17 Sustainable Radicals: The Congress of the Stability Front

The newspaper Etelaat dedicated its front page to the "OPEC's decision to reduce oil production" and wrote: "Bijan Zangeneh's negotiations in Algeria led to Saudi Arabia backing down." This newspaper quoted Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, Iran's Minister of Oil, stating: "OPEC's oil production will decrease to 32.5 million barrels" and "this decision showed that OPEC is alive and can make decisions in critical conditions." The Shahrvand newspaper assessed the outcome of the OPEC meeting as "Saudi Arabia's retreat" and wrote: "The winning card of the OPEC meeting was in Iran's hands, and finally, Saudi Arabia, which has been cornered in the global oil market, backed down and voted for Iran's exemption from the oil freeze plan." This newspaper emphasized that despite the agreement among OPEC members to reduce the production ceiling, "Iran has managed to secure its 13% share of the global oil market and can freely and without concern about the oil freeze plan produce up to 1.4 million barrels per day, which is the level before sanctions." According to Shahrvand, "Now, after a long period of tension among OPEC members, the oil-producing countries in this organization, which have finally realized that continuing disputes will only worsen their economies, have managed to reach a historic agreement," and Mohammad Ali Khatibi, a former Iranian representative in OPEC, also told this newspaper that "oil prices will surge to $70 by the end of the Gregorian year." The Etemad newspaper also featured the headline "Oil Diplomacy Rescue," stating: "In the most significant event of the Algiers meeting, Iran managed to successfully stabilize its oil production level at 4 million barrels per day, and OPEC reached an agreement on the oil freeze plan aimed at increasing oil prices by $10." Reza Zandi, a reporter for Shargh newspaper, described the OPEC ministers' decision on Friday as "a return to reconciliation in OPEC, signing an agreement in Algeria." This newspaper noted that "it took five hours for OPEC oil ministers to end their years of failure to reach a consensus and return to managing the oil market." On Thursday morning, Tehran time, 14 OPEC member ministers left their meeting venue with tired eyes after issuing a historic statement in Algeria, according to which "the conference of ministers at the extraordinary meeting in Algeria aimed to accelerate the reduction of high inventories and restore balance to the oil market, setting a production target of 32 million and 500 thousand barrels to 33 million barrels for OPEC members." The Shargh reporter emphasized that the key to forming the understanding among OPEC member countries at the Algiers meeting was this sentence: "OPEC must consider special conditions for Iran, Libya, and Nigeria in determining the production share of its members," and also wrote that "Iran was producing 3 million and 605 thousand barrels of oil daily in January" and "in these six months, it increased its oil production to about 3 million and 850 thousand barrels per day." This newspaper noted that despite Russia's central role in implementing the oil freeze plan, while "many believed that the main goal of the oil freeze plan was to prevent an increase in Iran's oil production," this plan failed at the Doha meeting. However, the Thursday meeting in Algeria, despite tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, marked a turning point as the Algerians proved to be skilled enough not to let their most important conference end in failure, and from here it became clear that all oil-producing countries wanted an understanding for their economies facing problems. It seems that even if enemies want a common goal, a way can be found for it. The Javan newspaper, close to the Revolutionary Guards, described the agreement of OPEC oil ministers in Algeria as "the members' agreement for the oil freeze" and wrote: "OPEC has been revived." While the newspapers Shargh and Etemad attributed Iran's exemption from the oil freeze and acceptance of an increase in Iran's production ceiling to the oil diplomacy of the 11th government and, of course, the economic problems of OPEC member countries, the Javan newspaper presented it as a result of Russia and Vladimir Putin's support for Iran, writing: "The Kremlin's icy men supported Iran, and Vladimir Putin officially stated that increasing Iran's oil production is its natural right," and this statement "led to countries aligned with Russia also emphasizing this important point to corner Saudi Arabia. Iran, fortunately, remained silent to allow a good offensive against Saudi Arabia to form, which, if accompanied by Zangeneh's statements from a few months ago, would have completely changed the