Saudi UN Envoy: Iran Playing 'Games' In Talks With Kingdom

The likely blast off at Iran's Imam Khomeini Spaceport comes as Iranian state media has offered a list of upcoming planned satellite launches in the works for the Islamic Republic's civilian space program, which has been beset by a series of failed launches.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi visited a space technology exhibition in Tehran on November 26 and asked officials to work on reaching the 36,000 km orbit around the earth in four years.

Currently Iran is attempting to place satellites in the 500-kilometer orbits.

Minister of Communications and Information technology, Issa Zarepour, who supervises Iran’s space program had told local media that the project to reach the high orbit was planned to be accomplished in 10 years, but Raisi asked to speed up the program. The president pledged all the assistance needed to help Iran’s Space Agency.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard runs its own parallel program that successfully put a satellite into orbit last year.

Satellite images taken Saturday by Planet Labs Inc. show activity at the spaceport in the desert plains of Iran's rural Semnan province, some 240 kilometers (150 miles) southeast of Tehran.

A support vehicle stood parked alongside a massive white gantry that typically houses a rocket on the launch pad. That support vehicle has appeared in other satellite photos at the site just ahead of a launch. Also visible is a hydraulic crane with a railed platform, also seen before previous launches and likely used to service the rocket.

Conducting a launch amid the Vienna talks fits the hardline posture struck by Tehran's negotiators, who already described six previous rounds of diplomacy as a "draft," exasperating Western nations. British and German foreign minister have gone as far as to warn that "time is running out for us at this point."

The United States and other countries are concerned that Iran’s satellite program is a cover for developing ballistic missiles that can exceed the current 2,000 km range of Iranian vehicles. Regional and Western countries say that beyond Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles should also be curbed. Highlighting a space program, Tehran can argue that it needs the technology for peaceful, space related efforts.

But all this fits into a renewed focus on space by Iran's hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who studies Tehran's program.

With Iran's former President Hassan Rouhani who shepherded the nuclear deal out of office, concerns about alienating the West with the launches likely have faded.

"They're not walking on eggshells," Lewis told AP. "I think Raisi's people have a new balance in mind."

With reporting by AP

Bennett departed Israel on Sunday for Abu Dhabi and is scheduled to meet the de facto ruler, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on Monday, in the highest-level visit since the countries formalized relations last year.

Israel and the UAE are said to have had security and intelligence cooperation even before they established full relations last year. Both countries are concerned over multiple threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now they can have an open cooperation, possibly in the defense field.

Israel has offered the UAE military cooperation but so far has withheld the sale of its tired-and-tested Iron Dome air defense systems. Israel Hayom reported on Sunday that officials are concerned over close ties between some circles in the UAE and Iran, but at the same time Israel is also concerned about a rapprochement between Tehran and Abu Dhabi.

In a surprising move the UAE sent its top security advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan to Tehran on December 6, who met with top officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi. The visit took place as Iran’s nuclear talks with world power in Vienna were making no progress and Tehran presented it as a diplomatic victory that regional Sunni Muslim countries were willing to have meetings at top level.

Raisi in his remarks hinted at UAE’s ties with Israel. "The Zionists in the region pursue their evil plans and wherever they can find a foothold, they try to use it as a tool for expansion and sedition, therefore, regional countries should be careful," he said.

UAE’s motives could be both hedging its bets if Iran decides to pursue a nuclear bomb and as a means of pressure on Israel to acquire the air defense systems it wants.

The UAE and its ally Saudi Arabia have been fighting Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen since 2015. They also backed opposing sides in the Syrian civil war. The Sunni Gulf states see Iran’s aggressive regional policies, including arming and financing militant networks as a serious threat to their security. But a nuclear Iran would pose a much higher threat and regional countries might be planning for this contingency.

Current nuclear talks are in deadlock as Iran continues to enrich uranium and gets closer to a nuclear breakout threshold.

Mostafa Daraeinejad the head of Iran’s fruit and vegetables association told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) Friday that India, Russia, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and others no longer accepted some certificates issued by Iran's agricultural organizations and demanded their own standards be met.

Iran exported $6.5 billion in agricultural products last year. It is among the top ten producers of more than two dozen fruits and vegetables, including saffron, apples, citrus fruit, watermelons and other melons, pomegranates, dates, pistachios, and walnuts.

Daraeinejad said India was refusing import permits for Iranian kiwi after finding it did not meet safety standards. Iran is seventh in world kiwi production, and the main producing region exported nearly 60,000 metric tons, worth $95 million in 2018.

