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Seyyed Ali Qazi-Askar, the representative of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in Hajj and pilgrimage affairs

A senior Iranian official says an agreement with Saudi Arabia enabling Hajj pilgrimage for Iranians this year came after the kingdom submitted to the Islamic Republics conditions.

Seyyed Ali Qazi-Askar, the representative of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in Hajj and pilgrimage affairs, was cited as making the remarks in a report carried by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcastings News Agency on Saturday.

The final agreement came about after several bouts of negotiations with the Saudi Hajj minister, which featured the stipulation of Irans straight and logical approach, he said. The accord, he said, enables dispatch of 86,000 Iranians on pilgrimage.

The Saudis declared that they would take the responsibility and ensure comfort, esteem, dignity, and safetyfor the Iranian pilgrims while they are in the kingdom.

In September 2015, a deadly human crush occurred during Hajj rituals in Mina, near Mecca. Days into the incident, Saudi Arabia published a death toll of 770 but refused to update it despite gradually surging fatality figures from individual countries whose nationals had been among the victims of the crush. Unofficial sources put the death toll at almost 7,000 people. Iran said about 465 of its nationals lost their lives in the incident.

Earlier thatmonth, a massive construction crane operated by the Saudi Binladin Group conglomerate had collapsed onto Meccas Grand Mosque, killing more than 100 pilgrims, including 11 Iranians, and injuring over 200 others, 32 of them from Iran.

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Qazi-Askar said Iran hasinterviewed hundreds of witnesses, and prepared video footage and other instances of evidence tobe submitted to a fact-finding mission.

Concerning the crane crash incident, Qazi-Askar said it has been agreed that the Saudi Binladin group pay blood money to the victims' families in two tranches.

Asked if the Hajj agreement was to have any impact on ties between the two countries, he said pilgrimage is a religious obligation that hasnothing to do with the status of diplomatic ties.

Saudi Arabia unilaterally severed its diplomatic ties with Iran in January after protests outsideits diplomatic premises in Tehran and Mashhad against the execution by Riyadh of eminent Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

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'Deal reached after Saudis submitted to Iran's Hajj conditions' - Press TV

Some hardline myths about Iran never seem to die. One myth especially pertinent to U.S. policy is that revolutionary regime change in Iran is a significant possibility in the near future and that with a bit more of a push from the outside, the Islamic Republic will collapse and be replaced by something much more to our liking. This illusion was prevalent in much of the George W. Bush administration, which accordingly adhered to a policy of refusing to deal with Iran and instead of trying to isolate it and to inflict economic pain through sanctions. Several years of lack of results in the face of ever-increasing sanctions demonstrated the fecklessness of that policy. The sanctions became useful only when the next U.S. administration began to negotiate with Iran and sanctions were used as a bargaining chip to conclude an agreement that blocks all possible paths to an Iranian nuclear weapon.

The myth often is connected to a faith in exile groups as instruments for quick transition to a completely different type of regime. Many of those hoping for regime change in Iran look in this way to the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a cult-cum-terrorist group that actually has almost no popular support within Iran. Some of the same people had placed a similar faith in Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, whose qualities as a huckster more than as someone who could father a new Iraqi republic became increasingly apparent after the U.S. invasion of 2003.

Today there evidently is another expression of the old myth about Iran, with talk about regime change, among Trump loyalists at the White House and National Security Council staff. According to these individuals, increased pressure and kicks from the outside can bring about positive results in Iran, rather than, as expert analysis both inside and outside the national security bureaucracy explains, merely eliciting hostile responses from a firmly implanted Islamic Republic. It is unclear whether holding of the myth represents genuine misbelief or instead is a rationalization covering other reasons the holders want to maintain Iran as a perpetually isolated bte noire. Either way, the myth leads to damaging and ineffective U.S. policy.

Iran is not at all close to any political upheaval that could be described as a new revolution or a counter-revolution, even with more pressure and pushes from the outside. Iranian politics certainly exhibits plenty of disagreement and controversy, with the possibility of significant policy change coming out of that political competition. Despite the substantial defects in the Iranian political system, there is a political robustness missing from, say, the Arab monarchies on the other side of the Persian Gulf. But most Iranians do not have an appetite for making a new revolution.

