US Lawmakers Ask Biden To End Iran Talks After Missile Attack On Erbil

Hardline newspapers continue to defend Russia's aggression against Ukraine and tend to minimize the impact of Moscow's demand for exemption from Ukraine sanctions on Iran's nuclear deal with the West.

Russia on March 5 tied the fate of a nuclear agreement with Iran to sanctions the West has imposed for its invasion of Ukraine, demanding exemptions in its economic and other relations with Iran. The 11-month negotiations in Vienna “paused” in what was seen as a deadlock after the Russian demands.

Taking Iran 'hostage'

Ali Motahari, a prominent former lawmaker wrote in a 12 March tweet that "in the last stage of efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal Iran should get rid of its fear of Russia and solve the remaining problems through holding direct talks with the United States."

Motahari reminded that "Russia is seriously concerned about the revival of the JCPOA and an improvement in Iran’s relations with the West. Russia wants Iran to be Moscow's hostage and act as a shield to support Moscow in the conflict with the West."

Meanwhile, according to Etemad Online website in Tehran, Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic Rouhollah Khomeini said that "Relying on foreign nations is a mistake as other countries, whether friends or foes, serve only their own interests."

He suggested that the Iranian government should not "fall in love with the East or West," and that Iran should rely on its own national identity. Also, the young Khomeini in reference to Russian invasion stressed that the nation "hates aggression and no one should defend it." He also reminded that his grandfather had defended the people of Afghanistan against Russia's invasion in the 1980s. Iranian officials have blamed the United States and NATO for Russia’s action.

In another article on Saturday, the website quoted political analyst Fayyaz Zahed as saying that Tehran's dependency on Russia will create endless problems for Iran. Zahed said if Iran fails to control Russia's excessive demands, Tehran will fall into the trap of perpetual tensions, and this can shift the pressure exerted by the West on Russia to others in the Middle East. Zahed shied away from naming Iran and vaguely referred to the Middle East.

He said Russia obstructed the final stage of the talks in Vienna while everyone expected an agreement in late March. Russia's behavior, said Zahed, was tantamount to taking Iran and its interests hostage.

Divide among hardliners

In the meantime, a divide is taking shape among conservative newspapers in Iran. Last week all followed the party line of supporting Russia and blaming the United States for the Ukraine crisis. They are still doing so, but a change is taking shape about their reaction to Russia's obstruction of the nuclear deal.

On Saturday, Khorasan newspaper criticized Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed KHatibzadeh for blaming "Foreign elements" for obstructing the talks and asked: "Why you do not want to name that foreign element?"

This comes while hardliner daily Kayhan and IRGC mouthpiece Akhbar-e Sepah newspapers continue to support of Russia’s policies in all respects. The Kayhan claimed that Russia's attack on Ukraine has had "marvellous benefits" and revealed double standards in world politics.

Akhbar-e Sepah, which according to Didban Iran website, is the IRGC's internal publication, stressed that the United States and not Russia should be blamed for the failure of the talks in Vienna. The publication claimed that the parties to the JCPOA deliberately kept silent about the fact that the United States has refused to accept four of Iran's conditions. It further claimed that the talks were still a long way from reaching any results. 

In a major escalation of tensions in the Middle East, a dozen ballistic missiles struck Erbil at 1 am on Sunday, targeting the US consulate's new building and the neighboring residential area but caused only material damage and one civilian was injured, the Kurdish interior ministry said on Sunday.

An Iranian state-TV correspondent based in Iraq said that the missiles were aimed at "secret Israeli bases," a claim repeated by government-controlled media in Iran.

Fars News in Iran affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) reported the attack Sunday morning only quoting a pro-Iran news agency in Iraq saying that ballistic missiles hit “military targets” in Erbil.

Later on Sunday, Iran's Revolutionary Guard took responsibility for launching the attack.

Earlier in the week Iran vowed revenge for the death of two IRGC officers near Damascus Syria in what appeared to have been an Israeli air or missile attack.

There was no official claim of responsibility or further details available. A US State Department spokesperson called it an "outrageous attack" but said no Americans were hurt and there was no damage to US government facilities in Erbil.

The official government news agency IRNA also quoted Iraqi sources saying the attack targeted “advanced training centers of Israeli spying agencies.”

The attack also coincides with a “pause” in nuclear talks in Vienna. After 11 months of talks between Iran and world powers to revive the Obama-era nuclear agreement called JCPOA came to a halt after Russia made demanded that it be exempt from Ukraine sanctions in its dealings with Iran.

The attack on Erbil is expected to have a further negative impact on any chances of a nuclear agreement.

An Iranian website reflecting the views of the country's national security council announced Sunday that scheduled talks with Saudi Arabia have been "suspended".

US forces stationed at Erbil's international airport complex have in the past come under fire from rocket and drone attacks that US officials blame on Iran-aligned militia groups, but no such attacks have occurred for several months.

The last time ballistic missiles were directed at US forces was in January 2020 - an Iranian retaliation for the US killing earlier that month of its military commander Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad airport.

No US personnel were killed in the 2020 attack, but many suffered head injuries.

Iraq and neighboring Syria are regularly the scene of violence between the United States and Iran. Iran-backed Shi'ite Islamist militias have attacked U.S. forces in both countries and Washington has on occasion retaliated with air strikes.

Kurdish officials did not immediately say where the missiles struck. A spokesperson for the regional authorities said there were no flight interruptions at Erbil airport.

Residents of Erbil posted videos online showing several large explosions, and some said the blasts shook their homes.

Iraq has been rocked by chronic instability since the defeat of the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State in 2017 by a loose coalition of Iraqi, U.S.-led and Iran-backed forces.

