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A key difficulty in sorting out the “third category” of “difficult cases” on the list of existing sanctions, the State Department official was further quoted as saying, was that “the Trump administration deliberately and avowedly imposed sanctions involving the terrorist label . . . even though they were done purely for the purpose of preventing or hindering” the US return to compliance with the nuclear deal.
The Wall Street Journal reported on April 21 that the Biden administration has indicated that it is open to easing sanctions on Iran’s economy, including oil and finance.
Israel, meanwhile, remains fiercely opposed to any revival of the JCPOA. Tel Aviv will turn up the heat on the US to stay out of the nuclear deal next week when officials, including Israel’s national security adviser, chief of staff of the army, head of military intelligence and director of the Mossad spy agency go to Washington.
“A diplomatic deal with Iran is increasingly likely. Running in parallel, a diplomatic row with Israel is taking shape. Whether the Middle East will be more stable is a matter of debate,” Simon Henderson, the Baker Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote in The Hill on April 22.
2.4 Iran’s Persian Year of 1400 arrives with data showing fourth coronavirus wave is looming
Fears that Iran is set to be engulfed by what would be its fourth wave of the coronavirus intensified on April 1 as the health ministry announced the past 24-hour cycle saw another 11,750 infections registered across the country.
It was the third day in a row that the daily infection rate reached five figures. March 31 brought an announcement of 10,330 cases and 10,250 cases were declared on March 30. The last month in which Iran saw five-figure daily infection figures was December.
Anxieties that Iran’s week-long Nowruz celebrations of the Persian new year, which took place last week to bring in the Persian year of 1400, would cause another surge of coronavirus cases appear to have been well-founded.
"The likelihood that we will encounter a fourth wave of the coronavirus is very high," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at a government meeting on March 31.
In all, since the start of the pandemic Iran has registered 1,897,000 coronavirus cases, meaning, by the number-of-cases parameter, the country of 84mn has the 15th worst outbreak of the virus in the world. In the Middle East, only Turkey has fared worse, registering 3,317,182 cases by March 31.
The coronavirus death toll in Iran now stands at 62,759, according to the health ministry.
In terms of its coronavirus vaccination programme, Iran has vaccinated roughly 80% of its medical staff dealing with COVID-19, the official news
9 IRAN Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com