US Secretary of State, IAEA Chief Discuss Iran’s Nuclear Program

The Secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, Kazem Gharibabadi, accused Western countries of influencing the decisions of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council – and reiterated that the Council does not recognize the Council’s fact-finding mission.

The Iranian regime uses its High Council to defend itself against international criticism for human rights abuses.

“By complying with the political and mostly illegitimate demands of Western countries in 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Council has caused more suffering to the victims of human rights violations and become a tool for political interference [in other countries’ affairs,” Gharibabadi said in response to the UN fact-finding mission’s preliminary report published on March 8.

Established by the UN human rights council in November 2022, in response to the widespread Woman, Life, Freedom protests that engulfed the nation, the fact-finding mission primarily centers on Iran's nationwide 2022-2023 protests. Its experts have expressed regrets over the Iranian authorities' lack of meaningful cooperation, despite repeated requests for information, including details regarding the killing and injury of security forces, as well as their denial of access to the country and its people.

In contrast, Gharibabadi referred to the mandate of the fact-finding mission, claiming that Iran “deals responsibly” with matters related to “riots in the country” while underlining that President Ebrahim Raisi appointed a national committee to investigate the “riots.”

The country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, along with Iranian officials, have consistently dismissed the characterization of the uprising as peaceful, instead arbitrarily labeling protesters as "rioters" and accusing them of engaging in "terrorist acts."

Regime denies deliberately shooting protesters' faces

In November 2022, more than 370 ophthalmologists reported that numerous protesters struck by rubber bullets, metal pellets, and paintball bullets fired at close range during the protests were treated at medical centers. Many suffered permanent loss of eyesight in one or both eyes.

Backing up those reports, the fact-finding mission’s investigation found that “security forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force which resulted in the unlawful killing and injuries of protestors. A pattern of extensive injuries to protesters’ eyes caused the blinding of scores of women, men and children, branding them for life. The Mission also found evidence of extrajudicial killings.”

Moreover, the report highlighted that female protesters had been deliberately singled out due to their gender. They were subjected to close-range shootings aimed at their faces and genitals.

“A witness, who lost the sight in one eye, recalled a member of the security forces directing a paintball gun loaded with rubber bullets to the head from 1 m away. The mission notes the deterrent and chilling effect of such injuries, as they permanently marked the victims, essentially “branding” them as protesters. In a context where protests are effectively criminalized, the mission is satisfied that such an effect was intended,” the report read.

“These acts form part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Iran, namely against women, girls, boys and men who have demanded freedom, equality, dignity and accountability,” said Sara Hossain, chair of the UN fact-finding mission.

Human rights organizations have compiled the names of at least 550 protesters, including 68 children, who were killed by security forces.

The full 400-page report is scheduled to be published on March 18th.

The plane, most likely a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, was originally built in 1995 for Italy. It was later used by Ukraine for 19 years and then by Kam Air, an Afghan airline. It has been acquired by Iranian airline Kish Air, the paper claimed.

The article by Aftab-e Yazd also criticized the Raisi administration which has claimed it has added 90 planes to the country's fleet, saying that 50 of them were old planes that have been repaired in Iran.

The article quipped, "Let's just pray” that Iran only bought one 29-year-old Kam Air aircraft and the remaining 49 are procured from other sources.

The purchase of the plane comes just two months after Airbus, the European aerospace giant, officially canceled a major deal to sell Iran 100 planes. The deal was worth an estimated $30 billion and was seen as a key part of Iran's efforts to modernize its fleet after the lifting of sanctions as part of the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA). A few airbus planes were delivered but the Trump administration never approved sale of US planes until Washington withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions.

Iran has suffered from shortages of civilian airliners since the 1990s. The sanctions have made it almost impossible for Iran to purchase new aircraft or spare parts from Western companies. To compensate, Iran resorted to leasing older planes or procuring spare parts through intermediaries. However, the technical state of their fleet has steadily deteriorated over time.

As a result, Iran's fleet has become increasingly old and unreliable. The average age of Iran's planes is now over 25 years, and many of them are in need of major repairs.

