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“France in No Position to Dictate Iran’s Defence Policy”

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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“It’s not France’s business to tell us what kind of missiles we should have,” Ali Akbar Velayati said Wednesday.

“Do we tell France how should it defend itself?” he asked rhetorically.

France, along with other European powers, Germany and Britain, has for a while been requesting Iran to stop developing ballistic missiles.

They argue curbs on Iran’s missile program and regional activities will convince US President Donald Trump not to “terminate” the 2015 nuclear deal.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is expected to arrive in Iran for an official visit Monday, during which he is expected to raise Iran’s missile program.

Velayati said statements by French officials regarding Iran’s missile work will do them no good, urging the French foreign minister to avoid repeating them.

“Le Drian should refrain from adopting negative positions, if his trip is aimed at boosting relations with Tehran,” he said after a meeting with Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Takeo Mori in Tehran.

Velayati said Iran will devise its defence policy independently, adding it cannot remain indifferent to mass weapons purchases by governments in the region.

“No country can give orders to other states. It’s our right to decide how we should defend ourselves, either by missiles or other defensive weapons”, ISNA quoted him as saying in a Farsi report.

The advisor was apparently referring to Saudi Arabia, a major buyer of arms and the US arms dealers’ top client.

Just last year, Saudis agreed to buy over $110 billion worth of US weapons during Trump’s visit to Riyadh.

IRGC Chief Says Resistance Fighters Will One Day Say Prayers in Quds

By
IFP Media Wire
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In a speech on Saturday, Major General Jafari praised recent military achievements of the anti-Israeli Resistance Front and said, “We have witnessed divine assistance in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.”

The recent shooting down of an Israeli fighter jet, which occurred for the first time, was one example of the divine assistance,” the commander said.

He further expressed the hope that the victories of the Resistance fighters would continue in future, saying that, with the help of God, all those who are fighting for Islam, would hold prayers in the holy Quds one day.

Last month, the Syrian military downed an intruding Israeli F-16 warplane returning from a bombing raid on an army base in central Syria.

The Israeli military confirmed that one F-16 had gone down in northern Israel and that its two pilots had ejected and had been located and transferred to hospital. It later announced that one of the pilots was in serious condition.

Over the past years, Israel has frequently attacked targets in Syria, often claiming that it hit positions or convoys belonging to Iran. This is while Iran has no military presence in Syrian territory, only offering advisory military assistance to the Syrian government fighting an all-out foreign-sponsored militancy.

“US Readiness for Talks with Taliban Aimed at Prolonging Afghan Conflict”

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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Taliban

By announcing readiness for talks with Taliban, “they want to further complicate security calculations in the region to prevent the end of tensions and clashes”, said lawmaker Masoud Goudarzi.

The Iranian MP, who is also a member of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, also said the US does not intend to settle the conflict in the region, but it wants to support Taliban to keep the balance among terrorist elements operating in Afghanistan.

“The US interests in Afghanistan lie in keeping one group from gaining too much power and maintaining the balance among extremist elements, so they prevent the creation of a supreme power that champions the will of Afghan people”, he said, referring to the Taliban and ISIS, which are both present in Afghanistan.

He made the statements in a Farsi interview with ICANA, referring to last week comments by Alice Wells, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the US State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, that the “door is open” for talks with the Taliban.

Speaking to Voice of America, Wells said the second round of a regional peace conference in Kabul, which began on Wednesday, was aimed at making clear that there was the potential for dialogue.

Walls was pointing to the so-called “Kabul process”, which focuses on resuming “peace talks” and uniting regional countries in what is being billed as the battle against terrorism.

The US call for dialogue was responded by a statement from Taliban on Monday, requesting direct talks with the US in a declared bid to find a “peaceful solution” for the long-running war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban “calls on American officials to talk directly to the Political Office” of the group, read the statement, apparently referring to an alleged office in the Qatari capital.

This is while the Taliban had repeatedly declared that it will not enter talks until the US-led foreign troops leave the country.

Iran Prepared for US Withdrawal from Nuclear Deal: Envoy

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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In remarks made on Saturday, Mehdi Sanaei said Iran has always been fully aware of the West’s unreliability in the Iran nuclear deal.

“Tehran has always had this point in mind that the US, as one of the signatories of the nuclear deal, may one day decide to pull out of it without fulfilling its commitments,” he was quoted as saying in a Farsi report by Fars News Agency.

