إيران

Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of a British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, says that Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) officials are using his wife as a “bargaining chip” to secure a decades-old £500 [$620] million debt for a tank deal from the British government.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s November 29 remark that Turkey intervened in Syria to topple President Bashar al-Assad has drawn a sharp rebuke from Tehran, Damascus and Moscow.

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced that the inflation rate for the past 12 months stood at 8.6 percent – down from 11.9 percent from the same period the year before. Previously, the Statistical Center of Iran had put this year’s figure at 7.5 percent.

On November 28, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed in a telephone conversation to coordinate steps about global oil and gas prices as well as on the war in Syria.

In another sign of Tehran’s improving trade and economic ties with regional countries, Iran has overtaken OPEC-member rivals Saudi Arabia and Iraq as Indi

In a remark that is likely to heighten tension in the Gulf region, the Iranian chief of staff of the armed forces has called for setting up naval bases across on the coasts of Yemen and Syria in the future.

On the evening of November 26, security officials tried to arrest Mahmoud Sadeghi, a university lecturer and lawmaker from Tehran – disregarding his parliamentary immunity. But the authorities backed down after Sadeghi’s supporters, including a number of parliamentarians and students, gathered in front of his house to protest the move. The controversy soon turned into the “most heated” political issue in Tehran the following day.

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, faces an uphill struggle as he prepares for his reelection bid scheduled for May 2017. It was not supposed to be this way. Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, including the United States, was supposed to seal Rouhani’s second term.

After all, the moderate cleric had delivered on his key promise, the lifting of the painful nuclear-related international sanctions. But Rouhani’s hardline opponents inside the Islamic Republic are now increasingly identifying corruption as Rouhani’s Achilles Heel.

On November 22, a senior Iranian official admitted that more than 1,000 combatants dispatched by Iran to fight alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been killed in the Syrian war.  

On November 23, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Iran would strike back if Washington renewed sanctions against the Islam

When the Lebanese parliament elected Michel Aoun as the country’s president on October 31, Iran celebrated the news as a “

The increasing role of Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militia forces in the battle of Mosul has alarmed the Iraqi Sunni minority as well as many countries in the region.

On November 15, the US House of Representatives almost unanimously approved a 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act. Lawmakers argued that the move would put pressure on Iran to comply with the 2015 nuclear agreement. The ISA is set to expire by this year’s end. And while the Senate is expected to pass the bill, it is unclear whether President Obama will sign or veto it.

The battle for influence in Iraq between Iran and Turkey appears to be escalating to a dangerous level as Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militia forces are set to capture the Turkmen-majority city of Tal Afar from the Islamic State. Tal Afar is located about 40 miles west of Mosul.

A last-minute cancellation of a pro-government event in the Iranian city of Mashhad has sparked a bitter conflict between hardliners and reformists and is likely to further undermine the Rouhani government. Mashhad is Iran’s second populous city and the capital of northeastern Khorasan-e Razavi Province.