Is The TAPI Pipeline Finally Ready To Go?
Zero Hedge | January 19, 2022
Submitted by James Durso, Managing Director of Corsair LLC, a supply chain consultancy.
The Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline has been long aborning, but its prospects recently got a shot in the arm.
The 1100-mile, $10 billion project has seen numerous delays since the pipeline consortium was announced in late 2014, though the project was first mooted in 1991. Construction started in early 2018 with a projected in-service date of 2021, but halted later that year after workers clearing the route were killed by unknown assailants. Also, the project’s $10 billion cost estimate is a decade old, and an update may cause further delay to the Asian Development Bank-funded effort that is now slated to resume work in September 2022. Turkmenistan will loan Afghanistan the funds for its share of the project, to be repaid from gas transit revenues.
Representatives of the government of Tajikistan recently met officials in Afghanistan, and the Taliban announcement that it will dedicate 30,000 troops to pipeline security may motivate the parties to start construction.
The completed pipeline will allow Turkmenistan to reduce its reliance on its biggest gas customer, China, which has recently taken most of Turkmenistan’s gas exports, though in 2021 the country doubled its gas exports to Russia, which used to be the biggest importer of Turkmen gas until it was displaced by China in 2010. The pipeline will generate additional income that Ashgabat can use to improve services to citizens, a priority after the recent unrest in neighboring Kazakhstan.
But there may be competing opportunities. For example, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan recently signed a trilateral gas swap deal for up to 2 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year. It’s not a large amount – Turkmenistan exports about 40bcm to China every year – but it’s another income stream that should be managed with an eye to future growth. Then there’s the possibility of a connection to the proposed Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP) to supply Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC). Connecting to the SGC would require a 200-mile subsea pipe between Baku and Türkmenba?y, but may face opposition from Iran and Russia on (probably spurious) environmental grounds. Once the politics are resolved, the project would likely be cheaper and carry less of a security burden than the overland TAPI route, and build on the January 2021 agreement between Baku and Ashgabat to jointly develop the Dostluq (“friendship”) oil and natural gas field in the Caspian Sea.
For Afghanistan, the project would provide transit fees of about $500 million per year, along with an annual share of 500 million cubic meters of gas for the first ten years, ultimately increasing to 1.5 bcm per year.
For the Taliban government, a successful project would: demonstrate it can be a reliable partner in a major infrastructure project, employ demobilized Taliban troops so they don’t defect to the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda, earn revenue to pay for electricity imports (the country relies on imports for 78% of its power), demonstrate to China it is safe to invest in Afghanistan, and be an opportunity for cooperation with Pakistan despite the dispute over their shared border.
Of course, Kabul will have to figure out what to do with that natural gas, in addition to its one trillion cubic feet of reserves. The U.S.-driven development plan for the country emphasized renewables, like solar and wind, and the U.S.-funded $335 million Tarakhil Power Plant near Kabul, which relied on expensive, imported diesel fuel, is now used as a back-up facility when hydropower and imported power aren’t available. An International Finance Corporation-sponsored 59-megawatt gas-to-power plant in Mazar-i-Sharif would have boosted the country’s current total domestic generation by up to 30 percent, but can it be revived under the Taliban?
And time is of the essence as Uzbekistan recently reduced its power exports by 60%, possibly due to increased domestic demand as winter sets in, possibly to nudge Kabul (or the UN) to start paying the $90 million owed to power suppliers in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran.
For Pakistan, the pipeline would help solve the country’s persistent energy shortfalls, such as the deficit between current gas production of 4 Billion Cubic Feet per Day (BCFD) against demand of 6 BCFD. By 2025, gas production is expected to fall to less 1 BCFD due to depletion of gas reserves while demand increases to 8 BCFD.
And Pakistan won’t have to wait to 2025 for an economic impact: Between 2008 and 2012, 40 percent of Pakistan’s textile sector moved to Bangladesh, one reason being the uneven supply of gas and electricity.
Then there’s Pakistan’s view of its regional interests and its endless search for “strategic depth.” The pipeline would be an independent source of revenue for Afghanistan, just when Pakistan feels the Taliban government should be beholden to it. And India would be able to increase the share of gas in its energy mix from 6.5% to 15%, possibly encouraging more trade between Kabul and New Delhi. To Islamabad, it will add to an already bad outcome: the ungrateful Taliban still aren’t helping Pakistan isolate the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, while India is expected to be the world’s fastest growing economy in 2022, according to the World Bank.
They say “all politics is local” and that may be the case here. One Pakistani observer, Hina Mahar Nadeem, noted the country’s gas shortfalls have a silver lining – for the interests that control the import of expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG). Accordingly, TAPI and the much-delayed (mostly by U.S. sanctions on Iran) Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline are a threat to their economic and political power.
In late 2020, Pakistan and Russia signed a deal to complete the 700-mile Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline, to move LNG from Port Qasim (Karachi) to Kasur, in the Punjab. Pakistan may be treating with Russia to balance against China, or maybe the deal was decided on strictly dollars-and-cents terms. Regardless, this project may crowd out attention and funding for Pakistan’s phase of TAPI.
