Iran's Foreign Minister Meets With Palestinian Groups In Beirut

Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, the coordinating deputy of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), had called the Achaemenid Dynasty (550-330 BCE) “filthy” in a speech Wednesday, accusing them of massacres and handing Iran “to the Greeks.” The Achaemenids fell to Macedonia’s Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE.

Esfandiar Ekhtiari, who has since 2008 represented the small community of the ancient Iranian Zoroastrian faith, responded in a letter by extolling the Achaemenid ceremonial capital, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 1979: “What is seen in Persepolis reliefs are all indicative of purity and greatness.”

Naghdi had also attacked the Sassanid dynasty (242-264 CE) for handing Iran to the Mongols.

Ekhtiari pointed out that the Mongols over-ran Iran some centuries after the Sassanids were overthrown by Arabs adhering to the new religion of Islam shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammed in 632 CE.

“Doubtless, there is no need to refer back to history to see who was ruling in Iran after the Sassanids, which definitely were not the Mongols,” Ekhtiari noted.

Speaking in a Clubhouse session Wednesday evening, Zarif admitted he had wrongly told parliament July 21, 2015 that the word ‘lift’ rather than ‘suspend’ had been consistently used in the wording of the agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) in relation to sanctions.

"The mistake was mine when I said the word 'suspend' does not appear in the JCPOA,” said Zarif, who was deeply involved in two years of negotiations leading to the 2015 agreement, which was abandoned by United States president Donald Trump in 2018 as he introduced ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran. Zarif was himself sanctioned by the US in 2019.

Following the Clubhouse session, hardliner critics took to social media to call Zarif a traitor. A hashtag demanding his prosecutionhas been set up.

Calls for prosecution

"Zarif's ignorance of the text of the nuclear agreement must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible [for including the word 'suspend'] must be prosecuted," said lawmaker Zohreh Elahian, who sits on parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Wednesday.

Hossein Kanani-Moghadam, another hardliner, slammed Zarif for his ignorance: "A nation put its trust in Zarif … to defend the country's interests. How could he agree on a text the content of which, particularly sensitive terminology, he was not aware of?"

"For forty years the Islamic Republic's diplomacy has been in the hands of this group that is dependent [on Western powers],” tweeted Abdolreza Davari, ex-adviser to former principlist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “They have caused nothing but damage…Zarif's friends for forty years stood alongside the enemy".

In Wednesday’s Clubhouse session, Zarif explained to the audience that the negotiation team had been ordered to avoid certain terminology, presumably including the word ‘suspend,’ but had agreed to the word due to a technicality regarding the European Union's position.

According to Zarif, while negotiating the text of one of the JCPOA appendices, the European representative had said that the EU could not 'lift' all its sanctions before UN sanctions were removed and therefore the word 'suspend' was used in some places. Zarif added that the Iranian negotiator had had not informed him of this – and the word appeared in the agreement as signed July 14.

‘This is a lie’

"The matter of suspension had nothing to do with the United States, it was related to the EU sanction … that were supposed to be lifted later," Zarif said in his defense. "But they [his critics] used this, and said Zarif had not read the text of the JCPOA…This is a lie, the Western [negotiators] will definitely tell you if you ask them."

Journalist Amir-Reza Nazari tweeted in defense of Zarifthat the JCPOA text was later scrutinized by parliament, the Supreme National Security Council, and the watchdog Guardian Council. "Why didn't they notice?" he asked.

Mojtaba Davoudi, a reformist activist, asked in a tweet if the use of 'suspend' instead of 'lift' in the JCPOA appendix had caused any real harm.

Opponents of the JCPOA attacked Zarif just as much as President Hassan Rouhani over the agreement, especially when the US imposed stringent sanctions in 2018.

Zarif was in May reprimanded by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei after leaked audio revealed him criticizing the role of former Qods Force Commander Qasem Soleimani in Iranian diplomacy. Already a principlist hero for organizing resistance to the Islamic State group (Isis-Daesh) in Iraq, Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

The Lebanese government tries to tackle its crippling energy shortages amid the country's financial meltdown.

