Tehran Refuses To Comment As Chinese Ports Ban Iranian Shipping
Tehran has refused to comment on the embarrassing revelation that China’s private ports are complying with a ban on Iranian shipping.
Tehran has refused to comment on the embarrassing revelation that China’s private ports are complying with a ban on Iranian shipping.
Ali Nazi, Deputy Director of Ports and Maritime Organization told ILNA news agency on Saturday that such “information is confidential.”
China has handed over most main ports to the private sector and foreign companies.
These operators do not allow Iranian ships to dock, for fear of being subject to US sanctions.
Iranian shipping can dock in Chinese government-controlled ports, but their inadequate facilities and equipment increase the loading and unloading time, while their locations increase voyage time and lead to higher costs.
China is a diplomatic ally of the Islamic Republic but so far it has avoided openly challenging US sanctions. While Beijing clandestinely imports hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude a day via third party channels, Iran gains little from the trade as intermediaries take most of the profits and often deliver goods instead of cash.
Official figures released by China's Customs show no direct oil purchase from Iran in 2021. But in March Bloomberg claimed that details from third-party sources indicated that Iranian oil was often re-branded as purchases from other countries and such exports had even surged.
The news about China’s compliance with US sanctions will be embarrassing for hardline supporters of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who have been trumpeting Iran’s “Looking East” policy.
However, while according to Etemad Online Ta'eb insisted that Rouhani should be tried, he commented that his trial is not the establishment's immediate priority.
Several social media users commenting on the report said that Ta'eb himself should be tried for security breaches during his tenure as the head of IRGC's Intelligence Organization. He was removed from his post last year after a series of serious sabotage acts in Iran attributed to Israel and a major case of infiltration by Israel was revealed. A top security official, Alireza Akbari was subsequently hanged on charges of espionage for foreign countries.
This was not the first time Iran's hardliners call for Rouhani's trial or accuse him of pursuing accommodation with the West and for concluding a nuclear agreement in 2015.
Rouhani recently said that he would file a complaint against a hardliner member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution who has accused him and his aides of espionage.
Attacks on Rouhani by hardliners escalated when he was quoted last week as having said that an agreement with the United States was at hand before he handed over the presidency to Ebrahim Raisi in 2021.
Rouhani who kept a low profile for 18 months after his presidency, began making public statements critical of the current economic and political situation in Iran and convening frequent meetings with his former aides. According to Entekhab website, which is close to Rouhani, on Friday, he said sarcastically that everyone expected Iran's problems to be solved now that a consolidated conservative government was in office.
Earlier attacks in April targeted Rouhani for suggesting a referendum on the country's key issues. Not only the hardliners in the government, but Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lashed out at critics for the suggestion they said would undermine the regime's authority. Khamenei even went out of his way to say that the people are not knowledgeable enough to take part in referenda.
Rouhani has also criticized the current government for high inflation surpassing 50 percent and increasing poverty. He also criticized the government for barring reformist and moderate candidates from running in elections.
Some of Rouhani's allies like the former chief of the parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, say that he should have fought harder to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA. He said this week that détente and solving the nuclear dispute were among Rouhani's promises to the nation and he should have done more to that end.
"At least Rouhani and his aides should have explained to the nation about why the negotiations with the United States and Europe were not fruitful," Falahatpisheh added.
Meanwhile, foreign policy analyst Mehdi Motaharnia said in an interview with Rouydad24 website that what is transpiring between Rouhani and the hardliners is part of a crisis of decision-making in Iran. Motaharnia further opined that consolidating political power in Iran by handing over the whole establishment to conservatives was the regime's biggest strategic mistake.
The decision to engineer the elections and allow hardliners to form an absolute majority in parliament and win the presidency in 2020-2021, could have only come from Khamenei.
He said that the new government made "revolutionary rhetoric" the driving force of its foreign policy and brought the country face to face with a serious challenge it cannot resolve.
Referring to the tensions between Iran and the international community, Motaharnia stressed that the year 2023 is the year in which the Iranian government needs to take big and hard decisions to ensure the regime's stability.
In letters addressed to the heads of the US-allied nations - the UK, Australia, Canada, and India - 22 Republican and Democratic lawmakers reiterated calls to swiftly act and officially join Washington in labeling the IRGC in its entirety.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and the IRGC is the central core of the country’s terrorist operations at home and abroad,” the lawmakers wrote Thursday, adding that “the IRGC has openly carried out plots targeting citizens around the world for decades.”
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill) led the effort in cooperation with Joe Wilson (R-SC), Brad Sherman (D-Calif), Pat Fallon (R-Texas), Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and 16 others.
They argued that designating the IRGC will send a clear message to Iran that acts of terrorism against the US and its partners as well as innocent citizens “must not and will not be tolerated.”
“Now the United States Congress is calling on the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Canada to join our fight in combating this organization’s cruelty,” Tenney said in a statement. “It is time that all nations designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization to send an unequivocal message that its terrorist activities must end.”
In each letter, the signatories elaborated on individual events that proved the IRGC is acting against the citizens of the four countries.
Canada has designated the Quds Force, the extraterritorial arm of the IRGC, but has been reluctant to list the IRGC as a foreign terrorist group. Canadian officials said last year that the designation would be too much of a “blunt instrument” that could punish innocent people in Canada who were conscripted into the IRGC as part of their mandatory military service.
The Australian Senate recommended the designation in February, but Canberra has suggested it may not legally be able to designate the IRGC as a terror group.
The UK has yet to make a formal decision, but it has been vacillating between the idea of proscribing the IRGC in its entirety and sanctioning only the senior members of the force for at least several months, especially after September when nationwide anti-regime protests engulfed the country. The IRGC, along with its paramilitary Basij volunteers, has been the main force to crack down on the popular uprising.
India is a close ally of the US, but it has long maintained cordial relations with Iran, and it is not expected to follow suit and blacklist the outfit.
The US is also ramping up its pressure on the European Union for the designation. In March, a bipartisan group of US senators wrote a letter to the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, encouraging the EU to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
Earlier in the week, the Swedish parliament unanimously voted to designate the IRGC. It swiftly followed the execution of Swedish-Iranian Habib Chaab (Asyud) which saw Sweden's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summon Iran's chargé d'affaires in protest of the execution, one of hundreds since the start of the year.
Earlier in the day, an Iranian lawmaker said Britain and France do not dare to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group because they know their forces in the region will be attacked if they do so.
Washington designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist group in 2019 under the Trump administration as relations with Iran plummeted following Washington’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran responded at the time by designating the US military as a terrorist group.
