Photo appears to show UK ambassador to Iran meeting pair, whose detention comes after tit-for-tat releases with Germany and Italy
Two British nationals have been arrested in Iran and given access to the UK ambassador, Hugo Shorter, according to reports.
State media published photographs purportedly showing Shorter meeting two British “national security” suspects at the general and revolutionary prosecutor’s office in Kerman province, about 500 miles south-east of Tehran.
Continue reading...US president’s remarks will spark divisions within Iran over country’s nuclear ambitions and sanctions
Donald Trump has said he wants a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran and denied he wanted to blow Iran to smithereens, describing such reports as “greatly exaggerated”.
But he said it was essential that Iran did not have a nuclear weapon, adding “we should start working on it immediately”. His remarks on his social media site, Truth Social represent the clearest sign that Trump is willing to hold talks with Iran to try to replace the nuclear deal signed in 2015, but from which Trump pulled the US out in 2018.
Continue reading...Decision expected in next week that could allow country to rejoin international banking system
Iran’s reformists are pressing for the country to make concessions on financial transparency to allow it to reconnect to the global economic system and send a signal to the Trump White House that it is serious about renegotiating a new relationship with the west, including around its nuclear programme.
Tehran is expected in the next week to take decisions that would mean it would be taken off the blacklist of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that tackles money laundering and terrorist financing.
Continue reading...Former secretary of state has faced threats from Iran since since he took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic
The Ohio Republican Mike Turner said on Sunday’s Face the Nation he is “very concerned” for former secretary of state Mike Pompeo after Donald Trump revoked his security detail earlier in the week.
Pompeo and his top aide, Brian Hook, who have faced threats from Iran since they took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration, were told of the loss of protection on Wednesday evening.
Continue reading...Mohammad Javad Zarif says he hopes new Trump administration will be more serious, focused and realistic
A senior Iranian politician has appealed to Donald Trump to begin new negotiations with Tehran over its civil nuclear programme, saying: “I hope that this time around, [Trump 2.0] will be more serious, more focused, more realistic.”
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s vice-president for strategic affairs, pointed out that the returning US president had not reappointed figures from his first term such as the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, who persuaded him in 2018 to quit the nuclear deal on the basis that withdrawal would lead to the regime’s collapse.
Continue reading...Tehran ‘massively weakened’ by reverses in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, says vice-president of Aden-based administration
The west should seize the opportunity to target the Tehran-backed Houthi leadership in Yemen while the Iranian government is weakened, the vice-president of the UN-backed government in Aden has said.
Aidarus al-Zoubaidi said that Iran’s reverses in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza had left the country “massively weakened”. “They have one remaining domain and that is Yemen,” Zoubaidi told the Guardian. “Now is the time to counter the Houthis and push them back into their position.”
Continue reading...Unnamed gunman killed Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghisseh before shooting himself, Mezan reports
Two judges have been killed in a shooting on Saturday at the supreme court building in Tehran, Iranian state media have reported.
“This morning, a gunman infiltrated the supreme court in a planned act of assassination of two brave and experienced judges. The two judges were martyred in the act,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported.
Continue reading...Olivier Grondeau was arrested in 2022 and has accused Iran of using him for ‘political blackmail’ against France
The mother of a French traveller detained in Iran for two years has said authorities “know he is innocent” but continue to hold him in the country’s notorious Evin prison.
Olivier Grondeau, 33, was arrested from his hotel room in Shiraz, in the south of Iran, on 12 October 2022, just weeks into the Woman, Life, Freedom anti-government protests that engulfed the country. The writer, poet and bookseller was in the country as part of a world tour.
Continue reading...Hamas, Hezbollah and other militia are enfeebled – but Palestine is likely to stay at forefront of global politics
The ceasefire due to come into force on Sunday, barring a major last-minute problem, will cement massive and rapid changes across the Middle East and may seal a significant defeat for the Islamist militant groups that have been powerful actors in the region for years.
Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and assorted Shia Muslim militia in Iraq and Syria will all emerge from the conflict considerably weakened. Only the Houthis in Yemen are stronger – though this may not last. The Islamic State remains a shadow of its former self.
Continue reading...Former top UK official believes intensifying economic pressure on Tehran would erode internal support for regime
The UK should back Donald Trump’s expected maximum economic sanctions against Iran as part of an effort to encourage nationals to end their support for the current regime in Tehran, Mark Sedwill, the former cabinet secretary, argues in a report published on Monday.
He writes: “It is not for the west, let alone the UK, to determine who rules Iran. That is for the Iranian people. But we can make clear that the right choice will bring benefits just as the wrong one will bring more of the same.”
