Former Nuclear Chief Says US Should Acknowledge Iran As A World Power

Speaking at his weekly press conference on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the remarks by the Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita are baseless, describing them as “unfounded projections”.

Last week, Bourita said that the Islamic Republic is threatening “the spiritual security of Africa" and vowed to stop Iran’s attempts to spread its influence on the continent.

"Iran plans to enter West Africa and to spread the Shia doctrine in the region," he said.

He also accused the Islamic Republic of supporting Yemen’s Houthis who regularly target Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

"Morocco’s support for what the state of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has been subjected to is a clear message to denounce the abuses of the Houthis and the policy of Iran that stands behind them”, Bourita added.

Morocco severed diplomatic ties with Iran in 2018, saying the Tehran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah was training Polisario Front separatist fighters against Morocco in Western Sahara.

Iran-backed Houthis have launched missile and drone attacks on three occasions against the UAE in January.

Many countries in the region accuse Iran of interference in the domestic affairs of its neighboring countries.

The reported visit would come against a backdrop of Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement launching attacks on the UAE, the latest also on Monday.

The UAE has long been one of Iran's main links to the outside world, but the reimposition of sanctions by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 halved bilateral trade to $7 billion in 2019 according to World Bank data.

Iran's Minister of Industry will visit the UAE with the economic delegation from February 6, the English-language government newspaper reported.

"During the three-day visit, Reza Fatemi-Amin will also meet with the UAE government and private sector officials to discuss economic and trade relations," it added.

"The trip has been organized in line with the Iranian government's plans for developing economic and trade diplomacy with countries in the region, especially Iran's southern neighbours."

The UAE government did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the report.

Despite Iran's continued support to the Houthis, Tehran and Abu Dhabi have tried to abate tensions.

In December, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE's senior national security adviser, visited Iran and expressed hopes of a "turning point" in Iranian-UAE relations.

On Monday, teachers held demonstrations in many Iranian cities to follow up on their demands for higher pay and release of their colleagues arrested in previous rounds of protests.

The spokesman of teachers’ trade associations, which organizes the demonstrations, said at least seven people have been arrested since Saturday, including three in Shiraz and two in Tehran.

According to Mohammad Habibi, teachers in 300 cities, town, and villages took part in the sit-ins in the last two days.

Teachers' protest in Esfahan on Monday.

Also on Monday, the Karaj Revolutionary Court sentenced a member of the council, Jafar Ebrahimi, to four years and six months in prison.

As in the past, the teachers gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran and the provincial offices of the education ministry.

Habibi said teachers will not be intimidated by the attempts to suppress the protests and will continue protests and strikes until their demands are met.

People from different walks of life, including teachers, nurses, firefighters, and even staff members of the judiciary department and prison guards, have held regular protest rallies or strikes to demand higher salaries.

Food prices have risen by more than 60 percent in recent months, on top of high inflation in the previous three years, while the government is unable to sufficiently boost wages as United States’ sanctions impede full capacity oil exports and international trade.

With Iran’s talks with world powers in the Austrian capital paused Friday for political consultations in the various capitals, Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters at his weekly press briefing that there would be “no need for forged deadlines if the right response is given to what are Iran's natural rights, the texts it has offered, and Iran's lawful demands.”

A “lasting agreement" was possible, the spokesman insisted, "the day after" delegations returned to Vienna as long the right decisions were taken by world powers, especially the United States. Khatibzadeh reiterated that Iran should not be asked to agree to anything beyond the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The required decisions, Khatibzadeh said, concerned the "considerable issues” remaining over lifting US sanctions and in reaching "acceptable progress” over Iran’s request for both verification over lifting sanctions and guarantees that Washington would not again renege on the JCPOA.

"We are past the stage of ideas,” Khatibzadeh said. “The Iranian delegation in the past three weeks constructively put everything down in writing. We are now awaiting the response of the other sides."

In a speech Sunday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei quoted US State Department spokesman Ned Price to bolster his argument that Iran had beaten US sanctions, an “economic assault” that had harmed Iranians, he said. “But production did not buckle, and the spokesman of America’s foreign ministry a few days ago candidly and unequivocally announced that the maximum pressure policy has turned into a humiliating defeat for America.”

President Donald Trump introduced ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions in 2018 as he withdrew the US from the JCPOA while setting a range of demands including that Tehran end all uranium enrichment, stop its missile defense program, and break its regional alliance. In response after 2019, Iran extended its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits.

In a telephone talk Saturday, President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated Tehran’s position that removal of sanctions, verification, and credible guarantees were basic requirements for agreement in Vienna.

A senior US official last week argued that the other five world powers − China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom − had joined the US in rejecting proposals made by new Iranian negotiators appointed by Raisi, who took office in August, and that talks had returned to the stage reached in June. Iran's delegation met with the Chinese and Russian delegations just before the break in talks announced Friday.

But whatever technical issues remain, US, Iranian and other representatives last weekall stressed the need for political decisions. The Russian envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, said the talks had reached an advanced stage requiring political choices.

Ulyanov said the break would not be very long. The eighth round of talks in Vienna, which began on December 27, are to resume sometime this week.

Talk of an ‘interim deal’, steps towards reviving the JCPOA, has subsided at least in public. The idea floated around for months that the US might ‘allow’ the ‘unfreezing’ of Iranian assets held in Asian banks in return for caps on Iran’s nuclear program short of the JCPOA limits.

In his Monday briefing, Khatibzadeh criticized officials in South Korea, which reportedly holds $7 billion of Iranian funds, owed mainly for past oil purchases. “Unfortunately, we don't have a good experience of what Korean officials say,” the spokesman noted.

The head of Iran’s Mahab Qods Consulting Company, which operates in dam and hydropower industry under the Energy Ministry, has been paid €500 per day during his work trips to other countries.

The quasi-governmental engineering company -- one of Iran’s biggest -- was founded to build embankment and gravity dams in Iran but has changed its focus to small projects overseas for more profit.

According to Mehr news agency, the CEO of the firm, Nasser Tarkeshdouz, has been on domestic business trips for three days in the last five years, but spent 576 days in foreign countries during 117 trips, for which he received €233,200 euros.

The astronomical payment by Iranian standards is apart from his own salary that is most probably much higher than salaries ordinary Iranians receive.

According to data published in December, there is a vast difference between minimum and maximum salaries in Iran.

While the minimum wage across the government is fixed at about $120 a month, the highest earning personnel can get up to $10,000.

The high paid employees are usually well-connected individuals who have access to extra legitimate or illicit incomes if they are part of the financial corruption network in the country.