Iran Studying Draft Deal to Restore Nuclear Agreement

TEHRAN, IRAN — 

Iran is studying a rough draft of a deal to revive a 2015 nuclear agreement with major powers hammered out during talks in Vienna, its foreign minister said Saturday.

All sides have said the talks on bringing the United States back into the agreement after then-President Donald Trump’s 2018 walkout have reached a critical stage, and Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri has been back in Tehran for consultations.

Iran is “seriously reviewing [the] draft of the agreement,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Twitter, adding he had spoken by phone with the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrel.

The EU has been acting as an intermediary between Iranian negotiators and a U.S. delegation in the absence of U.S. participation in face-to-face talks between Tehran and the remaining parties to the 2015 agreement.

We are “all trying to reach a good deal,” Amir-Abdollahian added. “Our red lines are made clear to western parties. Ready to immediately conclude a good deal, should they show real will.”

The 2015 agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, provided Iran with relief from sanctions in return for strict limits to its nuclear activities.

Since Trump reimposed sanctions in 2018, Iran has gradually suspended its compliance with many of the restrictions it agreed to under the deal, something that it is now expected to reverse.

Amir-Abdollahian said Wednesday the talks had reached “a critical and important stage.”

He said he hoped the remaining “sensitive and important issues” would be resolved in the coming days “with realism from the Western side.”

Barranquilla: resources for Transmetro by agreement with the Nation - Barranquilla - Colombia

After signing the agreement for the “co-financing of the Transmetro operational deficit”, which occurred on November 12, the Barranquilla mass transportation system has received 19,790 million pesos.

(Also read: The reaction of Álex Char’s wife to Aida Merlano’s statements)

The total sum of what was agreed between the Nation and the District exceeds 28,000 million pesos, an amount that comes from the General Budget of the Nation and from the city’s own resources.

The Mayor’s Office is going to end up delivering, with the 14,000 million from the Government, a total of about 70,000 million pesos to the system

Of that figure, the Nation’s contribution of 14 billion pesos has already been transferred. Of the other 14 billion, the District has turned 5,790 millionleaving an outstanding balance to be drawn of 8,240 million.

This was confirmed by the manager of Transmetro, Fernando Isaza, to EL TIEMPO, after recalling that the district administration had already been transferring resources to the system before this agreement with the National Government.

“The Mayor’s Office is going to end up delivering, with the 14,000 million from the Government, a total of about 70,000 million pesos to the system. The Mayor’s Office had already been transferring resources for 10,000 million, but as the Nation asked for a way to co-finance, the mayor made an addition of 4,000 more to that agreement, “explained the official.

Both parts are transferred by the Ministry of Finance and the District Finance Secretariat to the Fund for Transmetro Contingencies.

As considered in the report at the time, the Ministry of Transportation verified that Transmetro’s operational deficit was 45,015 million pesos “due to the restriction measures” in the capacity of vehicles to avoid contagion of covid-19.

The two stoppages between 2020 and 2021

The system registers an increase in passengers due to the reactivation of educational sectors.

Photo:

Vanexa Romero /THE TIME

We had a complex situation, which was largely covered by the FET. Let’s remember that this is a fund that is based on the TPC rate

It must be remembered that, between 2020 and 2021, this transport system stopped circulating on at least two occasions due to the illiquidity generated during the pandemic, according to the operators Sistur and Metrocaribe.

“The spread of the pandemic caused by covid-19 has had a negative economic effect on mass passenger transport systems due to the decrease in operations”, evidenced Minstransporte in the framework of the monitoring carried out by the Sustainable Urban Mobility Unit Group. (UMUS).

In this sense, despite the fact that the Ministry of Transport and the concessionaires indicate an “operational deficit”, Fernando Isaza preferred not to speak of a deficit, but of “difference in the technical rate and user rate”.

“We had a complex situation, which was largely covered by the FET. Let us remember that this is a fund that is based on the rate of the TPC (Collective Public Transport). In 2019 it was 200 pesos, in 2020, the AMB determined that the TPC system was given as part of the rate, last year we went to 100 pesos and we are waiting for the AMB to determine the new rate this year, aspiring to go back to 200 pesos,” he said.