A richer energy mix and pipeline transit revenues would strengthen Pakistan as it negotiates new efforts with China under the umbrella of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. Pakistan’s leaders will need to strengthen their position vis-à-vis China while demonstrating to Beijing they are a reliable partner that will develop energy resources that can accommodate China’s projects. But first, those leaders must take on entrenched business and national security interests to successfully support TAPI, despite the economic benefits to its neighbors. But this assumes the country’s leaders aren’t captive (willing or otherwise) to their business confederates and the securicrats.
For India, TAPI would add to the country’s energy mix, propelling its impressive economic growth. India is the world’s third-largest energy consuming country, and has doubled energy use since 2000, with 80% of demand still being met by coal, oil and solid biomass. TAPI gas would allow India to use less coal, helping it meet its COP26 carbon emission goal, and satisfy increased energy demand by 2030 of 25% to 35% according to the International Energy Agency.
India has built a connection for TAPI at Fazilka at the Indo-Pakistan border in the Punjab region, a location on the border with Pakistan that may be subject to cross-border attacks by Pakistan-affiliated groups. Will Pakistan or its proxies be able to resist attacking such a key piece of infrastructure if India-Pakistan relations fail to improve?
For India, the best approach may be “wait and see” if the U.S. threatens sanctions against TAPI partners, whether the Taliban can prove they know how to govern and secure the country against the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, and how serious is the announced Russia-Pakistan pipeline deal.
Where does this leave Turkmenistan?
It, too, should take it slow. It is no longer 2014, and it now has opportunities for increased swaps with Iran and Azerbaijan, and further opportunities with Iran may blossom if Tehran and Washington can secure a nuclear deal. The opportunity to connect to Europe via the TCP/SGC may present more revenue with fewer security concerns, or iffy partners like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Also, Washington needs to clear the way regarding sanctioned officials in Kabul, though the acting minister of defense, Mullah Muhammad Yaqub, who declared “I am directly responsible for and overseeing the security of the TAPI project” hasn’t been sanctioned by Washington… yet.
Washington might get behind TAPI in the wake of the recent deployment of Collective Security Treaty Organization peacekeeping troops to Kazakhstan, which has increased Russia’s clout in Central Asia. Increased revenue for Ashgabat that can be directed to services for its citizens may prevent the public unrest that gave Moscow an opening to intervene, and Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow may not need much convincing in this regard.
But it may serve Ashgabat well to ask Washington for a blanket sanctions exemption for all project principals and suppliers, and any government officials in the mix, to make it clear who bears responsibility if the project again fails to launch. If this happens, it will be a shabby way to treat ally India, and in Pakistan it will be interpreted as U.S. revenge against the country for supporting the Taliban.
The “push” of increased regional influence for Moscow and the “pull” of clean energy for ally India will hopefully make Washington green-light (or get out of the way of) the long-delayed project.
EU’s top court allows European firms to scrap Iran deals
Press TV – December 22, 2021
The EU’s supreme court has intervened to protect European companies against legal action by Iran for failing to fulfill their contractual obligations.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg has ruled that EU companies can end contracts with Iranian firms if upholding the deals would lead to “disproportionate economic loss” as a result of US sanctions.
The ruling was prompted by a lawsuit from the German branch of Iran’s Bank Melli against Deutsche Telekom after the telecommunications provider terminated a contract with the bank in 2018 prior to its expiry.
The decision effectively neutralizes a “blocking statute” that prohibited individuals and companies in the European Union from complying with US sanctions imposed in 2018 by then US president Donald Trump after he decided to withdraw unilaterally from the Iran nuclear deal.
As per their obligations under the nuclear deal, the Europeans issued the statute in order to keep Iran in the agreement, but companies in the bloc quickly severed ties rather than risk running afoul of the US.
Under the blocking statute, European firms must seek a legal exemption for withdrawing from Iran due to US sanctions and those failing to do so could be penalized by their governments. Firms, however, can twist the law if they claim that their withdrawal is a business decision.
The court on Tuesday paid lip service to the EU blocking statute in its ruling, saying “the prohibition imposed by EU law on complying with secondary sanctions laid down by the United States against Iran may be relied on in civil proceedings”.
But the judges also said the rules of the blocking statute “cannot infringe the freedom to conduct a business by leading to disproportionate economic loss”.
The Higher Regional Court in Hamburg will have to decide whether upholding the contract with Bank Melli would expose Deutsche Telekom to such a disproportionate economic loss.
Observers believe the decision is a foregone conclusion, given that Deutsche Telekom makes about half of its turnover with its US business.
The ECJ said the Hamburg judges must take into account that Deutsche Telekom did not apply for an exemption from the EU blocking statute’s rules.
Other European measures taken to maintain open trade channels with Iran have equally proven to be empty shells.
For example, Iranians have got almost nothing from the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement (SHTA) since it was launched in January 2020 with the support and consent of the US.