Continue reading...Mohammad Abedini detained on US warrant three days before Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was arrested in Iran
Italy has released an Iranian citizen wanted by the US over a drone attack in Jordan that killed three Americans a year ago, after the Italian justice minister asked a court to revoke his arrest.
Mohammad Abedini has already returned to Iran, Iranian state TV said on Sunday afternoon.
Continue reading...Sala, who had been held since 19 December, greeted by family members and Italian PM at Rome airport
Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist who was held in solitary confinement for almost three weeks in Iran, has returned home after being freed from prison.
A plane carrying the 29-year-old landed at Rome’s Ciampino airport on Wednesday afternoon, where she was greeted by family members and politicians including the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry summons ambassador as Cecilia Sala reportedly tells family she sleeps on floor of prison cell
Italy’s foreign ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador on Wednesday and urged the immediate release of an Italian journalist held in solitary confinement in Tehran.
Cecilia Sala, a 29-year-old freelance journalist for Il Foglio newspaper and a podcaster, reportedly spoke of the harsh conditions of her detainment in the notorious Evin prison, including having to sleep on the floor of her cell without a mattress.
Continue reading...Ex-security minister says assassination ordered by Trump set off chain of events that led to revolution in Syria
Donald Trump’s decision to sanction the assassination of an elite Iranian commander triggered a chain of events that has revealed Iran as a paper tiger and led to the overthrow of Basher al-Assad, a former UK security minister has said.
Tom Tugendhat, now on the Conservative backbenches and intending to focus on foreign policy, also predicted the Iranian regime would collapse in a few years. He said that if handled properly, Syria could become the economic powerhouse of the Middle East within a decade.
Continue reading...Cecilia Sala, 29, was detained in Tehran three days after US warrant used to hold Swiss-Iranian businessman in Milan
The arrest of a renowned Italian journalist in Iran is reportedly in retaliation for the detention of a Swiss-Iranian businessman and suspected arms dealer in Italy three days earlier, according to media reports quoting the US state department.
Cecilia Sala, 29, a war correspondent and reporter who works for the Italian newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained on 19 December while reporting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and held in solitary confinement for a week.
Continue reading...Il Foglio war correspondent Cecilia Sala taken in by police while reporting in Tehran, says Italy’s foreign ministry
An Italian journalist has been arrested while reporting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and held in solitary confinement for a week, according to Italy’s foreign ministry.
Cecilia Sala, 29, a war correspondent and reporter who works for the newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained on 19 December, the ministry said, but her arrest was only made public on Friday.
Continue reading...Temporary release is inadequate, activist’s family and supporters say, urging her unconditional release
Iran has released the Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, jailed since November 2021, for three weeks on medical grounds, her lawyer posted on social media.
“Based on the advice of the examining doctor, the public prosecutor suspended the jail sentence against Narges Mohammadi for three weeks and she was released from prison,” Mostafa Nili said on X.
Continue reading...Assault on Syria’s second-largest city by Islamist militants may tarnish Russia’s reputation as a global player
The walls of the military office in Aleppo were adorned with pictures of the Kremlin, flanked by Russian and Syrian flags hanging side by side. On the desks, documents detailing the cooperation between the two nations lay abandoned – telltale signs of Bashar al-Assad’s forces’ hasty retreat as rebels closed in on Syria’s second-biggest city over the weekend.
The short clip circulating online was recorded in the office of Russian advisers at Aleppo’s military academy after it was taken by rebels in a surprise offensive. It highlights the escalating threat to the Assad regime and, by extension, to Moscow’s strategic foothold in Syria and the broader region.
Continue reading...White Helmets say at least 18 people killed in strikes on five healthcare facilities including maternity hospital
A wave of airstrikes has pummelled hospitals and neighbourhoods in the rebel-held region of Idlib in northern Syria as Islamist insurgents continued to battle forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad after the militants’ lightning assault on Aleppo.
White Helmets civil defence forces based in Idlib, from where the insurgents had launched their attack, said Russian airstrikes had struck five healthcare facilities including a maternity hospital. At least 18 people were killed and 35 injured, they said, adding that they feared numbers could rise.
Continue reading...Iran’s foreign minister blamed Israel’s intervention instead, but emergency talks in Ankara said to be ‘constructive’
The crisis in Syria is the result of President Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to engage in political dialogue with the opposition, and not external interventions, the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said after meeting his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, for emergency talks in Ankara.
Araghchi, by contrast, blamed intervention by Israel for the crisis. But the two sides appeared to agree on the need to convene an urgent summit between Turkey, Iran and Russia, the three main external powers inside Syria.
Continue reading...