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All in News
◢ Iran on Tuesday banned reformist newspaper Ghanoon for publishing an article about a meeting between Iran's supreme leader and visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. "Ghanoon daily has received notification and its publication has been halted due to its (front page) headline on Tuesday," ISNA said.
◢ Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who led his country’s nuclear negotiations with world powers, signaled that his surprise decision to resign was because he was undermined in his role. About 150 Iranian lawmakers, or a third of the chamber, signed a letter addressed to the president petitioning to keep Zarif in his role, state-run media reported.
◢ Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was the lead negotiator in the 2015 nuclear deal, announced his resignation on Instagram on Monday, which can only take effect once President Hassan Rouhani accepts it. "I apologize for my inability to continue serving and for all the shortcomings during my term in office," Zarif said in a message posted on his verified Instagram account.
◢ German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier came under fire for a congratulatory telegram sent to Iran for the Islamic revolution's 40th anniversary, with a Jewish leader on Monday joining a chorus of criticism. At the government's weekly briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said there had been a "misunderstanding.”
◢ Iran President Hassan Rouhani on Monday brushed off attacks against his telecom minister over charges of failing to create a "safe environment" in social media and leaving Iranian data vulnerable to espionage, state television reported. According to the judiciary, 2,000 people in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the general prosecutor's office have lodged a complaint against the minister, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi.
◢ Iran has been adhering to a deal with world powers governing its nuclear program, the UN atomic watchdog said Friday, as diplomatic wrangling continues over the future of the accord. The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran was still complying with the restrictions to its nuclear activities under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
◢ The trial of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's brother, who was arrested two years ago on charges of financial violations, opened Tuesday in Tehran, the judiciary's news website Mizan Online reported. Hossein Fereydoun, a key adviser to Rouhani, was arrested in July 2017 following long-running corruption allegations, with the judiciary saying at the time that he was the subject of "multiple investigations.”
◢ Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said Monday it has arrested three "terrorists" involved in last week's deadly suicide bomb attack on security forces in a region bordering Pakistan. "Safe houses in (the cities of) Saravan and Khash were identified and eliminated, and the terrorists based in them were arrested," the force said on its official Sepah news agency.
◢ Iran's foreign minister on Sunday launched a blistering attack on US Vice President Mike Pence, saying his allegations that Tehran was plotting a "new Holocaust" were "hateful" and "ignorant.” Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Munich Security Conference that Pence's demands for the EU to follow the US in abandoning the 2015 Iran nuclear deal amounted to asking Europe to undermine its own security.
◢ Iran on Sunday launched a new locally-made submarine capable of firing cruise missiles, state TV said, in the country's latest show of military might at a time of heightened tensions with the US. The launch ceremony, led by President Hassan Rouhani, took place in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
◢ Tens of thousands of Iranians called for "revenge" Saturday at the funeral of 27 Revolutionary Guards killed in a suicide attack perpetrated by jihadists that Tehran accuses Pakistan of supporting. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer observe the previous reservations and will directly act to counter such acts," Jafari told mourners gathered at the city of Isfahan's Bozorgmehr Square.
◢ Germany on Friday rejected an appeal by US Vice President Mike Pence for Europeans to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal and isolate Tehran. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas defended the 2015 agreement under which Iran drastically scaled back its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
◢ US Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday demanded that European Union allies leave the Iran nuclear deal and warned of further US sanctions on Tehran. Speaking at a conference in Poland attended by Israel and senior Arab leaders, Pence denounced Iran as the "greatest threat to peace and security in the Middle East" and accused the clerical regime of plotting a "new Holocaust" with its regional ambitions.
◢ President Hassan Rouhani vowed revenge Thursday against the "mercenary group" behind a suicide bombing which killed 27 people in southeastern Iran and accused the US and Israel of supporting "terrorism.” Rouhani was speaking at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport before leaving for the Russian resort of Sochi for a summit with his Russian and Turkish counterparts Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the future of war-battered Syria.
◢ The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Wednesday that Iran can proceed with a bid to recover billions of dollars in frozen assets the United States says must go to victims of attacks blamed on Tehran. Judges of the UN's top court rejected US claims that the case should be thrown out because Iran had "unclean hands" due to alleged links to terrorism, and that the tribunal in The Hague did not have jurisdiction in the lawsuit.
◢ The International Court of Justice will on Wednesday give its decision on a bid by Iran to recover $2 billion in frozen assets that the United States says must be paid to victims of attacks blamed on Tehran. The case threatens to cause further bad blood after a decision in October when the Hague-based tribunal ordered Washington to lift nuclear-related sanctions on humanitarian goods for Iran.
◢ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran Tuesday that Israeli missiles can travel "very far", on the eve of a conference in Poland about peace and security in the Middle East. Speaking during a visit to a naval base in the northern port of Haifa, Netanyahu said: "The missiles you see behind me can go very far, against any enemy, including Iran's proxies in our region"—an apparent reference to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement.
◢ Iran's president on Monday blasted a US "conspiracy" against the country as vast crowds marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution at a time of heightened tensions with Washington. "The presence of people today on the streets all over Islamic Iran... means that the enemy will never reach its evil objectives," President Hassan Rouhan.