The Swiss trade channel much publicized by Washington as a purportedly secure way of delivering humanitarian assistance to Iran at a time of sanctions has failed to process even a single deal on Iranian medicine imports.
The channel was meant to find a way around the US sanctions to use Iranian funds deposited abroad to buy food and medicine for the country via the Swiss bank BCP.
However, companies seeking to participate in the scheme have found it very difficult to comply with the criteria set by the US government to avoid violating the general rules governing the sanctions, said the report.
Fabian Maienfisch, a spokesman for Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), which oversees the channel, has admitted in the past that the initiative had effectively failed to meet its objectives.
Such failures and the ECJ’s ruling prove statements by the Iranian government that the Europeans are disingenuous in dealing with the Islamic Republic.
The ruling comes as Iran and the Europeans continue negotiations in Vienna to find a way to remove the US sanctions.
A possible revival of the agreement would require the European companies to return to Iran and fulfill their obligations, but the EU court decision appears to be intentionally timed to provide them a leeway for further violations.
‘US is Utterly Dishonest’: Why Tehran Won’t Accept Partial Removal of Sanctions by Washington
By Ekaterina Blunova | Sputnik | December 16, 2021
Partial removal of sanctions by the US is not enough to facilitate the revival of the Iranian economy, hurt by the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policies, say Iran affairs experts, adding that under the new government Tehran is set to protect the country’s national interests more determinedly.
The United States signalled on 14 December that it is fully prepared to lift those sanctions against Iran that are inconsistent with Washington commitments under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That “would allow Iran to receive the economic benefits of the deal,” remarked Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, during a UN Security meeting.
For his part, Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi stressed that Washington should lift all sanctions slapped on Tehran and provide guarantees that it would not withdraw from the accords again and it would not abuse the procedures set out in the JCPOA and Resolution 2231.
‘All Anti-Iran Sanctions Have to be Lifted’
“The United States is being utterly dishonest,” says Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University, who was part of the Iranian delegation that helped to negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal. “All the sanctions are inconsistent with the 2015 nuclear deal. The maximum pressure campaign was targeting innocent women and children. It was an act of war and the objective was to force Iran to accept changes to the nuclear deal.”
The Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 despite Tehran observing all the provisions of the nuclear accords. Subsequently, the US slapped sanctions on major spheres of the Iranian economy, including the country’s petroleum industry, under the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign.
“Through the maximum pressure campaign, the United States imposed sanctions under all sorts of different names: missile defence, terrorism, Iran’s regional allies, the nuclear programme, human rights and everything except global warming was included, when all of these sanctions had one objective, and that was to force Iran to appease the United States and the Europeans,” Marandi emphasises.
Although the White House changed the rhetoric, in reality, it is trying to cheat Iran and violate its commitments by lifting only those sanctions that were labelled under the nuclear programme, according to the academic.
Moreover, while “the US has a range of sanctions on Iran and President Biden has not removed any since coming to office,” notes Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.
Even though the partial removal of sanctions sounds like a positive sign, it will not make a big difference to Iran’s access to the global economy, according to Akbarzadeh. He explains that “many international corporations will continue to be reluctant to invest in Iran because of the extreme uncertainty surrounding the future of talks and the prospects of Iran’s entry into the international market.”
“The Iranian leadership is unlikely to see partial sanctions removal as enough to assuage their concerns,” Akbarzadeh believes. “It insists on an unconditional return to that deal, and Washington has been reluctant to ‘give-in’ to that demand.”
According to the professor, this dynamic may hinder the progress of the Vienna talks over the revival of the JCPOA.
Ebrahim Raisi gives a news conference after voting in the presidential election, at a polling station in the capital Tehran, on June 18, 2021. – Raisi on June 19 declared the winner of a presidential election, a widely anticipated result after many political heavyweights were barred from running. – Sputnik International, 1920, 21.06.2021
‘US is Not in Strong Position in Vienna Talks’
While the US is not present at the table in Vienna, American diplomats are taking part in indirect talks with their Iranian counterparts. Washington does not have an upper hand in the ongoing talks, according to Seyed Mohammad Marandi:
“The Iranians see that the United States has huge problems at home,” he notes. “Political, social and economic problems are causing major issues inside the United States. The United States is increasingly losing ground to a rising China and the re-emerging Russia, and Iran and its allies across the region are growing stronger and American allies are growing weaker.”
In response to Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic started to gradually loosen the JCPOA restrictions on uranium enrichment starting from July 2019. “The Iranian peaceful nuclear programme is developing and it’s a leverage [in the talks],” according to the professor.
It’s the Americans who need the deal right now and the Iranians know that, Marandi notes, adding that Tehran will see “if the Americans will become reasonable enough to do what is good for themselves.”
At the same time, Washington and its European allies have apparently overlooked the damage their policies inflicted on the Iranian economy and the country’s population, the professor highlights, adding that “the issue of compensation is always on the table.”
