Iranian camel riders set for debut at overseas competition

Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Iranian border guards reported seeing drones crossing from Azerbaijani territory.

“Border guards of the Islamic Republic of Iran explicitly said that the Zionist regime used Azerbaijan’s border to infiltrate drones into Iran,” Azizi during an interview with state media.

He added that the matter had been raised by Iran’s presidency and foreign ministry with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who had requested documentation.

“Now, whether we provide documents is one issue, but the reality itself is undeniable. Our border guards clearly said: ‘We were there and with our own eyes we saw that Israeli drones entered Iran from Azerbaijani soil,’” Azizi said.

The comments follow a phone call in late June in which Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged Aliyev to investigate reports that Israeli drones and micro-UAVs had entered Iran from Azerbaijan during the conflict.

According to Iran’s readout of the call, Aliyev denied that Azerbaijan had allowed its territory to be used in attacks against Iran, describing such actions as a “red line.”

Iran has long voiced unease about what it sees as Israel’s security and intelligence presence in Azerbaijan.

In February, Kamal Kharrazi, a senior foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said countries “should take their neighbors’ sensitivities into consideration,” expressing concern over Israel’s activities in the South Caucasus state.

Azerbaijan, for its part, has consistently rejected allegations of hosting Israeli military bases or permitting its territory to be used against Iran. Its officials have occasionally accused Iranian clerics and state-linked media of spreading inflammatory rhetoric.

In January, Azerbaijan summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Baku to protest alleged anti-Azerbaijan content in Iranian outlets.

Despite recurring flare-ups, Tehran and Baku have maintained cooperation in areas such as cross-border trade, energy swaps, and infrastructure projects, including the Rasht-Astara railway.

But mistrust persists, particularly over the Zangezur Corridor linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan through Armenian territory, a project Iran fears could undermine its regional influence.

A US-brokered peace deal last month between Armenia and Azerbaijan granted Washington leasing rights to develop the Zangezur transit corridor, now renamed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

While Iranian officials continue to accuse Baku of tacit collaboration with Israel, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Israel said in 2023 that his country “would not let Israel’s military use Azerbaijan as a base for a possible attack against Iran.”

Addressing the gathering on Monday, Pezeshkian outlined a three-part proposal called the “Special Accounts and Settlements of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

The plan proposes to expand the use of national currencies in trade, develop shared digital systems including central bank digital currencies, and create a multilateral swap fund to support members facing sanctions or liquidity crises.

“This initiative will enhance economic resilience and turn the SCO into a model of a fair multipolar financial order,” he said.

He also urged the formation of a committee of foreign ministers to manage crises and respond quickly to violations of sovereignty.

This was not the first time Pezeshkian stressed de-dollarization. At a BRICS meeting in Russia in 2024, he said the bloc was recognized for “challenging the dominance of the dollar” and promoting national currencies.

At that time, an image of a banknote bearing the BRICS emblem in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the organization’s summit in Tatarstan drew media attention and sparked discussion about the possibility of its members adopting a common currency.

In December 2024, before officially taking office as US President Donald Trump warned BRICS members that if they used any currency other than the US dollar, they would face a 100% tariff.

Absent from leaders’ photo

A video released Sunday showed Pezeshkian missing from the customary group photo.

Iranian media said he arrived late, while his deputy for communications said the official summit was to begin the following day and the photo was taken during an informal banquet. Unofficial Iranian accounts said his absence was due to alcohol being served at the reception, an issue sensitive for Iranian officials.

Tehran is seen as banking on bilateral meetings during the summit, particularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, as it seeks to manage fallout from its nuclear dispute with the West.

Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) initially focused on regional security and counterterrorism.

Over time, China and Russia have framed it as a counterweight to US and NATO influence. The SCO now has 10 full members—including India, Pakistan, Iran (since 2023), and Belarus (since 2024)—and its agenda has expanded to economic, political, and military cooperation.

Malley served as US special envoy for Iran under President Joe Biden and was a key architect of the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran. He was placed on leave and had his security clearance suspended in 2023 over alleged mishandling of classified information.

His Yale course for Fall 2025, titled Adversaries by Design: Deconstructing the Iran-US Relationship, will examine ties between Washington and Tehran from the 1979 Islamic Revolution to the present.

The syllabus, seen by Iran International, says students are expected to “internalize” both American and Iranian perspectives, and assignments include role-playing exercises simulating negotiations between the two governments.

However, the list of people whose works students are required to read mainly consists of former Islamic Republic officials or analysts aligned with their thinking.

