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RFL/RE – A major exhibition in Berlin of works from the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has been scrapped because Iran hasn’t issued required permission for their export, the German capital’s museum authority announced on December 27. German organizers had hailed the exhibition as a “significant gesture of cultural diplomacy.” The show was supposed to feature works by Iranian modern …

Al-Arabia – Optimism diminished over the success of a Russian-Iranian conference over the Syrian peace process that is scheduled for mid-January in Astana. Well-informed Turkish sources told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that the Iranian leadership was imposing vetoes on its possible representatives to the conference. Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said that Iran would never coordinate with the United States …

Al-Arabia – Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said in an interview with Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT that Tehran would consider letting Russia use its Hamadan air base again if Moscow asked, the RIA news agency reported. Russia launched air strikes against Syrian militants from the Iranian air base in August before the arrangement ceased amid tensions between Moscow and Tehran over …

Al-monitor –  Mehdi Karroubi, one of the candidates in the disputed 2009 presidential election who later emerged as a leader of the Green Movement, resigned from his post as secretary-general of his political party. Karroubi, a former parliament speaker, has been on house arrest along with fellow Green Movement leader Mir Hossein Mousavi since 2011. Karroubi founded the Reformist National …

Al-monitor – On Dec. 22, the same day the Syrian government announced that Aleppo was under its control, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari was in Damascus to meet President Bashar al-Assad. Ansari was in fact in the Syrian capital to congratulate his country’s prime regional ally for retaking Syria’s largest city and one of the main strongholds of …