DUBAI, Feb 2:  Iran welcomes Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi’s election as prime minister of Iraq, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Sunday, according to the official IRNA new agency.

DUBAI , Jan 28: The current U.S. government is the worst in the history of America, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state TV on Tuesday.

DUBAI, Jan 27: Iranians should not allow U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” approach to harm national unity ahead of parliamentary elections, President Hassan Rouhani said in a speech, lashing out at hardliners over mass disqualification of candidates.

BEIRUT, Jan 23: Iran has long sought the withdrawal of American forces from neighboring Iraq, but the U.S. killing of an Iranian general and an Iraqi militia commander in Baghdad has added new impetus to the effort, stoking anti-American feelings that Tehran hopes to exploit to help realize the goal.

DUBAI, Jan 21:  Iran has asked the U.S. and French authorities for equipment to download information from black boxes on a downed Ukrainian airliner, a request that will add to international frustration at Tehran’s failure to send the recorders abroad for analysis.

CAIRO, Jan 19: Iran-aligned Houthis attacked a military training camp in the Yemeni city of Marib on Saturday, killing‮ ‬60 military personnel and wounding dozens others, Saudi state television said on Saturday evening.

TEHRAN, IRAN, Jan 15: Iran’s president warned Wednesday that European soldiers in the Mideast “could be in danger” after three nations challenged Tehran over breaking the limits of its nuclear deal. Tehran’s top diplomat meanwhile acknowledged that Iranians “were lied to” for days following the Islamic Republic’s accidental shootdown of a Ukrainian jetliner that killed 176 people.

Jan 15: U.S. President Donald Trump said he agreed with a comment by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that a “Trump deal” should replace the Iran nuclear deal.

DUBAI, 12 Jan: Iran’s admission that it shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing all 176 aboard, has provoked international outrage and triggered growing protests against Iranian authorities in Tehran and other cities including one in which Britain’s ambassador was detained.

KIEV, Jan 11: Ukraine International Airlines said on Saturday that its plane that crashed in Iran this week had received no warning from Tehran airport about a possible threat to its safety before it took off en route for Kiev.

DUBAI, Jan 11: A Ukrainian aircraft which crashed earlier this week in Iran had flown close to a sensitive military site belonging to the elite Revolutionary Guards and was shot down unintentionally due to human error, the Iranian military said in a statement read on state TV on Saturday.

TEHRAN, IRAN 10: An Iranian official is denying a missile hit a Ukrainian airplane that crashed near Tehran and is calling on both the U.S. and Canada to release data backing their missile-strike allegation.

NEW YORK, Jan 9: The election was always going to be about Donald Trump. But over the span of a few days, the yearslong focus on the Republican president’s performance on the economy, health care and immigration has been overtaken by an urgent debate over foreign policy and war.

DUBAI, Jan 9: A Ukrainian airliner was on fire immediately before it crashed southwest of Tehran, killing all 176 on board, according to an initial report by Iranian investigators.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON/DUBAI, Jan 8: Iranian forces fired missiles at military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq on Wednesday in retaliation for the U.S. killing of an Iranian general, raising the stakes in its conflict with Washington amid concern of a wider war in the Middle East.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON, Jan 8: Iran launched missiles at U.S.-led forces in Iraq early on Wednesday, retaliating for the U.S. drone strike on an Iranian commander whose killing last week stoked fears of a new Middle East war.

WASHINGTON, Jan 8: Democrats in the U.S. Congress and some of the party’s presidential contenders warned on Tuesday about escalating conflict in the Middle East after Iran launched a retaliatory missile strike against U.S. forces in Iraq.

TEHRAN, Iran, Jan 8: Iranian state TV is reporting a Ukrainian airplane carrying 170 passengers and crew has crashed near an airport in the capital, Tehran. There is no immediate word on injures.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON, Jan 8: Iran said it launched a missile attack on U.S.-led forces in Iraq in the early hours of Wednesday in retaliation for the U.S. drone strike on an Iranian commander whose killing has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East.

DUBAI/BAGHDAD, Jan 7: The body of a top Iranian military commander killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq last week reached his hometown for burial on Tuesday as the U.S. defense secretary denied reports that the U.S. military was preparing to withdraw from Iraqi territory.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON, Jan 7: The United States has no plans to pull its troops out of Iraq, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Monday, following reports by Reuters and other media of an American military letter informing Iraqi officials about re-positioning troops in preparation for leaving the country.

BERLIN, Jan 6: Iran’s announcement on Sunday that it would abandon limitations on enriching uranium could be the first step towards the end of a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Monday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 6: President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that Iranian cultural sites were fair game for the U.S. military, dismissing concerns within his own administration that doing so could constitute a war crime under international law. He also warned Iraq that he would levy punishing sanctions if it expelled American troops in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad that killed a top Iranian official.

TEL AVIV – We no longer live in an era in which wars are officially declared. The US drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, the charismatic commander of Iran’s Quds Force, is but one landmark event in a multiyear, multi-front war between the US and its allies and Iran and its many proxies.

DUBAI, Jan 5: Oman has called on the United States and Iran to seek dialogue to ease tensions, Oman News Agency reported, after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport on Friday.

