Category Archives: Iran

Jafar Panahi is third film-maker in a week to be arrested in Iran

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Berlin winner in 2015 detained while querying arrest of another director after protests over building collapse

The award-winning director Jafar Panahi has become the third Iranian film-maker to be arrested in less than a week, the Mehr news agency has said, as he visited prosecutors over the detentions last week of Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad.

Panahi, 62, has won a slew of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for Taxi in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for 3 Faces in 2018.

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Critics told ‘lives at stake’ over Belgium-Iran prisoner swap treaty

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Belgian justice minister tells MPs if bill not approved threat to Belgian interests will increase

Belgian politicians who support a treaty that would permit the swap of an Iranian diplomat jailed in Belgium for Belgians held prisoner in Tehran have told the treaty’s opponents that “lives are at stake”.

MPs were told during a debate on Tuesday that there were serious risks to Belgians being kept in Iran if they voted against ratifying the treaty, which is set to be a first of its kind among European countries.

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Iran earthquakes: at least five killed and village flattened, state media says

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Rescue work carried out after 12 also injured in magnitude-6.1 quake followed by two others and more than dozen aftershocks

At least five people were killed by a magnitude-6.1 earthquake in southern Iran early on Saturday, state media reported, with the area also hit by two later strong quakes of up to 6.3 magnitude.

“Five people have died in the earthquake … and so far 12 are hospitalised,” Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, the head of emergency management in Hormozgan province on Iran’s Gulf coast, told state TV.

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Iran accused of making ‘maximalist demands’ in nuclear deal talks

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Talks to save 2015 agreement on brink of collapse as Tehran is also accused of testing missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons

Iran has been accused of making “maximalist demands” in the latest unsuccessful round of talks on reviving the nuclear non-proliferation deal at a grave session of the UN security council in which it was widely acknowledged that the talks – and the whole 2015 deal – were on the brink of collapse.

Iranian and US officials, with the EU acting as mediators, held two days of talks in Doha in a bid to break a months-long impasse, but no progress was made on Iran’s central demand that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from US sanctions and its list of foreign terrorist organisations.

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Israel and Saudi Arabia ‘in talks over joint defence against Iran’

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US-brokered summit discusses shared threat of Tehran’s growing missile and drone capabilities

Top military officials from Israel and Saudi Arabia have met in secret US-brokered talks to discuss defence coordination against Iran, according to a report.

Delegations from Riyadh, as well as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt, met the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff in the Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh in March, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Sunday, citing US and regional officials.

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Iran and US ready to restart talks on nuclear deal

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EU foreign affairs chief says stalemate broken after meeting with Iranian foreign minister in Tehran

Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, has said talks will restart on the Iran nuclear deal, averting a complete collapse in the agreement which could spark a nuclear arms race across the Middle East.

After a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Tehran, Borrell said he had broken the stalemate which had led to talks on the revival of the nuclear deal being stalled since March. Borrell gave no detail about the exact date of the resumption of talks or the precise format, but said the process had the agreement of Iran and the US. He also met Iran’s national security chief Ali Shamkhani.

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West to rebuke Iran over lack of cooperation with nuclear watchdog

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Move at IAEA board meeting may deepen impasse over talks to bring US back into 2015 nuclear deal

Europe and the US will rebuke Iran this week for failing to cooperate with the UN nuclear inspectorate, a move that has angered Iran’s leadership and may deepen the impasse over talks to bring the US back into the 2015 nuclear agreement, and the lifting of sanctions on Tehran.

The rebuke, in the form of a motion to be voted on at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, will not lead to Iran’s non-compliance being referred to the UN security council, nor to an extension of sanctions on Iran.

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Iran’s enemies are to blame for protests over collapsed building, says leader

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei uses televised speech to condemn ‘psychological war’ waged on country

Iran’s supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has blamed recent protests in Iran on foreign “enemies” seeking to overthrow the government in the Islamic republic.

He said enemies were waging a “psychological war” against Iran by accusing it of piracy for seizing two Greek ships after the US confiscated Iranian oil from a tanker.

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Protesters in Iran shout down cleric amid anger over building collapse

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Booing and shouting prompt crackdown from riot police at site of disaster, where 31 people died

Protesters angry over a building collapse in south-west Iran that killed at least 31 people shouted down an emissary sent by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting a crackdown in which riot police clubbed demonstrators and fired teargas, according to online videos.

The protest directly challenged the Iranian government’s response to the disaster a week ago as pressure rises in the Islamic Republic over rising food prices and other economic woes amid the unravelling of its nuclear deal with world powers.

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Iran seizes two Greek tankers amid rising tensions in the Gulf

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IRGC forces swoop on ships in what appeared to be a reprisal for Greece’s role in earlier seizure of Iranian oil tanker

Iran has seized two Greek tankers in helicopter-launched attacks in the Gulf amid a dramatic rise in tension and violent incidents in the region.

Forces from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) descended on the tankers – one of which was named as the Prudent Warrior – in helicopters in what appeared to be a reprisal for the Greek government’s role in assisting the US seizure of an Iranian oil tanker in the Mediterranean in a sanctions-enforcement action earlier in the week.

