Lawmaker Says Iran's Oil Sales, Revenues Must Become Transparrent

At a press conference Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Tuesday that “there’s still a lot more work to be done [on the JCOPA], we don’t have an agreement just yet, and it’s possible we might not get there”. The US is set to take the rotational presidency of the Security Council later this month.

She noted that “if diplomacy does not succeed, then we’ll continue to work very closely with others in the international community to increase the pressure on Iran”.

Thomas-Greenfield stated that some substantial progress has been made in resolving a significant number of the issues necessary for the US to come back into the deal on a compliance-for-compliance basis, and “we’re continuing to work on that effort, and we’ll see where it leads”.

She said president Joe Biden made a solemn commitment that Iran must not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon, but he also made a commitment that he was prepared to go back into the deal, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

Iran’s foreign minister said earlier on Tuesday that Washington “must correct Trump's illegal behavior with a realistic approach” and take a political step to reach a nuclear agreement, insisting that Tehran and Washington are still exchanging messages through the European Union despite the halt in Vienna talks.

According to a report by Zeynab Ghobesyshavi of Roiuydad24 news website few remember that Rostam Ghasemi is Iran's urban development minister and that he was the man who was supposed to implement President Ebrahim Raisi's main promise: Building one million houses a year.

The report said the ministry has not built even one housing unit so far, nine months after Raisi and Ghasemi took office. Those who still remember Ghasemi, remember him with his gaffes and blunders. Ghasemi presented his plans for the oil ministry rather than the ministry of housing when his credentials were being reviewed at the Iranian Parliament (Majles) last August.

However, after some time, Ghasemi explained that he is not supposed to build one million houses every year. He further explained that it takes a year and a half to build a million housing units. He promised to make preparation for building two million houses. What was more important to the press was the fact that he halved the number of homes planned to be built during the four years of Raisi's presidency.

Ghasemi is lucky, the website wrote, that Iranians are so preoccupied with making ends meet as prices of essential commodities including foodstuff have been rising daily, no one has bothered to ask any questions about his housing plans.

From the beginning when the proposal was made, many experts did not take it seriously, arguing that Iran would need nearly $15 billion a year to construct one million units, money it simply does not have amid economic crisis and sanctions.

100%

Economic expert and academic Albert Boghosian said in an interview with Rouydad24 that it is quite possible to build a million residential units every year but the poorer segment of the population who are supposed to be the main beneficiaries cannot afford to pay mortgage for new homes. He suggested that the government should confront “the Mafia” that contributes to the rising cost of housing rather than focusing only on building new homes.

He reminded those who chant the slogan of building a million homes every year that rebuilding just one building in downtown Tehran that was ruined in a major fire took several years.

Meanwhile, Baytollah Sattarian, another economic expert told the website: "We used to build some 300 to 400 thousand housing units every year, but most of them remained vacant. So, a more practical number would be making 100 thousand apartments a year.

Sattarian charged that government officials do not know Iran's housing market.

He also said the government ignores that a sum equal to the same amount of investment for building housing units should be provided also for buildings for educational, administrative, health and policing, and other purposes in every neighborhood. Where can the government provide the cost of such projects from? Sattarian asked.

He added that Iran needs double-digit economic growth to afford building millions of homes, and quipped, "In four months’ time, the first year of the Raisi administration will come to an end. With the current situation, I can promise that we would be standing at the same spot after the end of the four years."

The CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Mark Dubowitz, said on Monday that that the abandonment of US pressure under President Joe Biden has boosted Iranian oil sales, economic growth, regional aggression and nuclear escalation.

FDD has advocated a tough US policy on Iran and has opposed the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA.

He added that recent data contradict the Biden administration’s claims that pressure increases Iran’s aggressive behavior, noting that when US sanctions are enforced, Iran spends less for malign activities in the region. Pressure works; weakness invites provocation, Dubowitz tweeted.

He republished a post by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), showing that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recent remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Iranian aggression being only the result of the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal are “misleading and inaccurate”.

Dubowitz also shared a series of tweets by Gabriel Noronha, former Special Advisor for the Secretary's Iran Action Group in the Trump administration, who compared the Iranian military budget trends against US sanctions since 2013.

Using data by the international institute SIPRI – which recently revealed Iran has increased its military expenditure for the first time in four years to become the 14th largest military spender, Noronha showed that Iran's oil exports "directly" funds its terror.

The office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other Iranian grand ayatollahs on Sunday evening said the crescent moon had not been sighted so the first of the month of Shawwal, the tent month in the Islamic lunar calendar, and the Eid would fall on Tuesday.

The Islamic month of Ramadan, therefore, became thirty days in Iran this year and twenty-nine days in other Islamic calendars. In Iran the lunar Islamic calendar is used only for religious purposes while the official calendar is an accurate solar one. Differences in the length of the month of Ramadan in Islamic countries can cause confusion.

