The chairman of the National Security Commission of Parliament said that in order to counter American sanctions, efforts are underway to attract capital, including capital from Iranians abroad. According to him, in this regard, a plan to protect their assets will also be presented to Parliament.
Hashmatollah Falahatzadeh, chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, said that given American sanctions against Iran, efforts will be made to attract capital, including capital from Iranian nationals of foreign countries.
According to ISNA news agency, Falahatzadeh stated that the first step in this regard is “an urgent plan to amend Article 989 of the country’s civil law so that the assets of Iranians who have accepted the nationality of another country for any reason will be protected within the country.”
The chairman of the Parliament’s National Security Commission also referred to the government’s recent decision in this matter, stating that “foreign nationals can obtain a five-year residence permit in Iran by investing 250,000 dollars.”
Falahatzadeh said in this regard: “Since America has sanctioned Iran, it may be thought that problems arise for these people, whereas the implementation mechanisms have been envisioned in such a way that investors in Iran engaged in trade will have no problem entering and leaving our country.”
The plan to protect the assets of Iranians abroad and to grant five-year residence permits to foreign investors is being presented by the chairman of Parliament’s National Security Commission at a time when a large number of dual-national Iranians and foreign nationals have faced arrests in Iran in recent years on charges such as “espionage.”
Following these arrests, the British Foreign Office recently issued an unprecedented warning to Iranian-British citizens to travel to Iran only when absolutely necessary and to consider the potential dangers of such travel.
Foreign Nationals and Dual Nationals Facing “Espionage” Charges
Concurrent with Falahatzadeh’s remarks, the spokesman for the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic announced the conviction of a “dual-national infiltrator” to eight and a half years of final imprisonment and “confiscation of his assets.” Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei did not identify this person, but stated that the report of this person’s dual nationality and the charge of “infiltration in sensitive centers and gathering information” was prepared by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. Ejei did not identify the “sensitive center” where this person “infiltrated” to “gather information.”
There are no official and accurate statistics on the number of dual-national prisoners in Iran. Reuters news agency on November 9 of last year (2017) cited the number of these prisoners as over 30 people. It is said that most of these individuals have been arrested and imprisoned by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence Organization over the past few years.
Currently, among dual-national prisoners in the Islamic Republic’s prisons are Nazanin Zaghari, an Iranian-British citizen, Ahmadreza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish citizen, Baquer and Siamak Namazi, Iranian-American citizens, and Mohammad Reza Hashemi Nabi, an Iranian-British citizen.
In addition to these individuals, some dual-national citizens in Iran’s prisons do not have Iranian descent. Nizar Zaki, a Lebanese-American citizen, and Xi Wang, a Chinese-American citizen, are from this group. Two years ago, following the release of several Iranian citizens in America, the Islamic Republic also released a number of dual-national Iranian-American prisoners, including Jason Rezaian, Amir Hekmati, and Said Abedini. It was then announced that the Obama administration, concurrent with the release of these individuals, sent millions of dollars of Iran’s blocked assets in America to Iran by cash and aircraft. Iranian-American dual-national prisoners, upon reaching the United States, filed complaints with American courts and accused the Islamic Republic of “psychological torture” and “hostage-taking” with the intent to influence the course of nuclear negotiations.
Source: DW
