NOURNEWS- The following headlines appeared in English-language newspapers in the Iranian capital on Tuesday, January 16, 2024.
IRAN DAILY:
- Chabahar project compensation proposed
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a meeting with Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday, stressed the need to accelerate the implementation of agreements signed between the two countries, including on the Chabahar port development project, as well as the need to compensate for the delay in the fulfillment of commitments.
The president pointed to the deep-rooted relations between his country and India and emphasized the importance of efforts to improve the level of bilateral relations in various political, economic, science and technology, transportation, and energy sectors.
For his part, Jaishankar thanked Raisi for his efforts in developing ties with regional countries as well as bringing about eye-catching changes in ties with India.
Announcing the country’s interest in concluding a comprehensive and long-term cooperation agreement with Tehran, he emphasized New Delhi’s full commitment to its obligations in the Chabahar port development project.
During his visit, Iran and India also finalized an agreement on the development of the Chabahar port, located in the southeastern part of Iran.
In an earlier meeting held between Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash and Jaishankar in Tehran on Monday, the two sides emphasized equipping and developing the Chabahar port, which is India’s first foreign port project.
Iran’s roads minister also proposed setting up a joint transportation committee for the expansion of bilateral cooperation and said the formation of the committee will tap into the transit potential of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).
The visiting Indian minister, for his part, expressed the readiness of his country to launch new investments at the Chabahar port in the fields of transportation and transit.
Jaishankar also invited Bazrpash to visit India.
The new long-term agreement is intended to replace the original contract, which only covers India’s operations at the Shahid Beheshti terminal in the Chabahar port and is renewed every year. The new agreement will be valid for 10 years and will be automatically extended.
India has been pushing for the Chabahar port project to boost regional trade and increase its connectivity, especially to Afghanistan, since 2016, when the subcontinent signed a tripartite agreement with Iran and Afghanistan to develop the terminal.
Jaishankar projected the Chabahar port as a key regional transit hub at a connectivity conference in Tashkent in 2021.
In November 2023, India’s Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra discussed with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian ways to boost connectivity through strategic Chabahar port.
The Chabahar port is also seen as a key hub for the INSTC project.
The INSTC is a 7,200-km-long multimode transport project for moving freight among India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia, and Europe.
Role of SCO, BRICS
Later on Monday, Iranian FM stressed that Iran’s membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS group of developing countries has given a boost to strategic cooperation between Tehran and New Delhi.
Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a joint press conference after meeting with his Indian counterpart in Tehran.
He also hailed India’s role in Iran’s bid for membership in SCO and BRICS.
The Iranian foreign minister highlighted the significance of his counterpart’s visit to Tehran, which he said is a major step in the expansion of bilateral cooperation in different areas.
Amir-Abdollahian added that he and his Indian counterpart discussed a wide range of issues, including economic issues and strategic connections, with special focus on the development of the Chabahar port and the INSTC.
- Pakistan, Iran ready to raise bilateral trade to $5b: Ambassador
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Iran Mudassar Tipu expressed the readiness of Islamabad and Tehran to raise bilateral trade to $5 billion as the two sides have recently signed a five-year agreement on strategic and economic cooperation.
During his visit to Bandar Abbas, southern Iran, where a Pakistani convoy of warships has docked, Tipu said his country prioritizes the promotion of trade relations with the Islamic Republic, IRNA reported.
Pakistan and Iran are committed to maintaining peace and stability in the region, the ambassador underlined.
Relations between his country and Iran carry a message of solidarity, peace, and happiness to the region, the envoy noted.
- Iran’s oil output hiked most in OPEC in 2023
Iran had the highest oil production increase among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 2023 with over 300,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) rise, according to the US Department of Energy.
In its latest report, the US Department of Energy put Iran’s average daily oil production volume in 2023 at 2.870 million bpd, Tasnim News Agency reported.
According to the report, Iran’s oil production volume increased by 330,000 bpd compared to a year earlier.
This is while OPEC’s total oil production volume decreased by 630,000 barrels in 2023 compared to the year before. In total, OPEC’s member states produced 26.890 million barrels of oil per day in 2023, while they produced 27.520 million bpd in 2022.
- Qatar halts Red Sea LNG shipping amid attacks
QatarEnergy, one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas, has stopped sending tankers via the Red Sea although production continues, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
“It is a pause to get security advice, if passing (through the) Red Sea remains unsafe we will go via the Cape,” said on Monday a source with direct knowledge of the matter, referring to the considerably longer route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip.
“It is not a halt of production,” the source added.
At least four tankers used to carry Qatari LNG were held up over the weekend after US and British forces carried out air and sea strikes on Yemen following Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, part of a route that accounts for about 15 percent of the world’s shipping traffic.
The Al Ghariya, Al Huwaila and Al Nuaman had loaded LNG at Ras Laffan in Qatar and were supposed to head to the Suez Canal but stopped off the coast of Oman on January 14, according to LSEG ship tracking data.
The Al Rekayyat, which was heading back to Qatar, stopped along its route on January 13 in the Red Sea.
Qatar, the world’s second-largest exporter of LNG, shipped more than 75 million metric tonnes of the fuel in 2023, according to LSEG data. Of that, 14 million tonnes went to buyers in Europe, and 56.4 million tonnes to Asia.
While several LNG vessels have changed course since last month, others have continued to sail past Yemen through the Red Sea and Suez Canal.
Asia spot LNG prices fell to a seven-month low of $10.10 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on Friday, supported by healthy storage levels in both Europe and northeast Asia.
KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL:
- French MP Threatened for Condemning Zionist Atrocities
French lawmaker Aymeric Caron said on Monday that he continued to receive threats for denouncing Israeli massacres in Gaza.
“The insults and threats also continue to rain down, because I denounce the ongoing massacres in Gaza and I demand a ceasefire,” he said on X. Caron also revealed that Le Monde and Liberation, two major newspapers in France, refused to publish his pieces in which he requested the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to sanction Israel from taking part in the Paris Olympics that will be held this summer.
- Navy Chief: Iran Took Back What U.S. Had Stolen
The U.S. oil tanker confiscated by Iran in the Sea of Oman on Thursday has been seized in compliance with international law, as Iran has taken back what had been stolen by the U.S., Navy chief Rear Admiral Shahram Irani said Monday. Speaking to reporters in Bushehr, he said Iran has retrieved what has been stolen by the U.S. The American forces had committed a theft in a bullying manner, so it was necessary for Iran to earn back its right, he added. The Navy commander underlined that Iran has acted in accordance with the norms of international law in seizing the oil tanker.
Echoing remarks from Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Navy chief warned the enemies that the era of hit and run is over.
On Thursday, the Iranian naval forces captured ST Nicolas in the Sea of Oman. The US oil tanker had renamed itself after stealing Iran’s oil in May 2023.
The vessel had illicitly taken a cargo of Iranian oil under the guidance of the United States and transported it to American ports.
- Hezbollah to Continue ‘War of Attrition’
Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has vowed to continue its “war of attrition” against Israel in support of Palestinian victims of Tel Aviv’s US-backed genocidal war in the Gaza Strip.
Nabil Qaouk, a member of Hezbollah’s Central Council, made the remarks during a memorial service of one of the movement’s members who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon last Wednesday.
Qaouk said Hezbollah has fought “the longest war of attrition” along the border with Occupied Palestine to support Gaza and defend Lebanon, stressing that war is not aimed at achieving any political gains.
“Hezbollah would not fight the longest war of attrition on the border with occupied Palestine for the sake of a political bargain or political gain, but rather for the sake of supporting Gaza and defending the homeland with its sovereignty and protecting its people,” he said.
He said the initiatives presented by some countries’ delegations to Lebanon are Israeli pleas that do not aim at helping Lebanon, but helping the occupying regime.
“All the U.S. and other initiatives and diplomatic efforts are meaningless for us unless the aggression on Gaza stops.”
Qaouk described the U.S. initiatives as an attempt to help Israel get out of the predicament.
“What concerns us is to remain in the field and continue with the war of attrition so that the enemy remains in position of defeat.”
The Hezbollah official referred to Kfar Giladi settlement which, he said, is viewed by Israel as “a symbol of settlement steadfastness,” noting that it has become deserted and turned into “a symbol of humiliating defeat” due to Hezbollah’s missiles and drones.
The Zionist regime launched a devastating war in the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the territory’s Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.
The Israeli military has been carrying out attacks against the Lebanese territory since then, prompting retaliatory strikes from Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
The movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory operations as long as the Tel Aviv regime continues its onslaught on Gaza.
Elsewhere, Qaouk noted that any Arab country that takes part in the U.S. aggression on Yemen is complicit in the Israeli aggression on Gaza.
The U.S. and Britain launched airstrikes on several provinces across Yemen, including the capital Sana’a and Hudaydah, early Friday in response to the Yemeni strikes on vessels linked to the Israeli regime.
In solidarity with the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, the Yemeni armed forces have targeted ships in the Red Sea with owners linked to Israel or those going to and from ports in the occupied territories.
