Washington, December 15 — Iranian and Western officials are striking pessimistic notes regarding the prospects for a breakthrough in broad talks aimed at decreasing opacity around Iran’s atomic program. Meanwhile Tehran may be dragging out more limited negotiations over granting United Nations inspectors access to a key military facility where...

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A top Iranian nuclear negotiator is minimizing prospects for a breakthrough in talks between Tehran and the P5+1 aimed at decreasing opacity around Iran’s atomic program. Mostafa Dolatyar, who heads the Iranian foreign ministry’s think tank, blasted the approach of the P5+1 – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia,...

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Turkey’s Minister of Economy Mehmet Zafer Caglayan has issued defiant statement, conveyed by Iranian mediato the effect that his country will continue trading with Iran despite international efforts to isolate the regime. Turkey’s economy is increasingly reliant on trading gold for Iranian energy, both to ensure growth and for balancing...

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Iran seems set to reject IAEA requests to visit Parchin, as representatives of the UN nuclear watchdog meet with Iranian officials in Tehran to try to reduce opacity surrounding the Islamic Republic’s atomic program. The IAEA had asked to visit the site, where intelligence reports indicate Iran has conducted testing...

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Hamas’s Tehran office has issued a statement thanking Iran for its support of the group and dismissing suggestions of a split between the Islamic Republic and terror organization. The statement reiterates previous assertions of close ties from both sides, and comes as an Iranian delegation has arrived to the Gaza...

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Iran continues to bolster its conventional arsenal, with the air force making public on Tuesday the country’s first domestically produced helicopters. Present for the unveiling ceremony, which took place as part of Iran’s sixth International Aviation Industry Exhibition, were representatives from China, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sudan. International representatives...

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A U.S.-based human rights organization is blasting Turkey for topping the list of countries where journalists are persecuted and imprisoned. The Committee to Protect Journalists also identified Iran and China as among those keeping behind bars a global total of 232 writers, editors, and photojournalists. The group reserved specific disapprobation...

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Iran is actively exporting its drone technology to Venezuela, according to the country’s Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nouri. The announcement, made as part of a speech by Mehdinejad-Nouri given at Iran’s Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, comes in the wake of testimony by former U.S. Assistant...

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Pentagon officials are pressing Congress to enhance military sales to Israel in the form of an additional $647 million package which would include 6,900 tail kits used to transform free-fall bombs into precise satellite-guided weapons and thousands of 900kg bunker buster bombs. The tail kits would supplement an Israeli arsenal...

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A high-ranking commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is declaring that Israel is the key “target” of Iran’s missile program, noting that Tehran can ensure that “nothing will be left of Israel.” The statement, designed to reassure Western countries that Iran merely seeks the eradicatian of the Jewish State and...

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