Tehran: Iranians broadly deplore Western sanctions that have battered the economy, but the country’s six presidential candidates offer differing solutions — assuming the winner gets a say on foreign policy.
Punishing US sanctions, reimposed following Washington’s withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, have brought years of economic hardships, fueling political malaise and wide popular discontent.
With the June 28 snap election fast approaching, debates between the candidates vying for Iran’s second-highest office have featured a key question: should Tehran mend ties with the West?
Under the late president Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash, Western governments have expanded sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program as well as its support for militant groups across the Middle East and for Russia in its war in Ukraine.
The sanctions have sharply reduced Iran’s oil revenues, heavily restricted trade and contributed to soaring inflation, high unemployment and a record low for the Iranian rial against the US dollar.
At Tehran’s bustling Grand Bazaar, shopkeeper Hamid Habibi, 54, said years of sanctions “have hit people very hard.”
“Sanctions should be removed and ties mended with the US and European countries,” he said.
In two televised debates focused on the economy ahead of the presidential polls, “almost all the candidates explained that the sanctions have had devastating effects,” said Fayyaz Zahed, a professor of international relations at the University of Tehran.
“It is crucial to resolve this issue to alleviate the people’s suffering,” he said.
While the six contenders — five conservatives and a sole reformist — have all vowed to tackle the economic hardships, they offered varying views on Iran’s relations with the West.
“If we could lift the sanctions, Iranians could live comfortably,” said reformist candidate Massoud Pezeshkian, considered one of three frontrunners.
Pezeshkian, who is backed by key reformist groups in Iran, called for “constructive relations” with Washington and European capitals in order to “get Iran out of its isolation.”
On the campaign trail, he had the support of Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former foreign minister who helped secure the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and insists it had positive impact on the Iranian economy.
Since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018, Iran has gradually reduced its commitment to its terms, meant to curb nuclear activity which Tehran has maintained was for peaceful purposes.
Diplomatic efforts to revive the deal have long stalled as tensions between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly flared.
Former president Hassan Rouhani, whose government negotiated the deal, said the sanctions cost Iranians “$100 billion a year, directly or indirectly, from the sale of oil and petrochemicals and the discounts they give” — in reference to preferential trade with China, a signatory to the 2015 agreement.
Ultraconservative presidential candidate Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, has called for Tehran to press ahead with its long-running anti-Western policy.
“The international community is not made up of just two or three Western countries,” Jalili has repeatedly said in debates and campaign rallies.
He said Iran should bolster its ties with China and Russia, and forge stronger relations with Arab countries, particularly regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia.
Conservative candidate Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the incumbent parliament speaker, has offered a more pragmatic approach, saying Iran should negotiate with Western countries only if it stands to gain an “economic advantage.”
Ghalibaf called for increasing Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, a strategy he said was already “forcing the West to negotiate with Iran.”
Zahed, the international relations professor, said Jalili has positioned himself as “the most inflexible candidate on the diplomatic level.”
In any case, the expert added, the next president will have limited say over strategic issues in the Islamic republic where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, wields ultimate authority.
On Saturday, Khamenei urged the candidates to avoid making any remarks that would “please the enemy” — in reference to the West, mainly the United States.
The president “could only influence foreign policy” if he “earned the trust” of Khamenei and Iran’s most influential government institutions, Zahed said.
Iran sanctions take center stage in presidential campaign
https://arab.news/96qn4
Iran sanctions take center stage in presidential campaign
- Sanctions have sharply reduced Iran’s oil revenues, heavily restricted trade and contributed to soaring inflation, high unemployment
Turkiye mediating Somalia-Ethiopia talks on port deal
ANKARA: Turkiye has begun mediating talks between Somalia and Ethiopia over a port deal Addis Ababa signed with the breakaway region of Somaliland earlier this year, according to four officials familiar with the matter.
The negotiations are the latest attempt to mend diplomatic ties between the East African neighbors, whose relationship soured in January when Ethiopia agreed to lease 20 km of coastline from Somaliland in exchange for recognition of its independence.
Mogadishu called the agreement illegal and retaliated by expelling the Ethiopian ambassador and threatening to kick out thousands of Ethiopian troops stationed in the country helping battle insurgents.
