MESOPOTAMIA NEWS WEEKLY REPORT ON KURDISTAN – IRAN  2. 9. 2020 

 

  • The Iranian regime detained eight more Kurdish activists in its ongoing campaign against Kurdish political rights. In Javanrud (Jwanro), Iranian authorities arrested a Kurdish man named Hussein Mirzie on Saturday. In Sardasht, Iranian security forces arrested a Christian Kurd named Sherko Saweshi and a second Christian Kurd from Sardasht named Mehdi Ibrahimzada in Fars Province. Iranian authorities also arrested four more Kurds from Sardasht on Thursday and accused them of “aiding Kurdish opposition parties.” Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Human Rights Association (KMMK) reported unknown Iranian officials abducted a 35-year-old Kurdish man named Khabat Kafakhari in Sanandaj. Makhiri was previously contacted by several Iranian security services. Finally, Iranian authorities arrested two Kurds from Marivan, Nawshiran Razaiie and Farzad Muradi, and another from Baneh named Shareif Amini.
  • Iranian authorities injured eight Kurdish border porters (Kolbars) last week. Last Tuesday, Iranian border guards wounded a 50-year-old Kolbar named Jafaar Ramazani in Kermanshah Governorate’s Nowsud town. Iranian border guards then ambushed and severely wounded three more Kolbars in the same area on Wednesday. Concurrently, Iranian security forces injured a total of four Kolbars in Chaldaron, Piranshahr, and Sardasht. Finally, Iranian authorities arrested three local businessmen, 31-year-old Sohaib Kawa, 30-year-old Rebwar Arazhangi, and 25-year-old Mohammed Arazhangi, who were involved with Kolbar activities in Marivan

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWS WATCH: WO BLEIBT DER BOYKOTT-AUFRUF, FLORIAN?

Österreichischer Unternehmer Josef Donhauser : Mit Kebab an die Teheraner Börse

  • Von Andreas Mihm  – -Aktualisiert am 01.09.2020-08:30  FAZ

Börsenmitarbeiter vor der Kurstafel in Teherans Börse. Josef Donhauser führt einen der großen Gastronomie-Betriebe Österreichs. Er serviert in den Zügen der österreichischen Bahn. Jetzt ist er an die Börse gegangen – in Iran.

Ein Jahr lang habe man ihm „im Kreis geschickt“. Über den „wahnsinnigen Administrationsaufwand“ kann sich Josef Donhauser immer noch ereifern. Und dann habe nicht einmal die Glocke geläutet, so wie man es aus dem Fernsehen kenne, als die Aktien seines Unternehmens erstmals an der Börse gehandelt worden seien. In Iran gehen viele Uhren eben anders – auch an der Teheran Stock Exchange.

Das ist keine phantastische Erzählung aus „Tausendundeiner Nacht“. Mit seiner Dona Catering, Börsenkürzel DCAZ1, ist der Österreicher seit Mitte August das erste ausländische Unternehmen an der Börse der Islamischen Republik Iran. Nun ja, strenggenommen ist es ein 50:50-Joint Venture, das er 2016 mit dem iranischen Eisenbahnunternehmer Mohammed S. Khalafi aufgelegt hat.

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : What’s next for Russia-Iran military partnership?

If the arms embargo on Iran ends in October, what arms might Tehran buy from Moscow?

Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami attends the VII Moscow Conference on International Security MCIS-2018 in Moscow on April 4, 2018.  Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images.

Anton Mardasov Aug 27, 2020 AL MONITOR – Russia’s dialogue with Iran has emerged as one of the most dynamic fronts of Moscow’s diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Moscow twice this summer — first in June and then in July — to discuss the future of the nuclear deal, as well as the coordinated response to the American campaign to extend the UN arms embargo on Tehran.

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : IRAN FLAUNTS NEW MISSILE AND JET ENGINE TECHNOLOGY

by Farzin Nadimi  – PolicyWatch 3372 August 28, 2020

Although many of the recently unveiled systems are foreign copies or have unproven capabilities, they show a substantial indigenous development capacity that will only accelerate once the UN ban on weapons sales is lifted—even if past sanctions snap back into action.

