US Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Target Iranian Oil Exports

In a statement issued on Friday, the US Department of the Treasury said Arvan Cloud has a close relationship with Iran’s intelligence services, including the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and the company’s executives have extensive ties to senior government officials.

The EU had sanctioned the company in November.

Reiterating that unrestricted access to information is fundamental right, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said, “The US is committed to holding accountable those who seek to undermine freedom of expression and suppress dissent, and to call out regimes who deny their citizens this right.”

Navyan Abr Arvan Private Limited Company, known as Arvan Cloud, and two of its founders Pouya Pirhosseinloo and Farhad Fatemi and the Dubai-based ArvanCloud Global Technologies worked with Iran’s Information and Communications Technology Ministry to develop a countrywide intranet that is being used to disconnect the Iranian people from the global Internet.

Mehdi Bahadori and Alireza Hashemi are the other co-founders and Keivan JameBozorg is the company's chairman of the board. They were not included in the US list of sanctions.

The Iranian government has regularly used Internet restrictions and the throttling of Internet speeds to suppress dissent, surveil and punish Iranians for exercising their freedom of expression and assembly both online and offline, and limit the dissemination to the international community of credible information about egregious human rights violations.

The regime was appointed Thursday as one of the vice-presidents of the UN General Assembly which will begin next September, drawing reactions from several members and dozens of activists. The body also appointed Iran’s envoy Heidar-Ali Balouji as the rapporteur of the Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Committee of the General Assembly and a member of the board of this committee.

The US mission in UN dissociated itself from the election and expressed its opposition to Iran's leadership throughout the UN system, saying: “Iran cannot act as an honest broker in its role as a Vice President of the General Assembly, because it has shown, time and time again, that it does not seek to enhance global peace and security, but rather works against it.”

After the election of the vice presidents of the 78th Session of the General Assembly, US Ambassador to the body, Chris Lu, said “Iran’s record, unfortunately, speaks for itself. It defies UN Security Council arms embargoes, violates the human rights of its own citizens, and exports violence and weapons, fostering insecurity and inciting violence throughout the Middle East and across the globe.”

Another US envoy, Robert Wood, referred to Iran’s persistent violations of UN Security Council resolution 2231, including pertaining to its ballistic missile program, its ongoing efforts to undermine international security, and its failure to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), underlining that “a representative of Iran’s government is unfit to serve in a leadership position within this committee, even if such a position is largely ceremonial.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry also called the decision “shameful,” saying: “In addition to murdering its own citizens, attacking innocents around the world and racing towards a nuclear weapon with the goal of wiping Israel off the map, Iran will now serve in a senior UN position.”

“This is the same country that calls for the destruction of another member state of the organization it represents,” it added, referring to the Islamic Republic's repeated call that Israel must be obliterated from the face of the Earth.

Noting that such an appointment “defies all logic and reason,” the ministry added that it is “an insult to the millions of Iranians protesting for their basic freedoms and to the justice, peace and global stability that the UN is supposed to stand for.”

The decision has caused outrage among Iranian people and activists, such as opposition figure Nazanin Boniadi, who called it “an absolute disgrace."

In May, the appointment of Iran's UN ambassador Ali Bahraini to the chair of the UN Human Rights Council 2023 Social Forum also sparked much anger and indignation. The forum to be held in Geneva on November 2 and 3 will focus on the contribution of science, technology, and innovation to the promotion of human rights including in the context of post-pandemic recovery.

After launching a petition to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to cancel the appointment, UN Watch -- an independent human rights organization -- submitted a resolution to the UN to overturn the decision late in May.

Earlier in the week, a group of 26 Iranian rights groups expressed fury over the appointment, saying that according to the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, the violence of the security forces of the Islamic Republic during the nationwide protests led to the death of hundreds, including dozens of children and women, while hundreds of other protesters were seriously injured, and thousands were arrested.

Left with barely enough foreign exchange reserves to cover one month's imports, Pakistan's government is desperately trying to manage a balance of payments crisis and bring inflation under control after it hit a record of nearly 38% last month.

The government order, called the Business-to-business (B2B) Barter Trade Mechanism 2023 and dated June 1, lists goods that can be bartered. State and privately owned entities would need approval to participate in the trade mechanism.