Both the regime and the people in Iran have demonstrated an ability to withstand hardship much greater than what U.S. sanctions can inflict. They did so during the extremely costly eight-year Iran-Iraq War, which Iran doggedly continued for some time even after Saddamwho started the warbegan seeking an armistice. Certainly if pressure or punishment from an outside power is involved, both the regime and the people exhibit determined resistance.

There already has been much evolution in the direction and nature of the Islamic Republic during its nearly four decades of existence, although probably not as much as there would have been without the ostracism. The large majority of Iranians today were born since the revolution. Hijabs have inched above hairlines, and domestic life has become looser and freer. Especially for the female half of the population, looking across the Gulf does not instill any ideas about better alternatives.

More important for U.S. and Western interests has been the evolution in Irans external policies. Any hopes within the regime in the immediate aftermath of the revolution for like-minded revolutions elsewhere in the region have long ago been dispelled, as the realization sunk in that such revolutions were unlikely and that Irans system would survive anyway. The most obvious form of Iranian state-conducted international terrorisma campaign of assassinating exiled dissidentseffectively ended years ago, partly because of the regime's desire to have normal and fruitful relations with Europe.

Further evolution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its policies in the years ahead will correlate directly with the extent to which it has normal political and economic interaction with the rest of the world. Isolation and punishment would strengthen Iranian hardliners arguments that there is neither a possibility of, nor a payoff to be expected from, such interaction. Bolstering of the hardline position in turn would mean diminished prospects for further liberalizing political change in Iran. Conversely, increased commerce, foreign investment, and the economic development that go with them would strengthen the political position of those favoring normality in foreign relations, would increase the Iranian stake in even more peaceful normality, would loosen the grip of those in Iran whose economic and political power depend on isolation, and would increase Iranian exposure to ideas and examples of still more change.

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Evolution, Not a New Revolution, in Iran - The National Interest Online (blog)

by Eric Randolph and Ali Noorani - AFP on March 19, 2017, 5:01 pm

Iran pre-nups land thousands of men in jail

Tehran (AFP) - When Sadegh married his college sweetheart, he never thought he'd end up as one of those Iranians facing ruin and even prison because of huge sums demanded by his wife's family.

But the "mehrieh" ("affection") system, in which future husbands agree to pay a certain number of gold coins to the bride in the event of divorce, has left thousands of men in Iran languishing in jail and many more destitute.

"Our mehrieh was high, around 800 gold coins, but when we were planning the wedding, we didn't think about how it might end," said Sadegh, who was divorced last year after eight years of marriage.

Each gold coin is worth around 10 million rials ($300). A worker on Iran's average wage would need 50 years to earn 800 gold coins.

"Even when the problems started and we talked about separation, it was supposed to be mutual and no mehrieh was going to be paid," said Sadegh, who spoke to AFP on condition that his full name not be used.

But then his wife's family got involved, and suddenly Sadegh found himself in court where he was told to pay 110 coins immediately or go to jail.

"The thought of ending up in prison for this, like in the movies, seemed ridiculous," he said.

"Mehrieh is good as a financial support for women in a patriarchal society like Iran, but it has become a business."

Pleading he was broke, the judge brokered a deal in which Sadegh agreed to pay the equivalent of 120 coins, one per month.

That meant a decade of payments, each taking just under half his photographer's salary.

Then, five months in, he lost his job.

- 'Sword over man's head' -

It could have been even worse. At last count, the judiciary said some 2,297 men were in jail for failing to pay their mehrieh after a divorce.

A glimmer of hope surfaced this week in Tehran, where a ceremony was held to celebrate the work of donors who pay off the debts of prisoners as a show of Islamic charity.

They have freed 1,700 mehrieh-convicts over the past year.

"Unfortunately, today competition among families has led to ever-increasing mehrieh," said Hadi Sadeghi, a cleric and judiciary official who helps coordinate the releases.

He said mehrieh, whose level is negotiated by the families at the time of a couple's engagement as per ancient Islamic custom, had lost its simple traditional function as a form of dowry for the newly-weds to buy furniture.

Now the payment is usually delayed and brandished against men as a threat in case of divorce, or even worse, is used by unscrupulous families for extortion.

"The worst case is when families turn it into a business. Boys need to be careful not to be deceived," said the cleric.