On August 20, Iran took the unusual step of holding its annual “Defense Industry Day” events earlier than planned in order to coincide with UN Security Council deliberations on two key issues: the soon-to-expire ban on weapons transactions with the regime, and the U.S. threat to reactivate all past sanctions by triggering the nuclear deal’s snapback mechanism.

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWS: The Revolutionary Guards: The Anatomy of a State Terrorist Organization

By Dr. Reza Parchizadeh August 26, 2020 – Iranian MPs in IRGC uniforms, photo by Mohammadreza Abbasi via Mehr News Agency CC

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,709, August 26, 2020 ISRAEL

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was originally intended by the Islamist regime to be an ideologically oriented militia that would compensate for the regular Iranian army’s lack of revolutionary zeal. It has since replaced the regular army as Iran’s main military force and has spent decades working doggedly to export the regime’s Islamist brand of imperialism and conquest to the rest of the region and around the world. The IRGC is responsible, either directly or indirectly, for most of the worst terrorist outrages the world has ever seen. The US declared the Guards a state terrorist organization in 2019, but it needs to be completely dismantled.

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWS ANALYSIS : Why Iran Is Turning East

By Emil AvdalianiAugust 26, 2020 – Ali Khamenei and Xi Jinping, – BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,711, August 26, 2020 – ISRAEL

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: US pressure might have been an immediate impetus behind the recently leaked Iran-China deal, but the two states have deep historical and ideological ties that drive them together. With that said, the Iranian regime’s ultimate goals will not allow for outsized Chinese influence. Any attempts by Beijing to thwart Iran’s progress toward those goals will not be tolerated by Tehran, meaning the success of the deal is far from guaranteed.

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWWS : ONLY TRUMP IS THOUGH !

 

 

Monday, August 24, 2020
U.S. STRUGGLES TO END IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
  • The Trump administration is likely to fail in its efforts to end the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement by re-imposing all United Nations sanctions.
  • A U.S. declaration that U.N. sanctions are back in force will not attract significant international cooperation.
  • Iran is likely to remain in the nuclear deal on the expectation that the U.S. move will fail or be reversed after the U.S. election.
  • The United States has little leverage to compel Russia and China to refrain from proceeding with new arms sales to Iran.

 
On August 20, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered to the current U.N. Security Council president, Indonesia, a formal complaint that Iran is in material breach of its obligations under the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA). Under the JCPOA and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, a material breach complaint by a JCPOA ‘participant’ (defined in the Resolution as Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China) can trigger the re-imposition of all United Nations sanctions that were in effect prior to the JCPOA. The sanctions are to go back into effect within 30 days unless the Council passes a resolution continuing the sanctions relief – a resolution the United States can veto. To justify the U.S. action, Pompeo presented the Council president a State Department legal brief arguing that the U.S. ‘participant’ status in the accord did not legally end when the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018. The U.S. action came days after the Security Council overwhelmingly voted down a U.S. draft resolution to indefinitely extend the U.N. ban on arms transfers to or from Iran. The ban remained in place after the JCPOA was signed but was set by Resolution 2231 to expire on October 18, 2020, and the Trump administration has been threatening to invoke the broad sanctions snapback if the Security Council refused to extend that embargo.

The international reaction to the U.S. snapback trigger was universally negative. The three European parties to the JCPOA, and the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell separately, issued statements directly refuting the U.S. assertion of standing to trigger the sanctions snapback. According to the British, German, and French joint statement: ‘…the US ceased to be a participant to the JCPOA following their withdrawal on 8 May, 2018. Our position regarding the effectiveness of the US notification pursuant to Resolution 2231 has consistently been very clearly expressed to the Presidency and all UNSC members. We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA.’ That reaction, similar to those issued by Russia and China, indicates that a U.S. declaration that U.N. sanctions are back into effect will be challenged and not implemented by virtually any government.

