Timeline Iran: 2005-2020
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2005 Jan 1, Iran was forecast for 4.6% annual GDP growth with a population at 71 million and GDP per head at $2,400.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.94)
2005 Jan 5, The head of the IAEA said Iran has agreed to give U.N. inspectors access to a huge military site that the United States alleges is linked to a secret nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 13, In Iran a malfunctioning heater in an Iranian school ignited a barrel of kerosene, touching off a blaze that killing 13 children.
(AP, 1/13/05)
2005 Jan 17, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami arrived in Zimbabwe to a red carpet welcome from his counterpart Robert Mugabe with whom he is due to hold talks over two days.
(AP, 1/18/05)
2005 Jan 22, Iran's state-run television reported that the hard-line constitutional watchdog has decided that women can run for president in June elections.
(AP, 1/22/05)
2005 Jan 23, Iran's hard-line leadership ruled out allowing women to run for president in June elections, denying reports in the state-run media that it had decided to allow female candidates for the first time.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 26, Afghan President Hamid Karzai started a two-day visit to Iran mainly focused on boosting economic relations and inaugurating a new cross-border highway.
(AFP, 1/26/05)
2005 Feb 3, Iran and Syria rejected President Bush's charges that they sponsored terrorism. An Iranian official called the claims groundless. The Syrian information minister said the democracy America seeks for the Middle East could not come through force.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb 4, Diplomats said Iran has agreed to give the UN nuclear watchdog agency a fresh look at a military complex linked by the US to possible atomic arms research.
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 13, Iran rejected a European demand to stop building a heavy water nuclear reactor in return for a light-water reactor.
(AP, 2/13/05)
2005 Feb 14, In Iran a mosque fire killed 59 people and injured another 350. it was blamed on a kerosene heater that was placed too close to a thick curtain that separated male and female worshippers.
(AP, 2/15/05)
2005 Feb 16, Syria and Iran announced a united front amid perceived US threats.
(WSJ, 2/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 18, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin said that Moscow will continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran and that he is convinced Tehran does not intend to develop atomic weapons.
(AP, 2/18/05)
2005 Feb 22, In central Iran’s Kerman province a 6.4 earthquake flattened villages and collapsed mud-brick homes, killing over 500 people and injuring nearly 1,000.
(AP, 2/23/05)(SFC, 2/24/05, p.A11)
2005 Feb 27, Iran and Russia signed a deal that would deliver nuclear fuel to the Middle East country for the startup of its first reactor.
(AP, 2/27/05)
2005 Mar 5, Iran said it will never agree to a permanent halt on enriching uranium and warned that a more unstable Middle East would result from a U.S.-backed effort to haul Tehran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 10, Iran’s Pres. Khatami began a 3-day visit to Venezuela and planned to strengthen political and economic ties with Pres. Chavez.
(WSJ, 3/10/05, p.A15)
2005 Mar 23, Iran agreed to extend nuclear talks with EU nations and maintain a suspension of uranium enrichment but insisted it won’t scrap the program.
(WSJ, 3/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 18, Iran suspended the nationwide operations of Arab TV broadcaster Al-Jazeera, accusing it of inflaming violent protests by the Arab minority in its southwest.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr, The Ahwazi intifada (uprising) began in Iran’s southwest Khuzestan province. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution a third of some 5 million Ahwazis, the native Arabs, were driven from the oil-rich province.
(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.A16)
2005 May 9, Iran confirmed that it has processed 37 tons of uranium into gas, a key step into the using the material as a fuel for reactors or weapons.
(WSJ, 5/10/05, p.A1)
2005 May 10, Iran officially launched production of its first locally built submarine, dubbed Ghadir, a craft that can fire missiles and torpedoes at the same time.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 26, The WTO agreed to allow Iran to open talks to join the body that governs international commerce, a day after Iranian nuclear negotiators renewed Tehran's vow to refrain from developing atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 28, Iran's hard-line Guardian Council approved a law that puts pressure on the government to develop nuclear technology that could be used to build atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 Jun 12, In Iran 4 bombs exploded in Ahwaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province on the Iranian border with Iraq. 9 people were killed and 36 wounded in the deadliest explosions in the nation in more than a decade.
(AP, 6/12/05)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.42)
2005 Jun 17, Iranians voted in an election shaping up as the closest presidential race since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Young people disillusioned by the theocracy called for a boycott of the balloting. Voters failed to give any candidate an outright majority and hard-liners made an unexpectedly strong showing. A 2nd round between former president Rafsanjani and conservative Tehran mayor Ahmadinejad was scheduled in a week.
(AP, 6/17/05)(AP, 6/18/05)(WSJ, 6/20/05, p.A13)
2005 Jun 24, Iranians packed polling stations in a tight presidential race. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (49), the hardline Tehran mayor, won Iran’s presidency in a landslide election victory that cements conservative control over the nation's political leadership.
(AP, 6/24/05)(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, Iran’s new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he seeks to make his country a "modern, advanced, powerful, and Islamic" model for the world.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 26, Iran President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to pursue a peaceful nuclear program, an effort the US maintains is really a cover for trying to build atomic bombs, and said his government will not be an extremist one.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jul 4, In an illegal overflight an American Shadow-200 aircraft crashed about 38 miles inside Iranian territory in the province of Ilam. On Nov 7 Iran circulated letters at the UN protesting the violation of its territory and airspace.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Jul 19, Iran publicly executed two teenagers accusing them of raping a 13-year-old boy and having gay sex, according to Iran's ISNA news agency. Before Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were executed in Edalat ("Justice") Square in Mashhad, they were held in prison for 14 months and lashed 228 times.
(AP, 7/22/05)(http://tinyurl.com/q7qyt)
2005 Jul 24, Iran's state-run media reported that its hard-line judiciary had acknowledged widespread human rights violations in prisons, including the use of torture.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 27, Iran said it will restart some nuclear activities as soon as August and that it has fully developed solid-fuel technology in producing missiles, a major breakthrough that increases the accuracy of missiles hitting targets.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 28, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch told the US House International Relations Committee said Iranian cadres are training Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 31, Hasan Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said his European counterparts have proposed a guarantee that Iran will not be invaded if Tehran agrees to permanently halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Aug 2, Hassan Moghaddas, an Iranian judge who sentenced several reformist dissidents to jail, including hunger-striking reporter Akbar Ganji, was shot dead in his car by a lone gunman riding a motorcycle.
(Reuters, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, France, Britain and Germany hardened their tone toward Iran, warning that Tehran risked triggering an international crisis and could face U.N. sanctions if it follows through with a threat to resume its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 5, European negotiators offered Iran long term support for its civilian nuclear program, including access to nuclear fuel, in exchange for a binding commitment not to develop atomic weapons.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 6, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as Iran's president, saying he wants peaceful relations with the world but rejecting outside pressure to change course.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, Iran rejected Europe's proposal for ending the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, saying it was "unacceptable" because it did not give the country the right to enrich uranium.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 8, Iran resumed uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan nuclear facility, a step that Europeans and the US warned would prompt them to seek UN sanctions against Tehran.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 10, Iran removed the final seals from equipment at a uranium conversion plant as U.N. inspectors watched, paving the way for Tehran to fully open the facility despite European and U.S. calls for it to maintain the suspension of its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 11, In Vienna the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unanimously approved a resolution demanding that Iran suspend all nuclear activities it resumed earlier this week.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 13, In Iran at least 17 people were reported killed over the last 3 weeks and many more wounded during anti-government protests in the western province of Kurdistan.
(AP, 8/13/05)(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.A15)
2005 Aug 25, In an illegal overflight an American Hermes aircraft crashed 125 miles inside Iranian territory in the Khoram Abad area.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Aug 26, An Iranian daredevil died while attempting to break the world record for jumping over buses on a motorcycle. Javad Palizbanian (44) was trying to leap over 22 buses parked side-by-side when his motorbike came down on the 13th bus.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, Iran rejected what it termed conditional negotiations with Europe over Tehran's nuclear program and said it wanted instead to have talks with the UN's international nuclear watchdog agency.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Sep 7, Iran offered to send the US 20 million barrels of crude oil to help it overcome the devastation of Hurricane Katrina if Washington waives trade sanctions.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 14, In NYC Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted US unilateralism, militarism and privilege and called for the UN to promote spirituality. The conservative Muslim leader advanced unusual broad concepts, including recommendations that the UN "institutionalize justice at the international level" and ensure all members have "equal rights."
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, Iran's Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is willing to provide nuclear technology to other Muslim states. Hours later, European nations renewed an offer of economic incentives if the Mideast nation would halt its uranium enrichment.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 18, Iran said that it has no plans to resume uranium enrichment soon but warned that it might change its mind if the International Atomic Energy Agency asks the UN Security Council to consider sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 24, The 35-nation board of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency approved a resolution that could lead to Iran's referral to the U.N. Security Council for violating a nuclear arms control treaty, something the United States has been urging for years.
(AP, 9/24/05)
2005 Sep 25, Iran rejected a resolution by the UN nuclear watchdog agency that put it one step away from Security Council referral, calling the move "illegal and illogical" and orchestrated by the United States.
(AP, 9/25/05)
2005 Oct 2, A Dubai-based newspaper said it stands by a story in which it quoted Iran's president as saying he might curtail oil sales if his nation is referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 5, Iran's foreign minister met with Omani officials, part of a tour of Gulf countries to win support for his government's standoff with the West over its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 11, Diplomats said Iran has signaled it is ready to compromise on granting access to sites linked to possible work on nuclear weapons and other demands from the UN atomic watchdog agency to try to avoid referral to the Security Council.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 15, In Iran 2 bombs hit a shopping center Saturday in Ahvaz, near the southwestern border with Iraq, killing two people and wounding at least 50.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 20, Iranian state-run television said that the country's Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, issued the ban on foreign films that promote what were termed "arrogant powers", a propaganda term the Iranians use to refer to the United States.
(http://tinyurl.com/87t7u)(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 21, Iran's supreme leader, long a critic of the United States, praised the U.S.-backed constitutional referendum in Iraq as "blessed" and urged Iraqis to participate December's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 26, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was a "disgraceful blot" and should be "wiped off the map." He also said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state.
(AP, 10/26/05)(AP, 10/26/06)
2005 Oct 27, Iran launched its Sina-1 satellite from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia, a major step in the country's long-term ambitions. Sina-1 gave Iran a limited space reconnaissance capability over the entire Middle East, including Israel.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4381436.stm)(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Oct 28, Tens of thousands of Iranians staged anti-Israel demonstrations across the country, repeating calls by their ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the destruction of the Jewish state.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Nov 2, Iran's government said it was removing 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats, including supporters of warmer ties with the West, from their posts in a shake-up that comes as the Islamic republic takes a more confrontational international stance. Thousands of Iranians burned flags and chanted slogans against Israel and the US in the largest demonstration in years outside the former US Embassy in Tehran. Nov 4 marked the 26th anniversary of the 1979 embassy seizure.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 6, Iran said it supported a stable Iraq and called for expediting the construction of an oil pipeline and railway between the two neighbors.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 10, Senior officials said the US and Europe are ready to compromise with Iran over its nuclear program and have tentatively approved a plan that would allow it to make the gas used in producing enriched uranium.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 20, Iran’s Parliament approved a bill requiring the government to block international inspections of its atomic facilities if the UN nuclear monitoring agency refers Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 27, In southern Iran an earthquake measuring at least magnitude-5.9 shook a sparsely populated area, flattening seven villages and killing 10 people.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Dec 2, Russian media reported that Russia plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of tactical surface-to-air missiles and other defense hardware to Iran.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 3, Iran's hard-line constitutional watchdog approved a bill blocking international inspections of atomic facilities if the nation is referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 6, A C-130 Iranian military transport plane crashed into a 10-story apartment building as it was trying to make an emergency landing, ripping open the top of the structure and igniting a huge fire. At least 115 people were killed including 21 on the ground in the Azadi suburb of Tehran.
(AP, 12/06/05)(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 10, Iran's top nuclear official said that his country will enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel despite the U.S.-led international campaign to persuade it to abandon such ambitions.
(AP, 12/10/05)
2005 Dec 11, Iran's parliament approved Kazem Vaziri Mahaneh, who has been acting minister for the past three months, the 4th nominee for the key post of oil minister.
(AP, 12/11/05)
2005 Dec 11, Iran offered the United States a share in building a new nuclear power plant in an apparent effort to curb U.S. opposition to its atomic program.
(AP, 12/11/05)
2005 Dec 14, Iran's hard-line president lashed out with a new outburst at Israel on, calling the Nazi Holocaust a "myth" used as a pretext for carving out a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 15, European and US officials said the EU has formally protested to Russia about its sale of sophisticated missiles to Iran, saying the diplomatic row reflected disarray on how to pressure Tehran to scale back its suspect nuclear program.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 17, India and Pakistan agreed to begin work by 2007 on a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran, moving ahead with the project despite US disapproval. Iran hoped to break ground this year on a 1,700 mile, $4 billion natural gas pipeline to deliver gas across Pakistan to India. The US opposed the line and threatened sanctions under the 1996 Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) law.
(AP, 12/18/05)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.A4)
2005 Dec 19, In Iran Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad banned all Western music from state radio and TV stations.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A2)
2005 Dec 24, Russia's Foreign Ministry made a formal offer to Iran to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, raising diplomatic pressure on Tehran to accept the Western-backed plan it has so far rejected.
(AP, 12/24/05)
2005 Dec 25, Iran denied that it received a proposal to move its uranium enrichment facilities to Russian soil, a compromise Europe is seeking to resolve a standoff over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 12/25/05)
2005 Dec 29, Top Iranian and Russian officials agreed to hold talks on a Russian proposal aimed a resolving Tehran's nuclear standoff with the West.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Dec, US Teamster Pres. James Hoffa sent a letter to Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad demanding the release of 14 union workers unjustly detained and beaten.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.E3)
2005 Iran’s Parliament ordered that the country’s foundations (bonyads) start paying at least some taxes. Several were exempted including the Imam Reza Shrine.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.A12)
2005 In Iran Kord Zanganeh was selected as head of the Iranian Privatization Organization, putting him at the center of the new divestment drive. Over the next five years, he oversaw the sale of about $67 billion worth of shares.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2005 North Korea delivered over a dozen intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Iran. [see April 27, 2006]
(WSJ, 7/6/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 1, An Islamic militant group kidnapped nine Iranian soldiers near that country's border with Pakistan. On Jan 4 Al-Arabiya said the group threatened to kill them unless the Tehran government released 16 members from prison.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Iran the daily Asia newspaper and Nour-e-Banovan magazine were ordered closed by the Culture Ministry, which monitors the press.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 3, A top official said Iran has decided to resume research into nuclear fuel production in a statement certain to increase concerns that Iran is moving toward production of nuclear weapons.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 9, Iran state TV reported that 14 alleged members of an Islamic extremist group had been detained. The group in late December grabbed and held nine soldiers hostage.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 9, In northwestern Iran a small military passenger jet crashed, killing at least 13 people, including the commander of the ground forces of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
(AP, 1/9/06)
2006 Jan 10, Iran removed UN seals on uranium enrichment equipment and resumed nuclear research Tuesday, defying demands it maintain a two-year freeze on its nuclear program and sparking an outcry from the US and Europe.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 11, British PM Tony Blair said that Western countries were likely to seek economic sanctions against Iran after Tehran restarted its nuclear program, but a powerful cleric said it would not curtail its research.
(AP, 1/11/06)
2006 Jan 12, The British, French and German foreign ministers said that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a "dead end" and the Islamic republic should be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Jan 13, Iran threatened to block inspections of its nuclear sites if confronted by the UN Security Council over its atomic activities. The hard-line president reaffirmed his country's intention to produce nuclear energy.
(AP, 1/13/06)
2006 Jan 14, An Iraqi sailor was killed and nine were captured by an Iranian Navy vessel during a skirmish in the Gulf near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Iraqi coast guardsmen were pursuing suspected oil smugglers in disputed territorial waters.
(AP, 1/17/06)(SFC, 1/18/06, p.A7)
2006 Jan 15, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed his 1st budget bill. The government expected some $36 billion in oil revenues, promised to build 300,000 housing units and planned to maintain energy subsidies amounting to 10% of GDP.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinezhad)
2006 Jan 15, Iran said it would sponsor a conference to examine the scientific evidence supporting the Holocaust.
(AP, 1/15/06)
2006 Jan 16, State radio reported that Iran has allocated the equivalent of $215 million for the construction of what would be its second and third nuclear power plants.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Jan 17, Iran lifted its ban on CNN, a day after the government barred the US network from the country because of its mistranslation of nuclear comments by Pres. Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 19, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began a visit to Syria to consolidate an old alliance made increasingly crucial as both countries face mounting US pressure and the threat of international sanctions.
(AP, 1/19/06)
2006 Jan 20, Iran’s Central Bank Governor said Iran moving its foreign currency reserves out of European banks as a pre-emptive measure against any possible UN sanctions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 1/20/06)
2006 Jan 22, Iran said it was not withdrawing its foreign currency reserves from European banks, despite reports late last week that it already had begun the process.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 23, A senior envoy said Iran will immediately retaliate if referred to the UN Security Council next week by forging ahead with developing a full-scale uranium enrichment program.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 24, In Iran 2 bombs exploded in a bank and outside a government building in Ahvaz, a southwestern city with a history of violence involving members of Iran's Arab minority. 6 people were killed and 46 others wounded. A Web site claiming to represent Arab secessionists in the Ahvaz region said they carried out the attack. On June 8 a court found 9 defendants to be enemies of God, and sentenced them to death. 15 other defendants received sentences ranging from seven to 30 years in prison. In July Iran's Supreme Court confirmed death sentences for five Iranian Arab separatists convicted for the bombings.
(AP, 1/24/06)(AP, 6/28/06)(AP, 7/30/06)
2006 Jan 25, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said that Tehran views Moscow's offer to have Iran's uranium enriched in Russia as a positive development but no agreement has been reached between the countries.
(AP, 1/25/06)
2006 Jan 26, Iran's Civil Aviation Organization said it has proposed resuming direct flights between Iran and the United States after more than 25 years, despite political hostilities between the two countries.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 27, Georgia's president said that Iran had agreed to start providing emergency gas supplies to the Caucasus mountain nation as early as this weekend, signaling an end to an energy crisis made worse by an extreme cold snap.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Jan 28, Iran's foreign minister said Tehran and Moscow have agreed to expand the number of countries participating in the plan to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, describing a compromise that could satisfy U.S. concerns about the nuclear program.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 30, Iran’s Interior Ministry said 7 Iranian soldiers kidnapped last month by Jundallah, (God's Brigade), have been freed. No word was given on the fate of 2 other kidnapped soldiers.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Jan 31, Iran struck back at the Big Five's decision to refer the country's nuclear file to the Security Council, saying the move has no legal justification and would be the end of diplomacy.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Feb 3, Iran warned it no longer would consider a Kremlin proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia if it is referred to the UN Security Council for allegedly violating a nuclear arms control treaty.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 4, The ISNA news agency reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the cancellation of economic contracts with countries where the media have carried cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
(AFP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 4, The UN nuclear watchdog reported Iran to the UN Security Council in a resolution expressing concern that Tehran's nuclear program may not be "exclusively for peaceful purposes." Iran retaliated immediately, saying it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia.
(AP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 5, Iran ended all voluntary cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog but said it was open to a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, softening its earlier response to being reported to the Security Council over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms.
(AP, 2/5/06)
2006 Feb 7, A prominent Iranian newspaper said it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 11, Iran's president rejected US and European pressure to freeze the country's nuclear program and hinted that Iran may withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 12, Iran reaffirmed its commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a day after its hard-line president implied Tehran was considering withdrawing from the pact after being reported to the UN Security Council.
(AP, 2/12/06)
2006 Feb 13, Diplomats said Iran has started small-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or bombs. Talks with Moscow on moving Iranian enrichment to Russia as a way ensuring Iran has no direct control were put on indefinite hold.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 14, Iran said it had resumed uranium enrichment; Russia and France immediately called on Iran to halt its work.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2006 Feb 18, India confirmed the H5N1 bird flu virus in chickens. Iran confirmed the virus in wild swans. Indonesia confirmed its 19th death from the virus. Germany France and Austria reported more dead birds. Nigeria claimed to be bringing the virus under control.
(AP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 20, Russian and Iranian negotiators concluded a day of talks on Moscow's offer to enrich uranium for Iran and agreed to continue.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 22, Iran offered to help finance a Palestinian Authority run by the Hamas militant group, state radio said in a report that brought a quick warning from Israel that it would do all it could legally to stop the Palestinians from receiving the money.
(AP, 2/22/06)
2006 Feb 26, Iran's nuclear chief said an agreement was reached with Moscow to set up a joint uranium enrichment facility on Russian soil, a deal that could assuage global concerns that Tehran wants to build atomic bombs.
(AP, 2/26/06)
2006 Feb 27, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told Japan that Tehran would not suspend its atomic research and development, casting doubt over whether a Russian agreement would defuse a crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 2/27/06)
2006 Feb, Iranian security forces, according to a Kurdish group, killed 10 demonstrators.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.42)
2006 Mar 3, In Austria talks between EU negotiators and Iran over its nuclear ambitions broke up without any agreement, paving the way for potential UN Security Council action against Tehran as early as next week.
(AP, 3/3/06)
2006 Mar 3, Iran offered to suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years during discussion in Moscow. The proposal reflected Tehran's attempts to escape UN Security Council action over the activity, which can be used to make nuclear arms.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 5, Iran warned it will start large-scale uranium enrichment if it is referred to the UN Security Council because of international concerns over its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 7, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the IAEA, the UN nuclear agency, to compensate Iran for suspending its nuclear activities since 2003.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 8, Iran threatened the US with "harm and pain" for its role in hauling Tehran before the UN Security Council over its nuclear program. America's ambassador to the United Nations said Iran's comments reflected the menace it poses.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 8, Train services linking Pakistan with neighboring Iran were suspended indefinitely following bombings and rocket attacks on the rail in southwestern Pakistan.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 9, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and its president said that Tehran would not abandon its nuclear program and rejected its referral to the U.N. Security Council as unjust.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 11, Iran threatened to use oil as a weapon if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 12, Iran said it had ruled out a proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, further complicating the international dispute over the country's nuclear program.
(AP, 3/12/06)
2006 Mar 13, Iranian lawmakers approved spending $15 million to investigate alleged American intervention in the country.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Mar 14, China and Russia objected to a tough UN Security Council statement backed by the United States, Britain and France calling for a report in two weeks on Iran's compliance with demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 3/14/06)
2006 Mar 16, The White House issued a 49-page security strategy report that listed Iran as the single country that may pose the biggest danger to the US and reaffirmed pre-emptive military actions as a central tenet of US security policy.
(WSJ, 3/16/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 16, In Iran rebels under Abdolmalek Rigi, posing as security forces, killed 22 people on the southeastern Zabol-Zahedan road in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
(AP, 3/17/06)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.43)
2006 Mar 17, Akbar Ganji (46), an Iranian dissident journalist, was freed after spending most of his six-year prison term in solitary confinement. He vowed to keep criticizing the hard-line clerical regime. Ganji was jailed in 2000 after reporting on the killings of five dissidents by Intelligence Ministry agents.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 25, In India PM Manmohan Singh and Iranian Vice-President Rahim Mashaee held talks in New Delhi during which they stressed the need to strengthen bilateral ties, particularly in the energy sector.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 29, The UN Security Council demanded that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, the first time the body directly urged Tehran to clear up suspicions that it was seeking nuclear weapons.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2006 Mar 31, The air force chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards said Iran successfully test-fired a new missile, the Fajir-3, with the ability to avoid radar and hit several targets simultaneously.
(AP, 3/31/06)(SFC, 4/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 31, In western Iran 3 strong earthquakes and several aftershocks reduced villages to rubble, killing 70 people and injuring about 1,200 others.
(AP, 3/31/06)(AP, 3/31/07)
2006 Apr 2, Iran announced its second major new missile test within days, saying it has successfully fired a high-speed torpedo called Hoot (whale), capable of destroying huge warships and submarines.
(AP, 4/3/06)(SFC, 4/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 4, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran is prepared to negotiate on the large-scale enrichment of uranium but will never abandon its right to enrich uranium.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 May 7, Iran's hard-line parliament threatened to pass legislation that would force the Tehran government to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2006 Apr 8, The New Yorker magazine reported in its April 17 issue that the administration of Pres. George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility.
(AFP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 9, A Swiss investigator has issued an international arrest warrant for Iran's former intelligence chief in the killing of an exiled Iranian opposition leader. It demands the arrest of Ali Fallahian, intelligence minister from 1989-1997, on grounds he "decided and ordered the execution of Kazem Rajavi." Rajavi was shot to death in Geneva in 1990.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 11, Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said that Iran has enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a major development in nuclear fuel cycle technology.
(AP, 4/11/06)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.47)
2006 Apr 12, Iran’s deputy nuclear chief said the country intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges, signaling its resolve to expand a program the international community has insisted it halt.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 16, State-run television reported that Iran will give the financially strapped Palestinian Authority $50 million in aid.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 22, Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog agency said the Islamic republic had reached a "basic deal" with the Kremlin to form a joint uranium enrichment venture on Russian territory, state-run television reported.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 25, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said that the country is ready to transfer its nuclear technology to other countries. Tehran threatened to halt all cooperation with the UN atomic energy agency if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions, warning that it might hide its nuclear program if the West takes any other "harsh measures."
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 25, Russia launched a satellite for Israel that the Israelis say will be used to spy on Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 27, Iran's UN ambassador denounced Israel's election as a vice-chair of the U.N. Disarmament Commission, calling the Jewish state a threat to peace in the Middle East.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 27, Israel's military intelligence chief said in a published interview that Iran has received its first batch of North Korean-made surface-to-surface missiles that put European countries within firing range.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 29, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki to suspend enriching uranium and ensure full-scale cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
(Reuters, 4/29/06)
2006 May 2, In Iran a court sentenced two Swedes to three years in prison each for photographing military installations. The two men, both in their 30s, were convicted of photographing military buildings and telecommunications equipment on Qeshm, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 3, Britain and France introduced a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Iran abandon its uranium enrichment program, possibly setting the stage for sanctions if Tehran does not comply.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 4, Over Chinese and Russian opposition, Western nations circulated a UN Security Council resolution that would demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment or face the threat of unspecified further measures, a possible reference to sanctions.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to President Bush, proposing "new solutions" to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian head of state to an American president in 27 years.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2006 May 8, Indonesia said it supported Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful means ahead of a visit to the country by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 9, Officials said Iran will supply crude oil and equity investment to build an oil refinery in Indonesia that will supply China and provide Iran with a secure outlet in the face of possible sanctions.
