A year of secret negotiations led to Saturday's deal. The released prisoners are being flown to Switzerland.

 

The 39-year-old Rezaian—The Post’s Tehran bureau chief who was arrested in July 2014, charged on a bogus accusation of espionage, subjected to a secret trial and handed a vague years-long sentence—was  freed with former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, pastor Saeed Abebdni  and a fourth prisoner, Nosratollah Khosrawi. Like the California-born Rezaian, the son of an American mother and an Iranian-immigrant father, they all hold dual American-Iranian citizenship, The Post reported. A fifth U.S. citizen who has not been named was also released, but not as part of the deal. CNN reported it is the student Matthew Trevithick.

 

A U.S. official told The Daily Beast that the Americans are being flown aboard a Swiss aircraft from Iran to Geneva, accompanied by Giulio Haas, Switzerland's ambassador to Iran. From there, they will go to a U.S. military base in Germany. It was not yet clear when the Americans would return to the United States. Jason's Iranian-born wife Yeganeh, a fellow journalist who was also arrested and imprisoned for three months, was expected to accompany him out of the country, according to CNN.

 

In a statement to The Daily Beast, a U.S. official said, “Through a diplomatic channel that was established with the focus of getting our detained U.S. citizens home, we can confirm Iran has released from imprisonment four Americans detained in Iran ... Iran has also committed to continue cooperating with the United States to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson. We offered clemency to seven Iranians, six of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens, who had been convicted or are pending trial in the United States. The United States also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful.”

Fars reported that the four freed Americans—who did not include Siamak Namazi, despite stories naming him in Persian and Western media—were released in a deal calling for the United States to release seven unnamed Iranian-Americans being held on alleged sanctions violations, and demand that the international law enforcement agency Interpol cease prosecution of 14 other other unidentified Iranian nationals.

 

A source with knowledge of the exchange, who asked not to be identified because the process is still being carried out, told The Daily Beast that most, if not all, of the people in U.S. custody will be returning to Iran. Not all of them have yet been released from prison but are likely to be freed by Monday or Tuesday, this person said. An attorney for one Iranian-American accused of violating sanctions, Bahram Mechanic, told The Daily Beast that he had been pardoned by President Obama. Separately, Reuters reported that two others, Tooraj Faridi, and Khosrow Afghahi, also had been pardoned and that the U.S. would drop charges or commute the sentences in five other men's cases.

 

As of Saturday morning, agencies of the U.S. government, notably the White House and the State Department, had not confirmed the Fars story, stating: “Based on an approval of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and the general interests of the Islamic Republic, four Iranian prisoners with dual-nationality were freed today within the framework of a prisoner swap deal."

 

https://twitter.com/WSJSolomon

US to remove CEO of Iran @mahanair from @Interpol watch list. @USTreasury accused him of smuggling arms to Syria. http://1.usa.gov/1nq114m
3:00 PM

 

 
https://twitter.com/BNONews

BREAKING: Iran has put in all place all curbs as required by deal with major powers, clearing way for sanctions relief, IAEA reports - REU
3:40 PM

 

BREAKING: European Union lifts nuclear-related sanctions against Iran - AFP
4:05 PM

 

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/266151-us-lifts-iran-sanctions#.Vpq18-wjvR0.twitter

US lifts Iran sanctions

 

https://twitter.com/lrozen

Obama revokes several executive orders related to Iran--13574, 13590, 13622, AND 13645
4:18 PM

[visionary]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/hostage-swap-obamas-secret-second-channel-to-iran

Hostage Swap: Obama’s Secret Second Channel to Iran
 
Fourteen months ago, President Obama authorized a top-secret, second diplomatic channel with Tehran to negotiate freedom for Americans who had disappeared or been imprisoned in Iran. It was a high-risk diplomatic gamble. The initiative grew out of nuclear negotiations, launched in the fall of 2013, between Iran and the world’s six major powers. On the margins of every session, Wendy Sherman, the top American negotiator, pressed her Iranian counterparts about the American cases. The Iranians countered with demands for the release of their citizens imprisoned in the United States for sanctions-busting crimes. More than a year of informal discussions between Sherman and her counterpart, Majid Takht Ravanchi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry official in charge of American and European affairs, led to an agreement, in late 2014, that the issue should be handled separately—but officially—through a second channel. After debate within the Administration, Obama approved the initiative. But it was so tightly held that most of the American team engaged in tortuous negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program were not told about it.
 
