Iran Reiterates Call For Release Of Its Ex-Officials Imprisoned In Europe

He made the remarks in an Instagram post on Friday after Iran International released travel documents that reveal two of Zarepour's children hold Australian citizenship.

Zarepour claimed that none of his family members and even immediate relatives has dual nationality. 

In early August, Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, the secretary of Iran’s Headquarters For Enjoining Right And Forbidding Evil, tasked with promoting the clerical regime’s interpretation of Islamic laws, criticized the high number of “senior officials” whose relatives are living abroad, confirming that there are over 4,000 sons and daughters who have left Iran.

Earlier in the year, General Morteza Mirian, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ ground operations, said that the relatives of these officials should be “tracked” so as not to be allowed back to Iran to take up managerial positions.

A figure of 5,000 “descendants” of senior officials living abroad was cited in 2020 by Mohammad Gharazi, communications minister between 1985 and 1997 who was at the time considered a presidential hopeful. In November 2021, Alireza Salimi, a member of parliament, suggested that officials under former President Hassan Rouhani, including deputy ministers had moved to Europe due to fears they would be banned from leaving the country.

In 2019, Brian Hook, special representative for Iran (from 2018 to 2020) under President Donald Trump told Iran International that “children of Islamic Republic officials live rich and comfortable lives in the United States and other countries while Iranian people live in terrible conditions.” Hook said this showed “the regime’s hypocrisy.”

Iran’s state broadcaster reported on Friday, "The (Iranian navy) frigate Jamaran seized the two vessels on Thursday to prevent any possible accident after issuing warnings to the US fleet," accusing the unmanned vessels of jeopardizing maritime safety. 

“After securing the international shipping waterway, the Naval Squadron No. 84 released the two vessels in a safe area,” the report added.

The state television also aired footage that appeared to show more than a dozen lifejacket-wearing Iranian navy personnel pushing two Saildrone Explorers into the sea from the deck of their vessel, as another warship could be seen in the distance.

Later in the day, Commander Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet, confirmed the incident to The Associated Press but declined to elaborate.

On Tuesday, the US Naval Forces Central Command said that ithe US Navy prevented a support ship from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Navy -- named Shahid Baziar -- from capturing an unmanned vessel operated by the US 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

The 5th Fleet launched its unmanned Task Force 59 last year, with an area of responsibility covering the crucial Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of all oil passes, and stretching as far as the Red Sea reaches near the Suez Canal, the waterway in Egypt leading to the Mediterranean, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen.

"We must draft a much better deal with a much longer stick. And this is what we're not seeing," Ram Ben-Barak, head of parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, said in a radio interview in Israel.

Tehran's insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) close its probes into uranium traces found at three undeclared sites before the nuclear pact is revived is one key hurdle.

After 16 months of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, the European made a proposal in August but key differences remain between Iran and the US.
The open probes and future inspection were Israel's main concerns with the current deal, Ben-Barak said.

"We must get honest and real answers about what they did there," he said.
Ben-Barak, who once served as deputy director of Israel's Mossad spy agency, said Iran is not as strong as some people may think and has been struggling under sanctions. This could lead Tehran to give up on its nuclear ambitions entirely, whether by diplomacy or military power, he added.

Israel has pledged never to allow Iran to obtain atomic weapons, saying Tehran advocates its destruction. Iran denies ever seeking nuclear arms.

"What Israel wants is something better in place of this deal. Something better means telling the Iranians 'listen, you will not have a nuclear program'," he said.

Reporting by Reuters

London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat quoted unnamed Syrian sources as saying on Friday that Moscow has demanded Iranian-backed militias to evacuate positions west of Syria’s Hama province as well as from positions in the central and western parts of the country. 

According to the report, Russia’s call is meant to deprive Israelis of excuses or pretexts to continue the bombing of targets where Russian forces are present. 

“Russian officers informed the Iranian side of the need to evacuate Iranian military headquarters near the site of Regiment 49, which belongs to the Syrian regime forces,” a source told the paper, adding that the demand was made during a meeting that included three Russian officers and their Iranian counterparts on Wednesday.

The Regiment 49 site is one of the most important military sites in western Hama as it houses long-range S-200 missiles and other Russian-made military equipment. 

“The Russian officers also demanded that the Iranians evacuate a second military site in the Hamidiya area, south of Tartus governorate on the Syrian coast,” the source added.

Following Israeli airstrikes on targets around Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said on Thursday that Israel was "playing with fire," noting that "Syria will not remain silent regarding the repeated Israeli attacks and the Israelis will pay the price sooner or later."

Israel conducted several airstrikes against the Aleppo International Airport in northwestern Syria, hours before its missiles struck targets southeast of capital Damascus Wednesday night.

According to the government’s official news website, IRNA, the blast was caused by the bursting of one of the furnaces of the sulphur production unit of phase three of Abadan Oil Refinery during the start-up operation, causing a huge explosion.

The blast apparently had no casualties, and IRNA claims that production at the refinery continues as usual.

This is the second incident at the Abadan refinery, which supplies around 25 percent of the country’s fuel needs, this year. In April, a section of the refinery caught fire but the blaze was contained with no fatalities or injuries. 

Abadan, near the Persian Gulf coast, is Iran’s largest refinery with a daily capacity of 430,000 barrels of crude, producing liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene, gas oil, jet fuel, furnace oil, bitumen, petroleum solvents, sulfur, and naphtha. Abadan refinery, opened in 1912 by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company originally as a pipeline terminus, quickly became one of the world's largest refineries and was an important supplier to the British military.

Several explosions and fires in Iranian military and industrial sites − including pipelines and refineries − since mid-2020 have not been fully explained by authorities. However, they have blamed Israel for a series of spectacular sabotage attacks on nuclear facilities, including two explosions at Natanz uranium enrichment center. Israel has not taken responsibility for any incident.