(WSJ, 5/10/06, p.A8)
2006 May 9, Iran's president declared in a letter to President Bush that democracy had failed worldwide and lamented "an ever-increasing global hatred" of the U.S. government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swiftly rejected the letter, saying it didn't resolve questions about Tehran's suspect nuclear program.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 11, Iran's president said he was ready to negotiate with the United States and its allies over his country's nuclear program but he also suggested that any threats against Tehran would make the dialogue more difficult.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 13, In southeastern Iran armed bandits stopped four cars and killed 12 passengers on the road between the cities of Kerman and Bam.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 15, A top official said the EU will support an Iranian nuclear program that cannot be put to military use and will boost political and economic cooperation if Tehran accepts international oversight.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, In Iran Mohammadi-Ashtiani was convicted of having an "illicit relationship" with two men, according to her lawyer and London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International. Amnesty said she received 99 lashes as per her sentence but was subsequently accused of "adultery while being married" in September 2006 during the trial of a man accused of murdering her husband. In 2010 her sentence of death by stoning was temporarily halted.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2006 May 17, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a possible European offer for incentives, including a light-water nuclear reactor, in return for allaying fears about his country's nuclear program by giving up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 21, Pakistan and Iran officials met again in Islamabad to discuss a proposed 1,735-mile pipeline that would deliver Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 23, Iran’s government closed one of the country's top three newspapers, detaining its editor and cartoonist, Mana Neyestani, for publishing a caricature that caused members of Iran's Azeri minority to riot in protest. Amnesty International said in a report in 2007 that 19 people were reported killed in the unrest and hundreds arrested. Neyestani was released from jail after 3 months and fled the country with his wife. In 2012 he published his autobiographical comic book "An Iranian Metamorphosis," a Kafkaesque story recounting his 2006 jailing.
(AP, 5/23/06)(AFP, 2/10/12)
2006 May 24, Stone-throwing Iranian students fought police and Islamic vigilantes on in protest against restrictions imposed by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(Reuters, 5/24/06)
2006 May 25, In Iran protests by Iranian Azeris peaked when 4 demonstrators were killed in the part-Azeri town of Naghadeh.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.42)
2006 May 28, Afghanistan and Iran pledged to crack down on drugs passing over their shared border as Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Tehran. Officials also signed seven agreements dealing with the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 30, Iran's foreign minister said that Tehran is ready to restart negotiations with the European Union on its nuclear program, but he ruled out direct talks with the US.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 31, The US said it would join in face-to-face talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program if Tehran first agreed to put challenged atomic activities on hold; Iran dismissed the offer as "a propaganda move."
(AP, 5/31/07)
2006 Jun 1, In Vienna the US and 5 world powers agreed to offer Iran proposals that would bring it significant benefits if it halts its drive to master nuclear power.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 6/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 3, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, attending a security conference in Singapore, branded Iran the world's leading terrorist nation yet hoped Tehran seriously would consider incentives from the West in exchange for suspending suspect nuclear activities.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2006 Jun 6, Diplomats in Austria said the US is prepared to provide Iran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 8, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran was ready to discuss "mutual concerns" over his country's nuclear program, but he refused to first suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 11, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said that his country wants "unconditional" nuclear talks and that a Western incentives package has "weak points."
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 13, In Austria Western countries at a 35-nation UN meeting pushed for consensus on the need for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, but diplomats said that most nonaligned countries were preparing to endorse Tehran's right to continue the work.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 21, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country will respond in mid-August to the package of incentives on its nuclear program offered by the West. "We are studying the proposals. Hopefully, we will present our views about the package by mid-August."
(AP, 6/21/06)
2006 Jun 21, Scores of students chanting "Bush Go Home!" marched through Austria's capital to protest a visit by President Bush for the annual US-EU summit. The summit produced no breakthroughs but showed Bush moving toward better cooperation with Europe on Iran, energy, climate change and other fronts. Bush accused Iran of dragging its feet on a Western incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activity.
(AP, 6/21/06)(WSJ, 6/22/06, p.A4)(AP, 6/21/07)
2006 Jun 23, Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said Iran will halt gasoline imports from September 23 and start rationing gasoline supplies to motorists because of budget constraints.
(AP, 6/23/06)
2006 Jun 25, It was reported that Iran had purchased 800 high-caliber sniper rifles made by Steyr Mannlicher, an Austrian firm.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, Par p.7)
2006 Jun, In Iran a Revolutionary Guard engineering group won a $2.3 billion contract to develop part of a big gas field in Iran’s part of the Persian Gulf.
(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun, Iran exported about 2.8 million barrels of oil per day, some 3% of world demand.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.46)
2006 Jul 6, In Iraq a suicide car bomb tore through buses carrying Iranian pilgrims near a Shiite shrine on the outskirts of Kufa, killing 14 people and wounding 38.
(AP, 7/7/06)(SFC, 7/7/06, p.A10)
2006 Jul 12, The EU joined the US in warning Iran it faced UN Security Council action if no solution could be found to a stand-off over its nuclear program. World powers agreed to send Iran back to the UN Security Council for possible punishment, saying the clerical regime has given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 14, Israel tightened its seal on Lebanon, blasting its air and road links to the outside world and bringing its offensive to the capital for the first time to punish Hezbollah and with it, the country for the capture of 2 Israeli soldiers. Israel destroyed the home and office of Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Lebanese guerrillas fired a barrage of at least 60 Katyusha rockets throughout the day, hitting more than a dozen communities across northern Israel. Israeli warplanes destroyed the building housing the headquarters of Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Beirut. Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli warship that had been firing missiles into southern Beirut. A senior Israeli intelligence official said Iranian troops helped Hezbollah fire a missile that damaged the warship off the Lebanese coast. He also said about 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-802 at the ship that killed 4 sailors. Deaths in 3 days of fighting rose to 61 people in Lebanon and 10 in Israel.
(AP, 7/14/06)(AP, 7/14/07)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.58)
2006 Jul 16, Iran said that Western incentives to halt its nuclear program were an "acceptable basis" for talks, and it is ready for detailed negotiations.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 24, Hezbollah's representative in Iran struck a defiant tone, warning that his Islamic militant group plans to widen its attacks on Israel until "no place" is safe for Israelis.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2006 Jul 25, The first edition of a newspaper owned by the Iranian version of Hezbollah appeared on newsstands with messages of support for its Lebanese cousins in their fight against Israel.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Jul 28, The five permanent members of the UN Security Council reached a deal on a resolution that would give Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 29, Iran state radio said the government would reject a proposed UN resolution to suspend uranium enrichment by Aug. 31 or face the threat of international sanctions. State media also reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves."
(AP, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul 29, In Tehran the presidents of Iran and Venezuela pledged to support one another in disputes with Washington, with the Iranian calling Hugo Chavez "a brother and trench mate."
(AP, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul 31, Akbar Mohammadi (34) died in Tehran’s Evin Prison after a nine-day hunger strike to protest a lack of medical care. Mohammadi had been arrested for taking part in protests at Tehran University in July 1999, Iran's biggest anti-government demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The EU later expressed grave concern regarding the harsh treatment of dissidents, opposition leaders, student activists and all human rights defenders in Iranian prisons.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Jul 31, The UN passed Resolution 1696, which demanded that Iran suspend uranium enrichment by the end of August.
(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8792.doc.htm)
2006 Aug 1, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the UN Security Council resolution giving Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment. Ahmadinejad added that Tehran will pursue its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/1/06)
2006 Aug 6, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said that Iran will expand uranium enrichment, in defiance of a UN Security Council resolution giving the Islamic Republic until Aug. 31 to halt the activity or face the threat of political and economic sanctions.
(AP, 8/6/06)
2006 Aug 18, A bus carrying Iranian tourists crashed into a truck in eastern Turkey, killing 18 and injuring 29.
(AP, 8/18/06)
2006 Aug 19, The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that it had forced two Syria-bound Iranian planes to land and be searched for rockets and other military equipment, one on Jul 27 and the other on Aug 8, during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/19/06)
2006 Aug 21, Diplomats and UN officials said Iran has turned away UN inspectors wanting to examine its underground nuclear site in an apparent violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2006 Aug 22, The Orizont, a leased Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran, came under fire from Iranian military vessels and was later occupied by Iranian troops. A 2nd Romanian rig had recently been towed from Iranian waters due to unpaid bills.
(AP, 8/22/06)(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.A8)
2006 Aug 23, Iran urged Europe to pay attention to what it called "positive" signals in its counterproposal to a nuclear incentives package aimed at persuading Tehran to roll back its nuclear program. Russia and China backed Iran's call for negotiations to end the standoff.
(AP, 8/23/06)
2006 Aug 26, Iran's hard-line president inaugurated a heavy-water production plant, a facility the West fears will be used to develop a nuclear bomb, as Tehran remained defiant ahead of a UN deadline that could lead to sanctions.
(AP, 8/26/06)
2006 Aug 27, Iran test fired a new submarine-to-surface missile during war games in the Persian Gulf. A brief video clip showed the long-range missile, called Thaqeb, or Saturn, exiting the water and hitting a target on the water's surface within less than a mile.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Aug 29, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged the authority of the UN Security Council as Iran faces a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment and he called for a televised debate with President Bush on world issues.
(AP, 8/29/06)
2006 Aug 30, Iran released Ramin Jahanbegloo, a Canadian-Iranian writer, who was accused of working with the US to overthrow the government.
(Reuters, 8/30/06)
2006 Sep 1, Iran underlined its disregard for the UN deadline to halt uranium enrichment, now expired, when its president vowed never to give up its nuclear program and accused the West of misrepresenting Tehran's nuclear activities.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 1, In northeastern Iran a Russian-made Tupolev 154 airplane with 148 people on board skidded off the runway and caught fire, killing 29 people.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 2, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Iran would defend the aims of its nuclear program during any negotiations as the EU gave Tehran extra time to show it was serious about talks. Iran offered to help support the cease-fire in Lebanon in talks with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and insisted that diplomacy is the only way to resolve Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 6, Iran unveiled its first locally manufactured fighter plane during large-scale military exercises. The report said the bomber Saegheh is similar to the American F-18 fighter plane, but "more powerful."
(AP, 9/6/06)
2006 Sep 7, Mohammad Khatami, former president of Iran (1997-2005), spoke at Washington National Cathedral as part of a 2-week speaking tour in the US. He urged dialogue instead of threats. A group of Jewish Iranians, who say their missing relatives were kidnapped and tortured by the Iranian government, filed suit in Manhattan against Khatami. They delivered the summons to him directly the next day as he visited the US.
(SFC, 9/8/06, p.A13)(AP, 9/10/06)
2006 Sep 8, The Bush administration said it has blocked access to the US financial system by Iran’s Bank Saderat. The bank was alleged to have helped transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist organizations including Hezbollah and Hamas. (WSJ, 9/9/06, p.A4)
2006 Sep 9, Iran's top nuclear negotiator met with the European Union foreign policy chief for crucial talks seen as the last chance for Iran to avoid U.N. sanctions over its nuclear defiance.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 11, Iran closed down two opposition newspapers, one of which had recently poked fun at hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the way his government has handled nuclear talks with the West.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Sep 12, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki made his first official visit to Iran since taking office and planned to ask Tehran to prevent al-Qaida members believed to be in Iran from crossing into Iraq to carry out attacks. A parked car bomb detonated in Baghdad's upscale Mansour neighborhood, killing at least six people and wounding 18 others. Bombings, mortar attacks and shootings overnight and during the day left at least 24 people dead and dozens wounded around the country.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 13, The EU's foreign policy chief and Iran's top nuclear negotiator abruptly postponed talks on easing tensions over the refusal of the Tehran regime to suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 13, A letter from the office of IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, sent to the head of the US House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence, said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's nuclear activity.
(AP, 9/14/06)(SFC, 9/14/06, p.A15)
2006 Sep 14, An Iranian opposition figure said Iran has secretly revived a program to enrich uranium using laser technology, reportedly with favorable results, citing information from members of the resistance inside the country.
(AP, 9/14/06)
2006 Sep 17, Iran's president made his first visit to Venezuela, seeking to strengthen ties with a government that also opposes the US.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 19, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly and took aim at US policies in Iraq and Lebanon. He accused Washington of abusing its power in the UN Security Council to punish others while protecting its own interests and allies.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 26, Russia and Iran signed a deal in Moscow whereby Russia will ship fuel to a controversial atomic power plant it is building in Iran by March.
(AP, 9/26/06)
2006 Sep 28, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country rejected the suspension of uranium-enrichment activities by Tehran, "even for one day."
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Sep 28, An explosion on a natural gas pipeline outside Bazargan, an Iranian border city, shut down the flow of gas to Turkey. Officials believed the explosion was an act of sabotage by separatist Kurdish rebels.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Sep 29, A press report said Japan has decided to stop financial support for the development of Iran's largest onshore oil field if the Islamic republic continues uranium enrichment. The move means Japan's virtual withdrawal from its two billion-dollar contract to develop the Azadegan field. The contract was signed in 2004 by Inpex Corp., a Japanese oil exploration company that is supported by the government but also has private stakeholders.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Oct 3, A top Iranian nuclear official proposed that France create a consortium to enrich uranium in Iran, saying that could satisfy international demands for outside oversight of Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 8, In Iran Hossein Kazemeini Boroujerdi, a popular Shiite Muslim cleric who opposes mixing religion and politics, was detained after his supporters clashed with police outside his home in the capital Tehran.
(AP, 10/8/06)
2006 Oct 17, The EU said it felt obliged to back limited sanctions against Iran's nuclear program after Tehran refused to halt uranium enrichment as a condition to start negotiations.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 21, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia was ready to discuss ways to pressure Iran into accepting a broader international oversight of its nuclear program, but added that "any measures of influence should encourage creating conditions for talks." He said Russia will not allow the UN Security Council to be used to punish Iran over its nuclear program. Russia indicated it would strictly enforce sanctions on North Korea as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met top leaders in Moscow at the end of a tour to push for full implementation of the UN penalties in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test.
(AP, 10/21/06)(AFP, 10/21/06)
2006 Oct 25, A semiofficial news agency reported that Iran has expanded its controversial nuclear work by starting a second cascade of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Oct 25, Argentine prosecutors asked a federal judge to order the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed scores of people.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Oct 26, Russia rejected a draft UN resolution put forward by European powers targeting Iran's nuclear program, saying the proposed measures did not advance objectives agreed on earlier by major world powers.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Nov 1, Ignoring widespread condemnation, Iran awarded the top prize in a Holocaust cartoon contest to a Moroccan artist for his depiction of Israel's security wall with a picture of the Auschwitz concentration camp on it.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 2, Iran successfully test-fired three new models of sea missiles in a show of force to assert its military capacities in the Gulf.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 2, Russian and China indicated that they will not support a draft UN resolution imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 3, Russia proposed major amendments to a European draft resolution on Iran, saying it wants sanctions limited to measures that will keep Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles while keeping the door open for negotiations.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 10, Iran's state media paid scant attention to an Argentine's judge request for the arrest of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and other officials for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations reached their first international agreement to implement what has been dubbed the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and seven other nations agreed to meet at least every two years to identify vital rail routes, coordinate standards and financing and plan upgrades and expansions, among other measures. The UN first conceived the Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 19, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has demanded more ties with North Korea and urged for nuclear disarmament in Korean peninsula.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2006 Nov 19, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe left on a four-day state visit to Iran to beef up trade and political ties.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 20, Iran invited Iraq and Syria to talks in Tehran aimed at curbing violence in Iraq.
(SFC, 11/21/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 20, In Austria 35 nations tried to find common ground in a fractious session focusing on what to do about Iran's requests to the UN nuclear watchdog agency for help on projects including building a plutonium-producing reactor.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 23, The UN nuclear agency decided to deny Iran technical help in building a plutonium-producing reactor, but left room for Tehran to eventually renew its request. The IAEA said Iran has agreed to crack open the books on its uranium enrichment activities, a move that could give experts a better grasp of a program the Security Council fears could be misused to produce atomic bombs.
(AP, 11/23/06)(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 24, A Defense Ministry official said Russia has begun delivery of Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran, confirming that Moscow would proceed with arms deals with Tehran in spite of Western criticism.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 26, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would help the US calm Iraq if Washington changes what he described as its "bullying" policy toward Iran.
(AP, 11/26/06)
2006 Nov 27, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Tehran to meet with his Iranian counterpart amid increasing calls for Washington to enlist Iran's help in calming the escalating violence in neighboring Iraq. In Baghdad gunmen opened fire on a crowded street, killing six Iraqis and wounding three, some of whom were sitting in a parked car. Police in western Baghdad found the bodies of two Iraqis who had been kidnapped, blindfolded and shot. A bomb exploded under an oil pipeline and set it on fire south of Baghdad. A US Air Force jet carrying one pilot crashed in Iraq.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2006 Nov 27, In Iran a Russian-designed antonov-74 crashed in Tehran, killing 38 people. They included members of the elite Revolutionary Guards and high-ranking officers. This was Iran’s third military air plane crash in the last year.
(AP, 11/27/06)(SFC, 11/27/06, p.A3)
2006 Nov 29, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed a letter to the American people to be released at UN headquarters in New York. He urged the American people to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and reject what he called the Bush administration's "blind support" for Israel and its "illegal and immoral" actions in fighting terrorism.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2006 Nov, Venezuela inaugurated its Venirauto car factory, a joint venture with Iran. The first 300 units were released on July 9, 2007.
(Econ, 11/28/09, p.42)(www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2491)
2006 Dec 1, In Argentina a court declared former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others fugitives from justice in Argentina, where they are wanted in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 5, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to stick by the nuclear program and issued a new threat to downgrade relations with the EU if European negotiators opted for tough sanctions. A media rights group warned that Internet censorship in Iran is on the rise after Iran blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.com.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, said that Iran will face UN sanctions for refusing to halt its nuclear program but that major world powers remain divided over their extent.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 11, Iran promised $250 million to Palestine’s Hamas-led government.
(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 11, Iran opened a Holocaust conference that it said would examine whether the genocide took place.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 12, A two-day conference questioning the existence of the Nazi Holocaust ended in Tehran.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2006 Dec 15, Iranians voted in local council elections that were expected to be a first test of support for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since he took office more than a year ago.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 16, Iran's president said his country was ready to transfer nuclear technology to neighboring countries, Kuwaiti television reported, a week after Arab states on the Persian Gulf announced plans to consider a joint nuclear program. Early election returns showed hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conservative opponents leading in elections for local councils and a powerful clerical body.
(AP, 12/16/06)(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 18, Opponents of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took an early lead in key races in Iran's local elections, according to partial results announced, with moderate conservatives winning control of councils across Iran.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 21, In Iran final election results showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's opponents won local council elections.
(AP, 12/21/06)
2006 Dec 23, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. The Security Council resolution ordered all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs. It also froze the Iranian assets of 10 key companies and 12 individuals related to those programs. Iran denounced the sanctions. China’s endorsement was an important symbolic act.
(AP, 12/24/06)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.37)
2006 Dec 24, Iran vowed to push forward efforts to enrich uranium and to change its relations with the international nuclear watchdog.
(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 Dec, US military commanders showed US lawmakers mortar rounds and other munitions and fragments that had Iranian serial numbers and markings. The news was made public Feb 9, 2007.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2006 Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr authored “Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty" (Oxford Univ. Press).
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.85)
2006 Iran passed legislation empowering individuals to sell their own kidneys, and is believed to be the only country in the world where this is the case.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplant)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.15)
2006 In Iran yoga was named as a threat to Islam during a conference of intelligence and security officials in Qom.
(Econ, 5/17/14, p.48)
2006 Executions in Iran nearly doubled this year to 177, making it the world’s heaviest user of capital punishment per head of population.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.46)
2007 Jan 9, The Bush administration barred Bank Sepah, Iran’s oldest bank, from doing any future business in the US, accusing it of transferring Iranian missile payments to North Korea. Germany’s Commerzbank AG said it will stop handling dollar transactions for Iran at its new York branch by Jan 31.
(AP, 1/10/07)(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 10, In central Iran a truck smashed into a bus, killing at least 14 people.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, In Iraq US-led multinational forces detained six Iranians at Tehran's diplomatic mission in the northern city of Irbil. A suicide truck bomber hit the house of the head of the municipal council in Samarra, killing three people and wounding 33. Gunmen killed a professor driving home from the University of Mosul. Suspected Sunni insurgents set fire to a large oil pipeline in northern Iraq, interrupting the flow from the Kirkuk oil fields.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 14, The US military said 5 Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 16, Russia said it had delivered new anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran and would consider further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 22, Iran barred 38 nuclear inspectors on a UN list from entering the country in what appeared to be retaliation for the UN sanctions imposed last month.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Rosoboronexport chief Sergei Chemezov said Russia had fulfilled a contract to sell air defense missiles to Iran. This included 29 sophisticated missile systems under a $700 million contract signed in December 2005.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 26, An Iranian opposition group based in France claimed Iran has thousands of paid operatives working in neighboring Iraq.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 30, The Saudi foreign minister said Saudi Arabia and Iran are working together to try to calm the crises in Iraq and Lebanon.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Feb 1, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched anniversary celebrations for Iran's Islamic Revolution with a defiant promise to push ahead with the country's controversial nuclear program.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2007 Feb 2, Iran said it will allow UN surveillance cameras at its Natanz nuclear complex.
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 7, Aron Groiss, director of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, presented a study in London saying textbooks used in Iran's schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the United States, and urging them to become "martyrs" in a global holy war against countries perceived to be enemies of Islam.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 9, The UN atomic monitor suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran, a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 11, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, vowed his country would not give up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 12, EU foreign ministers approved plans for implementing UN sanctions against Iran, a move that is meant to punish Tehran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 14, A car loaded with explosives blew up near a bus carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran, killing 11 of them and wounding 31. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group reportedly claimed responsibility. Within a week Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi was convicted and executed for the bombing.
(AP, 2/14/07)(SFC, 2/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 15, An adviser to Iraq's prime minister said that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of arrest during an escalating security crackdown.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 16, Japan's Cabinet approved sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program under UN Security Council guidelines.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 17, Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in Iran to discuss Iraq and other Middle East issues with President Mahmoud Ahmadinajed.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 21, India said it has banned the export to Iran of all material, equipment and technology which could contribute to Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 25, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would proceed with its nuclear program, comparing its nuclear drive to a train that has no reverse gear or brakes. Iran said it had successfully launched its first rocket into space for research purposes. The rocket reached an altitude of 150 kilometers (93 miles) but did not stay in orbit.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 28, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit to Khartoum, for talks with his Sudanese opposite number Omar al-Beshir.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Syria said it would participate in a Baghdad-organized conference of Iraq's neighbors that the US plans to attend. Iran said it was considering whether to take part.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 3, Saudi Arabia's king personally welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad upon his arrival, a rapprochement many hope will help calm sectarian tensions threatening the Middle East. The leaders pledged to fight the spread of sectarian strife in the Middle East, which they said was the biggest danger facing the region.
(AP, 3/3/07)(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 6, Iran said its former deputy defense minister was missing while on a private trip to neighboring Turkey, and its top police chief accused Western intelligence services of possibly kidnapping the official.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 7, Russian nuclear energy officials hosted an Iranian delegation for talks on the construction of a Russian-built plant that has fallen behind schedule because of what Moscow said were delays in payments by Tehran.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Austria delegates to a 35-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved the suspension of nearly two dozen nuclear technical aid programs to Iran as part of UN sanctions imposed because its nuclear defiance.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Syria’s Pres. Bashar Assad inaugurated the first stage of a joint Syrian-Iranian auto factory, test-driving one of the new cars and declaring that the project will boost cooperation between the allies.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, In Iran Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent, disappeared from the island of Kish, a free trade zone. Levinson retired from the FBI in 1998 and became a private investigator. He was investigating cigarette smuggling in early 2007, and his family has said that effort took him to Iran. In 2010 the AP confirmed Levinson’s ties to the CIA. In late 2010 his family received proof that the father of seven was alive. In 2015 the US offered a $5 million reward to find Levinson. Levinson's family received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others. In 2019 Iran acknowledged for the first time it has an open case before its Revolutionary Court over the disappearance Levinson.
(AP, 3/4/11)(AFP, 3/4/11)(SFC, 12/14/13, p.A5)(Reuters, 3/9/15)(AP, 11/9/19)
2007 Mar 11, Iranian TV quoted government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham as saying Ahmadinejad "intends to attend a UN Security Council meeting to be held on Iran's nuclear case in order to defend the rights of the Iranian nation in exploiting peaceful nuclear energy."
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 12, Iran issued a bank note with a nuclear symbol in a move seen as an assertion of its national will in the face of international sanctions over its insistence on enriching uranium.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 12, Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said in a newly released interview that it's "indisputable" Iran is training and arming militants to fight against US-led troops in Iraq. Police found only nine bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad, apparent victims of Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 14, The Russian state-run company building a nuclear plant in Iran warned that Iranian payment delays may cause "irreversible" damage to the project, another strong signal of Moscow's annoyance with Tehran.
(AP, 3/14/07)
2007 Mar 15, Interpol said it plans to issue international requests for the arrest of five prominent Iranians and a Lebanese militant in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 15, The six world powers reached an agreement on a draft resolution for a new package of sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program. It included an embargo on arms exports and an asset freeze on more individuals and companies associated with Tehran's nuclear and missile programs.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 16, Six major powers sent a strong signal to Iran that they remain united in seeking to rein in its nuclear ambitions, compromising on a sanctions package to step up pressure on the Islamic republic to suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 18, Iran's justice ministry said Shahram Jazayeri, a fugitive Iranian businessman, was arrested outside the country after escaping from authorities last month. Jazayeri had been sentenced in 2002 to 27 years in prison for embezzlement in a high-profile conviction.
(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 20, Russia confirmed that it has begun pulling out experts from the Iranian nuclear power plant they were helping build and that it is withholding nuclear fuel for Iran’s reactors.
(SFC, 3/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 23, Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors and marines who had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf as part of efforts to protect the Iraqi coastline and its oil terminals; they were held for 13 days.
(AP, 3/23/07)(AP, 3/23/08)
2007 Mar 24, The UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose additional sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium, a move intended to show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Iran announced it was partially suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog agency, citing what it called “illegal and bullying" Security Council sanctions imposed on the country for its refusal to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2007 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair said that the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran as they searched for smugglers off the Iraqi coast were not in Iranian waters and warned that Britain viewed their fate as a "fundamental" issue.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 28, Iran aired a video of 15 captured British sailors and marines; the lone female captive, shown in a white tunic and a black head scarf, said the British boats had "trespassed." The crew members were released April 4, 2007.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2007 Mar 29, Britain took its escalating crisis with Iran over 15 captured sailors to the UN Security Council, as Tehran said it would not release the only woman among the detainees.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2007 Mar 30, One of the 15 British service members held captive in Iran appeared on the government's Arabic-language TV and said he apologized "deeply" for entering Iranian waters without permission.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 31, President Bush called for the release of 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, calling their capture by Tehran "inexcusable behavior." The crew members were released on April 4.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2007 Apr 1, In Iran about 200 students threw rocks and firecrackers at the British Embassy, calling for the expulsion of the country's ambassador because of the standoff over Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines. Britain examined options for new dialogue with Tehran over the seized crew of 15 sailors and marines, as a poll suggested most Britons back the government's goal of resolving the standoff through diplomacy. Iran's state television aired new video showing two of the 15 captured British sailors pointing to a spot on a map of the Persian Gulf where they were seized and saying it was in Iranian territorial waters; Britain's Foreign Office immediately denounced the video.