The new Iranian government led by President Ebrahim Raisi has adopted a more robust approach in protecting Iranian national interests, according to Marandi. Even though the new Iranian government is critical of the JCPOA deal, it will not tear it apart, unlike the US government, but will observe its commitments. At the same time, Tehran will demand “that what has been signed, the JCPOA, be fully respected by the United States and the Europeans,” the professor underscored.
The Vienna negotiations between Iran and other signatories to the 2015 deal, including the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China resumed in December after a five-month hiatus caused by the election of a new government in Tehran.
At the beginning of this month, the White House voiced its dissatisfaction with proposals by the new Iranian government. According to European diplomats, Tehran has demanded changes to a set of compromises agreed upon a few months ago with the previous Iranian administration. The E3 group of Britain, France and Germany went so far as to accuse the Iranian leadership of “walking back almost all of the difficult compromises crafted after many months of hard work.”
Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani tweeted on 14 December that the E3 and Washington “persist in their blame game habit, instead of real diplomacy”: “We proposed our ideas early, and worked constructively and flexibly to narrow gaps; diplomacy is a two-way street. If there’s a real will to remedy the culprit’s wrongdoing, the way for a quick good deal will be paved.”
For his part, Iran’s Permanent Representative to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi told a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday that Iran does not impose any preconditions or new conditions in the negotiations to revive the JCPOA and only wishes to see the restoration of the initial terms of the nuclear accord.
“We call for the full, timely, unconditional and verifiable implementation of the JCPOA. No more, no less,” Ravanchi underscored.
Iran says has still not received any initiative from other side in Vienna talks
By Homa Lezgee – Press TV – December 13, 2021
Vienna – Iran’s lead negotiator at the Vienna talks aimed at reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the JCPOA, says his team has not yet received any proposal or initiative from the other side to help resolve the outstanding issues.
In the past days questions have arisen about the drafts being discussed and whether the Iranian team’s amendments and proposals, offered in the form of two written drafts at the beginning of the seventh round, are still on the table.
Iran says it will only go back to full compliance after the full and verifiable removal of US sanctions and while some sources say the Iranian demands are stalling progress, others like Russia’s lead delegate maintain that the atmosphere is positive amid intensive dialogue.
On Sunday, a third Working Group focusing on the sequencing of compliance by all parties was held for the first time during the seventh round of the talks. That was followed by a trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and China. There’s still no official word on the duration of the current round of negotiations.
US and Iran are getting ever closer to war. Washington has only itself to blame
By Scott Ritter | RT | November 9, 2021
A tense US-Iranian naval standoff appears to be related to the US enforcement of unilateral oil sanctions targeting Iran. Iran’s response suggests that Tehran may not be willing to play this game for much longer.
Amid growing tensions in the region, the United States and Iran carried out tit-for-tat naval exercises in the Persian Gulf designed to send a signal to the other – mess around at your own risk. The US exercises comprising six coastal patrol boats, supported by an expeditionary mobile base platform ship and a guided-missile destroyer, involved live fire exercises using surface-to-surface missiles. Iran followed this display of US military prowess with a demonstration of its own in the form of the annual Zolfaqar military exercise, which included live-fire drills involving anti-ship missiles, drone swarms, and submarine-launched torpedoes.
The dueling drills come nearly two weeks after a confrontation in international waters between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the US Navy. While the specific circumstances surrounding this confrontation remain unclear, with both Iran and the US providing competing narratives, one thing is for certain – on October 24, 2021, Iranian and US naval forces faced off in a tense environment, loaded weapons pointed at one another, while Iranian forces boarded and took control of a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker, which was then sailed into Iranian territorial waters, ending the face-off.
The Iranians claim that the US was engaged in an act of “piracy,” trying to seize a shipment of Iranian oil that was loaded onto the MV Southys, owned by the Hanoi-based OPEC Petroleum Transport Company. Iran was compelled to board the vessel, using helicopter-borne commandos, and then sail the ship and its 26-person crew to the Persian Gulf port city of Bandar Abbas. The US denies the Iranian accusations, instead claiming that US Navy vessels in the region responded to reports of a ship in distress and were simply monitoring the situation.
History suggests that the Iranian version of events is closer to the truth. The US has a reputation for seizing Iranian petroleum shipments on the high seas, part of what it claims to be the lawful enforcement of US sanctions targeting Iran (it should be noted that the sanctions in question are unilateral in nature, and have no enforceable status under international law.) In August 2020, the US seized four Liberian-flagged vessels (the M/T Bella, M/T Bering, M/T Pandi and M/T Luna) carrying approximately 1.116 million barrels of fuel. No military force was used by the US in the seizure of the cargo. Instead, the US worked with the assistance of foreign partners to threaten ship owners, insurers, and captains with sanctions to force them to surrender their cargo to US control. In the case of the four Liberian-flagged tankers, the ships sailed to the US port of Houston, where their cargo was offloaded.
On the same day that the US affected the seizure of the four Liberian-flagged tankers, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps boarded another Liberian-flagged tanker, the M/T Wila, off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, using tactics which mirrored those that had been used against the MV Southys – a special forces team was inserted onto the deck of the tanker using a helicopter, while Iranian patrol boats circled nearby. After five hours, the Iranians departed the ship. The US confirmed that the Iranian seizure of the M/T Wila was related to the US seizure of the four tankers. “They [the Iranians] were looking for their gas,”a US spokesperson noted.