What heightened the risk was the fact that the new Iranian team was headed by a senior intelligence official, a sharp departure from the traditional but still tentative diplomatic channels with the Iranian Foreign Ministry developed in the nuclear talks. The involvement of Iranian intelligence made prospects far more unpredictable—and potentially controversial. Brett McGurk, a senior State Department official, headed the small American team, which also included officials from the Department of Justice, the F.B.I., and the intelligence community. The meetings—facilitated by the Swiss government and often held in Geneva—repeatedly hit snags, complications, legal hurdles, and last-minute demands. The swap—officially referred to as a “humanitarian gesture”—came close to fruition three times over more than a year of secret meetings, only to collapse again and again, an Iranian official said.

The deal finally came together this morning, just as Iran and the six major powers also moved toward Implementation Day of the Iran nuclear deal. It will mark the point when the U.N. confirms that Iran has complied with terms to dismantle its program, allowing international sanctions to be lifted. Secretary of State John Kerry held one final meeting with his Iranian counterpart, in Vienna, hosted by the European Union foreign-policy chief, Federica Mogherini. The separate diplomatic channels happened to mature at the same pace, according to U.S. officials. The second channel accelerated after the nuclear deal was announced last July.
 
The United States had hoped to make the announcement of the Americans’ release this morning, but Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency preëmpted Washington with its own announcement that four Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran had been freed as part of a prisoner exchange, following a decision by the Supreme National Security Council. The State Department scrambled to get out its statement. “We offered clemency to seven Iranians, six of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens, who had been convicted or are pending trial in the United States,” it said. “The United States also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful.” The number was pared down significantly from the original Iranian list, U.S. officials said. And not all the American cases against Iranians were resolved by the swap.
 
The release marked the end of a troubled saga that had been further politicized during the U.S. electoral season. Many Republicans had criticized President Obama for agreeing to a nuclear deal—which will give Iran access to tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues that had been locked in foreign banks because of sanctions—while Americans were still held in Iran.
 
Indeed, the reaction was swift and biting among Republican Presidential candidates. “The fact of the matter is that this tells us everything we need to know about the Iranian regime—that they take people hostage in order to gain concessions,” Senator Marco Rubio said. “And the fact that they can get away with it with this Administration, I think, has created an incentive for more governments to do this around the world.”
 
U.S. officials remained upbeat. “We think this is a very good day,” a senior Administration official said, during a teleconference briefing this morning. “We think this proves that we are able to resolve issues when we have diplomatic channels.” But he hastened to add, “This was not a traditional spy swap. We are pursuing this in context of an extraordinary moment in U.S.-Iranian relations as implementation of the nuclear deal is upon us.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2-americans-believed-detained-in-iran-are-not-among-those-coming-home/2016/01/16/1242d488-bc73-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html

2 Americans believed detained in Iran are not among those coming home

 

As the families of Americans celebrate the release of their loved ones held in Iran, the authorities in Tehran said they would not be freeing a businessman arrested in October and were silent on the fate of a former FBI agent who disappeared in the country.

 

It was unclear why Siamak Namazi, 44, an Iranian American based in Dubai, was arrested in October while visiting a friend in Tehran where he had done consultancy work over the previous decade. Namazi is the son of a prominent family in Tehran who couldn’t be reached. Namazi immigrated to the United States in 1983, and he later returned to Iran after graduating from college to serve in the Iranian military.

 

“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Ahmad Kiarostami, a friend. “I’m still hopeful he’s going to be released in the next few days. That’s what I hope.”

Kiarostami said he had traded Facebook messages with Namazi’s family in Iran, but they didn’t know anything.

 

He said it was a “big surprise” when Namazi wasn’t freed with the others.

