Middle East

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has refuted the “ridiculous and scandalous” allegations made by the Saudi Ambassador to the US against Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Riyadh has temporarily suspended all oil shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement launched retaliatory attacks on a Saudi warship and a vessel operated by the Riyadh-led coalition waging war the Arabian Peninsula state.

The Israeli military, in a “humanitarian gesture”, recently evacuated the White Helmets, a creative wing of terrorists fighting in Syria who are known for their fake reports about chemical attacks in the war-torn country.

The Trump administration is engaged in intensive talks to persuade its European, Asian, and Middle Eastern allies to go along with US sanctions on Iran in a bid to increase pressure on Tehran, but it has yet to convince Turkey, a very important player in the region, to comply with its decision.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry says the country's officials are working to prevent Ankara from being negatively affected by the US move to re-impose nuclear sanctions against Iran in the wake of Washington's withdrawal from a historic nuclear deal signed between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi has strongly denounced the recent racist law approved by the Israeli Knesset, which recognizes Jewish supremacy over Palestinians.

Iran has dismissed as “laughably absurd” an Israel-fabricated scenario, in which the agents with the regime's Mossad spy agency are claimed to have spirited away loads of "secret documents" on the country's nuclear work from a site in southern Tehran.

Russia’s Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan has clearly stated that his country is naturally concerned over a military confrontation between Tehran and Tel Aviv, and is trying to prevent that from happening.

A leading Arab commentator says Saudi Arabia is planning to lay a siege on Iran, but it will definitely fail to do that even if supported by the US.

A foreign policy advisor to Iran’s Leader says the country is prepared to help Yemenis restore peace to their country, if they make a request for Iran’s intervention.

Iraqi media say Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has tasked the country’s Electricity Minister Qassem Al-Fahdawi to travel to Saudi Arabia to negotiate importing electricity from the Arab country.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi has hailed a statement by a number of respectable political figures in Muslim countries to stop the ongoing war in Yemen for three months.

A former US official says an American war against Iran is likely at this point in time, and that it would be naïve to think Washington would never do that.

Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri says all countries in the Middle East must help resolve the ongoing crisis in Yemen as it would finally result in better relations among all regional states.

Hossein Jaberi Ansari, a senior assistant to Iran’s foreign minister, has delivered a message from President Hassan Rouhani to his Lebanese counterpart Michel Aoun in Beirut.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called US President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" for the Palestinian territories a "satanic" plan, saying it is a non-starter.

Turkey’s ambassador to Tehran says his country regards the United States’ unilateral sanctions against Iran as illegitimate and fruitless and will continue its cooperation with Tehran.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says bilateral relations between Tehran and Damascus will continue to develop despite domestic and foreign threats.

An Arab news website says the US President’s bid to halt Iran’s oil exports are mainly aimed at salvaging Saudi Arabia’s sluggish economy.

At least four people are reportedly injured after Iraqi police fire in the air to prevent protesters from storming the main government building in Basra on the seventh day of unrest.

The Turkish president says his country is determined to conduct trade with Iran, Russia and China using national currencies.

Ali Akbar Velayati, an international adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution who is on an official visit to Moscow, said that Iran’s advisory missions in Syria and Iraq will immediately end if the two Arab countries’ governments want so.

A London-based pan-Arab paper says Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu who visited Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin left the country with empty hands.

FIFA, the governing body of association football, said on Wednesday it has engaged legal counsel to take action in Saudi Arabia against television channel beoutQ, which is widely available in the kingdom, for continuing to illegally broadcast the 2018 World Cup.

Ali Akbar Velayati, an international adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution who is in Russia for an official visit, shrugged off the concurrent trip to Russia by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying, “Nobody cares about his words.”