"Using mehrieh as a sword over the man's head is wrong too. It only leads to more arguments and divorces."

Officials agree that mehrieh has in recent decades degenerated into a status symbol, and that families are often just too stubborn to back down when a marriage falls apart.

"Many families, when they go to wed their girls, their first question is mehrieh," said Alireza Afsary, who runs a foundation supporting prisoners.

"Some laws need to be amended and some cultural and social issues need to change."

The courts have tried to intervene, saying they will only force husbands to pay a maximum of 110 gold coins, but even this is beyond the means of many Iranians.

- Way to redress balance -

Still, many women see mehrieh as a way of redressing the balance for divorced women, who are often shunned by society.

Some exchange mehrieh for promises they will be allowed to work or study, or have child custody in the event of a divorce.

"A woman who gets married is always afraid of not having real rights at the time of separation, so she tries to guarantee her rights through mehrieh," said Safi, a married woman in her 20s.

But all agree it has done nothing to slow soaring divorce rates in Iran as the country modernises and women enjoy increased freedoms. There were more than 165,000 this year, up 15 percent compared to five years ago.

"If they are looking for ways to support women, and for men to show loyalty to their families, they should have new rules... for example giving them a legal right to half the man's property," said another young woman, Shima, 28.

As for Sadegh, he is trapped, still having to come up with 10 million rials a month despite being unemployed. He missed the last payment. The threat of prison hangs heavy over him.

"We were classmates and were together for a year or two before marriage. Her family said they have a tradition of high mehrieh and couldn't reduce it. My family tried to refuse, but I loved her so we didn't insist.

"We thought everything was going to go on smoothly forever."

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Iran pre-nups land thousands of men in jail - Yahoo7 News

The civil war in Syria entered its seventh year last Wednesday.

After six years that UN human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein described to the UN Human Rights Council as the worst man-made disaster since World War II, encouraging news came from Astana, Kazakhstan, last week. The third round of Russia-led talks on reconciliation in Syria began with an announcement that a special team would be set up to supervise the implementation of the ceasefire on the ground. The members of the team will be Turkey, Russia, and Iran.

According to a statement by Alexander Lavrentiev, head of Russias delegation to the talks, the parties agreed to provide maps showing the location of terrorist groups such as Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as the al-Nusra Front).

But in case anyone thought, even for a moment, that any light was visible at the end of this blood-drenched tunnel, the reports from Damascus brought them back to reality: two terror attacks, one at the Damascus court complex and the other at a nearby restaurant, that killed more than 25 people.

Syrian security forces gather under a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad at the old palace of justice building in Damascus following a reported suicide bombing on March 15, 2017. (AFP Photo/Louai Beshara)

It was an unequivocal message from the Sunni Islamist groups to anyone who was counting on a return to the past and the re-establishment of Greater Syria. Not much is left of the Syria of six years ago. Nearly half a million people have been killed and unknown millions have been wounded. Five million people have left their homes, either displaced or as refugees (a fifth of a population of approximately 22 million). Syrias economy is crushed, its infrastructures is in ruins, and its population suffers from constant shortages of power, water, and proper medical treatment.

What the Astana talks have made abundantly clear is that Syria is no longer in Syrian hands. An unholy mixture of superpower and other foreign interests is reshaping the map of what used to be Syria. Its coastal strip and several of its large cities are still controlled by Bashar Assad, the nominal president. That area, once known as Alawistan for the politically dominant Alawite branch of Islam, is now known by Israeli officials as Assadistan (because Sunni residents are the majority in those areas by close to 70 percent), while the rest of the territory is divided among moderate rebel groups, extremists such as Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Kurds and Turkey.

But the picture is even more complicated. The influence of foreign players such as Russia, the United States, and, of course, Iran, is visible in those areas as well. Islamic States weakness in the region and its loss of the territory that it used to control due to massive American aerial attacks, among other things has resulted, simultaneously, in the entrenchment of significant Iranian influence throughout Syria, mainly in the areas controlled by Assad.