 

U.S. officials said Saturday that they would continue to talk with Iran to secure the release of Namazi as well as to obtain information about the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, 67, who went missing on an Iranian island in March 2007.

 

News that Levinson had not been freed left his family distraught.

 

“Of course we are happy for those families, but angry and devastated,” Suzanne Halpin, the sister of Levinson’s wife, said in an email.

 

https://twitter.com/NegarMortazavi

US Official: We have only released Iranian prisoners who were held in the US for violating sanctions, not for terrorism or violent crime.
6:04 PM

 
https://twitter.com/HannahAllam

US offcl: Plane w/4 US citizens “has not departed Iran.” Still “number of logistical steps.” 5th US cit Matthew Trevithick already departed
6:05 PM

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/world/middleeast/three-freed-americans-depart-iran-one-remains-us-officials-say.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on Iran After Prisoner Exchange

 

The Obama administration announced Sunday that it was imposing new, more limited sanctions on some Iranian citizens and companies for violating United Nations resolutions against ballistic missile tests. The move came less than 24 hours after the White House lifted broader sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program.

 

The announcement, which was prepared several weeks ago but delayed by the Treasury Department, was made shortly after a Swiss plane carrying Americans freed by the Iranian authorities departed Tehran. The release of the Americans came a day after Iran and the United States concluded delicate negotiations on a prisoner exchange tied indirectly to the completion of a nuclear agreement.

The new sanctions are mostly aimed at individuals and some small companies accused of shipping crucial technologies to Iran, including carbon fiber and missile parts that can survive re-entry forces. The sanctions are so focused on those individuals and firms that most Iranians will never feel them, and the amounts are comparatively tiny.

Relatives of three of the freed Americans — Jason Rezaian, Amir Hekmati and Saeed Abedini — expressed joy after getting phone calls from the State Department that their family members were en route to Switzerland and then on to an American air base in Germany. The three men arrived in Geneva on Sunday, accompanied by Mr. Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and mother, a State Department official, Brett McGurk, said in a Twitter message.

 

The fourth American freed in the exchange, Nosratollah Khosravi — whose incarceration had not been reported until the prisoner exchange was announced Saturday — was not on the plane, American officials said. It was not immediately clear why.

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/borzou

Breaking: Iran hardline Guardian Council has barred 99% of reformist candidates from February parliament elections (ILNA)
5:12 PM

[visionary]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/world/middleeast/detention-of-jason-rezaians-family-nearly-torpedoed-iran-prisoner-swap.html?_r=0

Detention of Jason Rezaian’s Family Nearly Torpedoed Iran Prisoner Swap

 

The Iranian authorities held the wife and mother of the journalist Jason Rezaian without telephones for hours in a separate room at a Tehran airport on Sunday before finally agreeing under American pressure to let them leave along with prisoners released in an exchange with the United States.

 

The last-minute conflict came close to unraveling a prisoner swap that was negotiated during 14 months of secret talks and that had already been announced to the world. In the end, Mr. Rezaian’s wife and mother were permitted to fly with him to Europe later on Sunday, but the episode underscored that parts of Iran’s factionalized system still strongly resist any rapprochement with the United States.

 

Mr. Rezaian, the Tehran bureau chief for The Washington Post, had spent more than 500 days in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison and was one of five Americans released over the weekend. But even as the Americans were being freed, the detention of Mr. Rezaian’s wife and mother introduced a sudden twist that caused a flurry of diplomatic maneuvering and a drama that one American official compared to the movie “Argo,” in which six Americans were spirited out of Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979-81.

 

Three of the freed Americans were to leave Iran on a plane operated by the Swiss, who had helped broker the prisoner talks and who represent American interests in Tehran, where there is no United States Embassy. A fourth had already left on a commercial flight and a fifth, who lived in Tehran, had chosen to stay.

 

But as Mr. Rezaian and the other two prisoners, Amir Hekmati and Saeed Abedini, were preparing to leave, no one could find Mr. Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, or his mother, Mary. Ms. Salehi, an Iranian journalist, had been arrested with Mr. Rezaian in July 2014 before being released, and his mother had come to Iran to be closer to her imprisoned son.

