Nov. 12 – Iran’s deputy Foreign Minister and the lead negotiator for Iran on the 2015 nuclear deal, Ali Bagheri-Kani, said Tehran had decided not to enter into negotiations about the deal this month.
The minister said Tehran would only be prepared to discuss the lifting of US sanctions imposed through the deal, in a conversation with France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Iran’s foreign minister told his French counterpart that the 2015 deal — which the US pulled out of in 2018 and which has been deemed by some experts to be broken as a result of the move — was still operational and did not need to be revived or redefined.
Guns provided by Iran to Houthi proxy militia groups in Yemen have been smuggled through the Gulf of Aden to Somalia, according to a groundbreaking study by Geneva-based think tank the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.
Iran has consistently denied any involvement in trafficking weapons to the Houthis, who have been linked to the Iranian regime through investigations about their funding and support. However the study found that there was a “preponderance of evidence” which pointed to Iran supplying the arms.
The study is believed to be the first ever publicly available research on the scale of illegal arms smuggling from Yemen into the African country.
And a new bill in Iran which bans sterilization and the free distribution of contraceptives in the public health care system unless a pregnancy endangers a woman’s health, has been heavily criticized by Human Rights Watch.
The rights watchdog said the new legislation attacked women’s fundamental rights and discriminated against them by reinforcing the idea that women were first and foremost mothers in charge of child-rearing.
The bill, which has been launched as part of a series of measures to increase Iran’s population, is set to become law in December.
