Turkey Drawn Into Iran-Azerbaijan Transport Tensions

The Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow will take place in November and some reports from Tehran indicate Raisi might attend the gathering. President Joe Biden and Pope Francis are scheduled to take part.

Raisi is accused of being part of a group in 1988 that executed thousands of Iranian political prisoners serving time. Before becoming president in June, Raisi spent decades in Iran’s notorious judicial system as a judge and prosecutor.

Human rights organizations and UN experts have demanded accountability fro the Iranian president and international investigation of his role in the killings.

Human rights activists, victims of torture and their relatives have asked the police in Scotland to investigate Raisi using the legal concept of universal jurisdiction, whereby any country can charge an individual suspected of crimes against humanity.

Another Iranian citizen is now on trial in Sweden for his role in the 1988 killings based on the same legal principle.

Fars news agency close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard reported late Thursday that Gharibabadi has been appointed as the head of Islamic Republic Judiciary’s international affairs department.

The post was held by hardliner functionary Ali Bagheri-Kani until he was appointed as deputy foreign minister by Iran’s new foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Gharibabadi, who has held the post for the past three years is the son-in-law of former Revolutionary Guard general Mohammad-Bagher Zolghadr, who is currently the secretary of the Islamic Republic’s Expediency Discernment Council, a constitutional body.

Fars reports that Gharibabdi’s name had been mentioned as a possible foreign minister or head of the foreign ministry’s international legal department when President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) was selecting his cabinet in July and August.

He was appointed by former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

He had previously served as ambassador to Holland.

Reports by semi-official sources did not reveal many details about the meeting, except that the two sides praised one another and their mutual cooperation.

Amir-Abdollahian pledged full support for Lebanon, which is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis. Iran recently shipped fuel to alleviate a serious shortage in Lebanon, but beyond that Tehran itself faces an economic crisis mainly because of US sanctions.

Nasrallah thanked the Islamic Republic of Iran for standing next to Lebanon and the “resistance forces”, a reference to Tehran’s allies and proxies in the region.

“Iran has proven that it is an honest and faithful friend, who does not leave its friends alone no matter how difficult circumstances might be,” the Hezbollah leader said.

Hezbollah, with overwhelming influence in Lebanon in the last decade, and traditional Lebanese politicians are blamed for the economic crisis that ensued in 2019, by repeated political deadlocks and factional discord.

Two of the most prominent Palestinians in the meeting were the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Ziyad al-Nakhalah, and senior Hamas member Osama Hamdan.

In his meeting with representatives of Palestinian groups at the Iranian embassy in Beirut,foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said he had stressed in a meeting with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in New York during the annual UN General Assembly summit that the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Iranian people will continue to support the "resistance and Palestine until the liberation of all historical Palestinian lands and liberation of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Al-Aqsa Mosque."

He also described the “battle of Seif Al-Quds” (Sword of Jerusalem) -- clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli Police in May – as an extremely significant event. "These operations undercut the plan for normalization of [diplomatic] relations [between Arab countries and] the Zionist regime.

Islamic Republic’s support to militant groups in the region goes back to its establishment in 1979, when Iranian revolutionaries were quick to establish ties with various Palestinian and non-Palestinian militants. In the recent decade, with Iran’s full involvement in the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars, Iran’s policy of interference in regional countries has emerged, with Western governments demanding that Tehran change course.

Amir-Abdollahian had also met with leaders of Palestinian groups in Damascus on August 30 during his second regional trip after his appointment as foreign minister. These included Talal Naji, secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Khalid Abdal Majid, secretary-general of the Palestinian Popular Front, Abu Saeed Al-Maniawi, senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad official, and officials of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian National Liberation Movement. "If it were not for the support of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the victories of the resistance axis in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen would not have been realized today," Naji told reporters after the meeting.

The Iranian foreign minister on Thursday held a flurry of separate meeting with top Lebanese officials including President Michel Aoun, a key ally of the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the recently appointed Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib. On Thursday he also visited the Supreme Islamic Shia Council of Lebanon where he met with the family of the late Musa al-Sadr, the Iranian-born Lebanese scholar and political leader who founded the Amal Movement in 1974.

In a news conference after his meeting with Lebanese officials Thursday, Amir-Abdollahian said if asked by the Lebanese government, Iran would be willing to participate in the rebuilding of the port of Beirut which was destroyed in a massive explosion in August 2020 as well as two power plants, one in Beirut and another one in south Lebanon within a year and a half.

On Wednesday dozens of Lebanese citizens rallied in Beirut ahead of the Iranian foreign minister's visit to protest what they said is Iran's growing influence in Lebanon.

Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, the coordinating deputy of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), had called the Achaemenid Dynasty (550-330 BCE) “filthy” in a speech Wednesday, accusing them of massacres and handing Iran “to the Greeks.” The Achaemenids fell to Macedonia’s Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE.

Esfandiar Ekhtiari, who has since 2008 represented the small community of the ancient Iranian Zoroastrian faith, responded in a letter by extolling the Achaemenid ceremonial capital, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 1979: “What is seen in Persepolis reliefs are all indicative of purity and greatness.”

Naghdi had also attacked the Sassanid dynasty (242-264 CE) for handing Iran to the Mongols.

Ekhtiari pointed out that the Mongols over-ran Iran some centuries after the Sassanids were overthrown by Arabs adhering to the new religion of Islam shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammed in 632 CE.

“Doubtless, there is no need to refer back to history to see who was ruling in Iran after the Sassanids, which definitely were not the Mongols,” Ekhtiari noted.