“They had disappeared,” said an American official, who along with others described the events on the condition of anonymity. “Nobody could find them and they were not answering phones. The Iranians then said there were legal issues that would prevent either from leaving the country.”

 

Iranian officials tried to persuade the Americans and the Swiss to take the three prisoners and leave without Ms. Salehi or Ms. Rezaian. In Geneva, Brett McGurk, the lead American negotiator, refused, saying the deal had always included Mr. Rezaian’s family.

 

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-navy-iran--20160118-story.html

Pentagon report: Iran took SIM cards from detained U.S. sailors' phones

 

Iranian soldiers removed two SIM cards from two handheld satellite phones but otherwise returned all weapons, ammunition and equipment when they released 10 U.S. sailors and their two boats last week, the Pentagon said Monday.

 

The first public report from U.S. Central Command into the incident provided that and other new details but did not answer the key question of why the U.S. Navy crews deviated from their course in the Persian Gulf and entered Iranian waters.

[visionary]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-hard-liners-reassert-influence-on-election-slate-1453227140

Iran Hard-liners Reassert Influence on Election Slate

 

Days after Iran secured relief from economic sanctions under a contentious nuclear deal, the country’s powerful hard-liners are moving to sideline more moderate leaders who stand to gain from a historic opening with the West.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-kidnapping-idUSKCN0UX2HY?feedType=RSS&feedName=Iran&virtualBrandChannel=10209&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=59365

Americans missing in Baghdad kidnapped by Iran-backed militia

 

Three U.S. citizens who disappeared last week in Baghdad were kidnapped and are being held by an Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia, two Iraqi intelligence and two U.S. government sources said on Tuesday.

 

Unknown gunmen seized the three on Friday from a private residence in the southeastern Dora district of Baghdad, Iraqi officials say. They are the first Americans to be abducted in Iraq since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011.

 

The U.S. sources said Washington had no reason to believe Tehran was involved in the kidnapping and did not believe the trio were being held in Iran, which borders Iraq.

 

"They were abducted because they are Americans, not for personal or financial reasons," one of the Iraqi sources in Baghdad said.

 

The three men are employed by a small company that is doing work for General Dynamics Corp (GD.N), under a larger contract with the U.S. Army, according to a source familiar with the matter.

 

The Iraqi government has struggled to rein in the Shi'ite militias, many of which fought the U.S. military following the 2003 invasion and have previously been accused of killing and abducting American nationals.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-modanlo-idUSKCN0V50HC

Exclusive: White House dropped $10 million claim in Iran prisoner deal

 

Nader Modanlo was facing five more years in federal prison when he got an extraordinary offer: U.S. President Barack Obama was ready to commute his sentence as part of this month's historic and then still-secret prisoner swap with Iran. He said no.

 

To sweeten the deal, the U.S. administration then dropped a claim against the Iran-born aerospace engineer for $10 million that a Maryland jury found he had taken as an illegal payment from Iran, according to interviews with Modanlo, lawyers involved and U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

 

The surrender of the U.S. claim, which has not previously been reported, could add to scrutiny of how the Obama administration clinched a prisoner deal that has drawn criticism from Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers.

 

A Washington-based spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment on discussions over the $10 million, which the jury found that Modanlo was paid to help Iran launch its first satellite in 2005. Modanlo says the money was a loan from a Swiss company for a telecoms deal.

 

In the prisoner swap, five Americans held in Iran were released at the same time as seven Iranians charged or imprisoned in the United States were granted pardons or had their sentences commuted. The deal accompanied the Jan. 16 implementation of a landmark agreement that curbs Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

 

Even after receiving the improved offer on Friday, Jan. 15, Modanlo said he didn't budge at first. He wanted a chance to clear his name in court, he says.

“I was mostly disappointed that I have to give up my right to appeal,” Modanlo, 55, told Reuters in one of his first interviews since being released.

“If they believe in their justice system why would they deprive me of it? Let them prove me wrong.”

