Riyadh Rejects Meeting Between Iranian, Saudi FMs In Foreseeable Future

One major factor is the Iranian government's haphazard implementation of a policy eliminating food subsidies in a bid to deal with a 50-percent budget deficit. The population pressed by years of hardship took the measure as the ultimate insult and government inability to run the country.

Protests that followed a sudden jump in food prices were dealt with using force, further alienating many people. The last incident portraying the government as corrupt and inept was the collapse of a high-rise building in Abadan that was built by a well-connected insider who ignored construction regulations and mysteriously disappeared after the incident.

Wednesday evening hundreds of Abadan resident came into streets to mourn the victims of the incident but soon began chanting anti-government slogans.

Mehr news agency, which belongs to the Islamic Propagation Organization, a seminary-affiliated office under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's direct supervision, pulled a controversial commentary on Thursday, May 26, that said eliminating subsidies, rising prices and "the dissemination of news about widespread corruption even among the Leader's inner circle" have prompted even family members of military and security forces to stand against the government.

Mehr pulled the story after several social media users including prominent journalists such as Reza Haghighatnejad wrote about it in a series of tweets. For a few hours, although the story was pulled, readers could still find it by using search engines and keywords from social media posts. But finally, Mehr, changed the story in a way that all links to the commentary directed readers to an irrelevant story about the availability of wheat.

The commentary said that "the poorly planned and hastily implemented policy of changing the subsidy system has even brought the miliary and police forces among the ranks of dissidents."

The commentary added that "The pilot plan for distribution of subsidized bread has failed because of lack of preparedness and technical capability on the part of the government." The commentary added that "This comes while, the subsidy, which was allocated to bakers has not reached them. At the same time, some officials are demanding that the decision should be reversed."

Mehr added that "Initial estimates indicated the new policy might lead to a 20-60 percent rise in bread prices, but in practice, the price of bread and other goods rose four to six-fold. Some items are even being sold at ten times of their previous price."

The commentary concluded that as a result of the rise in dissent, the regime is getting closer to the abyss on a daily basis." The commentary further suggested that those who have been ruling for more than thirty years should leave the government to others.”

In the Iranian political jargon, any reference to 40 years means from the start of the Islamic revolution in 1979, but references to 30 years, indicate that the author is talking about Khamenei's role as Supreme leader. So, the commentary could be taken as opposition to Khamenei's rule in the circle of Seminarians.

Later on Thursday, Mehr finally acknowledged that the story was on its website and was pulled later, because its website was “hacked by counter-revolutionaries.”

Residents of Khorramshahr and Behbahan, two other cities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, took to the streets Thursday night, chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic.

The people of Shahinshahr in the central Esfahan province and Bandar Abbas in the southern province of Hormozgan also held protest rallies to show their solidarity with the people of Abadan, whose mourning ceremonies for the victims of the collapsed ten-story Metropol twin towers have turned into anti-government protests since Wednesday.

During the Thursday night protests in Abadan, people chanted slogans against the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself, saying “Khamenei is a murderer; his rule is illegitimate” despite the deployment of anti-riot police.

Iranians see the Metropol incident, with 24 people dead so far, the result of powerful insiders not abiding by laws and regulation and violating building codes, and accuse the authorities of letting Metropol owner flee Iran.

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The government says the owner died in the collapse, but protesters say authorities are lying and the well-connected man has fled.

People in Khuzestan, Esfahan and Tehran are reporting serious disruption in their access to the internet amid ongoing protests to prevent uploading images of protests to social media.

Iran witnessed days of protests in May when the government raised food prices, with the overall political situation remaining tense.

Tasnim cited data from the health ministry dating back five years. The agency claimed that only ten of 1,000 abortions had been legal, with 93 percent of the women married and 7 percent single. A daily figure of 1,000 is half the 2,000 – or around 700,000 a year – claimed last year by Amirhossein Bankipour, head of the parliament’s population committee.

While figures on terminations are generally unreliable, the United Nations last year used government figures to estimate between 300,000 and 600,000 illegal abortions a year, even though the terms of a 1991 law allowing abortion to save the woman’s life had been gradually extended.

Despite a global inverse correlation between abortion and access to contraceptives, the Iranian parliament has passed legislation outlawing tubectomy, vasectomy, and the free dispensation of contraceptives other than where pregnancy would threaten a woman's health.