According to Iranian sources, the boarding of the MV Southys was related to the August 2020 seizure of the four tankers carrying Iranian oil. An analysis of the events leading up to the seizure of the MV Southys by Iranian forces suggests that this indeed may be the case. According to an anti-Iranian advocacy group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), satellite imagery from June 2021 shows the MV Southys engaged in what is known as ‘ship-to-ship’ transfer of oil from an Iranian tanker, the Oman Pride. In August 2021 the US Treasury Department named the Oman Pride as an asset of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, which was part of a larger scheme to raise funds for the Quds Force by selling Iranian oil in violation of sanctions. According to UANI, most of this oil ends up being sold to China.
According to the Tankers Trackers website (affiliated with UANI), the MV Southys was supposed to make a delivery of some 700,000 barrels of crude oil to a Chinese port. For some reason, the shipment was rejected, and the MV Southys headed back to the port of Sohar, Oman. The timing of the rejection of the MV Southys’ cargo coincides with a letter sent by UANI to the Vietnam Maritime Administration, which detailed its analysis of satellite photos it claimed showed the MV Southys received a ship-to-ship transfer of oil from the Oman Pride. Given the high-profile composition of the leadership of UANI, which includes many former US government officials and heads of foreign intelligence services, it is likely that this letter was sent in conjunction with outreach by UANI to the US government, which in turn could have put the Vietnamese government on notice that it could be subjected to sanctions for doing business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. If this scenario is accurate, the Vietnamese government could have ordered the MV Southys not to offload its cargo, leaving it no choice but to return to the Persian Gulf.
When the MV Southys approached Iranian waters, it was shadowed by a US guided-missile destroyer, the USS Sullivans. Perhaps fearing that the US would seek to take control of the MV Southys and its contents, and uncertain as to the loyalty of the vessel’s captain, the Iranians opted to take control of the tanker and divert it to Bandar Abbas, where its contents could be offloaded. By taking control of the MV Southys in this manner, Iran also avoided the logistical difficulties of attempting a ship-to-ship transfer of oil to an Iranian tanker while under the watchful eyes of the US Navy.
The truth about what transpired with the MV Southys will undoubtedly emerge in the weeks to come. What is certain, however, is that the Iranians have long classified US sanctions against them as violations of international law, and US efforts to seize Iranian oil shipments acts of piracy. The seizure of the MV Southys by Iranian forces, and the aggressive way the US Navy was confronted by Iranian patrol boats, suggests that Iran is determined to forcefully confront any future attempts by the US to enforce its unilateral sanctions. One of the major roadblocks to restarting the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is the issue of the US ending its sanctions regime against Iran. If anything, the delay in restarting the JCPOA has shown that there is a military risk attached to the political, and that any continued delay in the negotiations could result in war.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’
US continues to defy International Court of Justice’s orders in cases filed by Iran
Press TV – October 28, 2021
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations says the US administration continues to disregard orders issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which have been handed down in cases filed by Iran against US and vice versa.
Majid Takht-Ravanchi made the remarks in an address to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, emphasizing that Iran acknowledges “the vital role of the ICJ in the prevention of hostilities and mitigation of crises through peaceful settlement of disputes as well as in strengthening the rule of law, preserving international order and tackling unilateral measures.”
“Due to adoption of a number of legislative and executive acts in the United States in flagrant violation of international law, the immunity of states and their properties from suit before US courts as well as immunity from jurisdiction and enforcement have been removed against Iran,” he added.
Takht-Ravanchi noted that as a result of the filing of cases in the US courts against Iran as well as its officials and the Central Bank (CBI), “the assets of the CBI have been subjected to execution in order to satisfy a default judgment.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that such asset blocking and enforcement proceedings against the CBI and certain Iranian companies and banks in the US is in violation of provisions of ‘Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights of 1955’ between the two countries,” Iran’s UN envoy said.
Takht-Ravanchi said following the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the unlawful re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran, Iran filed an application instituting proceedings against the US with regard to violations of multiple provisions of the Treaty of Amity.
He said on October 3, 2018, the ICJ issued an order unanimously requiring the US to remove any impediments on the importation of foodstuffs as well as medicines and medical devices to Iran and also ordered Washington to ensure that the licenses and necessary authorizations are granted and that payments and other transfers of funds are not subject to any restriction in so far as they relate to the aforementioned goods and services.
“Regrettably, the United States has not only failed to comply with the Court’s Order but, by imposing new sanctions, especially during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, has also deliberately defied that Order,” Takht-Ravanchi said.
Iran, he noted, has on several occasions brought the US non-compliance with the Order to the Court’s attention and the answer provided by the US in this regard has always been a repetition of its previous contentions; that humanitarian transactions are exempt from its sanctions.