Hala Zawati told Sky News Arabia that Lebanon was seeking World Bank financing for the project, part of efforts backed by the United States to address Lebanon's energy crisis.

Under an agreement announced last month, Egypt will supply natural gas to Lebanon via a pipeline that passes through Jordan and Syria to help boost Lebanon's electricity output.

The plan also involves using Egyptian gas to generate electricity in Jordan for transmission to Lebanon via the Syrian power grid.

U.S. senators visiting Lebanon last month said they were seeking ways to address the complicating factor of U.S. sanctions on Syria.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in Beirut on Thursday that Iran was ready to build two power plants in Lebanon, one in Beirut and the other in the south of the country, over a period of 18 months.

Iran backs the heavily armed, Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, deemed a terrorist group by the United States.

"We are completely ready to accomplish this project using the Islamic Republic of Iran's technical expertise, and benefiting from joint Iranian-Lebanese investment," he said, speaking via an Arabic translator.

He did not say who the investors could be. Iran itself is suffering from power shortages.

Reporting by Reuters

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is visiting Lebanon where he promised help to the economically ravaged country.

Iran and Saudi Arabia, the leading Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim powers in the Middle East, have been rivals for years, backing allies fighting proxy wars in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere. They cut diplomatic ties in 2016. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan confirmed on Sunday that his government had held its first round of direct talks with Iran's new government last month, part of a process begun earlier this year to reduce tensions.

Three rounds of Saudi-Iranian talks were held in Iraq in the months before Iran's new hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, took office in August.

Prince Faisal said the latest round had taken place on September 21 but did not say where.

The United States and its European and Middle Eastern allies have called on Iran to change its policy of interference in regional countries as part of ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran.

News agencies of the two countries have so far reported few details of the meeting between Iran’s foreign minister and the president, who leads the mainly-Christian Free Patriotic Movement allied to Hezbollah.

On arrival at Beirut airport Thursday after wrapping up a two-day visit to Moscow, Amir-Abollahian told Iranian state television (IRIB) that Tehran Iran had "better and newer propositions for breaking Lebanon's economic siege."

He said his trip was “indicative of deep and friendly ties between the two countries, and we support Lebanon’s army, people, and resistance with a strong voice.”

The Iranian foreign minister also met with parliament speaker Nabih Berri, leader of the mainly Shia Amal party, and is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib, and representatives of Palestinian groups.

On Monday Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said third and fourth consignments of fuel were on their way to Lebanon.

“Paperwork has been done for the dispatch of the third gasoline-laden ship from Iran,” he said in a speech. “The fourth ship will bear diesel and will be sent over subsequently.”

Lebanon faces chronic shortages of petrol and diesel – the latter used for electricity generation by hospitals, apartments and other buildings – as the Lebanese pound has collapsed against the dollar, plunging around 80 percent of the population into poverty.

The United States has been enforcing sanctions against Lebanon for more than a year to pressure the country to curb political and military influence of Hezbollah, which is well represented in the Lebanese parliament and allied to Tehran. These sanctions have compounded the country’s economic problems.

Iranian officials say fuel bound for Lebanon was purchased by Lebanese Shiite merchants but have not explained how payment – which would contravene US sanctions against Iran – might be made. Vessels from Iran deliver the fuel to Syria from where it is delivered to Lebanon by trucks.

A third tanker carrying fuel arrived in the Syrian port city of Baniyas Wednesday. The first convoy of fuel trucks entered Lebanon on September 16. It is not clear how much of the fuel has been transported to Lebanon by land so far for which thousands of trips are required.

On Tuesday Shabab Hezbollah, a pro-Hezbollah social media Twitter account, reported that a convoy of around 60 trucks, the tenth such convoy, had entered Lebanon from Syria.

The initiative, which Hezbollah said had broken an "American siege" irritated some factions in Lebanon that said the party had not sought the government's approval for importing fuel from Iran. Hezbollah's opponents accused the group of undermining state authority and exposing Lebanon to the risk of further US sanctions.