Sberbank Launches Transfers To Iran For Russian Customers

US officials told Reuters Friday that the infrastructure deal could reconfigure the landscape of trade in the Eurasia region, linking Middle Eastern countries by a network of railways and connecting to India through shipping lanes, bypassing Iran in trade routes from Asia to Europe. 

The talks, which have also included the United Arab Emirates and Europe, may yield a concrete result in time for an announcement on the sidelines of this week's Group of 20 (G20) leaders meeting, the sources said. Axios said earlier in the week that the plan would be announced on Saturday. 

The announcement came as US President Joe Biden is on his way to the G20 conference in New Delhi, India, where he is set to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and may also have talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

The plans for a sweeping, multi-national ports and rail deal would potentially counter China's growing influence through the Belt and Road global initiative as Biden is pitching Washington as an alternative partner for an investor in developing countries at the G20, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. According to The Brookings Institution, “China’s growing role in the Middle East is positioning the rising superpower in direct confrontation with shifting US interests in the domains of energy security, Israel, and Iran.”

The project, being discussed for 18 months, is seen as a part of the Biden administration’s mega deal that would have Saudi Arabia recognize Israel. The strategic concept of the "Indo-Abrahamic Alliance" has laid the framework for the formation of the I2U2 group, a grouping of India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the summit that it was an initiative the US was invested in along with its partner countries, and that there was a "broad understanding of many of the key elements.” 

"Many of the elements of a pathway to normalization are now on the table. We don't have a framework, we don't have the terms ready to be signed. There is still work to do," Sullivan added. Biden himself said in early July that Israel and Saudi Arabia were a long way from a normalization agreement that would also involve a US-Saudi defense treaty and a civilian nuclear program for the Saudis from the United States.

US officials see a potential deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia as possible after the administration of then-President Donald Trump reached similar agreements between Israel and Morocco, Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

In addition to the diplomatic implications, the project could reduce shipping times, costs, the use of diesel and make trade faster and cheaper, potentially making Iran redundant in the transit of goods in the region. 

In May, Iranian lawmaker Mojtaba Yousefi admitted that Iran has been supplanted by Turkey as the region’s transport hub despite Tehran’s ambitions. Iran suffers from poor infrastructure that makes a mockery of its ambitions in recent years to be the leader. The country’s roads and railways are in need of significant upgrades, while the ports are not equipped to handle the large volumes of cargo that would be necessary for Iran to become a regional hub. Political instability and economic sanctions mean the situation is highly unlikely to improve any time soon. 

However, Tehran Times, a pro-regime publication, said in an article last year that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “despite its grave consequences for many countries, has presented Iran with a golden opportunity to realize the long-awaited goal of becoming the global transit hub it once was,” referring to the Silk Road, an ancient network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century that span over 6,400 kilometers (about 3976.78 mi).

Hit by sanctions that severely hampered trade of Russian goods, Moscow sought alternative routes for global distribution, with a renewed focus on the International North-South Transit Corridor (INSTC), the daily claimed. The agreement for launching INSTC was signed by Iran, India, and Russia in 2000, however, despite all the hype, the project yielded no results mainly due to the US sanctions on Iran. 

Ali Beitollahi, the head of the Seismology Center at the Housing and Urban Development Research Center, has revealed that in the event of an earthquake measuring seven on the Richter scale, approximately 60 percent of buildings in Iran could be destroyed.

Beitollahi explained that the Tehran-Karaj region, a densely populated area, faces a significantly higher risk. An earthquake with a magnitude of seven in the region alone could potentially result in the destruction of more than two million residential units, placing six million people in immediate danger.

The warning follows recent concerns expressed by Mehdi Pirhadi, a member of the Tehran Council, who emphasized the urgent need for building renovations in the capital to enhance earthquake resilience.

However, it is essential to recognize that the seismic risk is not limited to Tehran. Active fault lines stretch from Hamedan in the west to Gilan in the north, posing an imminent threat of a potentially catastrophic earthquake.

Iran, located at the convergence of the Arabian, Indian, and Eurasian tectonic plates, is renowned for its high seismic activity, making it one of the most earthquake-prone countries globally. The nation has witnessed several massive earthquakes in recent history, resulting in significant loss of life and substantial economic damage.

One of a number of high-profile guests in a House of Lords event in honor of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, Gila Gamliel said: "The world must understand that Iran is not only Israel's problem. Other attendees included Lord Stuart Polak.

“The Ayatollah regime is extending its arms throughout the world. Therefore, the modern world must stand together like a wall," she told Iran International.

Lord Polak also told Iran International's reporter that this meeting was meant to hear the voices of the Iranian people and their demands.During her trip to London this week, Gamliel said that based on her conversations with many Iranians in the diaspora, she feels there is a true movement of change happening in Iran.

A source in her office told Iran International that Gamliel has emphasized that Israel, due to the role Iran played in saving Jews 2,500 years ago, considers itself committed to doing whatever it can to save Iranians.

Referencing the Jewish expression, 'see you next year in Jerusalem', the heart of the Jewish people, she gave a message to the Iranian people, "I hope that next year we will see each other in Tehran. I wholeheartedly believe that we can fulfill this promise together."

Gamliel also met with a group of Iranian opposition activists and reporters in London on Wednesday.

The Israeli minister also considered the goal of her trip to be "changing Western leaders' perception of the Iranian regime and imposing stricter sanctions on this government and listing the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group."

The United States government sanctioned Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019, but European states have hesitated to take the step, although they have imposed many sanctions on IRGC officials and entities.

