New York Times’ Erdbrink on Reactions in Tehran to Nuclear Deal

The New York Times Tehran Bureau Chief Thomas Erdbrink told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour today residents of Tehran were ecstatic this weekend when Iran and world powers struck a nuclear deal.

“These people have been living under incredible pressures over the last years,” Erdbrink said. “They had to face sanctions, high unemployment, high inflation, and basically they have grown so accustomed to hearing only horrible news that this is the first time in almost a decade that they’re hearing something positive.” (CNN, 25 November)

That elation, though, had died down a bit by Monday.

“People today were a bit more subdued,” he said, “and they were telling me, ‘Sure, we made this deal and we are happy, but we’ve been tricked so many times. Maybe this time we’ll be tricked again.

“One young man came up to me and he told me, ‘Thomas, I am now 30 years old. When Ahmadinejad came to power I was 22. Why were those eight years of my life wasted? Why am I still without a job? Why do I hold a university degree but don’t have a future in this country?”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei, who has backed President Hassan Rouhani in the negotiations, is “widely seen as the architect behind the scenes,” Erdbrink said.

“We don’t know what prompted him to make this deal, but he has clearly given the go-ahead to President Rouhani to go out there and start trying to repair those broken relations with the West.”

Khamanei said yesterday that he supported the interim deal that had been reached, but with “one caveat.”

“He said, ‘The way you present the deal to me sounds like a success.’ So he left a kind of way out in case the deal doesn’t work in the future for him to say, ‘Well this is not working out, I haven’t totally backed this deal to the maximum.’”

Nonetheless, Iran’s hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders, Erdbrink said, “have been very, very silent on this deal.”

“Most factions in power are in full support of the deal as it is now. Will they still support it after a week? After a month, when maybe some issues will be raised, some problems will start? We don’t know.”

File photo: The New York Times Tehran Bureau Chief Thomas Erdbrink (Twitter)

White House Might Ease Pain of Sanctions With Slow Release of Iran Assets – Report

The Obama administration could ease the pain of sanctions on Iran by freeing up the country’s frozen overseas assets in installments if the Iranian government takes specific steps to curb its nuclear program, the New York Times reported today.

Such plan would give Obama the flexibility to respond to Iran’s initial actions to ease concerns over its program without having to lift the sanctions at this time.

The positive tone of Geneva talks, a senior American diplomat told the Times, was “intense, detailed, straightforward, candid conversations,” prompting new thinking in Washington about how to ease the pressure on Tehran, if the Iranians make real concessions.

Skeptics say the proposal might not satisfy the Iranians, whose goal is to get out from under all the sanctions that have devastated their currency, cut their oil exports in half, and left their economy with sky-high inflation and unemployment.

“The Iranians are looking for fundamental sanctions relief,” said Ray Takeyh, an expert on Iran at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I’m not sure whether they’d accept phased access to their own money.” (The New York Times, 18 October)

Meanwhile, Thomas Erdbrink of the Times writes in his Tehran Journal today that a “hopeful city, beyond campaign vows, waits for change in Iran.”

“Rouhani’s campaign excited Iranians’ expectations by promising to get suffocating Western sanctions lifted, but four months after Mr. Rouhani’s election and two months after his installation as president, people here in the capital are still waiting for the great changes that most of them are longing for,” writes Erdbrink.

To read Thomas Erdbrink’s excellent essay from Tehran, please click here.

Photo credit: A pharmacist helping customers in Tehran this week. High drug prices are one of the many effects of sanctions troubling Iranians. (Kaveh Kazemi/The New York Times)

Twitter and Facebook Blocked Again In Iran - After One-Day Respite

Iran blocked access to Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday, a day after it unblocked the sites. Thousands of Iranians on Monday got on the sites directly without having to evade a government’s firewall.

Thomas Erdbrink, the New York Times correspondent in Tehran, tweeted yesterday with updates on the sites being unblocked, and today on them being blocking again: (@ThomasErdbrink)

“Okay people the rumors are true, this is my first tweet ever using Iran's state cell phone internet service without VPN!!!” (3pm EST, Monday)

“Hello world, we are tweeting without restrictions from Iran.” (Monday)

“Is Iran's Berlin Wall of internet censorship crumbling down? I am tweeting from Tehran from my cell without restrictions.” (Monday)

“Both twitter and FB have been filtered since 2009 protests. For years Iranians had to use special software for access.” (Monday)

“That feeling when the Iranian authorities finally decide you are wise enough to use Twitter and FB...” (Monday)

“Twitter and Facebook are once again blocked in Iran, with one (hardline) official saying yesterday's unexpected openness was a ‘glitch.’” (Tuesday, 5:58am)

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif all maintain very active Twitter and Facebook accounts to connect to the world. But the citizens are prohibited to tweet or access FB.

To reach the sites, Iranians began using virtual private network, or VPN, software to connect through computers located outside the country, though the telecommunications ministry eventually deployed technology to block much of that kind of traffic as well.

Several hardline politicians have made public comments in recent days calling Facebook “a Zionist tool.”

KLM: Out of Iran - After 65 Years!

KLM announced today that it will cancel all flights to Iran in April 2013. KLM started its service to Tehran 65 years ago. The New York Times correspondent in Tehran Thomas Erdbrink has tweeted the image of KLM advertisement that appeared in October 6, 1953 issue of the Times promoting the airliner's New York-Tehran service.

Image credit: @ThomasErdbrink (Twitter)