In Conversation With EU’s Borrell, Iranian FM Slams US For IAEA Resolution

In the video, originally published in 2016 in support of the Syrian children suffering in the country’s civil war, what Ronaldo really says is calling on the kids not to lose hope. “I am a very famous player but you are the true heroes.”

In the version the IRIB broadcast, Ronaldo’s voice is dubbed in Persian as saying that he cannot tolerate the Israeli spectators as they are the most hated for him, adding that he does not exchange his jersey with assassins. The Islamic Republic’s state channel also referred to a hoax back in 2013 as true, that falsely claimed Ronaldo refused to exchange his t-shirt with an Israeli player after a match with its national football team. 

In Reality, the video showed a Portuguese player who had swapped his shirt with an Israeli player walking past Ronaldo, but some anti-Israeli media reported it as if Ronaldo refused to exchange his shirt. The Portuguese player is easily recognized from the dark colored shorts he is wearing.

The state broadcaster aired the fake video about a month after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei criticized Ronaldo’s fame among students in Iranian schools. Khamenei compared Ronaldo with an Iranian scientist, Saeed Kazemi Ashtiani, the head of Iran’s Royan Infertility Research Center who died in 2006, saying that students know Ronaldo but not Ashtiani.

In an interview with Nour News, a website affiliated to the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Behrouz Kamalvandi made the remarks on Friday in reaction to a report by the New York Times about the work at the underground nuclear facility purportedly able to withstand cyberattacks and bunker-penetrating bombs.

US officials told the Times that the new underground facility was to replace a centrifuge assembly plant that the Times said Israel blew up in 2020 “in a particularly sophisticated attack.”

Kamalvandi claimed that Iran had notified the UN nuclear agency of its plan to relocate the activities of the TESA complex in Karaj to the city of Natanz, saying that the transfer of some of the activities to an area near the Natanz nuclear site aims to prevent the recurrence of attacks, referring to last year’s sabotage at the TESA complex. 

He said that said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been informed about it, even though Iran has no obligation to provide such information to the agency.

The complex in Karaj, on the outskirts of Tehran, saw a sabotage attack in June last year, which authorities blamed on Israel. The attack damaged surveillance cameras at the site.

Head of the Paraguayan National Intelligence Secretariat Esteban Aquino told the country’s Spanish language digital newspaper ABC Digital Friday that despite claims by Argentina that no evidence links the case to the Quds (Qods) Force -- Tehran’s extraterritorial intelligence and secret ops outfit listed as a terrorist organization by the United States -- Captain Gholamreza Ghasemi did not merely share a name with a member of the group but is in fact the same man.

Reiterating the claim, Argentine Minister of Security Anibal Fernandez responded Friday that while the Paraguayan official "has his right to say whatever he wants... I'm not going to talk about conjecture... according to the official documentation, there is no specific relationship with terrorist organizations, according to all the databases."

The Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires also released a statement on Thursday, saying that the Boeing 747 was used by the Iranian company Mahan Air and transported “a group of Iranian officials, including a senior executive of the airline Qeshm Fars Air,” accused of transporting weapons for Hezbollah during the civil war in Syria.

Iran has denied that the Boeing 747 belongs to Mahan Airlines, sanctioned by the US in 2008 for links to the Quds (Qods) Force.

Ghasemi is also reportedly a relative of current Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, whose appointment by President Ebrahim Raisi triggered condemnation from Argentina given his suspected role in the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed 85 people and injured over 300.

IRNA on Saturday called recent US sanctions on several companies involved in exporting Iran’s petrochemicals, as simply “a show”, insisting that Iranian companies are well-versed in circumventing US sanctions.

The website interviewed Mohammad Eslami, the general manager of Mehr petrochemicals, established in 2005 and apparently not on the US sanctions’ list. Eslami said US sanctions have not changed much since 2018, when former president Donald Trump withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear deal, JCPOA, and imposed tough sanctions on Iranian oil and petrochemical exports.

“Regardless of which companies or individuals are listed, or not listed, in the sanctions’ list, Iran’s petrochemicals sector is sanctioned, and has to resort to irregular ways for exporting its products,” Mohammadi said.

The US Thursday sanctioned Chinese, Emirati and Iranian firms over exporting Iran's petrochemicals on June 16, linking it with Iran’s willingness to return to the JCPOA.

“Absent a deal, we will continue to use our sanctions authorities to limit exports of petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products from Iran,” a statement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after the Treasury Department announced the sanctions,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Mohammadi argued that all petrochemical firms must operate within the confines of US sanctions and the new penalties on some companies facilitating exports will not make a difference. He added that Iranian companies are well-versed in sanctions issues and use their knowledge to export petrochemicals.

