Posts tagged : "Iran Deal"

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: On Friday, Iranian families will mark the winter solstice, the longest, darkest night of the year. Yalda festivities are usually a time to recite poems and feast on cured meats and fresh fruit, especially the pomegranate. But this year sanctions have kept the precious fruit on vendors’ shelves – its price is out of reach for many grappling with the flailing economy. In the northern Iranian city of Rasht, fruit vendor Farshid says families are unable to afford a decent quality of life or to spend money on recreation, manifested in their reluctance to buy fruit for the solstice. “Yalda night is a time of the year we sell more, but this time, it seems that there’s no trace of increased sales. The...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: US foreign policy is a hot topic of discussion in the media. Since his inauguration in 2017, President Donald Trump has been embroiled in controversy with world leaders: from hanging up on then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to being scoffed by French President Emmanuel Macron over his use of Twitter. The peculiarity of Trump’s foreign policy is not only because he has been involved in so many spats with his counterparts and high-ranking politicians around the world. The unilateralism of the Trump administration and the president’s disregard for accords and treaties are unprecedented in the history of the United States, giving rise to concerns that America is isolating itself...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: The imposition of new sanctions against Iran by the United States after the de-certification of the Iran nuclear deal by the U.S. President Donald Trump is being widely debated these days. These sanctions are mostly controversial because of the highly detrimental impact they leave on the lives of the ordinary citizens in Iran while they don't have the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council and the European Union. The critics of the sanctions argue that they make it impossible for Iran to import food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, lead to the impoverishment of average citizens by debilitating Iran's currency rial, reduce the purchasing power of the Iranians and at the same time violate the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: It has been more than six months since US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. The JCPOA was the outcome of months of talks between Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and the European Union to find a viable solution to Tehran’s nuclear dilemma. Leading up to the agreement in 2015, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and then-US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to each other more than any other top diplomats in the world. This demonstrated that Iran and the United States, despite being rivals, can sit together respectfully and solve their differences through...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Iran is on the headlines once again. The United States has imposed the second round of sanctions against the Middle East nation after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. This time, the sanctions target Iran's oil and banking sectors and are expected to have an onerous effect on its economy. This is while the International Court of Justice had ruled following a complaint lodged by Iran to this court that the U.S. sanctions are illegal due to their detrimental impacts on the life of ordinary citizens and should be suspended. The United States ignored the ruling. A prominent human rights activist told the Organization for Defending Victims of...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The United States is run by a businessman turned politician who is unwavering in his ignorance about many essentials including respect for multilateralism and concern for the value of human life outside the US borders. It’s difficult to convince Donald Trump to be mindful of the suffering of ordinary Iranian citizens while imposing new sanctions on the Middle East nation or instruct him to read 109 pages of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran nuclear deal) to figure out that long before announcing the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the agreement, he started violating its letter and spirit through his unhelpful public statements about the JCPOA being a badly...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: As the Iranian people brace for the next round of economic sanctions by the United States to be introduced in early November, debate about the unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the landmark July 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers continues in the international media. These days, a great deal of the mainstream media coverage of the Middle East goes to Iran and every new development pertaining to Iran is somehow linked by experts and pundits to the U.S. sanctions and the departure of the United States from the nuclear deal, be it the imminent suspension of British Airways and Air France flights to Tehran or the introduction of an assistance package by the European...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy Blogs: When President Donald Trump announced on 8th May that the United States would not be a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran deal, anymore, it was easily predictable that new tensions between Tehran and Washington will emerge soon. It didn’t take long for the European Union to voice its regret over President Trump’s decision and say in an unequivocal manner that Trump’s unilateralism won’t mark the premature death of the Iran deal, signed and sealed only three years ago.   Britain, France and Germany issued a statement in which they reiterated their continued commitment to the JCPOA as long as Iran abides by its nuclear commitments. They said...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was one of his most controversial foreign policy decisions. As one of his campaign promises it was not unexpected, but the unilateral decertification of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has multiplied the workload of international diplomats who are working hard to salvage the accord. President Trump’s decision may originate from his hostility toward Barack Obama and his achievements, as well as Trump’s apocalyptic views toward Iran and the Muslim world. Whatever the reason, a robust international agreement has been dismantled by the US government and the long-term outcomes will be disappointing. Peter Kuznick, professor of...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: Aside from its declining currency, which is known as one of the world’s most worthless currencies, Iran is reputed to have one of the most unsafe and aged aviation fleets. In recent years, hundreds of passengers have lost their lives while flying on Iranian airliners due to their age and the failure of the companies to improve their standards. The inability of Iranian airlines to buy new aircraft and renovate their fleet is mostly a result of economic sanctions that the United States has imposed on Iran since the 1980s. Some of the deadliest aviation accidents in the world have involved Iranian airliners. A notable example is the Caspian Airlines Flight 7908, which was a scheduled...

Kourosh Ziabari - Medium: It’s been three years since Iran and the six world powers came to an agreement to solve the longstanding controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. The nuclear deal that was signed in July 2015 was what the international community was looking for for so long. It was the concrete translation of vague and abstract ideals that everybody knew what they were, but couldn’t be actualised for several reasons, mostly political intransigence. Iran deal, according to the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, was an agreement that was supposed to be the manifestation of a zero-sum game, and even for President Obama, it was a victory. India was one of many countries that reaped major benefits from the lifting of...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: U.S. President Donald Trump has called for new sanctions against Iran and proposed decertification of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran Deal. Trump has given the European signatories to the agreement, most importantly Britain, Germany and France, an ultimatum to fix the flaws in the Iran deal or forget about the United States’ continued investment in the agreement, which according to Trump, was Obama’s deal and one of the most disastrous and one-sided accords the U.S. has ever entered into. Terms and conditions of the JCPOA are clear. In a nutshell, Iran rolls back certain aspects of its ambitious nuclear programme, sticks to its technical...