Rockets Hit Near US Base At Baghdad International Airport

US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Foreign Minister Ahmed Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah made the remarks during the fifth US-Kuwait Strategic Dialogue in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

The two sides discussed threats in the region, including the interference of the Islamic Republic in the domestic affairs of its neighboring countries, and reviewed ways to strengthen their defense and economic partnership.

Kuwait reportedly stopped issuing visas to Iranians for business trips in December.

“The United States appreciates Kuwait’s support for a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement, because it’s the most effective way to ensure that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon”, Blinken said.

He also expressed appreciation for Kuwait’s close coordination through venues like the GCC Iran Working Group to stop Iran’s destabilizing actions.

Blinken and al-Sabah said in a statement that the US and Kuwait “stand together against Iran’s destabilizing influence” in the region.

They underlined the importance of a stable Iraqi government free from malign foreign influenceand reiterated the need for full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 (2015) to end the Syrian conflict and bring lasting stability there.

In the telephone conversation on Friday, Amir-Abdollahian reiterated that Iran is determined to reach a “good nuclear agreement” with the world powers in the shortest time possible.

"The negotiation process is on a positive track and the Islamic Republic has the serious will to reach a good agreement as soon as possible", he said.

He reiterated Tehran’s position that the United States is not trustworthy and Tehran needs verifications and guarantees for sanctions removal in the process of the negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

Guterres hailed the progress in the talks and said the UN has always supported the nuclear agreement and international peace.

Amir-Abdollahian stressed the need for global attention to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, saying, "Iran has received about 800,000 new refugees from Afghanistan in the past few months."

He also called for an inclusive government in Afghanistan and added that that Iran is ready to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian and financial aid to the refugees.

On Yemen, Amir-Abdollahian said the Islamic Republic backs a political solution to end the war and called on the UN secretary-general to intervene and stop the bombings in populated civilian areas.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have so far rejected UN calls for a ceasefire.

Of those who had openly supported the idea since Monday, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and national security chief Ali Shamkhani came under fire by hardliner Kayhan newspaper affiliated with the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had said on January 9 that he had no objection to direct talks if circumstances so required, he did not back the supporters or opponents of the idea as controversy flared up this week.

This is consistent with his behavior in the past when he quickly distanced himself from some of his statements and refused to publicly take side with any particular argument. Although he allowed nuclear negotiations in 2013, he was quick to distance himself from the policy when Iran encountered problems.

Ali Shamkhani on Thursday phoned Kayhan to say that he has never wanted and would never want direct talks with the United States. Iranian officials habitually backtrack from their problematic statements and usually blame the media for misreporting what they had said.

Amir-Abdollahian has apparently not changed his mind yet and maintains his previous view about "a balanced approach to foreign relations" that means maintaining ties with the United States as well as with Russia and China.

Referring to supportive statements by parliamentarians such as the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Spokesman Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini about the need for holding direct talks with America, reformist daily Sharq on Thursday speculated that the Iranian Parliament (Majles) generally supports the idea. The committee's chairman Vahid Jalazadeh also said that the United States is standing at the door of the 4+1 meetings and that now the doors could open and let America in if the situation so required.

According to Sharq, the Islamic Republic's difficult economic situation is the main reason why some of Iran's hardliner lawmakers are now agreeing with direct talks with the United States. Sharq wrote that the Foreign Ministry spokesman's statement on Monday regarding the possibility of quick release of a quick prisoner exchange and the latest statements by the foreign minister and President Ebrahim Raisi have been taken by some MPs as a green light for direct talks with the United States.

Iran Diplomacy, a website close to the Iranian foreign ministry on Wednesday pointed out that calls for making direct contact with the United States started after Raisi's recent visit to Russia. The report implied that the decision is possibly the outcome of consultations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, reporters close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that on Monday, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian cancelled a news conference at the ministry and rushed to meet with the state's highest official, meaning Khamenei, to discuss matters relating to the JCPOA. Without naming Khamenei, the media in Tehran speculate that he has probably ordered Amir-Abdollahian to put forward the idea of direct talks with America, which the foreign minister did in a meeting with the press later that day.

Sharq quoted another lawmaker, Gholamreza Marhaba as saying that "Apart from Israel, we have no red line in foreign policy. Now that the Majles and the government both are from the same camp, we are certain that this unity can be fruitful under the supervision of the president and the Supreme Leader. We can now interact with the world including the United States. America has power and technology, and this could be useful for our country, on the condition that the United States enters into negotiations with us with goodwill."

According to the annual list released by Transparency International on Tuesday, the Islamic Republic scored 25 on a scale of zero to 100, where zero means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean.

Each country’s score is drawn from 13 different corruption surveys and assessments by a variety of reputable institutions, including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.

The CPI, the most widely used global corruption ranking in the world, assesses countries and territories annually on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be by experts.

It covers manifestations of public sector corruption, including the misuse of public power for private benefit without facing consequences, bribery, diversion of public funds, nepotistic appointments, and access to information on public affairs/government activities.

In 2013, the last year of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidential tenure, Iran was 144th among 177 countries. It rose to 130 in 2017, suggesting a decline in corruption, but has dropped again since then.

Iranian authorities routinely criticize corruption in the country, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei having issued an anti-corruption decree, demanding the heads of the three branches of government not slacken in efforts against graft.

With Asian qualifiers now into its final stages Iran faced Iraq at Tehran’s Azadi stadium on Thursday and won thanks to a close-range solo by Mehdi Taremi to become the first country to earn its place at the year-end tournament in Qatar.

The Islamic Republic, which has barred female spectators from stadiums for years claiming it would violate religious rules of decency, was forced by world soccer body FIFA to allow women to attend a match in 2019.

A month after the FIFA warning in September that year, Iranian women were allowed to watch a World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Cambodia.

Despite the FIFA order to allow women into stadiums without restriction and in numbers determined by demand for tickets, Iran announced 2,000 of the 10,000 tickets for the match against Iraq were exclusively reserved for women and they had to sit in segregated areas.

The number of women allowed to buy tickets was less than the match against Cambodia and there were many women who gathered outside the gates, purportedly because many of the promised seats were given to women cherry-picked by the authorities.

There were also reports that a dozen female reporters and journalists were not allowed into the stadium.