TEHRAN, IRAN, Jan 5: The body of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike, arrived Sunday in Iran to throngs of mourners, as President Donald Trump threatened to bomb 52 sites in the Islamic Republic if Tehran retaliates by attacking Americans

WEST PALM BEACH, FLA, Jan 5: President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Iran on Saturday, threatening to hit dozens of targets in the Islamic Republic “very fast and very hard” if it retaliates for the targeted killing of the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

BAGHDAD, Jan 3: Iran threatened on Friday to hit back hard after a U.S. air strike in Baghdad on Friday killed Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds force and architect of its growing military influence in the Middle East.

TOKYO, Dec 20:  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani renewed his condemnation of the U.S. for withdrawing from a nuclear agreement and asked for Japan’s help in efforts to maintain the deal as the two leaders met in Tokyo amid a continuing impasse between Tehran and Washington.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Dec 8: A Princeton scholar held for three years in Iran on widely criticized espionage charges was freed Saturday as part of a prisoner exchange that saw America release a detained Iranian scientist, a rare diplomatic breakthrough between Tehran and Washington after months of tensions.

DUBAI, Dec 2 : Iran is still selling its oil despite U.S. sanctions on Tehran’s exports, the country’s Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri was quoted on Monday as saying by state TV, adding that Washington’s “maximum pressure” on Tehran had failed.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Nov 20: Days of protests over rising fuel prices and a subsequent government crackdown have killed at least 106 people across Iran, Amnesty International said Tuesday, adding that the real figure may be much higher.

Iran’s resumption of atomic activity at the Fordow underground facility is the latest step in reducing its compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal following the withdrawal of the United States in 2018. Iran says it has started injecting uranium hexafluoride gas into 1,044 IR-1 centrifuges at its Fordow plant, in Tehran’s latest step away from its atomic accord with world powers since President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal over a year ago.

DUBAI, Nov 10 : Iran has discovered a new oilfield in the southwest of the country that has the potential to boost its reserves by about a third, President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday.

DUBAI , Nov 8 : Iranian media reported on Friday that Iran had shot down a drone over its southern port city of Mahshahr, without providing further details.

Unless the rest of the world gets involved, the dangerous game the US and Iran are playing could end in direct confrontation

DUBAI, Oct 1: Iranian courts have sentenced one person to death for spying for the United States and jailed two others for 10 years for the same crime, as well as imprisoning a fourth person for 10 years for spying for Britain, a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday.

DUBAI, Sept 25: Iran is willing to give reassurances on not seeking nuclear arms and accept changes to its 2015 nuclear accord with world power if the United States returns to the deal and lifts sanctions, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

DUBAI, UAE, Sept 19: Iran’s top diplomat said Thursday that any attack on his country over a drone-and-missile strike on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry will result in “all-out war,” further pushing up tensions across the Persian Gulf.

ZURICH, Sept 19: FIFA president Gianni Infantino has told Iran it is time to allow women into football stadiums and the global soccer body expects “positive developments” starting with their next home match in October.

TEHRAN, IRAN, Sept 17:  Iran’s supreme leader announced on Tuesday that “there will be no talks with the U.S. at any level” — remarks apparently meant to end all speculation about a possible U.S.-Iran meeting between the two countries’ presidents at the U.N. later this month.

WASHINGTON, Sept 16: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday the United States was “locked and loaded” for a potential response to the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, after a senior U.S. administration official said Iran was to blame.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Sept 15: A weekend drone attack on Saudi Arabia that cut into global energy supplies and halved the kingdom’s oil production threatened Sunday to fuel regional tensions, as Iran denied U.S. allegations it launched the assault and tensions remained high over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.

DUBAI, Sept 15: Iran denied on Sunday it was involved in Yemen rebel drone attacks the previous day that hit the world’s biggest oil processing facility and an oil field in Saudi Arabia, just hours after America’s top diplomat alleged that Tehran was behind the “unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.”

DUBAI, Sept 7: Iran’s coast guard has seized a vessel for allegedly smuggling fuel in the Gulf and detained its 12 crew members from the Philippines, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported.

Remembrance is what makes memories alive throughout life. A mix-media exhibition ‘Space A’ by Iranian artists Farshid Davoodi, Maryam Ashkanian and Sima Shahmoradi began on August 28 at Siddhartha Art Gallery, Baber Mahal Revisited.

DUBAI, Sept 2: Iran is prepared to take a “stronger step” in reducing its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if European countries don’t take action to save the pact, its foreign ministry’s spokesman said on Monday.

TEHRAN, Iran, Sept. 2: Iran will “take a strong step” away from its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if Europe cannot offer the country new terms by a deadline at the end of this week, a government spokesman said Monday as top Iranian diplomats traveled to France and Russia for last-minute talks.

DUBAI, Aug 27: Iran will not talk to the United States until all sanctions imposed on Tehran are lifted, President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday, a day after President Donald Trump said he would meet his Iranian counterpart to try to end a nuclear standoff.

Aug 26: From the vast deserts of Saudi Arabia to the crowded neighborhoods of Beirut, a drone war has taken flight across the wider Middle East, raising the stakes in the ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Iran.