Saudi King Expresses Concern Over Iran's 'Lack Of Cooperation'
Saudi Arabia's King Salman has expressed concern about Iran's lack of cooperation with the international community on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman has expressed concern about Iran's lack of cooperation with the international community on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
King Salman bin Abdulaziz said in an address to the kingdom's advisory Shura Council on Wednesday that he hoped Iran would change its "negative" behavior in the region and choose dialogue and cooperation.
"We follow with concern the Iranian government’s policy which is destabilizing regional security and stability, including building and backing sectarian armed militias and propagating its military power in other countries," the 85-old ruler said in a speech published by state news agency SPA.
"(We follow with concern) its lack of cooperation with the international community regarding its nuclear program and its development of ballistic missiles," he added.
Saudi Arabia, a major Western ally in the Gulf, has been locked in a bitter rivalry with Iran across the Middle East where both sides have backed opposing factions in several conflicts including in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
The two countries broke diplomatic ties in early 2016 when mobs in Iran attacked and ransacked the Saudi embassy.
In a step to ease tensions, Saudi and Iranian officials met in a series of direct talks earlier this year but they have yet to yield a breakthrough.
After intense talks in Vienna for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal more observers in Iran expressed optimism on Wednesday that an agreement might be within reach.
International relations analyst Ali Bigdeli told the Iranian Labour News Agency ILNA that Iran is determined to reach results in the negotiations, adding that Tehran has reduced its expectations to make sure that it can achieve an agreement.
Meanwhile, Foreign policy commentator and former chief of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Relations Committee, Hershmatollah Falahatpisheh has said in an interview with Fararu news website in Tehran that "there is a higher likelihood for reaching an agreement although it will be difficult."
Falahatpisheh, who sounded more cautious, said that "generally both Iran and the United States are determined to reach an agreement, while some other JCPOA member states try to disrupt a possible deal."
Iran's top officials are silent about the matter but reports on the website of the official news agency IRNA are also optimistic about a positive change in Vienna.
However, both the United States and its three European allies in the talks sounded much more guarded on Tuesday, saying Iran is not negotiating with sufficient speed.
According to Ali Bigdeli, Iran is adamant to make the talks fruitful and has adopted a softer position. He added that that the Iranian negotiating team in Vienna is more concerned about manoeuvres by hardliners in Tehran than being mindful of what the other sides in the negotiations might say about various issues.
Like most commentators who have talked about the Vienna negotiations during the past week, Bigdeli also agreed that indirect talks with the United States has not been constructive and Iran and America should begin to directly speak with each other. He noted that when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was being hammered out, US secretary of state John Kerry and Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif were the ones who met face-to-face and made the final deal.
Bigdeli said that indirect nature of talks with the US and the influence of Iran's hardliners in Tehran are the two factors that have delayed reaching an agreement in the Vienna talks.
However, international and regional developments as well as the economic crisis in Iran make agreement with the United States an urgent matter, he said.
Meanwhile, Falahatpisheh mentioned the interests of other JCPOA member states as another obstacle in the Vienna talks. He said that France is mainly concerned about winning contracts with Arab states in the region rather than being focused on the JCPOA talks. He added that sometimes the French delegates appear to represent Israel rather than France. Falahatpisheh added that even China and Russia look at the Vienna talks and the JCPOA as a means of securing their own interests.
The former lawmaker added that the current situation is the product of Iran's miscalculations. Iran got the Europeans and others involved in the talks because Iran's hardliners had turned direct negotiations with America into a taboo.
In fact, direct negotiations with the United States has been banned by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei since 2018.
Falahatpisheh said: "I believe Iran and America are enemies, but they are reasonable enough to solve their confrontation through diplomacy rather than by other means." He said that other players in the JCPOA were involved in the talks as mediators, but they follow their own interests rather than seeking to resolve problems between Iran and the United States.
He stressed that what serves Iran's interests is reducing tensions with the `United States.
Iran says Qasem Soleimani was assassinated with the direct order of former US president Donald Trump, vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a tweet on Wednesdaythat the killing of the IRGC’s Qods (Quds) force commander was an epitome of “state terrorism”.
As the country is getting ready to hold ceremonies for the second anniversary of Soleimani’s killing threats and rhetoric by Iranian officials have increased. Iran Is planning a long list of events lasting ten days to mark Soleimani’s “martyrdom”. He was killed by a US drone strike on January 3, 2020, as he arrived in Baghdad.
Last week, the head of Iran’s Judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, renewed vows to avenge Soleimani’s killing, saying that it will definitely happen, and it will be harsh.
A lot of high-ranking Iranian military personnel and political figures, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have promised revenge for the Soleimani's targeted killing.
“They must know that whenever possible, at the appropriate time, they must face revenge”, Khamenei said some two weeks before the first anniversary of his killing.
Iran has listed a host of US and Israeli officials as responsible for carrying out the attack.
Israel is considering several scenarios for an attack on Iran, with its military saying it can act immediately if it received the go ahead from the government.
According to Haaretz on Wednesday, Israel has allocated an extra $2.9 billion to its military budget for the sole purpose of attacking the Islamic Republic.
Military intelligence and more advanced cyber security systems for a more effective list of targets, as well as acquiring new weapons and conducting air force exercises are some measures to better prepare for a possible attack on Iran.
Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi has said that “The IDF’s ability to maneuver has improved considerably, built on our ability to transfer quality intelligence to troops, increasing the number of armaments and personnel...”
In a document presented to the political leadership, the Israeli military has prepared several scenarios with different targets, but it stresses that it is not easy to assess how Tehran would react or to predict the outcome of the attacks on Iran’s nuclear program.
