Category Archives: Iran

Zaghari-Ratcliffe: UK acknowledges debt owed to Iran over Shah’s tank order

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Debt seen as stumbling block for release of British-Iranians including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has for the first time acknowledged that he is actively seeking to pay a debt to the Iranian government that could finally help to secure the release of British dual nationals including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Wallace assured lawyers acting for the families that the government was exploring every legal avenue to pay the debt, which for the first time he formally acknowledged the government owes.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s every step being followed inside prison in Iran

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Sources say authorities make two prisoners follow the British Australian academic everywhere in the Covid-ravaged Qarchak jail

Kylie Moore-Gilbert has enough money to buy food and water inside Iran’s notorious Qarchak prison, but is closely surveilled everywhere she goes, sources inside the jail say.

Fellow prisoners report that the British Australian academic appears to have so far escaped infection in the wave of Covid-19 sweeping through the prison, but that her communications with the outside world are strictly proscribed, according to Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center (ABC) for Human Rights in Iran.

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Outcry in Iran at nine-year sentence for man who beheaded daughter

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Mother of 14-year-old victim expresses fury at lenient sentence as critics say Iranian law unfairly favours men

An Iranian man who beheaded his 14-year-old daughter has been sentenced to only nine years in jail, in a case that has sparked outrage at the way Iranian law appears to enshrine supposed male rights over women’s lives.

Rana Dashti, the mother of 14-year-old Romina Ashrafi, expressed fury at the lenient sentence in an interview with the Iranian Labor news agency (Ilna) on Friday and said the court’s ruling had “caused fear and panic for me and my family”.

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UN security council rejects US attempt to extend Iran sanctions

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Indonesia said no further action could be taken on US request because there was no consensus on 15-nation body

The US has suffered another humiliating diplomatic setback after the president of the UN security council rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to extend economic sanctions on Iran.

Related: Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against 'unpleasant' US

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Iran says ‘sabotage’ caused blast at Natanz nuclear site

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Officials say security investigations confirmed sabotage, with further details to be released later

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said on Sunday that “sabotage” was the cause of an explosion that damaged the Natanz nuclear facility last month.

“Security investigations confirm this was sabotage and what is certain is that an explosion took place in Natanz,” spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. “But how this explosion took place and with what materials ... will be announced by security officials in due course.”

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Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against ‘unpleasant’ US

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Letters from 13 of 15 members underscore US isolation as it seeks to ‘snap back’ measures against Tehran

The extent of US isolation at the UN has been driven home by formal letters from 13 of the 15 security council members opposing Trump administration attempts to extend the economic embargo on Iran.

The letters by the council members were all issued in the 24 hours since the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, came to the UN’s New York headquarters to declare Iran in non-compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal.

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Iran sanctions: Trump threatens to unilaterally reimpose UN measures

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US to activate controversial ‘snapback’ procedure, which Britain, France and Germany say it doesn’t have the right to do

President Donald Trump has announced that secretary of state Mike Pompeo will activate a controversial mechanism aimed at reimposing UN sanctions on Iran, escalating a row with European allies that has huge repercussions for the Iranian nuclear deal.

Pompeo will travel to New York on Thursday to notify the UN security council that the US is triggering the so-called “snapback” procedure, which Britain, France and Germany say it doesn’t have the right to do.

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British spy’s account sheds light on role in 1953 Iranian coup

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Interview given by MI6 officer in 1980s was discovered in research for new documentary

A first-hand account of Britain’s role in the 1953 coup that overthrew the elected prime minister of Iran and restored the shah to power has been published for the first time.

The account by the MI6 officer who ran the operation describes how it took British intelligence years to persuade the US to take part in the coup. Meanwhile, MI6 recruited agents and bribed members of Iran’s parliament with banknotes transported in biscuit tins.

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Donald Trump vows ‘snapback’ over humiliating UN defeat on Iran arms embargo

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President says US will unilaterally reinstate sanctions a day after only two countries voted for prolonging embargo

Donald Trump has vowed to use a contentious provision to unilaterally reinstate UN sanctions on Tehran, following what Iran’s president said was a humiliating defeat for the US in its bid to extend an arms embargo on Tehran.

A day after the UN security council overwhelmingly rejected a US resolution to extend the embargo, Trump said at a news conference at his New Jersey golf club: “We’ll be doing a snapback. You’ll be watching it next week.”

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Turkey threatens to suspend UAE ties over deal with Israel

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‘The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,’ says Erdoğan

Turkey has threatened to suspend its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and recall its envoy, a day after the Gulf state announced it would become the third Arab country to establish full ties with Israel.

“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on Friday.

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Russia, China and Iran seeking to influence US ahead of elections, top intelligence official says

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Statement says China is opposed to Trump but offers more concrete evidence of Russia’s efforts to undermine Biden

Russia is backing Donald Trump, China is supporting Joe Biden and Iran is seeking to sow chaos in the US presidential election, a top intelligence official has warned in a sobering assessment of foreign meddling.

