Month: May 2017

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.

Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day’s fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department.

Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

According to an April 6 memo seen by Reuters, the office — which typically initiates such events — recommended that Tillerson hold an Eid al-Fitr reception.

Ramadan event

His rejection of the request suggests there are no plans this year for any high-profile Ramadan function at the State Department. The month of fasting and prayer for Muslims gets under way in many countries on Saturday.

When asked by Reuters to comment on Tillerson declining a request to host an Eid al-Fitr event in July for Ramadan, a State Department spokesperson said:

“We are still exploring possible options for observance of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month of Ramadan. U.S. ambassadors are encouraged to celebrate Ramadan through a variety of activities, which are held annually at missions around the world.”

Muslim activists have accused President Donald Trump’s administration of having an unfriendly attitude toward Islam, encapsulated by its attempts to ban citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

The administration says that while it strongly opposes Islamist militants, it has no quarrel with Islam. Aides point to Trump’s visit this month to Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam where he addressed the leaders of more than 50 Muslim countries, as evidence of that.

Members of Congress, Muslim civil society and community leaders, diplomats from Muslim countries and senior U.S. officials usually attend the State Department Ramadan event, a symbol of the U.S. government’s diplomatic efforts with Muslim countries and people.

If Tillerson avoids hosting one this year, that could send a message “that it is not as important to this administration to engage with Muslims,” said former U.S. diplomat Farah Pandith, who served in the Bush and Obama administrations and helped plan Ramadan events at the White House and State Department.

Tillerson issued a statement on Friday to mark the start of Ramadan, which he called “a month of reverence, generosity, and self-reflection.”

“Most importantly, it is a cherished time for family and friends to gather and give charity to those who are less fortunate,” he said.

Past events

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright started the tradition 18 years ago of America’s top diplomat hosting a public event for Ramadan, a lunar month.

The secretary of state of the time usually gives remarks there on the meaning of Ramadan.

In April, the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs made a request to Tillerson’s office that he deliver remarks at an Eid al-Fitr reception this year, and suggested a two-week range of dates in July. The event would serve to “highlight State Department initiatives and the importance of Muslim engagement,” the memo said.

It noted that by hosting a reception just after Ramadan, rather than an iftar – an often sumptuous dinner at sunset – a State Department event could be held any time of the day, thus preventing “a very late evening for the Secretary.”

Several weeks later, that office and other offices at the State Department were alerted that Tillerson declined the request, the officials said.

Reuters was told of the request being declined but did not see Tillerson’s reply. An official with the Office of Religion and Global Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

Several prominent Muslim-American groups in the Washington area who are normally invited to the Ramadan event told Reuters this week that they had yet to receive an invitation from the State Department, which they said was unusual.

Also In Politics

“If they’re having one, we haven’t been invited,” said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington. A representative for her group has been invited to the State Department event in the past, she said.

Fraught relationship

Trump’s administration has had a fraught relationship with Muslims. As a presidential candidate, the Republican urged a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, called for more surveillance of mosques and warned that radical Muslims were “trying to take over our children.”

Trump has since toned down his rhetoric and courts have halted his temporary travel ban on people from six mostly Muslim countries.

White House officials did not respond to a request for comment on whether they would continue the tradition this year of hosting a Ramadan-related event at the White House.

The State Department celebrates other religious traditions though some of those commemorations are not as well-established as the State Department’s Ramadan event. In 2014, then-secretary of state John Kerry hosted the first ever celebration at the State Department marking Diwali, the Hindu festival.

The White House also traditionally hosts annual Christmas and Easter events as well as a Seder dinner to mark the Jewish Passover.

The top U.S. diplomat has personally hosted a Ramadan event every year since 1999, often in the State Department’s grand Benjamin Franklin room, apart from three years.

In 2006 and 2015, deputies of the secretary of state at the time hosted either an iftar dinner or an Eid al-Fitr reception. In 2014, Kerry hosted a reception for Eid al-Adha, another important Muslim holiday.
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The mother of the CEO of the ride-hailing company Uber died in a boat accident Friday evening in Fresno County, the company said.

Bonnie Kalanick, 71, died after the boat she and her husband, Donald, 78, were riding hit a rock in Pine Flat Lake in the eastern part of the county, authorities said.

They are the parents of Travis Kalanick, 40, who founded Uber in 2009. The company has since grown to become an international operation with a market value of nearly $70 billion.

The couple have been longtime boaters. In a memo to Uber staff, Liane Hornsey, the chief human resources officer, called the incident an “unthinkable tragedy.” She wrote that “everyone in the Uber family knows how incredibly close Travis is to his parents.”

