Nuclear program of Iran

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif held intensive talks on Tehran's disputed nuclear programme on Jan. 14, returning for an evening session before handing off to their deputies, officials said.

Vucic meets with Iranian envoy, talks "independent policy"

BELGRADE -- Serbia is pursuing an independent policy, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said during a meeting with Iranian Ambassador Majid Fahimpour on Monday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif next week in Geneva ahead of a fresh round of nuclear talks, an Iranian official said Jan. 9.
      

President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday stated that, in his opinion, there shouldn't be any sanctions for politicians attacking independence of justice, but the Supreme Council of the Magistrates (CSM) should react instead.

Photo credit: (c) Alex MICSIK / AGERPRES PHOTO

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Jan. 4 that foreign investors should no longer be viewed as a threat and signaled his country’s decades-long isolation from the world economy could soon end.

While President Barack Obama has not ruled out the possibility of reopening a U.S. Embassy in Iran, Republicans say the Senate will vote within weeks on a bill to impose more sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.

Obama was asked in an NPR interview broadcast on Dec. 30 whether he could envision opening an embassy there during his final two years in office.

Corruption thrives in the absence of free media, according to Masoumeh Ebtekar, the first female vice president of Iran, who has called on the Iranian and Turkish governments to work together against corruption.

Iranian authorities have arrested 12 people for syphoning off more than $4.5 billion (3.6 billion euros) from one of the country's main banks over several years, media reported Dec. 11.

The reports come amid government vows to clamp down on corruption in a bid to revive an economy devastated by decades of international sanctions.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani warned Dec. 8  that corruption poses a threat to the Islamic republic, pinning the blame in a thinly-veiled attack on powerful monopolies that control the economy.
      
"The people made the revolution in order to wipe out corruption," Rouhani told delegates at a conference in Tehran.
      

"It is hardly any secret that the aim sanctions is to create social and economic conditions to change [the ones in] power in Russia," a deputy minister has told Russia's lower house of Parliament, the State Duma.