Posts tagged : "Hassan Rouhani"

Kourosh Ziabari - The Huffington Post: The political behavior of the Iranian people is not always easily predictable or discernable. Even though there are hints as to the reasons why they voted for the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to become president which embroiled the entire nation in all-out economic and political chaos, the observers of Iran’s political panorama are still debating the dynamics that underpinned Ahmadinejad’s confounding success in 2005 and his disputed reelection in 2009. However, what is clear is that Iranians didn’t endorse Ahmadinejad because he was a seasoned politician or knew how to bolster the country’s foreign relations. He was a populist leader whose demagogic economic strategies...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: On April 27, the 7th United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Global Forum wrapped up in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku. More than 3,500 participants from across the globe, including some 150 young leaders from nearly 100 countries attended the 3-day international gathering, exploring the venues for creating inclusive societies and promoting representative democracy to realize global peace and sustainable development. The UNAOC Global Forum was attended by several dignitaries from different nations, including incumbent and former heads of government and state, foreign ministers, parliamentarians, UN officials, academicians, public figures and other luminaries. In panels and plenary sessions, the speakers...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Eye: It’s a bitter irony that Iran, a big Muslim nation located at the crossroads of the world’s energy hub, doesn’t maintain cordial relations with several major countries in the Muslim world, and in many cases, these bilateral relations have been unsteady and frosty, if not non-existent. Iran’s relations with Egypt, the most populous Arab country, have been underdeveloped and diminutive since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. A sign of change was the visit by ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi to Tehran in August 2012 to attend the 16th Non-Aligned Movement summit. The visit was reciprocated by former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who travelled to Egypt in February 2013, the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: While much attention is being paid to the sweeping victories gained by the real estate tycoon Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, there are many observers of the U.S. foreign policy who share a common concern over the fate of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, under President Barack Obama’s successor. An investigative journalist and reporter says the nuclear deal is not a bilateral agreement involving Iran and the United States, and five other nations, including some of the closest U.S. allies in NATO contributed to securing it, so a possible violation of the terms of the deal by the next American President would “pose a major...

Kourosh Ziabari - The Huffington Post: On July 14, 2016, precisely one year following the conclusion of the landmark nuclear accord between Iran and the six major world powers, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, British Airways, will be re-launching direct flights between London and Tehran. The service was suspended in October 2012 as the company officials believed the route was "no longer commercially viable." The decision by the British airliner to resume return flights to the Iranian capital comes on the heels of new steps taken by the governments of Iran and Britain to normalize and improve their precarious relations, which plummeted to an all-time low after the British...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Eye: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani kicked off his first official trip to Europe – excluding his journey to Davos in January 2014 to participate in the World Economic Forum – on 25 January by visiting Italy and concluded it on 29 January with the second leg of his European tour ending in France. He received a warm welcome and inked multi-billion dollar deals in both countries, making the headlines worldwide and blowing minds both at home and abroad. Visiting Europe is not by definition something unconventional or far-fetched for a foreign head of state. But for the president of a country besieged by more than a decade-long of grueling economic sanctions and inevitably ensuing political...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: The whole episode began in 2013 when a moderate, pragmatic cleric, popularly known as the “Diplomat Sheikh,” replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the president of Iran. Hassan Rouhani, who spearheaded Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the big three in Europe under President Mohammad Khatami, won the hearts and souls of Iranians thanks to his promise of “constructive engagement” with the international community. President Rouhani was intent on ending more than a decade of political and economic isolation, originating from the international community’s goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—a charge that Iranian officials had denied over and over again. The determination to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Eye: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani already faces a challenging task appeasing his political rivals who are apparently wounded by the conclusion of the long-sought nuclear deal with the six world powers - the five UN Security Council permanent members and Germany. It is an accord that the Iranian people are overwhelming supportive of, as it ends the suffering they have endured for decades as they bore the brunt of the West’s economic sanctions. Hardliners, however, still cannot conceal their anger at it, simply because the deal was signed by somebody other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but also because it was signed with their favorite bogeyman, the United States. President Rouhani needs to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The nuclear deal with Iran has been a resoundingly important theme in the primary debates of U.S. presidential contenders. The most peculiar, unconventional ideas have been broached by the Republican hopefuls such as Senator Ted Cruz who said the JCPOA will hasten Iran’s path to developing nuclear weapons and that he will rip the deal “to shreds” if elected president. Similarly, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is one of the major GOP competitors and equals Ben Carson as the third most popular Republican nominee in the polls analyzed by Real Clear Politics, has opined that the nuclear deal with Iran is not binding for the next U.S. administration and he will undo it, since he considers it to be a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: As the final preparatory step for the implementation of the comprehensive nuclear deal agreed by Iran and the group of six world powers has been taken after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano submitted his report on the past and present outstanding issues regarding the country’s nuclear program to the nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors, political scientists and foreign policy experts are now passionately debating the prospective, much-anticipated thaw in the Iran-U.S. relations. A noted academician and political scientist, who is known in Iran for his research about the 1953 coup d’etat against the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mohammad...

Kourosh Ziabari - Your Middle East: To millions of Iranians worn out by almost a decade of economic sanctions imposed on them over the country’s controversial nuclear program, Mohammad Javad Zarif appears like a treasure; he was basically unearthed by Hassan Rouhani, the pragmatist, moderate cleric and former diplomat who won the June 14, 2013 presidential elections owing to the promise he had made to the nation that he would put an end to the nuclear standoff and relieve the economic pressures the people were suffering. Upon his election, it was initially Rouhani’s plan to appoint either Mahmoud Vaezi or Sadegh Kharrazi as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The former is a U.S. and Poland-educated electrical engineer and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: Following the successful conclusion of the talks over Iran’s nuclear program, and as the negotiating parties gear up for the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), there are still concerns and uncertainties on the commitment of the interlocutors to the terms of the deal. The U.S. presidential election 2016 is approaching, and some candidates have openly vowed that they will scrap the nuclear deal with Iran if elected to the White House, including GOP hopeful and Florida Senator Marco Rubio who has said he will tear the agreement apart on his first day as the U.S. President. Now, having invested a great deal of political capital on obtaining this agreement, it’s inarguably...