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Parliament national security body: Iran, P4+1 not far from nuclear deal in Vienna

Vienna Talks

Abolfazl Amouei denied reports that Iran and the other sides have reached an agreement but noted that they are not far from reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA.

Amouei added that if there is serious determination, this will happen very quickly.

He pointed to a close-door meeting between Iranian MPs with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkahni.

The MP noted that the key point in a parliamentary law that pertains to the JCPOA is the necessity of removing anti-Iran sanctions.

Amouei also said all lawmakers insist that Iranian officials involved in the nuclear talks keep going down this path.

He added that the most important goal of the talks is that the Iranian people must enjoy full economic benefits from a deal and this will involve the lifting of all bans on Iran’s oil sales.

Iran must also be able to do foreign business.

The Iranian lawmaker stressed that another key issue is verification of the other sides’ adherence to their commitments under the JCPOA.

Amouei said there must be a mechanism through which Iran can verify that the other parties stick to their obligations and are not in violation of those commitments.

He added that the issue of verification and also guarantees that the US will not violate its commitments under the agreement has been laid out in writing in the draft.

He said there will be a period during which this verification will be done.

Amouei then pointed to the safeguards issues, saying the UN atomic agency’s questions regarding Iran’s nuclear program are politically motivated and this case must be closed.

Iran Covid: 67 killed, nearly 5k infected in 24 hours

COVID in Iran

Some 67 more Iranians have died from the coronavirus over the past 24 hours bringing the total deaths to 143,160, Iran’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

4,824 new cases of infection with COVID-19 were found over the past 24 hours, 995 of whom were hospitalized, it added.

The health ministry noted that 7,201,750 patients out of a total of 7,493,317 infected people have recovered or been discharged from hospitals.

1,428 COVID-19 patients are in critical conditions and in intensive care units, it added.

The health ministry also announced that 64,864,327 Iranians have received the first dose and 58,243,498 people have so far received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Moreover, 30,330,112 people have also received the third or fourth shots as the booster jab.

“Turkey and Israel agree to restore full diplomatic relations”

Yair Lapid & Mevlut Cavusoglu

“Upgrading relations will contribute to deepening ties between the two peoples, expanding economic, trade, and cultural ties, and strengthening regional stability,” a statement from the office of the Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Wednesday, after a conversation between Lapid and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“[The] appointment of ambassadors was one of the steps for the normalisation of ties,” stated Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at a news conference in Ankara.

“Such a positive step came from Israel as a result of these efforts, and as Turkey, we also decided to appoint an ambassador to Israel, to Tel Aviv,” he continued.

Cavusoglu added that the move did not mean that Turkey would be abandoning the Palestinian cause.

The two countries expelled ambassadors in 2018 over the killing of 60 Palestinians by Israeli forces during protests on the Gaza border against the opening of the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.

A visit to Turkey by Israeli President Isaac Herzog in March, followed by visits by both foreign ministers, helped warm relations after more than 10 years of tensions.

The move, which comes as Israel has sought to improve ties with regional powers, was agreed upon two years after the so-called Abraham Accords which saw relations normalised between Israel, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

Fencer grabs Iranian women’s 1st epee medal in history

Aazam Bakhti

Aazam Bakhti won the first medal in the history of Iranian women epee fencing in Konya 2022 Islamic Countries Solidarity Games.

The Iranian athletes in this 5th Islamic Countries Solidarity Games continued their competitions in women’s epee fencing, in which Bakhti gained her bronze medal, that is the first medal in the history of the Iranian women’s epee fencing.

At the end of the group fencing, Iran’s Mahsa Sadat-Pour with three victories and two defeats, Aazam Bakhti with three victories and two defeats, and Paria Mahrokh with four victories and two defeats all went up to the main chart, but all three Iranian athletes gained rest lots in one-sixteenth final round.

Iranian MP: Deal with 4+1, US does not need parliamentary approval

Iran Parliament

The deputy chair of the parliament’s social commission says the Iranian negotiating team have been granted full power in this regard and this removed the need for a parliamentary vote on the agreement.

Vali Esmaeili also said during the recent closed-door meeting between lawmakers, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and chief negotiator Ali Bagheri, the foreign ministry officials briefed MPs on the process of the Vienna talks for revival of the nuclear deal.

Esmaeili said their briefing showed they had led “strong and logical” negotiations.

“The ball is now in the US and western governments’ court, and they should decide to give a proper response to Iran’s proposed package with their correct decision,” he said.

Iran offered his conclusion on the EU-proposed text for the agreement with the US and remaining signatories to the nuclear deal on Monday evening.

Iran now says it is awaiting their response amid reports that the EU’s assessment of Tehran’s response is positive.

Meanwhile, the deputy chair of the parliament’s national security commission says the negotiations on the revival of the nuclear deal are over and Iran has made its political decision.

