Iran’s Jamal Khashoggi escapes the world’s notice
April 14, 2020| Oved Lobel
Masoud Molavi Vardanjani, the
Iranian dissident assassinated in Istanbul last November (source:The New Arab)
The novel coronavirus
has understandably stolen most headlines across the world, so
you might be forgiven for thinking all other news had stopped.
Unfortunately, among the countries that have carried on and even
escalated dangerous rogue activities is the Islamic Republic of Iran,
and the recent confirmation of its involvement in an
assassination in Turkey late last year appears to have slipped under
the radar.
On November 14 last year,
Iranian dissident Masoud Molavi Vardanjani was gunned down while
walking in Istanbul. Turkish news agencies leaked footage and reported on
the assassination 11 days after the incident, but the Turkish government chose
not to publicly embarrass or overtly implicate Iran. US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, however, was less circumspect, declaring in a briefing
the day after the reports emerged that “The Iranian regime also
continues to export cruelty outside its own borders. Last week, an
Iranian dissident, Massoud Malvi, was assassinated in Istanbul after
he defected to Turkey from Iran. The killing of Mr. Malvi is yet
another tragic example in a long string of suspected Iran-backed assassination
attempts outside of Iranian soil. The regime’s brutality and amorality know no
international boundaries.”
Turkey was at that
time part of a tripartite quasi-alliance with Russia and Iran to resolve
tensions in Syria, and the 14th round of discussions as part
of this “Astana Process” partnership took place in December 2019. Meanwhile,
under the auspices of the United Nations, negotiations on the Syrian
Constitutional Committee, also an outgrowth of the Astana partnership,
were ongoing in November and December. Turkey, which generally
has reasonably warm relations with Iran, had no wish
to antagonise its partner in these discussions, and so
avoided saying anything about the murder which might lead
to diplomatic fallout.
All of this changed when
Russia, Iran, and Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime killed 33
Turkish troops on February 27, violating the deals struck with
Turkey. Turkey apparently then leaked to Reuters that
two agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) had directed
the Vardanjani assassination – an assessment US officials shared,
also with Reuters, several days later – and that Turkey would raise
the matter with Iran.
According to a Turkish police
report on the killing released in early March, Vardanjani had worked
in cybersecurity at the Iranian Defence Ministry and was a vocal
critic of the regime, allegedly helping run a Telegram channel
called “Black Box” that published corruption
allegations against Iranian officials and claimed to have sources in
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). However, these
details remain unconfirmed.
Parallels with the brutal
murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal
Khashoggi in October 2018 in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul are
unavoidable. Indeed, one of the Turkish officials who spoke to Reuters explicitly
made this comparison. For a variety of reasons, first and foremost the regional
Cold War between Turkey and the Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates (UAE) axis,
Turkey made a much bigger deal of Khashoggi’s death. Khashoggi’s much higher
profile in the West and US alliance with Saudi Arabia also meant
raising the issue publicly could have a positive political impact for Turkey by
negatively impacting US support for the Saudis. Meanwhile, the still
virtually unknown Vardanjani could not
make comparable global ripples, given he was assassinated by a
country the US already considers a major enemy.
Iran has a long and storied
history of assassinating anyone in opposition to the regime
throughout the world, particularly in Europe, since the Islamic
revolution of 1979. In January 2019, the Dutch government confirmed that
MOIS had been behind the assassination of Ahmad Mola Nissi, founder of the separatist Arab Struggle Movement for the
Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), in 2017 in the Hague, as well as that
of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) member Mohammad
Reza Kolahi Samadi in 2015 in Amsterdam. In October 2018,
Denmark said it had foiled attempts by MOIS to kill three
members of the ASMLA on its territory. Also foiled in 2018, with the reported
help of Mossad, was a complex MOIS plot coordinated from
Iran’s Austrian embassy across multiple European countries to blow up a MEK
rally in Paris in June of that year, which would likely have led to dozens of
deaths. In April 2017, MOIS reportedly assassinated Saeed Karimian,
an Iranian who ran a Persian-language channel called GEM TV in
Turkey, as well as his business partner, in Istanbul. He had been
convicted in absentia by the regime and sentenced to six
years imprisonment for his broadcasts.
Iran has also continued to
be malicious in other spheres, with no evidence of a slowdown in
its activities in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or cyberspace. Israel has had to bomb
Iranian shipments and Hezbollah positions in Syria multiple times in the past
month to forestall the hostile import, manufacture or entrenchment of
weaponry, while the IRGC-led militias in Iraq continue to bombard coalition
positions and associated oil companies every week. In Yemen, the IRGC-aligned
Houthis continue to launch large offensives and rain ballistic missiles and
suicide drones on Saudi Arabia.
In April, four sources
confirmed to Reuters that hackers linked to the Iranian Regime
had attempted to steal the passwords of World
Health Organisation (WHO) staff.
