Iran Nuclear Talks To Resume In Acceptable Period Of Time, EU Says

Hashemi was appointed earlier this month by President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi), putting him for the first time in charge of a financial powerhouse, with millions under its care. Raisi has also handed him a potential political base with a chance to develop closer ties across the military, including the IRGC’s extraterritorial, dark-arts Quds (Qods) Force.

Before serving as the head of the martyrs foundation, Ghazizadeh was the deputy speaker of the Majles, the Islamic Republic’s parliament. He is a former member of the Paidary Front, an ultra-hardline political organization founded by disciples and supporters of Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a militant cleric even by the Islamic Republic’s standards. Ghazizadeh also ran in Iran’s 2021 presidential elections and came in fourth. He comes from a prominent insider family: a brother and a cousin serve in the Majles and another cousin is a former health minister.

In 1980 then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini established the foundation to aid the families of those who had fallen in the revolution. As the Iran-Iraq war began, the foundation added the families of war dead to its portfolio. In 2004 providing service to veterans was added to its responsibilities. Like many other institutions in the Islamic Republic, the foundation’s leadership consists of two primary officials: the supreme leader’s representative and the head of the foundation. Iran’s president appoints the head in consultation with the supreme leader, effectively intertwining the two roles.

Since martyrdom is the cornerstone of Shiism, martyrs, veterans, and their families are of immense political importance. The foundation has been the vehicle for keeping the families of martyrs aligned politically: it rewards regime-supporters with financial benefits and employment and education opportunities. The refractory lose these benefits and more.

While Iran’s national budget provides it with funding, the foundation also has a vast business empire and operates abroad. It thus has prodigious financial resources to advance its agenda. One of the key business entities it controls is Kowsar Economic Organization, which owns 43 firms, some of which are holdings or investing companies, with extensive interests in a wide range of industries. The Shahed Investment Company is another major economic arm of the organization that is publicly traded and heavily involved in the real estate and construction sectors. The foundation also owns Dey Bank, which the United States sanctioned in 2018. These three entities closely work together and have intertwined ownershipstructures and operations.

The foundation extends services to martyrs and veterans from other countries, too. Last year, the foundation’s chief announced that it covers members of the Fatemiyoun brigades, the Shiite Afghan brigade of the Quds Force, which has been fighting alongside the IRGC in Syria. The Lebanese Hezbollah has its own martyrs foundation, founded in 1982, which is, according to the U.S. Treasury, a branch of Iran’s martyrs foundation. The Iranian foundation and its officials regularly meet with representatives of Hezbollah and provide technical and financial support. Similarly, in Yemen, the Iranian foundation has created a branch to help the Shiite Houthis, according to some reports.

The Iranian organization also supports families of Palestinian terrorists through the Palestinian Martyrs Foundation, founded in 1993 as a branch of the Lebanese foundation. The Iranian mothership’s relations with its foreign proxies are quite similar to the Quds Force’s relationship with its foreign proxies — that is, the foundation provides financial, training, and technical support to loyal local elements, who then run the day-to-day operations of the affiliated organizations.

The United States first sanctioned the Iranian foundation and its Lebanese branch in 2007. Over the years, this organization and its front companies managed to raise funds in the United States and transfer it to Hezbollah. In 2020 Treasury designated a network of firms and individuals related to the Lebanese foundation. However, Washington has not sanctioned the Iranian Martyrs Foundation’s business network even though Tehran uses it to finance terrorism by guaranteeing lifelong financial support for jihadists, terrorists, and their families.

That omission warrants correction: Washington should sanction Ghazizadeh and the rest of the foundation’s leadership. The Kowsar Economic Organization, Shahed Company, and their subsidiaries and controlled firms should also not escape punishment.

Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior advisor on Iran and financial economics at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow Saeed on Twitter @SGhasseminejad. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily the views of Iran International

However, Iranian military deployments to its northern border near Armenia and Azerbaijan, and statements on Iranian social media tell a different story.