(AP, 4/1/07)(AP, 4/1/08)
2007 Apr 2, The US asked Tehran for information on the disappearance of a former FBI agent who went missing on a private business trip to Iran.
(WSJ, 4/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 3, Iran reported that an Iranian diplomat in Iraq seized two months ago by uniformed gunmen has been released.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, In Baghdad a senior foreign ministry official said his government was "intensively" seeking the release of five Iranians detained there by the US. Two US soldiers were killed by small-arms fire, one in eastern Baghdad and another on foot patrol in the southern outskirts of the capital. Iraqi and US troops found a huge stash of weapons in a raid on the home of Sunni legislator Khalaf al-Ilyan. They detained at least a dozen men for questioning. Khalaf al-Ilyan, in Jordan for surgery, later denied the charges and accused the Iraqi government and Iran of trying to discredit him because of his criticism of state policies.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AP, 4/6/07)(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 4, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad freed the 15 detained British sailors and marines as an Easter holiday "gift" to the British people. Syria said it played a key role in resolving the standoff over the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran. Turkey brokered the release of the British sailors.
(AP, 4/4/07)(Econ, 8/21/10, p.42)
2007 Apr 6, A Royal Navy lieutenant who was among the captives held by Iran said British sailors and marines held for nearly two weeks were blindfolded, bound and threatened with prison if they did not say they strayed into Iranian waters.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 8, In western Iran at least 26 people were killed and 18 others injured after a truck smashed into a bus.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 9, Iran announced that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, dramatically expanding a program that the UN has demanded it halt. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard general visited Russia despite a UN travel ban over Tehran nuclear defiance. Russia denied any violation.
(AP, 4/9/07)(WSJ, 4/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 15, Iran said it is seeking bids for the building of two more nuclear power plants, despite international pressures to curb its controversial program.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 16, In Iran 2 Swedish construction workers, who had been convicted of espionage and imprisoned for taking photographs of military installations, were released after being pardoned.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, Israel's Shin Bet security agency said that it has broken up an Iranian plot to recruit Israelis of Iranian origin as spies, part of what it says is a burgeoning Iranian intelligence operation against the Jewish state. Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian militant near Jenin. Four Israelis were shot and wounded as they were driving near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Naaleh.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, US Marine Gen. Peter Pace said US-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan recently intercepted Iranian-made weapons that were being shipped to Taliban fighters. A roadside bomb hit a United Nations vehicle in southern Afghanistan's main city, killing four Nepalese guards and an Afghan driver. An old artillery shell exploded outside a school compound in the western city of Herat, killing four children and wounding five others.
(AP, 4/17/07)(SFC, 4/18/07, p.A9)
2007 Apr 19, Iranian engineers began filling a new dam as archaeologists warned that its reservoir will flood newly discovered antiquities and could damage Iran's grandest site, the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 21, Iran signed a major gas development and production agreement with Austrian energy group OMV.
(Reuters, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr, In India Mahindra Renault, a joint venture formed in 2005, launched a new version of the Logan priced at $7,100 before taxes. The original Logan was designed in Romania. It went on sale in Iran in March under the name Tondar (thunder), with record orders and deliveries due in May. Iran’s model was built by Iran Khodro (IKCO) and Saipa.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.78)
2007 May 1, Iran stood firm in opposing language in a nuclear conference agenda that reaffirms the need for full compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a stance that diplomats said could scuttle the meeting aimed at strengthening the accord.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 2, The Iranian state news agency reported that the country's former nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, has been arrested on an unspecified security charge.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 3, In France Claude Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told a news conference that there is no reason why Iran should not have nuclear energy.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 4, Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami met with Pope Benedict XVI for talks the Vatican hoped would help heal tensions left from the pontiff's remarks on Islam and violence, but the Iranian said the wounds were still very deep.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 8, Iran accepted a compromise on the agenda of a 130-nation nuclear conference, meeting in Austria, clearing the way for the meeting to approve it and end six days of deadlock that threatened to doom the gathering to failure.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 11, Iran detained Kian Tajbakhsh (45), an Iranian-American working for the George Soros Open Society Institute.
(SFC, 5/24/07, p.A12)
2007 May 12, Yemen said it was recalling its ambassadors to Iran and Libya over what it sees as their support for Shi'ite Muslim rebels involved in bloody clashes with government forces. The government of Sunni-dominated Yemen accused the rebels of seeking to oust its secular administration and install Islamist rule.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 13, Iran confirmed that it has detained Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American academic. A hardline newspaper accused her of spying for the United States and Israel and trying to start a revolution inside Iran.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, The US said it is willing to talk to Iran if discussions deal only with Iraq, where the Bush administration says Tehran is undermining the Baghdad government and exporting deadly roadside bombs. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said that Tehran has agreed to a formal request from the US to talk about security in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak toward the end of a regional tour, focusing on ways to stem chaos in Iraq and on Iran's impact on security in the Gulf.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 15, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Gulf Arab neighbors to send experts to inspect his country's nuclear power plant, in an apparent effort to ease fears over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 21, The presidents of Belarus and Iran sought to cement ties that the Belarusian leader called "a strategic partnership." Belarus will develop an oil field in Iran under an agreement announced by President Alexander Lukashenko during a visit by Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Iran charged Haleh Esfandiari, a jailed Iranian-American academic, with setting up a network to overthrow the Islamic establishment, the government announced. Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 22, Iran jumped gasoline prices 25% in a new blow to consumers already disgruntled over high inflation, and the government said it will begin rationing fuel in two weeks.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 24, The head of the UN nuclear agency said he agreed with CIA estimates that Iran was three to eight years from being able to make nuclear weapons and he urged the US and other powers to pursue talks with the Islamic country.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 26, An Iranian official said that Iran, embroiled in a row with Washington over its nuclear program, has increased the amount of its oil export earnings in currencies other than US dollars to about 70%.
(Reuters, 5/26/07)
2007 May 28, The US ambassador in Baghdad said he and his Iranian counterpart agreed broadly on policy toward Iraq during four-hour groundbreaking talks, but insisted that Iran end its support for militants. The Iranian ambassador later said the two sides would meet again in less than a month. A suicide car bomber struck a busy commercial district in central Baghdad, killing at least 21 people and damaging a Sunni shrine. In central Baghdad a battle raged after insurgents hijacked two buses and kidnapped at least 15 passengers. At least 3 policemen were killed. A roadside bomb killed 2 people and injured 9 when it detonated under a parked car in the central Baghdad district of Bab al-Muadham. Another 2 people were killed and 6 were wounded after two mortar rounds slammed into a street in Karrada, a Shiite-dominated neighborhood in downtown Baghdad.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, In northwest Iran 7 Revolutionary Guard members and five militants were killed in clashes with armed insurgents.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Iran's judiciary spokesman said US academic Haleh Esfandiari and two other Iranian-Americans have been "formally charged" with endangering national security and espionage.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 30, Iranian troops killed 10 militants in ongoing clashes in the country's northwest, near the border with Turkey.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 31, Iran pledged to end years of stonewalling and provide answers on past suspicious activities to the UN nuclear monitoring agency probing its atomic program, in a move being seen as an attempt to avoid new UN sanctions. Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Iran's hard-line interior minister, encouraged temporary marriages as a way to avoid extramarital sex, a stance many in this conservative country fear would instead encourage prostitution. A temporary marriage, or "sigheh," refers to a Shiite Muslim tradition under which a man and a woman sign a contract that allows them to be "married" for any length of time, even a few hours.
(AP, 6/1/07)(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 2, Iran detained 3 Finns for allegedly straying into its territorial waters during a fishing trip in the Persian Gulf. In June 6 Iran agreed to release them.
(AP, 6/6/07)
2007 Jun 4, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iranian weapons have begun flowing into Afghanistan, but he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed involvement by Tehran cannot yet be proved. Six Taliban rebels were killed in a gunfight with Afghan and NATO-led troops in the eastern province of Paktia.
(AP, 6/4/07)(AFP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 6, Cyclone Gonu battered Oman's coast on its path toward the world's most important crude oil tanker route. It waned after killing 49 in Oman and 9 people in Iran, where severe flooding encircled over 100 villages.
(AP, 6/7/07)(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.A1)(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Jun 8, The US froze bank accounts of four Iran banks tied to Tehran’s nuclear efforts. Iran confirmed for the first time that it is holding Ali Shakeri of Lake Forest, Calif., an Iranian-American peace activist, the fourth dual citizen it has detained in recent months.
(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.A1)(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 11, Iran announced it will help build five new refineries across Asia with a total capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day in a bid to strengthen ties in the region. The refineries will be built in China, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Syria.
(AFP, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 13, Iran's parliament voted in favor of a bill that could lead to the death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of pornographic movies.
(AP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 13, A senior U.S. diplomat said NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, providing evidence Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy. The Taliban claimed to have captured a NATO trooper.
(AP, 6/13/07)(AFP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 15, Iran was reported to have denied allegations of abuse saying it has forced Afghan laborers back home because the 1.5 million undocumented migrants are an enormous burden on its economy.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 17, Iran said it had received indications from Russia's president that he would not follow through with an offer to allow the US to use a radar station in neighboring Azerbaijan for missile defense against Tehran.
(AP, 6/17/07)
2007 Jun 22, Iran interior minister was quoted saying Iran has produced more than 220 pounds of enriched uranium.
(AP, 6/22/07)
2007 Jun 26, Iran's state broadcasting company said it is launching an English-speaking satellite television channel to counter the West's influence in covering news.
(AP, 6/26/07)
2007 Jun 27, In Iran 2 gas stations were torched early in Tehran as angry Iranians protested fuel rationing measures suddenly enforced by the government, while many other Iranians lined up to fill their tanks.
(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jun 30, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez arrived in Iran for a two-day visit.
(AP, 7/1/07)
2007 Jul 2, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated an English-language satellite television channel to counter what he claims is the West's influence in covering news.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Iran's leading reformist daily newspaper was ordered closed, less than two months after it was allowed to resume publishing.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Venezuela’s energy minister said in newly published comments that Venezuela has agreed to sell gasoline to Iran.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 5, In northern Iran Jafar Kiani, a man convicted of adultery, was stoned to death in Aghchekand, the first time in years that the country has confirmed such an execution.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 8, Iran’s state TV said 4 fuel-smuggling trucks crashed into each other and caught fire in southeastern Iran, killing 13 people.
(AP, 7/9/07)
2007 Jul 8, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who leads the group Islamic State in Iraq, said in an audiotape that his Sunni fighters have been preparing for four years to wage a battle against Shiite-dominated Iran. He threatened to wage war against Iran unless it stops supporting Shiites in Iraq within two months. A suicide truck bomber killed 23 new Iraqi army recruits when he rammed into their vehicle south of Baghdad. A flurry of bombings in Baghdad killed 26 people.
(AP, 7/8/07)(Reuters, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 12, Iranian artillery shelled near Iraqi Kurd villages as Iranian troops clashed with Kurdish guerrillas making an incursion across the border.
(AP, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 13, The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has agreed to answer lingering questions about its nuclear experiments and will let UN inspectors return to a plutonium-producing reactor it is building.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 13, In northern Iran at least 18 people were killed and 24 others injured in a road accident when a truck slammed into a bus full passengers.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 14, PM Nouri al-Maliki said that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want," though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training. A car bomb in Baghdad leveled a two-story apartment building, and a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-packed vehicle into a line of cars at a gas station. The two attacks killed at least eight people. A group of 24 Iranians escaped from detention in an Iraqi police station in the southern town of Badra. Four were quickly recaptured, but the remainder may have fled across the nearby border.
(AP, 7/14/07)(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 16, A court in Iran sentenced Adnan Hassanpour (27), a journalist for the closed Kurdish-Persian weekly, to death on charges of endangering national security and propaganda against the state. Abdolvahed “Hiva" Botimar (29) was also sentenced to death by a revolutionary tribunal in Marivan.
(http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15054)
2007 Jul 19, An armed group killed 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard in clashes in the country's lawless southeast. A report said the Guards clashed with drug traffickers in a mountainous area near Iran's borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan and killed four of them.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 24, The US and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq also began talks in Baghdad in a bid to find ways to use their influence to bring stability to Iraq. A suicide bomber struck a busy commercial center in the Shiite city of Hillah, killing at least 24 people and wounding dozens as the streets were packed with shoppers and commuters.
(AP, 7/24/07)
2007 Jul 25, Iranian authorities announced new arrests in the cases of two Iranian-Americans held on charges of conspiring against the government, saying that an unspecified number of Iranians had been detained.
(AP, 7/25/07)
2007 Jul 30, UN inspectors visited a nuclear reactor being built in central Iran, a facility that has been off-limits since April. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman criticized a US plan to sell state-of-the-art weapons to Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, Ayatollah Ali Meshkini (85), a founding member of Iran's Islamic regime and leader of an important government assembly, died.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul, US Teamster Pres. James Hoffa sent a letter to Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad demanding the release of Mansour Ossanlou, a Bus Transport Workers Union leader, and condemned the Iranian government’s flagrant disdain for freedom of association and expression.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.E3)
2007 Aug 1, Iran publicly hanged seven men in the second round of collective executions in 10 days. The Web site of the state's broadcasting company said they were hanged on charges of rape, kidnapping and robbery in Mashad. Iran arrested more than 200 music fans at an underground rock concert that one official called a "satanic" gathering and authorities accused the youths of breaking Islamic law.
(AP, 8/1/07)(AP, 8/5/07)
2007 Aug 5, Iran showed off for the first time a new fighter jet said to be modeled on the American F-5 but built using domestic technology. The "Azarakhsh" (Lightning) jet, one of the first to be home-produced by Iran, made a successful flight in the central city of Isfahan.
(AFP, 8/5/07)
2007 Aug 6, Iran's leading reformist newspaper was shut down for the second time in a year after publishing an interview with a poet who called for greater gender equality.
(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 6, Iranian and US diplomats held "frank and serious" expert-level talks in Baghdad on security issues in Iraq.
(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 7, A European diplomat said that Russian officials told the Iranians about two weeks ago that Russian fuel roads to the Bushehr reactor would be held back as long as unresolved questions about Tehran's past nuclear activities remained.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 8, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Iran for talks expected to focus on bilateral relations and overcoming "terrorism challenges." Iraqis told they will not get automatic asylum in Britain despite braving death threats to work alongside British troops will now have their cases reviewed. US-led forces swooped into the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, killing 32 suspected militants and detaining 12 others in fighting and an airstrike targeting alleged smuggling networks from Iran. Police and witnesses said 9 civilians were killed in the attack.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 9, Iranian officials told Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki that they were doing everything they could to help stabilize his nation, but only a US pullout would bring true peace.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 11, Iran’s state-run news network said Iran and Iraq have signed an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil and oil products.
(AFP, 8/11/07)
2007 Aug 12, Up to five militants were killed and 13 others detained during a raid on Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City. The US military claimed those they rounded up in that raid were linked to Tehran’s elite Quds Force.
(AP, 8/13/07)
2007 Aug 13, US troops in Iraq launched a major assault against Al-Qaeda-linked militants and alleged Iranian-aided extremist groups as a Sunni leader accused Iran of plotting genocide against his people. The US military also said it had arrested a top "financier" of Iraqi extremist groups believed to be supported by Tehran’s Quds Force in a Baghdad raid.
(AFP, 8/13/07)
2007 Aug 15, State radio reported that Iran has detained two Chinese nationals on charges of spying on its military and nuclear facilities. A drug crackdown was launched throughout Iran and police seized more than 54 kilos (118 pounds) of heroin and crack from the gang in airports in Tehran and several other cities. In the operation 90 members of a drug network, including 85 Africans from Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana as well as two Pakistanis, were arrested.
(AP, 8/15/07)(AFP, 8/18/07)
2007 Aug 21, Haleh Esfandiari, a detained Iranian-American academic accused of conspiring against the government, was freed on bail from the Tehran prison where she had been jailed since early May. Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was freed on $333,000 bail.
(AP, 8/21/07)
2007 Aug 23, State-run TV reported that Iran has developed a new 2,000-pound "smart" bomb, the latest in a recent series of announcements heralding new weapons systems.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2007 Aug 26, Iran vowed to use a new 2,000-pound "smart" bomb against its enemies and unveiled mass production of the new weapon.
(AP, 8/26/07)
2007 Aug 29, A group of eight Iranians, including two diplomats, were released by US forces after being detained a day earlier because unauthorized weapons were found in their cars. An aide said Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force. An American soldier died from wounds suffered the day before in fighting near the northern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 8/29/07)
2007 Aug 30, The UN nuclear agency said that Iran was producing less nuclear fuel than expected and praised Tehran for "a significant step forward" in explaining past atomic actions that have raised suspicions.
(AP, 8/30/07)
2007 Aug, Iran and Turkey concluded a number of energy deals including the establishment of a joint company to carry Iranian natural gas via Turkey to Europe and the construction of three thermal power plants by Turkish companies in Iran.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.49)
2007 Sep 2, Iran's president claimed that his country is now running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its controversial nuclear program. Haleh Esfandiari (67), an Iranian-American academic imprisoned for months and accused of trying to create a "soft revolution" in Iran was permitted to leave the country and rejoin her family.
(AP, 9/2/07)(AP, 9/3/07)
2007 Sep 4, Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani was picked to head a key clerical body empowered with choosing or dismissing the country's supreme leader, state media reported, in a vote seen as a setback for hard-liners in Iran's ruling establishment.
(AP, 9/4/07)
2007 Sep 7, A US federal judge said Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 US service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, in a ruling that left survivors and families shedding tears of joy. A day later Iran rejected the ruling.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 11, Iran opened the doors of its most feared prison to journalists, allowing them to interview Kian Tajbakhsh, a jailed Iranian-American academic in a move seen as an effort to blunt criticism of the country's human rights record.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 16, Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister, warned that the world should prepare for war if Iran obtains nuclear weapons and said European leaders were considering their own economic sanctions against the Islamic country.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 18, Parnaz Azima, an Iranian-American reporter who was trapped in Iran for months on suspicion of trying to stir up a revolution, was allowed to leave the country and return to the United States. Azima was one of the one of Radio Azadi’s, a US-funded service later renamed Radio Farda, original broadcasters in Prague. In March, 2008, an Iranian revolutionary court sentenced her to a one-year prison term in absentia for her “antirevolutionary" work.
(AP, 9/18/07)(WSJ, 6/13/08, p.A10)
2007 Sep 19, In Iran Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute, was released after he spent four months in a notorious prison on suspicion of trying to stir up a revolution.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Iranian air force pilots made successful test flights in two of Iran's new domestically manufactured fighter jet. The Saegheh jet is a new generation of the Azarakhsh class of fighter planes. Both Azarakhsh and Saegheh mean lightening in Farsi.
(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 20, An Iranian officer accused of smuggling powerful roadside bombs into Iraq was arrested. The suspect, a member of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was detained in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. A car bombing at an Iraqi checkpoint in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood killed two Iraqi soldiers and a civilian, and wounded seven others. A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi police patrol near a stadium in eastern Baghdad, killing one officer and wounding 5 people. The chief judge of the mostly Shiite Karrada district court and his driver were shot by masked gunmen in eastern Baghdad. Both died of their wounds later in a hospital. The US military said 7 Shiite extremists were detained following a pre-dawn raid by Iraqi special forces and US troops in Sadr City. Residents claimed a civilian and a 5-year-old boy were killed in the raid. An American soldier was killed in an explosion in Diyala province.
(AP, 9/20/07)(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 21, US Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice said the US and France have agreed on increasing diplomatic and economic pressure to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Sep 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left Tehran for New York to address the United Nations; state media quoted him as saying the American people were eager for different opinions about the world, and that he was looking forward to providing them with "correct and clear information."
(AP, 9/23/08)
2007 Sep 24, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in NYC for a speech at Columbia University followed by a scheduled address to the UN General Assembly. Ahmadinejad defended Holocaust revisionists and raised questions about who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in a tense showdown at Columbia University.
(AP, 9/24/07)(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 24, Iran closed major border crossings with northeastern Iraq to protest the US detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling. The International Atomic Energy Agency technical officials began talks with Iran to resolve remaining issues surrounding the country's controversial nuclear program. Iran released from jail peace activist Ali Shakeri, the last of four Iranian-Americans imprisoned in recent months after being accused of stirring up a revolution.
(AP, 9/24/07)(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 25, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing the United Nations, announced "the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed," and indicated Tehran would disregard Security Council resolutions imposed by what he called "arrogant powers."
(AP, 9/25/08)
2007 Sep 27, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled stopped in Bolivia, where he pledged $1 billion in investment. He pledged investment over the next five years to help the poor Andean nation tap its vast natural gas reserves, extract minerals, generate more electricity and fund agricultural and construction projects. He then visited Venezuela to meet President Hugo Chavez. Chavez embraced the Iranian leader, calling him "one of the greatest anti-imperialist fighters" and "one of the great fighters for true peace."
(AP, 9/28/07)
2007 Sep 29, Iran's parliament voted to designate the CIA and the US Army as "terrorist organizations," a largely symbolic response to a US Senate resolution seeking a similar designation for Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
(AP, 9/30/07)
2007 Oct 4, Iranian state television reported that Iran and Syria have signed an agreement for Tehran to export a billion dollars worth of gas every year to its chief regional ally.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 8, Iran reopened five border crossing points with Kurdish-run northern Iraq, closed last month by Tehran to protest the US detention of an Iranian official. An estimated 100 students staged a rare demonstration against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" and scuffling with hardline students at Tehran University.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Satoshi Nakamura (23), a Japanese tourist, was abducted in a restive region of southeast Iran bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan as he headed from his hotel for the ancient mud-built citadel of Bam. Nakamura was released on July 14. A bandit called Esmail Shahbakhsh, blamed for the kidnapping, had reportedly demanded the release of his arrested son in exchange for Nakamura.
(AFP, 6/15/08)
2007 Oct 16, In Iran Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian counterpart and implicitly warned the US not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations should not pursue oil pipeline projects that are not backed by regional powers.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 17, Iran hanged eight men and one woman on murder charges in the notorious Evin Prison in northern Tehran.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 21, The US military said its forces killed an estimated 49 militants during a dawn raid to capture an Iranian-linked militia chief in Baghdad's Sadr City enclave. Iraqi police and hospital officials reported only 15 deaths including three children. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said all the dead were civilians.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 25, The Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the harshest since the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979, charging anew that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Nov 6, Kurdish rebels released another Iranian soldier captured two months ago in northern Iraq.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 7, Interpol put Ali Fallahian, Iran’s former intelligence chief, Mohsen Rezai, a former leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Ahmad Vahidi, a Revolutionary Guards general, and 2 other Iranians and Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese militant on its most-wanted list for a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish center in Argentina.
(AP, 11/8/07)(WSJ, 1/15/08, p.A6)
2007 Nov 9, The US military released nine Iranians from custody in Iraq, including two accused of being members of an elite force suspected of arming Shiite extremists. It said they were no longer considered security risks.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 10, Iranian state television reported that Iran and Pakistan have reached a deal to build a multi-billion-dollar pipeline to transport natural gas between the two countries.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 13, Diplomats said Iran has met a key demand of the UN nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, The official IRNA news agency reported that Hossein Mousavian, Iran's former senior nuclear negotiator, has been charged with passing classified information to foreigners, including the British Embassy.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 17, In Iran officials at Niloofar Publications, which published the first edition of a novel by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, known in the West as "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," confirmed they have been forbidden to put out a second edition. The Persian translation was titled "Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts."
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 19, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his fourth trip to Iran in two years, as the two countries sought to strengthen ties while their leaders exhort the international community to resist US policies.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 27, The news agency IRNA reported that Iran has manufactured a new missile with a range of 1,200 miles capable of reaching Israel and US bases in the Mideast. A judiciary spokesman said an Iranian court has acquitted Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator of spying charges, but convicted him of acting against the Islamic government.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 28, Iran claimed to have built a small submarine equipped with sonar-evading technology, saying the craft had been launched in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 30, An 18-month attempt to persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment collapsed after a senior EU envoy failed to dent Iran's resolve to expand the technology, despite the threat of new UN sanctions.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov, Iraqi civilian deaths due to the war numbered about 560 this month.
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.29)(www.icasualties.org)
2007 Dec 3, Iran ordered Canada's ambassador to leave the country after Canada rejected candidates Tehran had proposed to represent the Islamic Republic in Ottawa.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, In Qatar Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reached out to Gulf Arab states, proposing security and economic pacts free of "foreign influence" in the first appearance by an Iranian leader before a summit of a key group of Persian Gulf nations. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was formed shortly after the outbreak of the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, partly to counter the spread of Iran's Islamic revolution.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, A consensus judgement of the US intelligence community was released saying Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and though it continues an enriched uranium program, it apparently has not resumed moving toward a nuclear capability. On Dec 11 the national Council for Resistance in Iran said Iran’s weaponization program was relocated and restarted in 2004.
(SFC, 12/4/07, p.A14)(WSJ, 12/11/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 4, Iran's foreign minister welcomed the US decision to "correct" its claim that Tehran has an active nuclear weapons program, while Israel's defense minister said Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to develop an atomic weapon.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iran Makwan Moloudzadeh, a man convicted of raping three boys when he was 13 years old, was hanged despite a chief justice's order that the case be reviewed.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 9, Iran signed a contract with China's Sinopec for the development of Iran's huge Yadavaran oil field, the kind of energy deal the United States has been trying to prevent. Hundreds of Iranian students angry over a crackdown on activists protested at Tehran University, the second such demonstration in less than a week.
(Reuters, 12/9/07)(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 13, Russia and Iran reached agreement on a schedule for finishing construction of a nuclear power plant that plays a central role in the international tensions over Iran's atomic program, Russian news agencies reported.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 17, Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said the first nuclear fuel shipment for the Bushehr atomic power plant has arrived in Iran from Russia. Aghazadeh said the Bushehr plant was 95 percent complete and would begin operations next year.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 20, Iran’s state television reported that security forces killed four leaders of a Sunni Muslim rebel group that Tehran has previously linked to al-Qaeda and blamed for several attacks in the Islamic state.
(Reuters, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 26, Iran and Malaysia signed a $16 billion agreement to develop two Iranian gas fields, in a deal described as the largest energy contract in Iran.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, Iran's defense minister said that Iran had agreed to buy an S-300 surface-to-air missile system from Russia.
(Reuters, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 28, Iran received the second shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia for a power plant being constructed in the southern Iranian town of Bushehr.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 30, Turkmenistan turned off gas supplies to Iran, citing technical problems, after Iran balked at a price increase to $140 per thousand cubic meters, almost double the contracted rate. The move had a domino effect causing Iran to halt gas shipments to Turkey, which in turn cut off gas to Greece.
