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WWW.TEHRANTIMES.COM I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y 16 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 38th year No.12846 Wednesday JJUNEUNE 77,, 20172017 Khordad 17, 1396 Ramadan 12, 1438 Zarif discusses Siemens to invest Persepolis to meet Iranian boy stands a chance Qatar row with EU’s $100m in Iran’s Al-Ahli of Saudi Arabia of winning award at Dubai Mogherini 2 energy sector 5 in ACL quarterfinals 15 Quran competition 16 Iran’s airspace open to Qatari flights Iran-Russia co-op ECONOMY TEHRAN — With Qatari flights through their skies so all Qatar deskthe dispute between Airways routes to the West and Africa would Qatar and the Arab countries esca- now pass through Iran and Turkey airspace. lated, Iran has accepted flights per- “About 100-150 flights have been formed by Qatari airlines to pass its added to Iran’s daily air traffic,” Tasnim airspace to travel to Africa and Europe. news agency quoted him as saying. changing equations “The decision has been operational Meanwhile, Mehr news agency quoted as of early Tuesday,” said Reza Jafarza- an unnamed official at IAC as saying that deh, the public relations director of presently a total of 955 foreign flights per Iran Civil Aviation Organization. day range over Iran’s airspace and the fig- See page 2 However, Iranian officials announce ure is likely to rise by 200 flights if Qatari various figures for the number of flights airlines decide to choose the Iranian route. that may be added to Iran’s daily air traf- In the past, flights from Qatar to desti- fic due to the diplomatic row among nations in North and Central Europe and some Persian Gulf countries and Qatar. the North Atlantic region used to pass According to Rahmatollah Mahabadi, through the sky of Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq and chairman of the board and managing di- Turkey while now they need to cross Iran’s rector of Iran Airports Company (IAC), some airspace and then that of Turkey before ar- of the regional Arab nations have banned riving in Europe, the official explained. Doha’s rise has irritated Saudis: expert By Javad Heirannia the reasons for its decision. The United TEHRAN — A Middle East expert Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt also from South Alabama University says followed Saudi Arabia by cutting ties Saudi Arabia sees the rapid rise of Qa- with Qatar. tar as a threat to its hegemony in the However, Entessar says a “public Arab world. acknowledgment” by Qatar that Iran is “Saudi Arabia has long viewed an “important regional Muslim player” Qatar’s ascendancy as a threat to its has made the Saudi regime to make hegemonic designs in the Arab world,” such a decision. Mohammadreza Abbasi Mohammadreza Nader Entessar tells the Tehran Times. Following is the text of the inter- On Monday, Saudi Arabia broke view: diplomatic ties with Qatar and cut off What has prompted certain air, sea and land routes to the country. Arab states to cut ties with Qatar? Saudi Arabia cited Doha’s support for A: Saudi Arabia has long viewed Tehran Times/ Tehran Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood as Qatar’s ascendancy as a threat 13 ARTICLE Iran’s presidents-in-waiting ARTICLE By Yuram Abdullah Weiler By Mehran Derakhshandeh endorsement by the Iranian people, gives This most competitive of elections sur- By Mahnaz Abdi Analyst and journalist IRIB journalist and university lecturer him four more years to implement his prised foreign observers and journalists. Head of the Economy Desk economic reforms, and to court foreign Polling stations were forced to stay open until of the TehranTimes Conservative politicians Ebrahim Raisi and investment in Iranian industry – some- midnight on 19 May, in parts of the country Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf have excellent thing which has been slow at best. The because so many Iranians wanted to vote. In- The destabilizing chances of winning future presidential elec- reason for this is that unilateral U.S. deed, some voters were turned away at mid- Billion-dollar Qatari paradox of missile tions in Iran -- both are astute politicians sanctions are still in place against Iran, night and were told they had arrived too late. who should bide their time. and this makes doing business in Iran If these voters had managed to vote, then in food market on tap defense The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, complicated, or simply risky, for many all probability the turnout would have been won a convincing victory in presidential Western firms. It remains to be seen somewhere between 75 and 80 percent – as- he Saudi-led severing of diplo- here is a strange paradox when elections on 19 May 2017. The massive whether President Rouhani can find a way tonishing when you think