The Involvement of Three Ministers from Ahmadinejad's Government in Babak Zanjani's Case

The newspaper Jahan San'at, in its front page on Tuesday, published a warning from four ministers of President Hassan Rouhani's cabinet regarding the "transformation of recession into crisis," stating that with this warning, "the pillar of Iran's economy trembled." According to the newspaper, "As a heavy recession engulfs the economy and economic problems increase day by day, four ministers from Rouhani's cabinet outlined the economic dangers in a letter to the President, criticizing the disjointed policies of various agencies for warning against the transformation of recession into crisis." The newspaper Vatan Emruz, close to the Front of Steadfastness, evaluated the letter from the four ministers to the President with the headline: "The rift in the government has become public." This newspaper noted that "the letter from the Ministers of Economy, Industry, Labor, and Defense showed that not only are there differences of opinion and disorganization in the economic team of the eleventh government, but such disagreements are leading the economy towards greater economic challenges." It also highlighted that "the presence of the Minister of Defense alongside three economic ministers is noteworthy in itself." The newspaper Etelaat reported on Tuesday about the "revelation behind the JCPOA report," stating that five members of the JCPOA commission announced in a statement to the nation that "the report read by this commission was prepared outside of parliament." The newspaper Shargh also reported on the nuclear struggle in the Majlis, stating: "The day of reckoning has arrived, and opponents of the nuclear agreement came to the public session of the parliament with all their might, presenting everything they had in the form of a report and mobilizing their last efforts to prevent the urgent proposal supported by the majority of the parliament from being approved. This marked the end point for all opponents of the agreement in the Majlis; opponents who prepared a one-sided report against the JCPOA in the name of the JCPOA special commission for reading in the session, but could not pull the brakes on the implementation of the JCPOA." Meanwhile, the newspaper Kayhan welcomed the reading of the JCPOA report in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, with the headline "The Catastrophe of the JCPOA in the Special Commission Report," stating: "The special commission on the JCPOA published a report on Sunday from 170 hours of expert meetings, which shows that the nuclear agreement has irreparable flaws and dangers." This newspaper also commented on the urgent proposal desired by conservatives close to Ali Larijani regarding the JCPOA, which only received one urgency approval from parliament representatives on Sunday, stating: "The two-urgency of a diversionary proposal with a general and vague content did not receive votes." The newspaper Qanoon, while publishing a report on the second session of Babak Zanjani's trial, wrote: "The involvement of three ministers from the previous government in Babak Zanjani's case has emerged." This newspaper noted that Babak Zanjani was introduced to Rostam Qasemi, the Minister of Oil in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, by an individual named "S-J," mentioning Mehdi Ghazanfari, Minister of Commerce, Rostam Qasemi, Minister of Oil, Shamseddin Hosseini, Minister of Economy, and Mahmoud Bahmani, the head of the Central Bank in the previous government, as those named in the indictment by the Tehran prosecutor's office as endorsers of Babak Zanjani and his bank. Evaluating the letter from four ministers to Hassan Rouhani, "the pillar of Iran's economy trembled," the newspaper Jahan San'at stated in its front page on Tuesday, publishing a warning from four ministers of Rouhani's cabinet regarding the "transformation of recession into crisis." According to this newspaper, "As a heavy recession engulfs the economy and economic problems increase day by day, four ministers from Rouhani's cabinet outlined the economic dangers in a letter to the President, criticizing the disjointed policies of various agencies for warning against the transformation of recession into crisis." This letter was signed by Ali Tayebnia, Minister of Economy, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade, Ali Rabiei, Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, and also Hossein Dehghan, Minister of Defense, who emphasized that "if an urgent economic decision is not made, the Iranian economy will enter a crisis from recession." The newspaper Jahan San'at, in evaluating the warning from the four ministers to the President, wrote: "Given the current economic conditions, sinking into the swamp of recession does not seem far-fetched, as our economy is now like a wheel that is broken at several points, and while it is at risk of collapsing at any moment, we expect it to continue spinning. However, the noteworthy point is whether it would be better for the ministers themselves to take action and, through brainstorming and implementing