Islamabad, June 1: Pakistan's attempt to solve a debilitating foreign exchange deficit by purchasing energy from Iran could be in jeopardy as a terrorist attack close to their border has cast doubt on future accords, reported Nikkei Asia.

PARIS, Nov 27: As Iran prepares to play diplomatic arch-rivals the United States in the World Cup on Tuesday, AFP looks at how geopolitics have spilled onto the pitch in previous World Cups:

July 16: The United states and Saudi Arabia agreed on the importance of stopping Iran from "acquiring a nuclear weapon", during a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden, a joint statement carried by the Saudi state news agency (SPA) said.

KATHMANDU, April 26: Tapas Adhikari, the Ambassador of Nepal to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has presented his Letters of Credence to Ayatollah Seyed Ibrahim Raisi, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, accrediting him as the non-resident Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Nepal to the Islamic Republic of Iran, amidst a special ceremony held at the Presidential Palace, Tehran, on Monday.

LONDON, March 6: Oil prices are set to surge further this week due to delays to the conclusion of Iranian nuclear talks and the potential return of Iranian crude to global markets, which are already suffering from Russian supply disruptions, analysts said.

DUBAI, June 21: Western officials warned Tehran on Sunday that negotiations to revive its nuclear deal could not continue indefinitely, after the sides announced a break following the election of a new hardline president in Iran.

TEHRAN, April 16: Iran has finalized a deal with Russia to purchase 60 million doses of Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Thursday.

WASHINGTON, April 13: The attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility is casting a major shadow over the resumption of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran over resurrection of the international accord limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken believes that Iran is only months away from being able to produce enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon. Mitigating this threat and addressing Iran's broader destabilizing activities in the Middle East calls for a two-phase plan.

DUBAI, Mar 15: French tourist Benjamin Briere, who was arrested in Iran 10 months ago, faces charges of “spying and propaganda against the system”, one of his lawyers Saeid Dehghan told Reuters on Monday.

NEW YORK, March 12: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and others are seeking support for a coalition to defend the United Nations Charter by pushing back against the use or threat of force and unilateral sanctions, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Thursday.

DUBAI, Feb 7: Iran’s foreign minister urged Washington to act fast to return to the 2015 nuclear accord, pointing out that legislation passed by parliament forces the government to harden its nuclear stance if U.S. sanctions are not eased by Feb. 21.

IRAN, Jan 30: Iran executed on Saturday an ethnic Baluch militant convicted of killing Revolutionary Guards members, the judiciary’s official website reported, a day after the United Nations urged Iranian authorities to spare his life.

DUBAI, Jan 26: Iran urged U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday to lift sanctions which it said were hampering Tehran’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

DUBAI, Jan 4: Iran has resumed 20% uranium enrichment at an underground nuclear facility, the government said on Monday, breaching a 2015 nuclear pact with major powers and possibly complicating efforts by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the deal.

Deep in the lush valleys of northern Iran, where the Alborz Mountains crumble toward the sea, Ali Rahimi takes up his grisly work.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iranian scientist long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb programme was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday that could provoke confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency.

DUBAI, May 8: Two people died and 38 were injured when a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck northern Iran in the early hours of Friday and people fled their homes in panic, state television reported.

IRAN, April 30: The death toll from the outbreak of the new coronavirus increased by 71 in the past 24 to 6,028, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said in a statement on state TV on Thursday.

TEHRAN, Iran, April 22: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it put the Islamic Republic’s first military satellite into orbit, dramatically unveiling what experts described as a secret space program with a surprise launch Wednesday that came amid wider tensions with the United States.

DUBAI, March 21: Iran’s death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose by more than 100 to 1,556 on Saturday and the total number of people infected now exceeds 20,000, a health ministry official said.

TEHRAN, Iran, March 19: Iran’s top leader will pardon 10,000 more prisoners in an apparent effort to combat the coronavirus, state TV reported Thursday.

DUBAI, March 17: Iran has temporarily freed about 85,000 prisoners, including political prisoners in response to the coronavirus epidemic, a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday.

DUBAI, March 9: Iran has released approximately 70,000 prisoners because of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday, according to Mizan, the news site of the judiciary.

DUBAI, March 6: Iran’s death toll from coronavirus infections jumped on Friday to 124, as 17 died over the past 24 hours and more than 1,000 were additionally diagnosed with the disease, a health ministry spokesman said in Tehran.

BENGALURU, March 1: India reported two more cases of coronavirus on Monday, taking the number of people who have tested positive in the country to five.

DUBAI, March 1: This weekend’s agreement between the United States and Taliban insurgents has no legal standing, Iran said on Sunday, dismissing the deal as a pretext to legitimise the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

DUBAI, UAE, Feb 24: A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus this month, Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on Monday.

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.