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[or Congress]
and the White House, with Iran as an afterthought,” says Albright, who is seen as something of an honest broker by both sides.
The best outcome could be a nervous stasis in which Iran pauses its program as America’s armed forces stand by, and diplomats go about the delicate work of reviving negotiations.
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European Business Bodies Form Alliance for Iran Gold Rush
The Wall Street Journal
As talks progress between Iran and six world powers over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, multinational companies are beginning to prepare for an eventual lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic. But despite the thaw at the political level, European companies feel impeded in trading with Iran, in part because many banks refuse to handle their payments. The companies fear their American rivals will be able to move first once sanctions are lifted. In an effort to level the playing field, three European business bodies – the Iranian chambers of commerce of France, Germany and the U.K. – have formed an alliance to facilitate business between Iran and the European Union. |
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The Washington Free Beacon
Article incorrectly stated number of Dems supporting new Iran sanctions legislation. Reuters was forced to issue a major correction and perform multiple rewrites on a recent piece about new Iran sanctions legislation that was penned by National Iranian American Council (NIAC) founder Trita Parsi, whose organization has long been suspected of taking orders from the Iranian regime and disseminating its “propaganda” on Capitol Hill. Parsi, who has been accused of being an agent of the Iranian government and ofskirting lobbying rules, wrote an op-ed earlier this week that incorrectly stated the number of Democrats currently supporting new legislation to increase sanctions on Iran. Reuters was forced to append a correction and rewrite several portions of the piece, which argues that President Obama’s bid to block new sanctions has reassured leaders in Tehran. Parsi’s NIAC has lobbied against sanctions on Iran and for increased diplomacy with the Islamic Republic, despite its ongoing work on a suspected nuclear weapons program. Experts and lawmakers alike have harshly criticized NIAC’s efforts to roll back sanctions on Iran and portray it as a peaceful nation. |
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The Washington Post
AS THE Obama administration pushes to complete a nuclear accord with Iran, numerous members of Congress, former secretaries of state and officials of allied governments are expressing concern about the contours of the emerging deal. Though we have long supported negotiations with Iran as well as the interim agreement the United States and its allies struck with Tehran, we share several of those concerns and believe they deserve more debate now – before negotiators present the world with a fait accompli. The problems raised by authorities ranging from Henry Kissinger, the country’s most senior former secretary of state, to Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, Virginia’s junior senator, can be summed up in three points: ●First, a process that began with the goal of eliminating Iran’s potential to produce nuclear weapons has evolved into a plan to tolerate and temporarily restrict that capability. ●Second, in the course of the negotiations, the Obama administration has declined to counter increasingly aggressive efforts by Iran to extend its influence across the Middle East and seems ready to concede Tehran a place as a regional power at the expense of Israel and other U.S. allies. ●Finally, the Obama administration is signaling that it will seek to implement any deal it strikes with Iran – including the suspension of sanctions that were originally imposed by Congress – without a vote by either chamber. Instead, an accord that would have far-reaching implications for nuclear proliferation and U.S. national security would be imposed unilaterally by a president with less than two years left in his term. |
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The Guardian
Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani has berated the world’s nuclear powers, saying atomic weapons have not kept them safe and reiterating that his country is not seeking the bomb. Rouhani, in an unusually fiery speech, avoided explicit mention of ongoing nuclear talks between the west and Iran, but accused atomic-armed states of hypocrisy. “They tell us: ‘We don’t want Iran to make atomic bombs’, you who have made atomic bombs,” Rouhani said in Isfahan on Wednesday, a city 400km (250 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. He then took aim at Israel, which has never acknowledged that it has nuclear weapons, dubbing the state a “criminal”. “Have you managed to bring about security for yourselves with atomic bombs? Have you managed to create security for the usurper Israel?” Rouhani said. |
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Tehran is using back-channel diplomacy to try to shield Bashar al-Assad from American attempts to punish him for gassing his own people with chlorine. …….The latest sign of Tehran’s willingness to shield an ally came Tuesday, when Iran tried to block a move by the United States and Russia to present a mildly worded statement to the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCM) that would have merely expressed “serious concern” about the likely use of chlorine as a weapon in Syria. The measure would also have provided the chemical watchdog’s chief with a green light to report to the U.N. Security Council on his agency’s investigation into the use of chlorine on the Syrian battlefield – something he has so far refused to do. |
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RPT-Iranian fuel oil exports trade skirts sanctions
Reurers DUBAI, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Iran is sidestepping Western sanctions and managing to sell hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fuel oil every month through companies based in the U.S.-allied United Arab Emirates, trading sources told Reuters. The U.S. and EU sanctions that came into force in 2012 prohibit the import, purchase and transport of Iranian petroleum products to pressure Tehran to halt its disputed nuclear programme. Washington has also pressed its allies around the world to clamp down on the shipping of Iranian oil products. But Tehran has been using innovative methods to circumvent the restrictions, several Middle East-based trading sources said. They include tankers switching off their tracking systems, ship-to-ship transfers, discharging and loading at remote ports, blending Iranian products with fuels from another source to alter the shipment’s physical specification and selling them with Iraqi-origin documents, the sources said. The Iranian fuel oil is mainly offered from the UAE port and bunkering hub of Fujairah, through trading firms acting as middlemen for buyers who may not know the cargo is from Iran, the sources said. |
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