US 'Not Interested' In Khamenei's Views On Saudi-Israel Normalization
Washington says it has no interest in Supreme Leader Khamenei's perspective on the ongoing normalization of ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Washington says it has no interest in Supreme Leader Khamenei's perspective on the ongoing normalization of ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
On Tuesday, embittered by the region’s rapidly warming ties to Iran’s archenemy Israel, he stated that governments engaging in normalization would be “betting on a losing horse”.
In response, Deputy US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel commented during a press briefing, "I’m not sure that we are really interested in the supreme leader’s point of view on this, when it comes to what we think could be a potentially transformative normalization agreement for the region."
Referring to US-brokered talks underway to formalize Saudi-Israel relations, he asserted that the benefits of normalization, including building a united force against Iran’s regional proxies, far outweighs any such talk of risk.
Saudi would be the latest country to join the transformative normalization begun under the Abraham Accords in 2020, when countries including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain broke a decades long stalemate, resulting in huge economic benefits in addition to security ties.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also dismissed the Iranian leader’s statement.
“While Khamenei’s terrorist regime exports ruin and destruction, Israel is advancing progress and peace,” Netanyahu said.
Representatives Joe Wilson and Jared Moskowitz, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sponsored the bill. If enacted into law, it would prevent Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi from attending the next UN General Assembly in New York.
Announcing the bill, Rep. Wilson stated, "Mass murderer and terrorist Ebrahim Raisi hates the United States, pledges death to America, yet applies for and is granted permission to travel to New York annually for the United Nations. This hypocrisy is unacceptable."
Iranian activists have long called for such measures, particularly opposing Raisi's presence in New York due to his involvement in the infamous 'Death Committee' responsible for the summary execution of up to five thousand Iranian political prisoners in 1988.
"[This bill] ensures that the oppressors of freedom in Iran do not get to visit the United States to enjoy the liberties here that they deprive their citizens of at home in Iran," Rep. Wilson added in a statement introducing the bill.
Rep. Moskowitz, cosponsoring the bill, questioned on X (formerly Twitter): "The United Nations is meant to be a forum for peace & stability. Why would we give the Iranian regime and other malign actors a platform, given their kidnapping of Americans and support for global terrorism?"
This year's UN General Assembly coincided with a deal to release US hostages in Iran between the United States and the Islamic Republic. Five Iranian-American prisoners were allowed to leave Iran in exchange for the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues from South Korea. The Biden administration faced criticism for this deal, with concerns that it might embolden the Islamic Republic to take more hostages. Additionally, the Biden administration agreed to the release of $2.7 billion from Iraq.
The new bill, named the 'No Paydays for Hostage-Takers Act,' includes extensive sections on Iran's frozen assets and the $6 billion release. It requires the US President to submit an itemized list of all transactions involving the use of these funds, including details of parties involved, financial institutions, goods purchased, destinations, end users, notification dates, and transaction dates.
The bill also mandates the US President to review all cases of hostage-taking by the Iranian regime every six months, determining whether those responsible meet the criteria for sanctions under the Levinson Act.
The bill's namesake, Robert Levinson, was a former DEA and FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007. He was declared dead in custody in 2020 despite efforts by his family to secure his release.
Rep. Moskowitz expressed his commitment to the bill, emphasizing Levinson's case as a constituent matter: "When Iran wrongfully detains one of our own, they must know that the U.S. will not sit back; we will take action and respond."
Additionally, the bill requires the Secretary of State to assess whether US travel to Iran poses "an imminent danger to the public health or physical safety of US travelers" and whether to invalidate US passports for travel to Iran. The US Secretary of State has the authority to restrict American travel to foreign countries, as demonstrated in the case of North Korea in 2017 following the torture and death of Otto Warmbier.
On Sunday, Armita Geravand lost consciousness when her head hit a pole, reportedly following a dispute over her hijab with hijab enforcers who shoved her against a pole inside a subway car in Tehran. On Tuesday night, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Kurdish rights group, published a photo of her in the Fajr hospital’s intensive care unit, still in a coma, while security forces have surrounded the hospital to prevent people from gathering and protesting.
The regime has deployed hijab police to all subway stations across Tehran as Iran intensifies the enforcement of hijab, which has become extremely stringent since last September when 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini died in police custody, sparking the Women, Life, Freedom protests. Geravand is from Kermanshah, a city with a significant Kurdish population.
Authorities are handling the situation exactly as they did in the case of Mahsa Amini. They arrested the journalist who wanted to report on Geravand’s situation and aired a video of her parents at the hospital who apparently described the situation as an accident.
In the video, described by a large number of Iranians on social media as “forced confessions,” Armita’s mother said, fighting back tears, "I think she fell... I think they said she collapsed, fell to the ground, her head hit the edge of a subway platform, and her friends took her out..."
Authorities in Iran have repeatedly resorted to airing forced confessions of family members to dodge responsibility for the deaths of people during protests and in detention.
According to the reformist newspaper Shargh, reporter Maryam Lotfi, who followed the victim to the hospital to report the incident, was arrested. She was said to have been released on Monday evening. The main journalists who reported on the death of Mahsa Amini, interviewed her parents, and attended her funeral have been in prison for about a year now.
Masoud Dorosti, the CEO of the Tehran Metro Operation Company, claimed that Geravand’s loss of consciousness was likely due to a drop in blood pressure and asserted that there is no recorded footage of her fainting by anyone, including metro staff.
Iranian state media released a short video on Monday in which an unconscious girl is being pulled out from inside a subway car, but there is no footage of her entering the metro, getting inside the car, or the moment she lost consciousness. There are numerous cameras at various spots in metro stations, including inside the cars, as the regime seeks to use the footage against those who defy mandatory hijab rules.
According to a popular social media account, all the footage from the last 24 hours of Tehran's metro has been handed over to the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards (SAS).
Iranians have been extensively posting to raise awareness about Armita Geravand, making the hashtag of her name in Persian trendy on X (formerly Twitter) with about 300,000 retweets.
