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Hossein Alikhani | |
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| Born | Iran |
| Died | 4 March 2008 |
| Nationality | Iranian |
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Hossein Alikhani was an Iranian NGO founder, political scientist, and author who was abducted in a sting operation by undercover United States Customs Service agents in 1992, and released after being held for 130 days.
Alikhani was the author of In the Claw of The Eagle: A Guide to U.S Sanctions Against Libya and Sanctioning Iran: Anatomy of a Failed Policy, and was an authority on the subject of unilateral trade sanctions and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996. He founded the NGO Centre for World Dialogue based in Nicosia, Cyprus. Despite his own troubles in the United States, Alikhani was an avid proponent of improving US-Iran relations and enabled the first meeting between the former Iranian hostage-taker of the United States embassy in Tehran, Abbas Abdi and his former hostage, Barry Rosen. The reconciliation meeting in 1998 was organized by the Centre for World Dialogue and took place at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. [1]
Hossein Alikhani died [2] on 4 March 2008 at the age of 63 after battling acute leukemia. His children include the Emmy Award-winning producer Borna Alikhani.
Alikhani was seized in the Bahamas in 1992, accused of violating American sanctions against Libya, and held for 130 days. His seizure was a "kidnapping" because the sanctions did not apply to non-American citizens living outside the United States. [3] [4]
Alikhani filed a suit in Iran against the United States for "kidnapping" him and, won the first lawsuit by an Iranian against the United States for supporting terrorism. [5] Iran informed the U.S. government through the Swiss consulate in Tehran. According to the court decision the US government was required to pay $550 million to Alikhani.
As the United States refused to pay the money, Alikhani asked the court to put the American embassy in Tehran on sale. Alikhani expected to make as much as $200 million from the sale, much less than the $550 million awarded him by the Tehran court. [6] [7] This was a symbolic victory for Alikhani considering that the sale has not taken place; the US embassy compound is still housed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University, says the U.S. made a mistake by allowing Americans to collect such large damages in these uncontested cases. "If we could play that game, others can play that game too," says Mr. Sick, who served at the National Security Council under three presidents. [3]
Independent human rights bodies in the US also took up Alikhani's case much after the case was decided, presenting the case as one of extraordinary rendition. [8] [9] [10]
A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized—such as a relative, employer, law enforcement, or government—to act, or refrain from acting, in a certain way, often under threat of serious physical harm or death to the hostage(s) after expiration of an ultimatum. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition defines a hostage as "a person who is handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war."
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, including Hossein Dehghan, Mohammad Ali Jafari and Mohammad Bagheri, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took them as hostages. The hostages were held for 444 days, from November 4, 1979 to their release on January 20, 1981. The crisis is considered a pivotal episode in the history of Iran–United States relations.
Iran and the United States have had no formal diplomatic relations since 7 April 1980. Instead, Pakistan serves as Iran's protecting power in the United States, while Switzerland serves as the United States' protecting power in Iran. Contacts are carried out through the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the US Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. In August 2018, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei banned direct talks with the United States.
The Islamic Jihad Organization, was a Lebanese Shia militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War.
Bank Melli Iran is the first national and commercial retail bank of Iran. It was considered as the largest Iranian company in terms of annual income with a revenue of 364 657 billion Rials in 2016. It is the largest bank in the Islamic world and in the Middle East. By the end of 2016, BMI had a net asset of $76.6 billion and a network of 3.328 banking branches; so it was known as the largest Iranian bank based on the amount of assets. The brand of BMI was recognized as one of the 100 top Iranian brands in 10th National Iranian Heroes Championship in 2013. The National Bank has 3328 active branches inside, 14 active branches and 4 sub-stations abroad and it has 180 booths. The first managing director of BMI was Kurt Lindenblatt from Germany, the first foreign branch of BMI was opened in Hamburg, Germany in 1948.
Three Iranian diplomats as well as a reporter for Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) were abducted in Lebanon on 4 July 1982. None of them have been seen since. The missing individuals are Ahmad Motevaselian, military attaché for Iran's embassy in Beirut; Seyed Mohsen Mousavi, chargé d'affaires at the embassy; Taghi Rastegar Moghadam, an embassy employee; and Kazem Akhavan, IRNA photojournalist. Motevaselian was also an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) member in command of an Iranian expeditionary force in Lebanon.
United States of America v. Islamic Republic of Iran [1980] ICJ 1 is a public international law case brought to the International Court of Justice by the United States of America against Iran in response to the Iran hostage crisis, where United States diplomatic offices and personnel were seized by militant revolutionaries.
