Search results

Qatar’s foreign affairs minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani travelled to Tehran on 29 January, to pass on a message from the United States about the moribund 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Azerbaijan has closed its embassy in Tehran and evacuated staff and their families, following a gun attack on the diplomatic mission late January in which one security guard  was killed and two others wounded. Azerbaijan complained local security personnel had done nothing to defend the embassy.

An attack by suspected Israeli drones appeared to cause relatively minor damage to a military base in the central city of Isfahan late January. Iranian officials described the facility as a workshop, but did not give further details of its function.

Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian undertook a tour of friendly Latin American countries in early February, but stopped off in Mauritania on the way.

French naval forces seized more than 3,000 assault rifles, 578,000 rounds of ammunition and 23 advanced anti-tank guided missiles in the Gulf of Oman mid-January. The action was announced by US Central Command in February, which said it happened “along routes historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully from Iran to Yemen”.

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol caused a diplomatic stir during a state visit to the UAE from 14-17 January when he described Iran as "the enemy of the UAE, its most-threatening nation".

Relations between London and Tehran have deteriorated following the execution on 14 January of Iranian-British dual national Alireza Akbari, who had been convicted of spying. Prior to Akbari’s execution, there had been rising speculation in London that the UK could soon designate the IRGC as a terrorist group.

The European Parliament voted in January for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) to be designated as a terrorist entity by the European Union (EU), drawing a furious reaction from Tehran.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is converting two former container ships built by Hyundai Shipbuilding in Korea more than 20 years ago into naval vessels. The conversion is being carried out at the Iran Shipbuilding & Offshore Industries Complex (Isoico) at Bandar Abbas.

A number of Kilo-class submarines were seen during Exercise Zulfaqar 1401, held by the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (Nedaja) in early January, following a period when all of the boats had been out of service.

Hassan Kazemi-Qomi was named as the new head of Iran’s mission to Afghanistan in mid-December, taking over from Bahador Aminian. It came soon after comments by Aminian were leaked in which the envoy had described the Taliban as a "calamity" for Afghanistan and the wider world.

The Iranian government has shut down French cultural institution the Institut Français de Recherche en Iran in response to the publication of disparaging cartoons of Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Paris satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The United States Navy said it had seized 2,116 AK-47 assault rifles in the Gulf of Oman in January that were being sent from Iran to Yemen.

The Iranian authorities’ harsh crackdown on the protesters appears to be having an impact, with far fewer public demonstrations now being reported. Thousands have been arrested and at least four protestors have been hanged following what critics have called sham trials.

A series of talks between Iranian and GCC officials have been held during December and early January in Gulf capitals, as well as on the sidelines of events in Jordan and Brazil, in moves that suggest Tehran is recalibrating its relations with neighbouring monarchies during a period of intense domestic tensions.