Posts tagged : "Iran Deal"

Kourosh Ziabari - Medium: There’s a lot going on about Iran in the headlines these days. Saudi Arabia finds it useful to direct timely and untimely ad hominem attacks against Tehran for its interference in the Yemeni affairs; the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations confidently lashes out at Iran in her speeches, talking about the need for the international community to condemn Iran for its destructive regional role, crackdown on human rights activists and pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile technologies. At home, people, whether those working as government employees or those running small enterprises are complaining about their situation. People of Iran by nature are never easily-satisfied and find the people in power the...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: Iran’s role in the Middle East and the region has regularly been questioned and cast into doubt. It’s mostly questioned by the critics of the country’s controversial and ambitious nuclear program and its foreign policy. Iranians will, by and large, gloss over key issues while critics of Tehran specifically cite its foreign policy as a reason to scuttle the nuclear agreement. The current Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, was widely seen as a sensible choice to run the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The truth, however, is that there are few well-trained and educated diplomats with relevant qualifications to run the Ministry. And what progress Zarif does make on the foreign stage his...

Girls walking in front of walls of the former US embassy on Taleghani street, Tehran. Picture by Kamyar Adl / Flickr.com. Kourosh Ziabari - openDemocracy NAWA: Iranians are discussing many important and crucial things these days: things that the government might not be able to find an answer to in the foreseeable future. The Iranian government is not determined enough to implement change, nor does it have the authority and resources to embrace the reforms people are demanding. Meanwhile, in restaurants, coffee shops, streets, schools, newspapers and sometimes even on state TV, people are discussing and talking about reform. People ask valid questions that rarely find viable answers by those who are supposed to find answers: will...

U.S., EU and Iranian diplomats celebrate the signing of the Iran Deal Kourosh Ziabari - openDemocracy: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Deal, is a UN-endorsed agreement that caps Iran's nuclear activities, subjects them to the full safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and introduces a framework for the easing and removal of economic sanctions against the country. Iran deal is an agreement that can be safely considered the outcome of almost two years of relentless diplomacy between the government of President Hassan Rouhani and the major world powers: five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (U.S., Russia, France, China and Britain), Germany, the European Union...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Eye: Eleven years ago, when Iranians were getting ready to head to polls to elect the replacement of the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who ruled Iran for eight years and steered the country into achieving some international reputation as a peace-loving nation spearheading the global movement of “Dialogue of Civilisations,” the hardliners who had miserably lost grip over the executive branch of the government were thinking of ways to seize back power. Despite a great deal of division and lack of unanimity, the ultra-conservatives came to a consensus to throw their weight behind Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election. Ahmadinejad was not a recognised and eminent politician....

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The Iran nuclear deal, popularly known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, has been widely lauded as a historic understanding that untangled an apparently intractable dilemma spanning over more than a decade, and opened broad new prospects for Iran and the international community to collaborate with no specter of distrust and confrontation around the corner. The global media and Iran pundits are diligently probing the different dimensions of the landmark deal and how it affects Iran’s connections with the outside world. At the same time, the JCPOA signed last summer constitutes an invariable theme in the U.S. presidential candidates’ debates and speeches these days. The Republican nominee...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Eye: When Iran and the six major global powers reached an agreement last summer to put an end to the controversy surrounding Tehran’s nuclear programme by announcing the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranians flocked to the streets en masse, celebrating and rejoicing at what they believed would be the emergence of a new horizon in their lives. Most of them were youths, and the freshness of their teenage years had been spoiled by the adventurous policies of the former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who failed to fortify Iran’s oil-dependent economy in the years when the price of crude oil was at its all-time high and the nation allegedly earned something between...

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...