Responding last July to news that Turkey was planning to purchase air defense systems from China, a NATO official declared that the decision – if confirmed and implemented – “would certainly leave many of us speechless.” Last week Turkey announced that it was moving ahead with purchasing the FD-2000 missile...

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The phone call today between President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was the first direct contact between a U.S. president and his Iranian counterpart since Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy during Iran’s Islamic Revolution and seized fifty two American hostages. The New York Times notes that Rouhani,...

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CNN struggled today to address accusations that it had mistranslated an interview between the station’s Christiane Amanpour and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. Two key passages of the interview – condemning the “Holocaust” and declaring that “whatever criminality they [the Nazis] committed against the Jews, we condemn” – were cited as...

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Analysts are piling on to the already expressed skepticism of U.S. lawmakers regarding optimistic claims being aired by Iranian officials. Newly inaugurated Iranian president Hassan Rouhani yesterday suggested that Iran is looking to resolve its dispute with the West within three to six months. Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg had already on Tuesday aired...

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Two months after anti-regime activists blasted the regime for “spreading lies and disinformation about the existence of political prisoners as they are simultaneously imprisoning hundreds for exercising their legal rights,” former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is calling on Tehran to release all the country’s political prisonersKhatami published his comments on his official website following...

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With many analysts and politicians crediting the international sanctions regime for bringing Iran to the negotiating table – and with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani focusing on sanctions in a speech that many panned as angry and combative – analyst attention is turning to the degree to which trade and financial...

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Hezbollah was heavily involved in instigating and extending violence in Iraq, stretching back almost a decade. The Iran-backed terror group has been critical in assisting Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime extend that country’s war, which has seen over 100,000 people killed and hundreds of people gassed to death. The group has...

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U.S. lawmakers have had a bit of time to evaluate last night’s speech by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. The speech was panned by analysts and journalists as “defiant” and “angry.” Reuters quotes Democratic Senator Robert Menendez as one of the many members of Congress who noticed as much: Two senior...

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In the aftermath of a speech by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani that was panned by journalists and analysts for falling short of expectations built up by the revolutionary-era cleric’s public writings, Democratic Senator Robert Menendez issued a statement reemphasizing a sentiment that has become increasingly heard from lawmakers across the...

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Newly inaugurated Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke to the United Nations General Assembly this evening. Expectations were high after a series of tweets written by Rouhani cemented conventional wisdom that Tehran was offering a new tone, while an op-ed written by Rouhani and published in the Washington Post promised new...

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