A major question is whether Iran reacts by withdrawing entirely from the JCPOA. Some suggest that the Trump administration is attempting to trigger the sanctions snapback with the expectation that Iran will withdraw from the accord and that the JCPOA will dissolve entirely – making it difficult to resurrect even if former Vice President Joe Biden is elected president in the November 2020 U.S. presidential election. However, Iran’s immediate reaction has been muted. Iran’s leaders undoubtedly calculate that they are benefitting from U.S. isolation on this issue, that additional sanctions will not actually be imposed, and that the United States might return to the JCPOA after the U.S. presidential election, depending on the election outcome. Iran has long claimed that its nuclear violations since 2019 are ‘reversible’ if sanctions pressure on Iran ends.

The longer term question is how the Trump administration, particularly if it receives a second term, will react to broad international rejection of its assertion that U.N. sanctions are back in effect. The United States has historically been reluctant to sanction U.S. allies in Europe. And, although the European countries have clearly indicated that they will not recognize the U.S. snapback action, the European countries will likely still abide by a longstanding European Union policy not to sell arms or militarily useful technology to Iran. Conversely, Russia and China are not U.S. allies and are eager to sell arms to Iran, but they also are major powers over which the United States has little leverage. Both countries are likely to proceed with planned new sales of combat aircraft, tanks, and naval vessels to Iran unless, perhaps, the Trump administration is willing to offer significant U.S. concessions on other bilateral issues.

 

MESOPOTAMIA NEWS BACKGROUND : IRAN’S CAUTIOUS RESPONSE TO WASHINGTON’S SNAPBACK THREAT

by Omer Carmi PolicyWatch 3370 August 21, 2020

Instead of playing hardball, the entire regime is seemingly embracing the more prudent approach of disregarding the U.S. threat and exploiting the resultant diplomatic clash for political gains.

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : EUROPAS FRIEDENSPOLITKER FÜR WEITERE WAFFENEXPORTE AN IRAN / POMPEO NICHT !

STREIT ÜBER IRAN-ATOMABKOMMEN: Amerika vergrault die Europäer

Washington möchte alle UN-Sanktionen gegen Iran wiederherstellen und beruft sich auf das Atomabkommen. Aus dem haben sich die Vereinigten Staaten aber zurückgezogen. Deutschland, Frankreich und Großbritannien sind verärgert.

In dem Ringen um den Erhalt oder die Austilgung des Atomabkommens (JCPoA) mit Iran haben sich die drei europäischen Teilnehmerstaaten Deutschland, Frankreich und Großbritannien jetzt offen gegen die amerikanische Regierung gestellt.

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MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : BAGDAD – ANKARA – ERBIL = ALL AGAINST KURDISH PKK !

Wan: Neuer Mauerbau an der Grenze zu Ostkurdistan

Der türkische Staat baut an der Grenze nach Ostkurdistan eine neue Mauer. Diese Mauer in der Provinz Wan soll offiziell Schutzsuchende am Passieren der Grenze hindern, dient aber eigentlich als Kriegsprojekt.

  • ANF  WAN –  Donnerstag, 20 Aug 2020, 10:26 – Die nordkurdische Provinz Wan grenzt direkt an Ostkurdistan. Durchschnitten wird Kurdistan hier durch die türkisch-iranische Grenze. Diese Grenze wird immer stärker militarisiert.
  • Zwischen Ebex (türk. Çaldıran) und Bazîd (Doğubayazıt) werden Dutzende Militärbasen gebaut. Ein großer Teil der Grenzlinie in den Provinzen Agirî (Ağrı) und Wan ist mittlerweile mit einer Mauer abgesperrt. Die Aufrüstung der Grenze wurde zu einem wichtigen Anteil aus EU-Beitrittshilfen bezahlt. Die Türkei hat mit Stand Juli 2019 neun Milliarden Euro EU-Beitrittshilfen erhalten. Nach Angaben der Bundesregierung wurde ein Teil der Beträge für den „Grenzschutz in den östlichen Provinzen“ verwendet. Beträge für den „Grenzschutz“ fließen nicht nur in Mauern, Überwachungssysteme und Militärbasen, sondern auch in Panzerfahrzeuge wie zum Beispiel die „Kobras“.

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