situation." The Shargh newspaper, in its front page on Saturday, titled "17 Sustainable Radicals," wrote: "The first congress after a long suspension was held without the presence of journalists. The Stability Front gathered last Thursday to finally hold its first meeting after obtaining permission in 93, and 17 members were elected as the central council members." Marjan Tohidi, in her report about the composition of the 17 members of the central council of the Stability Front, wrote: "Among the significant absentees in this round of the Stability Front are Kamran Baqeri Lankarani, the Minister of Health in the ninth government and a candidate for the eleventh presidential election, who withdrew from the elections," and also "Mahmoud Nabavian and Zahra Tabibzadeh, as well as Rouhollah Hosseinian, former representatives of Tehran in the eighth and ninth Majlis, are among the figures not present in the new central council of the Stability Front, just as "Ali Asghar Zarei, another representative of Tehran in the ninth Majlis, who has recently been appointed as the deputy of the National Defense Organization, is also absent from the new central council composition." The Shargh newspaper then introduced "Morteza Aghatehrani, Sadegh Mahsouli, Mohammad Soleimani, Fatemeh Alia, Nasrollah Pezeshkfar, Nasser Saghaibi Ria, Qasem Ravanbakhsh, Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh, Meysam Nili, Mirhashim Mousavi, Ali Khodarian, Alireza Asgariyan, Gholam Hossein Rezvani, Ali Naderi, Zahra Lajevardi, Majid Motaghi Far, and Majid Doostali" as the seventeen radical figures who will operate as members of its central council in the new round of activities of the Stability Front. The Jahan Sanat newspaper reported an increase in prices in the home appliance market and described it as "speculation in the home appliance market after combating smuggling." According to this newspaper, "the credit card plan for purchasing Iranian home appliances had many problems that ultimately did not lead to a boom in the market and caused more losses for the producer," and "with the decision of some officials, it was decided that to combat smuggled home appliances in the market, the plan to collect these goods would begin on the first of Mehr, so that smugglers would collect their smuggled products from the market and no longer engage in this activity. However, it seems that with the announcement of this issue, domestic producers are trying to sell their goods at higher than usual prices to the public by making foreign goods scarce in the market." Jahan Sanat wrote that now "legally imported foreign goods are also facing scarcity and price increases with the start of this plan," and "some sellers have also attempted to create turmoil in the home appliance market so that with consumers' fear of rising prices, the purchase of home appliances increases, leading to a boom in the market." This newspaper emphasized that "the officials' approach to combating smuggling has led to hoarding and price gouging again, and some have taken advantage of this situation," stressing that "instead of the collection of smuggled goods benefiting consumers and the country's economy, it has led to an increase in the prices of home appliances, even Iranian home appliances." The Farhikhtegan newspaper reported the death of 14 Afghan illegal immigrants in a car accident involving two vehicles in Sistan and Baluchestan province and wrote: "Human trafficking and the illegal transfer of foreign nationals across the country's borders annually results in the deaths of many illegal immigrants, and in the latest incident, two vehicles carrying Afghan nationals collided on Thursday morning, resulting in 14 deaths and 11 injuries." Farnaz Estad Nobari, a reporter for the accident service of Farhikhtegan, quoted Mostafa Mortazavi, the public relations manager of the Red Crescent Relief Organization, stating: "Following the report of a collision between a Toyota pickup truck and another Toyota pickup truck at kilometer 105 on the Saravan-Khash road in Sistan and Baluchestan, rescue teams were dispatched to the scene," and it was determined that "these vehicles were carrying illegal Afghan nationals, and at the moment of the accident, eight people lost their lives, and 17 were transferred to the hospital, with six others later dying in the hospital." The Farhikhtegan newspaper emphasized that "these two vehicles had a total of 25 passengers, most of whom were illegal Afghan nationals" and reminded that "the deaths of Afghan nationals who enter Iran illegally in smuggling vehicles have recently accounted for a very high number, and these individuals, who are often transported in vehicles with technical deficiencies or substandard conditions, frequently face severe traffic accidents."