Iran

Secretary of State Antony Blinken… stated at his inauguration hearing that he had “deep concern about the designation” of the Houthis as a terrorist organization, in that “at least on its surface it seems to achieve nothing particularly practical in advancing the efforts against the Houthis and to bring them …

Ex-Mossad deputy chief Ben-Barak says hardliner’s election as president is proof of Iran’s radicalization on nuclear, terror policies; Putin quick to congratulate ultraconservative The head of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said Saturday that the election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s president would present a challenge for …

Iranians voted Friday in a presidential election marked by a low turnout and a lack of formidable rivals to the candidacy of Iran’s ultraconservative judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi. There were no official estimates of the turnout from Iran’s Interior Ministry as polling stations closed at 2 a.m. Saturday local time. …

Iranians will go to the polls this Friday to choose the successor to centrist President Hassan Rouhani, who is winding down his second four-year term and cannot run for reelection. The polls will take place in an atmosphere of widespread public apathy, as voters choose from a list of presidential …

A mark of his campaign has been Iranian self-resilience and the “resistance economy” having the ability to overcome American sanctions. Iran presidential front-runner and Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi has embraced the possibility of returning to the 2015 nuclear deal as long as Iran’s interests are met, Iranian media reported earlier …

Former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi has called on Reformists to pick a candidate. Mehdi Karroubi, the 2009 presidential candidate who was put under house arrest for challenging the result of those elections, has urged Iranians to vote despite the shortcomings of the election process. According to his son Hossein, Karroubi …

Bill is last-ditch effort to stop Biden from awarding Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief Senate Republicans introduced on Friday legislation that would require President Joe Biden to obtain congressional approval before he signs any new nuclear deal with Iran, according to a copy of that bill obtained …

The sixth round of indirect talks between Iran and the United States over a mutual return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal kicked off on Saturday in Vienna, with European diplomats calling negotiations “intense” and expecting an understanding to be struck in the coming days. Russian and Iranian officials, …

Sheikh Jarrah, the ostensible cause of the latest conflict in the Middle East, is not so complicated. It is a private rent dispute, caused by squatters and by Palestinian tenants who acquired protected tenancies (not ownership) during the period of Jordanian occupation 1948-1967 when Jordan illegally sequestrated the property rights …

Rouhani’s expression of gratitude came a few weeks after his foreign minister was caught in a leaked audio, complaining about Russian attempts to put a spike in the wheel of the 2015 multilateral talks that culminated in the Iran nuclear deal. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said his country’s already “friendly …