Iran Guards' General Says US Better Leave Region Before Being Expelled

According to unnamed officials, EU deputy foreign policy chief Enrique Mora is expected to travel to Iran to try to pave the way for Tehran’s return to negotiations that were suspended in June. At the time Iran said its new president needed time to form a government, but after more than three months the Islamic Republic has still not given a firm date for its return.

The United States and Europe have warned that time is running out and they would not wait “forever” for Iran to rejoin the talks. It is not clear if Iran has been making new demands. Iran’s foreign minister last week signaled that his country wants the US to unfreeze its blocked funds, but Germany, one of the negotiating countries, said Tehran cannot make new demands.

"Iran cannot set any further conditions for resuming the talks," a German foreign ministry spokesman said.

Bloomberg said that a spokesman of the European Commission, Peter Stano declined to comment on news of Mora’s possible trip to Tehran.

It also drew attention to tightening energy supplies in the world and said that the fate of the talks is being closely watched by energy markets.

"We will not accept these fabricated results, whatever the cost," the channel Al-Aahd cited Hadi al-Amiri as saying on Tuesday on its Telegram messaging account, after a top Iranian military officials reportedly visited Baghdad on Monday.

Iran-backed parties with links to militia groups accused of killing some of the nearly 600 people who died in mass protests in 2019 took a blow in the election, winning less seats than in the previous vote, in 2018.

Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's party was the biggest winner in the election held on Sunday, according to initial results.

Initial results showed Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr had won more seats than expected in Iraq’s election Sunday taking 73 seats, a spokesman of the movement said.

In a reflection of Iran’s influence in its neighbor, Iraq’s Shafaq daily Monday quoted a government source that General Esmail Ghaani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) extra-territorial al-Quds group, had met officials and leaders in Baghdad within 24 hours of polls closing to discuss next steps.

With reporting by Reuters

"A few minutes ago over thirty female and male agents attacked Sepideh Gholian's house, abducted her and took her to an unknown place, ”Mehdi Gholian wrote on Insatgram. “They also confiscated the mobile phones of all other family members."

An hour later Mehdi Gholian wrote in another social-media post that the Prisons Organization was responsible for the arrest.

In a series of tweets in September, Sepideh Gholian (Qolian), who was on parole from Bushehr prison, southern Iran, alleged abuse of female prisoners in the prison. She wrote that she had reported 20 cases to the authorities, including five described in her tweets, but had received no response.

"I knew I would face a godforsaken hell when I was banished to this prison last year," wrote Gholian, who had been sent to Bushehr prison in early March from Evin prison, Tehran. "But I couldn't even imagine the brutality reigning in this prison."

In March 2021, Gholian was taken "in handcuffs and chains," according to labor activist Esmail Bakhshi, from Evin to Bushehr, 1000km from Tehran. Bakhshi said Gholian had been told she was being taken to Ahvaz prison in her native Khuzestan province and only later realized she was in Bushehr, 430km from Ahvaz.

Gholian was sentenced to five years’ jail for 'disrupting public order' and‘assembly and collusion against national security' after arrest in 2018 following her role in publicizing labor protests in Khuzestan. Gholian’s memoir from time in Sepidar prison, Khuzestan, was published by Iran Wirein June 2020. She has gone on hunger strike several times.

Gholian made a confession that was aired by state television (IRIB) in January 2019. In the program she was described as an agent provocateur with ties to Marxist groups abroad who had encouraged a strike at the Haft Tappeh Agro-Industrial Complex in Khuzestan.

Gholian later alleged that Ameneh-Sadat Zabihpour, an IRIB journalist involved in filming the confession, had been involved as an interrogator and had tortured her to her to confess before the camera. Confessions, often full of claims of links to foreign conspiracies, have long played a significant role in Iranian political trials.

Brigadier General Ghader Rahimzadeh, commander of the joint air defenses headquarters said that on the first day of drills dubbed Sky Defenders, units from Iran’s traditional army air defenses, IRGC Aerospace Force and the Air Force experimented with various tactics of countering electronic and cyber warfare.

Rahimzadeh said the drills aimed to evaluate the impact of possible electronic warfare of an adversary on Iran’s air defense radars. He added that the exercise was successful in identifying targets in an “environment of electronic warfare.” He added that locally manufactured electronic warfare equipment is being used in this exercise. In this stage jamming drones were used to test anti-aircraft interception systems and the stable operation of radars.

He added that “successful tests were conducted” on how to jam the adversary’s electronic warfare drones.

Iran’s radar systems, some based on domestic technology are not as advanced as need be in case of engagement with a technologically superior adversary.

Iran conducted major ground exercises last week on its northwestern borders near the Republic of Azerbaijan, after tensions flared up between the two counties.

The foreign diplomat who resides in Saudi Arabia said an agreement to ease tensions is imminent.

"They, in principle, have reached an agreement to reopen consulates... and I think an announcement of normalization of ties may come in the next few weeks," the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The two Middle Eastern arch-rivals began talks in April with Iraqi mediation in Baghdad and have continued discussions since then. Iran has made optimistic statement in recent days, saying the talks “are on the right path”.

Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday that Yemen, a major contentious issue between the two countries, is part of the talks.

The new government in Tehran headed by hardliner president Ebrahim Raisi has emphasized that Iran’s priority is improving relations with its neighbors. This could be related to Western pressure on Iran to change its regional policies and stop creating tension with meddling in Arab countries.

Saudi Arabia, which supported former US president Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear agreement and impose ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions against Iran, wants Iran to stop supporting armed proxies in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen.