By Pooya Stone

The United States has called on the UN Security Council to take a series of measures to ensure that its sanctions blacklist is enforced as thoroughly and as tightly as possible.

In the letter to the UN Security Council, the United States pointed out that the sanctions blacklist had not been updated for quite some time, meaning that the effect is not as enforced as it could, or should, be. For more than nine years, aliases and other such relevant information have not been included on the list that is distributed to all UN member states.

By Pooya Stone

On Tuesday, June 25, Iran’s police arrested an Iranian citizen, who immolated himself at the entrance of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

According to the ICT Ministry, the victim was identified as a private contractor in a branch of the ministry, and he committed self-immolation for not receiving his demands after entering the main door of the ministry’s headquarters.

By Jubin Katiraie

At the beginning of the week, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to social media to criticise the United States. In a message on Twitter, the Iranian Foreign Minister said that it is in the United States’ interests, and those of the rest of the world, to remove its forces from the Persian Gulf. He added: “But it’s now clear that the #B Team is not concerned with US interests—they despise diplomacy, and thirst for war.”

By Jubin Katiraie

The Trump administration is working to persuade allies that the ongoing tensions in the Middle East are a global challenge that requires global diplomacy, according to the new acting US defence chief Mark Esper on Tuesday, and “not [just] Iran versus the United States”.

Esper, who is meeting with NATO defence ministers in Brussels, told reporters that he wants to help create a broader coalition to deter Iran’s malign behaviour and compel Iranian officials to come back to the negotiating table for a new nuclear deal.