The syllabus’s reading list includes “How Iran Sees the Path to Peace,” a December 2024 Foreign Affairs essay by former foreign minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif, who has been under US sanctions since 2019. The article, assigned for the Week 11, outlines his diplomatic perspective on Iran’s relations with the West.

While Yale’s website says the course will feature guest speakers, it does not identify them. However, an op-ed by a Yale student published Friday in the Jewish News Syndicate names Zarif as one of the invited speakers.

The syllabus also assigns a 2019 Foreign Affairs article by Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator and diplomat. The piece, “How Iran Sees its Standoff with the United States,” appears in the Week 8 readings on the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Mousavian recently ended his 15-year tenure at Princeton University, which the university described as a retirement. Activists, however, said it followed pressure over his alleged ties to state-linked assassinations and propaganda efforts especially when he served as Iran's ambassador to Berlin.

Other authors featured on the reading list include Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Ali Vaez, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, and Trita Parsi who are mostly opposed to Iran sanctions and favor normalized relations.

Their works, assigned in weeks dedicated to sanctions and diplomacy, argue that US sanctions have been ineffective or harmful to ordinary Iranians and explore possible diplomatic paths forward.

One of the required reading texts is How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare by Bajoghli, Nasr, Salehi-Isfahani, and Vaez, alongside Batmanghelidj’s How Sanctions Hurt Iran’s Protesters and Parsi’s No, Sanctions Didn’t Force Iran to Make a Deal.

In 2023, Iran International and Semafor investigation uncovered the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI) - a network formed under Zarif to promote Iran's foreign policy and nuclear strategy through scholars based abroad. Ali Vaez was named as one of its key members.

“Relations with Europe, our neighbors, and the East and the West, even tension with the US, if we can reduce it, if it is in our national interest, what is wrong with that? Not only is it not wrong, but it is also our duty and obligation,” Iranian media quoted Rouhani as saying in a meeting with his advisers on Sunday.

“We must strengthen our relations with the world. Whoever is ready to negotiate, if we see that negotiation benefits the country, our national interests and national security, then we should talk,” he added.

Rouhani, who served as president when Iran signed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, had described negotiations with the US as “necessary and obligatory” in an earlier meeting with his advisers on August 14.

His remarks come after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected calls by Tehran moderates for direct negotiations with the United States, insisting that Washington’s hostility cannot be resolved through talks.

“Those who say, ‘Why don’t you negotiate directly with the United States and solve the issues,’ are superficial; because the reality is different," Khamenei said during a meeting with his supporters in Tehran.

"Given America’s true objective in its hostility toward Iran, these issues are unsolvable."

Iran and the United States concluded five rounds of mostly indirect talks in May this year.

A sixth round was scheduled to take place on June 15 in Oman. However, it was suspended after Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 13, prompting Tehran to declare the talks "meaningless" and cancel the session.

On June 22, the US carried out airstrikes on Iran’s key nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. A US-brokered ceasefire came into effect on June 24, which ended the 12-day air war.

President Trump told reporters in mid-July that the urgency to engage with Iran had vanished after US strikes.

Earlier, Iran International reported that Washington ignored at least 15 messages from Iran seeking renewed negotiations.

While the United States is generally obligated under the UN Headquarters Agreement to issue visas to representatives of member states, the Trump administration "will not waver in upholding American law and the highest standards of national security and public safety in the conduct of our visa process," a State Department spokesman said.

"Ensuring that foreign visitors to the United States do not pose a threat to US national security or public safety remains a paramount priority of the US government," the spokesperson added in response to Iran International's inquiry.

The State Department said it does not comment or speculate on individual cases due to visa confidentiality, leaving it unclear whether Iranian officials will be allowed to travel to New York this year.

The comments come as the United Nations prepares to host its annual General Assembly session next month, when world leaders gather in New York for high-level meetings.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio rescinded the visas of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other officials ahead of the UN General Assembly, the State Department said on Friday, though Palestinian representatives assigned to the UN mission were granted exceptions.

Visa for Iranian officials

Last year, the United States faced criticism from members of the Iranian diaspora and activists over its decision to issue visas to President Masoud Pezeshkian and his delegation to attend the UNGA.

The question of visas for Iranian delegations to the UN has been a recurring point of friction between Washington and Tehran, particularly during President Donald Trump’s previous term.

In 2019, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was granted a visa to attend the UNGA in New York, but his movements were tightly restricted to a few blocks around UN headquarters.

The US also has a history of denying visas to officials of the Islamic Republic. In 2014, the White House refused to issue a visa to Iran’s nominee for UN ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi, due to his involvement in the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.