 

As part of their clemency agreements, all of the Iranians had to renounce any claims against the U.S. government. All but one had been accused of violating the economic sanctions the United States has enforced against Iran for decades.

 

Modanlo’s reluctance to accept Obama’s offer became an eleventh-hour complication to an otherwise carefully staged deal with Iran that had been negotiated in secret for months by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart.

 

He only agreed to accept the clemency offer on Saturday, Jan. 16 as the clock ticked toward what U.S. officials said was the final deadline, according to Modanlo and U.S. officials.

 

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak

AP: France has asked the European Union to consider new sanctions on Iran over recent missile tests

1:48 PM

Update - Reuters: Two EU diplomats say France did not ask the European Union to consider new sanctions on #Iran at EU meeting in Brussels
2:49 PM

[visionary]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/world/middleeast/new-details-of-iran-ordeal-emerge-from-former-prisoners.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&referer=https://t.co/LAAt6YkLsM

New Details of Iran Ordeal Emerge From Former Prisoners

 

Two of the Americans freed by Iran this month in a prisoner deal have provided new detail about their time in captivity, saying they were told by Iranian interrogators that the United States had abandoned them and that they would never leave. One said he had been accused of plotting armed revolution.

 

The remarks in recent days by the Americans, Jason Rezaian, 39, The Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, imprisoned for 18 months, and Matthew Trevithick, 30, a scholar from Hingham, Mass., imprisoned for 41 days, added to the picture that has been emerging about the prisoner ordeal and the behind-the-scenes diplomacy that led to their release less than two weeks ago.

 

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/01/the-guardian-view-on-president-rouhani-european-visit-far-too-soon-to-celebrate-a-changed-iran?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

The Guardian view on President Rouhani’s European visit: far too soon to celebrate a changed Iran

Editorial

 

President Hassan Rouhani’s whirlwind visit to Europe last week was an indication both of how eager Iran is to shed its pariah status and of how eager western countries are to resume trade and financial relations now that international sanctions are being lifted. Dozens of contracts running into billions of dollars were discussed. He met the pope, the Italian prime minister, the French president, and many business leaders.

 

After years of tensions and mistrust, the scenes of a smiling Iranian leader being welcomed with open arms in European capitals were in stark contrast with the recent past. Yet in spite of the feelgood imagery, to believe that Iran’s regime has altogether transformed itself and might now be moving towards decisive domestic reform and a constructive role on the international stage would be naive and shortsighted.

 

Iran may have a president with a “moderate” profile – one whose smooth approach comes as a relief after the Ahmadinejad years – but that does not mean the authoritarian nature of the regime or the objectives of its foreign policy have changed. Iran still ranks as one of the most repressive states in the world, and there has been no improvement.

 

The government was probably looking for a public relations bonus in the west when it recently released a number of journalists, but the statistics tell another story: in 2015 Iran executed at least 830 people, including juveniles, many for non-violent crimes. The security services continue to harass and detain activists, writers and journalists. The methods used by the regime to crush the pro-democracy Green movement in 2009 are still very much in use today.

 

Nor has Iran become in any way more “moderate” in its behaviour in the Middle East. In Syria, Iran’s militias and Republican Guards are direct participants in the war crimes that the Assad regime inflicts on its own population. Iran’s close ally Hezbollah played a key role in the siege of Madaya, where children died of hunger as a result, and it is part of similar operations elsewhere.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-prisoners-challenge-idUSKCN0VA3NH?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

U.S. judge orders explanation of Iran prisoner deal

 

A federal judge has challenged the U.S. government's move to drop charges against an Iranian man accused of sanctions violations as part of a U.S. prisoner trade agreed with Iran last month.

 

Federal prosecutors filed a motion on Jan. 16 to drop the case against Alireza Moazami Goudarzi, an Iranian man accused in 2012 of trying to buy aircraft parts for Iran, including those for military aircraft engines.

 

The dismissal was part of a wider deal which also saw U.S. officials move to drop international arrest orders and any charges against 13 other Iranians outside America. The administration also offered clemency deals to seven Iranians in the United States, mostly imprisoned for or charged with sanctions violations.

