Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has "welcomed" an invitation from Saudi Arabia's King Salman to visit the kingdom following the reconciliation between the two countries, an Iranian official said. "In a letter to President Raisi... the King of Saudi Arabia welcomed the deal between the two countries (and) invited him to...

TEHRAN, IRAN -  An Iranian court sentenced two people to death over an October attack on a shrine in the southern city of Shiraz that cost over a dozen lives, the judiciary said Saturday.The pair were convicted of assisting in "corruption on earth, armed rebellion and acting against national security", the...

The degree of anger and sympathy for the protesters, particularly among the American and European public, makes it near impossible to reach a nuclear deal, believes Vali Reza Nasr.

China, Iran, and Russia are conducting a five-day trilateral naval exercise, Security Belt-2023, in the Gulf of Oman, according to media reports. China's Defense Ministry, in a statement, said the exercises will conclude on Sunday and will include the participation of China's guided-missile destroyer Nanning, which will engage in activities such...

United Nations, United States--The surprise rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran should offer momentum toward peace by the warring parties in Yemen after eight years of conflict, UN officials said Wednesday.The UN Security Council on Wednesday discussed the impact on Yemen of the shock Chinese-led announcement on March 10 that diplomatic...

The initial conversation between Xi and Mohammed bin Salman took place during bilateral talks at a summit in Riyadh in December, an official told AFP. Several other meetings also laid the groundwork for last week's talks in Beijing, the official said.

"Dear Mr President, I am very glad to see you in Moscow. Thank you for accepting our invitation," Putin told Assad at the start of their meeting broadcast by state TV. "We are in constant contact and our relations are developing."

Iran has been under renewed US sanctions since then president Donald Trump abandoned a landmark nuclear agreement between Tehran and major powers in 2018. Saudi Arabia, a longtime US ally, has said it supports the sanctions, which target key areas, including oil.

Iran said it would welcome restoring ties with Bahrain to end seven years of ruptured relations, following the China-brokered deal to heal rifts between Tehran and Riyadh. "The resumption of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia shows the effectiveness of the diplomatic solution to resolve misunderstandings," said Iran's foreign ministry...

Lukashenko said he had observed "with great respect the perseverance with which the (Iranian) people resist external pressures, attempts to impose the will of others on them". "And I see that, despite everything, you are developing modern technologies and nuclear energy," he added about Iran's contested nuclear programme which has...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran's top diplomat on Sunday said "everything is ready" to implement a stalled prisoner exchange deal with the United States, which Washington promptly denied as a "cruel lie".At least three US citizens are held in the country's prisons, according to Iran's judiciary and the US State Department."We have...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran's judiciary on Sunday confirmed a death sentence for a Swedish-Iranian dissident for "terrorism" over two years since his disappearance at an airport in Turkey, the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.Habib Chaab has been held in Iran since October 2020 after he vanished during a visit to Turkey...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran has announced more than 100 arrests nationwide over the mystery poisonings of thousands of schoolgirls, charging that the unidentified alleged perpetrators may have links with "hostile" groups.In the wave of cases since late November, schoolgirls have suffered fainting, nausea, shortness of breath and other symptoms after reporting...

Israeli airstrikes targeting a weapons depot in Syria killed two pro-Iran fighters and wounded three soldiers, a war monitor said. "Israeli strikes targeted a weapons depot belonging to pro-Iran forces located... between Tartus and Hama provinces," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Abu Dhabi, UAE--Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has made a phone call to Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, during which he expressed the UAE's welcome of the Riyadh and Tehran agreement...

Around one-third of countries are likely to go through a recession, Sir Masood Ahmed, President of the Center for Global Development, tells TRENDS in an interview.

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran has finalized a deal to buy Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, state media reported, as defense cooperation between the two countries deepens.The air force of sanctions-hit Iran has an ageing fleet of aircraft and has struggled to acquire spare parts to keep its warplanes in...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Gunmen ambushed and killed two Iranian policemen on patrol in the restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, state media reported Saturday.The officers had been "on a mission to provide security" during Friday prayers in the town of Golshan when they came under attack, said the official news agency IRNA.Clashes...

Surprise Saudi-Iran detente, midwifed by China, has gone against the drift of Austin’s visit to the Middle East which was largely premised on an abiding antagonism between the two countries.

Negotiations overseen in Switzerland by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross will see Yemen's warring parties holding talks in Geneva starting Saturday to discuss a prisoner exchange, according to rebels and government officials. Hostilities have largely stopped since a UN-brokered ceasefire took effect in April last...

Riyadh cut ties with Tehran after Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic republic in 2016 following the Saudi execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The two countries also agreed to activate the security cooperation agreement signed in 2001.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been politically isolated in the region since the start of Syria's war in 2011, triggered by the government's suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations, and was expelled from the Cairo-based Arab League. But since the quake, Arab leaders have made overtures to his government. "We welcome the...

Austin's talks with his hosts were centred on the changing geopolitics of the region, which is currently roiled by rising threat from Iran and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

US Defense Secretary Austin also visits Baghdad to assure US support for Iraqi security, stability, and sovereignty ahead of the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion.

Scores of Iranian schools have been hit by poisonings since late November, with pupils suffering symptoms ranging from shortness of breath to nausea and vertigo after reporting "unpleasant" odors on school premises. Some have been treated in hospital.

Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said those behind the poisoning of schoolgirls in recent months should face "severe punishment", according to his website. In total, several hundred cases of gas poisoning have been reported in more than 52 schools across Iran since the end of November, according to an...

