Iran Condemns US Sanctions Over Meddling In 2020 Presidential Vote
Iran condemned on Friday US sanctions against six Iranians and one Iranian group for trying to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election by cyberactivity.
Iran condemned on Friday US sanctions against six Iranians and one Iranian group for trying to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election by cyberactivity.
The US Treasury announced the sanctions on Thursday, along with criminal charges against two Iranians it says launched a cyber disinformation campaign to targeted voters, elected members of Congress and a US media company.
"Iran condemns these new US sanctions as a continuation of the failed policy of Trump's maximum pressure that are desperate and illegitimate," foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Twitter, referring to former president Donald Trump.
The sanctions were announced as world power prepare to resume nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna on November 29. Iran has hardened its position demanding all US sanctions to be lifted at once before an agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement, JCPOA.
The US announced criminal charges on Thursday against two Iranians accused of launching a cyber campaign to meddle in the 2020 US presidential election.
The US also sanctioned six Iranian officials for their roles in the alleged plot.
Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian 27, are each facing charges that they obtained confidential US voting information from at least one state election website.
They are also accused of sending threatening emails to intimidate voters and sending a video that contained disinformation about purported election infrastructure vulnerabilities.
The indictment alleges they also gained access to a US company's computer network in a plot to disseminate false claims about the election, but their plot was foiled thanks to intervention by the FBI and the company, which the indictment did not identify by name.
Secreatry of State Antony Blinken said, "Designation of Iranian cyber actors represents the collective efforts of the US Treasury, State Department and the FBI. The US government took decisive action against those seeking to interfere with the sanctity of our elections."
“This indictment details how two Iran-based actors waged a targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the electoral system and to sow discord among Americans,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen.
Two weeks before the November election, top intelligence officials in then-President Donald Trump's administration alleged that both Russia and Iran were attempting to interfere in the election and had gained access to some US voter registration data.
Report by Reuters
Iran’s foreign ministry on Monday implicitly confirmed recent claims that Tehran has accessed some of its frozen funds abroad but it refused to provide details.
Last week, the CEO of the government’s news agency IRNA and a newspaper affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard claimed Iran had freed $3.5-4 billion dollars of its frozen funds but did not say which country unblocked the assets.
Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh was asked by reporters on Monday to comment on the issue. He replied: “Amid sanctions, we do not provide details to anyone. The central bank might comment if it sees fit.”
He added, “We have had many sources abroad and you know that we have been gradually freeing these assets that enter our economy. The fact that we are importing merchandise shows that these resources gradually return to the country, and it is not just from one source. Allow me to say just that much.”
Khatibzadeh’s comments were vague enough to cover a lot of possibilities. In advance of nuclear talks scheduled to resume in two weeks, Iran might be trying to show a full hand by claiming not to be in a dire financial situation. It is also possible that the claim is based on recouping payments from some current illicit oil exports and not necessarily funds officially frozen by other countries, such as South Korea and Iraq.
Khatibzadeh also announced that Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has been invited to visit Iran and the foreign ministry has proposed a date and is waiting to hear back from him. However, this contradicts comments by Grossi who expressed his disappointment on November 12 at having no contact with the Iranian government.
Grossi told reporters it is “astonishing” that “I have not had any contact with this government” that has been in office for five months, except “technical” conversations with the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency.
Iran has curtailed IAEA’s monitoring access to its nuclear facilities since the beginning of the year, demanding that the United States should lift sanctions imposed since 2018.
Khatibzadeh’s comment about Iran having extended an invitation to Grossi comes days before the IAEA Board of Governors is scheduled to meet in Vienna where Grossi could criticize Tehran for lack of cooperation.
The Iranian spokesman insisted that “technical” interactions with IAEA are “in a good path” and we are waiting for Grossi’s response. If he travels to Iran, he will meet with foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Grossi had complained in October that he had had no meeting with the new foreign minister.
The chairmen of Iraq and Korea joint chambers of commerce say news about $3.5 billion of Iran’s frozen funds being freed is not related to the two countries.
Yahya Ale-Es’haq chairman of Iran-Iraq joint commerce of chamber and Hossein Tanhaee, head of the Korean chamber were responding to claims by Ali Naderi, the CEO of the government’s official news agency IRNA on Friday, that recently $3.5 billion of Iran’s frozen funds abroad were released.
This claim was followed on Saturday by Javan newspaper, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, that claimed $4 billion has been released “without negotiations”, but providing no details.
Ale-Es’haq told local media that Iraq has not freed any of the funds it owes Iran due to US banking sanctions and if the news about frozen money being released is true, it could be related to South Korea. Two banks in Seoul hold $7 billion also frozen because of US sanctions.
But Tanhaee separately told ILNA news agency late Saturday that South Korea also has not released any funds.
Last week, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency wrote after Korea's first vice minister for foreign affairs, Choi Jong-kun, talked by phone with the US special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, that Seoul and Washington maintained communication over Iran, especially on Iranian assets locked in South Korean banks.
