Iran News Round Up

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by AEI Critical Threats Project Iran Analyst Will Fulton and Iran Intern Amir Toumaj, with contributor Mary Ella Simmons. To receive this daily newsletter, please subscribe online.

(E) = Article in English

Politics

• The President's Executive Deputy Hamid Baghaei reported on joint meetings with the President-elect's representative, former Defense Minister Akbar Torkan, during the transition process for the incoming Rouhani Administration. 
• Chief of Staff of the Office of the Supreme Leader Hojjat al-Eslam Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani said that during President-elect Rouhani's first meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, Rouhani requested “guidance, support and prayer” from Khamenei.” Reacting to recent Egyptian events, Golpayegani said, “The strategic mistakes of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were the real cause of these events.... If Morsi had taken up the banner of fighting Zionism, he would not have had this fate and been trapped by the Americans and Salafists.... We must strive in the path of fighting Global Arrogance and oppressors.”
• Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, member of the 2+1 Coalition formed to choose a unity candidate for Iran's presidential election, earlier criticized fellow 2+1 member and senior adviser to the Supreme Leader for foreign affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, earlier for not rescinding his candidacy in favor of the most viable candidate per the previously agreed upon conditions of the coalition. Velayati responded recently, “They frame the coalition circumstances as flawed and unidirectional and imagine that repeating an incorrect statement will cause it to become true, which is certainly not so.”
• Some conservatives are criticizing and blaming ultraconservative cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi and the Steadfastness Front for the defeat of conservatives during the 2013 presidential elections. They criticize Yazdi for creating division between Principlists by supporting disqualified Presidential candidate Mohammad Bagher Lankarani at first and then Supreme National Security Council Secretary Said Jalili. National Security and Foreign Policy Parliamentary Commission (NSFP) member MP Mohammad Hassan Asefari said, “The move of the Steadfastness Front from Ahmadinejad toward Rouhani is amazing. I do not know how the Steadfastness Front went from Ahmadinejad to Rouhani.” 
• At the Third Gathering of Defenders of the Shrine [Seyyeda Zeinab in Damascus], Ammar Base Central Council member Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Reza Panahian said, “A number of ignorant [individuals] and idiots have directly targeted the shrine of divine parents; they must know must know the smallest insult to Hazrat-e Zeynab's shrine [in Syria] will equal the destruction of the enemy [all the way to] the White House.”
• NSFP Parliamentary Commission member MP Mansour Haghighatpour commented on the qualifications the next Interior Minister and said, “The future Interior Minister must truly be an Interior Minister, not [someone] who just writes and affirms anything they say. The person introduced and appointed as the Interior Minister must be someone who has the power to manage the country and who can work with various political currents, various Friday Prayer Leaders and diverse groups; in addition, the Interior Minister must be someone who knows about security, protection, crises and border issues.”
• Guardian Council legal council members Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, Hossein Ali Amiri and Mohsen Esmaeili are reportedly ending their six year activities in the government body. 
• Former Commercial Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari announced the establishment of the Moderation Front “after consulting with figures such as former President Ayatollah [Akbar] Hashemi [Rafsanjani].”
• The Science Ministry's Cultural and Social Deputy Gholam Reza Khajeh Sarvi said, “Currently, the documents regarding the Islamization of universities are in the hands of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council (SCRC), and God willing they will be approved within the month.” He added, “The importance of cultural activities in universities is to such an extent that the SCRC ratified the position of a cultural department in the laws of university management, whose most important duty is training loyal revolutionary forces so it can be active in the university cultural departments.” 
• Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani stated, “This [thought] that international circumstances will simply change in our favor is a mistaken thought and the result of neglect, and we cannot have an effect in international issues without paying attention to internal economic and political power.”

Regional Developments

• Seyyed Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah Political Council, claimed an American representative speaking in Jordan had admitted defeat by Lebanese Hezbollah in Syria, saying that the Americans had admitted failure to fully enact any plan to defeat Hezbollah, and trumpeted the presence of Lebanese Hezbollah in Syria as supporters of the goals of the resistance and the liberation of Occupied Palestine.
• Lebanese Hezbollah Executive Council Deputy Sheikh Nabil Qaouk stated that Israel is preparing itself for a new military offensive against Lebanon, because "[I]t thinks that the Resistance is busy with the Syrian crisis, therefore it is waiting for an appropriate opportunity to destroy Lebanon and compensate for the chain of its defeats." 
• Ahlul Bayt News Agency reports that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, in a statement, has requested the West to fulfill its earlier promises to arm Syrian rebels.

Diplomacy

• Egyptian Foreign Minister reacts to Araghchi’s criticism of the recent political developments in Egypt:
  
  • Badr abd al-Ati, spokesperson for the Egyptian foreign ministry, reportedly denied the position of Iran’s FM against the recent Egyptian developments and condemned it as Iranian interference in the interior affairs of his country.
  • Earlier Abbas Araghchi in an interview with an Iranian news agency had stated that Tehran did not find the Egyptian “street democracy” to be a positive development and that the Islamic Republic did not believe the recent developments culminating in the overthrow of Morsi represented the defeat of the Islamic awakening.
  • Al-Ati asserted that the recent Egyptian developments were political progress through which the desires of the Egyptian populace had been met, adding: “The interference in the internal affairs of the nation brought forth by the allegations of the Iranian Foreign Minister is unacceptable, and Cairo’s position of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries remains firm."

Military and Security

• Communications and Information Technology Minister Mohammad Hassan Nami announced that every Iranian would receive a national e-mail account alongside a postal address so “government communications with the people can take place electronically.”
• Former Defense Minister and Armed Forces Logistics Political Deputy BG Nasser Dehghan discussed the 2013 elections and reacted to recent Egyptian events:
  • “The grand Supreme Leader, with attention to the country's current sensitive situation and with his own awareness, has called this year the year of political and economic valor, and for the first time announced that even those who do not believe in the system but love their country [should] come and participate in the elections.”
  • “The extent of the people's participation in these elections was very important, and in this round his Excellency intelligently did not allow individuals or currents to use his name to advertise for particular candidates.”
  • “In this round, despite all enemy measures, about 73% participated in the elections, and the elections were so transparent and clear that all doubts were removed in this field and even the biggest enemies were forced to confess to the validity and health of elections in Iran.”
  • “Many of the elections' effects will be revealed in the future. Of course the enemies' hostility will continue because the nuclear issue and elections are no more than excuses, and they completely oppose the system, and of course the system [is not one] to back down; therefore, we must not expect their hostility to be erased.”
  • “Egyptian events clarifies the value of the elements of velayat-e faghih in society, because it is only the Supreme Leader who can activate social capacities in the necessary moment and bring [them] to the scene.”
• Basij Organization Deputy Commander BG Ali Fazli: "In '88 [2009] they accused the system of fraud, but in this election, those claims are completely false. Those who made claims of election fraud and created uncertainty among the people should come forward and apologize to the people and the military."
• IRGC Ground Forces Deputy Commander BG Abdollah Araghi said that the “system's acceptance is the cause of stability in the country” and that “the security of Persian Gulf countries is vital.”
• Head of the Passive Defense Organization BG Gholam Reza Jalali announced that his organization would soon organize nationwide cyber-security exercises, with several organizations participating.
• Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced the testing and revealing of new domestically produced missiles and drones. 

Economy

• Milk prices have increased 200% in the past two years and consumption has been reduced by 22% in response to the massive price increase.
• The President-elect's Office denies reports of the establishment of “Economic Valor Base.”

Photo of the Day

• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attends the President Appreciation Conference.