The Algiers Accords of January 19, 1981 was a set of obligations and commitments undertaken independently by the United States and Iran to resolve the Iran hostage crisis, brokered by the Algerian government and signed in Algiers on January 19, 1981. The crisis began from the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, where Iranian students took hostage of present American embassy staff. By this accord and its adherence, 52 American citizens were able to leave Iran. With the two countries unable to settle on mutually agreeable terms, particularly for quantitative financial obligations, Algerian mediators proposed an alternative agreement model - one where each country undertook obligations under the accords independently, rather than requiring both countries to mutually adhere to the same terms under a bilateral agreement.
The United States has since 1979 applied various economic, trade, scientific and military sanctions against Iran. United States economic sanctions are administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury. Currently, United States sanctions against Iran include an embargo on dealings with the country by the United States, and a ban on selling aircraft and repair parts to Iranian aviation companies.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian is an Iranian policymaker and scholar who served on Iran's nuclear diplomacy team in negotiations with the EU and International Atomic Energy Agency. He resides in the United States and is a visiting research scholar at Princeton University.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been accused by several countries of training, financing, and providing weapons and safe havens for non-state militant actors, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other Palestinian groups such as the Islamic Jihad (IJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). These groups are designated terrorist groups by a number of countries and international bodies such as the EU, UN, and NATO; however, Iran considers such groups to be "national liberation movements" with a right to self-defense against Israeli military occupation. These proxies are used by Iran across the Middle East and Europe to foment instability, expand the scope of the Islamic Revolution, and carry out terrorist attacks against Western targets in the regions. Its special operations unit, the Quds Force, is known to provide arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.
Libya–United States relations are the bilateral relations between the State of Libya and the United States of America. Relations are today cordial and cooperative, with particularly strong security cooperation only after the 2012 attack on the US liaison office or mission in Benghazi. Furthermore, a Gallup poll conducted in March and April 2012 found that Libyans had "among the highest approval" of US leadership in the entire Middle East and North Africa region.
The United Arab Emirates has quite a close and friendly relationship with the US, being described as the United States' best counter-terrorism ally in the Gulf by Richard A. Clarke, the U.S. national security advisor and counter-terrorism expert. In terms of defense, the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces has been nicknamed "Little Sparta" by United States Armed Forces generals and former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis for its active role against extremists in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates also hosts the only United States border preclearance in the Middle East.
Iran–Switzerland relations are foreign relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Swiss Confederation.
Canada and Iran have had no formal diplomatic relations since 2012. In the absence of diplomatic representation, Italy acts as the protecting power for Canada in Iran and Switzerland acts as Iran's protecting power in Canada.
The Centre for World Dialogue is an independent, privately funded think tank based in Nicosia, Cyprus.
The Iran hostage crisis negotiations were negotiations in 1980 and 1981 between the United States Government and the Iranian Government to end the Iranian hostage crisis. The 52 American hostages, seized from the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, were finally released on 20 January 1981. A detailed account of the hostage crisis and the Algiers Accords is found in American Hostages In Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis [Yale 1985] put together by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Public Law 113-110 is a law that "ban(s) Iran's new United Nations ambassador, who has ties to a terrorist group, from entering the United States." Iran's proposed ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi, is controversial due to his involvement in the Iran hostage crisis, in which a number of American diplomats from the US embassy in Tehran were held captive from 1979 until 1981. Aboutalebi said he did not participate in the takeover of the US embassy, but was brought in to translate and negotiate following the occupation. President Barack Obama told Iran that Aboutalebis selection was not "viable" and Congress reacted by passing this law to ban his presence in the United States.
Kenneth L. Kraus is a former United States Marine who was the first American taken hostage by Iranian militants prior to the Iran hostage crisis.
The Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Rights between the United States and Iran was signed in Tehran on August 15, 1955, received the consent of the U.S. Senate on July 11, 1956 and entered into force on 16 June 1957. The treaty is registered by the United States to the United Nations on 20 December 1957. The official texts are in English and Persian. It is sealed by plenipotentiaries Selden Chapin (U.S.) and Mostafa Samiy (Iran). The Treaty has served as the jurisdictional basis for various international legal disputes between the United States and Iran, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) cases Oil Platforms and Alleged Violations of the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Rights. In October 2018, the United States provided notice that it would be withdrawing from the Treaty following Iran's use of the Treaty as a basis to challenge the U.S. imposition of sanctions under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the Alleged Violations case.