(WSJ, 2/4/08, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/3xmzam)
2007 Reese Erlich authored “The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis."
(SSFC, 10/20/07, p.M3)
2007 Zarah Ghahramani (b.1981) with Robert Hillman authored “My Life as a Traitor," an account of her arrest and 30-day imprisonment in Iraq following a protest over the firing of a beloved teacher. Ghahramani managed to escape Iran after her arrest and settled in Australia.
(SFC, 1/3/08, p.E1)
2007 Michael A. Ledeen authored “The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction," a forceful argument for regime change in Iran.
(WSJ, 9/7/07, p.W5)
2007 Masoud Dehnamaki, a former Iranian militia leader, directed his first feature film. The irreverent comedy, “Ekhrajiha" (The Outcasts), portrayed a gang of Tehran thieves and junkies as war heroes. His previous work included documentaries about prostitution and football violence.
(Econ, 4/21/07, p.54)
2007 Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad closed down the country’s Management and Planning Organization, the country’s closest thing to an independent budget auditor. In 2013 Pres. Hassan Rohani re-opened the office.
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.52)
2007 In western Iran Kurdish Law student Habibollah Latifi was arrested accused of carrying activities on behalf of "anti- revolutionary" groups. He was sentenced to death in 2008.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2007-2008 South Africa’s MTN mobile phone company invested over $1.5 billion in Iran to provide coverage for over 40% of Iranians.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.49)
2008 Jan 6, Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three US Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast. The US Navy Times newspaper later reported that a threatening radio message at the end of a video showing Iranian patrol boats swarming near US warships in the Persian Gulf may have come from a prankster rather than from the Iranian vessels.
(AP, 1/7/08)(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 7, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented Iran's budget to parliament, promising it would curb a sharp rise in inflation and redistribute Iran's abundant oil revenues among the country's 70 million people.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 9, The US imposed sanctions on Mishan Jaburi, owner of Al Zawra television in Syria, and Brig. Gen. Ahmed Foruzandeh, leader of the Iranian Quds Force, for broadcasting attacks on American troops and calls to violence. Jaburi, a former parliamentarian in Iraq, had fled to Syria in 2006 amid charges that he had embezzled millions from Iraq’s treasury. The BBC said the station was last seen July 27.
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.A13)
2008 Jan 10, Afghanistan urged Iran to stop deporting its citizens during the winter months, saying doing so could cause a humanitarian disaster.
(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 14, PM Ehud Olmert told a powerful parliamentary panel that Israel rejects "no options" to block Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 20, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that a fourth Russian shipment of nuclear fuel had arrived, destined for a power plant being constructed in the southern port of Bushehr.
(AP, 1/20/08)
2008 Jan 21, Iran's supreme leader reversed a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and ordered him to implement a law supplying natural gas to remote villages amid rising dissatisfaction with the president's performance. Local media have reported 64 cold-related deaths this winter and say gas cuts are to blame.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 22, The UN Security Council's permanent members and Germany agreed on a new draft resolution on sanctions against Iran, strengthening existing measures over the country's refusal to suspend its nuclear program.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Iran a top interior ministry official said more than 2,000 reformers seeking democratic changes within Iran's hard-line ruling establishment have been disqualified from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Russia said a new draft UN resolution on Iran's disputed nuclear program does not call for any harsh sanctions, and the Iranian president said new measures would not deter the country in its pursuit of nuclear technology.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 24, Iran received a sixth shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia, destined for a power plant being constructed in the southern port of Bushehr.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 28, Iran received the final shipment of uranium fuel from Russia for its first nuclear plant, state media reported, a key step toward the launch of the reactor's operations expected later this year.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 29, Iran’s state media reported that more than 50 followers of the minority Baha'i faith were convicted of distributing propaganda against the country's Islamic regime. The faith was banned after the 1979 Islamic revolution, and it is not recognized in the Iranian constitution as a religious minority.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Feb 4, Iran said it launched a research rocket and unveiled its first major space center, which will be used to launch research satellites.
(AP, 2/4/08)
2008 Feb 7, Experts said Iran's nuclear project has developed its own version of an advanced centrifuge to churn out enriched uranium much faster than its previous machines.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 17, Iran inaugurated its first stock exchange for oil products and petrochemicals, in a bid to become a major player in the global downstream industry.
(AFP, 2/17/08)
2008 Feb 24, Iran said that it has started using new centrifuges that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate of the machines that now form the backbone of the Islamic nation's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/24/08)
2008 Mar 2, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his landmark visit to Iraq opened a new chapter in "brotherly" relations between the two countries, which were once bitter enemies. 13 gunmen were killed and eight were injured in clashes with American and Iraqi forces in the town of Tal Afar. 2 police officers were also killed and four were injured. In two other separate attacks in Diyala, police reported that five people were killed when a roadside bomb hit a bus, while another assault killed a patrolling police officer. The US military found a grave in Samarra with 14 bodies, believed to be members of the Iraqi security forces executed by al-Qaida in Iraq. A car bomb in Samarra had killed four people, including one child. Police in Samarra, however, reported that at least seven people were killed and 10 people were injured. In central and northern Iraq US and Iraqi forces killed 9 suspected insurgents and detained 44 others in raids targeting al-Qaida. 3 Iraqi troops were killed in one of the operations. During the operation, the SWAT teams found bomb-making materials, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, rifles, grenades, a landmine and ammunition.
(AP, 3/2/08)(AP, 3/3/08)(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 3, In Iraq Pres. Talabani and Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad signed 7 memorandums of understanding on issues including industrial development, trade and customs. At least 23 people were killed and dozens were wounded when two suicide car bombs exploded in different parts of Baghdad. 3 police officers were killed by a parked car bomb in the town of Shikaat, north of Baghdad.
(AP, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 3, Parvin Ardalan (36), an Iranian women's rights activist, was to receive the 2007 Olof Palme award in Stockholm, Sweden, but was told just before her flight that she was not allowed to leave the country.
(AP, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 3, The UN Security Council imposed another round of sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran defiantly vowed to continue its nuclear program, which it insists is aimed only at generating power.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 4, China and Russia scuttled a Western attempt to introduce a resolution on Iran's nuclear defiance at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 12, The US Treasury said it blacklisted Future Bank of Bahrain because it is controlled by Bank Melli of Iran, which plays a role in financing Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs.
(WSJ, 3/13/08, p.A3)
2008 Mar 14, Iranians voted in elections. About 4,500 candidates nationwide ran for parliament's 290 seats. With final results reported from all races except those in Tehran, 113 of parliament's 290 seats went to conservatives.
(AP, 3/14/08)(AP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 15, In Iran hard-line allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pulled ahead in Iran's parliamentary elections, according to partial results, but the president's conservative critics were making a strong showing that could unsettle his domination of the legislature.
(AP, 3/15/08)
2008 Mar 16, Iran's Culture Ministry announced the closure of nine cinema and lifestyle magazines for publishing pictures and stories about the life of "corrupt" foreign film stars and promoting "superstitions."
(AP, 3/16/08)
2008 Mar 23, Iranian artillery shelled three border towns in northern Iraq where Iranian Kurdish rebels are believed to be operating.
(AP, 3/23/08)
2008 March 29, Azerbaijan customs halted a shipment of Russian equipment for Iran’s first nuclear power plant. The equipment was released May 1.
(WSJ, 5/2/08, p.A8)
2008 Apr 2, Diplomats said that China has given the UN nuclear watchdog intelligence linked to Tehran's alleged attempts to make nuclear arms.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 5, Iran said it would not make any concession in exchange for incentives offered by the West to halt sensitive atomic activities.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 8, Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned for the first time rocket and mortar attacks against the US-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad by supporters of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A US soldier died from wounds sustained when his vehicle was destroyed in a roadside bombing the previous evening.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2008 Apr 10, Iran reported that the SenIran Auto plant in Thies, Senegal's second largest city, has built its first Iran-Khodro Samand sedan. Iran Khodro is the largest carmaker in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa regions with annual production of more than one million various vehicles including cars, trucks and buses.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.49)
2008 Apr 12, In Iran an explosion killed 14 people inside a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz. A Police official said a homemade bomb caused the explosion. The next day Abbas Mohtaj, deputy interior minister in charge of security, said the explosion was "the result of an accident." In May a report by the official news agency IRNA again said the explosion was no accident, and those responsible had ties to the West. In November Iran's Revolutionary Court convicted three men of involvement in an explosion and sentenced them to death.
(AP, 4/13/08)(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.A7)(SFC, 4/14/08, p.A13)(AP, 5/8/08)(AP, 11/29/08)
2008 Apr 14, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, Iran's most senior dissident cleric, charged that recent parliamentary elections were not free or fair because thousands of reformists were barred from running.
(AP, 4/14/08)
2008 Apr 23, Switzerland said it had frozen the assets of a further 12 Iranian companies in accordance with new UN sanctions aimed at stopping Tehran's alleged nuclear program.
(AP, 4/23/08)
2008 Apr 23, The UN nuclear monitoring agency announced what it called a "milestone" agreement with Iran that aims to provide answers about allegations that Tehran tried to develop nuclear weapons.
(AP, 4/23/08)
2008 Apr 25, Iranians voted in parliamentary run-off elections expected to leave conservatives firmly in control because most reformist candidates were barred from running.
(AP, 4/25/08)
2008 Apr 26, In Iran according to final results Conservatives consolidated their control of the legislature in runoff elections but moderates within the bloc opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emerged as a stronger force.
(AP, 4/26/08)
2008 Apr 28, Iran and Russia discussed the outlines of "serious proposals" aimed at assuring the international community that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful, state media reported.
(AP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 28, Sri Lanka hailed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit as an important step in cementing closer ties between the two nations.
(AP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 29, A $7 billion gas pipeline that would link Iran and India topped the agenda as the Islamic republic's president made his first visit to New Delhi, despite strong US objections to the project.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 May 1, It was reported that Iran has stopped using dollars for oil deals as it seeks to reduce reliance on the US.
(WSJ, 5/1/08, p.A1)
2008 May 5, An Iranian envoy rejected nuclear inspections while Israel stays outside the global nonproliferation treaty.
(WSJ, 5/6/08, p.A1)
2008 May 10, Sudanese soldiers clashed with Darfur rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in the north of the capital Khartoum where a curfew has now been imposed. Officials later said more that 200 people were killed in the weekend fighting. The rebels had traveled from Chad in 191 land cruisers and pick-up trucks. On May 27 an official Egyptian newspaper claimed that Sudanese forces searching the rebel JEM movement found modern Iranian weapons with them and that authorities had seized large amounts of ammunition and Iranian equipment.
(AFP, 5/10/08)(AP, 5/13/08)(Econ, 5/17/08, p.59)(AFP, 5/27/08)
2008 May 14, Iran raided the homes of top Baha’i leaders and threw six of them in the notorious Evin prison north of Tehran. A 7th Bahai leader was detained March 5. A government spokesman said the arrests aimed to defend Iran's national security and had "nothing to do with ideological issues." In 2010 Iran cut the jail terms imposed on the seven from 20 to 10 years.
(AP, 5/22/08)(AFP, 9/18/10)
2008 May 15, Government troops began house-to-house searches for al-Qaida in Iraq militants in Mosul, part of a major security operation to cleanse Iraq's third largest city from cells of the terror network. An Iranian Embassy convoy came under fire in Baghdad, wounding four people, including three Iranians and an Iraqi. Overnight and early morning clashes between US-backed Iraqi forces and militiamen loyal to al-Sadr left eight men killed and 19 wounded.
(AP, 5/15/08)(AP, 5/16/08)
2008 May 25, Iran's state media said at least 30 people have died and 38 were injured in an explosion caused by fire at a factory in central Iran.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 25, An Iranian-born Israeli was charged with passing defense information to Tehran. The man told interrogators he repeatedly visited the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and gave the Iranians names of acquaintances he said served in the Israeli security forces.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 28, Iran's lawmakers overwhelmingly picked conservative Ali Larijani as parliament speaker, sending another strong message of discontent with Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leadership by boosting one of his likely challengers in elections next year.
(AP, 5/28/08)
2008 Jun 5, A Turkish TV station quoted a senior military commander as saying that Turkey and Iran have carried out coordinated strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
(AP, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 9, Iran's supreme leader told the visiting Iraqi prime minister that the US military presence is the main cause of Iraq's problems. A parked car packed with munitions exploded near a passing Iraqi army patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing three civilians and an army lieutenant. An alleged al-Qaida in Iraq bomber was captured with another suspect in Mosul, and another five men were arrested south of the city. US soldiers under heavy fire during a raid in northwestern Iraq called in airstrikes and killed five suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants.
(AP, 6/9/08)
2008 Jun 10, President Bush, speaking in Slovenia at his final EU-US summit, said the United States and Europe must rally to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, calling the threat an incredible danger to world peace.
(AP, 6/10/08)
2008 Jun 11, Abbas Palizdar, a former staff member of Iran’s parliament, was arrested. He had revealed that dozens of top clerical leaders had used their connections to swindle hundreds of millions of dollars from the state.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.58)(www.wikio.co.uk/news/Abbas+Palizdar)
2008 Jun 14, The EU presented Iran with a modified package of incentives to suspend its uranium enrichment program, but an Iran government spokesman said the country would reject the offer if it requires a halt to sensitive nuclear work. As part of the package Western nations told Iran that they could cut off any new help to Iran's anti-drug units unless the Islamic regime halts uranium enrichment.
(AP, 6/14/08)(AP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 16, An Iranian weekly said Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions.
(Reuters, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 16, Iran’s pro-reform daily Kargozaran reported that police were questioning women and men where they bought their clothes or had their hair done, then targeting the shops. A Police spokesman said 32 clothing shops and hairdressers in Tehran were shut down so far.
(AP, 6/17/08)
2008 Jun 16, US President George W. Bush won Europe's backing for tighter sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program and secured a British pledge to send more troops to Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 17, A human rights group said Iran has sentenced 177 people under the age of 18 to death over the past decade and has executed nearly three dozen of them.
(AP, 6/17/08)
2008 Jun 23, European Union nations approved new sanctions against Iran, including an assets freeze of the country's biggest bank. The sanctions also include a travel ban on high-level experts dealing with Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 6/23/08)
2008 Jun 24, The EU named Iran's largest commercial bank, the chief of the Revolutionary Guards and the head of the country's nuclear program as the targets of new sanctions imposed over Tehran's nuclear defiance as part of an updated blacklist of nuclear experts and companies in Iran being targeted under new sanctions.
(AP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 25, Iran condemned as a "disgrace" the decision by Britain to lift a ban on the main Iranian armed opposition group, the People's Mojehedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
(AP, 6/25/08)
2008 Jun 30, A special Iranian court sentenced Ali Ashtari (45), an Iranian man, to death on charges of spying for Israel. It was the country's first known conviction for espionage linked to Israel in almost a decade. The salesman of electronic merchandise had a job supplying military, security and defense centers across the country with electronic devices.
(AP, 6/30/08)
2008 Jun, Iranian HIV doctor Arash Alaei and his brother Kamiar were arrested and accused of communicating with the United States in a bid to unseat the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both were released in 2011.
(AFP, 8/29/11)
2008 Jul 1, Iranian state radio said that at least 25 people were killed and 16 injured in a bus accident near Tehran.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 4, State television said Iran delivered its response to an international offer of incentives for it to suspend uranium enrichment, a central part of its nuclear program. It did not say what the response was.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 5, An Iranian government spokesman says the country's nuclear program remains unchanged, indicating that Tehran has no plans to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 9, Iran test-fired nine long- and medium-range missiles during war games that officials said aimed to show the country can retaliate against any US and Israeli attack.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 10, Iran test-fired more long-range missiles overnight in a second round of exercises meant to show that the country can defend itself against any attack by the US or Israel.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 13, Iranian state TV said the country is exploring a newly discovered oil field believed to contain more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Geneva a decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled, with Iran stonewalling Washington and 5 other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Activists said Iran has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to death by stoning. The nine, who are between 27 and 50 years old, were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 26, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran now has 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in the number of uranium-enriching machines in its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 27, Iran hanged 29 people at dawn after they had been convicted of murder, drug trafficking and other crimes.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Aug 4, In Iran journalist Yaghoob Mirnehad was executed in the city of Zahedan after being sentenced to death earlier this year. Iran accused Mirnehad of being involved in the armed Jundallah group, which operates along the Iranian-Pakistani border. The Jundallah group, or God's Brigade, has launched attacks against Iranian soldiers and police in the area near Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is a key crossing point for narcotics.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Iran Ali Kordan was narrowly approved as the new interior minister. An honorary Oxford degree that he cited was soon disclosed as a fake.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 8, The EU tightened trade sanctions against Iran to punish Tehran for not committing to a long-standing demand of the international community that it freeze its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 13, In northwest Iran three Kurdish separatists and one Iranian soldier were killed in a shootout.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, A senior US military intelligence officer said Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as US and Iraqi troops.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 21, Armed pirates hijacked a Japanese chemical tanker with 19 crew, an Iranian bulk carrier with 29 crew, and a German cargo ship with a crew of 9 off Somalia's coast.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 24, Iran's official news agency said the country has begun designing its second light-water nuclear power plant, a 360-megawatt facility in the southwest.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 25, Iranian state TV said the country has launched production of a domestically built submarine capable of firing missiles and torpedoes. Two other submarines, which began production in 2005, have been delivered to Iran's navy.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 28, Iran’s Junior trade minister Mohammadali Zeyghami said Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology with Nigeria to help the energy-starved west African powerhouse boost electricity generation.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug, St. Vincent and Iran established ties after PM Gonsalves visited Iran for a summit of the Nonaligned Movement, an organization of 120 developing nations. St. Vincent later announced that it would receive US$7 million in aid from Iran. A portion of that will go toward construction of a US$200 million international airport.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 1, Most of the Muslim Mideast began the first day of Ramadan, but Iraqi Shiites, some Lebanese Shiites and Iran will start observing the holy month of fasting on Sep 2.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 2, Bolivia and Iran pledged cooperation and signed energy pacts, rebuffing US concerns over improved ties.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, Iran sentenced four female activists to six months in prison for writings demanding equality for women. Sweden had awarded a human rights prize to Parvin Ardalan, one of the activists, earlier this year.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 10, A strong earthquake rocked southern Iran sending tremors across the Persian Gulf to the skyscrapers of Dubai. Iranian state television reported that seven people were killed and 40 others were injured.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, The US Treasury Dept. accused Iran’s national maritime carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, of helping the country’s nuclear and missile programs. The proliferator designation, designed to stop companies from doing business in the US, further block the carrier’s ability to move money through US banks.
(WSJ, 9/11/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 15, A new International Atomic Energy Agency report said that Iran has repeatedly blocked a UN investigation into allegations it tried to make nuclear arms and the probe is now deadlocked.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 17, US federal prosecutors unsealed charges against alleged members of a global network procuring potentially sensitive electronic components for Iran. 8 companies and 8 people, including Iranian, Malaysian and British nationals, were charged with violating a US embargo that restricts certain goods to Iran.
(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 23, Iran's President Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly declaring that "the American empire" is nearing collapse and should end its military involvement in other countries.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 24, The European Union warned that Iran is nearing the ability to arm a nuclear warhead even if it insists its atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 27, The UN Security Council unanimously approved a new resolution reaffirming previous sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program and offering Tehran incentives to do so.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Oct 9, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his government to suspend a controversial new sales tax, a day after a rare strike by merchants worried about how the new measure would affect their business.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 15, Esha Momeni, a student at California State University, Northridge, was driving on a highway in Tehran when she was stopped by authorities, who said they were traffic police, and later taken to Evin prison. Her computer and other materials related to her research on the Iranian women's movement were confiscated.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 16, The International Committee of the Red Cross said Iran and Iraq have signed an agreement to trace missing persons from the war between the two countries. About 1 million people died in the eight-year war that began when Saddam Hussein launched an attack on Iran in 1980.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 21, Iran, Russia and Qatar discussed the formation of an OPEC-style cartel among some of the largest natural gas producing nations, a prospect that has unnerved energy-importing nations in Europe and the United States.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 22, The Bush administration imposed financial sanctions on an Iranian state-owned bank for allegedly providing financial services in support of the country’s weapons program.
(SFC, 10/23/08, p.A11)
2008 Oct 23, A European Union court has ruled that EU governments should no longer freeze the funds of People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, an Iranian opposition group on the bloc's terror blacklist. A British court ruled in its favor last year.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 26, A top Revolutionary Guards commander said Iran is supplying weapons to "liberation armies" in the Middle East, offering the first official confirmation the country provides weapons to armed groups in the region.
(AP, 10/27/08)
2008 Nov 2, Iranian authorities arrested Hossein Derakhshan (b.1975), a well-known Canadian-Iranian blogger. In 2010 he was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Derakhshan)
2008 Nov 4, Iran's parliament impeached Interior Minister Ali Kordan after he admitted having a fake degree from Oxford University, in a vote widely seen as a defeat for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 11/4/08)
2008 Nov 12, Iran successfully test-fired the Sajjil, a new generation of long range surface-to-surface missile using solid fuel, making them more accurate than its predecessors. It had a range of about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers).
(AP, 11/12/08)
2008 Nov 13, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen kidnapped Hashmatullah Atharzadeh, an Iranian diplomat, and killed his local guard. Peshawar’s police chief Suleman Shah said the spate of killings and abductions was in reaction to the military operations against insurgents in the adjoining tribal belt. Iranian intelligence agents freed Atharzadeh in late March, 2010.
(AFP, 11/13/08)(AP, 3/30/10)
2008 Nov 17, Venezuela and Iran announced a plan to start a new university program in the South American country with a focus on teaching socialist principles.
(AP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 17, In Iran Ali Ashtari (45), convicted of spying for Israel, was hanged after being sentenced to death on June 30 by a revolutionary court in Tehran. The electronics salesman worked in supplying military, security and defense centers across the Iran.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 18, Separate bands of pirates seized a Thai fishing trawler with 16 crew members and an Iranian cargo vessel with a crew of 25 in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates on the trawler then apparently fired on the Indian naval frigate Tabar. The Indians, believing the trawler to be a pirate "mother ship," returned fire turning the Ekawat Nava 5 into a massive fireball and killing 14 of the 15 crew as well as the pirates. The Tabar then chased two attack boats into the night. A surviving sailor spent six days adrift in the shark-infested ocean before another ship picked him up. The Iranian vessel was released on Jan 9, 2009.
(AP, 11/19/08)(AP, 11/26/08)(SFC, 11/26/08, p.A3)(AP, 1/10/09)(AP, 6/5/09)
2008 Nov 19, Iran's official news agency said Iranian border guards have killed several Kurdish separatists in a shootout in the western part of the country. The gunmen were said to be part of the Kurdish separatist group, known as the PEJAK, the Iranian wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
(AP, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 25, Iran said it has broken a spy ring working for Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad. The prosecutor general said it would the death penalty for 3 suspects in custody.
(SFC, 11/26/08, p.A8)
2008 Nov 26, In Iran a court sentenced a man who blinded a woman with acid also to be blinded with acid under the country's Islamic law. Majid Movahedi (27) confessed to attacking Ameneh Bahrami (24) in 2004 to dissuade anyone from marrying the woman he loved. Movahedi was sentenced to be blinded in both eyes in February, 2009. In 2011 Bahrami announced that it would cost Movahedi two million euros to escape a court-ordered blinding. In 2011 Bahrami pardoned Mohavedi as he knelt in an operating room with her attacker waiting for her to drop acid in his eyes.
(AP, 11/27/08)(AP, 5/17/11)(AP, 7/31/11)
2008 Nov 30, The head of Iran's nuclear power agency said the country is willing to help neighboring Arab countries build joint light-water nuclear power plants if they are interested.
(AP, 11/30/08)
2008 Nov 30, Iraqi and Iranian troops exchanged the remains of soldiers killed during the 1980-1988 war between the two countries. It was the first such handover since the two signed an agreement in October to work together in tracing thousands still missing after the war.
(AP, 11/30/08)
2008 Dec 5, Iranian state radio said police confirmed that a militant group active in Iran has killed all 16 police officers it abducted in June. Shortly after the abduction, the Sunni Muslim Jundallah group said it had executed two of the officers and threatened to kill the remaining 14 unless imprisoned members of the group were released.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 20, Iranian state radio said Iran has sent a warship to the coast of Somalia to protect its cargo ships against piracy.
(AP, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 21, Iran reported that Russia has begun delivering S-300 air defense systems, which could help repel any Israeli and US air strikes on its nuclear sites.
(AP, 12/21/08)
2008 Dec 28, Iran's supreme leader issued a religious decree that said anyone killed while defending Palestinians in Gaza would be considered a martyr.
(AP, 12/29/08)
2008 Dec 29, In Iran 5 hard-line student groups and a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec, Ecuador’s Central Bank signed an agreement under which Iran’s Central Bank would set up a credit line of $40 million, extendable by $80 million, for the use of Ecuadorean importers.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.44)
2008 Dec, Unemployment in Iran was estimated at 4 million people and expected to rise under falling oil prices.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.66)
2008 Ronen Bergman authored “The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most dangerous Terrorist Power."
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.98)
2008 Dubai handled an estimated 60% of Iran’s merchandise trade, hosted nearly 10,000 Iranian-owned firms and was linked to Iran by over 250 flights a week.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.65)
2008 Sudan and Iran signed an agreement to strengthen bilateral military relations.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2009 Jan 6, Turkey held a shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran saying it contains equipment that can make explosives.
(WSJ, 1/7/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 9, Somali pirates released a captured Iranian-chartered cargo ship. The ship Delight was carrying 36 tons of wheat when it was attacked in the Gulf of Aden Nov. 18 and seized by pirates. All 25 crew were in good health and the vessel sailed toward Iran.
(AP, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 13, Iran’s judiciary announced that 2 men were stoned to death last month for adultery.
(WSJ, 1/14/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 14, Guerrillas in Lebanon rocketed northern Israel for the second time in a week, drawing Israeli artillery fire and threatening to drag the Jewish state into a second front as diplomatic efforts to broker a truce in Gaza intensified. Gaza health ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said the offensive has killed 1,000 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 300 children. The Israeli navy intercepted an Iranian ship loaded with medicine, food and clothing destined for Gaza and forced the vessel to Egypt instead. Palestinian surveyors estimated that Israel's fierce assault on Gaza's Hamas rulers has destroyed at least $1.4 billion worth of buildings, roads, pipes, power lines and other infrastructure.
(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 16, Australia granted asylum to 28 people from Afghanistan and Iran, in the first such move since relaxing tough rules on asylum seekers.
(AFP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 17, Iran's state news IRNA reported that four Iranians have been convicted and sentenced to prison in an alleged US-backed plot to topple the government.