As Iran's roads authority said transit routes to Armenia via the Republic of Azerbaijan are open, the Iranian armed forces have announced a major military exercise at the country's north-western borders with the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Tensions rose between Iran and Azerbaijan in recent weeks following Azerbaijan's arrest of Iranian truck drivers and its joint military drills with Turkey and Pakistan, which began September 12 in Baku, about 500km from the Iranian border.

While Iran's ambassador to Baku has been going around in the Azeri capital meeting with his European counterparts explaining Iran's position about the differences between the Republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia, according to the Iranian official news agency IRNA, Tehran's plenipotentiary ambassador to Yerevan on Wednesday met with Armenia's Deputy Prime Minister Suren Papikyan.

Iranians on social media have been reporting that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan might be at the brink of a war although apparently all is well in Iran's northwestern front as far as Iranian newspapers and news agencies are concerned.

An IRGC Twitter account, @Sepah_FA, reported on September 29 that: "The Islamic Republic will not tolerate any geopolitical changes at its borders and will strongly resist against the enemies' hostile objectives." The IRGC account continued: "While warning those who wish to destabilize Iran'snorthern borders, we express our readiness to avert the enemies' plots."

Meanwhile, several Twitter accounts posted videos and photos of Large Iranian military convoys proceeding toward the borders. Sharq daily analyst Salar Seyf wrote on Twitter: "We are witnessing the biggest Iranian military expedition since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. If the enemy wishes to attack and occupy an Armenian province, Iran will step forward to foil the plot."

Iranian Twitter user Hossein Mahmooudi Asl whose account is followed by some of Iran's most prominent journalist wrote: "Wait for a crackdown on Pan-Turk networks and infiltrators in Iran and Turkey's espionage network in this country."

The social media account Azariha, as well as several other channels posted a video of an Iranian military convoy and wrote: "This is a massive deployment of Iranian military equipment to the borders with the northern dictatorship just in case it makes the slightest mistake."

Hossein Dalirian, a military analyst and a former editor of IRGC-linked news agency Tasnim, wrote in Twitter post: "Just imagine that a war breaks out with the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Islamic Republic can fire 1,000 ballistic missiles and hit 1,000 key points. The war will end in one day. And there will be no time to use other equipment. Do not pay attention to bragging [by Azeri officials]."

Dalirian was referring to speeches by Azeri MPS who said Iran should be wiped off the map. Other social media users also said that Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev has spoken against Iran recently using strong words.

Meanwhile, Hamed Heidarpoor Kiasara, an Iranian Twitter users, posted pictures of Azeri military vehicles and wrote that simultaneous with the Iranian military build-up at the Azeri borders, the Republic of Azerbaijan also deployed military equipment to Iran's borders.

Another Iranian on social media asked what will the pro-Hezbollah Azeri Hussainiyoun militias' position be in a possible conflict between Tehran and Baku.

During the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, Iran accused Turkey and Azerbaijan of deploying Syrian jihadist groups at the border with Iran to destabilize the region. During the past months, Iran on several occasions complained that Azerbaijan has closed the transit route to Armenia.

Although during the latest conflict in the Karabakh region Iran expressed support for Azerbaijan under pressure from its own local ethnic Azeries, Tehran has traditionally backed Yerevan against Baku since the 1990s.

After the news of the scandal broke on local media, Ali Sahraee told the ISNA news website “To offer an opportunity for more investigations about cryptocurrency mining at the stock exchange and to help the stability of the markets, I offered my resignation to the board of directors, which accepted it.”

Sahraee’s announcement contradicts news from the government’s official news website, IRNA, that said he was fired.

Around seven percent of the world’s cryptocurrencies are mined in Iran, most of it hidden from public view and illegally. The practice which requires thousands pf computers using large quantities of electricity has become controversial. Some Chinese entities are also engaged in the practice due to extremely cheap, subsidized electricity in Iran.

The stock exchange confirmed the operation of crypto machines on Wednesday and said there has not been full financial reporting, although the operation was meant to be for the stock exchange and not private. The board of directors confirmed that a number of machines were installed last year “for research purposes”.

A ministry statement said the issue had been discussed at the cross-government National Vaccination Committee. Health minister Bahram Eynollahi had said on September 23 that some US-made vaccines would be imported for vaccinating expectant mothers but would not be generally available.

