Social and Political

Al-Monitor – President Hassan Rouhani said in a Cabinet meeting today that nuclear negotiations will be passed on to the next administration. Rouhani lamented the partisanship that has taken over the country during his administration. “When our national team during the negotiations is victorious and scores three goals, why is it so hard for us to applaud them? Why is it …

Al-Monitor – The United States will continue to negotiate a mutual return to the landmark Iranian nuclear accord, despite allegations of an Iranian-orchestrated plot to kidnap an American journalist, US officials said Wednesday.  According to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, four Iranian operatives have been charged over a conspiracy to kidnap Masih Alinejad, a Brooklyn-based Iranian dissident and author who fled Iran …

Al-Arabia – The United States will delist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and lift sanctions on the country’s supreme leader and members of his inner circle if the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers is restored, the Iranian foreign ministry said on Monday. In its quarterly report to the parliament on the state of the nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign …

RFL/RE – As the security situation in Afghanistan worsens, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has begun a high-profile tour of Central Asia that analysts say is an effort by Beijing to boost its interests in the region. The weeklong visit to Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan comes as the Taliban continues to take territory from Afghan government forces amid the withdrawal …

Iranwire – The sixth round of negotiations in Vienna to revive the JCPOA and lift US sanctions on Iran ended inconclusively last month. None of the participants have yet provided specific details about the obstacles still standing in the way. But then on Sunday, on July 11, outgoing Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif submitted a 264-page report to the Iranian parliament’s National Security and …

Iranwire – Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the new head of the judiciary in Iran, has been linked to the murder of journalist Pirouz Davani in 1998. This has prompted Reporters Without Borders to again call for an investigation into the persecution of journalists in Iran. In an article entitled New head of Iran’s judicial system has journalists’ blood on his hands, RSF called on the United Nations Human Rights …

RFL/RE – Iran said on July 13 that it is holding talks on prisoner exchanges with the United States, a few days after a U.S. official said Washington was working to release its detained citizens.The U.S. envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, said last week that U.S. President Joe Biden insists on the release of all Americans detained in Iran and …

VOA – A notorious group of hackers tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has waged a covert campaign targeting university professors and other experts based in the U.K. and the U.S. in an attempt to steal their sensitive information, according to research by the cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.    The group, known as TA453 and Charming Kitten, has been masquerading …

iranintl – On Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary announced(link is external) that a cleric, Mohammad Mossadegh Kahnemoui had been named first deputy chief justice. The appointment comes as the new chief justice, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, seeks to make his own mark in the senior ranks of the judiciary following Ebrahim Raisi becoming Iran’s president-elect. The position of first deputy chief justice in the Islamic Republic matters. The …

Al-Monitor -The intelligence chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) encouraged local militia leaders during a recent meeting in Iraq to increase their small-scale attacks against US positions in the country, Reuters reported today. IRGC intel chief Hossein Taeb visited pro-Iran militias in Iraq and Syria last week after the US conducted airstrikes late last month against two sites used by …