The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published its 2021 Annual Report earlier this month, redesignating 10 nations as Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) and recommending to the State Department that India, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam now be given that designation as well.
Facing calls for his resignation, President Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry on Monday denied as “unequivocally false” claims that he had informed Iran’s foreign minister about covert Israeli military strikes against Iranian facilities in Syria.
A US Navy vessel fired warning shots toward three Iranian military speed boats in the Gulf this week to warn them after they sped close to the ship, the Navy said Tuesday.
World powers resumed talks Tuesday in Vienna about revitalizing the 2015 international pact to restrain Iran’s nuclear development program and bring the United States back into the accord that former U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from in 2018.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry kept Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif informed about secret Israeli military actions in Syria, the Iranian diplomat said in recently leaked audio, casting new light on communication between the two men after Mr. Kerry returned to life as a private citizen in 2017.
Leaked audio tapes that reveal the behind-the-scenes power struggles of Iranian officials have recently been published by the New York Times. In the leaks, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lamented that it is the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who implements policy, overruling governmental decisions.
Syria’s oil ministry said on Saturday that firefighting teams managed to extinguish a fire in one of the tanks of an oil tanker off the oil terminal of Baniyas after a suspected drone attack from the direction of Lebanese territorial waters, state media reported.
The US decision to finally recognize the Armenian genocide comes after decades in which Turkey and its lobbyists in Washington threatened the US. Their narrative was that if Washington would just use the term “genocide” – for a crime committed 106 years ago by a former government in what is now Turkey – then Ankara would rapidly move to sanction the US, close its bases, threaten its citizens and ally with Iran, China and Russia, or other US enemies.
IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi will travel to the United States on Sunday to discuss the threat of Iran’s nuclear program and its entrenchment throughout the region, the military said Friday.
The US has been updating Israel on the progress of indirect negotiations with Iran over a possible return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and will continue a policy of transparency moving forward, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.
Iran has installed extra advanced centrifuges at its underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and plans to add even more, a report by the UN atomic watchdog on Wednesday showed, according to Reuters.
The Israeli military said early Thursday that a missile was fired from neighboring Syria, and that it had struck Syrian missile batteries in retaliation.
Important disagreements between the United States and Iran persist after the latest round of indirect nuclear talks in Vienna this week, with the negotiations still far from conclusion and the outcome uncertain, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday.
Apart from China and despite a worldwide drop in death sentences, countries in the Middle East remained among the world’s leading executioners last year, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
High-level talks in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States back into the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran have already resolved 60-70 percent of the key issues, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was quoted by state media as saying Tuesday.
Power has been restored in Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility and uranium enrichment activities there have been renewed after a blast at the site earlier this month, the head of the country’s atomic agency said Tuesday.
As the shadow war between Iran and Israel appears to be escalating, recent attacks in the Islamic Republic foreshadow an underground network might be active inside Iran, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
MajidReza Souzanchi Kushani, a Christian who was charged and imprisoned in Iran for promoting house churches, was given early release from jail because he caught COVID-19, Christian Response reported Friday. Iran ranks no. 8 on the US World Watch List 2021 of countries that persecute Christians.
A group of more than 2,000 former high-ranking Israeli military, law enforcement, and intelligence community officials are warning the Biden administration against inking a new nuclear deal with Iran, saying the rush to negotiate with Iran directly endangers Israel and its newfound Arab allies.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog and Iran on Monday started talks aimed at obtaining explanations from Tehran on the origin of uranium traces at found at undeclared locations in Iran, an issue which could affect efforts to revive Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal.