Senior Lawmaker Says JCPOA Parties Agreed To Lift IRGC Sanctions

He said overall energy export earnings, including crude, rose by 2.5 times but he only gave a breakdown for gas and petrochemicals. Iran does not release figures related to oil exports.

The increase in revenue was partly due to more exports and because Iran managed to collect more of the proceeds from exports despite US sanctions, the minister said.

But energy prices have also increased from the second half of 2021 and Iran’s has been exporting more oil to China because of a reluctance on the part of the Biden Administration to enforce sanctions.

"Through various methods, our government has collected all the revenues from its exports of oil, gas, gas condensate and oil products," Owji said.

Iran’s ability to export natural gas is limited because of high domestic demand and decreasing production. Officials have said that the country needs up to $50 billion in investment to prevent falling output at its gas fields.

Gas export revenues rose to $4.6 billion from $1.27 billion last year, and revenues from petrochemical products exports doubled to $12 billion, the minister said.

US sanctions imposed in 2018 seriously reduced Iran’s crude oil exports and cut its revenues. Banking sanction also made it hard to repatriate the proceeds.

"We assess that Iran will threaten US persons directly and via proxy attacks, particularly in the Middle East,” said the 2022 Annual Threat Assessment published by the Office of Director of National Intelligence Tuesday. “Iran also remains committed to developing networks inside the United States—an objective it has pursued for more than a decade.”

While “proxy attacks” refers mainly to Iraqi militia targeting US troops, CBS News on Tuesday said it had two "non-public" assessments submitted to Congress by the State Department in January 2022 citing a "serious and credible threat" on the lives of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Trump administration Iran envoy Brian Hook.

This, the network said, had necessitated "round-the-clock, US taxpayer funded diplomatic security details" for both men. Former president Donald Trump reportedly cost the secret service over $1.3 million last year in transport and hotel bills alone.

CBS also cited an 2021 indictment of four Iranians, including intelligence agents, over a plan to kidnap “a Brooklyn journalist,” subsequently self-identified as Masih Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist who supported of Trump’s tough position on Iran. Niloufar Bahadorifar, one of the Iranians, who was arrested last July, awaits trial on charges of sanctions violations and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

The US intelligence report ranks Iran with Russia, China, and North Korea as countries posing serious threats to US national security. It also argues Iran’s conventional missiles and support for Hezbollah and Palestinian groups endangers the security of Washington's ally, Israel.

‘Pan-Islamic power’

The report claims that the election of President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) − after three years of US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions and two years of deep recession − in 2021 has "invigorated" Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to try to mold Iran into a "pan-Islamic power" that tries to spread its influence in the Muslim world.

The intelligence services do concede that “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities that we judge would be necessary to produce a nuclear device.” The report notes that Iran had expanded its nuclear program since the US left the 2015 non-proliferation agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), including enriching uranium to 60-percent purity. The report also predicts Tehran will consider further enriching uranium up to 90 percent – considered ‘weapons grade - if it does not receive relief from ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions.

With Iran and world powers reported close to agreeing the restoration of the JCPOA, including the easing of ‘maximum pressure,’ US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that this would not preclude the US from acting against Iran "when it's engaged in actions that threaten the US, its allies and partners.”

The report also highlighted Iran's cyber capabilities. "Iran’s growing expertise and willingness to conduct aggressive cyber operations make it a major threat to the security of U.S. and allied networks and data," it maintains, noting multiple cyber-attacks between April and July 2020 on Israeli water facilities.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Wednesday that the Israeli attack “will not go unpunished,” noting that responding to such “crimes” are the main goals of the “resistance axis” in the region.

Confirming the deaths on Tuesday evening, the IRGC vowed to avenge the death of the officers, identified as Colonel Ehsan Karbalaipur and Colonel Morteza Saeednejad. “Without a doubt the Zionist regime will pay for this crime,” the IRGC statement said.

Syrian state media had reported on Monday that an Israeli air strike on Damascus killed two civilians and left some material damage.

Iran has been deeply involved in the Syrian civil war for more than a decade, deploying tens of thousands of its own forces as well as hired Afghan, Iraqi and Pakistani Shiite fighters, who helped save Bashar al-Assad’s regime, with help from Russia.

Israel is usually silent about its attacks in Syria and Iran does not acknowledge every death. However, since 2017 Iran has been trying to set up a presence on the Israeli border possibly to create a new front to compliment what the Lebanese Hezbollah has in southern Lebanon against Israel.

Israel has mounted hundreds of such strikes against what it has described as Iranian-linked targets in Syria, hitting weapons shipments and warehouses.

Burns told the US House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that regardless of the outcome of the nuclear negotiations the Iranian threat through its missile program and its proxies lingers throughout the Middle East.

“We are mindful of the fact that the Iranian regime poses not only a nuclear or missile issue but also a threat across the Middle East and to our partners in the Middle East”, he said, noting that for "many years, I negotiated these issues with the Iranians… Regardless of how negotiations go, those threats will continue."

On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard unveiled two underground bases for attack drones and missiles, as nuclear talks with world power have reached a critical stage.

Earlier in February, members of the US House of Representatives wrote a letter to ask President Joe Biden to focus on Iran’s ballistic-missile capabilities.

Pentagon says it is working hard to contribute to the self-defense needs of allies and partners in the region to counter threats posed by Iran’s missile program while Iran says it will become one of the world's biggest arms exporters once US sanctions are lifted.

According to a report published in Ettela'at newspaper on Tuesday, the hour-long gun battle erupted between the border guards over the Sikhsar (Sekhsar) water canal in the Keng district of the province.

The report said the Iranians wanted to dredge the Sikhsar, but Taliban forces tried to stop them, saying the canal belonged to Afghanistan.

The report added “heavy weapons” were used (video)and an Iranian bulldozer also caught fire during the skirmish.

There are conflicting reports about the clash in Afghan local media, but Taliban and Iranian officials have not confirmed the report.

Afghan sources said local farmers began digging a canal in the Sekhsar area and Iranian border guards crossed into Afghanistan to stop them.

A Taliban source said they responded to the incursion of Iranian border guards, which led to a gun fight during which a Taliban vehicle caught fire.

Similar clashes have taken place in the past along the border region as Iran and Afghanistan have for a long time been at loggerhead over the waterway.