However, a clear and publicly announced US intent to tighten the noose will have a deterrent effect on non-Iranian businesses or individuals thinking of doing business with sanctioned companies.

Also, when sanctions are enforced, the cost of exporting the products increases for Iran, reducing profits. Middlemen involved in arranging and disguising shipments, as well as payments demand higher commissions and sometimes the products have to be sold cheaper to entice buyers to take a risk.

Mohammadi conceded that US sanctions have caused problems, but he insisted that exports have continued since 2018. He added that the new US measures were meant to be psychological pressure on Iran amid an impasse in the nuclear talks.

Indeed, figures published by the Iranian government show around $20 billion of export revenues from petrochemicals last year, which is a substantial amount for the cash-strapped economy.

IRNA once again reminded its readers that Biden Administration officials in the past have “confessed” that US sanctions have failed to pressure Iran. In January, the State Department spokesman defending the administration’s negotiations with Iran to revive the JCPOA insisted that Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ policy against Tehran had failed.

Amid serious financial crisis, the Iranian government media regularly tries to publish material that could calm the people and the markets. The IRNA article on petrochemical exports is no exception.

Another report in Fars news website affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard on Saturday tried to reassure the public about the strength of Iran’s currency rial, saying that the currency is regaining strength after last week’s precipitous fall against the US dollar. However, exchange rates on Saturday showed the rial struggling near it all time high of 330,000 to one US dollar.

In a piece by staff in Washington and Mossad expert Ronen Bergman in Israel, the Times highlighted Iran’s construction of “a vast tunnel network” just south of its Natanz uranium enrichment plant.

With year-long talks in Vienna to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on hold since March, the paper suggested that “high on the agenda” for Biden’s trip would be “the question of taking more extreme measures to stop Iran, as the United States and Israel have attempted before.” Diplomatic efforts to “reimpose limits on Iran’s nuclear actions appear all but dead,” the Times argued.

The purpose of the tunnels was, however, unclear. US officials told the Times that the new underground facility was to replace a centrifuge assembly plant that the Times – apparently referring to a fire at Natanz in July 2020 ­– said “Israel blew up in April 2020 [sic], in a particularly sophisticated attack.”

US officials also told the Times Iran was probably engaged in a brinkmanship they believed to influence the nuclear talks. As well as expanding levels of uranium enrichment and restricting the access of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, Tehran sought “new pressure points, including the excavation of the mountain plant near Natanz.”

The Times reported Kenneth McKenzie, who stepped down in April as commander of US Central Command covering the Middle East, also suggesting Iran sought leverage. “They like the idea of hanging the nuclear program over us because it produces a response,” he said.

McKenzie argued that the nuclear program was not the main issue. The real “crown jewels” for Iran were ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones – where he suggested it had “made huge strides in the last five to seven years.”

‘Relentless effort for a bomb’

Israeli officials gave the New York Times a different take. For them, the paper said, the Natanz tunnels were “more evidence of a relentless Iranian effort to pursue a bomb capability” and justified Israel’s “accelerated attacks on the nuclear program and the scientists and engineers behind both Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.”

Among recent attacks on Iranian facilities was one on the Karaj manufacturing workshop in June 2021, which Tehran blamed on Israel. The strike soured Iran’s relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency and led it to switch manufacturing to existing space at Natanz.

While the killing of Iranian scientists attributed to Israel goes back to 2010, there have been suggestions that Israeli intelligence recently poisoned two more.

The freeze in talks to revive the JCPOA – which according to some reports boil down to the US listing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ – alarm many in Europe also concerned over Biden’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia after initially in office taking distance from Riyadh over ‘human rights’ and its role in the Yemen war.

‘Time for decision is now’

While EU efforts to revive the Vienna nuclear talks over the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), have failed to bridge the US-Iran divide, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell told the United Nations Security Council Thursday of his “permanent contact with all the parties to try arrange a return to the JCPOA and ensure its full implementation.”

Insisting that the “basic elements and terms to do this are known and on the table,” Borrell said “the time for decision is now.”

In a separate part of his speech referring to countries buying Russian exports, Borrell reiterated the EU’s opposition to ‘secondary’ sanctions – punitive measures against third parties. Ironically, the US Thursday took such measures against Chinese and Emirati firms over Iranian petrochemical exports. Hamad Al Kaabi, the United Arab Emirati envoy to the IAEA, said Friday he hoped Iran would work with the IAEA to reassure “the international community” over its nuclear program.