Shayan Ghajar
As protests in Bahrain grow ever more bloody and rhetoric between Iran and supporters of the Khalifa government escalates, a number of foreign officials and notables have entered the war of words as well. more»
Arash Aramesh
The Iranian government strongly condemned on March 15 Saudi Arabia’s deployment of troops to neighboring Bahrain. Iranian state-media called Saudi Arabia’s action an “invasion” and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Saudi forces from Bahrain. more»
Arash Aramesh
Brig General Ali Fazli, deputy commander of Iran’s Basij Forces, said in an interview March 13 that Basij hackers were behind cyber attacks against “enemies of the Islamic Revolution.” more»
Arash Aramesh
The Iranian government is making an effort to downplay the widening rift among the ruling elite that led to the removal of Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani as the head of the Assembly of Experts. During Tehran’s Friday prayer sermon on March 11, conservative cleric and member of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Mohammad Imami-Kashani applauded members of the Assembly for voting with “unity” to elect a new chairman and praised both Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi-Kani, the outgoing and the incoming chairmen of the Assembly respectively. more»
Arash Aramesh
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with members of the Assembly of Experts March 10 and congratulated the new Chairman of the Assembly, Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi-Kani. The Iranian leader seemed very pleased with the Assembly’s new pick for chairman and described Mahdavi-Kani’s election as “appropriate and just.” more»
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Shayan Ghajar
Amidst the ongoing debates on initiating a new round of sanctions on Iran, a massive project to link Caspian region natural gas sources to Central and Western Europe has gone largely unmentioned. Plans for a new pipeline spanning from the Caspian to Central Europe were finalized last month in a conference with Turkish officials and construction will begin in 2011. The majority of the pipeline’s natural gas supply, evidence shows, is likely to come from Iran. more»
Shayan Ghajar
President Obama’s nuclear summit last week was part of a series of efforts aimed at convincing China and Russia to join American efforts for international sanctions on Iran. Three weeks ago, administration officials announced China was ready to begin serious discussions soon regarding sanctions on Iran. In recent days, however, more and more evidence is mounting to the contrary, indicating any support from China for international sanctions on Iran is highly unlikely. more»
Shayan Ghajar
President Obama’s push for U.N. sanctions on Iran is gaining in intensity this week with the meeting of numerous heads of state in Washington’s nuclear summit, April 11-13. Although the U.N. Security Council neglected to include the issue in its April agenda, the President is urging the world’s nuclear powers to call on Iran to accede to demands for increased transparency and proof that its nuclear aspirations are peaceful. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already responded in less than civil terms, calling Western leaders “retarded” and deciding to host his own nuclear summit in Tehran. more»