However, Takht-Ravanchi added, “through tightening the grip of sanctions after the Court’s Order, the US … violated this Order which requires that ‘Both parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve’.”
Tehran has on multiple occasions called on the United Nations court to order the immediate lifting of the sanctions, and demanded compensation for damages incurred in their wake.
Sanctions had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers- the US, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia.
Former President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the deal with Iran in May 2018 and reimposed draconian sanctions as part of the so-called maximum pressure campaign against the country.
Earlier this year, the ICJ ruled that it can take on Iran’s bid to overturn illegal US sanctions re-imposed by Trump after he pulled Washington out of the nuclear deal.
The United States had tried to argue that Iran could not base claims at the ICJ on the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights between the two countries. However, a majority of a panel of 16 judges found the treaty could be used as a basis for the ICJ’s jurisdiction.
The new US administration said it is “disappointed” by the ruling, despite President Joe Biden’s criticism of his predecessor for reinstating the bans on the Islamic Republic after leaving the landmark accord.
Israel to Attack Iran? Washington Gives the Green Light to the ‘Military Option’
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 28, 2021
Some might recall candidate Joe Biden’s pledge to work to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was a multilateral agreement intended to limit Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. The JCPOA was signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, when Biden was Vice President, and was considered one of the only foreign policy successes of his eight years in office. Other signatories to it were Britain, China, Germany, France, and Russia and it was endorsed by the United Nations. The agreement included unannounced inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by the IAEA and, by all accounts, it was working and was a non-proliferation success story. In return for its cooperation Iran was to receive its considerable assets frozen in banks in the United States and was also to be relieved of the sanctions that had been placed on it by Washington and other governments.
The JCPOA crashed and burned in 2018 when President Donald Trump ordered U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, claiming that Iran was cheating and would surely move to develop a nuclear weapon as soon as the first phase of the agreement was completed. Trump, whose ignorance on Iran and other international issues was profound, had surrounded himself with a totally Zionist foreign policy team, including members of his own family, and had bought fully into the arguments being made by Israel as well as by Israel Lobby predominantly Jewish groups to include the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Trump’s time in office was spent pandering to Israel in every conceivable way, to include recognizing Jerusalem as the country’s capital, granting Israel the green light for creating and expanding illegal settlements on the West Bank and recognizing the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Given Trump’s record, most particularly the senseless and against-American-interests abandonment of JCPOA, it almost seemed a breath of fresh air to hear Biden’s fractured English as he committed his administration to doing what he could to rejoin the other countries who were still trying to make the agreement work. After Biden was actually elected, more or less, he and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken clarified what the U.S. would seek to do to “fix” the agreement by making it stronger in some key areas that had not been part of the original document.
Iran for its part insisted that the agreement did not need any additional caveats and should be a return to the status quo ante, particularly when Blinken and his team made clear that they were thinking of a ban on Iranian ballistic missile development as well as negotiations to end Tehran’s alleged “interference” in the politics of the region. The interference presumably referred to Iranian support of the Palestinians as well as its role in Syria and Yemen, all of which had earned the hostility of American “friends” Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Israel inevitably stirred the pot by sending a stream of senior officials, to include Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to discuss “the Iranian threat” with Biden and his top officials. Lapid made clear that Israel “reserves the right to act at any given moment, in any way… We know there are moments when nations must use force to protect the world from evil.” And to be sure, Biden, like Trump, has also made his true sentiments clear by surrounding himself with Zionists. Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland have filled the three top slots at State Department, all are Jewish and all strong on Israel. Nuland is a leading neocon. And pending is the appointment of Barbara Leaf, who has been nominated Assistant Secretary to head the State Department’s Near East region. She is currently the Ruth and Sid Lapidus Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is an AIPAC spin off and a major component in the Israel Lobby. That means that a member in good standing of the Israel Lobby would serve as the State Department official overseeing American policy in the Middle East.
At the Pentagon one finds a malleable General Mark Milley, always happy to meet his Israeli counterparts, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, an affirmative action promotion who likewise has become adept at parroting the line “Israel has a right to defend itself.” And need one mention ardent self-declared Zionists at the top level of the Democratic Party, to include Biden himself, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and, of course, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?
So rejoining the JCPOA over Israel objections was a non-starter from the beginning and was probably only mooted to make Trump look bad. Indirect talks including both Iran and the U.S. technically have continued in Vienna, though they have been stalled since the end of June. Trita Parsi has recently learned that Iran sought to make a breakthrough for an agreement by seeking a White House commitment to stick with the plan as long as Biden remains in office. Biden and Blinken refused and Blinken has recently confirmed that a new deal is unlikely, saying “time is running out.”
And there have been some other new developments. Israeli officials have been warning for over twenty years that Iran is only one year away from having its own nukes and needs to be stopped, a claim that has begun to sound like a religious mantra repeated over and over, but now they are actually funding the armaments that will be needed to do the job. Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has repeatedly said the IDF is “accelerating” plans to strike Iran, and Israeli politicians to include former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have regularly been threatening to do whatever must be done to deal with the threat from the Islamic Republic. Israeli media is reporting that $1.5 billion has been allocated in the current and upcoming budget to buy the American bunker buster bombs that will be needed to destroy the Iranian reactor at Bushehr and its underground research facilities at Natanz.
