Biden Signs Order For ‘Bringing Home Hostages’ From Iran And Elsewhere

IRNA headlined its account of the meeting with a call, endorsed by both Khamenei and Putin, for United States forces to be driven out of north-east Syria, “east of the Euphrates [river]…an area rich in oil and agriculture,” where American troops, first deployed in 2015, have remained since 2018 to ‘secure’ Syria’s main oil-fields.

But perhaps a more notable part of IRNA’s report was Khamenei’s clearest expression yet of support for Russian action in Ukraine. While describing war as “brutal and hard,” Iran’s leader suggested that had Russia not “taken the initiative, the other side, with its own initiative would have created a war anyway.”

Iran’s leader cited the 2014 Ukraine “coup” – when protests overthrew Moscow-inclined Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and prompted Russia’s seizure of Crimea – and the expansion of Nato, which has expanded to take in 14 eastern European countries since 1999. “Nato is a dangerous creature,” Khamenei said, “[that] didn’t recognize any limits or borders. If you cannot stand up to them in Ukraine, then a little while later, with the excuse of Crimea, they would have started this war anyway.”

World events, Khamenei said, had increased the need for “reciprocal cooperation” between Iran and Russia, meaning that “many agreements and contracts, including in oil and gas…must be pursued…and become operational.” This was a “necessity…especially after western sanctions” against Russia over Ukraine, Iran’s leader said. Russian energy giant Gazprom and the National Iranian Oil Company signed a $40-billion energy memorandum-of-understanding Tuesday morning.

The effect of US Middle East policies – including in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine – was becoming more limited, Khamenei said. The American presence in north-east Syria should end with their expulsion. President Ebrahim Raisi also referred to the US troop presence in Syria Tuesday to Iranian state television, arguing that it destabilized the country.

Cooperation between Moscow and Tehran would reach its “zenith” in the coming period, Khamenei said, stressing the need alongside other countries of continuing to expand trade away “step by step” from the dollar as the world “lost trust” in the US currency. Both Russia and China – whose dollarized bilateral trade fell below 50 percent in 2020 – are encouraging other countries to follow suit, including through groupings like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which Iran joined last year.

US ‘deceitful’

“Americans were both bullies and deceitful,” Khamenei said, as had been shown by their role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, presumably in fostering nationalism in the Soviet republics.

Putin, IRNA reported, had said that while nobody wanted war, the West’s behavior had left the Kremlin “no choice but to react.” The Russian president said, according to IRNA, that some European countries had opposed talk of Ukraine joining Nato but had been cajoled by the US, revealing their lack of effective sovereignty.

The West did not consider Ukraine as a suitable candidate for NATO membership before the Russian invasion in February.

Putin described the US killing 2020 of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani “as another example of US evil.” He pointed out that sanctions against Russia over Ukraine had punished the west and others through higher energy prices and a food crisis.

Declaring a urgent need to deal with this threat, Biden on Tuesday authorized agencies to impose costs and consequences, including financial sanctions and visa bans, on malicious actors involved in hostage-taking, and charges agencies with developing new methods to deter hostage taking.

Foreign governments and human rights organizations have accused Iran of detaining foreigners and dual nationals on trumped up charges to use them for getting concessions from Western countries. US citizens Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer (Bagher) Namazi, Emad Shargi, and Morad Tahbaz and permanent resident Shahab Dalili are among the dual nationals or foreigners held in Iran on such charges. Iran also holds citizens of several countries including Germany, Austria, and Sweden, as de facto hostages.

In the executive order, known as Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States Nationals Home, Biden said “Terrorist organizations, criminal groups, and other malicious actors who take hostages for financial, political, or other gain — as well as foreign states that engage in the practice of wrongful detention, including for political leverage or to seek concessions from the United States.”

The US government must redouble its efforts at home and with partners abroad to deter these practices and to secure the release of those held as hostages or wrongfully detained, read the order. 

“I therefore determine that hostage-taking and the wrongful detention of United States nationals abroad constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” he said.

July 18 marked the anniversary of the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in Argentina and the 2012 attack on a tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, carrying Israeli tourists, both blamed on Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah with direct involvement of high-level Iranian government officials.

State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement on Monday that the two heinous Hezbollah attacks were carried out with Iranian support, describing it as “the single deadliest antisemitic attack in more than half a century.”

“The AMIA bombing underscored Hezbollah’s global ambitions and is a clear example of Iran’s support of international terrorism,” he said, adding “While no one responsible for the attack has been brought to justice, the United States believes all Argentines deserve to have those responsible held accountable for this despicable and cowardly attack.”

He also referred to the 2012 attack on a tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, carrying Israeli tourists, saying Hezbollah murdered five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver in the bomb attack, which also injured 45 Israeli youth traveling on the bus. “While Bulgarian courts convicted two Hizballah operatives in absentia in connection with the bombing, justice has yet to be served.”

“The United States is committed to countering Hezbollah and Iran’s malign influence. The funding, training, weapons, and other support Iran provides Hezbollah support complex and heinous terrorist attacks like these,” Price said. “The callous murder of civilians must not stand.”

He also referred to “national level designations, bans, or other restrictions against Hezbollah,” urging “more countries to take similar measures, which make it harder for the group and its backers in Tehran to threaten peace and security around the globe.”