 

In return, Iran released five Americans it had been holding, including Iranian-American Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.

 

The release of the Americans coincided with the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran in return for curbs on Tehran's nuclear program.

 

U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in New York threatened in a court order last week to deny the government's dismissal of charges against Goudarzi unless prosecutors could justify "significant foreign policy interests" they had cited as a reason to drop the case.

 

Castel wrote in his order that the court should not approve such a request if it is prompted by "considerations clearly contrary to the public interest."

 

Castel is the only judge so far who is known to have questioned the dismissals, which were also filed in jurisdictions including Arizona, Washington, D.C. and California, Reuters found in a review of court records.

 

The prisoner swap left President Barack Obama's administration open to criticism from Republicans that it had offered too much to Iran in return for the release of the Americans.

 

In a response to Castel's order, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Cronan said on Monday that the prisoner swap was a "one-time, unique agreement based on extraordinary circumstances" that had been reached in order to obtain the release of American prisoners held in Iran.

 

"The United States Government has made clear to the Government of Iran that the United States does not expect to repeat these actions," Cronan said in a court brief.

 

He also added that U.S. authorities had been unable to locate Goudarzi since he was released from Malaysian custody after being detained there in 2012, and there was no "realistic prospect" of arrest and extradition in the near future.

[visionary]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2592963/

John Kerry: State Dept. video tampering 'stupid and clumsy and inappropriate'

 

Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that whoever doctored several minutes of videotape from a State Department news briefing about the Iran nuclear negotiations was "stupid and clumsy and inappropriate."

 

Kerry, in Paris for discussions on restarting peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, made his first comments on the incident in which a section of the department's daily briefing was excised from the official video. Earlier in the day, GOP committee chairmen pressed for more information about the incident.

 

Kerry said such action is contrary to the department's entire record during his tenure as secretary of state, and that he intends to discover who was responsible.

 

Asked if he would fire the person responsible, Kerry said, "I would like to find out exactly what happened and why." He said he didn't want someone like that working for him.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/wolf-blitzer-jen-psaki-state-department-video-2016-6

Wolf Blitzer grills ex-State Department spokeswoman: 'Is it ever justified to lie to the American people?'

 

CNN's Wolf Blitzer grilled White House Communications Director Jen Psaki over reports that footage of a press briefing about the Iran deal was intentionally deleted by someone at the State Department in 2014.

 

The deleted footage — an eight-minute exchange between Psaki, then the State Department's spokeswoman, and Fox reporter James Rosen — was potentially embarrassing for the State Department.

 

Psaki had essentially admitted to Rosen that nuclear talks with Iran had taken place as early as 2011, two years before the Obama administration publicly acknowledged that the talks were ongoing.

 

Psaki's predecessor, Victoria Nuland, had told Rosen months earlier that nuclear negotiations did not begin until 2013. Blitzer called that a "flat-out lie."

 

"It's one thing to be discreet and not release all the information if it's classified ... but it's another thing to flat-out lie to the news media and to the public, which is what your predecessor [Nuland] did in 2013 when she was asked whether secret bilateral negotiations were going on and she said no," Blitzer told Psaki. "That was a lie, right?"

 

Psaki responded that Blitzer would have to ask Nuland about that.

[Larry]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2592963/

Not sure that I see the huge scandal, here. Yeah, the claim is that State, some time after 2013, deleted the video of a question and answer that a reporter asked, in 2013, that wasn't important enough to be a news story, in 2013.

Yeah, I can certainly see the notion that altering video is always bad. But I also have to confess that I wonder why it was important enough to delete.

Hopefully, we get some more information.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/wolf-blitzer-jen-psaki-state-department-video-2016-6

Wolf Blitzer grills ex-State Department spokeswoman: 'Is it ever justified to lie to the American people?'

Hell, yeah, it's sometimes justified to lie to the American People.

Now, was it justified in this case? That's certainly debatable.

But come on with the false, pretentious outrages. Don't we have enough of that, already?

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

[Kilmer17]

3 minutes ago, visionary said:

 

No way!  This....is....a....shock!

[visionary]