Jailed Iranian-American Questions Foreign Minister's Presence At Davos

In a commentary entitled "Double Standards," the Iranian Diplomacy website, asked whether the new rhetoric by Amir-Abdollahian about obstacles to the revival of the Iran nuclear deal, was tailored solely for listeners in the annual meeting in Davos or it was the outcome of his experiences as foreign minister during the past 9 months.

Amir-Abdollahian, during a conversation with journalist Farid Zakaria in the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on May 26, said that hardliners in both Iran and the United States were working against the revival of the JCPOA. He particularly pointed out opposition by hardliners in the Iranian parliament (Majles).

According to Iran diplomacy, Amir-Abdollahian's statement about the Iranian parliament exerting pressure on the government to reject the JCPOA "could mean that the Iranian foreign Minister has two different views about the same issue." The website asked why he did not say the same thing to Iranian media.

However, neither Amir-Abdollahian nor Zakaria mentioned that hardliners are in control of Iran's negotiating team. Chief negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani is known for his opposition to the JCPOA since the time he served in the team under ultraconservative negotiator Saeed Jalili in early 2010s. He continued to oppose an agreement with the United States until his appointment as chief negotiator by Iran's new government in 2021.

The Iranian foreign minister’s rhetoric about hardliners both in Iran and the United States was also not very different from his predecessor, Javad Zarif’s oft used line of argument, to show that his positions were moderate and those critical of Iran in the West were hardliners.

Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign minister for the first time "strongly condemned the war in Ukraine" without mentioning Russia's role. The Iran diplomacy wrote, "Undoubtedly, the foreign ministry is not courageous enough to make the same statement in Iran." The website also explained that the condemning the war in Ukraine could have been an indirect attack on Russia for its negative role in the talks and taking oil market share from Iran by selling its oil cheaper to China.

However, the website noted that although in many cases, Amir-Abdollahian's statements on Iran's foreign policy followed the party line, in some instances it appeared he got too close to Tehran's red lines.

Amir-Abdollahian, who spoke in Persian throughout the 35-minute conversation looked calmer and on top of the subject matter in most parts of the conversation, unlike his previous international appearances. He sounded like a very good speaker, at least in Persian. His points of weakness were revealed only when he answered questions on relations with Saudi Arabia, which later met with an indirect denial by his Saudi counterpart.

His accusation that the United States did not fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Syria were also not the highlight of this conversation as they were similar to Iranian officials' run-off-the-mill answers to such questions and were devoid of any insight.

Similarly, his statement that "We have intelligence the Zionists have taken US foreign policy hostage," was a repetition of Tehran's ragged argument about the issue throughout the past four decades.

Oslo-based Iran Human Rights reported the spike in executions on Friday, saying that the sudden increase, as several cities in the country are the scene of anti-government protests, shows that the Islamic Republic authorities use the death penalty as a means of creating fear in society.

According to data collected by the right group, at least 26 people, including two women, were executed from May 17 to 27 in 11 Iranian provinces. Seven of the executed men were Baluchi citizens -- an ethnic minority making up five percent of the population -- and were sentenced to death on "drug-related" charges.

Calling for the abolition of the death penalty, Iran Human Rights Director, Mahmoud Amiri-Moghaddam said, “While most of those executed were charged with crimes such as murder and drug offences, the authorities use the death penalty as a political tool. The executions are carried out with the aim of suppressing dissent.”

Earlier in the month, Amnesty International’s annual report on the worldwide use of the death penalty showed Iran as a country with a “disturbing spike” in executions.

The 66-page report, published Tuesday, found Iran executed at least 314 people in 2021, a 28 percent jump from at least 246 in 2020 and the highest figure since 2017. Amnesty said that in Iran “death sentences were disproportionately used against members of ethnic minorities.”

A new video posted on social mediaon Friday shows that tall concrete walls and poles for surveillance cameras are being erected around Khavaran cemetery, southeast of Tehran.

In a statement Friday, Justice-Seekers of Khavaran, a group of families of the victims and survivors of the prison purges, called on authorities to immediately stop more barriers to the resting place of their loved ones, and said they will launch an international campaign to make their voices heard by the international community.

In 1988, an unknown number of executed prisoners were buried in mass and individual graves at Khavaran which had previously been used to bury non-Muslims including Armenian Christians, Hindus and members of the persecuted Baha’i faith.

