Top diplomats from US, Iran at UN on Tehran nuclear deal

Iran journalist sentenced to death

UNITED NATIONS, June 30, (AP): US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif are scheduled to address a UN Security Council meeting Tuesday on the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – the accord that the Trump administration pulled out of more than two years ago.

The long-scheduled open meeting of the UN’s most powerful body comes a day after Iran issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining President Donald Trump and dozens of others it believes carried out the US drone strike that killed a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad earlier this year. Trump faces no danger of arrest and Interpol later said it would not consider Iran’s request.

However, the charges underscore the heightened tensions between Iran and the United States since Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 and re-imposed crippling US sanctions on Tehran.

The five other powers that signed the nuclear deal – Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany – remain committed to it, saying the agreement is key to continuing inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and preventing Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

A key issue at Tuesday’s virtual Security Council meeting is expected to be a provision in the resolution endorsing the nuclear deal that calls for the termination of the UN arms embargo against Iran in mid-October. The Trump administration is vehemently opposed to lifting the arms embargo.

In a report this month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations has determined that Iran was the source for several items in two arms shipments seized by the US, and for debris left by attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil installations and an international airport.

He also said some of the items seized by the US in November 2019 and February 2020 “were identical or similar” to those found after cruise missiles and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia in 2019.

The Trump administration is expected to seize on the findings to argue that Iran cannot be trusted and that the embargo must be extended.

The administration has also cited Iran’s continued support to proxies in the Middle East, along with what the UN nuclear watchdog has found to be Iranian violations of the accord. US officials have threatened to demand the re-imposition of all UN sanctions on Iran unless the embargo is extended.

The US has circulated a draft Security Council resolution that would indefinitely extend the arms embargo and Pompeo is expected to present the administration’s case Tuesday.

The administration has won only tepid support from allies, and European countries are expected to present a counter-proposal that would extend at least parts of the embargo for six months. It is not clear if either the US or Russia and China would support such a proposal.

Iran has vehemently denounced the US effort and said the embargo must be lifted completely as scheduled, and that any violations of the deal are due to the US withdrawal from the accord and sanctions imposed on Tehran. Iran’s Zarif is scheduled to address the council shortly after Pompeo speaks.

Iran’s UN Ambassador Majid Ravanchi said last Thursday that he believes the US resolution to extend the arms embargo against his country will be defeated and warned it would be “a very, very big mistake” if Washington then tries to re-impose UN sanctions.

Ravanchi said restoring UN sanctions will end the 2015 nuclear deal and release Tehran from all its commitments.

“If that happens, Iran will not be under constraint as to what course of action it should take,” he said reporters. “All options for Iran will be open.”

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TEHRAN: Iran sentenced a once-exiled journalist to death over his online work that helped inspire nationwide economic protests that began at the end of 2017, authorities said Tuesday.

Ruhollah Zam’s website and a channel he created on the popular messaging app Telegram had spread the timings of the protests and embarrassing information about officials that directly challenged Iran’s Shiite theocracy. Those demonstrations represented the biggest challenge to Iran since the 2009 Green Movement protests and set the stage for similar mass unrest last November.

The details of his arrest still remain unclear. Though he was based in Paris, Zam somehow returned to Iran and found himself detained by intelligence officials. A series of a televised confessions have aired in recent months over his work.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili announced Zam’s death sentence on Tuesday, saying he had been convicted of “corruption on Earth,” a charge often used in cases involving espionage or attempts to overthrow Iran’s government. It was not immediately clear when the sentence was handed down.

Zam is able to appeal his sentence, issued by a Revolutionary Court. The name of his public defender wasn’t immediately known.

Zam had run a website called AmadNews that posted embarrassing videos and information about Iranian officials.

He highlighted his work on a channel on Telegram, the secure messaging app that remains incredibly popular among Iranians.

The initial spark for the 2017 protests was a sudden jump in food prices. Many believe that hard-line opponents of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani instigated the first demonstrations in the conservative city of Mashhad in eastern Iran, trying to direct public anger at the president.

But as protests spread from town to town, the backlash turned against the entire ruling class.