Page 9 - MEOG Week 36

MEOG PoLiCy MEOG
To say Iran is underwhelmed by how much Europe has done to protect its economy from it regards as a US “economic attack” and US “eco- nomic terrorism” is putting things mildly.
Rouhani also warned Tehran was preparing for further significant breaches of the nuclear deal’s caps on nuclear activity if diplomatic efforts ultimately failed.
European officials until now have said that conforming to Paris-based FATF rules was not a prerequisite for Instex, although it would facil- itate its establishment, Reuters wrote.
Iran’s parliament has approved some new
measures against funding terrorism under pres- sure to adopt international standards.
But the Guardian Council, which vets laws and elections for compliance with Iran’s Islamic constitution, blocked a draft law in 2018 on the grounds it would prevent the Islamic Republic from providing financial support to hezbollah in Lebanon, which is under US sanctions
The FATF said in June that it could only con- sider fully enacted legislation and gave Iran until October to meet its norms or face greater scru- tiny of international financial transactions with Tehran.™
No sanctions pressure on Armenia from US to curtail Iran relations
iran
ThE US is not pressuring Armenia to curtail its relations with neighbouring Iran in connection with the sanctions regime imposed on Tehran by the Trump administration, according to Arme- nian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, as related by a published interview with French-Armenian magazine Nouvelles d’Armenie.
Pashinian was asked whether the sanctions are causing small, impoverished Armenia seri- ous problems.
“I don’t want to make grandiose statements but our diplomats have succeeded in scoring a very important victory in this regard,” he replied. “Our American partners seem to have gotten a good grasp of the issue. They have started to understand that Iran is one thing for Washington and another for Armenia.”
“I can say that at the moment we are not sub- jected to any pressure [from the US],” added Pashinian.
Parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan, a close associate of Pashinian, made similar comments when he visited Washington and spoke at the Atlantic Council think-tank in July.
“We don’t want the United States to put pres- sure on Armenia to join in its Iran sanctions agenda,” Mirzoyan said.
he argued that Iran, an economy with 82mn compared to Armenia’s 2.9mn, serves as one of his landlocked country’s two conduits to the
outside world due to closed borders with the two other Muslim neighbours, Azerbaijan and Tur- key, given the dispute over breakaway territory Nagorno-Karabakh.
Arch-hawk and US national security advisor John Bolton discussed the US sanctions with Pashinian during his trip to Armenia in October last year. Bolton said traffic through the Arme- nian-Iranian border will become a “significant issue” because Washington would be enforcing the sanctions “very vigorously,” according to The Armenian Mirror Spectator.
Pashinian subsequently remarked that his government would “deepen not only economic but also political relations” with Tehran. he paid an official visit to the Islamic Republic in February.
Pashinian reaffirmed Yerevan’s strong inter- est in moving forward with Iranian-Armenian energy projects in an interview with leading Iranian media outlets cited by Armenpress news agency on September 2. he noted the ongoing construction of a third transmission line con- necting the Armenian and Iranian power grids.
Iranian President hassan Rouhani has been invited by Armenia to a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) to be held in Yerevan in October. Iran and the Russian-led trade bloc signed a preferential trade agreement last year that should be activated by November.™
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