Tehran, Iran - She could have left Iran, as many of her contemporaries did, but Paris-trained pastry chef Shahrzad Shokouhivand decided to stay and work to make women's lives better inside the country.And the icing on the cake? She and her husband now employ 70 people - mostly women."It's only...

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi earlier said he had held "constructive" talks with Iranian officials in Tehran after the discovery of uranium particles enriched to near weapons-grade level. On his return to Vienna, Grossi recalled there had been "a reduction in monitoring activities related to cameras and monitoring systems"...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran has announced the discovery of a large deposit of lithium, a key component of batteries for electric vehicles and electronic devices, state media reported Saturday."For the first time in Iran, a lithium reserve has been discovered in Hamedan", in the west of the country, state television quoted...

Dozens of Iranian schoolgirls across five provinces were hospitalized in a new wave of suspected poisoning attacks, local media reported. Hundreds of cases of respiratory distress have been reported over the past three months among schoolgirls mainly in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospitalization.

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is expected in Tehran for discussions with officials after International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in Iran found uranium particles enriched to just under weapons-grade level. The visit by the head of IAEA comes with the Vienna-based organization seeking to get Iran to increase cooperation...

The IAEA report said that during an inspection "on 22 January 2023, the agency took environmental samples... at Fordow (sic) Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), the analytical results of which showed the presence of high enriched uranium particles containing up to 83.7 percent U-235". "These events clearly indicate the capability of...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Dozens of schoolgirls in Iran were hospitalized on Tuesday after a mysterious poisoning, an Iranian news agency reported, the latest in a spate of suspected attacks in the Islamic republic.Hundreds of cases of respiratory distress have been reported in the past three months among Iranian schoolgirls mainly in...

Washington, United States--Iran's nuclear program is advancing at a "worrisome pace," CIA director William Burns said in an interview broadcast Sunday, following reports Tehran had further enriched uranium.Iran was last known to have enriched uranium up to 60 percent purity, but a recent Bloomberg News report that International Atomic Energy Agency...

Madrid, Spain - Iran has released a Spanish woman who had been detained in the country since November, Spain's foreign minister said Sunday."She was freed yesterday, but we didn't want to announce it publicly before her plane had taken off from Iran," Jose Manuel Albares told journalists."I was able to speak...

Three years after former US president Donald Trump ordered the killing of top Guards' commander Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian genera has warned that his country is still seeking to kill Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo in revenge for assassinating the commander. Tehran has repeatedly vowed to avenge...

A more than eight-year-long war between Saudi-backed government forces and pro-Iran Houthi rebels has devastated Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula. The war has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths both directly and indirectly, and pushed the nation to the brink of famine.

Taking retaliatory action for imposition of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Iran has slapped 36 individuals and entities from the European Union and Britain with sanctions. According to the Iranian foreign ministry, Tehran has placed the names on its "sanctions list for supporting terrorism and terrorist groups" as well as...

TEHRAN, IRAN - A Tehran court Tuesday sentenced to death an Iranian-German dual national accused of being the leader of a "terrorist" group behind a deadly 2008 mosque bombing, the judiciary said."The Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Jamshid Sharmahd, the leader of the Tondar terrorist group, to death on the charge...

Iran denied reports it has enriched uranium up to 84 percent, just below the 90 percent needed to produce an atomic bomb, state media reported. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was in discussions with Tehran after Bloomberg News reported that IAEA's inspectors in Iran found uranium enriched to...

Iran was last known to enrich up to 60 percent, while a 90-percent threshold is required for use in a weapon. Bloomberg News reported that inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Iran last week found uranium enriched to 84-percent purity. Tehran says it is not planning to...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia--The African Union said Sunday that Israel's observer status at the bloc was suspended and therefore it had not been invited to its weekend summit, after a row over the ejection of one of its top diplomats.A furious Israel accused arch-foe Iran of orchestrating the expulsion of the...

Tehran, Iran--Iran's judiciary is prosecuting a woman for "disrespecting" the Islamic headscarf after she threw hers to the ground during a public meeting, an Iranian news agency reported Saturday.The requirement for women to wear the headscarf in public, enshrined in law since shortly after the Islamic revolution of 1979, has triggered...

In yet another missile strike by Israel on Damascus, 15 people were killed and a residential building was destroyed in the Syrian capital. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike, which hit close to an Iranian cultural center, had killed 15 people including civilians. Israel has targeted Syria...

LONDON, UK - The independent network Iran International TV said Saturday it had been forced on UK police advice to shut down its London studios, after a "significant escalation in state-backed threats from Iran"."I cannot believe it has come to this," said the network's general manager, Mahmood Enayat, adding that 24-hour...

Israel condemned the "severe" expulsion of a senior diplomat from the African Union summit, accusing Iran of orchestrating the move with help from Algeria and South Africa. A video on social media shows guards escorting the Israeli foreign ministry's deputy director general for Africa, Sharon Bar-li, out of the AU...

The meeting was co-chaired by Sheikh Ahmed bin Hashel Al-Maskari, Head of the Omani Foreign Ministry's GCC Department.

Raisi is expected to hold private talks with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping in the capital Beijing, with the pair expected to sign a number of "cooperation documents". The two met for the first time last September in Uzbekistan at a summit for the SCO, where the Iranian president...

On his upcoming trip, Raisi is expected to hold private talks with Xi, and delegations from both countries are due to sign "cooperation documents", according to Iranian media agency.

Last week, Iran claimed Israel launched a drone strike on a military plant in the central city of Isfahan.