The United States is moving forward with plans to form a military coalition to safeguard strategic shipping lanes off Iran and Yemen amid raised tensions with Iranian leaders.
Secret meetings between United States officials and Iranian representatives were conducted in a hotel in Erbil, Iraq, i24News reported Tuesday evening. The Iranian representatives are led by Hassan Khomenei, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei.
Eight Iranian Christians were arrested by Iranian intelligence officials at the beginning of July, and are currently being held at an undisclosed Intelligence Ministry site in Bushehr, a southern port city on the Persian Gulf.
Iran, Syria, and Iraq signed an agreement Wednesday, July 3rd, to construct an Iran-funded railway from Shalamcheh in the Islamic Republic to the Mediterranean coastal city of Lattakia in Syria, bypassing trade waterways typically patrolled by the US.
Iranian officials could sabotage U.S. efforts to broker a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, according to one of President Trump’s top advisers on the issue.
Iran has enriched uranium beyond a 3.67% purity limit set by its deal with major powers, the UN nuclear watchdog policing the deal said on Monday, confirming a move previously announced by Tehran.
Tehran warned Tuesday that Britain’s seizure of an Iranian oil tanker will not go ‘unanswered’ after denying earlier in the week that the ship detained in Gibraltar was carrying crude to Syria, which would put it in violation of EU sanctions.
Iran’s violation of nuclear limits by enriching uranium to the 5% level will reduce its breakout time to a nuclear weapon by approximately two months, former deputy director-general for safeguards at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Olli Heinonen told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Iran says the last chance for saving its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers will pass after a 60-day deadline.
US President Donald Trump warned Iran on Sunday to ‘be careful,’ shortly after the Islamic Republic said it would breach a uranium enrichment cap set by the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran is calling for the detention of a British oil tanker in retaliation for an Iranian ship carrying crude oil to Syria that was detained in the British territory of Gibraltar.
Iran’s president warned Europe Wednesday that his country would ‘take the next step’ in increasing its uranium enrichment this coming Sunday, and enrich to ‘any amount that we want.’
Russia on Tuesday said Israel was behind a series of airstrikes on targets in Syria on Monday morning, adding that those attacks threatened to destabilize the region.
Israel is bracing for a possible military confrontation in the Middle East amid tension between the U.S. and Iran.
The remaining signatories to the 2015 international pact to restrain Iran’s nuclear weapons development all voiced concern Tuesday that Tehran had exceeded the limit of how much low-enriched uranium it could stockpile.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Monday to disclose more information culled from Iran nuclear facilities by Mossad operatives in 2018, saying the evidence will ‘be more proof that Iran has lied all the time’ about its nuclear program.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of taking a ‘significant step’ toward producing a nuclear weapon Monday, after Iran said it had exceeded the amount of enriched uranium it is allowed under the 2015 nuclear deal.
US President Donald Trump warned Monday that Iran was ‘playing with fire’ after Tehran said it exceeded a limit on enriched uranium reserves under a 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by Washington.
Israel will be destroyed in half an hour if the United States attacks Iran, a senior Iranian parliamentarian said on Monday, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.
Israel’s Mossad chief is coming out saying the Middle East has a ‘one-time opportunity’ to eliminate Iranian aggression in the region, with the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia, in addition to smaller Gulf Arab states, all aligned against the Islamic republic’s ‘thuggish behavior.’