IRAN FACING TOUGHER ACCESS TO GLOBAL CAPITAL MARKETS

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Stiff ‘dressing-down’ for Khamenei – Tehran presses Europe for economic package by May 31

TEHRAN, Iran, May 29, (Agencies): Iranian university students in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered harsh criticism of the country’s direction, local media reported Tuesday, an unusually frank discussion showing the concerns many feel over the Trump administration’s pullout from the nuclear deal with Tehran and Iran’s battered economy.

One student in particular offered a list of problems confronting Iran and directly asked Khameni, whom hard-liners view as second only to God, how he would respond to them. While concerns regularly come up during the annual audiences that Khamenei holds during the Muslim Holy fasting Month of Ramadan, the fact that these criticisms received publicized attention in Iran’s tightly controlled media is telling. Already, farmers and truck drivers have been protesting and on strike in the country.

At Monday’s audience with Khamenei, university student Sahar Mehrabi read a speech in which she recounted the “numerous crises” now facing the country. Among them, she listed Iran’s “intensified systematic inequality in social classes, the decline of public trust and the increase in environmental crisis and shantytowns.” She also mentioned high unemployment, the challenges faced by minority groups and the way hard-line elements within Iran’s judiciary and security system “fabricate security cases in a delusional way” to target activists. “What answer does Your Excellency have in response to questions, criticisms and protests,” she asked.

In his own speech, Khamenei acknowledged many of the shortcomings, saying that “removing problems is not as easy” as the students expect. He said one solution can be the “injecting of revolutionary, motivated and committed young people into the governmental apparatuses.” “Growth of the society requires freedom of expression,” Khamenei said. Khamenei’s Twitter account also acknowledged the criticisms.

The pro-reform Mardomsalari daily newspaper published Mehrabi’s remarks and other websites also carried her full speech, which included a call for deepening democracy in Iran. Iran is a Shiite theocracy overseen from the top by Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state. However, it also holds regular elections for its presidency and parliament. Its politics include everything from hard-liners who recently set alight a paper American flag on the floor of the parliament in protest over the US decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal, to reformists who want to see change in Iran’s government.

However, bubbling frustrations over the economy and other issues led to nationwide protests in December and January that saw violence and anti-government chants. Khamenei has advocated recognizing peaceful protests.

Swiss lender Banque de Commerce et de Placements (BCP) has suspended new transactions with Iran and is winding down Iran-related activities, the latest company to halt business after the United States said it would reimpose sanctions on Tehran. BCP, founded in 1963, has been among the players active in Iran-related trade finance in commodities, finance sources say. US President Donald Trump pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran on May 8 and said he would reimpose sanctions within 180 days, prompting several European companies to announce they would end business with Tehran.

“We have suspended any new transaction related to Iran after May 8, 2018 and started the ‘wind down period’ within the framework of OFAC announcement,” BCP said in a emailed statement to Reuters, referring to the US Treasury’s sanctions enforcement arm. Geneva-headquartered BCP said following the US decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal that the bank complied with all sanctions in force “and conducts its business accordingly”.

Tehran is pressuring Europe to come up with a package of economic measures by May 31 after major powers agreed on Friday to move quickly to offset Washington’s withdrawal from the deal. Those measures include banning EUbased firms from complying with the reimposed US sanctions, urging governments to make transfers to Iran’s central bank to avoid fines and creating alternative financing channels. But analysts say there are big challenges to keeping the nuclear deal alive. “The US sanctions will make Iran’s business environment more difficult to operate in,” BMI Research said in a note last week. “Firms that … have exposure to the US market are therefore unlikely to want to maintain or expand their Iranian presence for fear of US sanction related penalties and backlash in the US market.”

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