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He also said that the agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear program -- brokered in 2015 by the US, Iran and five other world powers -- will stay in place, despite noises to the contrary from members of US President Donald Trump's administration.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Zarif said there was an international consensus not to let the agreement -- which took two years to negotiate -- unravel.

"I believe everybody, including experts in the United States, know this was the best deal possible for all concerned, not just Iran but the US too," he said.

"It was a triumph of diplomacy over coercion, because coercion doesn't work any more."

Regarding Syria, where Iran is in alliance with Russia in supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the 57-year-old Iranian diplomat said it was the US "occupation" of Iraq that had created ISIS.

"We cannot commit to solutions that are part of the problem," he said. "I believe that the presence of foreign troops in Arab territory is a recipe for those extremists to rally behind and gain new fighters from disenfranchised youth."

Zarif said that sanctions won't work with Iran.

"Everybody (in) the past who has tested Iran know we don't respond well to threats. We respond well to mutual respect and mutual interests."

Zarif said the Obama administration tried to use economic sanctions to curtail Iran's nuclear program, but eventually failed, with Iran increasing their number of nuclear centrifuges tenfold in that period.

"The reason Obama came to the negotiating table was because sanctions did not work," Zarif told CNN.

Zarif said Trump's proposed, but currently stalled, travel ban on seven mainly Muslim countries including Iran "was an affront to the entire nation."

"You cannot find any Iranian who has committed a single act of terror against Americans, in any of these atrocities that have taken place," he said. "Iran has always condemned every single terrorist incident in the United States since 9/11."

Zarif said the ban was a departure from previous US policy that took issue with the government but not the Iranian people, and added that Iranians were among the most successful immigrants to the US.

"They (the US) don't understand in a globalized world you cannot contain threats to one locality. Syria is now a training ground for terrorists creating havoc everywhere," Zarif said.

Amanpour asked the Iranian Foreign Minister why Tehran chose to intervene in Syria on behalf of President Assad. "There are 500,000 people dead, there are twelve million refugees, there is torture, there is mass hanging -- it is not my impression, those are the facts," she said.

"Mistakes were made in Syria, as in the past mistakes have been made," he replied. "The same people who armed Daesh [ISIS], armed the terrorist groups, were the same people who armed Saddam Hussein, were the same people who created and armed al Qaeda."

"We should not continue to repeat history and then blame people who were on the right side."

Responding to a question about people fearing Iran -- partly because of its support for Hezbollah -- Zarif said the Lebanese Shia militia entered Syria on the request of Assad "to prevent these extremist forces (ISIS and other Sunni Islamist groups) from infiltrating into Lebanon, which would be a threat against all of us."

See the article here:
Iran: No to US troops in Syria, nuclear deal to stay - CNN.com - CNN

On Sunday 26 February, the night of the Oscars, were transforming Trafalgar Square into Londons biggest cinema, says Sadiq Khanin a publicity video for the screening of Irans Oscar-nominated film, The Salesman.

I want to welcome people from all across the capital and beyond, the Khan adds khan in Persian is aptly the daddy, godfather, don, the head of the village to share in this celebration of London as an international hub of creativity and as a global beacon of openness and diversity.

But hold on why is London doing this when Tehran is holding one of its citizens in jail over unclear charges and refusing her urgent medical care?

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratfliffe, the 38-year-old charity worker from north London detained arbitrarily last April, has suffered solitary confinement, gone on hunger strike, been threatened with losing custody of her two-year-old daughter who she refused to keep in prison, and was recently handed a five-year prison sentence. Movement in her arms and neck is restricted and a prison doctor has recommended she see a neurologist but she is inhumanely being denied access to one.

Benjamin Netanyahu urges Theresa May to back fresh sanctions for Iran

If there is one thing she is guilty of it is not being a panda were she, by now she would be a household name and calls for her release would be as robust as they were for the UK sailors captured by the Ahmadinejad government in 2006.(The Blair government, for all its faults, rightly regarded Iran as a terrorist state and demanded their unconditional release.) And that is what is required now Nazanin must be released.

