US Sanctions On Iran Harmed South Korea, Ambassador Says

The former head of Military Intelligence, Major-General Tamir Hayman, disclosed the information in an interview with an Israeli magazine.

Soleimani was killed in a targeted US drone strike as he arrived at Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.

A few days after he was killed, NBC News reported that Israeli intelligence helped the US through its informants at the Damascus airport who tipped off the CIA about the time Soleimani's plane took off for Baghdad.

Another report published in Mayhad said that Israel gave the US access to Soleimani’s multiple cellphone numbers to help track him, but no top official had acknowledged Israel’s role before.

“The assassination of Soleimani was an achievement since our main enemy, in my eyes, is Iran,” Hayman said. “It is rare to locate someone so senior who is also the operator on the ground, the strategist and the fighter.”

He added that Israel has carried out multiple operations to disrupt the spread of Iranian weapons and funds throughout the region but described Soleimani’s killing as one of “two significant and important assassinations” during his tenure, the other being Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata.

“We thwarted a lot of ways they tried to smuggle weapons and money and the headline of all of this is stopping the Iranians from entrenching themselves in Syria,” he said.

Hani Feysali made the remarks in an interview on Monday, clarifying that the Iranian traders who are still doing business with Kuwait are those who have already been residents there.

He added that trade ties between the two countries have dropped drastically, mentioning the covid-19 pandemic as one of the reasons behind the plunge.

Iran has been losing trade also as a result of US sanctions, which impose banking restrictions on Tehran.

According to official figures by the Iranian Customs Administration, exports to Kuwait in the first eight months of the Iranian calendar year (beginning March 21) was over $90 million. The amount of Iran’s annual exports was $190 million two years ago before the coronavirus hit the world.

Feysali had earlier said that due to Iran’s weak diplomacy, bilateral trade has been recording a downward trend in recent years as its total volume fell from $400 million in 2020 to $18 million last year.

Most trade between Iran and Kuwait is through Khorramshahr and Abadan ports. Foodstuff and construction products such as cement and plaster constitute most of Iran’s exports.

Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, former chairman of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, in an interview with Iran Diplomacy in Tehran has said that the Islamic Republic has a habit of persisting in its mistakes until it is forced to retreat, paying a high price each time.

As an example, the former lawmaker mentioned Tehran’s decision last week to “voluntarily” cooperate with UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and allow it to install new cameras at a nuclear workshop that it refused to permit for months. Once world powers began discussing the issue at the UN Security Council, suddenly President Ebrahim Raisi’s government retreated and announced its willingness to cooperate, Falahatpisheh said, adding that he does not believe for a moment this was a voluntary decision. It was simply the specter of the Security Council that forced Iran to cooperate.

“Tehran, with its wrong decisions opens the door to its own isolation by losing opportunities that other countries…grab,” Falhatpisheh said. In four decades, the Islamic Republic has still not learned that by “piling crisis upon crises” it cannot solve any of them, he said. “We still witness wrong and costly decisions.”

Falahatpisheh, as is customary in public discourse of politicians in Iran, also attacked Israel, calling it a “destructive power”, along with “some Persian Gulf states”.

In order to be able to criticize the government, public figures in their discourse usually attack Israel, the United States and any other country on Islamic Republic’s blacklist at a given moment.

As Iran’s economic crisis has worsened, more public figures have come out criticizing the Raisi administration’s foreign policy, particularly its strategy in the Vienna nuclear talks. Pundits can often get away with targeting the government, but no one would dare to mention Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who is the real foreign policy decision maker.

Falahatpisheh argued that Iran’s nuclear issue has only three sides: Iran, The United States and the IAEA. All the rest, including the European troika, China, Russia and side players like Israel and some Arab sates have entered the fray because of Iran’s wrong policies. He added that Iran’s mistake of “sticking to its taboo”, rejecting direct negotiations with the United States has only complicated the situation and allowed others to try to take advantage for their own interests.

The former influential lawmaker, who is not considered a reformist, maintained that if Iran reaches an agreement with the United States and restores the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA), “Israel will face isolation” if it attacks Iran.

The chairman of the Energy Committee of Iran’s parliament, Fereydoun Abbasi, said on Monday that Kish and Qeshm free economic zones are suitable places to test the plan, to prevent the repeat of the 2019 widespread bloody protests.

In November 2019 a sudden increase in fuel prices led to immediate protests that turned into anti-regime unrest, with security forces killing hundreds of people.

Abbasi, who is the former head of Iran’s nuclear agency, added that for any energy policy to work, it must be tested in a smaller scale, and should be thoroughly examined, considering the realities of peoples’ lives, before scaling up to the national level.

“We need to compare people's incomes with their expenses. People in our society should not be malnourished,” he said

Struggling economically due to stiff sanctions and meager oil exports, the Islamic Republic cannot continue to provide heavily subsidized fuel and electricity, which are the cheapest in the world in par with Venezuela.

At the same time the government is fearful of mass protests by citizens who have become poorer in the past few years.

During his weekly briefing with reporters on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that there is no progress or development in the negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Khatibzadeh made the comment in reaction to reports about a meeting between Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud on the sidelines of the 17th Extraordinary Session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Council of Foreign Ministers in Islamabad.

Noting that it was an unofficial and quick meeting, the spokesman said Tehran is still waiting for Riyadh to prove its seriousness to continue the negotiations. “The fifth round of talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia has not been held or scheduled”, he stated.

Khatibzadeh also said Iran calls on the Saudis to stop "interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries", in a possible reference to the conflict in Yemen where the countries have been supporting opposite sides.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have held several rounds of talks since April aimed at mending the relations. The two countries severed diplomatic ties in 2016.