JUNE 28 – U.S. President Donald Trump said that he called off a strike against Iran after U.S. Generals briefing him confirmed 150 Iranians would die if the attack went ahead. Trump told reporters that he did not think the loss of life was commensurate to Iran’s shooting down of a US Gold Hawk surveillance drone.
An attack on military positions at two separate Saudi Arabian airports by Iran-aligned Houthis cast further suspicion over Iran’s involvement in recent asymmetric attacks across the Middle East.
The Trump Administration imposed more sanctions on Iran this week, focusing on the Office of the Supreme Leader and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. The move prompted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi to tweet that the latest sanctions meant, “The permanent closure of the path of diplomacy.”
Iran said that it would speed up its Uranium enrichment after Thursday. The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said that the Islamic Republic would also scale back its commitments under the JCPOA on July 7.
Several countries continued to call for diplomacy. Russia said it would urge the U.S. and Iran to negotiate, while French President Emmanuel Macro suggested both countries should make “little gestures” towards each other to help diffuse tensions.
- Covert cyber operations are on the increase between the U.S. and Iran. In a connected world, how far could each side go to make their point?
→ Link to source
- The families of political prisoners in Iran have written a joint letter calling on the Islamic Republic to address brutality inside its prisons.
→ Link to source
- An amendment to a Bill that would have given greater rights and legal protections to children with Iranian mothers and foreign fathers was rejected by the Guardian Council on grounds of national security.
→ Link to source
- Richard Ratcliffe joined his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a hunger strike. Iran’s Ambassador to Britain Hamid Baeidinejad suggested that Nazanin would have to serve her sentence out in full during an interview with Channel 4.
→ Link to source