The U.S. has formed a multinational military coalition against Yemeni forces in the Red Sea, through which 12 percent of global trade passes. Bahrain is the only Arab country to join the coalition.
- ‘Natural Response’ to Gaza Genocide
At least two Zionists were killed and 20 others injured on Monday in a ramming and stabbing incident in the central city of Ra’anana.
Among the injured at least one person is in a critical condition and two people in serious condition, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Not much is known about the identity of the attacker.
Hamas praised the retaliatory operation near Tel Aviv as a “natural” response to the Zionist regime’s ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
“We confirm that the ‘Ra’anana’ operation, carried out by the heroes of our steadfast Palestinian people, is a natural response to the massacres of the Nazi occupation and its continuous aggression against our Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza,” Hamas said.
The popular resistance movement stressed that the retaliatory attacks would continue against the “Nazi” Israeli regime until the occupation was ended.
“The heroes of our people and ... fighters from Rafah to Jenin will continue to defend our people, our land, and our holy sites against the criminal Nazi enemy. The blood of children and unarmed civilians shed by the Zionist war machine in the West Bank and Gaza will be a curse upon the occupation and its ... settlers, who will find no safety or security on our occupied land,” Hamas said.
“We mobilize our revolutionary youth throughout the West Bank and Al-Quds, calling on them to escalate the struggle and revolution until the Nazi occupation is defeated, our land and holy sites are liberated, and our Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital is established, God willing,” it added.
The Islamic Jihad movement also hailed the “heroic operation” by the Palestinians and called it a natural response to “the crimes of the occupation against our steadfast people.”
“The Zionist enemy’s insistence on pursuing policies of oppression, terrorism, and brutal killing in the cities of the West Bank and Gaza, and targeting all its components in full view of the entire world, is a losing bet that will not undermine the steadfastness of our people, wherever they are,” it said in a statement.
Israeli media claimed that two Palestinians carried out the combined operation after gaining control of several vehicles and using them in three different areas of Ra’anana, before they were arrested by the occupation forces.
The two Palestinians were identified as Mahmoud Zaidat, 44, and Ahmad Zaidat, 24, hailing from the occupied West Bank city of Al-Khalil.
TEHRAN TIMES:
- Israeli political, security structure on decline, Amir Abdollahian says
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian asserted that Israel’s political and security structures collapsed when the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas started a military offensive against the regime in October. Speaking at a ceremony on Sunday, Amir Abdollahian said that in such a convoluted environment, everyone could see that only Hamas, with its October 7 launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, had been able to undermine Israel’s political and security structure. He continued that Israel shifted its objectives after failing to overthrow Hamas and focused on using military force to find tunnels and free prisoners. However, the regime delt another blow suffered in this regard and is now on a route toward political solutions, he stated. The senior Iranian diplomat highlighted that Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip accomplished none of its objectives. He added that Operation Al-Aqsa Storm was a liberation movement’s response to the occupation of an illegitimate regime. “The United States, the Zionist regime (Israel), and some Western countries tried to introduce the October 7.
- Arab and Muslim majority countries: It’s time to show backbone and moral courage
I will refrain from describing the tragedy we can all see livestreaming before our eyes—genocidal intent, acts of genocide and the slaughter of thousands of women and children. Yes, Israel has the right to defend itself, but this does not include committing genocide along the way. Jews, who suffered at the hands of Nazis, should know better than to essentially repeat similar atrocities. Israel’s enabler in chief has been the United States—duplicitously encouraging Israel to use “targeted” lethal actions to avoid civilian deaths, while simultaneously supplying Israel with more 2000-pound bombs designed for widespread casualties and defending its atrocities with vetoes at the UN Security Council. America’s duplicity and hypocrisy are on full display under bright lights.
- Yemen’s army fires anti-ship cruise missile at US destroyer
Yemen’s army fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea on Sunday in response to the joint U.S.-British air strikes on certain sites inside Yemen. The joint aerial raids on Yemen on Friday night came as the forces loyal to the Ansarallah movement have targeted vessels destined for Israel in the Red Sea in retaliation to Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The attack marks the first U.S.-acknowledged fire by Yemen’s army. Yemeni army’s fire on Sunday went in the direction of the USS Laboon, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer operating in the southern reaches of the Red Sea, the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement. The missile came from near Hodeida, a Red Sea port city long held by the Ansarallah movement, the U.S. said. “An anti-ship cruise missile was fired from… (the) Houthi militant areas of Yemen toward USS Laboon,” Central Command said. “There were no injuries or damage reported.” Contrary to what the U.S. and its allies claim, Yemen has been insisting that it is fully loyal to free navigation in the Red Sea.
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