thisday0520

WEDNESDAY MAY 20, 2015 • THISDAY
INTERNATIONAL
G
‘Iran Violated Sanctions
by Purchasing Aircraft’
A senior Israeli official took a
swipe at Washington yesterday
over Iran’s purchase of secondhand
civilian aircraft, saying
the acquisition violated U.S.
sanctions and went ahead
despite a tip-off from Israel.
Iranian Transport Minister,
Abbas Akhoondi, was quoted
on May 11 by the Iranian
Students News Agency as
saying Tehran bought 15 used
commercial planes in the last
three months. He did not say
who sold them or how they
had been acquired.
A long-standing ban on the
export of aircraft spare parts
to Iran was eased under an
interim nuclear deal between
Tehran and world powers in
late 2013, but the U.S. sanctions
regime continues to restrict sales
of planes.
“Israel learned from
intelligence sources about
this very significant breach
of the sanctions in advance
The mother of American
reporter, Austin Tice, who has
been missing in Syria for more
than three years, believes her
son is alive and well, urging
Washington and Damascus to
work together to free him.
Tice went missing in
Damascus in 2012 and the
U.S. State Department said in
March Washington had been in
periodic, direct contact with the
Syrian government regarding his
case, a statement his mother said
provided a glimmer of hope.
“We ask both governments
to work together and to work
effectively to locate Austin and
to secure his safe release,”
Debra Tice told Reuters in
Beirut yesterday during a trip
to mark more than 1,000 days
since he disappeared.
She said the family had
received information from
unspecified sources about her
son’s condition several weeks
ago.
“We hear that he is well, that
he is safe, which is of course
of it occurring,” the Israeli
official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, told Reuters.
“We flagged the issue to the
U.S. administration,” the official
said. “Unfortunately, the deal
still went through and there was
no success in preventing it.”
U.S. and Iranian officials
could not immediately be
reached for comment. The
Israeli official’s comments
appeared to be an attempt to
portray the United States as
being lax in enforcing current
economic restrictions even as
it promises to reimpose them
if Iran fails to honor terms of
a nuclear deal now under
negotiation with six world
powers including Washington.
Israel, Iran’s arch regional
adversary and widely believed
to be the Middle East’s only
nuclear power, says Tehran
cannot be trusted to honor
such an agreement.
The official said the aircraft
Mother of US Missing
Reporter Cries for Help
very important, and the most
important thing is for us to stay
patient.” Tice had worked for
publications including Mc-
Clatchy Newspapers and The
Washington Post. His family says
it is unclear who is holding him.
Reporters Without Borders
have been saying that 25
journalists are being held by
hardline groups in Syria, five
of them foreigners. It says 30,
mainly Syrian journalists, are
in government prisons.
“The Syrian government
denies holding Austin Tice,
but we believe that it has the
ability, it can do a lot, so that
Austin Tice returns home safe
and sound,” Reporters without
Borders Secretary-General
Christophe Deloire told a news
conference.
He said Tice was not being
detained by “religious extremist
groups” and his mother told
reporters he was not being held
by “any part of the opposition.”
“We do not know where he
is nor who is holding him,” she
were sold to an airline that
had been blacklisted by the
United States “because of its
involvement with the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards” and
Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas.
The official did not name the
company.
But the Iranian state news
agency IRNA said on May 12
that Iran’s Mahan Air -- which
is blacklisted by Washington
-- recently acquired nine used
Airbus commercial aircraft.
IRNA did not identify the
seller.
London’s Financial Times
reported last week the deal was
brokered through a complex
series of arrangements with
apparently unwitting companies
across Europe.
The U.S. Commerce
Department first blacklisted
Mahan Air in 2008 after it found
that the firm had imported three
Boeing Co 747 jumbo jets into
Iran without U.S. authorisation.
said. “Someone, someone possibly
near this place, knows
something about my son and
his whereabouts.”
She said a friend of the
family, who is known to
Shi’ite Muslim leaders in
Lebanon, had offered to act
as an intermediary and called
on her son’s captors to consider
allowing that person to meet
with her son.
She said the U.S. government
had not offered her
family enough support and
that there had been too long
a delay in establishing contact
with Damascus.
“I grossly overestimated that
those that I believed would be
qualified in my government
would step up to help my
family.”
The United States vowed last
week to “work tirelessly” to
bring him home. “I long to
hold my son in my arms,”
she said, holding back tears. “I
want my family to be whole
again.”
UN: 25,000 Fled IS Attack on
Ramadi in Iraq
Close to 25,000 people fled
the Iraqi city of Ramadi after
it was attacked by Islamic
State militants and most
of them headed towards
Baghdad, the United Nations
said on Monday.
United Nations and other
aid agencies have begun
distributing food, water
and medical supplies as
well as setting up temporary
camps and latrines, the U.N.
Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs in
Iraq said.
However, funds for aid
operations in Iraq were
running out and aid stocks
were almost gone, it said.
Ramadi fell to the militants
at the weekend and those
fleeing were thought to be
escaping from Islamic State
for a second time, having
been among 130,000 who
fled from the western Iraqi
city in April.
“Thousands of families
who had fled earlier had
returned to their homes in
Ramadi, when fighting again
broke out, forcing them to
flee a second time,” the U.N.
statement said.
“Nothing is more important
right now than helping
the people fleeing Ramadi.
They are in trouble and we
need to do everything possible
to help them,” the U.N.
Humanitarian Coordinator
in Iraq, Lise Grande, said
in the statement.
“Thousands of people
had to sleep in the open
because they didn’t have
places to stay. We would
be able to do much more
if we had the funding, he
added.”
U.N. agencies and other
aid organizations are giving
life-saving assistance to more
than 2.5 million displaced
people and refugees in
Iraq, but funding is nearly
exhausted and 56 health
programs will have to close
by June, the statement said.
“In July, the food pipeline
will break,” it said. Shi’ite
militia fighters arrived
near Ramadi on Monday
as Baghdad moved to retake
the city.