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RFL/RE – The Turkish-born head of a U.S. metals company was sentenced to 57 months in prison on September 7 for conspiring to illegally export missile-grade metallic powder to Iran. Erdal Kuyumcu, 45, was sentenced by a U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, after pleading guilty in June 2016 to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, court …

Al-Arabia – United States prosecutors have charged a former Turkish economy minister and the former head of a Turkish state bank with conspiring to evade US sanctions against Iran, widening an investigation that has fueled tension between Washington and Ankara. The indictment is the first time a former member of the Turkish government with close ties to President Tayyip Erdogan has …

RFL/RE – Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on September 5 rejected overtures from Tehran to improve relations after the conclusion of last week’s annual hajj pilgrimage. “If Iran wants to have good relations with Saudi Arabia, it has to change its policies. It has to respect international law,” Jubeir said at a press conference in London. Iranian official Ali Ghazi-Askar, the …

VOA —A senior U.S. official said Tuesday that if President Donald Trump decides not to certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, it does not mean that the United States will withdraw from the multilateral agreement.

freebeacon – U.S. officials are closely monitoring an ongoing meeting between senior North Korean and Iranian officials that comes on the heels of a nuclear test by Pyongyang, according to senior Trump administration officials and other sources who expressed concern that North Korea is helping to put the Islamic Republic back on the pathway to a functional nuclear weapon.

RFL/RE – Iranian media reports say a bus crash has killed 12 people, all but one of them schoolgirls travelling to the southern city of Shiraz for a sports and cultural event. Reports said the bus carrying 45 female students overturned early on September 1 on a road linking the town of Darab to Shiraz, some 1,100 kilometers south of Tehran. …

RFL/RE – Iranian President Hassan Rohani has rejected a U.S. demand that UN nuclear inspectors visit Tehran’s military bases, while other Iranian officials called the idea a “dream.” In a televised address on August 29, Rohani said he believed that the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), would be unlikely to agree to such visits in any case. …

Al-Arabia – Iran has dismissed a US demand for UN nuclear inspectors to visit its military bases as “merely a dream” as Washington reviews a 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and six world powers, including the United States. US President Donald Trump has called the nuclear pact – negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama – “the worst deal ever”. In …

RFL/RE – The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has met with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials for what she has described as a fact-finding mission as part of the U.S. administration’s review of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. President Donald Trump in April ordered a review of whether a suspension of sanctions on Iran related to the agreement …

RFL/RE – An Iraqi leader has said his country will take the role as mediator between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, media in Iraq and Iran are reporting. Iraqi Interior Minister Qasim al-Arraji on August 13 said Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman had requested Iraq get involved to help ease tensions between Riyadh and Tehran, according to Iran’s semiofficial ISNA …