By Mehdi
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran on Monday of ordering the Houthi rebels in Yemen to continue fighting despite commitments they made in Stockholm last December.
Pompeo, speaking at an event in Washington hosted by The Hill newspaper, said: “[The Houthis] continue to refuse to comply with the agreements that they signed up for in Stockholm, Sweden, they refuse to withdraw from the port of Hodeidah … this is because Iran has chosen to direct them to do that.”
Iran Focus
London, 30 April – US Central Command Chief General Kenneth McKenzie said on Saturday that the US would counter any dangerous actions by Iran by deploying the necessary resources.
McKenzie, who was on an official visit to the Gulf region, said: “We’re gonna continue to reach out to our partners and friends in the region to ensure that we make common cause against the threat of Iran. I believe we’ll have the resources necessary to deter Iran from taking actions that will be dangerous. We will be able to respond effectively.”
By Jubin Katiraie
Kuwait officials have voiced their “concern” over Iran’s threat to close down the Strait of Hormuz, the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, in response to US sanctions, because Kuwait is one of the countries that will be adversely affected if Iran follows through.
Kuwait’s deputy foreign minister Mr Jarallah told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on Sunday: “We are looking at these threats with concern, and hoping as always to distance our region from this tension.”
By Pooya Stone
United States Central Command Chief General Kenneth McKenzie said on Saturday the United States would deploy the necessary resources to counter any dangerous actions by Iran, Sky News Arabia reported.
“We’re going to continue to reach out to our partners and friends in the region to ensure that we make common cause against the threat of Iran,” McKenzie, on an official visit to the Gulf region, was quoted as saying by Sky News Arabia.
Iran Focus
London, 29 April – United States President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe both expressed their commitment to eliminating all oil exports from Iran, a top U.S. diplomat official has said.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty on April 27 told reporters in a call that Trump and Abe also discussed a “desire to see Iran change its path and seek a more peaceful course forward.”
By Mehdi
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has dismissed the suggestion of a prisoner swap for a British-Iranian mother being held in Tehran as a “vile” diplomatic ploy, while her husband told AFP the idea was “almost impossible”.
In New York, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday suggested a swap between Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is in jail in Tehran for alleged sedition, and Negar Ghodskani, an Iranian woman held in Australia on a US extradition warrant.
By Jubin Katiraie
Two Trump administration officials said on Friday that neither a wind-down period nor a short-term waiver on China’s oil purchases from Iran are being contemplated after Washington announced this week that sanctions waivers on the purchase of Iranian oil would end after May 1.
By Pooya Stone
Iran’s main opposition coalition plans to release a new book next week detailing the role of Iran’s embassies in running a network of espionage and murder.
The U.S. Representative Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI-US) will hold a press briefing on 1 May to release the new book, ‘Iran’s Emissaries of Terror‘.
Iran Focus
London, 27 April – A recent report published by the International Monetary Fund shows that the economy in Iran dwindled last year following sanctions that were leveled by the US. As well, it is expected to decrease by another 3.6 percent or more this year. Iran’s oil exports have declined by more than half, and the rial, its currency, continues to decline in value. The recent flooding has also added to the economic crisis. Now, with the new sanctions leveled at the Iranian government’s military institution — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates — an even more significant pressure will be put on the Islamic Republic.
By Mehdi
The US designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist group has significantly affected the fate of financial reform bills that the West demanded, according to the Secretary-General of the influential Expediency Discernment Council (EDC) in Iran.
Major General Mohsen Rezaei said on Wednesday, that the IRGC designation was a “well calculated and premeditated” American plan.