If Theresa May and Boris Johnson are content to do nothing but have their subordinates limply raise the issue in the buffet queueat the next oil conference, it is Sadiq Khans moral duty to step up. With this in mind, Ive started a petition urging the Mayor to use his screening of The Salesman which is expected to draw a crowd of 10,000 and is backed by the likes of Mike Leigh and Lily Cole to demand Nazanins release. Sadly, though, City Hall has toldMetro that this is not its job, its the Foreign Offices.

It remains a mystery why a director who is not British and whose film is not about Britain is a more pressingconcern to the Mayor than one of his own citizens wrongly jailed in Tehran.

In fact, why is it Londons responsibility to screen this film at all? Had Asghar Farhadi been banned from the US it would make sense, but Farhadi is boycotting the Oscars because he cannot countenance the ifs and buts that might accompany special provisions to ensure his presence in Tinseltown he is choosing not to go.

How is that Londons business? If its a matter of championing Muslims, is there a shortage of talented UK Muslims? And why choose the relatively privileged Iranians over Somalis or Sudanese?

Nazanin is sadly a victim of the lefts hypocrisy. If the Mayor was to screen an Israeli film in the name of diversity, charged and angry protests would take place.

Irans human rights abuse is, like its filmmaking, world class yet there is no BDS movement to hound Khans decision to, lets face it, roll out the red carpet for the new Saudis, despotic Islamists whose crimes we choose to ignore.

If the Mayor will not speak out for Nazanin he must surely, on behalf of Londoners, invite her husband Richard Ratcliffe to speak at the screening. Foreign Offices job? Do a John Bercow. If he fails to do so, I will be campaigning for Iranians, starting with Farhadi, to disavow this event, to boycott it.

Click here to sign the petition

Continued here:
While a Londoner languishes in prison in Iran, Sadiq Khan thinks it's a good idea to invite an Iranian director to ... - The Independent

Tehran is keen to produce its own jet fightersbut designing and manufacturing advanced combat jets poses formidable technological challenges difficult for an isolated industrial base to resolve on its own. Nonetheless, the Iranian air force has prominently showcased its development of several domestic fighter jets since the turn of the century, most notably the HESA Saeqeh (Thunderbolt), which Iranian media have claimed to be superior to the F-18 Hornet.

But performance specifications and technical details for these aircraft have remained either vague or nonexistent. This may be less due to secrecy than because additional details would likely be unimpressive, because the Saeqeh is a reverse-engineered American F-5 Freedom Fighter with a new tail and upgraded avionics.

The F-5 Freedom Fighter traces it lineage to a 1950s-era Northrop project that yielded the two-seat T-38 Talon trainer still serving in the U.S. Air Force today. A single-seat variant, however, evolved into the F-5, a lightweight supersonic fighter for export to less wealthy military allies of the United States. Initially priced at just $756,000 per plane (around $6 million, adjusted for inflation), the elegant little fighter could carry more than six thousand pounds of bombs on five hardpoints, as well as two Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missiles on the wingtips. The later F-5E Tiger II variant added radar, lengthened the fuselage to carry additional fuel, enlarged the stubby wings for improved maneuverability and upgraded the J85 turbojets, boosting maximum speed to Mach 1.6. Freedom Fighters went on to see extensive combat over the skies of Vietnam, Ethiopia, Iran, Kuwait and Yemenand are actively being used in ground-attack missions today by the air forces of Tunisia and Kenya.

Iran received nearly three hundred Freedom Fighters of various models from the United States between 1965 and 1976, including 166 of the more advanced F-5Es and F Tiger IIs in the 1970s, and fifteen RF-5A Tigereye reconnaissance aircraft reportedly used for U.S. spy flights into Soviet airspace. These saw extensive use as ground attack aircraft in the Iran-Iraq War, but still engaged in a number of air battles, scoring an even 4-4 kills against faster Iraqi MiG-21 fighters and even damaging a MiG-25 Foxbat with cannon fire.

