The U.S. government offered to engage in discussions with Iran’s government about the 2015 nuclear deal this week, an invitation which was not officially responded to by Iranian officials who said they wanted U.S. sanctions lifted before talks could resume.
Tehran also threatened to end a newly made deal with the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to allow the body to monitor Iran’s nuclear activities. The move followed a paper sent to the watchdog by the U.S. asking for a resolution to express concern over Iran’s levels of cooperation with the UN body.
Under the terms of the nuclear deal, Iran is required to allow the IAEA access to its nuclear sites.The U.S. government has repeatedly said it will only return to the 2015 agreement if Iran returns to full compliance with the deal first.
France’s foreign ministry said that a French dual national had been detained in Iran since May 2020. Lawyer Saeid Dehghan who is representing the man, said he was being held in Mashad’s Vakilabad prison on charges that were ‘contradictory’ and ‘baseless.’
Mr. Deghan said the man’s first name was Benjamin, and that he was a French national but did not hold dual nationality. A family member of the man said he had been flying a drone in the desert near the Turkmenistan-Iran border, a claim which Mr. Deghan has denied.
Protesters stormed the office of a governor and set fire to a police car in southeastern Iran after a shooting which took place on the Iran-Pakistan border killed more than ten people and injured several others. At least 12 Baloch youths may also have been killed in the clashes, according to a member of the provincial assembly in a neighboring Pakistani region.
Iranian officials are believed to be responsible for several of the deaths having clamped down on fuel smugglers across its borders in recent days.
And Zahra Ismaili, a mother in Iran sentenced to death for killing her husband, died of a heart attack just before being hanged but was executed anyway as a concession to the victim’s mother, according to Ms. Ismaili’s lawyer, Omid Moradi.
Moradi said she had been placed in a queue with 16 men in front of her, who she had to watch being hanged, when she collapsed. Though she appeared to be dead, officials hanged her anyway so that her husband’s mother could kick the chair from under her, a right afforded to relatives of victims in such cases.
Ms. Ismaili had always maintained that she was a victim of domestic abuse and had killed her husband in self defence to protect herself and her daughter.