in presidential or Tmatic ties with Qatar has pro- Tit comes to anti-missile defense: turnout - just over 73 percent of eligible to attract significant foreign investment general elections in Europe or United States vided a unique opportunity for while in theory seeming to in- voters took part - showed quite clearly into Iran. the turnout is usually around the 50 percent Iran to tap into the billion-dollar food crease stability by providing a shield that the Iranian electorate care deeply President Rouhani’s powerful mandate mark, or even lower. The massive turnout of market of its Persian Gulf neighbor. against incoming missiles launched by about their government and their coun- also protects the nuclear deal with the 5+1 voters effectively dashed the hopes of Iran’s Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emir- an adversary, in practice an anti-missile try, and exercising their right to vote is Group, which has been his greatest political enemies, who wished to see the Iranian pub- ates, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Maldives cut on Monday their ties with Qatar system tends to be destabilizing and in- important to them. President Rouhani’s achievement so far. lic shun these elections. 13 crease tension. The reason is that such amid the diplomatic row between a missile “defense” reinforces the second Doha and other Arab states over the strike capability of the deploying nation London mayor calls for cancellation of Trump visit to Britain alleged support for terrorist groups. and could thus increase the likelihood of Although Qatar is one of the wealthi- a pre-emptive first strike by the nation London Mayor Sadiq Khan is calling on the Donald Trump is wrong.” “He has more important things to do than est countries in the world, it relies heavily against which the system is deployed. British government to cancel a state visit Trump criticized Khan for his comments fol- respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet on importing food as most of the coun- Robert S. McNamara realized this from the United States President Trump after lowing the weekend terror attack in London that deliberately takes out of context his re- try consists of sand desert. According to paradox in the 1960s, when he was Trump criticized his response to this week- that killed at least seven people and wounded marks urging Londoners not to be alarmed the World Bank’s data the Arab nation secretary of defense under U.S. presi- end’s terror attacks in London. dozens more. “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded when they saw more police - including armed has imported about $1 billion of food- dent John F. Kennedy and then Lyndon “I don’t think we should roll out the red in terror attack and Mayor of London says there officers - on the streets,” the spokesperson said. stuffs in 2015, with about a third of that Johnson. Kennedy was elected to the carpet to the president of the USA in the is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” Trump tweeted Khan has previously called for Trump to be coming from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. presidency, partly on concerns of an circumstances where his policies go against on Sunday morning. denied a state visit in Britain. He pointed to Qatar is a peninsula surrounded by imaginary “missile gap” between the everything we stand for,” Khan said in an in- Trump appeared to be referencing Khan’s Trump’s executive order barring refugees and the Persian Gulf. Its only land border is U.S. and the U.S.S.R., with fears being terview with Britain’s Channel 4 News. comments earlier in the day in which he said people from seven predominantly Muslim with Saudi Arabia and now with Saudi that the Soviets possessed many more “When you have a special relationship it is there was no reason to worry about the in- countries from entering the U.S. as his rea- Arabia closing this border and also halt- ICBMs than did the Americans. McNa- no different from when you have got a close creased police presence in London. son, calling the order “cruel.” ing air and sea traffic with Qatar while mara was horrified to discover that the mate. You stand with them in times of ad- Khan’s spokesperson said on Sunday that “In those circumstances, we shouldn’t be the UAE has also closed its airports and versity but you call them out when they are he wouldn’t respond to Trump’s tweet, saying rolling out the red carpet,” he said. harbors to the Qatari flights and ship- U.S. had nuclear plans to unleash an (Source: The Hill) all-out nuclear retaliatory strike against wrong. There are many things about which he had “more important things to do.” ping, the import dependent state is fac- the “Sino-Soviet bloc,” as the two powers ing the threat of food shortage.

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