Iran presses on oil exports as nuclear pact talks continue
VIENNA — Negotiators from Iran and five world powers resumed negotiations Monday on restoring Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal, with Iran insisting that the United States and its allies promise to allow it to export its crude oil.
The latest round of talks in Vienna, the eighth, opened 10 days after negotiations were adjourned for the Iranian negotiator to return home for consultations. The previous round, the first after a more than five-month gap caused by the arrival of a new hardline government in Iran, was marked by tensions over new Iranian demands.
“If we work hard in the days and weeks ahead, we should have a positive result,” Enrique Mora, the European Union diplomat who chaired the talks, said after the opening session. But “it’s going to be very hard — difficult political decisions have to be taken.”
Tehran’s landmark accord with world powers — Britain, France, Germany, the U.S., Russia and China — granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
But in 2018, then-president Donald Trump withdrew America from the deal and imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran, including against its oil sector — the lifeline of its economy. Iran’s crude exports plummeted and international oil companies scrapped deals with Tehran, weakening its economy.
The other signatories struggled to keep alive the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The United States is participating only indirectly in this year’s talks to restore the deal, which President Joe Biden has signaled he wants to rejoin.
Speaking in Tehran ahead of the talks’ resumption, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Iran wants the upcoming round of talks to focus on its sanctions-hit oil industry. The aim is to get to the “point where Iranian oil is being sold easily and without any barriers and its money arrives in Iran’s bank accounts,” he said.
Separately on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said it would be “intolerable” for the West to demand anything from Tehran beyond compliance with the original deal.
Iran has steadily abandoned all of the accord’s limits since the American withdrawal and is now enriching uranium to 60% purity — a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels. It spins ever-more advanced centrifuges also barred by the deal. Iraq election: Iraq’s top court on Monday rejected an appeal filed by Iran-backed factions contesting the results of country’s parliamentary elections held in October. The development marked another boost for an influential Shiite cleric who had been confirmed as the winner of the vote.
The appeal was submitted by Hadi al-ameri, head of a pro-iran coalition that lost seats in the Oct. 10 vote.
Final results announced by Iraq’s electoral commission had confirmed Shiite cleric Muqtada al-sadr secured 73 out of Parliament’s 329 seats. The results also confirmed that the faction known as the Fatah Alliance, which represents the Shiite paramilitary group known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, secured 17 seats — down from 48 in the last elections. Somalia politics: Somalia’s president suspended the country’s prime minister and marine forces commander on Monday, a sharp escalation in a political dispute that threatens to further destabilize the troubled nation on the Horn of Africa.
President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed suspended Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble over allegations of corruption and misuse of public land. Mohamed’s office had earlier accused Roble of “posing a serious threat to the electoral process” and of carrying out activities that violated his mandate.
Roble refused to accept the order and accused Mohamed of deploying troops to attack his office and those of the cabinet to prevent them from carrying out their duties.
On Monday, foreign governments and international observers expressed concern that the dispute could set off another cycle of violence in a nation battered by decades of fighting.
Belarus constitution:
Belarus’ authorities on Monday released a draft document proposing amendments to the country’s constitution that may allow authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to further cement his grip on power after months of mass protests and remain in office until 2035.
The proposed amendments bring back limits on presidential terms that had been abolished during Lukashenko’s tenure, allowing a president only two five-year terms in office. The restriction, however, will only take effect once a “newly elected president” assumes office, which gives Lukashenko an opportunity to run for two more terms after his current term expires in 2025. Myanmar military: A court in military-ruled Myanmar postponed its verdicts Monday on two charges against ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi in which she is accused of importing and possessing walkie-talkies without following official procedures, a legal official familiar with the case said.
The case in the court in the capital, Naypyitaw, is among many brought against the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate since the army seized power on Feb. 1, ousting her elected government and arresting top members of her National League for Democracy party.
The court gave no reason for delaying the verdicts until Jan. 10, according to the legal official, who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities, who have restricted the release of information about Suu Kyi’s trials.
Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in last year’s general election, but the military said there was widespread electoral fraud, an assertion that independent poll watchers doubt. Roe v. Wade lawyer: Sarah Weddington, a Texas lawyer who as a 26-yearold successfully argued the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court, died Sunday. She was 76.
Susan Hays, Weddington’s former student and colleague, said she died in her sleep early Sunday morning at her Austin home.
A couple of years after graduating law school at the University of Texas, Weddington and a former classmate, Linda Coffee, brought a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a pregnant woman challenging a state law that largely banned abortions.
Weddington argued the case of “Jane Roe” before the high court twice, in December 1971 and October 1972, resulting the next year in the 7-2 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.