Sanaei noted Tehran is completely prepared to give an appropriate response to the US possible exit from the deal.

The Iranian diplomat underlined that despite its pessimism towards the reliability of the western countries during the JCPOA talks, the Islamic Republic pressed ahead with the marathon talks to reach a deal with them.

“Iran had been aware of the other sides’ shortcomings particularly the US in the nuclear deal,” he said, stressing that is why Iran has prepared itself for the US pull-out of the JCPOA.

Back in January, US President Donald Trump declared that if what he called the “disastrous flaws” in the nuclear deal with Iran were not fixed within 120 days, he would pull America out of it.

He renewed the presidential waiver that lifts sanctions on Iran, but signalled that this was a final reprieve rather than a change of heart.

Black Box of Iranian Crashed Plane Found

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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Hossein Derakhshan, the spokesperson of the Iranian Red Crescent Society’s Relief and Rescue Organisation, announced on Saturday that the new pieces of the plane might include the doomed ATR plane’s black box, but they need to be investigated after being transferred down.

Along with the plane wreckage, further remnants of the victims have been found, which will be soon transferred to the bottom of the mountains, he added in a Farsi interview with Mizan.

Mohammad Saeed Sharafi, a Civil Aviation Organisation official, also told IRNA that examinations by CAO experts were needed to confirm if the black box has been found.

Black Box of Iranian Crashed Plane FoundAn Iranian lawmaker also announced that once the black box is found, it will be handed over to the prosecutor’s office to be investigated.

The ATR-72 flight operated by the Iran Aseman Airlines crashed on February 18 into areas near the peak of Dena Mountain, 50 minutes after taking off from Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport and before making it to Yasuj in western Iran.

There were no survivors among the 65 passengers and crew members on the plane, whose bodies were buried under ice and snow.

The search and rescue operation started shortly after the tragic incident in mountains adjacent to the crash site, but bad weather, including dense fog, snow, and high winds have slowed down the recovery efforts in the Dena mountain range. The severe weather has also prevented helicopters from landing in the area and accelerating the search operation.

Agricultural Collaboration Could Greatly Boost Iran-France Trade

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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“The ground is prepared for cooperation in the agricultural field and the recent trip by Iran’s agriculture minister to France that led to the conclusion of four memorandums of understanding confirms the fact,” Iranian Ambassador to Paris Abolqasem Delfi said, referring to a visit to France by Mahmoud Hojjati in October.

The ambassador was speaking in a recent meeting with an economic delegation comprising representatives of private firms from Markazi Province, who were visiting France to attend the 2018 edition of Paris International Agricultural Show.

Agricultural Collaboration Could Greatly Boost Iran-France Trade
Iranian Ambassador to France meeting with an Iranian business delegation in Paris / Photo retrieved from IRNA

According to a Farsi report by IRNA, Delfi said the volume of bilateral trade between Tehran and Paris stood at $3.8 billion in 2017, in a great progress that was made thanks to the 2015 nuclear deal.

The deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, removed the EU and UN sanctions and part of the US embargos on Iran in return for confidence-building curbs on Tehran’s nuclear work.

Days after the deal came into effect in January 2016, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani paid a historic visit to France, during which he signed an array of deals estimated to be worth $33 billion.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is expected to visit Iran on Monday, March 5, to discuss expansion of Tehran-Paris cooperation.

Iran to Ink Three Oil Deals This Month

By
IFP Media Wire
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“North Azadegan is our first experience” for development under the new Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) model, Ali Kardor told the international exploration and production conference, Iran E&P 2018, in Tehran.

Kardor did not name the other fields, nor the companies which are about to develop the fields.

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) brought online the first phase of North Azadegan with 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) of output more than a year ago.

Iran had asked international companies to bid for the second phase of development of Yadavaran and North Azadegan oilfields last year, with officials saying France’s Total, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Japan’s Inpex Corp. had presented technical surveys.

Royal Dutch Shell, Italy’s oil and gas group Eni, and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) were also interested in the tender, they said.

The first phases of the Yadavaran and North Azadegan fields as well as the North Yaran field were officially launched by President Hassan Rouhani in November 2016.

Yadavaran was launched with a production of up to 115,000 bpd and around $2 billion of investment by China’s Sinopec.

Yadavaran has reserves of 31 billion barrels of light and heavy crude oil while North Azadegan has 5.7 billion barrels of crude reserves.

