US Calls On Iran To Release American Held For 2,500 Days
Several US lawmakers and officials deplored the detention of Iranian-American Siamak Namazi on Tuesday, his 2500th day in Iran's notorious Evin prison.
Several US lawmakers and officials deplored the detention of Iranian-American Siamak Namazi on Tuesday, his 2500th day in Iran's notorious Evin prison.
Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley tweeted that “Iran’s unjust imprisonment of US citizens for use as political leverage is outrageous,” urging the Islamic Republic to allow Siamak, and his father, as well as other American citizens.
Calling on Iran to free all Americans, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-Idaho) called it “unconscionable” that Namazi has spent 2,500 days in prison on “fraudulent charges,” saying that “The regime, in addition to its horrendous support for terrorism abroad, continues to play political games with the lives of innocent Americans.”
Senator Marco Rubio (R- Florida) slammed Tehran’s hostage diplomacy, noting Siamak’s “suffering has gone on far too long" and calling for his release.
Echoing similar sentiments, US Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said that “He and all US hostages in Iran must be freed immediately.
In a message from prison, Namazi said that “the other hostages and I desperately need the Biden administration to match up claims that rescuing us is a priority with effective action...Today, our fate is subsumed under the nuclear talks and our freedom is contingent on their success.”
State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, said in his press briefing on Tuesday that the US has not tied the fate of Namazi and other hostages to the result of the nuclear talks to revive the 2015 deal.
In an interview with Etemad Onlinein Tehran Safari, Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs explained that Iran relies on Russia for importing essential commodities and in return exports cement to Russia. "We lend our export capability to Russia," he said, adding that "Our trade volume with Russia is $5 billon and we want to increase it to $10 billion."
Safari said Russia is a powerful country in oil and gas and can invest in Iran in the same areas while also transferring technology to Iran. He added that "Iran can also swap Russia's gas and oil with other countries. We get gas from one country and sell it to another country and make some profit. This is our economic and geopolitical potential."
Lately, Iranian officials have spoken about gas swap with Russia. Receiving natural gas and selling it to neighboring countries. But in reality, only Iraq is need of gas, but it is not a customer of Russia.
Safari, who has studied electronic engineering and telecommunications at George Washington University is introduced by Iranian media as a Russia expert. The Etemad Online reporter characterized him as a man with a conservative character who refused to remove his face mask during the interview.
Meanwhile, Safari, a former Iranian ambassador to Russia and China, told Etemad Online that Iran has signed barter trade contracts with up to ten countries despite US sanctions, however, he declined to name those countries. Safari added that barter trade is Iran's solution to circumvent the sanctions.
He has been a member of Iran's nuclear negotiators team since the 2010s when ultraconservative politician Saeed Jalili was in charge of the negotiations. During the interview, says the reporter, he declined to share many information points, fearing that "the other side might take advantage."
Safari told Etemad Online that "sanctions do not mean death and there are many ways to nullify them." However, his only solution was barter trade. He said that despite the sanctions there are many ways to further international trade although sanctions mainly affect international banking. Asked what those ways were, Safari once again referred to barter.
He disagreed with Etemad Online that barter trade will inevitably increase the cost of transactions. While this can be true in normal circumstances, Iran faces sanctions and countries that agree to barter trade with Tehran would use it as leverage to enhance their profits. Barter also deprives the country of foreign currency it can invest for economic growth.
Prominent economic journalist Maryam Shokrani wrote in a series of tweets on Sunday, August 14, that "Russia has quoted a price ten times higher than usual for work on projects in Iran." She quoted the Transportation and Logistics Confederation as saying that "Iran is about to conclude a contract with Russia for constructing a railway between Garmsar and Inceborun.”
The reporter also quoted Meysam Lajevardi, a rail transport expert, as saying that a German company has offered a contract at one tenth of that amount for the same project."
Shjokrani added that Russia had offered no bank guarantee to Iran for that contract and wanted to bring 80 percent of the personnel needed for the project from Russia. She added that the government of President Hassan Rouhani had accepted those unlawful conditions and it appears that the Raisi administration has also submitted to the same conditions.
The demonstrators gathered in front of the governor’s office of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari province amid a large presence of security forces and chanted slogans against the authorities, such as “Death to President Raisi” and “Down with the governor”.
According to Ahmad Rastineh, the city’s representative in the parliament, the problem stemmed from the recent flash floods in the region and the lack of any water treatment plant for the province.
In addition to the provincial capital Shahrekord, water is cut in four other cities due to the recent floods and increased water turbidity.
In April, a group residents had held another protest rally against a project to transfer water out of the province, causing scarcity in their region. Protesters carried placards and chanted slogans threatening to take up arms against the ‘mafia’ behind the redistribution project.
Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, a traditionally water-rich region in the Zagros mountains, has seen its water resources decline due to both drought and projects to irrigate other arid regions.
In recent years, many cities across the country were scenes of massive protests against the authorities’ mismanagement of water resources or harmful dam building and politically motivated diversion of rivers that have devastated agriculture and drinking water sources.
Iran has been suffering from drought for at least a decade and this year officials have been warning of a further decrease in precipitation.