appropriate policies, take steps to improve the economic situation." This newspaper pointed out that in 2013, the government was handed over to Hassan Rouhani while carrying "diseases such as unemployment, inflation, recession, and severe resource shortages," noting that the economic team of the government "despite making efforts to exit this situation and even achieving successes in this regard, due to some wrong decisions and disorganization in decision-making and execution among various agencies, inflicted further blows to the economy." According to Jahan San'at, "The capital market, which was expected to revive after Ahmadinejad's term, during which he considered the stock market a gambling house, faced a decrease of 180 trillion tomans in the price index in less than two years," and alongside this, "the increase in the exchange rate from 2800 tomans to 2996 tomans caused the free market exchange rate to rise, which itself harmed parts of the Iranian economy." This newspaper also referred to the "failure" and inability of the Central Bank to "regulate or dissolve unauthorized financial institutions," stating: "These institutions, holding 20% of the total liquidity of the country, continue their activities and create many difficulties for economic activists, industrialists, and producers in competition with banks," while "taxation, which was supposed to be one of the important arms of the economy for securing resources, is not in a good state, as despite the government's strict measures regarding tax collection, not only are there still tax evasion issues, but due to reduced income, the amount of taxes has also decreased from 4252 billion to 2682 billion tomans in one year." Jahan San'at also wrote: "The nuclear agreement, which was expected to boost the economy, has now become one of the causes of recession in society, as the blocked funds, according to the head of the Central Bank, will not be released until December, based on which a shadow of fear and hope now looms over the economy, a shadow that is waiting to see whether the conditions for production, industry, and the capital market will improve after the release of resources." This newspaper stated that "all these issues have come together to prompt four ministers of economy, industry, labor, and defense to think and warn Hassan Rouhani about the dire state of the economy in a letter," and although this letter emphasizes "economic problems and the need for urgent and significant decisions," it "does not mention any solutions that could be the key to exiting this predicament." The newspaper Vatan Emruz, close to the Front of Steadfastness, evaluated the letter from the four ministers to the President with the headline: "The rift in the government has become public." This newspaper referred to the letter from the ministers as an "important and warning letter" and emphasized that "the publication of the warning letter from four ministers of the cabinet to Rouhani further revealed the disorganized state of the government's economic team." It noted that "the composition of the economic team of the eleventh government has always been criticized by experts, and despite the evident disorganization, officials have denied any disagreements, even claiming that they have the most coordinated economic team." Vatan Emruz pointed out that "the letter from the Ministers of Economy, Industry, Labor, and Defense showed that not only are there differences of opinion and disorganization in the economic team of the eleventh government, but such disagreements are leading the economy towards greater economic challenges," stating that "the presence of the Minister of Defense alongside three economic ministers is noteworthy in itself." According to this newspaper, the four ministers of the eleventh government warned their leader "that urgent decisions must be made to prevent recession from turning into crisis; a recession that some government officials, including Hassan Rouhani himself, have not acknowledged in the past year, claiming that the economy has exited recession." Vatan Emruz also noted that "another point in the letter is the impact of the nuclear agreement on the economy; these four ministers implicitly indicated that not only has the end of nuclear negotiations not had a positive impact on the economy, but it has also caused turmoil in the economy and created many ambiguities. Moreover, in this letter, there is a kind of expression of hope that the agreement will also have a positive impact." This newspaper reminded that the warning letter from the four ministers to the President was written in mid-September, and there has been no news regarding Hassan Rouhani's response to this letter. "The revelation behind the JCPOA report" The newspaper Etelaat reported on Tuesday about the "revelation behind the JCPOA report," stating that five members of the JCPOA commission announced in a statement to the nation that "the report read by this commission was prepared outside of parliament." The newspaper Etelaat noted that the report of the special commission reviewing the JCPOA was read in the public session on