About 5 p.m. Friday, officers were called to the scene of the accident and found a man and woman on a shore of the lake, the Fresno County Sheriff’s office said in a statement.

The woman died at the scene, and the man suffered moderate injuries, the sheriff’s office said. He told officers the boat had sunk.

An autopsy of the woman is planned, the office said.

Uber identified the couple as the Kalanicks. Donald Kalanick is being treated at a hospital and is in stable condition, the company said.

Crews will try to remove the boat from the lake Saturday, the sheriff’s office said.
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Jim Bunning, a baseball star who later served nearly a quarter-century in the U.S. Congress, has died at age 85 in his home state of Kentucky.

Bunning, who died Friday, had suffered a stroke in October 2016. He served six two-year terms as a congressman beginning in 1987, and was elected twice to the U.S. Senate.

Bunning pitched for 17 years, originally for the Detroit Tigers then for three other teams, and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. The only Hall of Famer ever elected to Congress, he was a staunch conservative whose outspoken style aroused some controversy during his later years in the Senate, Bunning chose not to run for re-election in 2010.

Known in baseball for his consistency — rarely missing a turn in his team’s pitching rotation, shrugging off fatigue or minor injuries — Bunning had the second-highest total of strikeouts, 2,855, when he retired as an athlete. He threw a perfect game in the National League and also had a no-hitter in the American League — an unusual distinction — and also was the second pitcher ever to win at least 100 games and amass 1,000 strikeouts in each of American baseball’s two major leagues.

Bunning’s wife, Mary Catherine, whom he married in 1952, survives him. The couple had five daughters and four sons.
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The Senate Intelligence Committee, investigating Russian meddling in U.S. 2016 election, has asked President Donald Trump’s political organization to hand over all documents going back the campaign’s launch in June 2015, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing two people briefed on the request.

The letter from the Senate panel seeking all documents, emails and telephone records arrived at Trump’s campaign committee last week and was addressed to its treasurer, the Post said.

This marked the first time the Trump campaign organization has been drawn into the bipartisan committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election, it said.

Dozens of former campaign staffers are expected to be contacted soon to ensure they are aware of the request, the Post said, citing the two people.

The letter was signed by Republican Senator Richard Burr, the committee’s chairman, and Senator Mark Warner, its top Democrat, according to the Post, which said representatives for Burr and Warner declined to comment.

The Senate panel’s investigation is among several in Congress into Russian interference in the election, and is separate from a probe into the matter being led by a special counsel appointed last week by the Justice Department, former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller.

Trump’s campaign committee, based at Trump Tower in New York, is now led by Michael Glassner, a former deputy campaign manager, and John Pence, a nephew of Vice President Mike Pence, the Post said.

Glassner did not immediately respond to a request for comment and a White House representative had no immediate comment, the Post said.

Trump’s administration has been dogged by concerns about its ties to Russia and questions over whether Trump associates may have cooperated with Russians as they sought to meddle in last year’s election on Trump’s behalf.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Moscow tried to sway the November vote in Trump’s favor. Russia has denied involvement, and Trump has denied any collusion between

his campaign and Russia.

Controversy has engulfed Trump since he fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9 as Comey oversaw an investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia.
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A federal judge Friday tossed out two life sentences for one of Virginia’s most notorious criminals, sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, and ordered Virginia courts to hold new sentencing hearings.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson in Norfolk said Malvo is entitled to new sentencing hearings after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional.

Malvo was 17 when he was arrested in 2002 for a series of shootings that killed 10 people and wounded three over a three-week span in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, causing widespread fear throughout the region.

His accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, was executed in 2009.

Sentenced in Maryland

Malvo also was sentenced to life in prison in Maryland for the murders that occurred there. But his lawyers have made an appeal on similar grounds in that state. A hearing is scheduled in June.

Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh, who helped prosecute Malvo in 2003, said the Virginia attorney general can appeal Jackson’s ruling. If not, Morrogh said he would pursue another life sentence, saying he believes Malvo meets the criteria for a harsh sentence.

Michael Kelly, spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, said Friday evening that the office is “reviewing the decision and will do everything possible, including a possible appeal, to make sure this convicted mass murderer serves the life sentences that were originally imposed.”

He also noted that the convictions themselves stand and emphasized that, even if Malvo gets a new sentencing hearing, he could still be resentenced to a life term.

Supreme Court ruling

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional. Then, last year, the Supreme Court applied that case retroactively to sentences issued before 2012.

