Iran And Russia Talk More Economic Cooperation Amid Sanctions

According to the Jewish Insider on Wednesday, the letter, spearheaded by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), is addressed to President Joe Biden and began circulating on Sunday and will close for signatures on Wednesday. 

The letter urged the administration not to sign any deal before releasing the complete agreement to Congress, briefing lawmakers and seeking input from other stakeholders.

The letter voices specific objections to reported provisions modifying US sanctions targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and lifting sanctions on Iran’s central bank, national development fund and national oil company.

The lawmakers express concerns about specific alleged provisions of the proposed agreement text that have been publicly reported, arguing that, given recent Iranian attempts to attack American citizens on US soil, any reduction or loosening of sanctions would be inappropriate.

The Representatives further contend that Russia should not be trusted to serve as the repository of Iran’s enriched uranium, nor be allowed to engage in any nuclear projects with Iran — including a $10-billion contract to build atomic reactors for which the administration has reportedly agreed to waive sanctions.

On Tuesday, a former IAEA official told Iran International that Tehran and Washington have agreed to restore the 2015 nuclear accord and will announce terms in two to three weeks.

Yuliya Leonidivna Klymenko, a member of the liberal party, told Iran International that she was “deeply shocked and saddened" by the fact that Iran sent drones to Russia to be used in its invasion of Ukraine. 

US Defense Department spokesperson Todd Breasseale said on Tuesday that Russia has faced "numerous failures" with Iranian-made drones acquired from Tehran this month, adding that the United States assesses Russia has received the delivery of Mohajer-6 and Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over several days this month. "We assess that Russia intends to use these Iranian UAVs, which can conduct air-to-surface attacks, electronic warfare, and targeting, on the battlefield in Ukraine," the official said.

Iran is a close ally of Russia and its ruler Ali Khamenei openly praised Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.

In July, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters the US has information that shows Iran is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred drones.

The Biden administration last month released satellite imagery indicating that Russian officials visited Kashan Airfield on June 8 and July 5 to view the Iranian drones.

Iran's foreign minister, Hossein-Amir Abdollahian, never denying these reports, said last month that Tehran had "various types of collaboration with Russia, including in the defense sector."

In response to a question about earlier remarks by the country’s foreign ministry spokesman, who had expressed Iran’s readiness for prisoner swaps as part of the agreement to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, he did not rule out such a possibility. 

“We have a duty to follow up on the problems of our citizens anywhere in the world and support them, but relations between countries can be very effective in this field. The level of relationships and the quality of relationships are effective in this field,” he said.

He noted that such exchanges work much more easily with Islamic countries and neighboring countries, especially with countries with whom Tehran has agreements in this regard, but “these relations and contracts do not exist with a country like the United States, and things must be done diplomatically.”

Earlier in the month, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Iran is ready for swift agreements for prisoner swaps with the US, regardless of the result of talks to restore the JCPOA.

A few days earlier, the spokesman for the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Relations Committee Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini said, "I don't know specifically whether there is going to be an exchange of prisoners between Iran and the United States, but in international relations this is customary and it is not unusual for some prisoners to be exchanged between the two countries.”

During a weekly press conference on Tuesday, Judiciary spokesperson Masoud Setayeshi said the two, identified as Stephen Kevin Gilbert and Simon Kasper Brown, were arrested in January 2020 at an airport in Tehran as they were about to leave the country with large quantities of opium-based narcotics.

"Simon Kasper Brown was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of about 10 billion rials (about $34,000) for transporting more than 21,000 illegal pills of tramadol," an opioid painkiller, and "Stephen Kevin Gilbert was sentenced to eight years in prison, 60 lashes and a fine, for being in possession of 9.8 kilograms (21 pounds) of opium resin," he said.

The trial of the men — accused of being part of an “international drug trafficking gang” — opened in September 2021. Iran is a key smuggling route for opium and heroin from neighboring Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer. 

The judiciary spokesman noted that the case of the pair is different from the Swedish man arrested in July on allegations of “espionage,” whose case is being investigated but his identity has not been revealed. 

Tensions are relatively high between Tehran and Stockholm over a Swedish court’s sentencing of former Iranian jailor Hamid Nouri to life imprisonment over executions of political prisoners in 1988. 

Earlier in the month, Sweden started planning for the prosecution of two Iranian-Swedish brothers who were arrested in 2021 over allegations of espionage for Iranian Intelligence organizations. 

Industry, Mines and Trade Minister Reza Fatemi Amin said on Monday that the regulations for using cryptocurrencies instead of dollar and euro was finalized by the administration on Sunday. 

"All the issues related to crypto-assets, including how to provide fuel and energy, and how to assign and grant licenses were devised," he added. 

The use of cryptocurrencies in imports is one of the ways to circumvent sanctions because cryptocurrencies are not traded through normal channels such as banks and it is very difficult to track them.

Earlier in the month, Iran made its first official import cryptocurrency order, worth $10 million, as a test run for allowing the country to trade through digital assets that bypass the dollar-dominated global financial system and to trade with other countries similarly embargoed by US sanctions, such as Russia. 

"By the end of September, the use of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts will be widely used in foreign trade with target countries," said Alireza Peymanpak, a deputy Iranian trade minister who leads Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO). 

Iran has a complex relationship with cryptocurrencies, which have helped hide various kinds of illicit trades banned by US and other European sanctions but creating them is highly energy-intensive. In 2019, Iran’s central bank banned trading of cryptocurrencies inside the country but the government allowed the use of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to pay for imports.