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VOA – Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a prominent ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to New York this week to school investors on his state bank’s plans to sell new dollar bonds. Instead, he was placed under arrest by U.S. authorities and accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by teaming with wealthy Turkish gold …

RFL/RE – A Berlin court has sentenced a Pakistani man to four years and three months in prison after he was convicted of spying for Iran. The sentence in the trial of Haidar Syed Mustafa came on March 28, after the court ruled that he had collected material on the former head of the German-Israeli Association and a French-Israeli professor …

RFL/RE – Bahrain says it has broken up a 14-member “terrorist” cell suspected of a bomb attack on a bus in February and of plotting to assassinate senior government officials. The Bahraini Interior Ministry on March 26 said individual group members had been trained by Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Iraqi Ketaeb Hizballah Shi’ite paramilitary group, and …

Al-Arabia – Iran has been continuing its series of blatant measures in defiance of norms accepted as standard by the international community, all as the Trump administration continues to weigh on blacklisting the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Iran has gone as far as pledging to launch “roaring missiles” in response to threats. To this day, several ballistic missile launches – capable …

VOA – New efforts by U.S. lawmakers to tighten sanctions against Iran’s ballistic-missile program have earned praise from three former senior U.S. officials who support an exiled Iranian opposition group. Former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph, Obama administration State Department spokesman P.J. Crowleyand former Marine Corps Commandant U.S. General James Conway welcomed last Thursday’s announcements …

VOA – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence says the Trump administration “has put Iran on notice,” and will not tolerate Iranian efforts to “destabilize the region and jeopardize Israel’s security.” His comments Sunday night in Washington came at the opening of the three-day annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). View image on Twitter View image …

RFL/RE – U.S. senators from both major political parties introduced legislation on March 23 to tighten sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile launches and other non-nuclear military activities. Authored by leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and co-sponsored by seven senators each from the Republican and Democratic parties, the bill mirrors the harder line against Tehran taken by …

Al-Arabia – While an agreement allowing Iranian pilgrims to join this year’s hajj is good news, this is no leap forward to future success for the regime in Tehran. Quite obvious is the fact that this regime is facing a new balance of power in the Middle East and across the globe as the Trump administration has begun overhauling his …

RFL/RE – Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE has pleaded guilty to violating U.S. sanctions by illegally shipping $32 million of U.S. technology to Iran. The guilty plea on March 22 was part of an agreement the company reached earlier this month with U.S. authorities that also called for nearly $900 million in fines, the largest penalty assessed to date in …

RFL/RE – A Luxembourg court has rejected Tehran’s demand to return $1.6 billion of Iranian assets claimed by the United States as compensation for the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks. The judge ruled that the assets could remain frozen in Luxembourg for now, awaiting a separate judgment on the merits of the case. In 2012, a New York …