Echoing Price’s remarks, US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt, who is in Argentina on the anniversary of the event, reaffirmed the US support of Argentine Jews in "seeking accountability for the horrific actions of that day."

At the ceremony remembering the victims of the attack, AMIA president, Amos Linetzky, said "How can so much impunity be explained? The AMIA incident is one of the most shameful events in Argentine history" and is "an image that shows us to (have experienced) a humiliating failure."

As Argentina commemorated the 28th anniversary of the bomb attack on Monday, the country’s authorities demanded justice, given that nobody has ever been arrested for the attack.

They also called for greater efforts against "the terrorist threat" to the region, referring to a Venezuelan-Iranian jet that has been impounded in Argentina over links with the Revolutionary Guard.

Iran has denied that a Boeing 747 belongs to Iran’s Mahan Airlines -- sanctioned by the US in 2008 for its links to Tehran’s extraterritorial intelligence and secret ops outfit, the IRGC’s Quds (Qods) Force, but there are reports that at least one of the Iranian crew of the grounded Venezuelan cargo plane was a member of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force.

Among the Iranians on board is Gholamreza Ghasemi, who apparently was the pilot and is a member of the IRGC and a former board member of Fars Air Qeshm accused of transporting weapons for Hezbollah during the civil war in Syria. He is reportedly a relative of current Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, whose assignment by President Ebrahim Raisi triggered condemnation from Argentina given his suspected role in the AMIA bombing.

Tehran opposes any plan, being considered in Ankara, for expanded Turkish military intervention in Syria aimed variously at bolstering Syrian rebels, allowing refugees to return, and weakening Kurdish groups linked to Kurdish rebels inside Turkey.

Khamenei stressed Iran accepted Erdogan’s hatred of “terrorist groups,” presumably a reference to PYD (Democratic Union Party), which is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), active mainly in Turkey, and Pejak, which operates in Iranian Kurdistan. The Iranian leader said Tehran would cooperate with Turkey “against terrorism” and emphasized Tehran’s respect for Turkey’s security and borders.

But Khamenei also said that ‘terrorism’ in Syria was not limited to one group and suggested that an attack in north Syria would “benefit terrorists,” destabilize the region, and “impede Syria’s political actions.” Turkey has generally supported mainly Sunni rebels, including militant Islamist groups, against President Bashar al-Assad, who has been supported by both Iran and Russia.

Khamenei and Erdogan agreed on the importance, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA, of resolving differences through negotiations, citing the Astana process between Turkey, Iran and Russia, whose president Vladmir Putin arrives in Tehran for a three-way summit on Tuesday.

Both also stressed the importance of “Muslim unity,” with Khamenei describing the plight of the Palestinians as the most important issue for the “Islamic world.” Israel has a mixed relationship with Turkey, seen in Erdogan scaling back anti-Zionist rhetoric over the past two years and trade reaching around $7 billion in 2021, largely in Turkey’s favor.

IRNA noted Erdogan’s expressed opposition to unilateral sanctions – a reference to United States measures against Iran – and its commitment to Iran’s “legitimate expectations” from reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, currently subject to year-long talks between Tehran and world powers.

Boosting trade

Khamenei talked of boosting economic links in both quantity and quality, saying Erdogan and Raisi would address the issue in other meetings. US ‘maximum pressure sanctions’ after 2018, threatening punitive action against third parties dealing with Iran, saw bilateral trade drop by around two-thirds by 2020 from $10.7 billion in 2017.

While analysts question figures suggesting trade has now rebounded beyond 5.6 billion in 2021, Erdogan said in Tehran he believed it could reach $30 billion.

Aside from resolving difference over Syria, where Russia continues its military presence in support of Assad, the three-way summit in Tehran is set to address a possible safe corridor through Turkey of grain from Ukraine and Russia. Iran is one of many countries importing grain from Russia and facing steep increases in prices with the Ukraine crisis.

The visit also comes in the wake of US President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia, where he committed Washington to avoid leaving a “vacuum” in the Middle East to be filled by Russia, China, and Iran. Saudi Arabian officials have rejected talk of a new “defensive alliance” against Iran, as Riyadh continues to look to Moscow to coordinate global oil supplies through Opec+, which meets early in August.

The intelligence organization of the IRGC made the accusation in a statement on Monday about Zahra Mansouri Hamdani, also known as Sareh, who was previously arrested on charges linked to an appearance in a BBC documentary on gay rights in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

The statement described her "the leader of the biggest gang of Iranian girls trafficking to Erbil,” saying that following months of surveillance, the IRGC intelligence tracked her to the trafficking gangs that had “sold hundreds of Iranian women and girls” to customers in Erbil. 

The IRGC also accuses her of promoting homosexuality, gambling and fraud as well as de-stigmatization of illicit sexual relations in cyberspace. 

The organization added that her gang was run in collaboration with a man identified as "Alireza Farjadi-Kia" and another woman that goes only by the name "Kati".

She was arrested while trying to cross the border and seek asylum in Turkey on October 27, 2021. She was held in solitary confinement for 53 days, during which, the Revolutionary Guard subjected her to intense interrogations, insulted her identity and appearance, threatened to execute her and to take away custody of her children. On January 16, Sareh was accused of “spreading corruption on earth,” including through "promoting homosexuality”, “communication with anti-Islamic Republic media channels” and “promoting Christianity.”

Rights group Amnesty International appealed to Iran’s Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on January 25, calling for release.