For the second phases, Chinese companies were told to compete with other firms after they asked to have their contracts extended, Iranian officials said last year.

The first phases of the oilfields were carried out under the buy-back deals which have been phased out and replaced with the IPC model of contracts.

Iranian officials have described the IPC a more attractive contract than the buy-back scheme but Kardor said the new framework had not met their expectations.

“We expected more deals to be signed,” he said, complaining that the process of receiving licenses for new contracts was time-consuming.

“In the new contracts, the winners of the contracts will take over the operation of the field for 20 years,” Kardor said.

Buy-backs were production deals under which foreign companies recouped their costs via exports of oil and gas.

Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh has said buy-back deals were not suitable any more for Iran which needed enhanced recovery modalities to revive its aging oilfields.

“Dismantling of US Nukes Precondition for Talks on Iran’s Missile Program”

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri, a senior spokesperson for the Iranian Armed Forces, says the dismantling of the US and the West’s atomic arms and long-range missiles is the prerequisite for negotiations on Iran’s missiles.

According to a Farsi report by Fars News, he said the Americans are saying, out of desperation, that a cap should be put on Iran’s missile capability, but such a word “is their unattainable goal and emanates from their failures and defeats in the region.”

He said Iran has not allowed its defence power to be subject to political talks.

“If our defence capabilities were to be affected by some negotiations as well as political and diplomatic relations, we wouldn’t be in the situation we are today when the US is in a position of weakness to such an extent,” said the commander.

He said Washington’s failures and defeats in the region will subside only when the US leaves West Asia.

The top general also touched upon the Israeli regime and its occupation of Palestinian territories, saying, “From the Islamic Republic of Iran’s standpoint, Israel, as the usurper of the Palestinian territory and holy Quds, is [an] illegitimate and illegal [entity] which is going through a period of annihilation and destruction, and this unchangeable principle holds in all areas, including the sports arena.”

Gen. Soleimani Provides Iran Gov’t with Documents on US- ISIS Collusion

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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US Had Grudge against Soleimani for His Role in Fighting Terror: Iran

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, a special aide to Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, says IRGC Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani has provided the Iranian foreign ministry with documents which prove Washington has been working in cahoots with ISIS terrorists.

“In a meeting I had with General Soleimnai, he presented documented evidence containing information on the geographical location, time and precise details [of US collusion with ISIS,” said Amir-Abdollahian, adding that the top general asked him to tell Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif he must use these documents to embarrass the UN, the EU, and the US in bilateral negotiations.

“For example, when Mosul in Iraq was under the occupation of ISIS, an American … plane had landed at Mosul airport,” said the Iranian official in a televised interview with state TV, as quoted by Fars News.

According to the documents, says Amir-Abdollahian, American generals got off the aircraft and military equipment was unloaded.

“At the airport’s VIP hall, ISIS leaders in Mosul held talks with the American generals for 3 hours and 22 minutes before they got on the airplane and returned.”

The ISIS ringleaders talked about the weapons and equipment they needed, and finally they reached agreement with the Americans, said Amir-Abdollahian.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he touched upon the Iran nuclear deal, and added the West, including the US, are keen to see a regional agreement similar to the JCPOA is reached to pave the way for their negotiations with Iran on the Middle East issues.

Iran Calls for Promotion of Economic Ties with Japan

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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Speaking in a Saturday meeting with Japanese Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori in Tehran, Zarif hailed the good relations between the two countries in various fields.

However, the Iranian top diplomat said, business cooperation between Iran and Japan still needs to be enhanced.

The two sides also discussed bilateral, regional, and international issues as well as the Iran nuclear deal, also known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

 

Iran, Japan Hold Fresh Round of Political Talks

During the Japanese diplomat’s visit to Tehran, the two countries also held the 25th round of their bilateral political negotiations/

The Saturday talks were attended by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Japan’s Mori.

In the meeting, the two sides discussed bilateral relations, ways of boosting mutual cooperation and the latest regional and international developments.

During the talks, the Japanese official reiterated his country’s unflinching support for the Iran nuclear deal, saying Tokyo stands ready to expand its relations with Tehran.

Iran is Japan’s third-largest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The balance of trade between Iran and Japan is heavily weighed in favour of Iran, with Japan exporting automobiles and electrical products and importing petroleum and petrochemical products. As of 2010, Japan has been cooperating with Iran on several major projects.

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