Moghtadaei said the closed-door parliamentary sessions, where the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s nuclear chief were also present, led to some sort of an understanding among participants.

Moghtadaei said the key issue is that the interests of the Iranian nation should be secured at the highest possible extent.

He also said an agreement in now at hand unless the US goes back on its words. In that case, he said, the US must bear the full responsibility for failure of the Vienna talks to revive the nuclear deal.

Meet the Iranian boy who swims, runs like the wind without legs

Meet the Iranian boy who swims, runs like the wind without legs

Eleven months after Mohammad Mehdi Bakhshi was born, doctors decided to cut off his both legs, which were powerless due to congenital anomalies.

But the child soon learned to enjoy walking with a pair of artificial legs. He did not stop there though, and began to brave his physical condition by developing skills in sports.

In one video, he is seen swimming without legs and in another, he runs like the wind with artificial legs. The boy is also filmed using pull-up bars, displaying the power in his arms.

“I train every day at home or at the gym so that I can become a champion when I grow older. I want to reach my goal with the same artificial legs,” Hamshahri Online cited Mohammad Mehdi as saying.

His mother, Somayeh Nargesi-Delavar, also talked about how fond his son is of sports.

Meet the Iranian boy who swims, runs like the wind without legs

“Mohammad-Mahdi was soon accustomed to the prosthetics, his artificial legs essentially, and was able to walk. Since he was a baby, he loved to play in the park, but he couldn’t walk and he would only watch children playing with the toys from a distance,” she said.

“It was at around that same time when we decided to try building prosthetics. Just a couple of occupational and water therapy sessions were enough for Mohammad-Mahdi to be able to play with the kids at the park near our house using his artificial legs. We found out then that the boy has got the nerves,” she added.

Iranian official: Tehran will not recognize current Taliban government

Taliban

Marking the first anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan after over two decades of occupation by US-led forces, Hassan Kazemi Ghomi told a press conference on Wednesday in Tehran, “The US definitely failed in Afghanistan, but their escape means they are pursuing their goals in Afghanistan from a distance.”

The US has frozen billions of dollars worth of Afghan assets which, as the Iranian official said, has tightened the economic noose around the Afghan people.

The Iranian representative said Iran follows the developments in Afghanistan with watchful eyes, as insecurity and the rapidly declining living standards in Afghanistan will spill over into Iran, already hosting some four million Afghan refugees for decades.

Kazemi Ghomi also noted that Iran has to settle several issues with the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, including border security and a dispute over Iran’s water share from the Hirmand River, known as Helmand in Afghanistan.

Iran’s roads minister in Pakistan for economic meeting

Rostam Ghasemi

Rostam Ghasemi arrived in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on Wednesday to take part in the 21st Iran-Pakistan Joint Economic Commission.

He said developing border markets, boosting barter trade and efforts to remove trade barriers are top on the agenda for the two-day meeting.

“The banking transactions between the two countries have also been followed up and we are looking forward to implementing the clearing mechanism. We believe the plan will provide the basis for increasing commercial cooperation between the two neighboring countries,” he added.

Ghassemi further said a memorandum of understanding will be signed to step up cooperation with Pakistan in various sectors and increase trade volume between the two countries.

Iran and Pakistan agreed last year to enhance economic ties and expand the annual trade volume to five billion dollars by 2023, from the current one billion dollars.

‘Iran-EU trade value up by 34% in first half of 2022’

Iran Trade

According to the data recently released by the Eurostat news portal, the figure stood at €1.9 million from January to June this year.

The EU’s exports from Iran jumped by 37 percent in the first six months of 2022, compared with the same time span a year earlier, and reached €550 million in value.

The 27-nation bloc’s exports to Iran also witnessed a 33-percent hike in the first half of 2022 and stood at €2 billion.

According to the statistics, Germany has been Iran’s largest trade partner among the European states.

The value of trade between the two countries saw a six-percent increase to reach €950 million.

Minister: Nearly 3mn tourists visited Iran in less than a year

Iran COVID

Ezzatollah Zarghami, in an interview with Iran’s IRINN channel on Tuesday, said the Islamic Republic has plans to revive the tourism sector, hit hard by the Covid-19 outbreak, and return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2024.

He said, “In the last 11 months, 35 new museums have been established across the country, and now the number of museums has crossed the 800 mark.”

Ecotourism is one of the areas that Iran has been seeking to expand during the past years in order to flaunt the beauties of the rural, desert, and forest areas in the country to incoming visitors, the minister added.

The Iranian minister said several meetings have been held with dozens of archeologists, cultural heritage experts, as well as tour operators to optimize Iran’s tourism potential.

Zarghami, however, regretted that the tight budget has taken a toll on the maintenance and restoration of over 35,000 registered historical sites across the country.

He also blamed Iranophobia as one of the main obstacles to the development and prosperity of tourism in Iran, which diverts tourists to neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf region.