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Iran says one dead in ‘industrial accident’ near military complex

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Parchin facility has previously come under scrutiny from UN nuclear watchdog

One person has been killed in an “industrial accident” near an Iranian military complex that has previously come under scrutiny from the UN nuclear watchdog, according to state media reports.

“An industrial accident took place [on Wednesday evening] in one of the factories in the Parchin area, leading to the death of one person and injuries to another,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency said. It gave no details of the cause of the accident.

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Iran vows to avenge killing as it buries Revolutionary Guard colonel

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Finger of blame pointed at Israel after Hassan Sayad Khodayari shot dead in Tehran

An Iranian colonel shot dead in Tehran by assailants on motorcycles has been buried as officials vowed to avenge an assassination that they continue to lay at the feet of Israel.

The murder of Col Hassan Sayad Khodayari is the highest-profile killing of an Iranian official since the violent death of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020 and appears to fit a pattern of assassinations that began more than a decade ago.

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Iran will ‘avenge’ killing of Revolutionary Guards colonel, says president

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Guards say arrests linked to Israel made after shooting of Hassan Sayad Khodayari outside his home

Iran will avenge the killing of a Revolutionary Guards colonel who was shot dead in Tehran, President Ebrahim Raisi has said.

Col Hassan Sayad Khodayari was killed on Sunday outside his home by assailants on motorcycles. Iran blamed “elements linked to the global arrogance”, its term for the US and its allies including Israel.

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Iran: Revolutionary Guard colonel killed by motorbike gunmen in Tehran

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Hassan Sayad Khodayari was shot five times in his unarmoured vehicle outside his home

Unidentified gunmen on a motorbike have killed a senior member of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard outside his home in Tehran.

The corps gave only scant detail about the killing, which occurred in broad daylight in the heart of the Iranian capital, but blamed it on “global arrogance” – typically code for the US and Israel.

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Food protests continue across Iran as one person reported dead

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Soaring prices of wheat and basic goods bring protests to cities across Iran as internet outages suggest attempted clampdown

Protests over soaring food prices continued in several cities in Iran on Saturday, according to postings on social media, while an Iranian lawmaker told local media one person was killed in a demonstration in the south-west.

The protests were triggered last week by a cut in state subsidies for imported wheat that caused price hikes of as much as 300% for a variety of flour-based staples. The government of President Ebrahim Raisi also raised prices of basic goods such as cooking oil and dairy products.

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Iran arrests French couple and threatens to execute Swedish-Iranian

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Cécile Kohler and her husband held after holiday, while threat to kill scientist seen as reprisal for Swedish war crimes trial

Iranian authorities have arrested a French teaching union official and her husband and threatened to execute a Swedish-Iranian man who has been held in jail for six years by 21 May, in fresh moves against foreign and dual nationals.

The threat to execute Ahmadreza Djalali, a scientist, is widely seen as a reprisal for Sweden starting the trial in Stockholm of Hamid Nouri, who is accused of war crimes and murder committed during and after the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

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Trump sought strike on top Iran military figure for political reasons – Esper book

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Robert O’Brien told top general shortly before 2020 election that Trump wanted to kill unnamed official, according to Esper memoir

Shortly before the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, “stunned” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff by saying the president wanted to kill a senior Iranian military officer operating outside the Islamic Republic.

“This was a really bad idea with very big consequences,” Mark Esper, Trump’s second and last secretary of defense, writes in his new memoir, adding that Gen Mark Milley suspected O’Brien saw the strike purely in terms of Trump’s political interests.

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Iran has not received £400m agreed by UK at time of Zaghari-Ratcliffe release

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Debt paid as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh-Ashoori were released is blocked in Oman, Iran says

The historic £400m debt the UK paid to Iran at the time of the release of British-Iranian dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori has still not reached Tehran, according to Iranian government sources.

A senior Iranian government source said the money was blocked in Oman and the problem was not with the UK government. One report said only £1m had been transferred to Tehran.

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Time running out to reach Iran nuclear deal, warn experts

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Letter signed by former diplomats says Iran close to developing nuclear weapons capability

Leading former diplomats including seven ex-UK foreign and defence ministers have warned the Iran nuclear talks are heading to “corrosive stalemate devolving into a cycle of increased nuclear tension” and urged Tehran and Washington to show more flexibility.

Year-long talks in Vienna on reviving the deal and for the US, which was pulled out of the agreement by Donald Trump, to lift sanctions on Iran have in effect ground to a halt in a dispute over whether the west will lift the foreign terrorist organisation designation, and sanctions, against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

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Case of Iranian-born woman abducted by fake officers baffles Canadian police

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Three months after Elnaz Hajtamiri was taken, investigators have not determined a motive and have not received ransom demands

On a cold winter night, three armed men disguised as police officers arrived at a suburban home in a small Canadian resort town and knocked on the door, claiming that they had an arrest warrant for a 37-year-old woman who was staying there.

After overpowering the homeowner, they seized the woman, Iranian-born Elnaz Hajtamiri, hauled her barefoot through the snow into a vehicle, and sped off into the dark.

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