Authorities have never disclosed the number of those executed in prisons across the country from August 1988 until February 1989. Between 4,500 and 10,000 prisoners are believed to have been killed. Almost all victims were serving prison terms when clerical rulers decided to eliminate them.

Most victims were members or supporters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) as well as Marxists and other members of other leftists groups.

Justice for Iran, a London-based rights organization, in a tweet on Saturday said restricting access to the site of mass graves allows the Islamic Republic to further destroy evidence of the crimes it has committed. Mass graves are crime scenes and must remain intact until they can be independently investigated to identify the remains of the victims and the sequence of events when the crimes happened, the rights organization said.

In 2018 Justice for Iran published a report on mass graves of political prisoners in various Iranian cities including Khavaran. According to the report, authorities have on numerous occasions tried to destroy evidence of the burials at Khavaran and other places, including by bulldozing the sites.

The unmarked graves in Khavaran were discovered soon after the executions by victims’ relatives who were never told where their loved ones had been buried. At Khavaran they found limbs and partially buried bodies of victims in shallow unmarked mass graves.

The news about the graves soon spread among those in search of the graves of their loved ones and the cemetery itself took the place of graves never found as many who regularly go there have no evidence of their loved one is buried there. Victims’ families call the cemetery “The Flower Garden of Khavaran”.

Despite constant harassment and persecution, Mothers of Khavaran, a group of mothers and families of victims, have fought for over three decades to bring the authorities to reveal the burial places of their loved ones.

In April 2021, members of the prosecuted Baha’i religious community in Tehran were ordered to bury their dead on the site of a mass grave at Khavaran although they said their own allocated site still had plenty of burial space. They were also told that the remains of the executed prisoners had been exhumed.

"This is the latest in a series of criminal attempts over the years by Iran's authorities to destroy mass grave sites of the 1988 prison massacres in a bid to eliminate crucial evidence of crimes against humanity," said Amnesty International's deputy Middle East director, Diana Eltahawy following the Baha’i community’s revelation.

Iranian forces seized two Greek tankers in the Persian Gulf on Friday, shortly after Tehran warned it would take "punitive action" against Athens over the confiscation of Iranian oil by the United States from a tanker held off the Greek coast.

"The crew of the two Greek tankers have not been arrested, and all crew members ... are in good health and are being protected, and provided with necessary services while on board, in accordance with international law," Iran's Ports and Maritime Organization said in a statement carried by state media.

The two vessels were stopped over unspecified "maritime violations", the body said.

Greece said on Friday an Iranian navy helicopter landed on Greek-flagged vessel Delta Poseidon in international waters and took the crew hostage. It said a similar incident took place on another Greek-flagged vessel near Iran, without naming the ship. Athens said both actions violated international law.

Greek authorities last month impounded the Iranian-flagged Pegas off Greece due to European Union sanctions. The United States later confiscated the Iranian oil cargo held onboard.

The Pegas and its Russian crew were later released, but the seizure inflamed tensions as Iran and world powers seek to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.

Separately, Nour News, affiliated to an Iranian state security body, said: "Iran will not remain passive in the face of any threat to its interests, and testing Iran's will is a strategic error that will entail heavy costs for the United States and its entourage."

Reporting by Reuters

Visiting the underground ‘strategic drone base 313,’ Bagheri also revealed a drone that can be mounted on a helicopter. The Heidar-1’s UAV was reported to have a 200km range and be capable of hitting a target at a maximum speed of 1,000km per hour.

Over 100 drones are kept in the base in the Zagros mountains, including Kaman-22, Kaman-12 and Qods Mohajer, the last an intelligence, surveillance, target-acquisition, and reconnaissance drone capable of carrying four precision-guided munitions. The base is also home to the Ababil-5, which is fitted with Qaem-9 missiles, an Iranian-made version of the air-to-surface United States Hellfire missile.

With drones increasingly deployed in the region – partly due to their low cost – since Israel and the United States introduced them in the 1970s, Bagheri told commanders and engineers in a speech that Iran had to remain vigilant and up-to-date with equipment and tactics. Wednesday’s reported attack on Iran’s Parchin military site has been attributed to an Israeli ‘suicide drone.’

Major-General Abdolrahim Mousavi, the army commander-in-chief of the army, said that Iran’s drones were “the region's most powerful” and its capacity to upgrade them “unstoppable." Military analysts credit Turkey, which has domestic production, as leading the use of drones in the region, while the United Arab Emirate has both its own manufacturing and imports from China.