However, the fallout from the Iranian Revolution brought an end to the flow of spare parts, replacement aircraft and missiles from the United States needed to maintain the F-5 fleet. The Iranian air force improvised new components and cannibalized older planes for spare parts, and today it is estimated there are still thirty to fifty operational F-5s in the Iranian air forces inventory.

In 1997, Iran announced that the Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA) was developing a domestically-produced jet fighter called the Azarakhsh (Lightning) which supposedly was entering mass productionwhich is to say, between four and six appear to have been built in the subsequent decade, out of a planned thirty. The Azarakhsh, at least in its original form, was evidently a reverse-engineered F-5E, with uprated thrusters, reinforced wings, modified radar and improved weapon capabilities. The Azarakhsh doesnt appear to have reached operational units, and the program was terminated in 2010.

By 2004, the new Saeqeh fighter was featured on state TV. It has also been variously named the Saeqeh-80 and the Azarakhsh-2. This also appeared to be an F-5but with two instead of one vertical tail stabilizers, canted outwards like those on F-18 Hornet. To drive the comparison home, the Saeqehs were painted navy blue and yellow, so that they resembled the Blue Angels aerobatics team. The Saeqehs also have additional wing strakes, and some sport new square jet intakes. The aircraft were inspected by then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and fired rockets at targets in a 2007 war game.

The Saeqehs twin-tail stabilizers are believed to give the better turning and takeoff performance than the F-5E, making it a superior low-and-slow plane. Upgrading the F-5 to carry advanced weapons would be an obvious improvement, but so far photos of Saeqehs only show them armed with short-range Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and unguided air-to-ground bombs and rocket pods. Most assume the Freedom Fighters two twenty-millimeter cannons have been retained.

Modernized avionics and radar would be another obvious upgrade, but again, details of such modernization are scant. The Saeqeh supposedly has a domestically-produced countermeasure and navigation system, and new cockpit instruments possibly obtained from Russia or China. However, the Saeqeh cockpit shown in this video still looks pretty similar to the basic F-5E cockpit.

Read the original here:
Why Iran's Fighter-Jet Ripoff Is Just Fake News - The National Interest Online (blog)

Forbes

Iran Reaches Lease Financing Deal For 77 Boeing, Airbus Planes Forbes Tehran has reached a deal with an international aircraft leasing company to finance the acquisition of 77 planes from Boeing and Airbus, according to local ... and more »

Originally posted here:
Iran Reaches Lease Financing Deal For 77 Boeing, Airbus Planes - Forbes

ISTANBUL When the United States suddenly issued a ban on entry by nationals from Iran and six other countries, sending the worlds airports into chaos, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gave a muted response.

Lets help neighboring cultures, not build walls between nations, the moderate leader posted on Twitter. Lets not forget what happened to the #BerlinWall.

The comment, typical of Rouhanis soft diplomacy, became fodder for critics ahead of his reelection bid this spring.

President Trump will not understand the references to walls, the conservative Ezzatollah Zarghami, a potential challenger to Rouhani, fired back. You should speak to [Trump] the same way you to speak to your critics, Zarghami said.

A burgeoning crisis between Iran and the United States has threatened to undermine the pragmatic Rouhani, who was elected four years ago on promises to end the countrys isolation from the West. But now, amid new tensions with the Trump administration, Rouhanis pro-dialogue approach is under attack. The shift from detente with the Obama administration to open hostility with the White House under Trump has left Rouhani particularly vulnerable as he gears up for a presidential vote in May.

[Amid tensions with U.S., Iran warns White House and lauds Americans opposing Trump]

In the few weeks since Trump took office, the two sides have sparred over Irans ballistic missile program, the ban on Iranian nationals entering the United States and new White House sanctions targeting Irans weapons systems. Trumps then-national security adviser, Michael Flynn, announced that the United States was putting Iran on notice over its ballistic missile tests, which the White House said defied a U.N. Security Council Resolution. Iran responded with more military exercises and a threat to rain down missiles on its enemies.