He added that, with those resources paid by the citizens of Barranquilla and the metropolitan area, they would enter the FET and the system, which would help cover the spread and so Transmetro becomes sustainable.

The details of the signed co-financing agreement

Although article 28 of the Law 2155 of 2021 established, among other things, that the maximum amount to be co-financed by the national government will be 50 percent of the operating deficit, the Nation may cover up to 31.17 percent in each system.

The foregoing is due to the fact that, according to the General Directorate of State Participations of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, there are 1 billion pesos available and the deficit of the transport systems is more than 3 billion pesos.

Therefore, the agreement indicates that “the contributions of the District and the Nation destined to reduce the operational deficit, which is dealt with in article 28 of Law 2155 of 2021, will correspond in equal parts.”

Questions about allocated resources

Unfortunately, nothing else was raised about the difference between the technical rate and the user rate, and that is why Barranquilla only received 1.4 percent

However, the latter was questioned by the management of Transmetro who, in their opinion, the allocation of resources by the Nation it was not equitableproportional, nor balanced in comparison with the systems of the main cities of the country.

“We proposed to modify that distribution, for example, how we worked in 2019, how many we mobilized, in such a way that we were equal there. But that did not happen, unfortunately nothing else was raised about the difference between the technical rate and the user rate, and that is why Barranquilla only received 1.4 percent of the billion pesos,” said Isaza.

He recalled that, before the pandemic, Transmetro mobilized 145,000 users and in the first days of the pandemic it transported around 20,000 users. On February 7, 2022 accounted for 88,021 usersthe highest number recently.

“We are going to end up delivering around 70,000 million pesos to all the actors in the system. What they approved in the reform was an initiative of Barranquilla, in such a way that we could receive resources for all the massive systems, taking into account that it is an essential public transport”, closed Isaza.

The entity expects to continue adding resources through the FET.

Photo:

Vanexa Romero /THE TIME

(You may be interested in: The new Transmetro schedule that will take effect from February 14)

Sistur operator’s reaction

There are already complaints from users at the stations, because there are no vehicles. Transmetro has lacked foresight

Faced with this novelty, the manager of Sistur, José Emiro Picón, maintained that “it is urgent” that Transmetro and the District allocate the 8,000 million pesos pending to be able to carry out the fleet intervention.

“There are already complaints from users at the stations, because there are no vehicles. Transmetro has lacked foresight, teamwork and looking at the need that is being generated in universities, colleges and total presence in companies”, he said.

The director added that, to the extent that the resources are disbursed, all the fleet will be working In the next weeks.

As learned by this medium, the agreement has a duration in accordance with the maximum term stipulated for the realization of the last contribution and 12 more months, “unless the power of early termination is exercised.”

Deivis Lopez Ortega
Correspondent of EL TIEMPO Barranquilla
On twitter: @dejholopez
Write me at deilop@eltiempo.com

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Martinelli pay 700,000 dollars as part of the agreement with the Prosecutor's Office | Society

The Martinelli Linares brothers, sons of former Panamanian President Ricardo Marinelli, have paid $697,458 as part of the plea agreement reached with the New York Prosecutor’s Office last December, when they admitted to having laundered $28 million and made bribes in favor of of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

Luis Enrique and Ricardo Alberto, who are awaiting the reading of the sentence, scheduled for this spring, in a New York prison, will have to pay a fine of 19 million dollars and could spend up to a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Iran Nuclear Agreement Unlikely Without Release of US Prisoners

VIENNA — 

The United States is unlikely to strike an agreement with Iran to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal unless Tehran releases four U.S. citizens Washington says it is holding hostage, the lead U.S. nuclear negotiator told Reuters on Sunday.

The official, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, repeated the long-held U.S. position that the issue of the four people held in Iran is separate from the nuclear negotiations.

He moved a step closer, however, to saying that their release was a precondition for a nuclear agreement.

“They’re separate and we’re pursuing both of them. But I will say it is very hard for us to imagine getting back into the nuclear deal while four innocent Americans are being held hostage by Iran,” Malley told Reuters in an interview.

“So even as we’re conducting talks with Iran indirectly on the nuclear file we are conducting, again indirectly, discussions with them to ensure the release of our hostages,” he said in Vienna, where talks are taking place on bringing Washington and Tehran back into full compliance with the deal.

