Author: Patrick Wintour
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Assad downfall was planned by US and Israel, claims Iran’s supreme leader
Iran’s supreme leader has claimed the US and Israel acted as the command centre that engineered the downfall of Syria’s former president, Bashar al-Assad, and the ousting of Iran from the country. He also claimed Iranian intelligence had sent warnings to the Assad government about a possible attack for three months and predicted Syrian youth…
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Domestic issues pile pressure on Iran’s president amid foreign policy setbacks
The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the latest in a string of foreign policy reversals for Iran including the weakening of its allies in Lebanon and Gaza, has coincided with growing domestic frustration over rising executions, planned increases in the price of petrol and a proposed law that imposes heavy fines and loss of…
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Fall of Damascus sidelines Russia and brings Turkey to the fore
As celebratory gunfire was heard across liberated Syria, the diplomatic guns of Iran and Russia, in Doha to attend a major dialogue forum, fell silent, rendered powerless and irrelevant by events in Damascus. Only 12 hours earlier the key external powers – Russia and Iran along with Turkey – had met five Arab states on…
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As Assad’s power crumbles, Turkey, Iran and Russia disagree on way forward for Syria
The three key external national actors in the Syrian crisis tried to regain control of the rebellion on Saturday by calling for renewed direct dialogue between the country’s President Bashar al-Assad and opposition groups, adding that it would be “inadmissible” to use terrorists to gain control of the country. Meeting on the margins of the…
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Iran and Europe seek to break nuclear impasse before return of Trump
Iran is holdings talks in Geneva with Britain, France, Germany and the EU in an attempt to find a way out of an impasse over its nuclear programme, in what may be the last chance of a breakthrough before Donald Trump takes up the US presidency again. Trump, who pursued a policy of “maximum economic…
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Iran says it could end ban on possessing nuclear weapons if sanctions reimposed
The nuclear debate inside Iran is likely to shift towards the possession of its own weapons if the west goes ahead with a threat to reimpose all UN sanctions, the country’s foreign minister has said. Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in an interview that Iran already had the capability and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, but…
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Alicia Kearns: the one-nation Tory taking on the Foreign Office
Alicia Kearns, as a former Foreign Office official and an outspoken voice on foreign affairs, is an MP who understands how the department ticks. She is also someone who does not give up easily, and with some freedom to operate since she is neither on Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative frontbench nor the Labour dominated foreign affairs…
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Iranian minister to meet European counterparts after nuclear offer rejected
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, will meet his European counterparts in Geneva on Friday after the collapse of a deal last week under which Iran would have limited its uranium enrichment to 60% purity, just below the threshold to make nuclear weapons. The offer was regarded by Iran as a first step to rebuilding…