The Iranian government said it would take a fourth step to scale back its commitments under the terms of the nuclear deal, as officials in Tehran expressed increased frustration at Europe’s inability to fulfill its obligations under the agreement. Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, said efforts by the European signatories, particularly France, had so far failed to produce any tangible results. Iranian officials said they would take the next step to scale back in November, if there was no movement by then on the European side.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tehran was trying to organize missile launches from Yemen into Israel. Neither the Iranian government nor the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen responded to the allegation.
Meanwhile, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel came under fire for minimizing Israel’s concerns over an Iran threat. Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany criticized Merkel for appearing to shrug off Iran’s threats to destroy Israel, in a statement in which she called the threats “rhetoric.” She said, “We condemn the recent threats by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps against Israel in the strongest possible terms. Such anti-Israel rhetoric is completely unacceptable. Israel’s right to exist is not negotiable. We urge Iran to commit to maintaining peaceful relations with all states in the region and to take practical steps to de-escalate tensions.”
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief General Qassem Soleimani attended a secret meeting in Baghdad, in an attempt to stop Iraq’s Prime Minister Abdel Abdul Mahdi being ousted from power. The move highlights the Islamic Republic’s growing influence in the region, which has concerned the international community. Iraq was rocked by violent demonstrations last month, as Iraqis took to the streets to protest state corruption and economic mismanagement inside the country.
And over in London, Richard Ratcliffe accused the British government of trying to minimize the amount owed to Iran from a historic business deal connected to the release of his wife, detained British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe said the legal agency handling the debt claim was creating undue delays which had affected Nazanin’s release date.
- The Kurdistan Democratic Party has an Iran branch, and they’ve been meeting with western officials to try to establish a federal state inside the Islamic Republic.
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- Iran was the focus of two security conferences, but Iranian officials were not invited to either.
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- Tehran and its militia groups have been spotted in the Northeastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zur, an area with a strategic oil field.
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- Longer prison sentences for people who carry out acid attacks, that’s what Iran’s Guardian Council approved, according to the Council’s spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodaei.
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