On several occasions in the past, as in 2013 and 2020, there has been disagreement among Iran's grand ayatollahs, also called marja (source of emulation) over the sighting of the new moon with followers of each grand ayatollah holding separate Eid prayers.

The difference in marjas’ verdicts reflects their notions for "viewing the new moon". Some marjas require the crescent of the new moon to be seen with naked eye while others including Khamenei allow the use of instruments such as telescopes.

Secular Iranians, and some devout Muslims with more progressive views, often criticize traditional leaders for insisting to see the crescent when science can easily and precisely show the position of the cycle of the moon in the sky.

100%

Khamenei appointed a special body called the "Moon-Sighting Taskforce" after taking office. The taskforce is responsible for stationing "trusted observers" across the country on the final days of Ramadan to report the sighting of the new moon to him. The taskforce receives a budget from the government for its work.

Khamenei's declaration of the viewing of the new moon, and its acceptance by other grand ayatollahs, is politically and religiously significant as it is considered as evidence of his position as the supreme authority among all Iranian marjas.

Iran's devout Shiites are free to choose which marja to follow in religious matters but not to make a public show of their marja's difference of opinion with Khamenei by holding prayer congregations other than those held by the state.

On the day of Eid, Khamenei usually leads the prayers in Tehran and delivers one of his most significant sermons of the year. In recent years the authorities have insisted that Eid prayers be held throughout the country on the day designated by Khamenei.

Two years ago, Khamenei's office announced the sighting of the new moon and a public holiday but two high-ranking marjas – Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi and Ayatollah Hossein Vahid Khorasani – held on for a few hours before changing their minds and following Khamenei's lead.

Iran's Arab neighbors including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq which unlike the others has a majority Shiite population, all celebrated the Eid al-Fitr on Monday. Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, however, has also declared Tuesday as Eid. The Sunni Taliban in Iran's east said Saturday evening that they had sighted the crescent moon so the Eid fell on Sunday.

According to an undeclared law, authorities expect not only Shiite leaders, but also the religious leaders of the minority Sunnis to follow Khamenei's lead about the declaration of Eid. This year, as in several instances before when the Eid was celebrated on different days in Shiite Iran and Sunni countries, the Sunni imam of Zahedan in south-eastern Iran, Molavi Abdolhamid, held his Eid prayers on Monday in tandem with other Sunni countries.

Iran on Monday was in a total confusion, as it was not clear if Ramadan ended or not, and if there was a public holiday. The foreign ministry did not hold its weekly press briefing.

Western diplomats told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the EU is offering to send its top negotiator Enrique Mora to Tehran again to persuade Tehran to show flexibility.

Mora, the senior EU official chairing the Vienna process, has told Iranian negotiators he is ready to return to Tehran to open a pathway through the deadlock, diplomats told the Wall Street Journal. Mora failed to convince Tehran to return to the talks during his March 27 visit.

Talks in Vienna to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have been in limbo since mid-March when Iran insisted that its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) be removed from the US list of terrorist organizations. The US has not agreed to the demnd.

Reuters reported on Monday that the West has almost given up on the process and is contemplating what to do next.

"They are not yanking the IV out of the patient's arm ... but I sense little expectation that there is a positive way forward," one source, who like others quoted spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitiviy, told Reuters.

Western diplomats told the Wall Street Journal that they want to put the onus back on Tehran, making it clear the talks could fail unless Tehran took a step to end the stalemate. Mora, they said, will try to persuade Tehran to leave the issue of IRGC's delisting to a future point and sign off on the deal now. Tehran has so far not responded to the proposition, the report said.

In a phone talk with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's on April 20, the EU foreign policy Chief, Josep Borrell expressed frustration over the pause in the talks and called for fresh contacts between Enrique Mora and Iran’s lead negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani.

Iran insists that it will not give up on its demand for the removal of the IRGC from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), calling it a 'red line' it will not cross at any cost

The Biden administration is adamant that it will only negotiate the delisting of the IRGC if Tehran also agrees to discuss other issues which are important for Washington, presumably Iran's aggressive regional policies and support for militant groups, which are also outside the JCPOA purview.

Despite the deadlock in the talks that appears to have much to do with the IRGC regional activities and pledge to take revenge on American officials for ordering the targeted killing of Ghasem Soleimani, officials in Tehran have shown no signs of softening their rhetoric in the past few weeks

Soleimani, commander of the Qods (Quds) Force, the IRGC's extraterritorial arm, was killed in a drone attack in Baghdad in January 2020 on Trump's orders.

The pause in talks has given ample opportunity for JCPOA critics in both Tehran and Washington. The Republicans have highlighted the prospect that lifting US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran accepting JCPOA limits on its nuclear program would see Tehran repatriate billions of dollars currently frozen by creditors wary of punitive US action.

US Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) reiterated Sunday that no nuclear deal with Ian was better than a bad deal. “It’s 2022. It's not 2014. Some of the original deal sunsets are even closer… to ending a pathway where Iran could ultimately achieve its goal,” a reference to the belief that Tehran is bent on producing nuclear weapons.