Data over vaccines in pregnancy has been limited. While a major study earlier in the year deemed the US-made Pfizer and Moderna safe for expectant mothers, the World Health Organization has also recommended they receive Sinopharm.

A few days ago, Fars news agency, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), launched an online campaign against importing Pfizer vaccines. On Tuesday Fars quoted Professor Ali Karami, a controversial biotechnology professor at the IRGC Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, saying the Pfizer vaccine contained a "group of genes" that could affect the recipient’s DNA. "Professor Karami's statement is a warning to take immediate action and not to put pregnant mothers and the future generation at risk," Fars noted.

Karami who has advocated other conspiracy theories in the past and ardently opposes the use of US-made vaccines claims that the US has created a vaccine to reduce religious fundamentalism with which the Pentagon could vaccinate large populations in the Middle East. "The virus in this vaccine purportedly has been tested and shown to reduce fundamentalism and religiosity in all who are infected by damaging what is called the GOD gene," Karami said at a conference in 2016.

Iran has now fully vaccinated 17 percent of the population, according to figures from John Hopkins University. Daily Covid deaths peaked at around 700 in August during a fifth wave of the pandemic but in recent weeks have fallen to under 300.

According to the latest figures released by the health ministry, 37.7 million of 84 million Iranians have received one dose and 16 million both doses of the Covid vaccine, a total of 53.8 million.

Many hardliner political, military and media figures in Iran welcomed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s January 8 order to ban importing the US-made Pfizer and Moderna, and British-made AstraZeneca, vaccines based on conspiracy theories that the West can contaminate the vaccines to harm Iranians.

While many hardliners supported Khamenei’s decision, as they usually do in all matters, Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca were at the time the only Covid vaccines provided through the World Health Organization’s Covax facility.

On August 16, the head of Iran's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Mohammad-Reza Shanehsaz, said a permit had been issued to import Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Shanesaz stressed that Khamenei's concerns were being addressed and that while any source should be reliable "a vaccine's name" was not sufficient reason to stop its import.

In the release, the US government noted that it designated these individuals and entities in “coordinated actions” with Qatar.

Among the designations were Ali Reda Hassan al-Banai (Ali al-Banai), Ali Reda al-Qassabi Lari, and Abd al-Muayyid al-Bani. They were all sanctioned as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Hezbollah. The US government sanctioned the Iran-backed Party of God as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997 and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2001.

The US Treasury Department revealed that Ali al-Banai and Lari “have secretly sent tens of millions of dollars” to Hezbollah “through the formal financial system and cash couriers.” It documented how both men met with Hezbollah officials during their trips to Lebanon and Iran. One particularly noteworthy finding by the US Treasury Department was that Ali al-Banai started contributing to Hezbollah through a Kuwait-based branch of the Martyrs Foundation, which is an Iranian parastatal organization that Tehran uses to finance its proxies and partners throughout the Middle East.

Additional targets included Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Nabi Shams, Yahya Muhammad al-Abd-al-Muhsin, Majidi Fa’iz al-Ustadz, and Sulaiman al-Banai, who were also sanctioned under Executive Order 13224 for providing services to Ali al-Banai. Likewise, Qatar-based AlDar Properties was sanctioned for being owned, controlled, or directed by, directly or indirectly, Sulaiman al-Banai.

Today’s sanctions designations are significant for two reasons. The first concerns the recent Iranian shipments of fuel, arranged by Hezbollah, to Lebanon. The fuel has been allowed to transit through Syria without incident, despite likely sanctions violations. Thus, the US government is signaling its readiness to crack down on Hezbollah’s broader financial networks even while appearing to turn a blind eye to the Iranian fuel being trucked across Syria into Lebanon. Indeed, this is the second time in September alone the US government has levied sanctions targeting Hezbollah. Such timing is not a coincidence given the broader fuel exchange underway with Tehran.

Second, Qatar’s role here is important, given charges that it is a permissive environment for terrorist financing. In recent months, the Israeli government reportedly provided intelligence to Washington that Doha was funding Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Qatar, a longtime partner of the United States, thus may have taken a parallel action against this Hezbollah network to buy goodwill in the United States in thwarting this illicit activity.