Daraeinejad warned that Iran faced the threat of losing agricultural markets if the ministry of agriculture did not take immediate action to raise standards. He said the matter should also concern domestic consumers as "Iranians don't deserve to ingest nitrates and other pesticide residues…”

In November Uzbekistan turned down several thousand tons of Iranian and Pakistani potatoes due to high levels of pesticide. Qatari importers in November returned to Iran nearly 588 date palms, worth $136,000, imported for lining streets in preparation for the 2022 soccer World Cup.

A few weeks ago, Russia banned imports of some Iranian agricultural products. According to Reza Nourani, chairman of the National Association of Agricultural Producers, a large shipment of peppers was rejected because certificates on pesticide-residue levels were lacking. The Mashregh News website claimed December 1, that “the Israeli lobby” in Russia was behind the move in order to eliminate market competition for Israeli peppers.

According to Iranian Customs Organization, Iran last year exported $22 million of peppers to Russia, which after the imposition of US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions in 2018 became one of the major destinations for Iran's fruit and vegetable exports. Agricultural products make up more than 80 percent of Iran's exports to Russia.

Although Iran produces a wide variety of agricultural products, the sector has been battling with serious drought and inadequate water supplies for years. At the same time, environmentalists argued that cultivation of watermelonsand cucumbers, two of Iran's major fruit and vegetable exports, should be banned in most areas as producing one kilo of watermelon requires on average 300 liters of water. Producing chicken, rice and bread all require even more water.

Khamenei has delivered several speeches since the beginning of October and has not mentioned the nuclear talks and has refrained from his usual attacks on the United States. The last time he mentioned the United States was in a speech on October 3, when he spoke of the US role in Afghanistan.

Khamenei’s tactic of avoiding subjects related to the core of his foreign policy might be intended to show that he does not interfere in the business of the government, after foreign media and officials increasingly acknowledge his role as the final decision maker in important matters.

The only noteworthy part of his speech was his insistence to “tell the truth” about the history of the Islamic Republic and how much enmity has existed against the regime. He said that if supporters do not spread the truth, “the enemy will play the role of a victim.”

He also claimed in an implicit reference to the US that “arrogant powers” enjoy “the suffering of the Iranian nation.”

President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) went to parliament on Sunday to present his budget for the coming Iranian calendar year that will begin on March 21, 2022. Except some general budgetary numbers, details are scarce and it is not clear how the government is planning to deal with a growing deficit that this year is estimated to be more than 50 percent.

But one deficit-fighting measure is to stop providing cheap dollars to importers of essential goods, saving around $8 billion annually. The problem is that many in parliament, economists and politicians say this would add fuel to inflation, which has already reached 45 percent this year.

Just before the United States pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA) in May 2018, the former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani decided to offer dollars at 42,000 rials for essential imports to keep food and medicine cheap. Iran’s currency was already falling in anticipation of the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and new sanctions.

The subsidized dollars however did little to keep prices low, as imported grain, rice, sugar and animal feed reached consumers with ever higher prices. Simply, those importing the essential commodities and businesses in the supply chain pocketed huge profits. There were also proven cases of companies applying to receive the cheap dollars and then importing luxury goods, such as thousands of foreign cars.

US sanctions have dramatically reduced revenues for the Islamic Republic, which heavily depends on oil exports. Not only Tehran is getting a fraction of its usual oil income but trade in general has suffered because of US banking sanctions, forcing Iran to offer low prices and still struggling to bring back dollars earned.

Raisi claimed that past administration tied the fate of the country's economy to foreign sanctions, but his budget has ignored those restriction and will deliver health economic growth.

How the Raisi government has put together a budget that at least on paper is supposed to be balanced is shrouded in accounting gimmicks and over-optimistic assessments. It projects selling more than a million barrels of oil per day at around $60 per barrel, an over-estimation unless the United States lifts its sanctions. It also projects selling billions of dollars in government assets to raise money, but there is little no capital or confidence left among the people and investors for buying these assets.

Mostly politically well-connected people and officials who have either become rich or know others with money will scoop up some valuable real estate and other assets, at a fraction of their value. Quasi-governmental companies, such as those belonging to the Revolutionary Guard and foundations under Khamenei’s control will be well positioned to buy the cheap assets the government offers.

In practice, officials running these companies are like private owners, making money for themselves, their relatives and friends without any transparency and accountability. In the past 15 years most “privatization” deals have ended in stories of corruption, some exposed by dissatisfied workers or rival factions within the regime.

Other than unsubstantiated revenue numbers from oil and asset sales, the Raisi government has little else to balance its budget on paper.

The Chairman of Iran-China chamber of commerce Majid-Reza Hariri warned in November that Iran’s economy is “at its most dangerous period in its 40-year cycle of inflation” and can expect to reach “hyperinflation” in the coming months.