Category Archives: Iran

How Trump shifted from opposing foreign wars to threatening war in Iran

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The rationale to justify the US striking first has shifted from the country killing protesters to its developing weapons

As senior Democrats emerged from a classified briefing on Iran with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, earlier this week, the leaders of the opposition delivered reserved, cryptic warnings of what may become the US’s largest military intervention since the Iraq war.

This was not a line in the sand against a new war in the Middle East. Instead, Democrats targeted the opaque decision-making around Donald Trump – as well as his own unpredictable whims – that could guide the weightiest foreign-policy decision of his two terms in office.

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Latest US-Iran nuclear talks conclude with claims of ‘significant progress’

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Mediators say more talks to be held next week but no clear evidence two sides any closer on uranium enrichment

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended on Thursday with the Omani mediators claiming that “significant progress” had been made and predicting the talks would reconvene at a technical level next week in Vienna.

But there was no immediate evidence to support suggestions that the two sides had drawn closer together on the fundamental issues of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stocks.

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Anxiety mounts across Middle East amid fears of US-Iran war

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People across region are bracing for possibility of conflict as embassies evacuate staff and flights are cancelled

Anxiety is growing over a potential war between Iran and the US in the Middle East, with embassies evacuating staff and airlines cancelling flights as tensions mount.

As critical talks over Iran’s nuclear programme entered their second round on Thursday night, and a vast US military buildup continued in the Middle East, the Trump administration warned of drastic consequences if Iranian negotiators failed to make significant concessions.

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Members of Iran’s elite accused of hypocrisy over children’s lives in west

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Opposition campaigners claim top figures in regime use state wealth to fund lifestyles counter to those they preach

Members of Iran’s ruling elite have been accused of brazen hypocrisy by allegedly using the state’s wealth to help to fund their adult children’s lives in the west while presiding over growing economic misery and repression at home.

Opposition campaigners made the accusation against some of the clerical regime’s most powerful figures as a military confrontation with the US appears increasingly likely. Donald Trump has deployed a vast armada in the Middle East and confirmed he is considering strikes.

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Marco Rubio briefs US lawmakers on Iran as Trump uses State of the Union to threaten nuclear programme

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Secretary of state makes rare briefing to so-called ‘gang of eight’ as US deploys largest force of aircraft and warships to Middle East since 2003

Marco Rubio delivered a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran, just a few hours before Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to say that Tehran would never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Amid the largest deployment of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war, Trump said he wanted to solve the confrontation with Iran through diplomatic means while claiming that Tehran was seeking to develop ballistic missiles that could reach the US, without providing further details.

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Armed police flood Iran’s universities to crush student protests

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Campus clashes provide uneasy backdrop to third round of talks on nuclear programme in Geneva

Plainclothes police and security forces, many of them armed, have tried to flood Iran’s remaining open universities in an attempt to crush a fourth day of student protests against the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Running battles were reported on some campuses, with videos showing fistfights between the Basji state-backed militia and students at the University of Science and Technology in Tehran. Pick-up trucks with machine-guns were photographed parked outside the University of Tehran, with demonstrations also in Mashhad.

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Trump Iran airstrikes decision to be guided by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s advice

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Exclusive: Trump’s decision will be driven by envoys’ judgment on whether Iran is stalling on a nuclear deal

Donald Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons, according to people familiar with the matter.

The president has not made a final determination on any strikes, as the administration prepares for Iran to send its latest proposal this week, ahead of what officials have described as a last-ditch round of negotiations scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.

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‘Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full’: Iran’s students on why they are protesting again

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As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality

More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.

The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.

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Washington and Tehran to hold more nuclear talks as protests reignite in Iran

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Fresh Geneva negotiations suggest Trump’s team believes the Iranian government is making serious proposals

Iran and the US are expected to meet for a further round of talks in Geneva this week in a sign that Donald Trump’s team believes Tehran is making serious proposals to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and show it is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

As fears loomed of renewed conflict after Washington carried out a major redeployment of military assets to the region, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he thought there was still a good chance of finding a diplomatic solution.

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Iran willing to dilute uranium stockpile as fresh protests erupt

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Proposal will be at heart of offer to US as Trump considers whether to attack Iran

Iran is refusing to export its 300kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but is willing to dilute the purity of the stockpile it holds under the supervision of UN nuclear inspectorate the IAEA, Iranian sources have said.

The proposal will be at the heart of the offer Iran is due to make to the US in the next few days, as the US president, Donald Trump, weighs whether to use his vast naval buildup in the Middle East to attack the country.

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Iran prepares nuclear counterproposal as US considers limited military strikes

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Trump orders massive buildup of naval forces in Middle East, leading to fears of an imminent war

Iran’s foreign minister has said he expects to have a draft counterproposal ready within days after nuclear talks with the US this week, while Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes.

The US president has ordered a massive buildup of naval forces in the Middle East, including repositioning aircraft carriers and other warships, leading to fears of an imminent war. But it is not clear if the military movements are intended as an intimidation tactic to put pressure on Iran to make concessions on its nuclear programme.

