Iran

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani is rushing to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in March, Iranian and Russian media confirm. Rouhani’s trip may be an attempt to ensure that Moscow would not sacrifice Tehran as part of a grand bargain with Washington.

A human rights organization reports that the Iranian regime executed at least 87 people last month, including two men who were convicted when they were under 18. According to data compiled by the Iran Human Rights (IHR), the Iranian authorities announced only 19 of the 87 executions.

Mojtaba Zonnour, the head of the Nuclear Affairs commission in the Iranian parliament has demanded that Tehran “stop implementing the [2015] nuclear deal.” Zonnour argued that the strong U.S.

A leading reformist personality, Mostafa Tajzadeh, has lashed out against hawks in Tehran that downplay the prospects of war between Iran and the United States.

Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has called for an investigation into the latest reports of the Iranian government’s ties with the Taliban, the Afghan media reports.

A hardline Iranian site has again engaged in incitement against Bahrain. Tasnim, which is close to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C), the controversial political-military organization that is spearheading Iran’s military interventions in the Middle East, claimed in an article that the overthrow of the Bahraini government is a “public call.”

On February 3, two senior Iranian leaders bragged that the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) and its foreign sectarian militia forces have inflicted a heavy defeat on the U.S. and its allied forces in conflict zones in the Middle East and South Asia.

Following the January 19 collapse of Plasco, a 17-story historic building in downtown Tehran, mass anger against the authorities in the Iranian regime has been building up. Twenty people were killed in the disaster. The mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Ghalibaf, a former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C) commander, who remains close to his comrades, appeared in front of the members of the parliament but refused to apologize.

In reaction to President Donald Trump’s tweet this morning that said “Iran is playing with fire,” Iranian civilian and military officials doubled down on their defiance of U.S. and international demands to curb their controversial missile program, which Washington says violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231.

Ahmad Khatami, a hardline cleric close to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 3 defended Iran’s latest ballistic missile test. “In a world of wolves, we need weapons,” Khatami was quoted as saying to worshippers at the Friday prayer in Tehran.

A representative of the Zoroastrian minority in the Iranian parliament has protested at acts of “insult and defamation” against his community and called on the government to protect the rights of Zoroastrians and prevent inflammatory speech against them by the country’s influential clerics and local authorities.

Iran’s civilian and military leaders today dismissed threats from the Trump administration and vowed to continue and increase the country’s controversial missile activity. “Every day Iran will increase the number of its missiles, warships and defense missile launchers.

The United Arab Emirates has summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires to protest Iran’s arming of Houthi rebels in Yemen, Iranian and

Ahmad Tavakoli, a prominent hardliner and a former member of the Iranian parliament, has urged for members of the public with information about corruption inside the Iranian regime to be “applauded.” “Transparency must be part of the duties of officials,”