Iranian FM Claims He Held Talks With Saudi Counterpart

Maryam Jafari Azarmani, wife of the jailed cleric Vahid Heroabadi said Tuesday on twitter that her husband has been taken to Evin Prison while he has one more case pending against him.

Posting content on social media, Vahid Heroabadi was tried in the summer of 2020 by the Special Court of the Clergy on charges of “spreading lies with the intention of disturbing public opinion and propaganda activities against the state.”

The cleric, who is reportedly grown at odds with the regime, was detained at the Bazargan border with Turkey on May 31.

He formerly worked as a cultural missionary at Tehran University. However, he continued to slam policies like mandatory hijab, internet filtering, the persecution of Baha’is, a religious minority, and wide-ranging censorship of public discourse.

Once he wrote about the Baha’i community, “We can have two approaches. Killing the Baha'is, or [accepting] that they are our compatriots, Iranians, with social rights…. In the end it will be one of these two, and I will definitely be choosing the second one.”

After being dismissed from the university in 2018, he started selling small items in downtown Tehran while his photos dressed in his religious robes went viral.

Iraq and France jointly organized the conference, aimed at supporting stability in Iraq and the wider region where Tehran and Riyadh have backed opposite sides in proxy wars from Yemen to Syria and elsewhere.

Saudi Arabia and Iran severed ties in 2016 and the meeting offered potential for direct talks, but there was no word of any meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

"We are ready to cooperate with all countries in the region including countries south of the Persian Gulf," Amir-Abdollahian said. In his address, the Saudi minister pledged support for Baghdad but made no reference to relations with Iran.

As he addressed the conference in Jordan, Soleimani's successor Esmail Ghaani - speaking in Tehran - referred to Saudi Arabia as "a scum and not worth of being an enemy".

Iraq has hosted five meetings between Saudi and Iranian officials since last year, the last of which was in April. These contacts have not yielded any breakthroughs to ease tensions in Iraq and elsewhere.

Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have ticked higher since the eruption of protests in Iran with the Revolutionary Guards telling Saudi Arabia to control its media and the Iranian intelligence minister warning Riyadh there was no guarantee of Tehran continuing its "strategic patience".

A closing communique called for regional cooperation but did not spell out specific measures.

With reporting by Reuters

US Army General Paul Nakasone said the cyber effort to secure the vote began before the November 8 vote and carried through until the elections were certified.

"We did conduct operations persistently to make sure that our foreign adversaries couldn't utilize infrastructure to impact us," Nakasone, who is also the director of the US National Security Agency, told reporters.

"We understood how foreign adversaries utilize infrastructure throughout the world, we had that mapped pretty well, and we wanted to make sure that we took it down at key times."

Nakasone's language suggests Cyber Command carried out both offensive and defensive cyber operations.

There have been many cyber intrusions of Iranian government institutions by hacktivist groups in the past few months and a great amount of stolen documents have surfaced.

He declined to identify which adversaries were targeted but acknowledged he saw the same kinds of foreign adversaries as he had in the past.

"I saw the same foreign adversaries that I've seen before, a lot of the same ones, the proxies and the elements of the Russian and Iranian governments that do this type of work," Nakasone said.

The United States has given high priority to cyber operations to safeguard major elections in recent years, particularly since US intelligence agencies accused Russia of trying to sway 2016 elections, a charge Moscow has denied. US agencies also accused Iran of trying to influence American elections, which Tehran has denied.

Reporting by Reuters

Livemint website quoted two people aware of the matter on Monday as saying that the sanctions-hit country tries to attract Indian investments to develop its transport and energy infrastructure.

Based on the report, Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s deputy foreign minister confirmed the offer in his meetings with a group of experts during his visit to New Delhi last month.

Details of the proposed India-Iran pact are not yet clear. However, the matter is being considered by the Indian ministry of external affairs, sources added.

According to Indian media, a new pact with oil-rich Iran will help the world’s third largest oil consumer deal with high energy prices.

The Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been pursuing ties with China and Russia as he continues opposing normal relations with West.

The long-term deal Iran signed with China is wrapped in mystery and so far has had little practical results, as US sanctions

Iran's economy has been experiencing a sharp fall in the past four years and foreign investment has also decreased.

The violent suppression of the protests in the last three months has intensified the process of the withdrawal of Iranian and foreign capital and the devaluation of the country's national currency.

The initiative is dubbed Revoking Entry Granted to Iranian Mullahs and Elites Act of 2022 or REGIME Act. It would target not only those officials responsible for repression and crackdown on protesters but also their immediate family members, Al Monitor reported Monday.

The legislation would direct the Secretary of State to conduct a review of whether a wide-ranging group of Islamic Republic officials – including members of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Supreme Leader’s office and security forces – and their family members are in possession of US visas or have applied for them.
The legislation is led by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), and Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas).

It is not clear what sorts of US visas will be impacted if the legislation is adopted. Already, some individuals fitting the criteria might have obtained US permanent residency or even became naturalized citizens.

These individuals can apply for visas for their immediate family members according to US immigration law.

Recently, Canada also issued regulations banning entry for 10,000 IRGC members and possibly people affiliated with Key elements of the Iranian regime.

“In light of the actions of the regime it is particularly unbelievable that Iranian officials and family members are being given visas to come to the US to enjoy the very liberties their own citizens can only imagine,” Wilson told Al-Monitor.