Despite being pummelled especially severely
by the virus, Iran has managed to utilise the confluence of COVID-19,
near-daily rocket attacks, and overwhelming political influence to help
precipitate a drawdown of US forces in Iraq. Most anti-ISIS
coalition forces have already fully withdrawn, and the US has withdrawn from
several bases. Iraq’s former Prime Minister–designate Adnan
al-Zurfi declared that, after speaking to the US ambassador and other
officials, “Half of the US-led coalition troops will withdraw from Iraq y the end
of 2020, while the other half will leave Iraq after we agree on a
schedule by the beginning of next year.”
Iran’s activities may not be
front-page news, but that doesn’t mean coronavirus has put a dent
in its ambition to drive the US out of the region, pursue dissidents
across the globe and export its Islamic revolutionary
ideology.
https://www.local10.com/news/politics/2020/04/15/trump-ends-us-aid-to-who-says-not-enough-done-to-stop-virus/
Trump ends US aid to WHO, says not enough done to stop virus
Full Screen1 / 2
President Donald Trump speaks
about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House, Tuesday, April 14,
2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said he was
cutting off U.S. payments to the World Health Organization during the coronavirus pandemic, accusing the organization of
failing to do enough to stop the virus from spreading when it first surfaced in China.
Trump, who had telegraphed his
intentions last week, claimed the outbreak could have been contained at its
source and that lives could have been saved had the U.N. health agency done a
better job investigating the early reports coming out of China.
“The WHO failed in its basic
duty and must be held accountable,” Trump said at a Tuesday briefing. He said
the U.S. would be reviewing the WHO's actions to stop the virus before making
any decision on resuming aid.
There was no immediate comment
from the Geneva-based organization on Trump's announcement. But when asked
about possible U.S. funding cuts during a regular U.N. briefing earlier
Tuesday, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris responded, “Regardless of any issues,
our work will go on.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres responded to Trump’s announcement by saying now is not the time to end
support for the World Health Organization, calling the WHO “absolutely
critical” to the global effort to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the
coronavirus.
Guterres said that it is
possible that different entities read the facts differently but that the
appropriate time for a review is “once we have finally turned the page on this
pandemic.”
“But now is not that time,” he
said, adding that it also is not the time to reduce resources for operations at
the WHO or any other humanitarian group that is working to combat the virus.
The United States contributed
nearly $900 million to the WHO’s budget for 2018-19, according to information
on the agency’s website. That represents one-fifth of its total $4.4 billion
budget for those years. The U.S. gave nearly three-fourths of the funds in
“specified voluntary contributions” and the rest in “assessed” funding as part
of Washington’s commitment to U.N. institutions.
A more detailed WHO budget
document provided by the U.S. mission in Geneva showed that in 2019, the United
States provided $452 million, including nearly $119 million in assessed
funding. In its most recent budget proposal from February, the Trump
administration called for slashing the U.S. assessed funding contribution to
the WHO to $57.9 million.
More than 125,000 deaths
worldwide, including more than 25,000 in the U.S., have been blamed on the
coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins
University.
Last week, Trump blasted the
WHO for being “China-centric” and alleging that it had “criticized” his ban on
travel from China as the COVID-19 outbreak was spreading from the city of
Wuhan.
The WHO generally takes care
not to criticize countries on their national policies, and it was not
immediately clear what specific criticism Trump was alluding to.
Trump himself showed deference to China at the beginning stages
of the outbreak.
“China has been working very
hard to contain the Coronavirus," he tweeted Jan. 24. “The United States
greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well.
In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
Asked Tuesday about the
appropriateness of seeking to cut the WHO's funding in the middle of a
worldwide viral outbreak, Trump said the review would last 60 to 90 days.
“This is an evaluation period,
but in the meantime, we're putting a hold on all funds going to World
Health," Trump said. He said the U.S. will continue to engage with the WHO
in pursuit of “meaningful reforms.”
Trump has also complained that
other countries give substantially less than the U.S., singling out China.
The American Medical
Association immediately called on Trump to reconsider his decision.
“During the worst public health
crisis in a century, halting funding to the World Health Organization is a
dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19
easier," AMA President Patrice A. Harris said in a statement.
Harris said international
cooperation is needed to fight the virus, along with science and data.
"Cutting funding to the
WHO, rather than focusing on solutions, is a dangerous move at a precarious
moment for the world,” she said.
For most people, the
coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that
clear up in two to three weeks. But it can cause more severe illness, including
pneumonia, and death for some people, especially older adults and people with
existing health problems. The vast majority of people recover.
پیش بسوی قیام سراسری ، ما بر اندازیم# کانونهای شورشی در شهرهای ایران # #Iran
#سال_سرنگونی #ایران #کروناویروس #قیام_تا_پیروزی #coronavirus
اعتصاب واعتراض #شورش #زندانیان ، تظاهرات# سرنگونی #COVID2019 # اتحادوهمبستگی - مرگ_بر_دیکتاتور #مجاهدین خلق ایران
