Strategic Council Online – A university professor says whenever the big powers decide they can sacrifice the technical nature of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for their goals and motives. Unfortunately, he noted, power relations prevail over technical issues in the agency.
Strategic Council Online – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Iran on April 13 and met with senior Iranian officials. The content of Lavrov’s visit was to discuss strengthening of bilateral relations between Iran and Russia and paving the way for strategizing these relations.
Seyed Reza Mirtaher – Analyst of international affairs
Strategic Council Online—Interview: An expert of Middle East studies says division in the rightist parties and failure of Netanyahu to build consensus among his partisan colleagues have delayed the formation of the Zionist cabinet.
Strategic Council Online – In recent weeks, foreign media, mainly those affiliated with US political circles, some European countries, the Zionist regime and certain Arab states, have been projecting on the 25-year Iran-China document and have gone as far as labeling it a colonial document! And with the tactics of psychological operations and soft destruction, the document has been used as a pretext to undermine its strategic importance in the social body and domestic public opinion at a time when those countries are one of China’s largest trading partners in the world and have growing economic relations with China. The present article emphasizes the opportunities of the 25-year document for Iran which, by understanding a part of it, we can understand the reasons for the opposition of foreign and hostile governments to it.
Hamid Khoshayand – Analyst of international affairs
Strategic Council Online—Interview: An analyst of Russia affairs says the recent military movements of Russia near the border with Ukraine were a reaction to the feeling of threat posed by Washington against Moscow, adding that Russian officials tried to preempt what they had predicated about a change in the US policy towards Moscow during the Biden presidency.
Strategic Council Online—Opinion: Some 30 countries of the world with more than one and a half billion people are presently under the sanctions of the United States in various forms. Iran, China and Russia are the most significant of these countries. In addition to governments, some economic giants and cartels such as companies involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as well as Turkey, as a US ally in NATO, have been also exposed to lesser extents to the US sanctions. Even though there are news recently about the formation of a global coalition among the countries affected by the US sanctions, it is expected that a politico-economic club of sanctioned countries is set up.
Seyyed Qassem Zakeri—expert of international relations
Strategic Council Online—Editorial: In recent weeks and parallel with an increase in military movements along the Black Sea and Russia-Ukraine border, this region has been once again brought into the global focus.
Seyyed Nader Noorbakhsh-European affairs analyst
Strategic Council Online – Note: Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias in his visit to Saudi Arabia signed two agreements on military cooperation between the two countries. According to the signed document, Greece is supposed to deliver one of the Patriot missiles received from the United States to Saudi Arabia, a move that could be the result of Saudi Arabia’s failure against Yemeni missiles and drones. The US-made Patriot anti-aircraft systems will be used to protect Saudi Arabia’s most important oil facilities, and the Greek systems will be used to protect other important military bases in that country. In recent months, Saudi Arabia has been under the burden of missile and drone strikes by the Yemeni armed forces and has never been able to thwart those attacks with its own defense systems.
Mahmoud Fazeli – analyst of international affairs
Strategic Council Online – An expert on European affairs, commenting on the recent EU sanctions against eight Iranian institutions and officials and the EU double standards on human rights, said: There has always been a human rights gesture by the EU and they have taken advantage of this tool in line with their own interests.
Strategic Council Online – An international affairs expert, referring to the results of a Canadian institute’s poll on views of the Iranians over certain foreign policy issues, as well as nuclear talks and the need to discuss its missile capability, stressed: Iranians are aware that no country in the present world can negotiate, make concessions, or accept imposed conditions on the means and power of its defense.
Strategic Council Online – Referring to the recent tensions between Turkey and Western members of NATO, an expert on Turkey affairs said that Ankara’s approach to NATO and its interaction with the United States in recent years has become a challenging situation that almost has put Turkey in front of Western countries.
Strategic Council Online – New movements on the Russian-Ukrainian borders are more related to the resurgence of traditional differences and geopolitical rivalries between Russia and the United States than to the Moscow-Kiev bilateral relationship.
Shoaib Bahman – Expert on Russian affairs
Strategic Council Online—Opinion: The construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project which lies undersea from Russia through the Black Sea to Germany has caused something like a “geopolitical earthquake” and concerns in the United States and some European countries. There are discussions Nord Stream 2 can provide Kremlin with a new leverage against Germany and other NATO members. The construction of this pipeline which stopped in 2019 has resumed in December 2020 in the midst of discussions as to whether the new US sanctions could once again disrupt the completion of the pipeline.
Alireza Samoodi—Expert of European issues
Strategic Council Online – An expert on international affairs commenting on the results of holding the two rounds of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Joint Commission meeting in Vienna said: Considering the desire of all parties to continue the negotiations, it can be said that the scenario of reviving the JCPOA is not far-fetched.
Online Strategic Council—Interview: An analyst of Afghanistan issues says the Istanbul meeting is in fact complementary to the Moscow conference and it seems there is an agreement between the Americans and the Russians behind the curtains on the future of Afghanistan and the structure of power, adding that such efforts are far from success without soliciting the prior agreement of the neighbors and the incorporation of their viewpoints.
Strategic Council Online-Interview: An expert of Europe issues, referring to the recent remarks of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who castigated EU for destroying all infrastructure of relations with Russia, said Lavrov views on the severance of cooperation between Moscow and the European Union were made after an intensification of criticisms and tensions between the EU and Russia.
Strategic Council Online – Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention following the instructions and decision of its president which was also published in the Official Gazette. The decree says that the decision had been taken pursuant to Paragraph 3 of the presidential circular No. 9 on the cancellation of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, signed by the Republic of Turkey in 2011 and approved by cabinet ministers one year later.
Mahmoud Fazeli – Analyst of international affairs
Strategic Council Online—Editorial: The issue of the completion of the Nordstream 2 pipeline has turned into a new crisis between the United States and Russia as well as the transatlantic relations.
Alireza Samoodi-Expert of Europe issues
Strategic Council Online – Secretary of the Policy Council of the Anti-Sanctions Club, emphasizing the need for practical actions by the 16 member states of the Anti-Sanctions Coalition, said: If this coalition is the beginning of a serious new movement and help other measures to counter sanctions, it is useful; the coalition should be able to hold a summit at the level of heads or foreign ministers and then reach a structure and organization, not just issue a concluding statement.
Strategic Council Online – Biden’s policy towards Iran and even the current European approach seem to be an imitation of Donald Trump’s approach which, with its insistence on maintaining maximum pressure and negotiating regional and missile issues in the agreement, raises the question of how there is any talk of reviving the JCPOA?
Abed Akbari – Expert on European affairs