Malvo’s first trial took place in Chesapeake after a judge agreed to move it from Fairfax because of pretrial publicity. A jury convicted Malvo of capital murder for the slaying of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, who was shot in the head outside a Home Depot store. Under Virginia law, a capital murder conviction requires either a death sentence or life without parole. Prosecutors sought a death sentence, but a jury opted for life in prison.

Malvo then negotiated a plea bargain in Spotsylvania County and agreed to a life sentence and waived his appeal rights.

Virginia’s argument

The attorney general’s office argued unsuccessfully that the Supreme Court rulings should not apply to Malvo. To begin with, while the jury in Chesapeake had only the option of a death penalty or life without parole, the capital murder statute required them to make specific findings about Malvo, including a conclusion that he poses a future danger. The state argued that the jury’s findings provide the kind of individualized assessment that the Supreme Court requires to sentence a juvenile to life in prison.

The state also argued that Malvo knowingly waived his appeal rights when he struck the plea bargain in Spotsylvania County.

Jackson, in his ruling, wrote that Malvo was entitled to a new sentencing hearing because the Supreme Court’s ruling grants new rights to juveniles that Malvo didn’t know he had when he agreed to the plea bargain.

Malvo has been serving his sentence at Red Onion state prison in southwest Virginia.
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Preparing for North Korea’s growing threat, the Pentagon will try to shoot down an intercontinental-range missile for the first time in a test next week. The goal is to more closely simulate a North Korean ICBM aimed at the U.S. homeland, officials said Friday

The American interceptor has a spotty track record, succeeding in nine of 17 attempts against missiles of less than intercontinental range since 1999. The most recent test, in June 2014, was a success, but that followed three failures. The system has evolved from the multibillion-dollar effort triggered by President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 push for a “Star Wars” solution to ballistic missile threats during the Cold War — when the Soviet Union was the only major worry.

North Korea is now the focus of U.S. efforts because its leader, Kim Jong Un, has vowed to field a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching American territory. He has yet to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, but Pentagon officials believe he is speeding in that direction.

‘Left unchecked,’ North Korea will succeed

Marine Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said this week that “left unchecked,” Kim will eventually succeed.

The Pentagon has a variety of missile defense systems, but the one designed with a potential North Korean ICBM in mind is perhaps the most technologically challenging. Critics say it also is the least reliable.

The basic defensive idea is to fire a rocket into space upon warning of a hostile missile launch. The rocket releases a 5-foot-long device called a “kill vehicle” that uses internal guidance systems to steer into the path of the oncoming missile’s warhead, destroying it by force of impact. Officially known as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, the Pentagon likens it to hitting a bullet with a bullet.

Test set for Tuesday

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, which is responsible for developing and testing the system, has scheduled the intercept test for Tuesday.

An interceptor is to be launched from an underground silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and soar toward the target, which will be fired from a test range on Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. If all goes as planned, the “kill vehicle” will slam into the ICBM-like target’s mock warhead high over the Pacific Ocean.

The target will be a custom-made missile meant to simulate an ICBM, meaning it will fly faster than missiles used in previous intercept tests, according to Christopher Johnson, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency. The target is not a mock-up of an actual North Korean ICBM.

“We conduct increasingly complex test scenarios as the program matures and advances,” Johnson said Friday. “Testing against an ICBM-type threat is the next step in that process.”

Military in need of a success story

Officials say this is not a make-or-break test.

While it wasn’t scheduled with the expectation of an imminent North Korean missile threat, the military will closely watch whether it shows progress toward the stated goal of being able to reliably shoot down a small number of ICBMs targeting the United States. The Pentagon is thirsting for a success story amid growing fears about North Korea’s escalating capability.

“I can’t imagine what they’re going to say if it fails,” said Philip Coyle, senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He headed the Pentagon’s office of operational test and evaluation from 1994 to 2001 and has closely studied the missile defense system.

“These tests are scripted for success, and what’s been astonishing to me is that so many of them have failed,” Coyle said.

The interceptor system has been in place since 2004, but it has never been used in combat or fully tested. There currently are 32 interceptors in silos at Fort Greely in Alaska and four at Vandenberg, north of Los Angeles. The Pentagon says it will have eight more, for a total of 44, by the end of this year.

$7.9B sought for missile defense 

In its 2018 budget presented to Congress this week, the Pentagon proposed spending $7.9 billion on missile defense, including $1.5 billion for the ground-based midcourse defense program. Other elements of that effort include the Patriot, designed to shoot down short-range ballistic missiles, and the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, which the U.S. has installed in South Korea as a defense against medium-range North Korean missiles.

The Trump administration has yet to announce its intentions on missile defense.