After a claim Friday that $3.5 billion of Iran's frozen funds had been freed, an IRGC newspaper bumped the figure to $4 billion, as a sign of Tehran's victory.
Neither the CEO of government news agency IRNA who had made the initial claim, nor Javan newspaper affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard presented any evidence or quoted an official source to back-up their claims. There have been no foreign official or media reports indicating that the United States has agreed with release of Iranian frozen funds.
An editorial Saturday in Javan said that within 100 days of Raisi taking office, not only had $4 billion been freed "without much negotiation” but also the "capacity of Iran's nuclear program has been growing.”
The paper contrasted these events with the two-year negotiations leading to the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), and with the failure of previous president Hassan Rouhani to secure the release of Iranian funds frozen by third parties wary of punitive United States action under its ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions threatening anyone buying Iran’s oil or dealing with its financial sector.
In a dig at Rouhani, whose strategy of deepening economic ties with Europe was thwarted by ‘maximum pressure,’ Javan noted that “sometimes not being eager to negotiate, particularly with Westers powers, produces better results.”
In a tweet Friday the CEO of the government official news agency (IRNA), Ali Naderi, said $3.5 billion of Tehran's frozen funds had been released. Naderi did not say where the assets were frozen but claimed they could soon be used for “trade,” presumably implying they might pay for exports to Iran rather than be transferred as cash.
Javan added $500 million to this figure on the grounds, it said, that the United Kingdom had finally agreed to pay a four-decade-old debt of £400m ($535m) owed Iran for weapons bought in the 1970s but never delivered.
The newspaper linked the release of frozen funds and Britain honoring the debt to the resumption of Vienna talks at the end of November on reviving the JCPOA. The pavements would give “a different perspective to the Vienna process," it said.
Iran has assets frozen in several countries including South Korea and Japan, largely for past purchases of Iranian oil, as well as in Iraq, India, and China. It was reported this week that China imported on average 560,000 barrels per day(bpd) of Iranian oil from the beginning of August until the end of October, but other Asian customers stopped buying it under US pressure.
$50 billion frozen
The semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) in a report Saturday said Iran's assets frozen abroad amounted to $50 billion, including $8 billion in South Korea, $3 billion in Japan, and $6 billion in Iraq.
The ISNA report said that suddenly injecting all these assets into the forex market would push the exchange rate for the dollar to 150,000 rials or less. Nonetheless, the rial fell by 1,900 to 285,300 against the US dollar in the unofficial market Thursday.
Iranian officials have repeatedly made claims of the looming release of frozen funds, from Iraq in March for instance, but have not subsequently confirmed the transfer of money.
Last week South Korea’s Yonhap news agency wrote after Korea's first vice minister for foreign affairs, Choi Jong-kun, talked by phone with the US special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, that Seoul and Washington maintained communication over Iran, especially on Iranian assets locked in South Korean banks, which it put at $7 billion.
US President Joe Biden said in a memo to his officials on Friday that there were sufficient supplies of oil so other countries can reduce purchases from Iran.
The White House is required to affirm every six months that there is enough oil supply globally to maintain sanctions against Iran that were put in place in 2012, during Barack Obama's administration.
Biden's memo sent to Secretaries of State, Treasury and Energy comes in advance of a virtual meeting with China's President Xi Jinping on Monday, in what is expected to be the leaders' most extensive meeting since Biden took office.
Iranian media reported Biden’s statement amid general pessimism about the outcome of the talks to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA) and have the US sanctions lifted. The government’s news website IRNA, however, was quick in trying to instill optimism quoting a member of parliament’s energy committee on Saturday who said exports have gradually increased in the past few months.
China is the largest purchaser of Iranian oil, averaging purchases of more than 500,000 barrels a day over the last three months.
Chinese purchases of Iranian crude have continued this year despite sanctions that, if enforced, would allow Washington to cut off those who violate them from the US economy.
The Biden administration is currently not enforcing those sanctions ahead of forthcoming negotiations with Iran to revive the JCPOA.
"Consistent with prior determinations, there is a sufficient supply of petroleum and petroleum products from countries other than Iran to permit a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products purchased from Iran by or through foreign financial institutions," Biden said in the memo.
Biden administration diplomatic attempts to enforce the oil sanctions by persuading China to reduce purchases remain confidential, but critics believe the administration has not acted with determination to stop the trade.
Biden’s argument about sufficient oil supplies, however, is not so strong amid prices that have exceeded $80 a barrel. As gasoline prices have been rising in the United States, there is talk this week of the government releasing supplies form the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR).
Almost all of Iran’s oil to China is shipped in illicit ways, with tankers transferring oil on high seas and documents fabricated to show other sources for cargoes. But Iranian officials and government-controlled media have claimed in recent months that Iran has been successful in exporting more oil to China.
No one knows how Chinese importers pay Tehran amid US banking sanctions on Iran but the role of intermediaries in selling cargoes to China and making payments to Iran has been reported. This means Iran is not recouping the full value of its exports.
With reporting by Reuters