Since then, Iran-aligned militias have regularly attacked US military and diplomatic sites in Iraq, US and many Iraqi officials say. Iran denies involvement in those attacks.

With reporting by Reuters

Iranian Road Minister Rostam Ghasemi and Azerbaijan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev signed the agreement during a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev in attendance in capital Baku on Friday.

The 55-kilometer highway will bypass the territory of Armenia, which is located between Nakhchivan and Azerbaijani region of Kalbajar-Lachin, now named Eastern Zangezur.

The region was in Nagorno-Karabakh that came under the control of Azerbaijan after Yerevan and Baku fought a war over the disputed region in 2020.

This highway will also connect to the International North–South Transport Corridor that is a multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route for moving freight across India, Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia.

In January, Iran and Azerbaijan signed another dealto construct a bridge on Astarachay River running along the joint border as part of their plans to increase road transit between the two countries.

In a message to President Ebrahim Raisi on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Iran Saturday, Aliyev said, “Over the years, numerous reciprocal trips, signed documents and agreements, as well as joint projects have played an important role in the development of our dynamic cooperation in political, economic, transport, energy, cultural and other fields”.

According to documents seen by Iran International, the real identity of the two suspects were Fereshteh Sanai-Fari (female) and Mehdi Ramezani (male), who had entered Sweden with fake names of Salma Khormai and Javad Malekshahi, respectively.

The two, who entered Sweden in 2015 as refugees during the great refugee flood to Europe, without any documents, had claimed they were from Afghanistan and lied about their age.

Sweden’s security agencies arrested the female and male suspects in April 2021, but never revealed details of their offenses. The only crime publicly known is their false claims during their refugee hearings and alleged “conspiracy to commit a criminal terrorist act.”

According to a report by IranWire, Sweden's Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hans Ihrman said on Thursday that the two have been repatriated to Iran because the prosecutor’s office hadn’t received the needed documents from security agencies to charge them.

The United States also wanted the suspects but according to Ihrman, the request to extradite the two had not arrived in time before their deportation back to Iran.

IranWire cited an unnamed source as saying that "It seems that the security police did not provide all the information and documents to the prosecutor, who could not indict them without material evidence. The only option the prosecutor had was to request the dismissal [of the case]."

The Swedish Security Service said they had travelled to Europe as a terrorism sleeper cell, saying they were believed to be agents for the Islamic Republic who sought to execute a terrorist act against Iranian dissidents, apparently American citizens, but didn’t disclose the targets’ names.

Finland-based journalist Kambiz Ghafouri told Iran International that Sweden probably deported them because it is already too busy with trials of similar cases such as Hamid Noury (Nouri) and Kia brothers for their past crimes or links with Iranian intelligence and doesn’t want more tensions in its relations with Tehran.

Sweden is entagled in another Iran-related case. Ghafouri said the Islamic Republic has tied the fate of Iranian-Swedish doctor Ahmadreza Djalali (Jalali) -- who was arrested in 2016 by Iranian intelligence on vague charges of spying and was sentenced to death on October 21, 2017 --to the extradition of Iranian diplomat Asadollah Asadi – who was arrested in 2018 for the attempted bombing of an assembly of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) opposition group near Paris.

There is also the case of Stephen Kevin Gilbert and Simon Kasper Brown, two Swedish nationals charged with drug trafficking in Iran that the Islamic Republic wants to use in a prisoner swap to get Nouri.

Nouri was arrested in November 2019 while visiting Sweden and charged with war crimes for his role in the execution of up to 5,000 political prisoners in Iran serving jail time in 1988.

Peyman Kia, now 41 years old and a former head of Swedish security police, and his brother Payam were arrested late in 2021 in Sweden and are facing espionage charges.

Sweden has a large Iranian community made of former and current refugees, among them many anti-regime activists and human rights advocates.

Teachers in Gilan province had planned a rally Saturday in front of the department of education in Roudsar to show support for colleague Aziz Ghasemzadeh, whose trial began on Saturday.

Ghasemzadeh, spokesman for the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations in Gilan province, was arrested at his home in Roudsar September 26 after organizing teachers' protests calling for higher wages.

He was released on bail after two weeks during which he claimed he had no access to a lawyer or his family. The Coordination Council said security forces prevented Ghasemzadeh's family from accompanying him to court on Saturday, confiscated his brother's mobile phone, and arrested a relative outside the court.

Social media has as yet no videos of these events, possibly due to internet disruption. But in an audio recording released by the Telegram social-media channel of the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, a female teacher claimed she and other teachers had been beaten by security forces, including by female officers, outside the education department.

She said the police had used profanities and accused the teachers of being involved in a sedition to overthrow the regime.

Other social media users said security forces stationed in front of the education department had dispersed any groups approaching the area. They also said police reportedly blocked roads leading to Roudsar to block supporters from other areas of the province. According to social media reports, at least five teachers were arrested by security forces in Roudsar.

Teachers across Iran have staged several nationwide protests and strikes in the past six months and have vowed to continue protests until authorities meet their demands including fair wages and freedom of other colleagues who have been imprisoned for their trade union activities.

Following protests across Iran in December, the executive board of Education International, the Brussels-based federation of trade unions of teachers and education workers,in a resolution demanded respect for the "rights of teachers and education workers to organize and to freedom of association and freedom of speech including the right to peaceful assembly, without fear of intervention by the authorities" as well as “institutionalizing dialogue” with teachers' representative organizations.

With consumer price inflation at 40 percent in 2021, and food prices rising faster, after four years of United States ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, various Iranian workers have held protest rallies or strikes to demand higher salaries.