President Donald Trump recently ordered the Pentagon to undertake a ballistic missile defense review. Some experts argue the current strategy for shooting down ICBM-range missiles, focused on the silo-based interceptors, is overly expensive and inadequate. They say a more fruitful approach would be to destroy or disable such missiles before they can be launched, possibly by cyberattack.
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The United States is again receiving intelligence from a key ally, putting to rest, for now at least, the latest flap over Washington’s handling of sensitive information.

Britain resumed intelligence sharing with the U.S. late Thursday, saying it had received “fresh assurances” after American officials leaked key details of the investigation into the Manchester terror attack to the media.

“While we do not usually comment on information sharing arrangements, having received fresh assurances, we are now working closely with our key partners around the world including all those in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance,” said Assistant Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, Britain’s top counterterrorism officer.

The “Five Eyes” alliance is the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

British police furious

Tensions between the U.S. and Britain, simmering since U.S. officials began leaking details like the name of the Manchester bomber just hours after the attack, came to a boil Thursday. Manchester police were reported to be furious that the New York Times published unreleased forensic photographs from the crime scene.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, who earlier said she intended to make clear “that intelligence that is shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure,” did just that during an encounter with U.S. President Donald Trump at Thursday’s NATO summit in Brussels, according to a spokesman.

Watch: May on Pressing Trump About Manchester Intel Leaks

And it seems the message resonated.

“My administration will get to the bottom of this,” Trump said in a statement, calling the leaks “deeply troubling” and “a grave threat to our national security.”​

‘Initiated appropriate steps’

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also took action, saying Thursday he had “initiated appropriate steps” to take care of the problem.

Some British officials were quick to caution that despite the flare-up, there likely would be no lasting damage to what has been a strong and steady relationship between the two countries.

“When one side talks the other side listens,” one official told VOA on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials were likewise eager to condemn the leaks, emphasizing the need to assure allies the intelligence community can be trusted.

Other incidents

But the dispute with Britain over details of the Manchester investigation is just the latest and follows another incident that has threatened to unsettle U.S. allies.

Israel this week said it had changed its intelligence sharing protocols with the U.S. after Trump shared highly classified information with Russian diplomats during a visit to the White House two weeks ago.

“I can confirm that we did a spot repair,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Army Radio Wednesday. “What we had to clarify with our friends in the United States, we did.”

But even though both Israel and Britain say their intelligence sharing relationships with the U.S. remain excellent, the incident may add to nagging doubts held by some U.S. allies since Trump took office.

“We don’t want to create a situation where other intelligence services, our allies like the Brits, like the Israelis, feel very hesitant to share intelligence and share information with us because of the fear that this information or this intel can end up on the front page of newspapers,” Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory special agent, told VOA.

“Sharing it [the intelligence] with the Russians, an entity that’s considered hostile both to us, from an intelligence perspective, and to the country … is very damaging to the relationship,” he added.

Top U.S. intelligence officials also acknowledge there is a danger.

“The release of information not only undermines confidence in our allies about our ability to maintain secure information that we share with them, it jeopardizes sources and methods that are invaluable to our ability to find out what’s going on and what those threats are,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers earlier this week.

For now, there is no evidence that the leaks from the Manchester investigation or Trump’s disclosure to the Russians, have resulted in any lasting problems, although intelligence assessments have not been completed.

And despite any misgivings, U.S. allies are unlikely to bail out on long-standing intelligence relationships that have been cultivated for decades.

“We still have the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world,” Soufan said. “We need our allies to work with us, but let’s be frank, they need us more than we need them. So this is going to create some frustrating feelings, but I think we will overcome that.”

 
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U.S. Native Americans are expressing alarm over President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 federal budget, which calls for across-the-board spending cuts to agencies and programs that provide them with critical services.

The Department of the Interior (DOI), which houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs, faces a nearly 11 percent budget reduction.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs faces cuts of more than $300 million.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, would see spending trimmed by 13.2 percent.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget would decrease by 31.4 percent.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the Indian Health Service, would be trimmed by 16.2 percent.
The Department of Education would lose 13.5 percent in funding.

An estimated 2.2 million people in Native American and Alaska Native communities, or NA/ANs, would be affected by proposed cuts in health care spending.

Compared to the overall population, they face chronic disparities in health and health care, suffering high rates of diabetes, heart disease, depression and alcoholism.

Treaties and laws require the government to provide certain protections, rights and services to NA/ANs, including health care.

The chronically underfunded Indian Health Service (IHS) offers care through a network of hospitals, clinics and health stations managed by IHS, tribes or tribal organizations, and urban Indian health programs. If the proposed budget passes, Medicaid, the national and state program that covers low-income individuals, could see its budget cut by $610 billion over the next 10 years. Mark Trahant, a journalist, academic and member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes who has covered NA/AN affairs for 30 years, is concerned.