Spokespeople for the Somali government, Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry, Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, and the government and intelligence service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Somaliland, which has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991, said it was not involved in the talks. The goal of the negotiation was unclear, and expectations of a resolution were low, two officials said.
“Despite rumors that Somalia has softened its stance on refusing to engage in dialogue until Ethiopia withdraws the (agreement), it seems unlikely,” one of the officials said.
Israel PM condemns release of Gaza hospital chief who claimed torture
- Netanyahu said he had ordered the Shin Bet intelligence agency to conduct an investigation into the release and provide him with the results by Tuesday
DEIR EL-BALAH, Palestinian Territories: Israel on Monday freed the head of Gaza’s biggest hospital who said he was tortured during seven months in detention, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon after criticized the release as a “serious mistake.”
Tensions over the freeing of Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya became public almost as soon as he was sent back to Gaza with dozens of other Palestinians held since the October 7 attacks that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
The World Health Organization expressed concern after Abu Salmiya was detained on November 23 with other hospital staff.
Israel’s military has accused Hamas of using hospitals, including Al-Shifa, as a cover for military operations, which the militant group denies.
Netanyahu said he had ordered the Shin Bet intelligence agency to conduct an investigation into the release and provide him with the results by Tuesday.
“The release of the director of Shifa Hospital is a serious mistake and a moral failure. The place of this man, under whose responsibility our abductees were murdered and held, is in prison,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
The decision was made “without the knowledge of the political echelon,” he added.
The agency had said earlier that it had decided on the release with the Israeli military “to free up places in detention centers.”
It said it “opposed the release of terrorists” who had taken part in attacks on Israeli civilians “so it was decided to free several Gaza detainees who represent a lesser danger.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a hard right member of Netanyahu’s coalition, earlier called Abu Salmiya’s release “with dozens of other terrorists” a “security abandonment.”
Israeli raids and a weeks-long battle earlier this year have devastated Al-Shifa. Other clinics and medical institutions have also suffered damage, leading to condemnation from UN agencies, NGOs and foreign governments.
Abu Salmiya said he and other prisoners were put through “severe torture” in Israeli prisons during their detention.
“Several inmates died in interrogation centers and were deprived of food and medicine,” according to Abu Salmiya, who said his thumb was still broken.
“For two months no prisoner ate more than a loaf of bread a day,” he added.
“Detainees were subjected to physical and psychological humiliation.”
The medical chief said no charge had ever been made against him.
After crossing back to Gaza, five detainees were admitted to Al-Aqsa hospital at Deir Al-Balah and the others were sent to hospitals in Khan Yunis, a medical source said.
An AFP correspondent at Deir Al-Balah saw some detainees in emotional reunions with their families.
Hamas denied that it used hospitals as a shield for its operations. It called in a statement on the United Nations and countries to “stop this massacre” of prisoners in Israeli jails. It called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to “reveal the fate of thousands of Palestinian detainees” in Israel.
Abu Salmiya was not the only top medical practitioner detained.
The Gaza European hospital in Khan Yunis said the head of its orthopaedic unit, Bassam Miqdad, was among those freed on Monday.
In May, Palestinian rights groups said a senior Al-Shifa surgeon had died in an Israeli jail after being detained. The Israeli army said it was unaware of the death.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,900 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Iraqi police arrest 3 militants for arson in Kurdistan
BAGHDAD: Iraqi police on Monday announced the arrest of three suspected members of a militant group accused of arson attacks in the country’s north.
The announcement comes at a time of heightened tension in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, where the Turkish army is conducting operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is listed as a “terrorist” group by Ankara and several Western allies.
In a statement, the PKK’s political bureau “rejected” what it said were “baseless allegations.”
It called on “the Iraqi state and the Ministry of the Interior to act responsibly in the face of directives coming from Turkish intelligence” and to “identify the real perpetrators” of the fires.
The fires in 2023 and 2024 struck markets and shopping centers in Kirkuk, Irbil, and Dohuk, Iraqi Ministry of Interior spokesman Moqdad Miri said during a press conference on Monday, saying that the suspects made “confessions.”
One suspect was arrested at the end of May, and “chemical products” used to start fires were found in his vehicle, Miri said.
“The entity responsible for execution ... is the PKK organization, a banned organization,” he added.