The UK’s security minister and home secretary have both recently said Iran now poses one of the biggest threats to the country. Earlier this year, Iran International was forced to relocate its London office to Washington amidst threats to reporters’ lives which UK spy agency MI5 said it could no longer counter.

While speaking to Iran International, the Israeli minister said she wishes to send “support messages to the Iranian people and that the West should be with the Iranians and not make it easy for the regime.”

Gamliel hosted Iran’s exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi in Israel earlier this year during an unprecedented visit in April when he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Writing in the Israeli Maariv newspaper on International Women's Day in March, she said, "The citizens of Iran are not Israel's enemies. Peaceful relations, respect and appreciation prevailed between the peoples for many years" before the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Director Wray made the remarks during a presentation addressing prominent foreign and domestic threats to the United States at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC, on Thursday.

As reported by AP, Director Wray referenced a significant Iranian plot that unfolded in 2021, involving a foiled attempt to assassinate former National Security Adviser John Bolton. The motive behind this plot was purportedly retaliation for the US drone strike that had targeted Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.

Additionally, Wray highlighted a cyber-attack on Boston's Children's Hospital orchestrated by Tehran in 2022 and Iran's covert influence campaign during the 2020 US presidential election.

He emphasized, "That's all on top of constantly trying to evade international sanctions and being the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. So if that's not enough to convince people that this is a serious threat, I don't know what is."

On the domestic front, Wray underscored the FBI's elevation of racially-motivated violent extremism to a national threat priority in 2019, aligning it with the threat level posed by ISIS. More recently, the FBI has intensified its focus on anti-government and anti-authority violent extremism, spanning from militia groups to anarchist violent extremists.

The US House of Representatives is also expected to put the final stamp on the bipartisan Mahsa Amini Human Rights and Security Accountability (MAHSA) Act after it was submitted in June, seeking more sanctions on Iran’s leadership.

Named after Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, whose death in morality police custody in September 2022 led to the boldest revolt against the clerical regime since its establishment in 1979, the Act won unanimous approval at the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in April, before Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) introduced the bipartisan legislation to the Senate in June.

Essentially similar and a companion to the one passed in the House committee, the MAHSA Act will potentially commit the administration to report to Congress within 90 days of the date of the enactment and periodically thereafter, making determinations about whether certain existing sanctions apply to specific people and impose the applicable sanctions.

The bipartisan bicameral move requires the executive branch to impose applicable sanctions on Ali Khamenei, his office and his appointees, as well as President Ebrahim Raisi and his cabinet officials, foundations and other entities affiliated with the Supreme Leader under section 105(c) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010, section 7031 (c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2021, and Executive Orders 13876, 13553, 13224, and 13818.

“The Supreme Leader is an institution of the Islamic Republic of Iran … that holds ultimate authority over Iran’s judiciary and security apparatus, including the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, law enforcement forces under the Interior Ministry, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Basij, a nationwide volunteer paramilitary group, subordinate to the IRGC, all of which have engaged in human rights abuses in Iran,” reads a paragraph of the MAHSA Act.

It follows moves earlier this year when Democratic and Republican leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee introduced a bill to target Iran’s production and exports of missiles and drones, with an eye toward the soon-to-expire United Nations restrictions on Iran’s missile program.

The Fight and Combat Rampant Iranian Missile Exports (Fight CRIME) Act levies additional sanctions on Iran and asks the administration to outline a strategy to prevent the UN restrictions from expiring.

Demands for harsher actions against the regime continue to blight the administration which has been dogged by allegations of its being too soft as it tightropes between negotiating to revive the JCPOA nuclear deal while Iran continues to forge ahead with acts against the US in the likes of Syria and Iraq. Since the Biden administration came to power, over 80 attacks have been made on US facilities and personnel overseas by Iran, with just five retaliatory attacks from the US.

On top of this, is the controversy surrounding suspended US envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, who is under investigation for alleged leaking of confidential information to Iran.

Just this week, FBI Director Christopher Wray highlighted what the FBI sees as some of the leading foreign and domestic threats to the United States in an hour long program at Washington, D.C.'s International Spy Museum.

Among those mentioned was the Iranian plot to assassinate former National Security Adviser John Bolton in 2021 in retaliation for the US drone strike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Bolton is one of a list of targets from the Trump administration with threats to their life from the regime. Wray also brought up a cyber attack by Tehran on Boston's Children's Hospital last year and its covert influence campaign on the 2020 US presidential election.

"That's all on top of constantly trying to evade international sanctions and being the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism," Wray said, "So if that's not enough to convince people that this is a serious threat, I don't know what is."

Former US representative to Iran, Elliott Abrams, this week called on a total travel ban for Iranian citizens going to Iran for the high risk of kidnapping, following the $6 billion deal exchanging five US citizens for freeing up frozen funds in South Korea. It is an issue which has created huge divisions in Washington and allegations that the Biden administration has opened the door for yet further hostage diplomacy.

Next Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is holding a hearing on Iran titled "A Dangerous Strategy: Examining the Biden Administration’s Failures on Iran”.

Gabriel Noronha, former US representative to Iran said it was a much needed step. “Next week's hearing on Iran is only the second during the Biden Administration and the first in 15 months. This despite Iran's nuclear program advancing, ~10 Americans living under assassination threat, failed negotiations, and the US envoy for Iran under security investigation.”

He said while Congress' attention is justly focused on China as the paramount threat to the United States, on Russia given its war against Ukraine, and on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, “it has taken its eye off the ball when it comes to Iran”, which he claims is now the US’ “number two threat”.

Jason Brodsky, Policy Director from United Against A Nuclear Iran welcomed the initiatives saying, "we're making progress. After the House had not held even one Iran-focused hearing since 2020, there are now two in one week next week".