Thus Iran, as it takes advantage of the civil war in Syria and Islamic States takeover in Iraq, is looking more and more like the big winner of the Arab Spring in the region stretching from Tehran to Latakia and southward to Beirut. The Shiite crescent, which King Abdullah of Jordan warned about more than a decade ago, is amassing unprecedented power in the region even without possessing an atomic bomb and with its nuclear program frozen. If the saying Islam is the solution was common in the past, particularly among the Sunnis (in reference to groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas), perhaps the saying from now on should be that Shiite Islam is the solution.

Iran is in control of with swaths of territory running from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea; it has taken control of Iraq and is expelling Islamic State from there using Shiite militias under its command.

An Iraqi militia fighter of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadrs Saraya al-Salam (Peace Brigade), waves a flag next to a rocket launcher during heavy clashes with IS fighters in Tuz Khurmatu in the Salaheddin province on August 31, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/J.M. Lopez)

The Hebrew-language Walla news site reported this week that Iran has been paving a trans-Iraq highway from Iran to Syria. Tehran has enormous influence over what happens in Syria militarily and economically. It operates a cellular franchise throughout Iraq, and as was mentioned in talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month is working to build a port in Latakia, on Syrias Mediterranean coast.

While Iran has not yet begun construction, it has submitted a draft proposal for the port to Assad, who tends toward approving it. The proposal states, in simple terms, that Iran will lease land in the city from Syria and use it to establish the maritime terminal. The port would be under Iranian sovereignty in every way, and the Syrians would have no access to it. In other words, it would be like the naval base that the Russians established in Tartus. The land would be leased to the Iranians for fifty years.

Irans influence in what used to be Syria does not end there, of course. Roughly 1,300 to 1,500 Iranians combat soldiers, intelligence personnel, members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, logistics personnel and others currently operate there (according to Israeli assessments, 150 to 200 Iranians have been killed so far in the fighting in Syria).

In addition, there are the Iranian-funded Shiite militias, which number approximately 7,000 to 10,000 fighters who came from places as far afield as Pakistan and Afghanistan. And the Shiite fighters of Hezbollah approximately 8,000 on Syrian soil who take orders from Tehran (according to various estimates, between 1,700 and 2,000 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria).

Fighters of the Shiite Hezbollah terror group attend the funeral of a comrade who died in combat in Syria in the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Hatta on March 18, 2017. (AFP Photo/Mahmoud Zayyat)

Iran has been doing more in recent months than merely transferring arms to Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Syria and in Lebanon. According to a recent report in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida, Tehran has begun speeding up its armament effort by setting up rocket-manufacturing facilities in those countries. The details provided in the report are partial, of course. Members of the IRGC supervise the facilities, which are deep underground in both countries, not only Lebanon.

The arms that are manufactured there ought to cause Israel quite a bit of concern. These are not ordinary rockets that are being added to the usual ordinary arsenal; they are particularly precise.

Irans deployment in the post-Arab Spring era does not stop between Tehran and Latakia and Beirut. Indeed, its long arms also stretch to Yemen and the Gaza Strip.

Thus, as the civil war in Syria enters its seventh year, that countrys remaining citizens and the Middle East as a whole may be able to breathe a sigh of relief on one level: Islamic States control over the area is weakening. But the Iranian influence, which will have harsh implications for the Sunnis in the region, is growing, and neither calm nor stability is visible on the horizon.

This file photo taken on December 14, 2016 shows Syrian pro-government forces advancing during a military operation in the northern city of Aleppo. (AFP Photo/George Ourfalian)

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Islamic State's wane sets the stage for regional superpower Iran - The Times of Israel

New York Times

Iranian Pilgrims Can Participate in Hajj This Year, Saudi Arabia Says New York Times Saudi Arabia, ruled by a Sunni Muslim monarchy, accuses Iran of weakening Arab states by funding militias. Iran, a revolutionary Shiite state, accuses Saudi Arabia of spreading an intolerant interpretation of Islam that has fed terrorism and endangered ... Iran pilgrims to join this year's Hajj: Saudi ArabiaAljazeera.com Saudi general says Trump admin vows support against IranWashington Times Saudi Arabia Invites Muslims from Iran to Holy Pilgrimage in MeccaNewsweek Antiwar.com -BBC News -Khaleej Times all 360 news articles »

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Iranian Pilgrims Can Participate in Hajj This Year, Saudi Arabia Says - New York Times