EU works to set up Iran payment scheme

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Khamenei aide says US sought talks

BRUSSELS, Jan 7, (Agencies): The European Union (EU) Monday said work is still continuing to set up a payment mechanism to facilitate trade with Iran and circumvent US sanctions on Iran. “Actually this is the work that is carried out by the (EU) member states. And according to information that we have the work is continuing and advancing well,” Maja Kocijancic, spokesperson for EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, told a news conference in Brussels Monday.

She said the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be established “soon.” “We believe that it will be established in the coming weeks to promote legitimate business with Iran,” said the EU spokesperson. “This is part of the broader efforts of the European Union to preserve the nuclear agreement as long as Iran continues to respect its nuclear-related commitments,” added Kocijancic.

However, analysts are of the opinion that EU member states are not willing to host the SPV for fear of being targeted by US sanctions against Iran. On Dec 10, Mogherini had told reporters in Brussels that the SPV could be in place by the end of 2018. “I would expect this instrument to be established in the coming weeks so before the end of the year as a way to protect and promote legitimate business with Iran,” Mogherini had then said. Meanwhile, Iran has criticized the EU for failing to set up the SPV.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran holds Europe definitely responsible for failing to implement the financial mechanism called the SPV,” Iranian media reports quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi saying in Tehran. “So far, the Europeans have failed twice to fulfill their promises to get the system up and running in order to persuade Iran to remain in a landmark 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA after the US abandoned it,” Iran Daily newspaper commented.

A close aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday US officials had approached him during a visit he made last month to Afghanistan to request talks with Tehran, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. Tensions between arch foes, Iran and the United States, have increased since last May, when President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers, and then reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic that had been lifted under the terms of the pact.

“During my visit to Kabul last month, the Americans … asked to hold talks,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, was quoted as saying, without specifying what the US side wanted to discuss. US officials were not immediately available to comment on the report. In 2001, Iran worked with the United States to help set up a new Afghan government to replace the Taleban, which had been toppled by a US-led military campaign following al-Qaeda’s Sept 11 attacks on US cities. Shamkhani was in Kabul last month for talks with the Taleban “to help curb the security problems in Afghanistan”.

He said the Kabul government had known of his talks with the Taleban. Majority-Shi’ite Iran has long had close ties to Shi’ites in neighbouring Afghanistan whose militias have fought the Taleban’s Sunni militants. Washington accuses Iran of trying to extend its influence in western Afghanistan by providing military training, financing and weapons to the Taleban, a charge Tehran denies.

Shamkhani’s comments came days after reports of talks between US and Taleban officials over proposals for a ceasefire in Afghanistan and a future withdrawal of foreign troops ahead of possible peace negotiations. Khamenei slapped down an offer of direct talks made by Trump last year and Iranian officials have said Washington’s crippling sanctions would fail to wreck the economy. In July, Iranian authorities said Tehran had rejected eight US requests for a meeting between Trump and President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in Sept 2017.

“America’s fantasy and hostile measures have led nowhere, in spite of all their vengeful efforts towards the Iranian people, and will certainly not in the future,” Iranian state TV quoted Qassemi as saying on Monday. “Our nation will never yield to the cruel pressures of the United States. We will never bend to those who talk the language of sanctions and build walls instead of bridges.”

Jamal al-Badawi, wanted by the United States for his suspected role in the attack on the USS Cole 18 years ago, was killed in a precision strike in Yemen on Jan 1, US Central Command said on Sunday. Badawi was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2003 over his role in the October 2000 deadly bombing of the USS Cole, a Navy guided-missile destroyer. He escaped from prison in Yemen twice, once in 2003 and again in 2006. “US forces confirmed the results of the strike following a deliberate assessment process,” said Central Command spokesman Captain Bill Urban, two days after the Defense Department said US forces had targeted Badawi in the strike. It is the latest blow to Yemen’s al- Qaeda branch, known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has lost key leaders in U.S strikes in recent years.

In 2018, US officials said they believed that Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, once one of the world’s most feared bombmakers, had been killed. Still, Katherine Zimmerman at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think-tank cautioned that AQAP had proven it will remain a threat. The group has benefited from the chaos of Yemen’s civil war, although it has lost major strongholds, including the port city of Mukallah. “There is certainly a degradation of the leadership,” Zimmerman said. “The big concern is that al-Qaeda has always proven that its bench is much deeper and there is no clear strategy for stabilizing Yemen and setting the conditions where we don’t have a new generation (of militants) coming forward.” Yemen’s conflict has pushed it to the verge of famine, with millions relying on food aid. The death of Badawi removes perhaps the last major figure in the USS Cole attack from the battlefield. US President Trump tweeted: “Our Great Military has delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole.”

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