TEHRAN PAPERS:

Syria’s economic opportunities for Iran

May 8, 2023 - 10:35

In its editorial, Kayhan addressed the dimensions of the president’s visit to Syria. It wrote: Some Iranian observers have the imagination that Syria is very poor and the damages caused by the war are too much that these economic agreements have nothing but costs for Iran. But this idea lacks expert opinion.

Syria is not a poor country. It has abundant mines and resources, especially in the petrochemical field.  Syria, with its long Mediterranean coast, can be the best connector of Iran with Europe and North Africa.  Syria’s suitable agricultural lands can fulfill a significant part of Iran’s needs for grains, and the population of about 4.5 million people of Syria’s Alavi and Jafari Shias can flourish Iran’s religious tourism.

Javan: Is Pahlavi an opposition or a traitor?

Javan wrote Mohammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California, has done a detailed and documented research about Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed king of Iran, and he has revealed Reza Pahlavi’s position to his support for America’s military attack on Iran.

 Sahimi says that a few hours after the attacks on the twin towers of America on September 11, 2001, actually in the same evening, Reza Pahlavi interviewed with an American radio network in which he said: “Terrorism is like an octopus and the weakest point of the octopus is its eye, (and) the eye of the octopus of terrorism is also in Tehran!”

Reza Pahlavi provoked Americans to attack Tehran in the most sensitive time when the American people backed military attack on any country.

 The professor explained that at the time he wrote an article responding to Reza Pahlavi. He said: “Reza Pahlavi was always seeking to return to power and throne via the help of foreign governments, because he does not have any important social base in Iran.”

Afterward, Sahimi faced a wave of obscenities from Pahlavi supporters. This means, they also had no problem with a military attack on Iran, even though the incident had nothing to do with Iran.

Arman-e-Emrooz: Possibility of limited and long-term agreement 

 Arman-e-Emrooz addressed the nuclear case, saying: It seems that a long-term and limited (nuclear) agreement is likely to be on the agenda in a way that both Iran’s economic interests are secured and the West have a feeling of safety about Iran’s uranium enrichment.  A long-term and limited agreement in which most of Iran’s economic activities will be exempt from sanctions and Iran’s enrichment will be reduced to 20% instead.

However, in this complex field, no scenario should be considered final and something completely different may happen in the coming days. But the parties certainly intend to negotiate and are trying to take serious and final steps in this direction. 

Sobh-e-No: Trigger mechanism and media pressure 

In a commentary, Sobh-e-No discussed the West’s threat to activate the trigger mechanism based on Resolution 2231, which endorses the JCPOA. It wrote: The West has warned Iran that higher enrichment equals the return of UN sanctions. This can be considered as a propaganda push to influence the views and opinions of the IAEA Board of Governors. 

Westerners are looking for their political and media pressures to contain other fields as well.  This type of pressure is primarily intended to pressure Iran to step back from its red lines in the Vienna talks.  Although the remaining issues between the parties are too few, they are considered big in some ways that some of them are in the economic field.  This issue means that Iran will not receive the rest of main and small privileges. 

Some analysts consider that if one side can obtain these privileges, which are related to the key part of the sanctions, it will be victorious and the other will be the loser.  We saw these confrontations last spring and summer as well, which is continuing until today.

Mardom Salari: West will be responsible for consequences if UN bans returned 

Mardom Salari also discussed the trigger mechanism. It wrote: A Western diplomat, who had asked not to be named said ‘the Westerners are busy with Ukraine and Russia and they don’t want to open another front right now.  So, they want to do all efforts to prevent uranium with 90% purity.” 

A senior Iranian official has warned: If they want to activate UN sanctions against Iran under any excuse, they will be responsible for all consequences.  Iran’s response can be withdrawing from the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) to speeding up the nuclear process and increasing the level of uranium enrichment.  The official told Reuters: “Tehran will not tolerate such an action and will take a strong reaction against the possible return of UN sanctions.”
 

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