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All in News
◢ Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell is Monday due to visit Iran, said officials in Tehran and Brussels, on his first trip there since taking office, aiming to reduce rising tensions over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Borrel is set to meet President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani on the two-day trip, his office said in a statement.
◢ The U.S. lifted sanctions against a unit of China’s biggest shipping company that was accused of hauling Iranian crude in violation of American restrictions. The penalties had barred U.S. citizens and companies from dealing with the firms, effectively blocking them from American banks at the heart of the global financial system.
◢ The Trump administration will extend sanctions waivers allowing limited work on Iran’s civil nuclear program for another 60 days, two people familiar with the matter said. At the same time, the administration will announce sanctions on the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and its chief, Ali Akbar Salehi.
◢ Iran's president warned Monday of threats to the Islamic republic's "democracy and national sovereignty", after a body dominated by his ultra-conservative rivals disqualified thousands of candidates, weeks before elections. Rouhani, whose alliance fears losing its majority in the February 21 polls, said the disqualifications risked appointments being made "elsewhere" than the ballot box.
◢ An Iranian passenger plane overshot a runway as it landed Monday in the southwestern city of Bandar-e Mahshahr, barreling into an adjacent highway without causing casualties, state TV reported. "Arriving at Mahshahr airport, the pilot landed the aircraft too late and this caused him to miss the runway," the broadcaster quoted the head of Khuzestan province's aviation authority as saying.
◢ Five Katyusha rockets were fired at the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad Sunday night, targeting the U.S. embassy compound there, Iraq’s security forces reported. No injuries were reported but one of the rockets directly hit the embassy building itself.
◢ Iran's top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif hosted his Omani counterpart Yusuf bin Alawi on Sunday for the second time within a week for talks on security in the sensitive Persian Gulf. Alawi was making the visit to Tehran on the tail end of his trip to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
◢ The Iran nuclear deal has been crumbling since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, prompting the Islamic republic to announce a series of steps away from its commitments. "Notwithstanding differences on modalities, there is agreement that more time is needed due to the complexity of the issues involved. The timeline is therefore extended," the EU’s foreign policy chief said in a statement.
◢ The U.S. sanctioned four companies that it says have traded hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals in its latest effort to clamp down on Iran’s revenue sources. All property and interests in the property of the designated companies are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.
◢ Iraq's president warned Wednesday against pushing the country to choose sides in escalating tensions between neighboring Iran and the US, both allies of Baghdad. Addressing world leaders at the World Economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Barham Saleh said a recent parliamentary vote to oust foreign forces from Iraq should not be understood as a sign of "hostility.”
◢ Iran will withdraw from a major non-proliferation treaty if European nations attempt to refer the Islamic Republic to the UN Security Council over its infringements of the 2015 nuclear deal, the country’s foreign minister said. “If Europeans continue their untenable conduct or send Iran’s nuclear case to the United Nations Security Council, we will withdraw from the N.P.T.,” Mohammad Javad Zarif told lawmakers.
◢ Iran said Monday its Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will skip this week's World Economic Forum after organizers changed the event he had been planning to take part in. The annual summit, which kicks off in the Swiss resort of Davos on Tuesday, has been overshadowed by escalating tensions between Iran and its arch foe the United States.
◢ Iran's parliamentary speaker on Sunday warned of unspecified repercussions for the UN's nuclear watchdog if European nations that launched a dispute mechanism against the Islamic republic act unfairly. "What the three European countries did regarding Iran's nuclear issue... is unfortunate," parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani said.
◢ Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran had delivered a “slap to the U.S.’s image as a superpower” in this month’s military confrontation, seeking to rally Iranians around an embattled establishment as he led Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time in eight years.
◢ Iran's supreme leader is expected to lead the main weekly Muslim prayers in Tehran on Friday, after a traumatic month in which the country had appeared on the brink of war with the United States and accidentally downed a Ukrainian passenger jet. The last time Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led Friday prayers at Tehran's Mosalla mosque was in February 2012.
◢ Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday that his country's "daily enrichment" of uranium was currently "higher" than before the conclusion of the 2015 nuclear deal. Rouhani did not specify whether Iran was now producing a greater quantity of enriched uranium, or whether it was enriching ore with uranium 235 isotopes at a higher level than before the deal.
◢ Germany''s defense minister on Thursday confirmed a report that the United States was threatening to impose a 25 percent tariff on European car exports if it continued backing the Iran nuclear deal. "This expression or threat, as you will, does exist," Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters.
◢ Canada vowed Wednesday to get to the bottom of the plane crash that killed dozens of its nationals in Iran, ahead of a meeting in London with other countries that lost citizens. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that his government intends to ask Tehran for compensation for the families of Canadian victims, which Ottawa officials said Wednesday was a top priority.
◢ Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned European countries that their soldiers in the Middle East could be exposed to greater danger in the future if instability fueled by the presence of their American counterparts continues. Rouhani said on Wednesday that Iran wanted U.S. forces to exit the region “sensibly” to improve stability, before he extended his caution to Europe.
