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The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) kept the UAE on its 'grey list' of jurisdictions under increased monitoring. The UAE is one of 26 jurisdictions on the grey list, alongside the likes of Jordan, Turkey and Yemen. The inter-governmental watchdog also kept Iran on its 'black list' of high-risk jurisdictions, alongside North Korea and Myanmar.
Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has said he received a favourable reception to the idea of forming a new dialogue forum with Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries, following a series of meetings with his counterparts around the region in June.
Albanian authorities raided a camp used by the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) and seized 150 computers. Several police officers and Iranian dissidents were reportedly injured during the raid.
IAEA report: Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has risen by over a quarter in three months, according to comments by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi on 5 June. Grossi told a board of governors meeting in Vienna that “some progress” had been made on monitoring and verification. However, it was “not at the level, pace and sustained rhythm that I would expect.
An Iranian naval commander has claimed GCC states are interested in joining a new coalition to patrol regional waters. Given the concerns in many capitals about recent Iranian seizures of oil tankers that seems unlikely to progress, but the UAE has recently pulled out of the US-led Combined Maritime Forces – seemingly due to unhappiness about the amount of support Washington is willing to give to its regional partners.
Iran reopened its embassy in Riyadh, some seven years after it was shuttered and three months after the two countries agreed to resume full diplomatic relations in a deal brokered by China. Iran also reopened its consulate in Jeddah.
The foreign ministers of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were in Cape Town in early June, as part of an expanded meeting of the Brics group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi left Tehran for a tour of three friendly Latin American countries, starting with Venezuela and followed by Nicaragua and Cuba.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has begun to deploy its new class of drone carriers beyond its territorial waters, giving Tehran the potential to launch drone and missile strikes from a wider range of locations.
The United States has claimed Iran is working with Russia to develop a drone manufacturing facility in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on the Volga river in Tatarstan, some 900km east of Moscow.
Tehran's concerns over the activities of Iranian anti-regime groups based in the Kurdistan region were sufficient for recently-appointed Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Akbar Ahmadian to make talks on the issue with his federal Iraqi counterpart Qassem Al-Araji an early priority – and for veiled threats about cross-border action to shut down Iraq-based dissidents if Baghdad doesn't respond.
At least three border guards were killed late May, in clashes on the frontier between Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province and Afghanistan’s Nimroz province, amid rising tensions over water flows.
Iranian officials said they had conducted a successful test flight for the domestically-produced Simorgh aircraft. A modified version of the Ukrainian-produced Antonov An-140 cargo aircraft, it has been developed as a light military transport plane.
Ali Akbar Ahmadian was appointed Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) secretary in Iran, replacing Ali Shamkhani who had held the influential post since September 2013. Since his resignation as SNSC secretary, Shamkhani has been appointed a political adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran appears to have test-fired an updated version of its Khorramshahr ballistic missile, called the Khorramshahr-4. Officials said the missile had a range of 2,000km with a warhead of 1,500kg, which suggests it has been optimised to target Israel.
