Posts tagged : "Hassan Rouhani"

Kourosh Ziabari - New Lines Magazine: Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s May 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, resonates with many Iranians as a traumatic episode that wreaked havoc on their lives. Earlier this month, the Iranian mastermind of the deal, former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, recounted what he presented as the untold stories of the genesis of that diplomatic blockbuster, now in a state of suspended animation, during an online forum on the Clubhouse app that stretched for six and a half hours, well past midnight in Tehran. At a maximum, a Clubhouse room can host 8,000 users, but the moderator said roughly 42,000 people had tuned in through...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: In June, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrived in Iran for a two-day visit, marking the first time in five years the leader alighted in the equally isolated Islamic Republic. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who has crafted his foreign policy around anti-US motifs, is investing in elevating relations with Venezuela as Iran misses out on boosting relations with traditional Asian allies and lacks a roadmap for renewing ties with the West. During the visit, Iran and Venezuela signed a 20-year cooperation agreement, the details of which have not been made public. But for the two countries whose economies have been crushed under years of biting US sanctions, there is potent symbolism in giving...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran-United States relations are on the ropes again after a much-anticipated wrestling competition between the two national sides was abruptly canceled. In late 2021, it was announced that the national wrestling teams of Iran and the US would be facing off for a friendly match in February next year. Many observers of Iran’s politics were overjoyed in the hope the apolitical encounter would build bridges between the two rivals, whose recent engagements cannot be characterized as “friendly.” Iran and the US have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1979, but in defiance of the official narrative of the two governments built on maintaining and prolonging hostilities, punctuated by fleeting...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: While many international airlines start to recover after two years of Covid-induced groundings and stagnation, Iran’s beleaguered fliers are still mostly grounded. Even before the pandemic, Iran’s airlines were bypassed by professional travelers and a flight of last resort for routes that reputable world carriers didn’t serve. In 2021, the airline safety and product rating review website AirlineRatings.com identified Iran Aseman Airlines as one of the world’s six most unsafe airlines. The UK-based consultancy Skytrax had earlier named Iran Air and Mahan Air as two of the 20 worst airlines globally, measured by the quality of their services and number of accidents. When the vaunted Joint...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: One doesn’t have to be very old to recollect the emergence and blossoming of Iran’s reform movement. In the May 1997 presidential election, when many observers had reached the foregone conclusion that the establishment confidant, conservative cleric Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, would secure an easy victory courtesy of gerrymandering and voter fraud, a reformist underdog turned out to be a dark horse and baffled the world. Mohammad Khatami, who was previously minister of culture between 1982 and 1992 and little known internationally, bagged 69.6% of the votes in a presidential contest that saw a turnout of 79.92%, a figure not chronicled since the Iranian Revolution. Khatami’s ascendancy was a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: While Iran finds itself throttled by US economic and banking sanctions that are still a far cry from being repealed, a new layer of complexity has been added to the country’s economic misfortunes – the government has put a wholesale ban on imports of home appliances from South Korea, and is gearing up to apply bans on other foreign products. On September 29, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei instructed President Ebrahim Raisi to ban the importation of home appliances, specifically from “two South Korean firms” which he didn’t name, reportedly to stave off the insolvency of domestic manufacturers. He noted in his brief memo that the domestic firms had only just begun to stand on their...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: It’s official: hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi is Iran’s new president and will formally succeed Hassan Rouhani in August. What’s less clear is the Islamic Republic’s new foreign policy and economic direction. Raisi secured 17.9 million popular votes, accounting for 61.9% of the ballot in a preordained result marred by the disqualification of pro-reform and moderate candidates. Raisi, a darling of the conservative establishment, saw his supporters celebrate in eastern Tehran on Saturday evening in defiance of millions of Iranians who boycotted the polls. As anticipated by many observers, voter turnout was a record low in the history of the Islamic Republic at 48.8%. The boycott was a silent...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s presidential election campaign has commenced in earnest, with seven Guardian Council-approved candidates vying to replace President Hassan Rouhani after his eight-year tenure. The 12-member Guardian Council, tasked with vetting and filtering candidates in elections, eliminated 585 other aspirants, many of them seen as moderate and pro-reform, narrowing the field to a handful of known conservatives. Chief among them is Ebrahim Raisi, the Islamic Republic’s Chief Justice known for his anti-Western views. He is widely viewed as the frontrunner in a field of candidates critics say has failed to capture the public’s imagination. Polling day is June 18. Distinguished pragmatist figures who...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s top envoy has backpedaled on remarks he made privately in a taped oral history about the country’s hardline Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and his ministry’s lack of real influence over the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy. But while Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has made waves locally by claiming US-slain IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani interfered in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), his revelations on Russia’s bid to scupper the 2015 nuclear deal could have a greater political impact. The Donald Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran that have since strangled its economy. But momentum is slowly but surely building towards a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: An attack on Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility on April 11 has been blamed on Israel by Iranian officials, an accusation that threatens to hamper efforts now underway to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear pact. The apparent cyber-attack, which caused a power blackout at the plant situated eight meters underground, reportedly inflicted substantial damage to a number of centrifuges operating at the installation. Although Iranian officials have ruled out casualties or leakage of hazardous material, anonymous American and Israeli officials quoted in media reports have conjectured that the attack may have set back Iran’s nuclear program by at least nine...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s Green Movement reformist leaders are being widely eulogized on social media on the 11th anniversary of being put under house arrest. But while some Iranians may pine for the heady days over a decade ago when reformists were seemingly on the ascent, conservatives are widely expected to sweep presidential elections in June, further consolidating their hold on the Islamic Republic. As moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s final term draws to a close, many of his ambitions and promises will go unrealized, not least his vow to win the release of reformist luminaries Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Zahra Rahnavard. It isn’t clear to most how Iran’s moderates and progressives can...

Asia Times - Kourosh Ziabari: Joe Biden’s election has revived certain hopes that the landmark Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), may soon be restored and usher in a new era of stability to the region. Biden vowed on the campaign trail he would rejoin the JCPOA and enter broad negotiations with the Islamic Republic to address a wide array of sticking points that continue to blight bilateral relations. Iran, which resorted to so-called “remedial measures” after the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018, has since rolled back several of its commitments under the deal, including recommencing its sensitive uranium enrichment activities. At the same time,...