Reaching a deal with Iran will be difficult, says US secretary of state

Authorities shut the main cemetery in the central city of Arak ahead of planned 40th-day memorials for protesters killed during unrest, families said on Monday.

Sources told Iran International that the Arak cemetery would remain closed until Feb. 18. Some families had called for memorial ceremonies on Feb. 16 and 17.

Meanwhile, vehicles belonging to Iran’s security forces were stationed at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, according to videos sent to Iran International on Monday.

Fortieth-day memorials have in past protests drawn large crowds and renewed demonstrations.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy has started a military exercise in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state media reported on Monday.

The drill, named “Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz,” is being led by the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is under the supervision of Guards Commander-in-Chief Major General Mohammad Pakpour, the reports said.

The exercise aims to assess the readiness of operational units, review security plans and rehearse scenarios for a military response to potential security and military threats in the Strait of Hormuz, state media said.

It will also focus on what officials described as the use of Iran’s geopolitical position in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

State media said rapid and decisive response to what it called anti-security actions at sea is at the center of the intelligence and operational drills involving units deployed in the exercise.

A son of Molavi Abdolhamid, Iran’s top Sunni cleric in Sistan-Baluchestan province, was detained after being summoned to a clerical court in Mashhad and pressured to post a public statement condemning the recent unrest, Baluch rights group Haalvsh reported on Monday.

Sources cited by Haalvsh said the judge in the case threatened and pressured Mohammad Tayyeb Esmailzehi a day before his detention, telling him to post a statement on his personal Instagram account condemning the burning of mosques and Qurans, as well as the killing of government security forces during the unrest in January.

Esmailzehi was summoned by phone and appeared at the Special Clerical Court in Mashhad on Feb. 13, according to Haalvsh’s Telegram channel.

He was questioned for several hours over two consecutive days and was detained on Monday after the interrogation sessions ended, then transferred to an unknown location, the group said.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said he held detailed discussions with Iran’s foreign minister ahead of planned negotiations in Geneva.

Rafael Grossi said he had “just completed in-depth technical discussions” with Abbas Araghchi “in preparation for important negotiations scheduled for tomorrow in Geneva,” according to his post on X.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency met Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Monday, state media reported, a day before a second round of talks between Iran and the United States.

The first round of Iran-US negotiations was held earlier this month in Muscat, mediated by Oman. Tuesday’s talks are also set to take place at Oman’s embassy in Switzerland.

Iranian media described the meeting with the IAEA chief as part of preparations for the next phase of negotiations. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said talks were moving forward within frameworks approved by senior state bodies and stressed that Iran was negotiating “in a climate of complete mistrust.”

Baghaei said Iran’s position was “completely clear,” adding that as a committed member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran accepted both its obligations and its rights. “Our right under Article 4 of the treaty is the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and enrichment is part of that,” he said.

He added that issues such as “what level of enrichment, to what extent, and how many centrifuges we will have” had not yet been discussed in detail. Baghaei also said different branches of the system had reviewed the negotiations and reached a unified decision to use available capacities, including at the foreign ministry and the Supreme National Security Council, to advance the talks.