In July 2023, Mohammad Mohammadi-Bakhsh, the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization, said that Iran currently needs 550 planes, but only has 180.

In his press briefing on Thursday, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller highlighted the “extremely concerning human rights abuses” that the reports documented, including killings, imprisonment, torture, and sexual violence.

“We strongly support the resolution under consideration at the UN Human Rights Council that renews mandate – renews mandates for the fact-finding mission and the special rapporteur on human rights in Iran for another year,” Miller added.

Tehran has dismissed the report, reiterating that it does not recognize the UN group. The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) was established by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in November 2022, two months after the Woman, Life, Freedom protests swept Iran in response to the death in morality-police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

Miller further condemned the “illegitimate activities by the Iranian Government,” noting that the Biden administration has imposed sanctions on more than 500 Iranian entities.

However, he defended a recent waiver signed by the White House that will allow Iran to continue selling electricity to Iraq, emphasizing that no money is permitted to enter Iran under the terms of this waiver. “All of these funds are held in restricted accounts and they can only be used for transactions for the purchase of food, medicine, medical devices, agricultural products, and other non-sanctionable transactions.”

He also reiterated that Iran is always going to fund terrorism and it is always going to fund destabilizing activities. “We have held Iran accountable for its support of terrorism and its funding of dangerous proxy groups around the region, and we’ll continue to do so.”

In Beirut, Quds chief Esmail Ghaani (Qaani) met Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, multiple sources told Reuters, for at least the third time since Hamas' deadly October 7 attacks on southern Israel and Israel's devastating retaliatory assault on Gaza.

The conversation turned to the possibility of a full Israeli offensive against Hezbollah on its northern border. As well as damaging the Shiite Islamist group, such an escalation could pressure Iran to react more forcefully than it has so far since October, three of the sources, Iranians within the inner circle of power, said.

Over the past five months, Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, has shown support for Hamas in the form of limited volleys of rockets fired across Israel's northern border.

At the previously unreported meeting, Nasrallah reassured Ghaani he didn't want Iran to get sucked into a war with Israel or the United States and that Hezbollah would fight on its own, all the sources said.

"This is our fight," Nasrallah told Ghaani, said one Iranian source with knowledge of the discussions. It is not clear why Iranian sources would share this information with Western media at this juncture, as Israel continues to hit selected Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Calibrated to avoid a major escalation, the skirmishes in Lebanon have nonetheless pushed tens of thousands of people from their homes either side of the border. Israeli strikes have killed more than 200 Hezbollah fighters and some 50 civilians in Lebanon, while attacks from Lebanon into Israel have killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and six civilians.

In recent days, Israel's counter-strikes have increased in intensity and reach, fuelling fears the violence could spin out of control.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant indicated in February that Israel planned to increase attacks to decisively remove Hezbollah fighters from the border in the event of a Gaza ceasefire, although he left the door open for diplomacy.

In 2006, Israel fought a short but intense air and ground war with Hezbollah that was devastating for Lebanon.

Israeli security sources have said previously that Israel did not seek any spread of hostilities but added that the country was prepared to fight on new fronts if needed. An all-our war on its northern border would stretch Israel’s military resources.

Iran and Hezbollah are mindful of the grave perils of a wider war in Lebanon, two of the sources aligned with the views of the government in Tehran told Reuters, including the danger it could spread and lead to strikes on Iran's nuclear installations.

The Beirut meeting highlights strain on Iran's strategy of avoiding major escalation in the region while projecting strength and support for Gaza across the Middle East through allied armed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, analysts said.

Yemen’s Houthis have so far done more damage in support of Hamas by launching dozens of missile and drone attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea region. The attacks began in November after Iran’s Ali Khamenei called on Muslims to blockade Israel.

Ghaani and Nasrallah "want to further insulate Iran from the consequences of supporting an array of proxy actors throughout the Middle East." Jon Alterman of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank told Reuters.

"Probably because they assess that the possibility of military action in Lebanon is increasing and not decreasing."