In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.

Rights groups have accused Iran of taking prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage, while Western powers have long demanded that Tehran free their citizens, who they say are political prisoners.

Tehran denies holding people for political reasons.

Message sent

Malley was speaking in a joint interview with Barry Rosen, a 77-year-old former U.S. diplomat who has been on hunger strike in Vienna to demand the release of U.S., British, French, German, Austrian and Swedish prisoners in Iran, and that no nuclear agreement be reached without their release.

Rosen was one of more than 50 U.S. diplomats held during the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis.

“I’ve spoken to a number of the families of the hostages who are extraordinarily grateful for what Mr. Rosen is doing but they also are imploring him to stop his hunger strike, as I am, because the message has been sent,” Malley said.

Rosen said that after five days of not eating he was feeling weak and would heed those calls.

“With the request from Special Envoy Malley and my doctors and others, we’ve agreed (that) after this meeting I will stop my hunger strike but this does not mean that others will not take up the baton,” Rosen said.

The indirect talks between Iran and the United States on bringing both countries back into full compliance with the landmark 2015 nuclear deal are in their eighth round. Iran

refuses to hold meetings with U.S. officials, meaning others shuttle between the two sides.

The deal between Iran and major powers lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities that extended the time it would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it chose to. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing punishing economic sanctions against Tehran. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal’s nuclear restrictions, to the point that Western powers say the deal will soon have been hollowed out completely.

Leverage

Asked if Iran and the United States might negotiate directly, Malley said: “We’ve heard nothing to that effect. We’d welcome it.”

The four U.S. citizens include Iranian American businessman Siamak Namazi, 50, and his father Baquer, 85, both of whom have been convicted of “collaboration with a hostile government.”

Namazi remains in prison. His father was released on medical grounds in 2018 and his sentence later reduced to time served.

While the elder Namazi is no longer jailed, a lawyer for the family says he is effectively barred from leaving Iran.

“Senior Biden administration officials have repeatedly told us that although the potential Iranian nuclear and hostage deals are independent and must be negotiated on parallel tracks, they will not just conclude the nuclear deal by itself,” said Jared Genser, pro bono counsel to the Namazi family.

“Otherwise, all leverage to get the hostages out will be lost,” he added.

The others are environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 66, who is also British, and businessman Emad Shargi, 57.

China, Iran Begin Implementation of Sweeping Strategic Agreement

BEIJING — 

China said Saturday it would begin implementing a strategic agreement with Iran, strengthening economic and political cooperation between the two countries as Beijing blasted Washington’s sanctions on Tehran.

China and Iran signed the agreement last year after years of talks, with the wide-ranging partnership set to span areas including energy, security, infrastructure and communications.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian announced the start of the partnership’s implementation at a meeting in east China’s Wuxi on Friday, Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Few details of the secretive deal have been published, but the New York Times reported in 2020 that it would secure a regular supply of oil for China, citing a draft of the agreement leaked to the paper.

China is Iran’s leading trade partner and was one of the biggest buyers of the country’s oil before then-US president Donald Trump reimposed sweeping unilateral sanctions in 2018.

China has officially stopped importing oil from Iran, but analysts say Iranian crude is continuing to enter the country disguised as imports from other countries.

Wang told his Iranian counterpart Friday that China would continue to “oppose illegal unilateral sanctions against Iran,” the foreign ministry said.

Beijing has long sought to boost ties with Tehran, with Chinese president Xi Jinping describing Iran as “China’s major partner in the Middle East” on a rare visit to the country in 2016.

Wang and Amir-Abdollahian’s meeting comes as talks continue in Vienna over a potential deal to halt Tehran’s development of nuclear weapons.

A 2015 deal — agreed by Iran, the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

But the US withdrew from the agreement in 2018, reimposing biting sanctions and prompting Tehran to begin rolling back on its commitments.

Talk to salvage the nuclear deal began in late November, after being suspended when Iran elected a new ultraconservative government in June.

Wang told his Iranian counterpart on Friday that China believes the United States is to blame for the current state of the deal, the foreign ministry said in its statement.