- After months of negotiations, Mr. Khamenei has revealed that he will go along with a “doable” deal, but not a bad one: “I would go along with any agreement that could be made. Of course, I am not for a bad deal. No agreement is better than an agreement which runs contrary to our nation's interests.”
- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has urged his counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, to meet a March deadline for a framework deal to rein in Iran's nuclear program. A senior U.S. State Department official said Kerry pressed Mr. Zarif Friday during a two-hour meeting in Munich on the Obama administration's desire to reach an outline agreement. Some have interpreted the meeting’s location, Munich, the city infamous for appeasement, as a bad sign.
- During his continuous negotiations with U.S. Secretary of Sate John Kerry, Mohammad Javad Zarif and Iran’s “moderate” nuclear negotiations team came under further scrutiny by hard-liners in Iran. Mr. Zarif has been accused of ignoring the ideals of the Islamic revolution and compromising “too much.”
- Reports emerged on Friday that Iran’s foreign minister has warned the U.S. that failure to agree a nuclear deal was likely to herald the political demise of pragmatist president Hassan Rouhani. Mr. Zarif later denied such allegations.
- On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, President Hassan Rouhani berated the world’s nuclear powers and reiterated that the Islamic Republic was not seeking to develop a nuclear bomb.
- A senior Israeli official suggested that John Boehner had misled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into thinking an invitation to address the U.S. Congress on Iran next month was fully supported by the Democrats.
- Some members of the U.S. Congress may be resisting proposed new sanctions on Iran, but their opposition doesn't seem likely to stop Congress passing legislation on Tehran's nuclear program by the end of March
- After the immolation of Muadh al-Kasasbeh, the captured Jordanian pilot, most Muslim clerics were very vocal and critical of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Iranian clerics, however, were unusually silent with the exception of Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, who told his followers that militant groups such as ISIS have been created by the West to promote “an ugly picture of Islam."
- Following Charlie Hebdo’s decision to publish a caricature of Muslim Prophet Mohammed, two Iranian organizations have launched an international cartoon contest to make light of the Holocaust.
- Houthi rebels in Yemen, with support of the Iranian regime, took firm control of country on Friday, dissolved parliament, and announced an interim constitution. Yemen has been effectively without a government since January 22, 2015, when the Houthis seized the presidential palace and government ministries, leading to the resignation of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
- Another twist in the story of the death of Alberto Nisman, an Argentinian prosecutor. Mr. Nisman had accused President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and top Argentine officials of trying to cover up a deal to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Mr. Horacio Antonio Stiuso, an ex-spy chief who was supposed to testify Thursday about the mysterious death of Mr. Nisman, has disappeared and the authorities have been unable to find him.
- After initial reports revealed that Uruguay had suspended a senior Iranian diplomat due to his involvement in placing an explosive device near the new Israeli embassy in early January, reports now indicate that Ahmad Sabatgold actually fled the country because he was suspected of collecting intelligence for a bombing attempt on the Israeli embassy in Montevideo.
- About a month after a number of conservative media outlets reported that President Rouhani had closed down a significant part of Iran’s high profile and much publicized space program, on February 3, Iran successfully launched a satellite. President Rouhani stated on television that the space program would continue. Click here to read more.
- In a letter to his Russian counterpart, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan emphasized the importance of implementing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on military cooperation between the two nations.
- During his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., President Barack Obama talked about Boise pastor Saeed Abedini. Mr. Abedini has been held in an Iranian prison for more than two years. The regime in Iran has accused the pastor of threatening national security, but his family insists he was targeted because of his Christian faith.
- Jafar Panahi, an Iranian film-maker, has defied the Tehran authorities who banned him from making films by releasing a movie. He was punished for acting against national security and creating anti-regime propaganda. His new film, Taxi, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday. Here is one review of the film, and here is another.
- Issa Kalantari, the chairman of the working committee to save Lake Urmia, has stated that nearly 600 lakes in Iran are drying up.