He added that the objective was to “harm the commercial interests of a country with which they are in direct opposition,” and “impact the security and economic situation” of the autonomous region.
The PKK, which has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, has a presence in northern Iraq, as does Turkiye, which has operated from several dozen military bases there against the PKK.
Lufthansa halts night flights to and from Beirut due to Middle East situation
- The spokesperson said the change had begun on June 29 and that daytime flights would operate as before
- In March, the Lebanese government said it would file an urgent complaint with the UN Security Council over Israel’s alleged disruption of its navigation systems
BERLIN: Lufthansa Group has halted night flights to and from Beirut until July 31 due to the situation in the Middle East, a spokesperson said on Monday.
The spokesperson said the change had begun on June 29 and that daytime flights would operate as before.
Swiss International Air Lines, a Lufthansa Group subsidiary, also said it would move its Beirut night flights to the daytime until the end of July “due to the political developments at the border between Lebanon and Israel.”
The airlines did not give detailed information about the nature of the threat.
In March, the Lebanese government said it would file an urgent complaint with the UN Security Council over Israel’s alleged disruption of its navigation systems that it said affected the safety of civil aviation in the airspace of Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport.
Swiss International Air Lines on Monday said the change in its schedule was not related to any potential GPS interference on its aircraft flying to Beirut.
“Our pilots are trained to handle any such situations and our aircraft have several other systems on board when one system is no longer to be trusted,” a spokesperson for Swiss said.
Previously its crews did not stay overnight in Lebanon after flying from Zurich, but instead stayed on board the aircraft when preparing for the return flight, the spokesperson added.
Egypt’s renewable power ambitions face grid hurdle
- Officials touted Egypt’s potential in wind and solar power as well as green hydrogen at a two-day Egypt-EU investment conference
CAIRO: Egypt wants to accelerate the provision of renewable energy that could ease electricity shortages and supply green power to Europe, but faces challenges in funding updates to its grid and unlocking investments for new wind and solar plants.
Officials touted Egypt’s potential in wind and solar power as well as green hydrogen at a two-day Egypt-EU investment conference in Cairo at the weekend, hoping to secure financing and benefit from Europe’s efforts to diversify and decarbonize its energy supplies.
“I think this industry represents the future for both sides,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told the conference, adding that Egypt should manufacture renewable components such as solar panels, wind turbines and electrolyzers.
Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker said Egypt was reviewing its clean energy targets and would aim for a 58 percent share of renewables in power generation by 2040.
He said that since 2014, Egypt had spent more than 116 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.42 billion at current exchange rates) on upgrading its transmission network, as it looked to expand into renewables.
“We are ready with the infrastructure,” said Shaker, adding that the government was offering several incentives to investors and could get approvals from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to raise the maximum heights for wind turbines from the ground to the tip of their blades to 220 meters from 150 meters.
Expansion of installed renewable capacity largely plateaued after the inauguration of the major Benban solar plant in 2019, according to data from Egypt’s New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), putting in doubt an earlier target of 42 percent of power generation through renewables by 2030.
Less than 12 percent of Egypt’s installed capacity of nearly 60GW is from renewables, the data shows.
Most power is generated by gas, and a gas shortage has contributed to daily power cuts that were extended to three hours last week, as well as causing outages at fertilizer and chemicals factories.
Egypt has signed many MoUs for renewable energy and green hydrogen development since hosting the COP 27 climate summit in 2022. It has ambitions to export electricity to regional neighbors, as well as to Europe through a subsea cable to Greece.
But analysts say Egypt needs to adapt and extend its grid to the sites of potential projects to make them viable.
“We have a shortage in fuel today which means we have the power cuts, which makes more renewables the sensible way forward ... but these need to be connected (to the grid) and this is where the challenge is,” said Hamza Assad, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean climate strategy head for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is helping finance Egypt’s energy transition.
When those connections, or transmission lines, might be built is unclear, partly because of a cap on public investments imposed this year to contain Egypt’s heavy debt burden, people with knowledge of the sector said. An Egyptian cabinet spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Grid development would cost billions in the longer term if major scaling up and the needs of green hydrogen is included, though needs this year would be a fraction of this, said Heike Harmgart, EBRD’s managing director for the region.