(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 19, Iran's state news agency reported that two internationally renowned Iranian AIDS physicians were among four men sentenced to prison over the weekend for allegedly participating in a US-backed plot to overthrow Iran's Islamic regime. Arash and Kamyar Alaei have been held in prison since June 2008.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 21, North Korea and Iran, two nations with nuclear aspirations the US wants to thwart, both signaled that they were open to new initiatives from President Barack Obama that could defuse tensions.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 23, Iraq's top security official called a decision by his government to close Camp Ashraf, housing some 3,500 members of an armed Iranian opposition group north of Baghdad "irreversible," saying the Iraqi authorities do not allow anti-Iran activities on their soil. Members of the terrorist People's Mujahedeen, known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, will either be deported to Iran or be given the option of going to a third country. A bomb hidden inside a traffic police booth exploded in western Baghdad, killing a 7-year-old boy and wounding his mother.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 26, Iran’s state radio reported that several members of its border security forces were killed in an ambush near the Pakistani border.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, The European Union decided to remove an Iranian opposition group from the EU's terror list and lift the restrictions on its funds, a move likely to further damage relations strained over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 31, Roxana Saberi (31), Iranian-American journalist, was detained in Tehran. In April she was charged with espionage, two days after her parents visited their daughter in prison. The government had revoked her press credentials in 2006. On April 13, 2009, she was tried and soon sentenced to 8 years in jail for spying. Her lawyer appealed. She was released in May and in 2010 authored “Between Two Worlds" My Life and Captivity In Iran."
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101315579)(AP, 4/8/09)(AP, 4/18/09)(SSFC, 4/18/10, p.F7)
2009 Jan, In northeast Sudan Israel carried out an attack in which at least 30 people were killed, to stop weapons being transported to Gaza during its offensive against Hamas. Reports from Sudan quoted a lone survivor of the attack as saying two planes flew over the convoy then came back and shot up the "four or five" trucks. Israeli aircraft or drones destroyed 23 lorries carrying Iranian arms destined for Hamas.
(Reuters, 3/27/09)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.50)
2009 Feb 1, In Iran police killed 10 drug smugglers in a shootout near the Afghan border. After the shootout, police confiscated more than 2,500 pounds of drugs, most of it opium.
(AP, 2/1/09)
2009 Feb 2, Iran successfully launched a missile carrying Omid (hope in Farsi), its first domestically made satellite into orbit. In 2005, Iran launched its first commercial satellite on a Russian rocket in a joint project with Moscow, which appears to be the main partner in transferring space technology to Iran.
(AP, 2/3/09)
2009 Feb 5, The British Council said that it has suspended work in Iran because of what it calls intimidation by the authorities there. The British Council reopened its Tehran office in 2001 after a 22-year break following the 1979 Islamic revolution. It said 13,000 Iranians took part in English lessons and other programs it ran in Tehran last year.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 18, Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in published remarks that Iran has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles, enough to reach Israel. Iran announced two years ago that it had built an unmanned aircraft, but Vahidi's comments were the first by a top official revealing its range.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 22, Iran's official news agency says the country's first nuclear power plant will begin preliminary phase operation on Feb 25 after a series of delays.
(AP, 2/22/09)(SFC, 2/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Feb 24, Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad arrived in Kenya with a delegation of nearly 100 officials and business people. He soon struck a deal to export 4 million tons of crude oil a year, to open direct flights between Tehran and Nairobi, and to provide scholarships for study in Iran.
(http://tinyurl.com/yewhqnk)(Econ, 2/6/10, p.49)
2009 Feb 25, Iranian and Russian technicians conducted a test run of Iran's first nuclear power plant, a major step toward launching full operations at the facility.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Feb, US jets shot down an Iranian unmanned surveillance aircraft over Iraqi territory about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. The Ababil 3 was tracked for about 70 minutes before US jets shot it down "well-inside Iraqi airspace."
(AP, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 1, An adviser to Iran's president demanded an apology from a team of visiting Hollywood actors and movie industry officials, including Annette Bening, saying films such as "300" and "The Wrestler" were "insulting" to Iranians. The film "300," portrays the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days. It angered many Iranians for the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks.
(AP, 3/1/09)
2009 Mar 2, Iran dismissed US concerns about how much fissile material the country has produced, saying it isn't developing a nuclear bomb and that any effort to make weapons-grade uranium would be difficult under the eyes of international inspectors.
(AP, 3/2/09)
2009 Mar 6, Morocco cut diplomatic links with Iran after an outcry in the Sunni Muslim world over a statement by an Iranian official questioning Sunni-ruled Bahrain's sovereignty.
(Reuters, 3/6/09)
2009 Mar 8, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan carried out their first joint counter narcotics operation.
(AP, 3/11/09)
2009 Mar 11, In Iraq Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's former foreign minister, was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 1992 execution of 42 merchants accused of price gouging while Iraq was under UN sanctions.
(AP, 3/11/09)
2009 Mar 14, Iran’s state TV said Iran and China have signed a $3.2 billion gas deal to produce more than 10 tons of liquid natural gas.
(AP, 3/14/09)
2009 Mar 18, In Iran Omid Mirsayafi (29), a blogger convicted of insulting the country’s ruling clerics, died in Tehran’s main prison.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 18, Russian news agencies cited a top defense official as confirming that a contract to sell powerful air-defense missiles to Iran was signed two years ago, but saying no such weapons have yet been delivered.
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 20, Iranian engineer Majid Kakavand (37) was taken into custody in Paris as he arrived in Paris from Moscow as part of a European tour with his wife. He was arrested at the airport under a US warrant suspected of evading export controls to buy US technology for Iran's military. He was held in La Sante prison until Aug. 26, then released on condition he stay in Paris. He faced a Feb. 17 Paris hearing on whether to be extradited to the United States.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2009 Mar 21, Iran's supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama's latest outreach, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in US policy.
(AP, 3/21/09)
2009 Mar 31, The US Government Accountability Office released a report saying 4 countries designated a terrorism sponsors received $55 million from a US supported program promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the IAEA’s Technical Cooperation program. Between 1997 and 2007 Iran received over $15 million, $14 million went to Syria, while Sudan and Cuba received over $11 million each.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A3)
2009 Apr 9, Iran's president inaugurated a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor. Pres. Ahmadinejad was attending celebrations in Isfahan for Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, which marks the day in 2006 when Iran enriched uranium for the first time. Iran has been building the 40-megawatt hard-water reactor in the central town of Arak for the past four years.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 10, Iran hanged three men for their involvement in a bombing inside a packed mosque that killed 14 people on April 12, 2008.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), an Iranian-American journalist, was convicted of spying and soon sentenced to 8 years in jail. She was released from jail on May 11 after an appeals court suspended her sentence.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101315579)(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 Apr 15, Iranian scientists at the Royan Research Institute cloned a goat and planned future experiments they hope will lead to a treatment for stroke patients. The female goat, named Hana, was born in the city of Isfahan in central Iran.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 17, Canadian police, acting on a tip-off from the United States, charged a Toronto man with trying to illegally export nuclear technology to Iran. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Mahmoud Yadegari had attempted to obtain pressure transducers, devices that are used to make enriched uranium but can also have military applications.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 20, A UN racism conference opened in Geneva. Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime," sparking a walkout by angry Western diplomats. The US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland boycotted the conference out of concern that it could be used by Muslim countries to criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to criticizing their religion.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), dual American-Iranian citizen convicted on April 13 of spying for the United States, went on a hunger strike. She was sentenced to eight years in prison after a swift, closed door trial. Saberi ended her hunger strike on April 5 and waited for her appeal process to move forward.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 Apr 23, Iran's official news agency says Tehran has reached an agreement with Iraq to build a pipeline that will feed Iraqi crude to an Iranian refinery.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 May 1, Iran hanged a young woman (23) who was convicted of murder when she was a minor, drawing condemnation from international human rights groups who have sought to end capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Delara Darabi, initially pleaded guilty to killing her father's cousin in 2003, but later retracted her confession and said her boyfriend carried out the killing.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 4, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad and handed him a letter of protest, demanding that Iran halt shelling against Kurdish rebels in the country's north and warned the "extremely dangerous violations" of Iraqi territory could harm relations between the two countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, South Korean snipers hovering in a helicopter chased away pirates pursuing a North Korean freighter, while the Russian destroyer Admiral Panteleyev freed eight Iranian citizens held hostage for more than three months.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 5, The leaders of Iran and Syria reaffirmed their support for Palestinian resistance, a defiant message to the US and its Mideast allies who are uneasy over Washington's efforts to forge closer ties with the hard-line government in Tehran.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 7, Iran’s state media reported that 9 people, including a 30-year-old woman, have been hanged. 4 of the 9 including the woman were convicted of murder in separate cases and were hanged on May 6. The woman was found guilty of killing her husband with a hammer.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 11, In Iran an appeals court reduced the jail term of Roxana Saberi (32), dual Iranian-American citizen, to a two-year suspended sentence. She planned to return home to Fargo, North Dakota.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 20, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran test-fired a new advanced missile with a range capable of reaching Israel and US Mideast bases. The solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles, far enough to strike at southeastern Europe.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 24, Iran blocked access to Facebook, prompting government critics to condemn the move as an attempt to muzzle the opposition ahead of next month's presidential election.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 25, It was reported that a secret Israeli government report said Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 26, Iran restored access to Facebook, after a block on the social networking Web site last week generated accusations that the government was trying to muzzle one of the main presidential campaign tools of the reformist opposition.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 28, In southeast Iran a bombing in a Shiite mosque at Zahedan killed 25 people. The next day Iran blamed the US and Israel saying the countries were trying to stoke sectarian tension with the Sunni Muslim minority.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, A moderate think tank led by Iran's former top nuclear negotiator accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of distorting facts about the country's nuclear program to depict himself as a hero and improve his chances in the upcoming election.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Iran 3 people convicted of involvement in the May 28 mosque bombing in Zahedan were hanged. The men, identified as Haji Nouti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Shahoo Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui, were also involved in several other bombings including a bus attack in March, 2006, that left 21 dead. Jundallah or God's Brigade, a Sunni militant group believed to have links with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is composed of Sunni Muslims from the Baluchi ethnic minority who have been fighting a low level insurgency in southeastern Iran for years.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 Jun 1, Iran state media reported that five people are dead in an arson attack on a bank in Zahedan, a restive southeastern city where 25 died in a mosque bombing last week.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 3, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri vanished during a pilgrimage to the Saudi kingdom. In October Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said: "We hold Saudi Arabia responsible for Shahram Amiri's situation and consider the US to be involved in his arrest."
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Jun 12, Iranians packed polling stations with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Iran supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires as authorities declared the hard-line president was re-elected with 62.6% of the vote to 33.75% to Mousavi. Saeed Leilaz, a university economics professor, was among a number or protesters who were arrested. In March 2010 Leilaz was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, violating public order and participating in a plan to disturb the country's security.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 3/11/10)
2009 Jun 14, In Iran protesters set fires and smashed store windows in a second day of violence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities. Anti-riot police lashed back and the regime blocked Internet sites used to rally the pro-reform campaign.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Iran tens of thousands of supporters of pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi streamed through the center of Tehran in a boisterous protest against election results that declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Iran's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud. 7 demonstrators were shot and killed.
(AP, 6/15/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 16, A spokesman said Iran's Islamic leadership is prepared to conduct a limited recount of disputed presidential elections, as thousands of people took to the streets to show support for the regime. Authorities clamped down on independent media in an attempt to control images of election protests, but pictures and videos leaked out anyway, showing how difficult it is to shut off the flow of information in the Internet age.
(AP, 6/16/09) (AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Russia welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his first trip abroad since his bitterly disputed re-election, a show of support for a leader facing major protests at home and questions from the West about the legitimacy of the vote count.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 17, Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a direct challenge to the country's supreme leader and cleric-led system, calling for a mass rally to protest disputed election results and violence against his followers. International human rights organizations said that many prominent activists and politicians have been arrested in Iran in response to protests over the country's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 6/17/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi for a 4th straight day rallied in the streets of Tehran over the disputed presidential election, answering the opposition leader's call to turn out dressed in black to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 19, Iran’s Ayatullah Ali Khamenei said that the country's disputed presidential vote had not been rigged, sternly warning protesters of a crackdown if they continue massive demonstrations demanding a new election.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 20, In Iran witnesses said police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in Tehran in open defiance of Iran's clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A blast at the Tehran shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wounded two. The clashes left at least 10 dead and 100 injured. Among those killed was Neda Agha Soltan (b.1982), whose death was captured on video.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neda_(Iranian_protester))
2009 Jun 21, In Iran an eerie calm settled over the streets of Tehran as state media said authorities had arrested the daughter and four other relatives of ex-President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran's most powerful men. The reports brought the official death toll for a week of boisterous confrontations to at least 19. Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, a dual Iranian-Canadian citizen, was arrested. He was released on bail on Oct 17.
(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Iran riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in central Tehran, carrying out a threat by the country's most powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election. The Guardian Council, acknowledged voting irregularities in 50 electoral districts in the June 12 vote, the most serious official admission so far of problems in the election that the opposition has labeled a fraud.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 23, Iran's top electoral body said it found "no major fraud" and will not annul the results of the presidential election, closing the door to a do-over sought by angry opposition supporters alleging systematic vote-rigging. The 12-member Guardian Council also received approval for an extension of its examination to June 29. 185 out of 290 members of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away from a victory celebration for Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 6/23/09)(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A2)(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 24, Iran's supreme leader said that the government would not yield to demonstrators demanding the annulment of a disputed presidential election. The wife of the opposition leader said protesters would not buckle under a situation she compared to martial law. 70 university professors were detained after a meeting with opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the June 12 vote. All but four of the professors were soon released. Iranian authorities barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices.
(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, Iran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, pledged not to withdraw his election challenge despite what he said were attempts to isolate and discredit him, while the declared winner, hard-line Pres. Ahmadinejad, accused US Pres Barack Obama of meddling in Iran's affairs.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 26, Group of Eight foreign ministers, meeting in Trieste, Italy, criticized Iran's postelection violence, and urged its ruling clergy to ensure the outcome of the disputed ballot reflects the will of the Iranian people. The G8 countries also condemned North Korea's nuclear and missile tests and called on the country to return to the negotiating table.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 28, Iranian media reported that eight local British embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests. Rot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near the Ghoba Mosque in north Tehran. It was Iran's first major post-election unrest in four days.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Iran conducted a partial recount of votes cast in its disputed presidential election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked a top judge to investigate the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman who has become a potent symbol of the opposition's struggle. Iranian authorities said 17 protesters and eight Basijis have been killed in two weeks of unrest, and that hundreds of people have been arrested. The Guardian Council, an electoral authority the opposition accused of favoring Ahmadinejad, said that it had found only "slight irregularities" after randomly selecting and recounting 10 percent of nearly 40 million ballots.
(AP, 6/29/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jul 1, In Iran opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi reasserted his claim that the June 12 election was illegitimate, and demanded that Iran's cleric-led government release all political prisoners and institute electoral reforms and press freedoms. A reformist political group said that authorities banned the daily Etemad-e-Melli (National Confidence) newspaper allied to presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi after he denounced Iran's government as "illegitimate" because of claims of voting fraud. Former President Mohammad Khatami lashed out at what he termed "a poisonous security situation" in the wake of violent street protests.
(AP, 7/1/09)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 1, In Iran Clotilde Reiss (24), a French academic, was among the hundreds of people detained following the disputed presidential elections. She was released on bail after a month and a half and later convicted of provoking unrest and spying. In May, 2010, she was released after paying a $300,000 fine.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AP, 5/16/10)
2009 Jul 3, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a top Iranian cleric, said that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 5, Iran said it has released a British-Greek journalist held for more than two weeks following its disputed presidential elections as dissent continued. Ali Reza Beheshti, the son of a prominent Iranian revolutionary icon, made a rare public push for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's removal from office. The Assembly of Qom Seminary Scholars and Researchers, a pro-reform Iranian clerical group, said the outcome of last month's presidential vote was "invalid," even though Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has upheld the result.
(AP, 7/5/09)(Reuters, 7/5/09)
2009 Jul 9, In Iran hundreds of young men and women chanted "death to the dictator" and fled baton-wielding police in Tehran as opposition activists sought to revive street protests despite authorities' vows to "smash" any new marches.
(AP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 14, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that authorities in the southeastern city of Zahedan hanged 13 members of a Sunni Muslim rebel group convicted of bombings and killings in the area. The report said Abdulhamid Rigi, brother of Abdulmalik Rigi, leader of the group known as Jundallah or soldiers of God, had been scheduled to be hanged along with the 13 men, but his execution was postponed.
(AP, 7/14/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Iran a Russian-made Caspian Airlines TU-154 jet plane carrying nearly 170 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. It was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan. All on board were killed.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 16, Iran announced that Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of its nuclear agency, has resigned, a move that may have been connected to the country's postelection turmoil. Aghazadeh told the semiofficial ISNA news agency that he submitted his resignation from Iran's Atomic Energy Organization 20 days ago and also resigned from his other post as one of Pres. Ahmadinejad's vice presidents.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 16, In Iraq 18 people were injured in an explosion that targeted a minibus transporting Shiite pilgrims to a holy shrine in Najaf. 3 US soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on a base outside of Basra. On July 18 an Iranian-backed militiaman confessed to the rocket attack near the Basra airport.
(AP, 7/16/09)(AP, 7/17/09)(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 Jul 17, In Iran tens of thousands of government opponents packed Iran's main Islamic prayer sermon, chanting "freedom, freedom" and other slogans as their top clerical backer Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered a sermon bluntly criticizing the country's leadership over the crackdown on election protests. Outside, pro-government Basiji militiamen in front of a line of riot police fired tear gas at thousands of protesters who chanted "death to the dictator" and called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to resign.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 Jul 20, Iran's supreme leader issued a tough warning to the opposition to back down after pro-reform former president Mohammad Khatami called for a referendum on the government's legitimacy.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 21, Iran's supreme leader handed a humiliation to Pres. Ahmadinejad, ordering him to dismiss Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, his choice for top deputy, after the appointment drew sharp condemnation from their hard-line base. Mashai, a relative by marriage to Ahmadinejad, angered hard-liners in 2008 when he said Iranians were "friends of all people in the world, even Israelis." Ahmadinejad appeared to openly defy the order.
(AP, 7/22/09)(SFC, 7/22/09, p.A3)
2009 Jul 23, The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said that her brother is among the hundreds arrested in Iran's postelection crackdown, and she warned authorities not to publish any "forced confessions" from him or other detainees.
(AP, 7/23/09)
2009 Jul 24, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caved into pressure from hardline clerics and the country's supreme leader and allowed the resignation of his top deputy, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, who last year angered conservatives when he made friendly comments toward Israel.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 24, In Iran a Russian Ilyushin-62 plane, operated by Tehran-based Aria Airlines and carrying 153 passengers and crew, skidded off the runway and hit a wall while landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad. 13 of the 16 people killed in the crash were members of the crew, 9 of them from Kazakhstan. The plane landed at high speed and the tires failed.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 25, Iran's opposition leaders appealed to the top clerics in the holy city of Qom to pressure the ruling Islamic regime to release protesters and activists, who they say have been tortured following last month's disputed presidential election. Protesters across the world called on Iran to end its clampdown on opposition activists, demanding the release of hundreds rounded up during demonstrations against the country's disputed election.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 26, Human Rights Watch said Iranian authorities are spreading fear by arresting prominent human rights lawyers to prevent them from representing protesters detained in the aftermath of the country's disputed presidential election. An appeals court found Iran's Industry, Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian, guilty of fraud, in a new embarrassment for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad's office announced the dismissal of Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi. No reasons were given but the two had differed over top vice president Rahim Mashai.
(AP, 7/27/09)(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Jul 27, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of Kahrizak prison, where rights workers say protesters detained in the country's election turmoil have died.
(AP, 7/28/09)
2009 Jul 28, An Iranian parliament official said 140 people detained in Iran's postelection turmoil have been released from Tehran's main prison Evin.
(AP, 7/28/09)
2009 Jul 29, Iran's top diplomat in Bolivia said the Islamic republic has approved a $280 million low-interest loan for President Evo Morales' government to use as it sees fit. Gas and oil exploration are possibilities.
(AP, 7/29/09)
2009 Jul 30, Iranian police fired tear gas and beat anti-government protesters with batons to disperse thousands attending a graveside memorial for victims of post-election violence.
(AP, 7/30/09)
2009 Jul 31, Iran detained 3 Americans after they mistakenly crossed the border from northern Iraq. They crossed into Iranian territory while hiking in a mountainous area near the town of Ahmed Awaa. Freelance journalist Shane Bauer, Sara Shourd and Josh Fattal, all graduates of the University of California, Berkeley, were detained after apparently straying across the border while hiking in Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
(AP, 8/1/09)(AP, 11/9/09)
2009 Aug 3, In Iran Fahimeh Mousavi-nejad, the wife of former Vice President Mohammad Abtahi on trial for postelection violence, said his televised "confessions" were made under pressure. Her husband was one of the top figures in a trial that began Aug 1 for around 100 people detained in the postelection crackdown. Iran's supreme leader formally endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as president in a ceremony that sought to portray unity among the country's leadership but was snubbed by prominent critics of the disputed election.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 5, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term as Iran's president while security forces battled hundreds of protesters chanting "Death to the Dictator" in the streets around parliament where the ceremony was held.
(AP, 8/5/09)
2009 Aug 9, Iran's police chief acknowledged that detained protesters were abused in prison and the country's top prosecutor said those responsible for the mistreatment should be punished, in unusually pointed criticism of security officials. Revolutionary Guard Commander Yadollah Javani called for opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and former President Mohammad Khatami to be put on trial.
(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Aug 11, Iran's opposition said at least 69 people have died in two months of postelection unrest based on accounts from the victims' families, more than double the official toll released by parliament. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the top opposition leader, said that the abuse and death of protesters detained after the disputed presidential elections shows the need for "deep change" in the country, in the most sweeping call for reform of the system to date.
(AP, 8/11/09)(AP, 8/12/09)
2009 Aug 13, In Iran a group of former reformist lawmakers appealed to a powerful clerical body to investigate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's qualification to rule in an unprecedented challenge to the country's most powerful man over the postelection crackdown.
(AP, 8/14/09)
2009 Aug 16, Iran expanded its mass trial of opposition supporters, adding 25 more defendants including a Jewish teenager who are accused of involvement in unrest over the disputed presidential election.
(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 17, The new head of Iran's judiciary suggested that he would prosecute security agents accused of torture in the postelection crackdown, a nod from the country's conservative leadership to widespread anger to reports that jailed protesters were abused.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Aug 19, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated Ahmad Vahidi as Defense Minister. Vahidi had commanded a unit of the Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force at the time of the July 18, 1994, attack on a Jewish cultural center in Argentina. The Quds Force is involved in operations abroad, including working with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, which is accused to carrying out the Buenos Aires attack.
(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Aug 19, Syrian President Bashar Assad opened talks with Iranian officials in a visit expected to include an appeal to free a French academic accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime.
(AP, 8/19/09)
2009 Aug 20, Diplomats said Iran has lifted a year-long ban and allowed UN nuclear inspectors to visit a nearly completed nuclear reactor as well as granting greater monitoring rights at another atomic site.
(SFC, 8/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Aug 24, In Iran conservative rivals handed a new snub to Pres. Ahmadinejad, appointing Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, the man he fired from the post of intelligence minister, as the country's state prosecutor. Senior opposition figure Mahdi Karroubi made public an account of a prisoner who was raped by jailers. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of Kahrizak prison, where at least 3 prisoners are known to have died.
(AP, 8/24/09)(SFC, 8/25/09, p.A3)
2009 Aug 26, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim (b.1950), the scion of a revered clerical family, died of lung cancer in Iran, the country that was long his key ally. He channeled rising Shiite Muslim power after the fall of Saddam Hussein to become one of Iraq's most influential politicians.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Aug 28, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the leaders of the opposition to be prosecuted over the postelection turmoil, stepping up pressure against the pro-reform movement that says he won the election by fraud. Ahmadinejad also admitted for the first time that some detained protesters were abused in custody but also denied any government involvement, claiming instead that it was the work of Iran's enemies and the opposition.
(AP, 8/28/09)
2009 Aug 28, The United Arab Emirates confirmed that it has seized a cargo ship earlier this month bound for Iran with a cache of banned arms from North Korea. Diplomats identified the vessel as a Bahamas-flagged cargo vessel, the ANL Australia, carrying rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.
(AP, 8/29/09)
2009 Sep 2, In Germany 6 countries met for talks to try to address concerns about Iran's nuclear program. The German government said it has received no official word yet on new proposals that Tehran is pledging to make.
(AP, 9/2/09)
2009 Sep 6, In Iran Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez sealed an agreement to export 20,000 barrels per day of gasoline to Iran. The deal would give Tehran a cushion if the West carries out threats of fuel sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. The two countries also agreed to set up a bank together to help finance joint projects.
(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 7, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will neither halt uranium enrichment nor negotiate over its nuclear rights but is ready to sit and talk with world powers over "global challenges."
(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 8, Iranian security forces cracked down on the opposition's campaign to highlight torture and abuse of prisoners in the country's postelection crisis, shutting down offices of pro-reform leaders and arresting five of their aides in a startling series of raids.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 11, The US said it would accept Iran's offer of wide-ranging talks with major powers despite the Islamic Republic's stated refusal to discuss its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 9/11/09)
2009 Sep 14, In Iran authorities arrested at least 7 children and grandchildren of senior clerics in Qom in fresh pressure on religious leaders who sympathize with the opposition.
(SFC, 9/16/09, p.A5)
2009 Sep 18, In Iran hard-liners attacked senior pro-reform leaders in the streets on Quds Day as tens of thousands marched in competing mass demonstrations by the opposition and government supporters. Opposition protesters, chanting "death to the dictator," hurled stones and bricks in clashes with security forces firing tear gas. The Quds Day ceremony was established in 1979 by the leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as an annual event opposing Israel’s control of Jerusalem.
(AP, 9/18/09)(www.alqudsday.com/)
2009 Sep 19, Russia said it will scrap a plan to deploy missiles near Poland since Washington has dumped a planned missile shield in Eastern Europe. It also harshly criticized Iran's president for new comments denying the Holocaust.
(AP, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 22, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran is stronger than ever and warned that its military will "cut the hand" of anyone who attacks. But a military parade where he spoke was marred when an air force plane crashed, killing seven people.
(AP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 23, Iranian police warned shop owners against displaying female mannequins wearing underwear or showing off their curves as part of a government campaign against Western influence. Azar Mansouri, a senior leader from reformist political party, Islamic Iran Participation Front, was arrested during a widespread crackdown on opposition supporters who challenged the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009. In March 2010 Mansouri was sentenced to three years in jail for plotting to harm national security.
(www.sign4change.info/english/spip.php?article579)(AP, 9/23/09)(AFP, 3/13/10)
2009 Sep 25, The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran has revealed the existence of a secret uranium-enrichment plant, a development that could heighten fears about Tehran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon and escalate its diplomatic confrontation with the West. Armed with the disclosure President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain demanded that Tehran fully disclose its nuclear ambitions "or be held accountable" to an impatient world community.
(AP, 9/25/09)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.51)
2009 Sep 26, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear chief, said his country will allow the UN nuclear agency to inspect its newly revealed, still unfinished uranium enrichment facility.
