The Supreme Leader has signalled to the incoming Biden Administration not to expect the resumption of negotiations — at least in public — over the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the 5+1 Powers (US, UK, Germany, China, Russia, and France.
Many Iranians have greeted the news of a President-elect Joe Biden with hope that the US will return to the deal, from which the Trump Administration withdrew in May 2018, and lift comprehensive sanctions imposed six months later and extended throughout 2020.
The Iranian currency, which had lost more than half its values since March to hit a historic low at over 300,000:1 vs. the US dollar., has rebounded to 255,000:1.
Speaking to a Tehran religious congregation, Ayatollah Khamenei said he would “discuss practical solutions that will give quick results” amid Iran’s economic crisis.
But much of his speech was devoted to the rejection of immediate talks with Biden and his officials — some of whom, like former Secretary of State John Kerry and the new National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, were central in the negotiations for the 2015 deal.
Referring to his acceptance in autumn 2013 of discussions with the US, after he was presented with a dossier about Iran’s dire economic situation by President Hassan Rouhani, the Supreme Leader said, “We tried to remove the sanctions through negotiations one time, but it was fruitless.”
He instead returned to his mantra of a self-sufficient “Resistance Economy”, which he has promoted since 2012: “If we can overcome sanctions with diligence, creativity, resistance, and endurance in the face of problems, and if the other side sees the futility of its sanctions, they will gradually stop imposing such sanctions.”
Khamenei offered no evidence for a Biden Administration seeing the “futility” of the US position. Instead extended his criticism to European powers, including those are in the nuclear deal and who have sought an American return to the agreement.
The US’s situation is not clear. And as for the Europeans, they are constantly taking a stand against Iran. They tell us that we should not interfere in regional affairs. And yet, they interfere the most in regional affairs.
European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron have suggested a renewed agreement and economic links, with Iran accepting talks over its missile research and development program.
The Supreme Leader bluntly rejected that line: “They tell us that we should not have missiles. What does this have to do with you? Go correct yourselves first before saying anything.”
He concluded, “We cannot trust foreign powers and pin our hopes on them.”
“Because the Iranian Government never released the original evidence for the count, the Form 22s from the polling stations, there was no proper verification of the vote.”
1. They never do. If you want to contest the 2009 election, then any presidential election in Iran cannot be verified by that reasoning.
2. Mousavi never requested the release of all of the election forms used (6 were released as a sample).
3. The count was done locally by local election workers. That invalidates any claim about “manipulation” by the Interior Ministry since the individual ballot box tallies were published. If the figures were “massaged”, this would have been exposed with the dis-aggregation of the vote.
It just isn’t possible to completely falsify an election result and not have any evidence for this come out.
Ah, you spectacularly miss the point.
If the election is uncontested with no evidence of fraud, then you do not need to release the confirmed returns from the polling stations (although this is standard practice in many countries).
But if the election is contested and you want to establish its legitimacy, then you need to do so. Because if you refuse, then there is no way to establish that your count was on the level.
Yes, Mousavi’s allies asked for the Form 22s.
Your point about “local election workers” is irrelevant. The count could have been altered at various stages by regime officials, all the way up to the Ministry of Interior.
One Year After Iran’s Deadly Crackdown, Victims’ Families Face Harassment
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/one-year-after-iran-s-deadly-crackdown-victims-families-face-harassment/30963263.html
Two similar claims, a whole world of different reactions: https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/454884/Two-similar-claims-a-whole-world-of-different-reactions
“While Democrats strongly criticized Trump for declaring victory prematurely, they strongly supported Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a presidential candidate in Iran’s 2009 presidential election who strongly protested the results of the election, accusing his rival then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of rigging the election to secure his reelection.”
Back in 2009, Mir Hussein Mousavi, who was challenging incumbent president Ahmadinejad, declared himself the “definite winner” of the presidential election after the polls closed and before any votes had been counted. When the results later showed Ahmadinejad had won in a landslide, he said the figures had been falsified. No evidence of fraud was ever exposed and not one of the 46,000 ballot box tallies was ever challenged or found to be incorrect.
4 post-election surveys confirmed that Ahmadinejad *did* win with around 60% of the vote and another poll showed by 3:1, Iranians did not believe there had been any fraud: https://www.ipos.me/en/polls/2015/06/22/green-movement/
CORRECTION: This comment is riddled with factual errors.
Mousavi’s announcement came because State-linked outlets were prematurely declaring Ahmadinejad the victory with 64% of the vote — before any votes were counted.
“No evidence of fraud” was exposed because officials withheld almost all original records of the votes. The “46,000 ballot box tallies” were selected by officials, with no independent scrutiny.
The surveys, with dubious methodology, did not “confirmed” an Ahmadinejad victory. They merely asked some Iranians by phone, in suspect conditions, for whom they had voted.
Glad to set this straight.
““No evidence of fraud” was exposed because officials withheld almost all original records of the votes. The “46,000 ballot box tallies” were selected by officials, with no independent scrutiny.”
Robert Naiman did a great piece in the HuffPost on this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/habib-ahmadzadeh-mousavi_b_222483
“The government has published the ballot box tallies on the web. If the Mousavi or Karroubi campaigns would say specifically where the problem is, Habib says, we could check it against the official tally.”
The Naiman piece is merely a second-hand account from Iranian author Habib Ahmadzadeh, who is recounting a conversation he supposedly had with a Mousavi campaign worker.
It has no salience regarding the substantial dispute, which is that there may have been significant ballot tampering and manipulation.
Because the Iranian Government never released the original evidence for the count, the Form 22s from the polling stations, there was no proper verification of the vote. The Government’s “sampling” of 10% of ballots does not suffice as a transparent confirmation of the claimed results.