The statement on Friday by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, raises fears of a repeat of the 2016 election, when Russia manipulated social media to help Trump and hurt his opponent Hillary Clinton.

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Why a Biden presidency might not mean a return to pre-Trump foreign relations

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There could be a renewed focus on international cooperation – but Biden would not be great news for Boris Johnson’s Britain

European leaders, desperate for an end to the Trump presidency, are being warned that four years of Joe Biden may present them with new challenges and not a simple restoration of the benign status quo in transatlantic relations prior to 2016.

An evolving Biden doctrine about ending “forever wars” and protecting American workers from Chinese competition would require collective military and economic commitments from the EU that it is still ill-equipped to meet, foreign policy specialists have suggested.

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Trump’s top Iran envoy quits as US bids to extend Tehran embargo

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  • Elliott Abrams, key figure in Iran-Contra affair, to take over
  • US intends to bring UN resolution to extend arms embargo

The Trump administration’s lead diplomat on Iran, Brian Hook, has announced his resignation days before the US attempts a high-stakes gambit against Tehran at the United Nations.

Related: Iran's Covid death toll three times higher than admitted, says report

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Iran’s Covid death toll three times higher than admitted, says report

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BBC says government papers reveal total is more than 42,000 – far above official toll of 17,000

One person is dying from Covid-19 every seven minutes in Iran, state television in the country has said, as a report claimed the overall toll from the virus was three times higher than authorities have admitted.

A health ministry spokeswoman said on Monday that 215 people had died in the past 24 hours, on top of more than 200 the previous day – the country’s highest figures in nearly a month.

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MI6, the coup in Iran that changed the Middle East, and the cover-up

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Documentary reveals evidence confirming a British spy’s role in restoring the Shah in 1953 – and how the Observer exposed the plot

The hidden role of a British secret service officer who led the coup that permanently altered the Middle East is to be revealed for the first time since an Observer news story was suppressed in 1985.

The report, headlined “How MI6 and CIA joined forces to plot Iran coup”, appeared in the 26 May edition but was swiftly quashed. It exposed the fact that an MI6 man, Norman Darbyshire, had run a covert and violent operation to reinstate the Shah of Iran as ruler of the country in 1953. Yet just a few days after the newspaper came out, all fresh evidence of this British operation and of Darbyshire’s identity disappeared from public debate.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert granted meeting with Australian ambassador to Iran

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Exclusive: British-Australian academic will meet diplomat for first time since sudden move to a new notorious prison

The imprisoned British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert is set to be granted a meeting with Australia’s ambassador to Iran as soon as Sunday.

Following reports in the Guardian that Dr Moore-Gilbert was seriously unwell in Qarchak prison and had been removed from quarantine because she was attempting to write to the ambassador for help, the state-run Mizan news agency reported she was in “perfect health”.

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Iran arms sales: US struggles to win support for extension of UN ban

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European nations fear extension of arms sale ban would result in Iran leaving 2015 nuclear deal

The US may be forced to accept a UN code of conduct restricting conventional arms sales to Iran, since it is struggling to win unanimous support at the UN security council for a formal extension of the existing UN ban, which expires in October.

European nations fear a formal extension of the ban would result in Iran leaving the nuclear deal.

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Iran threatens US by targeting replica aircraft carrier in Strait of Hormuz

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Drill designed to threaten US amid increasing tensions between Tehran and Washington

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have fired a missile from a helicopter targeting a replica aircraft carrier in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, in an exercise aimed at threatening the US amid tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The drill, in a waterway through which 20% of all traded oil passes, underlines the lingering threat of military conflict between Iran and the US after last summer saw a series of incidents targeting oil tankers in the region. In January, a US drone strike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad and Tehran responded by firing ballistic missiles targeting American forces in Iraq.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert: British-Australian academic moved to notorious Iran desert prison

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Middle East scholar, who was arrested in 2018, taken to Qarchak women’s jail, one of the most hostile institutions in the country and reportedly stricken with Covid-19

A British-Australian academic serving a 10-year-prison sentence in Iran for espionage has been moved to a remote desert prison, notorious for violence and reportedly stricken with coronavirus.

Cambridge-educated Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Middle East scholar, had been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison for nearly two years, before her sudden move three days ago to Qarchak women’s prison, south-east of Tehran.

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Iranian passenger plane forced to change course as US fighter jets approached – report

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Iran promises political response after several passengers were reportedly injured when Mahan Air plane quickly changed altitude

Two US fighter jets came close to an Iranian passenger plane over Syrian airspace, causing the pilot to change altitude quickly to avoid collision and injuring several passengers, Iran’s official IRIB news agency reported.

The agency initially said a single Israeli jet had come near the plane but later quoted the pilot as saying there were two jets that identified themselves as American.

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