(AP, 9/26/09)
2009 Sep 26, In Iran, one day before the sale of Telecommunication Co. of Iran (TCI), the Pishgaman Kavir Yazd Cooperative Co. received a letter from the Iranian Privatization Organization (IPO) stating that it wasn't qualified to participate in the bid process.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2009 Sep 27, Iran said it successfully test-fired short-range missiles during military drills by the elite Revolutionary Guard, a show of force days after the US warned Tehran over a newly revealed underground nuclear facility it was secretly constructing.
(AP, 9/27/09)(AP, 9/28/09)
2009 Sep 27, In Iran a consortium of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a multi-billion dollar business empire known as Setad, that is controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bid on a controlling stake in Telecommunication Co of Iran, or TCI, which had a near monopoly on landline telephone services. They won the stake for $7.8 billion, Iran's largest privatization ever.
(AP, 9/28/09)(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2009 Sep 29, Iran's nuclear chief said his country built its newly revealed uranium enrichment facility inside a mountain and next to a military site near the city of Qom to ensure continuity of its nuclear activities in case of an attack. Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi said the site will be open to inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog.
(AP, 9/29/09)
2009 Sep 30, In Iran Saeed Hajjarian (55), considered a top architect and ideologue of the movement pushing for more social and political freedoms, was released on bail after more than three months in jail on charges of inciting the country's postelection unrest.
(AP, 10/1/09)
2009 Oct 1, In Switzerland senior American and Iranian delegates met one-on-one during a lunch break at seven-nation talks in Geneva. Iran brought a broad range of geopolitical issues to the table, while the six powers, the permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany, sought to soften Iran's resistance to freezing its uranium enrichment program. Iran accepted a demand to allow UN inspectors into its covertly built enrichment plant.
(AP, 10/1/09)(AP, 10/2/09)
2009 Oct 9, Amnesty Int’l. said Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani (37) was the first person to be sentenced to death in connection with the unrest in Iran following the disputed June12 elections. He was convicted of “enmity against God" through membership in a group that seeks the end of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a monarchy.
(SFC, 10/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 10, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported that 3 defendants in the mass trial of opposition figures accused of fueling the country's postelection unrest have been sentenced to death. Two of them were convicted of membership in a monarchist group seeking to topple Iran's Islamic Republic and restore a monarchy. A third defendant was convicted of having ties to a terrorist group for his alleged links to the People's Mujahedeen.
(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 15, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said that China intends to strengthen its cooperation with Iran, an indication Beijing would oppose growing calls in the West for additional sanctions against the Islamic regime for its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/15/09)
2009 Oct 18, In Iran a suicide bomber killed 5 senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard, 10 other members of the Guard and at least 27 others in an area of the southeast that has been at the center of a simmering Sunni insurgency. The dead included the deputy commander of the Guard's ground force, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. A militant group from Iran's Sunni Muslim minority called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility. Jundallah, made up of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority, is also found in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/18/09)(AP, 10/22/09)
2009 Oct 20, Iran’s state news agency said Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American academic, has been convicted for his alleged role in the post-election unrest in the country and sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
(AP, 10/20/09)
2009 Oct 20, Talks in Vienna meant to persuade Iran to send most of its enriched uranium abroad, and thus delay its potential to make a nuclear weapon, bogged down over fierce Iranian resistance to French participation.
(AP, 10/20/09)
2009 Oct 21, Diplomats in Vienna said Iranian negotiators expressed support for a deal that, if accepted by their leaders, would delay Tehran's ability to make nuclear weapons by sending most of its existing enriched uranium to Russia for processing.
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 21, Indonesia’s customs chief said a group of 10 alleged Iranian drug smugglers, including eight veiled women, were caught with $12.5 million worth of methamphetamines at the main airport. The group had arrived on flights from Malaysia, Syria and Qatar on Oct 19-20.
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 25, In Iran UN IAEA inspectors got their first look inside the Fordo uranium enrichment site 20 miles north of Qom, a once-secret uranium enrichment facility that has raised Western suspicions about the extent of Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/25/09)
2009 Oct 26, Pakistani police arrested 11 Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers for illegally entering the country, amid tensions over a suicide attack on Oct 18 that Tehran alleges was carried out by militants backed by Pakistani intelligence officials. The 11 officers were released the next day.
(AP, 10/26/09)(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 26, Yemeni coast guards seized a boat that illegally entered the country's territorial waters and arrested five Iranians on board. Local media reported the next day that an Iranian boat smuggling weapons was captured and its Iranian crew arrested.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 27, Iran’s state television says Iran will agree to the "general framework" of a UN-drafted plan to ship enriched uranium out of the country for processing, but will seek "important changes" in the deal.
(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 28, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said that questioning the results of Iran's June presidential election is a crime.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 31, Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected a UN-backed plan to ship much of the country's uranium abroad for further enrichment, raising further doubts about the likelihood Tehran will finally approve the deal.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct, In Iran Yusuf Nadarkhani (30) was arrested and condemned to death for apostasy under Islamic sharia law. He had turned to Christianity when he was 19 and later became a pastor in the northern city of Rasht. The conviction was upheld in 2010. In July, 2011, the supreme court overturned the death sentence and sent the case back to the court in his hometown in Gilan province. His release was reported on Sep 9, 2012.
(AP, 9/29/11)(AP, 10/2/11)(AP, 9/9/12)
2009 Nov 4, Iranian security forces beat anti-government protesters with batons on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover. The counter-demonstrations were the opposition's first major show of force on Tehran's streets in nearly two months. Iranian reporter Farhad Pouladi was taken into custody as he headed to cover a state-sanctioned rally outside the former US Embassy. Anti-government protesters also clashed with anti-riot police during counter marches not far from the rally. Police detained 109 people for "disturbing public order" during an opposition rally. 62 of those detained were handed over to judicial authorities for trial and the rest were released after questioning. Among those detained were a Japanese reporter and 2 Canadian reporters.
(AP, 11/4/09)(AP, 11/5/09)(AP, 11/7/09)(SFC, 11/7/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 4, A 4.9-magnitude earthquake struck Bandar Abbas, a key port city in southern Iran, injuring at least 700 people and cutting power and telephone lines.
(AP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 5, Pakistani security forces arrested three Iranians suspected of planning a suicide attack in Iran's southeastern region last month which killed 42 people. Militants blew up a girls' school in the Khyber tribal region, but no one was injured. Missiles believed fired by US drones killed two alleged militants in a northwestern tribal region.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 6, A UN report said 2 Iranian businessmen working at a Dubai-based firm were linked to video surveillance devices sold to Sudan and used in unmanned drones in Darfur in violation of a UN arms embargo.
(Reuters, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 7, Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected any possibility of Tehran shipping uranium abroad for further enrichment, intensifying pressures on the government to reject the UN-backed plan altogether. Iranian authorities released 3 journalists who were among more than 100 people arrested during pro-government and opposition street demonstrations on Nov 4.
(AP, 11/7/09)
2009 Nov 10, Iran announced it will use Italy to launch a communications satellite after waiting years for Russia to do the job.
(AP, 11/10/09)
2009 Nov 10, Ramin Pourandarjani (26), an Iranian doctor, died amid conflicting reports of a heart attack, a car accident or suicide, raising opposition accusations that he was killed. Authorities had barred the family from performing an autopsy on the body. He had gone public with reports of tortured protesters he treated at Tehran's most feared detention facility, known as Kahrizak on Tehran's outskirts. Pourandarjani, a general practitioner, was the only doctor there, serving there once a week as part of his mandatory military service. Prosecutors later alleged that he died of poisoning from an overdose of an anti-hypertension drug in his salad, fueling opposition fears that he was killed because of what he knew about the abuse.
(AP, 11/18/09)(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Nov 11, Iran executed Ehsan Fattahian (28), a Kurdish activist, at a prison in Sanandaj. He was a member of the Party of Free Life in Kurdistan, a militant group outlawed by Iran.
(SFC, 11/12/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 11, The Israeli military released a series of documents and photos it said proved Iran was behind a massive shipment of weapons Israel's navy commandos intercepted last week. Among the arms Israel says it found aboard the vessel were 9,000 mortar bombs, 3,000 Katyusha rockets, 3,000 gun shells, 20,000 grenades and over a half million rounds of small arms ammunition.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 11, An Italian company that helped build a communications satellite for Iran said there are no plans to launch it, denying an announcement made in Tehran this week.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 14, In Iran local newspapers reported that the government has formed a special unit to monitor Web sites and fight Internet crimes, in a clear attack on an opposition that relies almost exclusively on online means to broadcast its message. (AP, 11/14/09)
2009 Nov 17, Iran vowed to continue enriching uranium despite a wrist slap by the UN nuclear watchdog, as US President Barack Obama warned of "consequences" if Tehran refused to come clean on its atomic program.
(AFP, 11/17/09)
2009 Nov 17, Iran’s state television reported that five defendants have been sentenced to death in a mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the unrest that followed the disputed June presidential election. They apparently included 3 death sentences announced last month.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Nov 18, Iran's foreign minister said his country would not export its enriched uranium for further processing, brushing aside the latest UN plan aimed at preventing Tehran from potentially building nuclear weapons.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Nov 22, Iran began large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting the country's nuclear facilities against any possible attack. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president, (1997-2005) was released on a $700,000 bail. His lawyer said he had been sentenced to six years in prison in the mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting post-election unrest.
(AP, 11/22/09)
2009 Nov 22, Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad arrived in Gambia for a 24-hour working visit aimed at fostering relations between the Islamic republic and the West African nation.
(AFP, 11/22/09)
2009 Nov 22, Former Iranian Interior Minister Ali Kordan (51), who was dismissed after being accused of faking a law degree from the University of Oxford, died. Iran's parliament dismissed Kordan in 2008 after questions arose over his credentials from Oxford. The university denied it awarded him an honorary doctorate of law.
(AP, 11/23/09)
2009 Nov 23, Iran's central bank chief said that the country has gained five billion dollars by replacing the US dollar with the euro in its currency basket. Iran’s conservative Jomhuri Eslami reported that the moral police have arrested a dozen couples for engaging in illicit sexual acts, including swapping of partners.
(AFP, 11/23/09)
2009 Nov 23, Jacques Monsieur (56), a Belgian arms dealer pleaded guilty, in an Alabama courtroom to conspiracy to illegally export F-5 fighter jet engines and parts from the US to Iran. Monsieur, along with Dara Fotouhi, an Iranian national living in France, was charged in a six-count indictment with conspiracy, money laundering and smuggling.
(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 24, Iran released on $500,000 bail prominent reformist Mohammad Atrianfar who has been convicted in connection with street protests after June's disputed presidential election.
(AFP, 11/24/09)(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 24, Iran said it was ready to exchange its low-enriched uranium with a higher enriched material, but only on its own soil, to guarantee the West follows through with promises to give the fuel.
(AFP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 24, Iran’s state media reported that authorities have banned the Hamshahri daily, the country's largest-circulation newspaper, for publishing a photo of a Baha'i temple. Iran's Shiite cleric-led regime views the Baha'i religion as heretical and has banned it since the 1979 revolution. The ban was lifted after one day.
(AP, 11/24/09)(AP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 24, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gave a welcoming bear hug Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and urged Western nations to drop threats of punishment over the Iranian nuclear program and instead negotiate a fair solution.
(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 25, Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad arrived in Caracas for a meeting with President Hugo Chavez, as the two outspoken anti-US leaders try to boost ties.
(AFP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 25, An Iranian cleric said religious authorities have started taking control of schools, part of a wider ideological drive by hard-liners to wage what authorities call a "soft war" against Western influence.
(AP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 25, Iran stopped the yacht, “Kingdom of Bahrain," owned by Sail Bahrain as it sailed from Bahrain to the Gulf city of Dubai. It had been due to join the 360-mile (580km) Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race, which was to begin Nov. 26. Five British sailors were detained. The 5 sailors were released on Dec 2.
(AP, 11/30/09)(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Nov 26, A human rights group said Iran has brought new espionage charges against Kian Tajbakhsh (47), an Iranian-American scholar, who was already convicted of spying and sentenced to 15 years in prison in the country's crackdown following June's disputed presidential election. Prominent political activist Behzad Nabavi (67) was released on $800,000 bail. Shapoor Kazemi, opposition leader Mousavi's brother-in-law, was freed on $50,000 bail.
(AP, 11/26/09)
2009 Nov 26, Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, said that Iranian authorities took her medal about three weeks ago from a safe-deposit box, claiming she owed taxes on the $1.3 million she was awarded. Ebadi said that such prizes are exempt from tax under Iranian law. In Norway, where the peace prize is awarded, the government said the confiscation of the gold medal was a shocking first in the history of the 108-year-old prize.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 26, In Vienna Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that his probe of allegations that Iran tried to make nuclear arms is at "a dead end" because Tehran is not cooperating and warned that confidence in Tehran had shrunk in the wake of its belated revelation of a previously secret nuclear facility.
(AP, 11/26/09)
2009 Nov 27, The board of the UN nuclear watchdog censured Iran, with 25 nations backing a resolution that demands Tehran immediately freeze construction of its newly revealed nuclear facility and heed Security Council resolutions calling on it to stop uranium enrichment.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 29, Iran's parliament passed a law earmarking $20 million to support militant groups opposing the West and to investigate alleged US and British plots against the Islamic Republic. Iran’s Cabinet ordered an expansion of the country’s nuclear program that included an additional 10 nuclear plants.
(AP, 11/29/09)(SFC, 11/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Nov 30, Iran's nuclear chief said UN criticism pushed his country to retaliate by announcing ambitious plans for more uranium enrichment. With tensions rising over deadlocked negotiations, France said diplomacy was not working and sanctions against Iran were needed.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 2, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would enrich uranium to a higher level itself, apparently ruling out a UN-brokered deal meant to dispel fears Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons capability.
(Reuters, 12/2/09)
2009 Dec 2, Iran freed five British sailors detained last week when their racing yacht drifted accidentally into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. Britain said it was delighted with the release and praised Tehran's handling of the incident. The Fars agency reported that analyst Saeed Leilaz, known for his criticism of the government, was sentenced to nine years in prison for possession of classified documents. The Revolutionary Court also slapped the brother-in-law of opposition leader Mir Houssein Mousavi with a one-year sentence.
(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Dec 6, Iranian authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl or choked them off completely before expected student protests on Dec 7, to deny the opposition a vital means of communication. Authorities also ordered journalists working for foreign media organizations not to leave their offices to cover the demonstrations.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 7, In Iran security forces and militiamen clashed with thousands of protesters shouting "death to the dictator" outside Tehran University, beating them with batons and firing tear gas on the officially designated “Student Day." Students demonstrated nationwide.
(AP, 12/7/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.51)
2009 Dec 8, In Iran pro-government militiamen assaulted university students demonstrating for a second straight day and hard-liners on motorcycles harassed the top opposition leader at his office Tuesday, signs of a possible intensified crackdown after the biggest anti-government demonstrations in months.
(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 9, Iran claimed that a newly built UN station to detect nuclear explosions was built in Turkmenistan near its border to give the West a post to spy on the country. The Vienna-based Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, or CTBTO, said the station has now been fully constructed and is currently undergoing testing.
(AP, 12/9/09)
2009 Dec 11, Thousands of Iranian government supporters staged rallies denouncing opposition students who burned photos of the supreme leader in protests this week.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, Iran said it is ready to exchange the bulk of its stockpile of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods, as proposed by the UN, but according to its own mechanisms and timetable. Iran also said it needs up to 15 nuclear plants to generate electricity. Tens of thousands of hard-line clerics rallied in cities across the country to denounce student protesters who burned photos of the country's supreme leader in a taboo-shattering act earlier in the week.
(AP, 12/12/09)(Reuters, 12/12/09)
2009 Dec 13, In Iran police surrounded the campus of Tehran University on Sunday, trapping hundreds of students protesting what they said were fabricated government images of the burning of a photo of the Islamic Republic's revered founder.
(AP, 12/13/09)
2009 Dec 14, Iran's main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed more anti-government protests as the authorities announced several arrests over a reported insult to Islamic revolution founder Ayatollah Khomeini.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 15, Credit Suisse confirmed that it was fined $536 million for helping Iran hide financial transactions.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.68)
2009 Dec 16, Iran test-fired an upgraded version of its most advanced missile, which is capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, in a new show of strength aimed at preventing any military strike against it amid the nuclear standoff with the West.
(AP, 12/16/09)
2009 Dec 17, Iranian forces took control of Well 4, a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border in Maysan province. Well 4 lies in the Fauqa Field, part of a cluster of fields Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil majors in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels. There have been a number of meetings in recent years aimed at reaching agreement on border fields, so far without success.
(AFP, 12/18/09)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 19, Iran's hard-line judiciary acknowledged for the first time that at least 3 prisoners detained after June's disputed presidential election were beaten to death by their jailers. The judiciary said 12 officials at Kahrizak prison were charged, three of them with murder.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 19, Iraqi troops massed near an oil well on the border in a standoff with Iranian forces that seized control of the site in a sudden flare up of tension between the two uneasy neighbors.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 20, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (87), Iran's most senior dissident cleric, died. He had emerged as the spiritual father of the reform movement.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 20, Iraqi oil workers returned to the disputed oil well No. 4 in southern Iraq that was seized by Iranian forces Dec 17. Baghdad also confirmed that Iranian troops left the well.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 21, Tens of thousands of Iranian mourners turned the funeral procession of the country's most senior dissident cleric into an anti-government protest, chanting "death to the dictator" and slogans in support of the opposition amid heavy security.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 22, Iran's president dismissed a year-end deadline set by the Obama administration and the West for Tehran to accept a UN-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, and claimed his government is now "10 times stronger" than a year ago. A state television Web site said Pres. Ahmadinejad had appointed a new chief of the Art Academy, removing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from the post. In southern Iran police shot dead two relatives of convicts during a melee that erupted at a public execution. Relatives, who came to watch the hanging of two convicts, started a scuffle, prompting the police to open fire.
(AP, 12/22/09)(AP, 12/23/09)(AP, 12/24/09)
2009 Dec 23, In Iran security forces in Isfahan clashed with opposition protesters gathered for a memorial for Iran's most senior dissident cleric, beating men and women and firing tear gas.
(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 24, In Iran local media reported that the central bank has warned people not to write on banknotes and sought to collect defaced ones after the appearance of opposition slogans on many.
(AFP, 12/24/09)
2009 Dec 26, Iranian security forces beat protesters in central Tehran, a sign of mounting tensions ahead of planned opposition rallies to mark a religious festival and the death of a dissident cleric a week ago.
(AP, 12/26/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran Ali Mousavi, a nephew of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, was killed in fighting between protesters and security forces. Security forces fired on anti-government protesters in Tehran, killing 8 people in the fiercest clashes in months.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran authorities detained two German diplomats and accused them of playing a role in organizing deadly anti-government protests. Iran's state media only reported this on Jan 27, 2010. Germany's Foreign Ministry said it had no knowledge about any diplomats being detained and dismissed accusations that German officials had a hand in the demonstrations and clashes that left eight people dead.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2009 Dec 28, Iranian security forces rounded up at least seven prominent activists, stepping up a crackdown on the country's pro-reform movement a day after eight people, including the nephew of the chief opposition leader, were killed in anti-government protests. Journalist Emadeddin Baghi was among those arrested. In July, 2010, he was sentenced to a year in prison and banned from political activities for five years.
(AP, 12/28/09)(AFP, 7/26/10)
2009 Dec 29, Iran's conservative parliament called for maximum punishment of opposition demonstrators as the regime stepped up its crackdown on dissent arresting the sister of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. Tens of thousands of government supporters rallied, and a reformist party called on Iran's rulers to apologize to the nation two days after eight people were killed in anti-government protests.
(AFP, 12/29/09)(Reuters, 12/29/09)
2009 Dec 30, In Iran tens of thousands of hard-line government supporters turned out for state-sponsored rallies, some of them calling for the execution of opposition leaders as Iran's police chief threatened to show "no mercy" in crushing any new protests by the pro-reform movement.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dilip Hiro authored “Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran."
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.98)
2010 Jan 1, In Iran a shootout with drug smugglers in an eastern desert region left 11 policemen dead.
(AP, 1/3/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Iran dozens of Tehran University professors appealed to the supreme leader to halt the ongoing violence against protesters, adding a new and respected voice in support of the opposition.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 6, A conservative Iranian Web site reported that a parliamentary probe has found Saeed Mortazavi, a former Tehran prosecutor, responsible for the death by torture of at least 3 anti-government protesters detained in the turmoil following the disputed June elections.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 6, A diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Norway told Norwegian television that he had resigned in protest over a crackdown on demonstrators in Iran. The government in Tehran denied the report. In mid-February the Norwegian Immigration Directorate gave Mohammed Reza Heydari and his family permission to remain in Norway as political refugees after going through "all necessary information pertaining to the case."
(AP, 1/6/10)(AP, 2/18/10)
2010 Jan 6, In Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new gas pipeline link to Iran from Turkmenistan, which he said would take ties to a "new level."
(AFP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 7, In Iran armed pro-government demonstrators opened fire on the car of former presidential candidate and opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi, as he was leaving a building in Qazvin .
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 9, In Iran about 30 "mourning mothers," with children who were killed or disappeared during the post-election unrest, were arrested in a Tehran park and taken to a detention center in the capital. The mothers had gather in Tehran's Laleh park every Saturday.
(Reuters, 1/10/10)
2010 Jan 10, In Iran a parliamentary investigation was made public that found Saeed Mortazavi, the former Tehran prosecutor, responsible for the deaths of at least three anti-government protesters imprisoned in the turmoil following Iran's disputed June elections. Iran freed a Syrian journalist working for Dubai television who was detained during anti-government protests two weeks ago.
(AP, 1/10/10)(Reuters, 1/10/10)
2010 Jan 12, In Iran Masoud Ali Mohammadi (50), a nuclear physics professor who publicly backed Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed June presidential election, was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle blew up outside his home in Tehran. The government blamed the rare assassination on an armed Iranian opposition group that it said operated under the direction of Israel and the US. In 2011 Majid Jamali Fashi, charged with the killing of Mohammadi, went on trial. Fashi was also accused of cooperating with Mossad. On Aug 28 Fashi was sentenced to death.
(AP, 1/12/10)(AP, 8/23/11)(AP, 8/28/11)
2010 Jan 15, Iran's police chief warned opposition supporters not to use cell phones and e-mail messages to organize protest rallies against the government, saying those who do so will be prosecuted and punished.
(AP, 1/15/10)
2010 Jan 16, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran said they had agreed to work together more closely to combat extremism, illegal weapons trading and drug trafficking.
(AP, 1/16/10)
2010 Jan 17, In Iran lawyer Hooshang Pour-Babai said senior reformist and former MP Mohsen Safai Farahani (61), detained since June 20, has been sentenced to six years in jail. He was accused of "acting against national security, propaganda against the system, insulting officials and spreading lies."
(AFP, 1/17/10)
2010 Jan 18, In Iran gunmen fatally shot Vali Hajgholizadeh, a court prosecutor, outside his home in the town of Khoy, near the Turkish border. An Iranian official said Kurdish rebels may have been involved in the assassination. Opposition groups flooded the Web with calls for a huge show of force on the Feb 11 commemoration of the Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 1/19/10)(SFC, 1/19/10, p.A3)
2010 Jan 24, In Iran a Russian-made Iranian Taban Air plane carrying 157 passengers and 13 crew caught fire upon landing at northeastern Mashhad airport injuring at least 46 people.
(AP, 1/24/10)
2010 Jan 26, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the US of trying to use the Internet as a tool to confront the Islamic Republic, declaring that such a policy only showed Washington's frustration. The US Senate voted in July to adopt the Victims of Iranian Censorship Act which authorizes up to $50 million for expanding Farsi language broadcasts, supporting Iranian Internet and countering government efforts to block it.
(Reuters, 1/26/10)
2010 Jan 28, Iran executed two men, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour, accused of involvement in an armed anti-government group. The public prosecutor announced that new death sentences have been issued against opposition activists involved in protests over June's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 1/28/10)(AFP, 3/8/10)
2010 Jan 29, Afghan troops backed by NATO attack helicopters battled Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests who launched an assault in the heart of a Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province. 6 militants were killed in the assault. In Ghazni province 2 Afghans were killed after failing to stop their vehicle when ordered. An Afghan interpreter working for the US military shot dead two American soldiers in Wardak province. Iranian guards opened fire and killed 5 laborers as they crossed into Iran from the southwestern province of Nimroz.
(AP, 1/29/10)(AFP, 1/30/10)(SFC, 1/30/10, p.A3)(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 30, Thousands of Iranians gathered at dusk against a snowy mountain backdrop to light giant bonfires in an ancient mid-winter festival. Sadeh was the national festival of ancient Persia when Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion, before the conquest of Islam in the 7th century.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2010 Jan, Five Iranian exiles issued a Manifesto from abroad calling for the resignation of Pres. Ahmadinejad, fresh elections and the lifting of restrictions on political activity.
(http://garysick.tumblr.com/)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.26)
2010 Feb 2, Iran said it was ready to send its uranium abroad for further enrichment as requested by the UN.
(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Feb 3, Iran announced it has successfully launched a research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space. The launch of the rocket Kavoshgar-3, which means Explorer-3 in Farsi, was announced by Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi to mark the National Day of Space Technology.
(AP, 2/3/10)
2010 Feb 4, Australia said it used an anti-weapons of mass destruction law to block three shipments to Iran but calls for new sanctions against the Islamic state opened up a new international divide.
(AFP, 2/4/10)
2010 Feb 4, China told other world powers that discussing broader sanctions against Iran was counterproductive, striking a blow to a Western push to rein in Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/4/10)
2010 Feb 4, A leading Russian lawmaker said Russia and Western powers have moved closer to agreement on the need for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 2/4/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his country's atomic agency to begin enriching uranium to a higher level, a move that's likely to deepen international suspicion over the country's intentions for its nuclear program.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iran's state media said Tehran has arrested seven people linked to the US-funded Radio Farda and accused some them of working for American spy agencies.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 8, Iran moved closer to being able to produce nuclear warheads with formal notification that it will enrich uranium to higher levels, even while insisting that the move was meant only to provide fuel for its research reactor. The semiofficial ISNA agency said that former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh was sentenced to six years in prison by a Revolutionary court. The defense minister announced that Iran has launched two production lines to build unmanned aircraft with surveillance and attack capabilities.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 8, Iran said it will cut ties with the British Museum because of the museum's failure to lend Tehran the Cyrus Cylinder, an ancient Babylonian artifact described as the world's earliest bill of rights.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 9, Iran began enriching uranium to a higher level over the vociferous objections of the US and its allies who fear the process could eventually be used to give the Islamic republic nuclear weapons.
(AP, 2/9/10)
2010 Feb 10, Iran's top police official says authorities have made a series of arrests of suspected opposition activists before expected Feb 11 protest rallies.
(AP, 2/10/10)
2010 Feb 10, The US Treasury Department said it was freezing the assets in US jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the US imposed new sanctions. Hundreds of thousands of government supporters massed in central Tehran to mark the anniversary of the revolution that created Iran's Islamic republic, while a heavy security force that fanned across the city moved quickly to snuff out counter protests by the opposition.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 15, Israel's PM Netanyahu called for "crippling sanctions" against Iran over its nuclear program after a meeting in Moscow with Russia's top officials, whom he praised for showing "an understanding" over the issue.
