Khamenei Calls For Coordination Among Iranian Intelligence Outfits
In a somewhat unexpected move, media in Tehran reported Thursday that a meeting was called between Iran's intelligence bodies, signaling possible discord.
In a somewhat unexpected move, media in Tehran reported Thursday that a meeting was called between Iran's intelligence bodies, signaling possible discord.
The joint meeting of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Intelligence Organization of the IRGC was held June 16 in the religious city of Mashhad.
The session was opened with the message of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who urged for more mutual understanding and synergy.
“Intelligence is one of the most important issues of the country, and one of our weaknesses in relation to intelligence systems is the lack of coordination,” read Khamenei’s message.
The meeting comes as a lack of coordination between the intelligence organizations has led to major cyber attacks from regime opposition groups. Repeated acts of sabotage attributed to Israel have also plagued the Iranian regime since July 2020.
Most recently, a hacktivist group broke into servers of the Iranian president’s office in late May and leaked troves of sensitive data, proving corruption, conflicts, and an ongoing nuclear expansion.
Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and the IRGC Commander Hossein Salami were among the speakers of Thursday's meeting, both underlining the necessity of better coordination.
The Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Akbar Ahmadian and the Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi also called for a joint strategy.
It seems that there are deep rifts between the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Khamenei continues to heal the rifts but with over a dozen bodies involved in the country’s security, none of them want to lose its dominance.
However, multiple intelligence services were created during Khamenei's 34-year-old rule.
In a letter to the newly appointed minister of industry, mines and trade, Abbas Aliabadi, published by the hardliner Tasnim news website, these lawmakers said the position of the chairman of the chamber, which represents the private sector, is considered as a “significant and sensitive position according to law”.
In elections held Sunday, Hossein Salahvarzi, a businessman who has been an outspoken critic of the government, was elected as chairman.
One of the two candidates who ran against Salahvarzi, Younes Zhaeleh, is known to have close ties with the government.
Salahvarzi obtained 265 votes against 95 votes for Zhaeleh and 62 votes for Hossein Pir-Moazzen.
The chairman of the chamber which has over 400 members has the role of coordinating between the private sector and the government and is sometimes required to participate in meetings with government officials.
Therefore, the lawmakers argued, the newly elected chairman who they claimed had supported the recent protests and those who sought to overthrow the Islamic Republic, should not have been allowed to run.
The chamber of commerce is a semi-independent organization, which like media outlets is monitored and controlled by the regime. An outright opponent would not be allowed to run for its chairmanship.
“Did the country’s security and supervisory bodies take national interests as a joke” they asked and said Salahvarzi had not been approved to run by the ministry’s security department.
Tasnim also claimed that “security and supervisory bodies”, presumably the ministry of intelligence and IRGC’s intelligence organization (SAS), have referred to “financial [corruption] cases” for Salahvarzi’s disqualification in their correspondences.
Donya-ye Eghtesad, an economic daily, reported that until Saturday evening it was still unclear whether the chamber’s elections would be held according to schedule the next day due to the controversies over the vetting of candidates including Salahvarzi.
Iran Chamber of Commerce often referred to as “private sector’s parliament” has around four hundred representatives who are annually elected at the provincial level.
The last elections of chambers of provinces were held on March 11 instead of February 29 because a supervisory body disqualified over 40 percent of candidates, delaying the vetting process.
Mehdi Karbasian, a former deputy minister of industry who represents several high-profile companies, and Masoud Khansari, the then incumbent chairman of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, the most influential chamber in the country, were among the disqualified candidates.
Khansari and other members of the chamber had criticized regime policies that have led to an economic crisis, including a confrontational foreign policy.
Authorities said the vetting was based on a recent regulation that required candidates to have at least two consecutive years of membership in chambers of commerce, to have paid insurance for a minimum of twenty employees during the past year, to have had a minimum annual turnover of 150 billion rials, and to have also been awarded for exports by the Trade Development Organization.
However, some Iranian media outlets such as Aftab News which is close to former President Hassan Rouhani and the Moderation and Development Party alleged that the real reason behind the disqualifications was political as these candidates had been speaking against the government of President Ebrahim Raisi and its policies.
“The ministry of industries, mines and trade and the government are trying hard to shift the control of the chambers, particularly the chambers of Iran and Tehran, to a certain political faction,” Aftab News quoted one of the disqualified candidates who did not want to be named as saying.
Another daily, the reformist Etemad newspaper, predicted that the elections would be engineered to shift the control to government supporters.
Chambers of commerce often produce economic reports that the government finds embarrassing, or they criticize proposed budget bills and other plans.
