CIA Contractor Traveled to Kish to Meet An American Refugee - Report

Robert Levinson, the CIA contractor who disappeared during a trip to Iran’s Kish Island in 2007, had reportedly traveled there to meet with Dawud Salahuddin, an American who fled to Iran in 1980 (a.k.a. David Theodore Belfield and Hassan Abdulrahman), The New York Times reported.

Salahuddin, who was at the time working as a security guard at the Iranian interest section in Washington, killed Ali Akbar Tabatabai, an Iranian opposition activist living in exile in Bethesda, and soon fled to Tehran by way of Canada and Switzerland. He later described his action as an “act of war” on the opposition and not murder. He has since worked in Iran as an English teacher, a war correspondent and a web editor for an English-language TV. He even acted in a feature movie in 2000 by the famed Iranian director Makhbalbaf called Kandahar.

Robert Levinson, who had worked on money laundering cases by Iranian officials, had made arrangements to meet with Salahuddin at Kish Island (an Iranian free economic zone requiring no visas to enter). Salahuddin, who had been outspoken about his opposition to government corruption in Iran, was apparently ready and able to provide valuable information to Levinson. They were going to meet at Maryam Hotel in Kish.

For a detailed account on Levinson by Barry Meier of The New York Times, please click here.

To read The New York Times report on Salahuddin by Robert MacKey, please click here.

File photo: Dawud Salahuddin in a still image from a 2006 documentary. (The New York Times) 

Not the Time to Squeeze Iran

From an editorial on Sunday’s edition of The New York Times:

“Sanctions have been crucial in keeping the pressure on Iran. But doubling down on them at this delicate moment, when Iran and six major powers, including the United States, have made progress toward an interim agreement, could cause negotiations between the two sides to collapse and, worse, become a pathway to war.

“President Obama deserves more time to work out a negotiated settlement with Iran and the other major powers. If the deal falls through, or if inspections by the United Nations unearth cheating, Congress can always impose more sanctions then. But if talks fail now, Mr. Netanyahu and the hard-line interest groups will own the failure, and the rest of us will pay the price.”

To read the Times editorial piece in its entirety, please click here.

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)

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)

White House: Plans for Direct Talks with Iran Not Finalized

The White House today denied a New York Times report that the United States and Iran have reached final agreement to begin one-on-one negotiations to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. The White House said it was committed to working with major powers, the so-called P5+1, to resolve the standoff. The White House said, however, that the U.S. is open to bilateral negotiations. (Reuters, 20 October)

“It's not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. “We continue to work with the P5+1 on a diplomatic solution and have said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally.”

The Times, quoting unnamed Obama administration officials, had said earlier today the two sides had agreed to bilateral talks after secret exchanges between U.S. and Iranian officials.