(AP, 2/15/10)
2010 Feb 16, Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shrugging off international concerns, announced the country was moving ahead to expand its nuclear enrichment capacities by installing more advanced machinery at its main enrichment facility.
(AP, 2/16/10)
2010 Feb 21, Iranian state television reported that intelligence agents have killed four members of an armed Kurdish separatist group near the Kurdish town of Sardasht. The report accused the four of killing three policemen in a clash on Dec 26.
(AP, 2/21/10)
2010 Feb 22, Iran said it plans to build two new uranium enrichment facilities deep inside mountains to protect them from attack, a new challenge to Western powers trying to curb Tehran's nuclear program for fear it is aimed at making weapons.
(AP, 2/22/10)
2010 Feb 23, Iran formally set out its terms for giving up most of its cache of enriched uranium in a confidential document, and the conditions fall short of what has been demanded by the United States and other world powers.
(AP, 2/23/10)
2010 Feb 23, Iran said that its security forces have captured Abdulmalik Rigi, leader of the Jundallah group (Soldiers of God), an armed Sunni group whose insurgency in the southeast has destabilized the border region with Pakistan. State-run English-language Press TV said that Rigi was captured on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan.
(AP, 2/23/10)
2010 Feb 24, Qatar signed a defense pact with Iran.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.47)(www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=214868)
2010 Feb 25, Syria and Iran defended their strong ties and dismissed US efforts to break up the 30-year-alliance, saying America should not dictate relationships in the Middle East.
(AP, 2/25/10)
2010 Feb 26, The Jundallah insurgency, which says it's fighting for equal rights for the Sunni minority in southeast Iran, named al-Hajj Mohammed Dhahir Baluch as its new leader. The statement described the capture of former leader Abdulmalik Rigi's by Iranian forces on Feb 23, but said all the tribes of Baluchistan had pledged allegiance to the new leader.
(AP, 2/28/10)
2010 Mar 1, In Iran editor Behrouz Behzadi of the Etemaad daily said his newspaper was banned by the Press Supervisory Board. The order cited article six of the press law without elaborating. That article allows newspapers to be closed for offenses from security violations to insulting articles. A weekly called Irandokht was also closed down. One of its editors was arrested last month. Iranian media said six journalists and opposition activists held for suspected involvement in the country's postelection turmoil have been released on bail. Jafar Panahi (49), an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, was taken into custody along with another person who was in his company. Panahi was released on bail on May 25. In December Panahi was sentenced to 6 years in prison and barred from making films or participating in political activities for two decades.
(AP, 3/1/10)(AP, 3/2/10)(AP, 5/25/10)(SFC, 12/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 2, In Iran the kaleme opposition Web site reported that an appeals court has upheld the death sentence for Mohammad Amin Valian (20), a student who took part in an anti-government rally in December that left eight people dead. Valian was found guilty of Moharebeh, a religious offense that translates as defiance of God, a crime punishable by death under Iranian law.
(AP, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 3, Italian police arrested seven people on suspicion of trafficking arms to Iran, two Iranians they believe are secret agents and five Italians. Two more Iranians were being sought. On April 29 Ali Damirchi-Lou and state television reporter Hamid Masoumi-Nejad were released from jail and placed under house arrest.
(AP, 3/3/10)(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Mar 7, Iran announced that it has started a new production line of highly accurate, short range cruise missiles, which would add a new element to the country's already imposing arsenal.
(AP, 3/7/10)
2010 Mar 9, In Switzerland a senior Google executive welcomed a US decision to relax restrictions on exporting Internet communications services to Iran, Sudan and Cuba.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 10, Iran hanged two convicted drug traffickers in the Shiite shrine city of Qom. Another man, convicted of drug trafficking, was hanged in the city of Ahvaz. The latest hangings bring to at least 30 the number of people executed in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP count based on news reports.
(AFP, 3/11/10)(AFP, 3/12/10)
2010 Mar 13, Iran’s Fars the news agency said Iran has busted what it says was a US-funded cyber network group linked to an exiled opposition movement that collected data on its nuclear scientists. 30 members of the network with links to the outlawed People's Mujahedeen and monarchists were said to have been arrested.
(AFP, 3/14/10)
2010 Mar 16, Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi, defying government warnings, said the Islamic republic was "plagued with despotism," in remarks published ahead of a national celebration that could trigger more protests.
(Reuters, 3/16/10)
2010 Mar 16, Pakistan and Iran signed a $7.6 billion deal in Turkey paving the way for the construction of a much-delayed pipeline pumping Iranian natural gas to the energy-starved South Asian country.
(AP, 3/17/10)
2010 Mar 17, Iran released Mohsen Mirdamadi, the leader of the country's biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front. He was temporarily freed on $450,000 bail. Authorities also released filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, journalist Ali Akbar Montajabi and female activist Farzaneh Qassemi, all of whom were detained in recent weeks.
(AP, 3/18/10)
2010 Mar 18, In Iran former vice president Hossein Marashi was arrested after an appeals court upheld his one-year prison sentence. He was convicted of spreading propaganda against the ruling clerical establishment. Marashi was temporarily released on March 20 for Iran's new year celebrations.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 21, Iranian authorities detained Hasan Lahouti, the grandson of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, upon arrival from London. Rafsanjani, the most powerful opposition supporter inside the country's clerical leadership, has come under harsh criticism from hard-liners for his support of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Lahouti was freed the next day on a $73,000 bail.
(AP, 3/22/10)(AP, 3/23/10)
2010 Mar 27, Iran used an ancient new year celebration to reach out to Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey at a summit meeting that projected Iranian leadership in the strategic region straddling the Middle East and Central Asia.
(AP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 29, In Canada a 2-day G-8 meeting opened in the Quebec town of Gatineau. Canada said it would press the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations to tighten UN sanctions on Iran.
(Reuters, 3/28/10)
2010 Mar 30, Iran's state television reported that its intelligence agents mounted a "complicated" cross-border mission and freed an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in 2008 by gunmen in northwestern Pakistan. Heshmatollah Attarzadeh and his Pakistani bodyguard were driving over a narrow bridge in Peshawar on Nov. 13, 2008 when two gunmen blocked their way with a car and opened fire.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Quebec, Canada, the world's leading industrial nations (G8) called for stronger action against Iran over its nuclear program and the United States said it was confident China would agree on the need for sanctions.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 31, Six major world powers agreed to begin putting together proposed new sanctions on Iran over its suspect nuclear program after China dropped its opposition.
(AP, 3/31/10)
2010 Apr 1, US President Barack Obama called on Chinese President Hu Jintao to join forces on the Iranian nuclear standoff as he stepped up efforts to block Tehran's atomic program.
(AFP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, Iran's top nuclear envoy called for negotiations without threat of sanctions, following meetings in Beijing in the wake of US reports saying China had dropped its opposition to possible new UN measures against Iran.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 8, In Prague President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the biggest nuclear arms pact in a generation and envisioned a day when they can compromise on the divisive issue of missile defense. Obama and Medvedev warned Iran of possible sanctions over its nuclear program shortly after signing the disarmament deal.
(AP, 4/8/10)(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 9, Iran unveiled a third generation of domestically built centrifuges as the country pushes ahead with plans to accelerate a uranium enrichment program that has alarmed world powers fearful of the nuclear program's aims.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 10, In western Iran assailants blasted open a prison wall with rocket propelled grenades, allowing 2 convicted murderers to escape from the central prison in the city of Ilam. 5 people convicted of drug trafficking were hanged at a prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(Reuters, 4/10/10)(AFP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Iran Sharq, a prominent pro-reform daily, reappeared on newsstands after a three-year ban. Sharq was closed by the Press Supervisory Board, run by the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, in 2007 for publishing an interview with a "counter-revolutionary" poet abroad.
(Reuters, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 12, President Barack Obama and presidents, prime ministers and other top officials from 47 countries started work on a battle plan to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. Egypt called for world powers to press both Iran and Israel on nuclear weapons, saying that the Middle East should be a zone free of the ultra-destructive arms. China said sanctions were not the answer to the Iranian atomic standoff. Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog spurned the US nuclear summit, saying any decision taken at the conference is not binding on nations absent from the event.
(AP, 4/12/10)(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 14, Six major powers wrapped up what they said was a "very constructive" meeting on fresh UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but diplomats cautioned against expecting early adoption.
(AFP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 16, In Iran cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, the acting prayer leader of Tehran, said women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 18, Iran’s pro-reform Sharq daily said that filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad was convicted on charges of spreading propaganda against the clerical establishment and insulting the country's leaders. Nourizad was arrested in November after writing a protest letter to the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urging him to apologize to the nation for the bloody crackdown on the opposition movement after the disputed June presidential elections. In May it was later reported that Nourizad was beaten in prison and had gone on a hunger strike.
(AP, 4/18/10)(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Iran a senior adviser said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the location for a new uranium enrichment facility Iran plans to begin building over the next year.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Iran the semi-official Fars news agency reported that the Press Supervisory Board ordered the pro-reform Bahar daily closed for "spreading doubts on fundamental issues such as elections. The official IRNA news agency reported that Iran has sentenced prominent political activists Mohsen Mirdamadi, Mostafa Tajzadeh and Davood Soleimani to six years in prison each for involvement in the country's post-election turmoil. They were convicted of spreading propaganda against Iran.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Iran an explosion in a car killed 2 people and wounded 8 in the western city of Ilam. The car was not a gas-powered vehicle of the sort that has seen a number of accidental explosions in recent years.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 22, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a meeting of two leaders united in fierce opposition to the West.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 23, Diplomats said Iran has agreed to give the UN nuclear monitoring agency greater inspection and monitoring rights to a sensitive site where it is enriching uranium to higher levels.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 24, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Iran has amnestied 110 "terrorists" since it captured the leader of a Sunni insurgency in southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province in February. Provincial governor Ali Mohammad Azad said 300 militants had "expressed regret" for their actions since Abdolmalek Rigi's arrest.
(AFP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 26, Iran’s state television reported that Iran is cutting red tape and easing ownership rules to encourage foreign investment in stocks and bonds, as the major oil producer faces further UN sanctions over its nuclear work.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 27, Brazil, a UN Security Council member, demanded that Iran guarantee its nuclear program has no military aims, saying the crisis has become the single most important security issue in the world.
(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 30, The EU's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said that China is willing to discuss sanctions on Iran as long as they are carefully targeted and bolster efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 May 2, In Iran the Fars news agency reported that 9 bronze statues, some of famous Iranians and costing thousands of dollars, have been stolen in Tehran in what is said to be serial thievery.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 3, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seized center stage at the opening of a monthlong debate at the United Nations on how to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. But behind the scenes, UN Security Council powers were discussing ways to punish Iran for defying their demands that it curb nuclear activities that could be used to make bombs.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Kuwait said that several suspects are being questioned in connection with a busted spy cell which a local newspaper said had been working for Iran.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 4, Iran called for independent verification of US claims it has pared its stockpile of nuclear warheads back to 5,113 and queried whether Washington was justified in holding such a lethal load.
(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Iran 5 Kurdish rebels, including two women, were killed after they battled Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in the western province of Kermanshah.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 8, Iran voiced optimism about Turkish and Brazilian mediation efforts in its nuclear dispute with the West, welcoming in principle ideas aimed at reviving a stalled fuel deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 5/8/10)
2010 May 9, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened what is being dubbed as the Middle East's biggest car plant set up by Iranian state-run automobile company Saipa.
(AFP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, Iran hanged five Kurdish activists, including one woman, convicted of membership of armed opposition groups and involvement in bombings.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, In Iran Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari was sentenced in absentia to more than 13 years in prison and 74 lashes, raising concerns about a new government crackdown ahead of the anniversary of disputed presidential elections.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Iran said that Brazil and Turkey have offered a promising new proposal for a nuclear fuel deal as Tehran steps up a diplomatic push to stave off new UN sanctions over its disputed nuclear program. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, could hold talks with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton in Turkey. The Fars news agency reported that Iranian border guards have arrested 9 Iraqi fishermen in Iranian waters in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in recent days.
(AP, 5/11/10)(AFP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Iranian border guards have arrested 9 Iraqi fishermen in Iranian waters in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in recent days.
(AFP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 15, In Iran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed the death sentence for six opposition activists arrested in protests after last year's disputed presidential election. They included Ahmad Daneshpour Moghadam, Mohsen Daneshpour Moghadam and Alireza Ghanbari, who were arrested after opposition protests during the Shiite mourning holiday of Ashura last December. Mohammad Ali Saremi, Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad-Ali Haj-Aghai were arrested in September.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 16, In Iran Brazil's Pres. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva met with Iranian leaders to try to broker a compromise in the international standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, even as the US says new sanctions are the only way to force Iran's cooperation.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, In Iran acclaimed filmmaker and opposition supporter Jafar Panahi went on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. He was this month freed on a bail of around 200,000 US dollars. Panahi is known for his gritty, socially critical movies such as the "Circle," which bagged the 2000 Venice Golden Lion award, "Crimson Gold," and "Offside," winner of the 2006 Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival.
(AP, 5/19/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 May 16, Iran arrested Mohsen Armin, a senior member of the banned reformist party, the Organization of Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution. He was released from Tehran's Evin prison in July after posting a bail of $200,000.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 May 16, Clotilde Reiss (24), a young French academic who battled spying charges in Iran for more than 10 months, returned to France and thanked President Nicolas Sarkozy and other officials for insisting on her innocence and pressing for her release.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 17, Iran agreed to ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in a surprise nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country's disputed atomic program and deflate a US-led push for tougher sanctions. The deal was reached in talks between Brazils’ Pres. Silva, Turkey’s PM Erdogan and Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/17/10)(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A2)
2010 May 17, France decided to send home an Iranian agent it had jailed for murdering the Shah's last prime minister, two days after Tehran freed a young French academic accused of spying. Ali Vakili Rad was serving a life sentence for stabbing Shapour Bakhtiar to death at his home outside Paris in August 1991.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 19, Iran dismissed as "illegitimate" a draft UN Security Council resolution seeking to impose harsher sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 20, In Iran 3 Americans, jailed for 10 months, hugged and kissed their mothers in an emotional reunion after the women arrived on a mission to secure the release of their children. One of the prisoners said they all hoped to go home together in the trio's first public comments since their arrest.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 21, Three Americans jailed in Iran for 10 months met with their mothers a second time as Iranian authorities used their visit to underline their complaints about their own citizens detained by the United States.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 23, Iran said it will abandon an offer to ship some of its uranium stockpile abroad if the United States imposes new sanctions. Iran's intelligence minister said he had no doubt three US citizens arrested last July near the Iraq border were spies and called on Washington to propose a prisoner swap to secure their release.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 24, Iran hanged the brother of captured Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi for "terrorism" in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan province in the southeast.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran’s state IRNA news agency reported that police launched a crackdown on irreverent social behavior, seizing some 60 cars over the weekend whose drivers were deemed to be harassing women.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran, seeking to evade new UN sanctions, formally submitted its plan to swap some of its enriched uranium for reactor fuel and said the onus was on world powers to defuse tensions by accepting the deal.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Germany Daryush Shokof (55), a Berlin resident and Iranian dissident, disappeared in Cologne, the day he planned to board a train to Paris to promote his new film "Iran Zendan," or "Iran Prison." The small independent movie is highly critical of the Iranian regime and shows scenes of torture and rape in an Iranian prison. It was shown once last month to a closed audience of friends at a Berlin theater and then posted on YouTube, but has since been removed. On June 5, almost two weeks after he went missing, Shokof was found by a group of teenagers, drenched, exhausted and confused, near the Rhine river in Cologne, and taken to a hospital.
(AP, 6/11/10)
2010 May 29, A fire at an Iranian oil well at the Naft Shahr border region near the Iraq border killed three people and injured 10 more.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 31, The UN atomic agency said Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 Jun 1, China called on Iran to improve its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, after the agency said in a report that Tehran was pressing ahead with its controversial atomic program.
(AFP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 2, It was reported that Iran has barred private schools from teaching music, saying it clashes with the establishment’s Islamic values. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned 81 jailed opposition supporters who had been found guilty of having a role in the unrest triggered by last June's disputed presidential election.
(SFC, 6/2/10, p.A2)(AP, 6/3/10)
2010 Jun 4, Mahmoud Reza Banki (33), an Ivy League-educated man whose family sent him millions of dollars from Iran, was convicted of violating the Iran trade embargo and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Banki, born in Tehran, faced up to 25 years in prison. He has been a US citizen since 1996.
(AP, 6/4/10)
2010 Jun 5, Germany and Russia declared that the five world powers negotiating with Iran support a fresh set of international sanctions, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said they could pass soon.
(AP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 5, A senior Kurdish official in northern Iraq said Iranian troops have crossed the Iraqi border in pursuit of Iranian Kurdish rebels. Jabar Yawar, a deputy minister in the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, said that 35 Iranian soldiers remain in the Iraqi village of Perdunaz after crossing the border on June 3.
(AP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 7, Iranian state television showed a video of a man it identified as a missing nuclear scientist, who said he had been abducted and taken to the United States. The scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009. US media reports in March said he defected to the US and is assisting the CIA in efforts to undermine Iran's nuclear program. Iran has repeatedly said Amiri was abducted by the US.
(AP, 6/7/10)
2010 Jun 7, Iran's first women-only bank branch opened, allowing women to manage their finances without dealing with unrelated men, something likely to appeal to religious families who oppose mingling between the sexes.
(Reuters, 6/7/10)
2010 Jun 7, The Iranian Red Crescent said that it will send three aid ships to Gaza in the latest bid to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory by Iran's archfoe Israel.
(AFP, 6/7/10)
2010 Jun 8, A Russian source close to Security Council talks told reporters that UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program have been "completely agreed upon."
(Reuters, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 9, The US, Russia and France dismissed a proposal by Iran to swap some of its enriched uranium for reactor fuel hours before an expected UN Security Council vote on new sanctions. The UN Security Council adopted a resolution imposing a 4th round of sanctions on Iran. It banned Iran from undertaking any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
(AP, 6/9/10)(Econ, 6/12/10, p.15)(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A3)
2010 Jun 10, Iran said it will review relations with the UN nuclear watchdog a day after the UN Security Council approved a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear program. Russia looked set to freeze the sale to Tehran of S300 air defense missiles in response to new UN sanctions on Iran.
(AP, 6/10/10)(AFP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 10, An Iranian state-owned newspaper said three policemen in western Iran have been killed by a roadside bomb detonated by Kurdish rebels. Members of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK) were blamed.
(AP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 10, Turkey called the imposition of UN sanctions on Iran a "mistake" and said that it and Brazil would continue to seek a diplomatic solution to remove concerns over Iran's nuclear program.
(Reuters, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 11, Russia signaled it was scrapping the controversial sale of S-300 missiles to Iran in a major shift the Kremlin said was needed after fresh UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 6/11/10)
2010 Jun 12, Iranian police arrested 91 people as the nation marked the anniversary of last year's disputed presidential election.
(AFP, 6/13/10)
2010 Jun 13, Iran and Pakistan formally signed a $7 billion export deal which commits the Islamic republic to supplying its eastern neighbor with natural gas from 2014.
(Reuters, 6/13/10)
2010 Jun 14, Iran’s state radio said Iran is sending aid ships to blockaded Gaza, a move likely to be considered provocative by Israel which accuses Tehran of arming Hamas, the Palestinian enclave's Islamist rulers.
(Reuters, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 14, An Iranian airport official said 71 Iranian women "improperly" dressed were prevented from boarding flights in recent months, as a police crackdown on the behavior of young people intensified.
(AFP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 15, Iran signed contracts worth 21 billion dollars with local firms to develop six gas fields, some of them awarded to the elite Revolutionary Guards.
(AFP, 6/15/10)
2010 Jun 16, Iran's nuclear chief said his country is designing a new atomic research reactor in another snub of international efforts to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 6/16/10)
2010 Jun 17, European Union leaders agreed tighter sanctions against Iran, including measures to block oil and gas investment and curtail its refining and natural gas capability.
(Reuters, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 19, An Iranian newspaper, the Economic daily Pool (Money), voluntarily suspended publication after being warned by the national press watchdog for printing "false material."
(AFP, 6/19/10)
2010 Jun 20, In Iran Abdulmalik Rigi, head of Jundallah, was hanged for leading the Sunni insurgent group active near the country's border with Pakistan.
(AP, 6/20/10)
2010 Jun 21, An Iranian newspaper said police have issued warnings to 62,000 women who were "badly veiled" in the Shiite holy province of Qom as part of a clampdown on dress and behavior.
(AFP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 21, Iran said it has banned two UN nuclear inspectors from entering the country because they had leaked "false" information about Iran's disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 21, A United Arab Emirates reported that the UAR has closed down 40 international and local firms as part of a crackdown on companies that violate UN sanctions on Iran.
(AFP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 22, Iran's state television says the country will send an aid ship to the blockaded Gaza Strip with 1,100 tons of relief supplies.
(AP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 22, Austin Heap (26) launched Proxyheap, the precursor to anti-censorship software called Haystack. He soon received a license from the US treasury, State Dept. and commerce Dept. to export it to Iran. The software was withdrawn on Sep 10 due to security issues.
(Econ, 9/18/10, p.75)
2010 Jun 23, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has produced 17 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent, defying UN demands to halt the controversial program.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2010 Jun 24, The US Congress approved tough new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran's energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran.
(Reuters, 6/25/10)
2010 Jun 26, An Iranian lawmaker said the country's plan to send a blockade-busting ship from Iran to Gaza has been canceled.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jun 29, An Indonesian court sentenced 8 Iranians to life in prison for smuggling hundreds of methamphetamine tablets in their stomachs into the resort island of Bali. The Jakarta Post newspaper, quoting police, said Iranian drugs syndicates have become the main suppliers of heroin and crystal methamphetamine to Indonesia, replacing West African countries.
(AFP, 6/29/10)
2010 Jun, Stuxnet, computer malware, was first detected by VirusBlokAda, a security firm in Belarus. It was tailored for Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities. It was able to recognize a specific facility's control network and then destroy it. The code had a technology fingerprint of the control system it was seeking and would go into action automatically when it found its target. In September German computer security researcher Ralph Langner said he suspected that Stuxnet's mark was the Bushehr nuclear facility in Iran. Unspecified problems have been blamed for a delay in getting the facility fully operational. Stuxnet used 4 main exploits, packets of computer code that allow hackers to infiltrate or gain control of computers running software with design flaws.
(AP, 9/24/10)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.63)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.65)
2010 Jul 1, An Iranian military court convicted and sentenced to death two suspects charged with torturing and killing three anti-government protesters in prison.
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, Pres. Obama signed into law new sanctions on Iran that, for the first time, will bar from the American market foreign companies that work with Iranian businesses charged with aiding Tehran’s nuclear program.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 6, A Toronto man was convicted of attempting to illegally export nuclear-related technology to Iran, in the first Canadian criminal case resulting from UN sanctions against the Middle East nation. An Ontario judge found Mahmoud Yadegari guilty of attempting to export pressure transducers, which can be used in the building of both nuclear plants and weapons.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Iran to stop the execution of three people including a woman who faces death by stoning for adultery. Ashton said she was "deeply concerned" about reports that the executions of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, who was sentenced to hang for a murder he committed when he was a minor, and the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, "may be imminent." She also renewed her call for Iran to drop the death sentence against Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurd who awaits execution for being an "enemy of God."
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, The EU banned most of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, emphasizing that the move was not related to UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 7, Iranian media reported that the Veil and Modesty Festival, a fashion organization, has issued a new list of culturally appropriate haircuts for men, possibly indicating a new crackdown on male attire after years of strict rules for women, Iranian media reported.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Iran at least two people were arrested in Tehran's grand bazaar, the third day of a major strike that has alarmed the authorities. A wave of anti-tax strikes by merchants in Tehran unsettled government authorities.
(http://tinyurl.com/24nw65k)(SFC, 7/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 11, Iran said it has produced around 20 kg of 20% enriched uranium, in defiance of the world powers who want Tehran to suspend the controversial nuclear work.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Iran a judicial official said that the controversial death sentence by stoning for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted of adultery, will not be implemented for now. She was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband, for which a court in Tabriz, in northwestern Iran, sentenced her to 99 lashes. Later that year she was also convicted of adultery, despite having retracted a confession which she claims was made under duress.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 12, Iran said it has reached a final agreement with merchants on raising taxes following protests that flared in Tehran's main bazaar earlier this week. The new rate would set a top tax bracket of around 17 percent. The strike continued into a 2nd week.
(AP, 7/12/10)(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 12, Shahram Amiri, a missing Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran claims was abducted by the US, took refuge at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and asked to return to his homeland. Amiri (32) disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said the cabinet had decided to summon representatives of the Kurdish regional government to discuss oil smuggling to Iran and "to put an end to it, as it harms Iraq's national and economic interests." Reports about the oil smuggling surfaced just over a week after the US imposed new sanctions barring the export of refined fuels to Iran.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 14, Iran's Foreign Ministry said nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was on a flight home, traveling through the Gulf nation of Qatar and was expected to arrive in Tehran on July 15. A US official confirmed that Amiri left the United States. The Washington Post said that Amiri had been working for the CIA for more than a year. It said he was paid $5 million out of a secret program aimed at inducing scientists and others with information on Iran's nuclear program to defect.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 19, The Wall Street Journal reported that Tehran has used a small Iranian-owned bank in Germany to circumvent sanctions slapped on firms blacklisted for involvement in the Islamic republic's missile programs.
(AFP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iran's parliament authorized tit-for-tat retaliation against countries that inspect cargo on Iranian ships and aircraft as part of new UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iranian newspapers reported the hanging of 3 men in a prison in Kerman and one in public in the city of Ahvaz after they were convicted of drug trafficking.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 21, Iran's nuclear agency said it will conduct scientific studies for the construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, an engineering challenge that no nation has yet overcome.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Southern Iran was shaken by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake killing one person.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran warned it would stop trading with countries that impose restrictions on its assets abroad in the face of tightening international sanctions over the Islamic state's disputed nuclear activities.
(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran hanged three drug traffickers identified only by their initials as A.A., S.Z. and S.M., in the city of Ahvaz in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 24, The German government said it is offering asylum to 50 Iranian dissidents who took part in the massive street protests that erupted after elections there last year.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 25, Iran's official news agency said an explosion at a petrochemical factory at its Kharg island oil terminal has killed four people.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Turkey foreign ministers of Turkey and Brazil urged Iran to be flexible and open in dealings with the West over its atomic program as Iran renewed its readiness to resume frozen nuclear talks. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Iran has expressed willingness to have talks with the European Union on its nuclear program after the month of Ramadan ends in early September.
(AFP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 26, The EU adopted tighter sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, with steps to block oil and gas investment and curtail Tehran's refining and natural gas capability.