In the wake of the news about the war funding, there have also been reports that the Israeli Air Force is engaging in what is being described as “intense” drills to simulate attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. After Israel obtains the 5000 pound bunker buster bombs, it will also need to procure bombers to drop the ordnance, and one suspects that the U.S. Congress will somehow come up with the necessary “military aid” to make that happen. Tony Blinken has also made clear that the Administration knows what Israel is planning and approves. He met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on October 13th and said if diplomacy with Iran fails, the U.S. will turn to “other options.” And yes, he followed that up with the venerable line that “Israel has the right to defend itself and we strongly support that proposition.”
Lapid confirmed that one of Blinken’s “options” was military action. “I would like to start by repeating what the Secretary of State just said. Yes, other options are going to be on the table if diplomacy fails. And by saying other options, I think everybody understands here … what is it that we mean.” It must be observed that in their discussion of Iran’s nuclear program, Lapid and Blinnken were endorsing an illegal and unprovoked attack to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon that it is apparently not seeking, but which it will surely turn to as a consequence if only to defend itself in the future.
In short, U.S. foreign policy is yet again being held hostage by Israel. The White House position is clearly and absurdly that an Israeli attack on Iran, considered a war crime by most, is an act of self-defense. However it turns out, the U.S. will be seen as endorsing the crime and will inevitably be implicated in it, undoubtedly resulting in yet another foreign policy disaster in the Middle East with nothing but grief for the American people. The simple truth is that Iran has neither threatened nor attacked Israel. Given that, there is nothing defensive about the actions Israel has already taken in sabotaging Iranian facilities and assassinating scientists, and there would be nothing defensive about direct military attacks either with or without U.S. assistance on Iranian soil. If Israel chooses to play the fool it is on them and their leaders. The United States does not have a horse in this race and should butt out, but one doubts if a White House and Congress, firmly controlled by Zionist forces, have either the wisdom or the courage to cut the tie that binds with the Jewish state.
EU energy crisis hitting poorest citizens hardest
By Jerome Hughes | Press TV | October 21, 2021
Brussels – European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, warns the EU’s energy crisis is hitting the poorest hardest and businesses are at risk of closing. EU officials say the 27-nation bloc could benefit from Iran’s vast energy reserves if US sanctions against the Islamic Republic are removed.
The weather is becoming more inclement in the EU and while temperatures are dropping, energy costs are soaring. The crisis has just been discussed in the European Parliament.
The main factors driving prices upwards are consumer demand after COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were eased and gas stockpiles were depleted last winter as it was particularly cold. Then we used a lot of electricity during a warmer than usual summer. Half of the gas used in the EU is imported from Russia. We raised the issue of alternative suppliers with the European Commission.
Question: “Is it the case that the EU would like to be getting more energy from Iran?”
The commission says US sanctions are impeding Iranian energy sales but that won’t be a problem if the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal can be brought back on track.
The EU could import liquefied natural gas from various places, such as the United States, but experts say it would not make sense.
Von der Leyen confirmed to the European Parliament on Wednesday that Russia has fully honored its energy contracts with the EU. She says Moscow has so far not increased supply. Energy consultants say the bloc will still need Russia’s gas for at least another 20 years.
While this dependency exists they suggest it would be prudent of the bloc to improve relations with Moscow.
The Iran Nuclear Saga: US-Israel Hammer Out a “Plan B”
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 18.10.2021
Even though the presidential candidate Joe Biden had vowed to “move quickly” to re-join the Iran nuclear deal, this has not happened. The Biden administration’s deliberate strategy to kill the previous deal by following the framework of talks it inherited from the Trump administration has contributed massively to the present deadlock, leading the US and Israel to devise a “Plan B” to force Iran into submission. While Iran has been insisting – and its demands are not illegitimate – that the US must lift its sanctions first to create the path for reviving the JCPOA, Washington’s (and Israel’s) insistence on including Iran’s ballistic missile programme into the deal has become an additional source of tensions and the ensuing deadlock. Including a new agenda in the deal does not mean reviving the deal; in fact, it is actually involves a bid to push Tehran for an altogether new deal – a goal that the US and Israel have been pursuing ever since the Trump administration withdrew from the deal and Israel started sabotaging Iran’s legitimate nuclear production though cyber attacks and by murdering its top nuclear scientist.
While a simple revival of the deal is increasingly looking impossible, the talk of the town is the ‘military option’ if the ‘diplomatic option’ fails to produce the desired outcome, that is a one-dimensional result that favours the US and Israel only.
While it is already hard to argue against the fact that Israel, by engaging in active sabotage, has been using proper military options to coerce Iran into submission, there is still no gainsaying that the US and Israel are actively contemplating the military option to actually upgrade the military resources they have used so far. In doing so, both the US and Israel will be relying on the precedent set by the Trump administration when it killed Iran’s top military official, General Suleimani, last year in a drone air-strike in Iraq.