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Iran deal prospects will be clear within 10 days, Trump says as military buildup grows

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Second carrier strike group heads for region as US waits for Iran to respond after talks in Geneva

Donald Trump has said it will be clear within “probably 10 days” whether he can reach a nuclear deal with Iran, as the US military buildup in the Middle East intensifies with the impending arrival of a second carrier strike group.

The US president, speaking at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington DC, insisted Iran could not have a nuclear weapon and emphasised that “bad things will happen” if the country continued “to threaten regional stability”.

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Trump changed mind on Chagos deal ‘after UK blocked use of Diego Garcia for Iran strikes’

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US president links deal with military strikes against Iran in connection with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions

Donald Trump changed his mind on supporting the Chagos Islands deal because the UK will not permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian has been told.

In his latest change of heart on the deal, the US president said on social media that Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.

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Forget the Board of Peace, Trump may be closer than thought to attacking Iran

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Tehran may claim it will not negotiate under duress, but that is precisely what it is being required to do

Although much attention will be given to the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, it is the “arsenal of war” that Donald Trump has assembled in the Middle East, and what it implies for the stately pace of Washington’s negotiations with Iran, that deserves more.

The well-connected Axios reporter Barak Ravid is hated in Iran – one news site on Thursday described him as a one-man psychological war operation against Tehran. But he is widely read, as was his report that the US viewed the talks in Geneva on Tuesday as a “nothing burger”, and that a full-scale attack on Iran was far closer than most Americans realised. The story led to a spike in oil prices and front-page pieces in US newspapers saying Trump’s military preparations would be complete by the weekend, with the president hinting a decision would be made “probably over the next 10 days”.

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Oscar-nominated co-writer of It Was Just an Accident released from Iranian prison

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Mehdi Mahmoudian released 17 days after arrest for signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader and regime’s protest crackdown

Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated cowriter of It Was Just an Accident, has been released from an Iranian prison 17 days after his arrest, according to local media reports.

Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday, he was released from the Nowshahr prison, along with two other signatories of the statement, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni.

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Iran-US talks: agreement reached on ‘guiding principles’ after ‘constructive’ meeting, Tehran says

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Discussions through Omani intermediaries may pave way for further meeting on nuclear programme, Iran says

Iran has described the latest round of indirect talks with the US as “more constructive” than the previous set earlier this month, and said agreement had been reached on “general guiding principles” that could lead to a further meeting to discuss its nuclear programme.

The talks – held in Geneva through Omani intermediaries – were to discuss the terms for Tehran constraining its nuclear programme under the supervision of the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate. They ended after three and a half hours.

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The patience and the poker face: Iran’s wily diplomat set to face the US in nuclear talks

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Abbas Araghchi is steeped in more than a decade of nuclear dealmaking with a book on the art of negotiations

If the US and Iran are to avoid a regional war, both sides need to start to make concessions at talks in Geneva on Tuesday, and also to accommodate one another’s very different bargaining styles.

The Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, steeped in almost 15 years of Iranian nuclear talks, is a near lifelong diplomat who has written a book on the art of negotiations that reveals the secrets of the Iranian diplomatic trade – the feints, the patience, the poker faces.

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Iran sentences award-winning director Jafar Panahi to year in prison for ‘propaganda activities’

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Iranian film-maker won Cannes film festival’s Palme D’Or prize earlier this year for It Was Just an Accident

Iran has sentenced the Palme d’Or-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi in absentia to one year in prison and a travel ban over “propaganda activities” against the country.

The sentence includes a two-year ban on leaving Iran and prohibition of Panahi from membership of any political or social groups, his lawyer Mostafa Nili said, adding that they would file an appeal.

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Iran says it could rejoin US nuclear talks if treated with ‘dignity and respect’

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Iran’s foreign minister says it has had requests to reopen negotiations, which collapsed after nuclear site bombings

Tehran is willing to restart nuclear talks with Washington as long as it is treated with “dignity and respect”, Iran’s foreign minister has told the Guardian.

Abbas Araghchi said only diplomacy worked, and disclosed fresh requests had come from intermediaries to reopen negotiations with the Trump administration. He said Iran did not have any undeclared nuclear sites, and Tehran could not yet allow the UN nuclear inspectorate to visit bombed nuclear sites for security reasons.

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Olympians call on Iran to halt execution of boxing champion

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Sports personalities including Martina Navratilova and the swimmer Sharron Davies sign letter condemning Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani’s death sentence

More than 20 Olympic medallists, coaches and other international athletes, including the tennis player Martina Navratilova and the swimmer Sharron Davies, have signed a letter calling for a halt to the execution of a boxing champion and coach, who is on death row in Iran.

Amid growing international outrage over Iran’s escalating use of capital punishment as a tool of oppression, the strongly worded letter condemns the Iranian regime’s decision to uphold the death sentence of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

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