Secretary of State Antony Blinken has sought to take pressure off the US by saying that it will become “very hard” to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement if negotiations in Vienna continue without progress.
Washington is dragging its feet on removing sanctions despite having declared that it is ready to undo the wrongs of the former Trump administration which abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018.
(24.06.2021)
Indirect U.S. negotiations with Iran over reviving the 2015 nuclear deal cannot go on “indefinitely”without success, a senior State Department official said following the completion in Vienna of a sixth round of talks.
“We’ve made progress” and “the Iranians have been serious,” the official said in a briefing for reporters Thursday. “But we do have differences, and if we can’t bridge them in the foreseeable future, we’re going to have to regroup.”
The report, confirmed by administration officials to the paper, said that the Pentagon will withdraw around eight Patriot antimissile batteries from countries including Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. will also reduce the number of fighter jet squadrons in Saudi Arabia, as well as ordering the removal of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, from the kingdom.
Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Jamal Orf said 28.6 million Iranians participated in the election, and with around 90% of the votes counted, Raeisi garnered over 17.8 million votes, followed by Mohsen Rezaei who secured 3.3 million.
Nasser Hemmati garnered 2.4 million votes, and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi won almost one million votes.
Der scheidende Präsident Hassan Rouhani hatte bereits erklärt, dass der Sieger der Abstimmung vom Freitag klar sei. Raisi hatte die Wahl vor vier Jahren gegen den gemäßigten Rouhani noch verloren. Dieser durfte nach zwei Amtsperioden nicht mehr antreten.
Ebrahim Raisi, the frontrunner, is particularly controversial. Head of the country‘s powerful judiciary, he led the crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2019, and he tolerates zero dissent. If elected, he would become the first Iranian president to take office with U.S.-imposed sanctions already listing him personally: He was sanctioned by the U.S. government over his involvement in a mass-execution of political prisoners almost three decades ago.
Die Macht des Präsidenten im Iran ist begrenzt, über ihm steht der auf Lebenszeit ernannte geistliche Führer. Der Wächterrat hatte ursprünglich sieben Kandidaten von mehr als 300 Bewerbern zugelassen – fünf Ultrakonservative und zwei Reformorientierte.
Principlist candidate Alireza Zakani has resigned from the 2021 presidential election in support of fellow contender Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, who enjoys the highest support among voters, according to opinion polls.
Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh, one of the Reformist candidates in Iran’s presidential election, has dropped out of the race, in what will likely boost the chances of fellow Reformist candidate Nasser Hemmati for election.
There are no problems at negotiations on the Iranian nuclear deal in Vienna, and the work on the final document will resume in the near future, Russia‘s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on the sidelines of the international forum of experts, diplomats, and decision makers Primakov Readings in Moscow on Wednesday.
“It’s one of the fastest negotiations ever between Iran and the Western states,” a European diplomat familiar with the talks told Haaretz.
“If in the past the Iranians submitted each interim agreement for the leadership’s approval in Tehran, a process that sometimes took several days, this time things are being done swiftly. Apparently the Iranian delegation has received wider latitude, but the American flexibility has undoubtedly also contributed a great deal.”
Chamenei hat laut Verfassung das letzte Wort in allen politischen Belangen und könnte daher auch eine Revision anordnen. Als Favorit gilt nun der erzkonservative Justizchef Ebrahim Raeissi, Kandidat der Hardliner. Er gilt zudem als Wunschkandidat des Establishments.
The report, titled “Council rejects those responsible for the status quo,” also included an image of Reformist candidate Mostafa Tajzadeh, but did not name him in the text.
„The US now has incredible leverage over Iran,“ former Trump national security advisor John Bolton told FRANCE 24. „If Biden gives it away, he will virtually guarantee that the sanctions will collapse, and ultimately Iran will get nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them both on Europe and on the United States.“
(15.05.2021)
Iran‘s judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and former parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani have registered to run in next month‘s presidential election.
The two conservatives, who have close ties with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are seen as the leading contenders to succeed Hassan Rouhani.
(05.05.2021)
On April 10, Khamenei told a grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late leader of the 1979 revolution, that he should not run. Hassan Khomeini, who had already chosen a well-known revolutionary catchphrase of his grandfather—”All of us together”—as his campaign slogan, had perhaps the best potential to increase turnout in the election and provide a victory to the embattled reformist-pragmatist camp.
With Khomeini out of the game, this faction convened in late April to choose alternative candidates.
Iranian lead delegate Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the issues that needed resolution were difficult. Araqchi said Iran is standing firm on its position that the US needs to fully lift all sanctions in a verifiable manner before Tehran can take action to come back to full compliance with the JCPOA.
Reports indicate that though the US has agreed to ease sanctions on various sectors like oil and gas, banking, shipping and insurance there are still differences on sanctioned individuals and entities including Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).