In their scenarios, Israel is also getting ready to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip as consequences of the attack on Iran.
Israel is also spending nearly $300 million to build a fence along the Lebanese border that will include high-tech military equipment able to thwart any attempt to breach it.
For the potential threats from the Gaza strip, the military has taken another approach. It said that the current relative calm between Israel and Gaza is mainly the result of transferring civilian aid to people of the enclave, adding that the IDF intends to allow even more goods to enter the coastal strip in the coming year.
The IDF has also expanded it talks with Hamas on exchanging prisoners and returning the bodies of Israeli soldiers that are been held by the group.
Tuesday night, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz hosted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Rosh Ha’ayin, probably to discuss the Palestinians’ possible response following an attack on Iran.
Israel is also increasing its military cooperation with Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece and some Persian Gulf countries that could guaranty greater legitimacy for an attack to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb and contain its support for the militant groups in the region. According to IDF estimates presented to the government, Iran can build a nuclear bomb in about two years.
To counter Iran’s growing arsenal of ballistic missiles, Israel has also signed several contracts in the past year to improve its air defense system, already one of the best in the world.
The Israeli military has also boosted the level of its attacks on Iran’s shipments of munitions to its proxy forces, with the IDF claiming that it stopped about 70 percent of the flow of arms from Iran, Syria, and Iraq into Lebanon.
The attacks have probably hindered Iran’s transfer of complex weaponry to its supporters because now Tehran must make the shipments very smaller, sometimes so small that can be transferred by civilian airline flights.
During its recent massive military drills, Iran simulated an attack against Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor, which included launching 16 ballistic missiles and five suicide drones.
The Iranian military has said the wargames carried a stark warning to “threats made by the Zionist regime’s officials” while some in Iran believe they were meant to give bargaining power to Iran’s nuclear negotiators in Vienna.
Rhetoric has intensified between Iran and Israel in recent weeks as nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers have resumed in Vienna. Israel has vowed that if Iran's nuclear program reaches a stage close to production of weapons, it will act regardless of an agreement between world powers and Tehran.
Iran’s deputy minister for industry and trade has said that bank seizures of companies and factories has increased this year, amid a deepening economic crisis.
Mehdi Niyazi told local media that from April to September 1,793 industrial and trading companies were seized by banks after they failed to make loan payments. Most banks in Iran are fully or partly state owned.
Niyazi added that over 60 percent of companies in Iran have financial problems because of high inflation, estimated to be close to 50 percent and lack of finance.
He explained that many companies after seizure of ownership by banks stopped operations, a situation that would increase an already high unemployment rate. One bank that just last year had 60 companies under its receivership now has ownership of 160 firms.
The deputy minister partly blamed high interest rates the banks charge for the insolvency of companies struggling amid sanctions and an economic crisis.
Iran’s weak economy took a turn for worse in 2018 when the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement and imposed tough sanctions on the country.
After eighth months of diplomatic attempts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran is still refusing to sit down with the United States, the main party to the dispute.
The diplomatic process involves the slow and indirect route via the three European countries in the talks, and possibly others, carrying messages back and forth between American and Iranian negotiators.
In an interview published by reformist website Etemad Online on Tuesday, December 28, a former Iranian diplomat and nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian has said that the United States might show flexibility on some matters in direct talks.
Mousavian argued that the United States will not give any concessions to Iran through mediators. Direct talks will lead to fewer misunderstandings and a quicker pace in negotiations.
The former diplomat, who lives in the United States and is a visiting scholar at Princeton University, maintained that Iran's decision to hold indirect talks with America is “understandable at this juncture,” but this will delay reaching results. On the other hand, Iran's experience in more than a decade of negotiations with the United States indicates that even if America is prepared to give concessions, it will not do so via mediators.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mousavian revealed that while he was ambassador in Germany in the 1990s, he and other European ambassadors had orders to try to de-couple Western Europe from the United States in matters related to Iran. But he stressed that the strategy of "Europe without America failed," adding that "the United States is much more powerful than Europe, and in fact, the United States is the leader and Europe follows it."
Mousavian asked, " Did Russia, China and Europe fulfil their commitments under the JCPOA after the United States pulled out?" and answered: "No country in the Eastern or Western bloc stood by its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal."
He also maintained that all countries attach more significance to their ties with the United States than to their relations with Iran. He said, "Other countries are not there to serve Iran's national interests. Instead, they try to serve their own national interests." Why should China cut off its several hundred-billion-dollar economic ties with the United States” when its trade with Iran is a fraction of that?
Meanwhile, Mousavian maintained that no US administration will fully implement the JCPOA. The reason for that is that our problems with the United States are not limited to the nuclear issue. Unfortunately, Iran does not have any powerful lobby in the United States. The Islamic Republic government's ability to use the potential of Iranian-Americans is below zero, Mousavian said. Nonetheless, he stressed that a good agreement could lead to the full implementation of the JCPOA.
He also pointed out that Saudi Arabia and Israel continue to oppose the revival of the JCPOA and want the United States to discuss issues beyond the nuclear issue with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
During the interview, Mousavian repeated recent accusations in Iran’s government-controlled media that France is playing an obstructive role in the negotiations. He even added that in 2014, it was the United States that stopped France when Paris put forward excessive demands.
Expressing his support for direct talks with Washington, Mousavian said: "We reached the same conclusion in the early 2010s and realized that after ten years of negotiations with world powers minus America, we did not get anywhere. And then, after one year of negotiating with America we reached an agreement to which the other five world powers also agreed. We cannot change the history."