Al-Monitor – House Republicans are warning the Biden administration against forging a renewed nuclear agreement with Iran, warning that a deal struck without congressional approval “will meet the same fate” as its Obama-era predecessor.  “We urge you to change course, learn from the first JCPOA’s failures, and work with Congress to impose maximum pressure on the Iranian regime,” wrote more …

Al-Monitor – “It is not a question of weeks, it is a question of days,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, speaking about the Vienna talks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Wednesday, Feb. 16. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said hours later that “we are in the midst of the very final stages of the talks.” Amwaj has the scoop here from informed …

RFL/RE – Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said Tehran needs nuclear energy, not weapons, amid signs of a breakthrough in long-running negotiations to revive a landmark atomic deal with world powers. In comments aired by state television on February 17, the hard-line Khamenei, who holds ultimate religious and political authority in Iran, said Tehran “has to think about …

RFL/RE – France on Wednesday said a decision on salvaging Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers was just days away and that it was now up to Tehran to make the political choice. Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the tattered agreement resumed last week after a 10-day hiatus and officials from the other parties …

Iranwire – Detainees at Greater Tehran Penitentiary and Evin Prison have entered their 40th day of protests in the wake of the death of jailed writer Baktash Abtin. In an audio file sent to IranWire, inmate Hamid Haj Jafar Kashani read a statement dedicated to Abtin on behalf of the group, in which they reflect: “Maybe the next [to die in …

Iranwire – Two Christian converts in Tehran have had their request for a retrial rejected after they were given custodial sentences for practising their faith. Hadi Rahimi and Sakineh Behjati were summoned to begin their four- and two-year sentences on Wednesday after Branch 9 of the Supreme Court overturned their appeal. The pair were sentenced to prison by Branch 26 …

Iranwire – The Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), an organization controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which controls extensive assets across Iran, is thought to be orchestrating an increasing number of confiscations of properties belonging to Iranian Baha’is. The Baha’i International Community (BIC) disclosed earlier today the latest example of this trend, in the province of Semnan, where a Revolutionary …

Iranwire – Ex-Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri shouted out in anger from the defendant’s bench at Stockholm District Court this week after a testifying witness described him as an “executioner”. The 60-year-old is standing trial in Sweden for war crimes and murder in connection with Iran’s 1988 prison massacre. That summer, thousands of Iranian political detainees, mostly members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) …

Al-Monitor – Talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna are now in what many observers have deemed their final stretch. But it’s far from a done deal, and US officials are warning that mere weeks remain before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s (JCPOA) original nonproliferation benefits are lost. Naysan Rafati, the International Crisis Group’s senior Iran analyst, says “the …

RFL/RE – A top Iranian security official has indicated that verification and guarantees would be among the things needed to reach an agreement to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal. “Verification and providing a guarantee is an integral part of a good deal,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said on Twitter. Iran has previously said that it …