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Iran will continue reducing its commitments under its 2015 nuclear deal until it reaches the "desired result," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday, according to his official website. "We will continue the reduction of commitments," Khamenei said in a meeting with commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guards. "The responsibility is with the Atomic Energy Organization and they must be carry out the reduction ...in a precise, complete and comprehensive way and continue until the time we reach a desired result."
The brother of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran was sentenced to five years in prison on corruption charges, the state news media reported on Tuesday, and four people were sentenced in another case on charges of spying for the United States and Britain, with one person facing the death penalty. The penalties added to the perception that Mr. Rouhani is under increasing pressure in Iran, where he won elections in 2013 and 2017 partly on promises to curb corruption and end the country's prolonged economic isolation.
When Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted pictures of himself video-chatting with the country's United Nations envoy, who is in a New York hospital fighting cancer, he wanted to highlight U.S. travel restrictions on him and gain sympathy at a time of heightened tensions with the United States. Instead, many Iranians living abroad reminded Zarif on social media that they face similar restrictions due to repression in the Islamic republic of Iran that makes it risky for them to visit their homeland.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Calls for the European Union to pursue a cohesive, unitary foreign policy are growing, and it is not difficult to understand why. Member states have traditionally conducted their foreign affairs unilaterally, but for many Europhiles, this seems increasingly untenable in a world of contracting globalisation, geopolitical friction and bellicose nationalism. Just last year, German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron gave support to the idea of a 'European security council,' while the latter even floated the question of creating a "true, European army."
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that Iran supports a plan by European countries to bolster a nuclear deal that Tehran reached with the West in 2015 and from which the United States withdrew last year. Rouhani said the plan included preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, securing its support for regional peace, lifting U.S. sanctions and the immediate resumption of Iranian oil exports. Speaking during a weekly cabinet meeting, Rouhani said: "We agree with the general framework by the Europeans."
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Iranians in Turkey are finding ways to sidestep laws in their home country to buy properties and get Turkish passports, hoping to protect their savings even as the United States ramps up sanctions on Iran. As they find ways around Iran's money-transfer restrictions, the spike in home-buying has propelled Iranians to become Turkey's second-largest foreign property buyers, behind only Iraqis. Hundreds of professional Iranians have been forced to make "dodgy money transfers" simply to get by, said one former electrician shop owner who now helps his countrymen buy homes in Istanbul.
The energy market must be non-political in order to prevent interference, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Wednesday, according to the official IRNA news agency. "The energy market must be non-political in order to prevent unilateral and illegal interference," Zanganeh said upon arrival in Moscow for a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).
Iran is building a $1.8 billion oil pipeline to its port of Jask outside the mouth of the Gulf, the country's oil minister said, as part of plans to protect its exports against potential problems in the region and to boost shipments of Caspian oil. Iran has been planning since at least 2012 to set up the terminal on the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused the US administration of using the Dollar as a weapon and demanded that the international community confront American "unilateralism." Rouhani's comments came in an address at the summit of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Tuesday. The leader is partaking in the summit at a time his country is suffering economically due to the maximum pressure policy imposed by the Trump administration.
The mixed messages that Iran received from the U.S. about sanctions undermine the possibility of bilateral talks, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, in a speech broadcast live on state TV. It was not acceptable for U.S. President Donald Trump to say in public that he would intensify sanctions while European powers were telling the Islamic Republic in private that he was willing to negotiate, Rouhani said. European powers were continuing efforts to arrange talks, Rouhani said.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani left President Trump hanging concerning a secret Sept. 24 phone call between the two world leaders brokered by French President Emmanuel Macron, said a New York Times report published Monday. Trump had expressed the desire for a phone call, if not an actual meeting, with the Iranian leader during the U.N. General Assembly, but Rouhani held steadfast in refusing to even speak to Trump before sanctions have been lifted.
The international community must confront America's hostile approach, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday as tensions have spiked between the Islamic Republic and the United States. "The international co
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