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Iran Tag

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been working behind the scenes to prevent European Union member countries from recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the newspaper Jerusalem Post reported. The revelation was made by Tomas Sandell, the director of the European Coalition for Israel in Brussels. Chancellor Merkel made a series of calls to European leaders in April while "many of the nations were seriously considering moving their embassies." Sandell said. "This is not the Germany we once knew. This is not the even Angela Merkel we once knew when she was elected."

Amid rising antisemitism and anti-Israel activism in Europe, over 3000 members of Jewish diaspora and supporters of Israel gathered in Frankfurt, Germany, for the 5th German Israel Congress this weekend. Widely regarded as the biggest pro-Israel event in Europe, the conference was attended by leading politicians, government officials, and public figures from Germany and Israel. Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan took the opportunity to urge the German government to take a tougher stance on Iran. "Germany should take a more aggressive stance against the Iranian regime," Minister Erdan said. "It was only yesterday that President Rouhani called Israel metastatic cancer. History has taught us that anti-Semitic threats from fanatical leaders, and exporters of terror who have hegemonic aspirations, must be taken seriously."

The European Union may switch to non-dollar transactions to protect its trade with Iran in the wake of the latest U.S. sanctions, Reuters news agency reports. The news comes as Iran's European trading partners are working to set up a Special Purpose Vehicle, which is a payment clearance house where Iran's proceeds from oil and gas sale could be offset against the country's purchases -- much like a transnational barter system without financial transactions. The move is in response to crippling sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump against Iran's energy, banking, and other sectors earlier this month.

President Donald Trump's administration has officially restored sanctions on Iran that went away with the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. At the same time, SWIFT, a financial messaging service based in Belgium, announced it will suspend "some unspecified Iranian banks’ access to its messaging system in the interest of the stability and integrity of the global financial system," but did not mention the US sanctions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that America will terminate the 1955 treaty of amity with Iran after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) used the treaty to force the US to ease some sanctions against Iran. This treaty "regulates and promotes economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries." You can read the full text of it here.

India, the second biggest oil customer for Iran, has begun cutting Iranian crude oil imports ahead of the November deadline set by the Trump administration, Indian newspapers report. The United States is expected to impose a fresh round of crippling sanction on Tehran in early November, targeting the country's oil industry -- Islamic Republic's main source of revenue.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry recently admitted that he has had meetings with officials from Iran since leaving office. One of the points Kerry relayed to them was that they should wait out the Trump presidency. It's nearly impossible to imagine the firestorm this would set off among Democrats and the media if a former Bush official had done this to Obama.

With US sanctions biting deep into Iran's economy, country's theocratic leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has admitted that European countries cannot to save the 2015 nuclear deal, Reuters news agency reported.

"There is no problem with negotiations and keeping contact with the Europeans, but you should give up hope on them over economic issues or the nuclear deal," Khamenei told President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet on Wednesday.

On August 25, 1988, a tragedy struck in Iran, one that most people do not know about. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa that led to the execution of 30,000 Iranian political prisoners. That fatwa led to "the biggest massacre of political prisoners since World War II." Khomeini targeted members and those loyal to the opposition group People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK).

With the Turkish currency in free fall, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced a boycott of US-made electronic goods. Showing defiance in the wake of the recent US sanctions imposed in a dispute over the detention of an American pastor, Erdogan accused US President Donald Trump of waging "economic warfare" against the country.

The Iranian protests have not died down, but one would think otherwise since the protests have received little Western attention. I mentioned in a blog post last month that those who support the Iranian nuclear deal and the regime want people to think the Iranian citizens hate America. I've seen a few places try to pin the blame on the renewed American sanctions. Videos that have emerged show citizens angry and outraged at the brutal and oppressive regime, not America.

Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, has revised its regulations to stop Iran from withdrawing €320 million ($400 million) in cash from the country's bank accounts. Under the new conditions, the Bundesbank can stop cash transfers that violate US Treasury sanctions, the German newspaper BILD disclosed. The drastic measure to physically ship the cash out of Germany demonstrates Tehran's demising trust in the European financial institutions as the US Treasury tightens screws on the regime's worldwide financial operations. The transaction is "one of the largest cash transfers ever in German history," a spokesman for the country's finance minister admitted.