The conventional wisdom is that if the U.S. really begins to crack down to put Iran on the defense, keep it under threat, and take away some benefits that it will work against Rouhani, said Gary Sick, who was the principal White House aide on Iran during the 1979 revolution and subsequent holding of U.S. Embassy personnel as hostages.

Irans conservatives have yet to field a viable candidate to oppose Rouhani, said Sick, who is now a research scholar at Columbia Universitys Middle East Institute. But in Iranian election campaigns, which normally last just a few weeks, things happen very fast, he said.

Rouhani, a cleric turned politician, has the political advantage of an incumbent. And, despite disagreements over policy and ideology, he appears to still have the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose broad power can make or break candidates. Khamenei recently nudged Rouhanis chief rival former president and right-wing firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad out of the race, after rumors swirled of a dramatic political comeback.

It strikes me as unlikely that the regime will switch horses at this stage or that a rival can offer a compelling alternative to the electorate, said Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy. But making predictions on Iranian elections is a fools game.

Given the uncertainty and the Trump administrations more-hawkish policies, Irans election, scheduled for May19, will not be an easy one for Rouhani, said Abas Aslani, world news editor at Irans Tasnim News Agency. Irans Guardian Council, a clerical oversight body, will vet the contenders and announce the approved candidates in late April. Candidate registration has not yet opened, meaning there is still time for a conservative front-runner to emerge.

[Iran stages military exercises in response to U.S. sanctions]

But if voters think that Rouhani has failed on key promises, such as bringing economic growth through the careful diplomacy of the nuclear deal, it will shake the presidents popularity ahead of the polls, Aslani said.

Indeed, the trouble for Rouhani started when Iranians, sick of a sluggish economy, grew sour on the 2015 nuclear deal he said would boost investment and ease poverty. That agreement between Iran, the United States and five other nations was hailed as a diplomatic achievement and promised sanctions relief if Iran halted its nuclear enrichment program.

Since then, some restrictions have been lifted. But others, such as those targeting Irans alleged financial support of terrorist groups, remain in place, sanctions experts say.

Foreign banks have also continued to avoid transactions with Iran, where corruption and money laundering are rife, said Richard Nephew, former principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the State Department. Iran also resumed selling oil on the international market, but low prices stunted what many Iranians hoped would have been a swift economic recovery.

Residual sanctions, particularly those associated with Irans support for terrorism, continue to hamper [Irans] economic performance, but so, too, did Irans poor business climate and low oil prices, said Nephew, who also served as Iran director on the National Security Council under President Obama.

As a result, the majority of people are not satisfied with the economy, said Ali Omidi, professor of international relations at the University of Isfahan.

Unemployment reached 12.7percent in the second quarter of 2016 up from 10.9percent the year before according to the latest data available from Irans central bank, and oil and non-oil-sector growth remained at 3percent and 2.8percent, respectively.

According to a poll published by the University of Maryland in January, a majority of Iranians now believe that Iran has not received most of the promised benefits of the nuclear deal. They also say that there have been no improvements in peoples living conditions as a result of the agreement.

People are following the recent tensions [with the United States] with worry, Omidi said.

Iranians think Trump is an unusual person who may deliberately start a crisis, he said.

On this point, Iranians might rally behind Rouhani. But it will depend on how aggressively the White House censures Iran, and on how Khamenei responds. The Trump administration has already floated a proposal to designate Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps, the countrys most powerful security institution, a terrorist organization. Such a move would have destabilizing effects around the region, where the Guard Corps is active.

This administration will likely really be ready to take risks to oppose Iran. Its just a matter of how risky they are prepared to get, Sick said.

It also depends whether the Supreme Leader is going to walk away from Rouhani as the Americans get tougher, he said. He might decide to abandon his president or to stick with him. Its difficult to predict.

Read more:

Denied Entry: Stories of refugees and immigrants barred from the U.S.

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Iran's Rouhani under fire as tensions with US rise - Washington Post