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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 …

RFL/RE – Iran’s parliament has given initial approval to a bill to increase spending on the country’s missile program and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in response to recent sanctions imposed by the United States. Lawmakers on August 13 overwhelmingly approved the outlines of the bill to “counter America’s terrorist and adventurist actions” as some chanted “Death to America,” state-controlled …

RFL/RE – U.S. President Donald Trump once again asserted on August 10 that Iran is not “living up to the spirit” of its 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, and added that it was a “horrible agreement.”

PyavandNews – On August 8, 2017, a bipartisan group of 47 national security leaders issued a statement recommending a comprehensive Iran policy designed to further U.S. national security interests. By The Iran Project The international agreement with Iran continues to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. No American national security objective would be served by withdrawing from it as long as …

RFL/RE – The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has posted a video threatening new attacks in Tehran and calling on young Iranians to rise up against their country.

RFL/RE – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have reportedly clashed with a group of militants in the country’s northwest, killing two of them. The Tasnim news agency reported on August 6 that the fighting took place in the province of West Azerbaijan bordering Turkey and Iraq, without specifying when the incident occurred. It quoted the commander of the IRGC’s ground …

RFL/RE – U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Iran and the Hizballah militia that it backs in Syria and Lebanon, blaming them for creating a “humanitarian catastrophe” and threatening peace throughout the region. “Hizballah is a menace to the Lebanese state, the Lebanese people, and the entire region,” Trump said at a White House news conference with visiting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad …

Al-Arabia – President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that Iran would respond in kind to any breach by the United States of the 2015 nuclear deal after the House of Representatives passed a new sanctions bill. “If the enemy steps over part of the agreement, we will do the same, and if they step over the entire deal, we will do …

RFL/RE – The White House says it is open to new legislation that would slap new sanctions on Russia and limit U.S. President Donald Trump’s ability to ease or lift them by himself. The comments by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a July 23 television interview came a day after Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Washington said they had …

Al-Arabia – Last week, security forces arrested members of a Bahraini institution called the Manama Human Rights Observatory that works under the pretext of defending human rights. This incident raised a series of questions: Does the Iranian-Qatari rapprochement have any negative repercussions on Bahrain’s security and stability? Is this a new rapprochement and happened as a reaction to the decision to …