IN ISRAEL'S SIGHTS

Ghaani and Nasrallah between them hold sway over tens of thousands of fighters and a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles. They are main protagonists in Tehran's network of allies and proxy militias, with Ghaani's elite Quds Force acting as the foreign legion of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

While Hezbollah has publicly indicated it would halt attacks on Israel when the Israeli offensive in Gaza stops, US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein said last week a Gaza truce would not automatically trigger calm in southern Lebanon.

Arab and Western diplomats report that Israel has expressed strong determination to no longer allow the presence of Hezbollah's main fighters along the border, fearing an attack similar to Hamas' incursion that killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages.

"If there is a ceasefire in (Gaza), there are two schools of thought in Israel and my impression is that the one that would recommend continuing the war on the border with Hezbollah is the stronger one," Sima Shine, a former Israeli intelligence official who is currently head of the Iran program at the Institute for National Security Studies, told Reuters.

A senior Israeli official agreed that Iran was not seeking a full-blown war, noting Tehran's restrained response to Israel's offensive on Hamas.

"It seems that they feel they face a credible military threat. But that threat may need to become more credible," the official said.

"FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE"

A war in Lebanon that seriously degrades Hezbollah would be a major blow for Iran, which relies on the group founded with its support in 1982 as a bulwark against Israel and to buttress its interests in the broader region, two regional sources said.

An Iranian security official speaking to Reuters acknowledged however that the costs of such an escalation could be prohibitively high for Iran's allied groups. Direct involvement by Iran, he added, could serve Israel's interests, and provide justification for the continued presence of US troops in the region.

Given Tehran's extensive, decades-long ties with Hezbollah, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to put distance between them, one US official said.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel, Iran has given its blessing to actions in support of its ally in Gaza, but it has stopped well short of an unfettered multi-front war on Israel that Hamas had likely expected Iran to support after October 7.

Before the Beirut encounter with Nasrallah, Qaani chaired a two-day meeting in Iran in early February along with militia commanders of operations in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, three Hezbollah representatives and a Houthi delegation, one Iranian official told Reuters.

Revolutionary Guard's Commander-in-Chief Major General Hossein Salami was also present, the official said. Hamas did not attend.

"At the end, all the participants agreed that Israel wanted to expand the war and falling in that trap should be avoided as it will justify the presence of more US troops in the region,” the official said.

Shortly after, Qaani engineered a pause in attacks by the Iraqi groups. So far, Hezbollah has kept its tit-for-tat responses within what observers have called unwritten rules of engagement with Israel.

According to the Iranian insider, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not inclined to see a war unfold on Iran, where domestic discontent with the ruling system last year spilled over into mass protests.

Russians, Iranians, Iraqis, and Ukrainians were the top buyers of Turkish real estate in February, according to TÜİK data.

Foreign nationals purchased 2% of all homes sold in Turkey in February, with Iranians accounting for 200 units, second to Russians with 395. Iranians used to be on top of the list before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that led to many Russians leaving the country.

Overall, home sales to foreigners decreased by 44.9% in February compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching 1,846 units. Istanbul was the most popular destination for foreign buyers, followed by Antalya.

The decline in home sales to foreigners is likely due to a number of factors, including the ongoing economic crisis in Turkey and rising inflation. The Turkish lira has lost a significant amount of value against the US dollar in recent years with the currency hitting a historic low in March, with real prices rising faster.

Despite the decline, Turkey remains a popular destination for foreign buyers, attracted by its mild climate, and strategic location.

A senior member of Iran’s parliament said in October 2021 that Iranians bought $7 billion of real estate in Turkey in about three years from 2018 to 2020, with estimates of 3,000 residential units every year.

Iran's Real Estate Consultants Association said in June 2023 that a significant number of housing developers have migrated to Turkey and Georgia, warning of the impact on the local economy.

By buying property in Turkey, Iranians try to protect their capital as the country’s currency keeps falling and hope. They also hope to gain Turkish citizenship and be able to do business without being restricted by US sanctions, which make it hard for Iranians to even open bank accounts in other countries.