“In Indian Country, more than half of all Indian kids who go through Indian Health Service have their insurance through Medicaid,” he said. “Thirty-six percent of Medicaid is Indian care.”

The budget would eliminate programs like the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps low-income households pay to heat or cool their homes. In 2016, 150 tribal groups and more than 43,000 Native households received LIHEAP funds.

“So, any kind of programs for folks to get subsidies to live in homes would go away,” said Trahant. “There’s just not any private sector housing on reservations, so that would be a big problem.”

Alaska Natives are particularly troubled by the proposed elimination of the Denali Commission. The small federal agency coordinates state-federal infrastructure projects that include providing water and sewer systems to remote villages and moving the village of Newtok, threatened by ongoing erosion and melting permafrost, due to warmer temperatures.

Also slated to be cut is the Essential Air Service, an annual federal subsidy program that supports commercial air service in remote areas across Alaska. In all, more than 60 communities would be impacted.

“If you live in a village where air service is not only the route out for travel but your route in for goods and services, you’re really sunk,” Trahant said.

Other programs aimed at supporting housing assistance, business development and energy weatherization face possible elimination.

Tribal leaders say the budget ignores federal obligations to NA/AN’s.

“The cutbacks to tribal programs are cutting into the bone and fail to recognize very real and critically important needs,” Fawn Sharp, the president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, said Tuesday at a tribal conference in Portland, Oregon. “It is so severe that it’s absolutely illogical and unreasonable.”

Lawmakers from states with significant Native American populations have also expressed concern. They include New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

“President Trump’s budget proposal for programs affecting Indian Country is extremely troubling because of its disregard for the federal government’s responsibilities and its troubling lack of understanding of the challenges facing Tribal communities,” Udall said Tuesday in a statement.

New Mexico is home to 23 federally recognized tribes and about 220,000 Native American citizens, a third of whom live below the poverty line.

Others voicing disappointment with the new administration’s proposal include Oklahoma Republican Congressman Tom Cole, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, one of more than three dozen tribes in that state.

During a House subcommittee hearing on the budget for the Indian Health Service Wednesday, Cole pledged to work to “reverse the numbers.”

“Whether the administration knows it or not, this budget reflects that it doesn’t care very much about Indian health care,” he said.

Trahant said he isn’t too concerned, adding that releasing the budget is only the first step in what could end up being a lengthy process. It’s now up to Congress to rework the budget, the journalist said, advising concerned groups to focus on Capitol Hill, not the White House.
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Two truck owners have filed a class-action lawsuit against General Motors, alleging the company rigged diesel pickups to cheat government emissions tests.

The suit was filed Thursday in federal court in Detroit, home of the country’s largest car builder.

GM is accused of installing three devices on hundreds of thousands of trucks, allowing them to spew less pollution in tests than they would on the road, under real-life driving conditions.

Plaintiffs Andrei Fenner of Mountain View, California, and Joshua Herman of Sulphur, Louisiana, said they wouldn’t have purchased, or wouldn’t have paid as much for, their vehicles — a 2011 GMC Sierra and a 2016 Chevrolet Silverado, respectively — had they been aware of the alleged rigging.

The lawsuit also names the German-based Bosch company for allegedly working with GM to develop the devices.

GM called the allegations “baseless,” while Bosch refused to comment on an outstanding legal matter.

The price of GM shares fell about 2 percent Thursday on the news.

GM is the latest automobile giant charged with trying to fix emissions tests. The U.S. Justice Department sued Fiat Chrysler this week, claiming it used illegal software to fake emission test results on its diesel vehicles, and  Germany’s Volkswagen paid billions of dollars after admitting it had cheated on government emissions tests.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that his department is reviewing licenses for Boeing Co and Airbus to sell aircraft to Iran, telling lawmakers he will increase sanctions pressure on Iran, Syria and North Korea.

“We will use everything within our power to put additional sanctions on Iran, Syria and North Korea to protect American lives,” Mnuchin said in testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee. “I can assure you that’s a big focus of mine and I discuss it with the president.”

He did not elaborate on the review of the aircraft licenses, which are tied to Iran’s compliance with a 2015 agreement with world powers to freeze its nuclear weapons development.

IranAir has agreed to buy a total of 200 U.S. and European passenger aircraft worth a total of $35 billion — $37 billion at list prices, though such deals typically include big discounts.

They include 80 passenger jets from Boeing, 100 from its European rival Airbus and 20 turboprop planes from Franco-Italian supplier ATR. All of the aircraft need U.S. export licenses.
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