Although the United States has designated third-party sanctions on those buying Iranian oil, a barter deal might be overlooked by Washington. China buys large quantities of illicit Iranian crude exports with little push-back by Washington.

After Pakistan's first purchase of discounted Russian oil in April, petroleum minister Musadik Malik told Reuters that Pakistan would only be buying crude, not refined products under the deal.

There was no confirmation about how the payment would be made. But Malik said purchases could rise to 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) if the first transaction went smoothly.

Last year, Pakistan imported 154,000 bpd of crude oil, little changed from 2021, data from analytics firm Kpler showed.

In May, Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association complained that up to 35% of the diesel sold in Pakistan had been smuggled from Iran.

Pakistan's government has also ordered a clamp down on smuggling of flour, wheat, sugar, and fertilizer to Afghanistan.

Report by Reuters

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Jake Sullivan hosted Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer at the White House to continue high-level discussions following up on the March US-Israeli Strategic Consultative group that had focused on Iran’s nuclear program and “ways to counter threats from Iran and its proxies.”

The meeting followed reports and speculations in recent days that Washington was discussing some possible deals with Iran to secure the freedom of American hostages in Tehran in exchange for expediting the release of Iranian funds frozen in South Korea and Iraq.

A State Department official Thursday told Iran International that US policy has not changed in regard with Iran’s nuclear program and President Joe Biden is “fully committed” not to ever allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. The official said that the United States “in full coordination with its allies and partners” is preparing all options to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

However, the spokesperson reiterated that the administration continues to believe in diplomacy as the best way to achieve this goal, although talks to revive the JCPOA accord are not on Washington’s agenda.

However, the state of US-Israeli relations might not be so clear. Israel’s Channel 13 television reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called off a planned visit to Israel next week amid tensions between Jerusalem and Washington over Iran.

At the same time, Blinken after a meeting with British, French and German foreign ministers tweeted that “I also underscored U.S. concerns about Iran’s nuclear escalation.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu separately in a video message said, "I have heard all of the reports about Iran. I have a sharp and clear message for both Iran and the international community: Israel will do whatever it needs to do to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons."

Clearly, Israel is demanding tougher responses to continued Iranian nuclear build-up. Whether Jerusalem is insisting on a military attack at this point is not clear, but tougher diplomatic and economic measures are certainly among its demands from Washington.

UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, issued a report to its members states this week that reportedly said Iran now has 114 kilograms of uranium enriched to up to 60-percent – an increase of 26.6 kg from the previous quarter. This can be easily further enriched to 90-percent purity needed for nuclear weapons in around two weeks.

The IAEA also reported that Iran has shown some flexibility regarding the Agency’s demands. This could be an effort by Tehran to forestall censure at the IAEA board meeting this month. One of Israel’s demands might be a strong condemnation of the Islamic Republic by the board.

About 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60-percent is what the IAEA calls a "significant quantity", defined as "the approximate amount of nuclear material for which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device cannot be excluded".

Although Washington says there is no evidence that Iran has decided to proceed and build a weapon, in testimony to Congress in March, Gen. Marky Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, warned that Tehran could “field” a bomb in several weeks, if it made the crucial decision.

A State Department official briefed the media on Thursday saying that 30 million Iranians regularly use anti-censorship tools, including VPNs funded by the State Department.

Over the past years, the State Department has been funding a wide range of anti-censorship tools for the people who live in countries without free access to the internet, the US official explained.

Since the beginning of Iran’s September 2022 protests, the number of people using these tools inside Iran has risen exponentially and reached 30 million, roughly half of the adult population.

However, the official added that using these tools costs around 10 cents per user per month and currently the State Department is planning to increase the budget to continue providing this service.

Iran has been restricting and censoring the Internet since 2002, but using different techniques to deny access to users have surged during anti-regime protests.

The US Treasury Department expanded the range of internet services available to Iranians in the early days of the nationwide protests Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in hijab police custody.

In October 2022, a bipartisan and bicameral group of US lawmakers urged Google, Amazon, Meta and other tech companies to facilitate access to online tools for Iranian protesters.

Internet restrictions and the use of anti-filtering tools have surged in Iran since protests began. Iranian hardliners push for restrictions to remain in place as long as street protests continue. Amid the heightened restrictions on Internet access, Iranians’ use of VPNs has risen over 3,000 percent in recent months.