While the Biden administration may not itself want to start a new fully fledged war against Iran when it has just ended the US’ “endless war” in Afghanistan, there is no gainsaying that the US defense establishment may provide all the support, both diplomatic and military, Israel needs to carry out a military strike on Iran’s nuclear production capabilities. At the same time, it remains that the US may not be fully opposed to actually coordinating with Israel a military strike on Iran. During his latest meeting with Biden, the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, was a happy man when he received Biden’s reassurance that “all options” were on the table, should the on-goings talks fail. Now that the prospects of JCPOA’s revival through US participation look extremely bleak, other options, including a military/air strike, could become a possibility.
For Israel, resorting to military actions has an added political – electoral advantage. According to a recent survey conducted by Israel’s Democracy Institute, more than 50 per cent of Israeli Jewish population believes that Israel should have launched a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities in the very early phase of its development. Launching a military strike, therefore, does not have political consequence for Naftali who sits on a multi-party coalition government.
Accordingly, Israel is building the momentum for its “Plan B” at both regional and international levels. The Israeli activity to build this momentum flows from its previous attempts at derailing the whole process to revive the JCPOA. Last week, in a joint press conference with his US and Emirati counterparts, Israel’s foreign minister, Yari Lapid, said that they “reserve” the right to act in self-defence. In Israeli geo-strategic parlance, the ‘right to self-defence’ has always meant a pre-emptive military operation. Lapid himself operationalized the definition of the so-called ‘right to self defence’ when he said that “If a terror regime is going to acquire a nuclear weapon, we must act. We must make clear the civilized world won’t allow it.” Antony Blinken reciprocated, saying that “we are prepared to turn to other options if Iran doesn’t change course.”
In his meeting with Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, Lapid shared, without himself publicly revealing, with him details of Israel’s “alternative plan” against Iran. But some of the details of this plan have already been revealed by Israel’s military chief, when he said that Israel and its intelligence community “is working against Iranian regional entrenchment throughout the Middle East.” “Operations to destroy Iranian capabilities will continue — in various arenas and at any time”, he added.
Echoing Israel’s discourse, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said last week that
“We will be prepared to adjust to a different reality in which we have to deal with all options to address Iran’s nuclear program if it’s not prepared to come back into the constraints of 2016.”
While the US officials continue to project that Iran is refusing to return to JCPOA, the fact remains that the deadlock is not an outcome of Iran’s refusal to revive the JCPOA, but its insistence on reviving the same agreement that was agreed in 2015 and lifting all sanctions the US has imposed, or failed to lift right after the deal. In refusing to lift sanctions, the Biden administration is essentially following in the footsteps of the Obama administration, which, while it did make the deal, continued to delay the lifting of all financial sanctions and unfreezing of the Iranian assets as well.
Therefore, the roots of the “Plan B” are impossible to find in the Iranian intransigence. It must be found in the US withdrawal from the treaty and its illegitimate insistence on negotiating a new deal, a demand that the other signatories of the deal – especially, China and Russia – do not support. A military action against Iran will thus be an avid example of how both the US and Israel have been staging wars to consolidate their regional and international dominance, respectively.
There’s a wide range of factors causing massively increased gas prices in Europe, but Russia is not one of them: Kremlin
By Jonny Tickle | RT | October 6, 2021
Russia has nothing to do with the rapidly rising gas prices in Europe, and the country is providing as much as it possibly can to the rest of the continent, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, amid accusations that Moscow is to blame.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the idea that Russia is playing any part in the rising prices. Earlier that day, the price of gas in Europe once again reached a historical record of $1,900 per 1,000 cubic meters.
“The first and most important thing is that we not only believe, but we insist that Russia is playing no role in what is happening on the gas market in Europe,” Peskov said, noting that Gazprom is pumping as much gas as it can “within the framework of the existing contracts.”
According to the Kremlin spokesman, Russia has avoided huge gas prices due to a well-thought-out strategy, while Europe has made mistakes.
“It’s all very simple. If you bet on the development of wind energy, you create the appropriate infrastructure,” Peskov explained. “But different climate processes happen and suddenly there is less wind. This is what is happening this year in Europe. There is less wind and generation is down.”
Some have accused Moscow of intentionally limiting gas supplies to Europe as a means to speed up the launch of the controversial pipeline Nord Stream 2, which was recently completed.
On Tuesday, the European Commission announced it would look into suggestions that Moscow is trying to boost gas prices. However, according to European Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, Russia is “fulfilling its long-term contracts.”
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Major rabbi says non-Jews are donkeys, created to serve Jews
By Khalid Amayreh, in occupied East Jerusalem | The People’s Voice | October 18, 2010
A major Jewish religious figure in Israel has likened non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden, saying the main reason for their very existence is to serve Jews.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the religious fundamentalist party, Shas, which represents Middle Eastern Jews, reportedly said during a Sabbath homily earlier this week that “the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews.”
Yosef is considered a major religious leader in Israel who enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers. … continue
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