Sunday, and this reading was "accompanied by sharp criticisms and controversies." According to this newspaper, "On Saturday afternoon, the JCPOA review commission held a meeting for final decision-making regarding the JCPOA, but the final report prepared was so one-sided that it faced protests from several members of this commission, and three members left the meeting due to the one-sided nature of this report." Furthermore, on Sunday afternoon, five members of this commission, namely Aladdin Boroujerdi, head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Gholamreza Tajgardoon, head of the Program and Budget Commission, Mansour Haghighatpour, deputy head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Abbasali Mansouri Arani, member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, and Masoud Pezeshkian, issued a statement criticizing the process of preparing the report of this commission and elaborated on the achievements of the JCPOA. Etelaat, quoting the letter from the five representatives who are members of the JCPOA commission regarding the work process and the preparation of the report of this commission, wrote: "The structure of the commission's members, which was formed based on a relative agreement of the political factions in parliament, indicated from the beginning the entry of a one-sided current in the formation, preparation of reports, and invitees, to the extent that based on the insistence and actions of the head of the commission team, a new phenomenon that was beneath the dignity of parliament was created, and the reports and ultimately the final text were acknowledged to have been prepared outside of parliament." The five representatives of the JCPOA commission criticized the method of preparing the report of this commission, stating that according to the commission's resolution, it was supposed that "the commission would listen to the reports of the five specialized committees, discuss, and apply the opinions of the members," but "despite the presentation of the committees' reports, a copy of which exists, the final narrative prepared by the head of the commission team, which was presented in the final session, was contrary to the previous flow and was prepared based on a discourse that was opposed to the JCPOA from the beginning." Aladdin Boroujerdi, Gholamreza Tajgardoon, Mansour Haghighatpour, Abbasali Mansouri Arani, and Masoud Pezeshkian, in their letter, expressed regret over the "bias prevailing in the JCPOA commission," stating that in this commission, "the sincere warnings of the members were ignored, and the one-sided report that was prepared outside the commission was put to a vote among the present members, while three members had left the meeting due to protests," and among the present members, it was approved with six votes in favor and four votes against. The five members of the JCPOA commission in their letter announced that "the statement read was not in line with the interests of the nation, and the very positive effects of the JCPOA that could solve many of the current problems of the country were overlooked." The newspaper Etelaat wrote that in the letter from the five members opposing the report read by the JCPOA commission, a list of "165 achievements of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" was mentioned, including: "For the first time in contemporary history, all the seemingly first-rate powers of the world, despite their internal contradictions, sit down to negotiate with another country that they view as a medium power from an equal position," and "for the first time in the history of the Security Council, six binding resolutions under Chapter Seven of the Charter are canceled all at once without even one hour of implementation," and also "for the first time in the history of the United Nations, a country exits from under Chapter Seven of the Charter without war and conflict and solely through negotiation." Meanwhile, Ehsan Badaghi in a report for the newspaper Etelaat wrote: "The majority of the parliament was again caught off guard as the JCPOA remains stalled. On Sunday, neither the report of the special commission was satisfactory to the supporters of the agreement, nor was the urgent proposal. There was no consensus on the report of the special commission, nor did the consensus on the urgent proposal hold. On Sunday, all the plans of the majority were thwarted, and everything turned out in favor of the minority; a minority that has only managed to leave the game unfinished so far. What was supposed to be completed urgently by the end of the week has now been dragged into uncertainties for the following week," and now in the meantime, "critics are thinking of launching a new proposal to oppose the JCPOA, while supporters are seeking a way to protect the frameworks of the nuclear agreement." Etelaat noted that "the critics have found the opportunity to take the parliamentary nuclear proposal in the direction they favor in the National Security Commission," while the supporters also "want to publish their parallel report on the review of the JCPOA." The nuclear struggle in the Majlis.