Supreme leader Ali Khamenei earlier this month said that efforts to increase Iran’s population – including legal measures and cultural work – were urgently required given the “dangers of an aging population.” Iran’s median age of 32, although around the same as Saudi Arabia and Israel, is higher than many Middle Eastern countries including Jordan at 24, Iraq at 21, and Afghanistan at 18.

“The unilateral cancelation of the Iran-Canada match by Canada Soccer once again showed that the motto of non-political athletics is a cover towards [realization of] Western countries’ interests,” Ehsan Kalhor, deputy sports minister, tweeted Thursday, adding that the Iranian Football Federation will pursue a $ 10 million compensation through legal channels based on its contract with Canada Soccer.

Kalhor’s response was made shortly after Canada Soccer announced, also in a tweet, that it had canceled the match which was planned to be held in Vancouver on June 5. Canada Soccer said additional details would be provided to all ticket purchasers later.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry, on Tuesday accused Canada of politicizing the upcoming match and said Canada Soccer would be held responsible for any violations of its agreement with Iran’s football federation if the match was canceled.

The match, which was part of the Canadian men’s team’s preparation for World Cup in Qatar later this year, was called off in the face of growing criticism of Canada Soccer by activists who allege that soccer in Iran is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Critics also say the IRGC was responsible for the death of their loved ones when it fired two missiles at a Ukrainian airliner over Tehran in January 2020. Of the 176 onboard, all of whom died in the crash, 55 were Canadians of Iranian origins and 30 more were permanent residents. Iran has not allowed an independent and transparent investigation into the crash in more than two years, claiming the missiles were fired “by human error”.

Since the disaster more than two years ago, Iran has refused full cooperation with countries affected by the incident, including Canada and Ulraine, and to conduct a transparent investigation, as well as a clear expalanation of who ordered the attack on the civilian airliner.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week said the invitations by Canada Soccer “wasn’t a very good idea”.

The Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims and its spokesman, Hamed Esmaeilion, who lost his wife and young daughter in the crash, spearheaded the call for the cancelation of the match.

Esmaeilion who called the Canadian invitation a “slap in the face” of everyone who has been affected by the tragic crash of Flight PS752 has welcomed Canada Soccer’s decision.

Speaking to Iran International Thursday, Javad Soleimani, who also lost his newly-wed wife Elnaz Nabi in the crash, said he was happy that the match was canceled because the match was designed by the Iranian side for “sportswashing” – using sports to improve a country’s tarnished reputation -- and “whitewashing [its] crime [of downing the plane].”

But not everyone condones the moves that led to the cancelation of the game. “This is an own goal for diaspora opposition groups. Politicizing sports and targeting people to people diplomacy will not result in peace, democracy or human rights. Banning Iranians because they are Iranian will only come back to haunt all of us,” President of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC), Jamal Abdi, tweeted.

Ukraine’s ambassador-designate to Canada, Yulia Kovaliv has called on Canada Soccer to have a friendly match with Ukraine's soccer team instead. In a tweet Thursday, she said the $400,000 dollars which Canada Soccer had reportedly agreed to pay Iran’s football federation could then be used for humanitarian needs of Ukrainians affected by Russia's war. “I guess it’s win-win.”

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a Thursday interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria at World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the Swiss city of Davos that the Islamic Republic still considers the removal of Western economic sanctions as a key stumbling block in the Vienna talks to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

He said from Tehran’s point of view, the administration of President Joe Biden is continuing Donald Trump's maximum pressure policy, stressing the need to lift the Trump administration’s sanctions in order to see progress at the talks.

He said Iran is “keeping the window of diplomacy open,” noting that delisting the IRGC is not the main snag hindering a deal as long as Iran is guaranteed economic benefits.

“In fact, the IRGC being on the US blacklist of terrorist groups is a secondary issue that has been magnified by the pro-Israeli lobby and our main priority is the interests of the Iranian nation,” Iran’s top diplomat said.

“Now, we have reached a point that if the American side makes a realistic decision, an agreement would be within reach,” he said, adding that “Zionists do not want an agreement in the Vienna talks... Zionists tell many lies about Iran’s nuclear issue, but Americans know exactly what they must do if they want to return to the JCPOA.”

Amir-Abdollahian’s statement about IRGC’s terror listing as a minor issue contradicts remarks by Iranian officials who have said Tehran’s demand to delist the entity is “red line”.