(Reuters, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran's decades of internationally-acclaimed family planning as ungodly and a Western import.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iran vowed to press ahead with its nuclear program even as it expressed readiness to resume talks on the thorny issue despite being slapped with tough new EU sanctions. Russia condemned new EU sanctions on Iran, tempering hopes of closer cooperation between Moscow and the West over Iran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 7/27/10)(Reuters, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran said it will suspend uranium enrichment to 20% if it acquires nuclear fuel for a research reactor.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran hanged Yousef Fardi, a convicted rapist, in the northern city of Qazvin.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 29, Australia said it will impose new sanctions against Iran, including restrictions for the first time on business dealings with that country's oil and gas sector.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 30, Iran said it was ready for immediate talks with the US, Russia and France over an exchange of nuclear fuel and added that it was also against stockpiling higher enriched uranium.
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In northeastern Iran an earthquake injured 274 people. A slightly stronger tremor struck central Iran the next day.
(Reuters, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, A senior Iranian official said China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the Islamic republic's oil and gas sector.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, UNESCO added seven cultural sites to its World Heritage List including Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, home to nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s. Also added to the list were the Turaif District in Saudi Arabia; Australia's penal colony sites; the Jantar Mantar astronomical observation site in India; a shrine in Ardabil in Iran; the Tabriz historic bazaar complex, also in Iran; and the historic villages of Hahoe and Yangdong in South Korea.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 5, Afghan Pres. Karzai departed to attend a summit held among the presidents of host country Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Following the summit Feda Hussein Maliki, Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan, handed Umar Daudzai, Karzai’s chief of staff, a large plastic bag stuffed with euro bills. The money was part of a secret stream of Iranian cash to buy the loyalty of Daudzai and promote Iran’s interests in Afghanistan’s presidential palace. It was later reported that Daudzai owns at least 6 homes located in Dubai, in the UAR and in Vancouver, Canada.
(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 9, Brazil formally offered asylum to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death in Iran on an adultery conviction. On July 31 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested he would be willing to provide the woman refuge.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, Iran announced plans to get rid of its dollar and euro reserves in response to the latest UN sanctions over its contested nuclear program. The IAEA said Iran has activated equipment to enrich uranium more efficiently in a move that defies the UN Security Council.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Two Bahai activists said an Iranian court has sentenced seven leaders of their faith to 20 years in prison after charging them with espionage and engaging in propaganda against Islam.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 10, Brazil signed on to UN sanctions against Iran despite misgivings over the measures following its efforts to negotiate a nuclear-swap deal with the Islamic state.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession by Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, of being an accomplice to the murder of her husband. The Iranian woman had faced death by stoning for adultery. Ashtiani was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband. The next day her lawyer told a British newspaper that she was tortured for two days before confessing on state TV to being an accomplice to her husband's death.
(AP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Toyota said it has suspended auto exports to Iran indefinitely in line with global sanctions against Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Turkey said it will support petrol sales by Turkish companies to Iran, despite US sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Iran PJAK Kurdish rebels killed a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards and two Islamist militiamen in clashes near northwestern Orumieh city.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 16, Iran said it plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain strongholds, with construction on the first starting in March, in continuing defiance of international efforts to curb its nuclear development.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 17, An Iranian fighter jet crashed in southern Iran near the country's nuclear power plant that is to start up over the weekend. The two pilots ejected safely.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 18, Iran took its case against the United States to the UN and strongly condemned the top US military chief for saying military action remains a possibility if the country develops nuclear weapons.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 20, Iran’s Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced that Iran has test fired a surface-to-surface missile, Qiam, a day before it is due to launch its Russian-built first nuclear power plant.
(AFP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 21, Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Moscow has promised to safeguard to prevent material at the site from being used in any potential weapons production.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 22, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the country's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Tehran, Iran, the headquarters of Sweden-based Oriflame, a direct-sales cosmetics firm, were "searched and sealed" and "four top managers were arrested on accusations of 250,000 cases of fraud" linked to a 70-million-dollar (55-million-euro) pyramid scheme.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran media reported the suspension of three senior judiciary officials over last year's torture deaths of three imprisoned anti-government protesters. On Aug 30 they were identified as former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and two judges.
(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats, warning its enemies not to "play with fire" as it boosts security along its coastline.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 25, Iran said that it has successfully test-fired an upgraded version of a short-range surface-to-surface missile. The third generation of the Fateh-110, which means "conqueror" in Farsi and Arabic, with an improved range of 250 km and better precision than previous models.
(AP, 8/25/10)(Reuters, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 26, An Iranian government newspaper reported that 5 rebels and 2 members of the Revolutionary Guards have been killed in clashes in Iran's Kordestan province near the Iraqi border.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 27, The UN anti-racism panel called on Iran to counter racism and ethnic discrimination, including incitement to hatred by officials and "double discrimination suffered by women from minorities.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Iran three people died in the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that shook the country's remote northeast. Forty others were injured.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Iran pro-government militiamen attacked the home of opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally the next day.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Japan imposed new sanctions against Iran, including an assets freeze on people and entities linked to its contentious nuclear program and tighter restrictions on financial transactions.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 4, Iran’s hardline Kayhan newspaper reported that security forces have killed four members of an outlawed Kurdish group in the western province of Kordestan. Nasrin Sotoudeh (45) was summoned by official notice to Tehran's Evin Prison, and did return home. She had represented opposition activists and political figures. State media reported in December that she was accused of spreading propaganda against the ruling system. On Jan 10, 2011, her husband said has been convicted of security offenses and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(AFP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/8/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Sep 6, The lawyer for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, said she was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper on Aug 28 ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A4)(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, Iran said that it was within its rights to vet UN inspectors who monitor its nuclear facilities after the UN watchdog said its work was being hampered by the barring of some of its staff.
(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, The EU condemned the stoning to death sentence passed against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, saying it was "barbaric."
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 8, An Iranian judiciary official told Fars news agency that the woman facing death by stoning has expressed surprise over reports that she was lashed after a British newspaper published a picture showing her without a headscarf. Fars reported that Vahid Kazemzadeh, a member of the Iranian judiciary's Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he has met Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who also complained to him that she has never met her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, South Korea said it will ban unauthorized financial dealings with Iran and impose other penalties as part of a US-led campaign to enforce sanctions against the country over its disputed nuclear enrichment program. South Korea listed 126 Iranian companies and individuals for the sanctions.
(AP, 9/8/10)(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 9, An Iranian opposition group claimed to have discovered a new uranium enrichment plant being built about 75 miles (120 km) west of Tehran and said it was 85 percent complete. The head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the country has no undeclared nuclear sites. A US government official also disputed the claim by the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, saying the site did not appear to have a nuclear role.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Iran’s Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told English-language Press TV that Sarah Shourd (31), one of the three US hikers currently held in Iran for more than a year, will be released on Sep 11. Iran’s judiciary abruptly halted plans to release Shourd, pointing to the internal rivalries within Iran's leadership.
(AFP, 9/10/10)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep 10, In Iran a gas pipeline exploded near the northeastern holy city of Mashhad and killed 6 people with another 20 people hurt.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Finland Hossein Alizadeh (45), a senior official at the Iranian embassy, said that he has resigned from his post to join the political opposition against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Alizadeh's mission in Finland had ended on August 20.
(AP, 9/11/10)(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 12, A senior Iranian prosecutor said that authorities will release Sarah Shourd, a jailed American woman, on $500,000 bail because of health problems, another sudden about-face by Iran in a case that has added to tension with the United States.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 13, Iran's internal battles over the handling of American detainee Sarah Shourd flared again as the mouthpiece of the powerful Revolutionary Guard led the backlash against a decision to free her on $500,000 bail.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency warned that Iran's selective cooperation with his inspectors means that he cannot confirm that all of Tehran's atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 14, Iran released Sarah Shourd (32), an American woman, on a bail of $500,000 more than a year after she was detained. Authorities said they were not considering the immediate release of two companions arrested with her.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Farzad Farhangian, a press attache at the Iranian embassy in Brussels, called for an uprising against the Tehran government, as he became the third Europe-based envoy to defect this year and announced he was seeking asylum in Norway.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 15, Iranian security forces raided the office of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the top opposition leader, and seized computers after days of intimidating visitors with a heavy force presence around the building.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Iran Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, whose stoning sentence for adultery was suspended in July, appeared on state TV to say she has not been whipped or tortured.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Iran assailants abducted six people, 5 soldiers and a bank clerk, in the southeast of the country. The Sunni militant group Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility and said those abducted were Revolutionary Guard forces. On Sep 18 the state news IRNA reported that Revolutionary Guard forces rescued five of the hostages and killed 3 gunmen. A sixth hostage died in the operation. Amir Bilchi Kangarlu, a man convicted of raping several young girls, was hanged in the town of Varamin, south of the capital Tehran.
(AFP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/18/10)(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was seeking closer commercial ties with Iran and aims to triple trade volumes in the next five years while still respecting the limits set by UN sanctions.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 18, Iranian media reported that Shiva Nazar Ahari, journalist and founder of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters in Tehran, has been to six years in prison on anti-government charges.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 21, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported that three men, who were found guilty of drug trafficking, have been hanged in a prison in the central city of Yazd.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 22, Iran’s pro-reform Sharq daily said that Emadoddin Baghi (48), a human rights activist, was convicted of "spreading propaganda" against the ruling establishment as well as planning to "violate national security." He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Baghi has been on trial or in jail almost continually since 2000 over similar charges. In the northwest a bomb exploded at a military parade in Mahabad killing 12 people. One official blamed Kurdish separatists who have fought Iranian forces in the area for decades. In 2014 Iranian authorities detained three suspects over the deadly bombing in Mahabad.
(AP, 9/22/10)(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 5/18/14)
2010 Sep 22, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp said it would freeze all new business with Iran with immediate effect and terminate existing contracts there as soon as possible in response to ever-harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Russian news agencies reported that Russia has dropped plans to supply Iran with S-300 missiles because they are subject to international sanctions.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 23, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said most people believe the US government staged the September 11 attacks, setting off a Western walk out at the UN.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters that Iran would consider ending higher level uranium enrichment, the most crucial part of its controversial nuclear activities, if world powers send Tehran nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 25, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency says Iranian nuclear experts met this week to discuss how to remove the malicious computer code, dubbed Stuxnet, which can take over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 26, Iranian officials said the malicious Stuxnet computer worm has hit 30,000 industrial computers, but denied the Islamic republic's first nuclear plant at Bushehr was among those infected. The malware has infected as many as 45,000 computer systems around the world. 60% of the infected computers were in Iran, 18% in Indonesia, and less than 2% in the US. Two computer servers in Malaysia and Denmark, which controlled the malware, have been shut down.
(AFP, 9/26/10)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_computer_attacks)(SFC, 9/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 26, Iran media said elite Revolutionary Guards said they had killed the "main elements" behind the Sep 22 bomb attack in the Mahabad. Gen. Abdolrasoul Mahmoudabadi of the elite Revolutionary Guards said the "terrorists" were killed the previous day in a clash "beyond the border" and that his forces were still in pursuit of two men who escaped the ambush.
(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 27, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that the Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking further havoc on computerized industrial equipment in Iran where about 30,000 IP addresses have already been infected.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 28, An Iranian news website said a court has sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, a well-known Canadian-Iranian blogger, to more than 19 years in prison for cooperating with hostile states and insulting Islam. Derakhshan, who made trips to Israel and blogged in both English and Farsi, has been in prison since 2008. Iran banned two newspapers for insulting political and religious figures, in a continued crackdown on dissent more than a year after a disputed presidential election.
(AP, 9/28/10)(Reuters, 9/28/10)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.60)
2010 Sep 28, Iran offered the first official indication that Oman is playing a role in trying to secure the release of two American men imprisoned for more than a year.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Pres. Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on 8 Iranian officials deemed responsible for serious human rights abuses.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 1, European oil majors resisted pressure from the US to stop all business with Iran, in spite of Washington's drive to isolate Tehran over a nuclear program the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 2, Visiting Iran Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assured Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that their ties were solid, a view unlikely to please Washington which is working to isolate the Islamic state.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 3, In Iran a top official said Industrial computers infected by Stuxnet have been cleaned and returned to their units, following reports that the malware was mutating and wreaking havoc with equipment.
(AFP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Egyptian and Iranian airlines agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries for the first time since 1979.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 5, Iran claimed that the Stuxnet computer worm, found on the laptops of several employees at the country's nuclear power plant, is part of a covert Western plot to derail its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Iran a pair of gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in its Kurdish region, killing four officers and a bystander.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov told reporters that Russia is reimbursing Iran for its down payments on a deal for advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles, which Moscow halted in the face of tough new UN sanctions.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, South Korean financial regulators said they will suspend the operations of an Iranian bank for two months, as part of international sanctions over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 9, Iran said it is ready to hold talks over its nuclear program with the US and other major powers in late October or early November. Iran also revealed for the first time that some personnel at the country's nuclear facilities were lured by promises of money to pass secrets to the West, but said increased security and worker privileges have put a stop to the spying.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 10, Iranian Sunni rebels said they had kidnapped a nuclear scientist and would publish secrets he knows about Iran's nuclear program unless 200 political prisoners were released.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Iran arrested two German nationals in Tabriz as they approached the home of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman whose sentence of death-by-stoning on an adultery conviction has drawn international condemnation. Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh, and lawyer Houtan Kian were arrested along with two the German nationals, who were seeking to interview the son. On Feb 5, 2012, reporter Marcus Hellwig told the Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he was regularly beaten up during the first 10 "brutal" days in captivity until a German diplomat intervened. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Tehran for a rare meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Westerwelle then brought Hellwig and his German photographer Jens Koch home.
(AP, 10/12/10)(AP, 11/4/10)(AP, 2/5/12)
2010 Oct 11, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree paving the way for a state takeover of Islamic Azad University, the country's largest private university, in a crushing blow to the nation's moderates. Khamenei's decree declared the university's 2009 endowment, which keeps it financially independent, to be religiously illegitimate and therefore null and void.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Iran 18 members of the powerful Revolutionary Guard were killed in an explosion that struck the force's base in the city of Khoramabad. The blast was caused by a fire that had reached the ammunition storage area. 14 other troops were wounded.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Tehran's chief prosecutor said authorities have arrested five people on suspicion of spying for the country's "enemies," a common reference in Iran for the US and Israel.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, welcomed by thousands of Shiite supporters throwing rose petals, sought to pull Lebanon firmly into his country's fold in a visit that underscored the growing power of Tehran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 15, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran was ready to resume talks about its nuclear program with the international community within a matter of weeks.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 16, Iranian local media reported that a judge has ordered the amputation of the hand of a man (21) who confessed to robbing a candy shop. The ruling came days after authorities amputated the hand of another man convicted of theft in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad endorsed the idea of new talks with the international community over his country's nuclear program, while warning that negotiations would fail if the West does not clearly come out against Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran freed Reza Taghavi (71), an Iranian-American businessman. The next day he said he had spent some of his more than two years in prison alongside protesters detained in Iran's postelection crackdowns and praised his first taste of freedom as a blessing "no one can imagine." Taghavi, who regularly visits Iran to conduct business and see family, had been jailed for 29 months for passing $200 to someone suspected of links to a rebel group known as Tondar, which seeks to topple the Islamic system and was implicated in the mosque bombing.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The Washington Post reported that the United States believes some Chinese firms are helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons and has asked Beijing to prevent such activity.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iran took part for the first time in talks in Rome with the international contact group on Afghanistan that set "sufficient stability" and basic human rights as the most realistic aims for the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki was in Tehran to drum up support for his premiership bid, as his chief rival Iyad Allawi accused Iran of meddling in Baghdad's political affairs. In Iraq a roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying Jassim al-Saiedi, a member of Baghdad's local government, killing him and wounding eight people. Two Associated Press journalists were among those assaulted by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cover the bombing.
(AFP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Iran said some Western companies were refusing to refuel its planes in Europe and warned it would "confront" such measures, which it deemed illegal under international law.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Iran Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez held talks with leaders expected to focus on boosting cooperation between the countries' oil, gas and petrochemical industries.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 20, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left Iran after signing 11 deals focused on energy cooperation between the two major oil producers who are foes of the United States.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 24, Iran state radio reported that the government has imposed new restrictions on 12 university social sciences deemed to be based on Western schools of thought and therefore incompatible with Islamic teachings. The list includes law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and the two subjects that appear to cause the most concern among Iran's conservative leadership, women's studies and human rights. State radio also reported that authorities have amputated the hand of a convicted thief in front of other prisoners.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 25, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that once or twice a year Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses, and that Washington also provides "bags of money" because his office lacks funds. Gunmen seized a Dutch aid worker and his Afghan driver in Takhar province. The NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) said at least 15 insurgents were killed in a NATO raid and air strike targeting a Taliban commander overnight in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/25/10)(Reuters, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Bolivian President Evo Morales was in Tehran on a 3-day visit aimed at securing Iranian investment in the South American country.
(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran acknowledged that it has been sending funds to neighboring Afghanistan for years, saying the money was intended to aid reconstruction of the embattled country.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran began loading fuel into the core of its first atomic power plant, moving closer to the start up of the Bushehr facility that leaders have touted as defying of international efforts to curtail the country's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 28, Ali Shakouri-rad, a leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and former MP, was freed on bail, two weeks after his arrest for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi termed "security reasons." On Dec 9 he was sent back to jail for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies."
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Oct 28, Israeli officials said that the military-grade armaments seized at a shipping terminal in Nigeria came from Iran and were bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. On Oct 30 an international shipping company said the weapons cache originally came from Iran. Last week, the Iranian shipper filed a request for the containers to be picked up again and this time shipped to the West African nation of Gambia. On Feb 1, 2011, Azim Aghajani of Iran and his alleged accomplice, Nigerian national Usman Abbas Jega, both maintained their innocence against three charges over the shipment.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 2/1/11)
2010 Oct 29, Iran notified the EU that it is willing to restart international negotiations over its nuclear program after Nov. 10, potentially reviving talks that foundered a year ago.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 30, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales confirmed that his country plans to build a nuclear plant with Iran's help, stressing the facility would be for peaceful purposes.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Nov 2, Israel's military intelligence chief said Iran possesses enough enriched uranium to build one nuclear bomb and soon will have enough to produce a second.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians chanted "Death to America" as they staged a mass protest against the "Great Satan" to mark the 31st anniversary of the capture of the American embassy by Islamist students. Iran reported the arrest of four Kurdish rebels of the banned Komala group, who worked for commander Jalil Fattahi, a militant based in Britain. They were arrested in Iran's western city of Marivan.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 7, Iran proposed that a new round of international talks on its nuclear program be held in Turkey, an ally that also has close ties to the West and has sought to mediate in the standoff.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 8, Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi said that opposition to the Iranian government is growing, spurred by an increase in government violence, more human rights violations and deepening poverty. Ebadi has lived outside her homeland since a day before last year's disputed presidential elections.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, A UN report suggesting North Korea may have supplied Syria, Iran and Myanmar with banned nuclear technology headed to the Security Council. The latest report by the so-called Panel of Experts on Pyongyang's compliance with UN sanctions was delivered to the Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee in May, but did not move for nearly six months due to Chinese objections.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 11, A Nigerian government report identified Iranians Azimi Agajany and Sayed Akbar Tahmaesebi as the men who organized a shipment of arms through a Tehran-based company called International Trading and General Construction. The arms containers sat at Lagos' busy Apapa port from July until Oct. 26, when Nigerian security agents carried out a raid and discovered the weapons inside.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 13, Iranian authorities detained lawyers Maryam Kianersi, Maryam Karbasi and Sara Sabaghian on their return home from Turkey. All three are women and were among signatories of an open letter in September that called for the release of prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. Two other lawyers related to the three were also detained. Kianersi and Rosa Gharachorlu were released on Nov 19.
(AP, 11/14/10)(Reuters, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 14, Iranian officials reported that Iran’s Entekhab Industrial Group has signed a contract sealing its acquisition of South Korea's Daewoo Electronics for some $518 million. Daewoo was set up in the 1960s and became one of the biggest companies in the world before it disintegrated in financial disarray in the 1990s. Its shipbuilding and auto units are now independent companies in their own right.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Authorities in Hong Kong detained the Decretive, a Maltese-flagged container vessel, over a debt dispute with several European banks. The target of the dispute is the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), the guarantor of bank loans which funded the Decretive's construction in 2008. Loan defaults totaled 268 million US dollars.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Nov 15, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that the issue of an alleged Iranian arms shipment intercepted in Nigeria was a "misunderstanding" that has been settled.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 18, Nigeria's drug enforcement found and seized 286 pounds (130 kg) of high-quality heroin, destined for Europe, hidden inside a shipment of auto parts sent from Iran.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, A UN General Assembly committee passed resolutions condemning human rights violations in Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, provoking a furious reaction from their delegations. The committee passed the resolution by 80 votes to 44, with 57 abstentions.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 21, Iranian newspapers reported that Pres. Ahmadinejad said the best age for girls to get married was between 16 and 18. The Iranian intelligence ministry said its security forces have killed two "terrorists" in clashes in the Kurdish-populated western city of Sanandaj.
(Reuters, 11/21/10)(AFP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 22, Diplomats said Iran’s nuclear program has suffered a recent setback with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of centrifuges enriching uranium.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 22, A Gambian Foreign Ministry statement was issued giving Iranian government officials 48 hours to leave the country. The next day a senior Gambian security official said the move was linked to Nigeria's recent seizure of arms sent from Iran which were allegedly destined for Gambia.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Iran’s state radio reported that authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Mahdi Hashemi, the son of influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on charges of helping foment last year's postelection unrest. Hashemi has been living in Britain since shortly after the election.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 25, A court in Nigeria charged an alleged member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and three Nigerians over a shipment of mortars and rockets seized in the main port of Lagos last month.
(Reuters, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 27, Iran's state radio reported that a man attempting to hijack a Syria-bound flight carrying a number of Iranian lawmakers was arrested on board. ISNA news agency reported that Iran has hanged in prison a man convicted of raping several women in Isfahan. The latest hanging brings the number of executions in Iran to at least 145 so far this year.
(AP, 11/27/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri expressed concerns for stability in the Middle East as he began a visit to Tehran to rally Iran's support for his efforts to keep Lebanon stable amid tensions over a U.N. probe into the assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 28, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad and Turkmen Pres. Berdymukhamedov inaugurated the last section of the Sarakhs-Tehran pipeline to export Turkmen gas to northeast Iran.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, More than 250,000 classified US State Department documents were released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks. Among the leaked memos was information that Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel. Memos said the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments." Documents also detailed concerns by US officials in Baghdad about Iran’s influence on Iraq. Memos also said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. One cable revealed that the US kept nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.35)
2010 Nov 29, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad admitted that "several" uranium enrichment centrifuges were damaged by "software installed in electronic equipment," amid speculation Iran's nuclear activities had come under cyberattack.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Iran assailants on motorcycles attached magnetized bombs to the cars of two nuclear scientists as they were driving to work in Tehran, killing Majid Shahriari and wounding Fereidoun Abbasi. Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel and the West of being behind the attacks.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 30, The EU announced that Iran has agreed to discuss its nuclear program at a meeting next week in Geneva.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Iran for the second time in a month, heavy air pollution in the smog-filled capital of Tehran, home to over 12 million people, has forced authorities to close government offices and schools and declare a two-day public holiday because of the health dangers of being outdoors.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Iran hanged Shahla Jahed (40), a former soccer player's mistress. She was convicted in 2002 of murdering her love rival in a case that captivated the Iranian public for several years.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Iraq bombs killed 17 people across Baghdad, including Iranian pilgrims near a revered shrine and shoppers at a Shiite neighborhood market.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 5, Iran claimed it could now use domestically mined uranium to produce nuclear fuel, giving the country complete control over a process the West suspects is geared toward producing weapons.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Switzerland six world powers held their first meeting in 14 months with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, sounding out Tehran's intentions after it claimed to have taken a new step in making fissile material.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 7, Leaders of six US-allied Gulf Arab nations, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), said they were monitoring with "utmost concern" developments in Iran's disputed nuclear program and issued a thinly veiled warning to their Persian neighbor not to meddle in their internal affairs. The 2-day gathering of leaders from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman followed the publication of leaked US diplomatic memos that revealed deeper concern among Gulf Arab leaders over Tehran's nuclear program than had previously been known.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Switzerland 6 world powers wrapped up two days of "substantive" talks with Iran on its contentious nuclear program, with the two sides agreeing to meet again in Istanbul next month.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Iran Ali Shakouri-rad, one of the prisoners of the post-election events, was jailed for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies." He was released on Jan 24, 2011. He was previously freed on bail on October 28, two weeks after being arrested for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi called "security reasons."
(AFP, 1/24/11)
2010 Dec 10, Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, confessed to helping a man kill her husband and re-enacted the alleged crime in an interview broadcast by Iranian state television, an apparent effort by the government to deflect international criticism over the case.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Iran Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a prominent reformist journalist and head of the Journalists' Association of Iran, said he has been sentenced to 16 months in jail on charges of insulting Pres. Ahmadinejad and undermining the Islamic regime. Shamsolvaezin went on trial in October and has 20 days to appeal. Sajjad Qaderzadeh, the son of a woman whose death sentence by stoning caused world outrage, was released after paying a $40,000 bail.
(AFP, 12/12/10)(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Iran 2 suicide bomb attacks outside a mosque killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 during a Shi'ite religious ceremony in the southeastern city of Chabahar. Jundollah, a Sunni Muslim rebel group, claimed responsibility for the bombings.
(Reuters, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, Human Rights Watch said Iranians convicted for same-sex activities are on death row and awaiting hanging, including several who were minors when arrested.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, At least 27 refugees, thought to be from Iran and Iraq, died after their wooden boat shattered in violent seas off Australia before horrified witnesses, with fears as many as 50 could have perished.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 16, Iranian security forces arrested 9 suspects in connection with the Dec 15 bombings that killed 39 people. The Jerusalem Post reported that Iran has cut its annual budget to Lebanon-based Hezbollah more than 40%.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 18, Iran's president announced the start of a plan to slash energy and food subsidies, part of government efforts to boost the country's ailing economy.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 19, Iran levied up to a five-fold hike in fuel prices as the government started scrapping subsidies as part of a long-awaited economic overhaul, despite initial resistance by conservatives. Thousands of truck drivers nationwide stopped working because they were not allowed to increase their prices.
(AFP, 12/19/10)(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 20, Iran and Qatar pledged to cooperate for greater regional security during a visit to Tehran by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of the tiny but energy-rich Gulf state.
(AFP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran hanged 11 men authorities said were members of Jundallah, an armed Sunni militant group, convicted of bombings.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran's judiciary spokesman confirmed that Mohammad Reza Rahimi, the country's first vice president, was facing corruption charges. Iran has 12 vice presidents but Rahimi is the most senior among them.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In southeastern Iran a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck a remote area late at night, killing at least 11 people and injuring 40 people.
(AP, 12/21/10)(SFC, 12/22/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 22, Iran's armed Sunni militant group said it will kill an abducted Iranian after authorities rejected an offer to swap the hostage for 200 of the group's imprisoned members. The man was identified as a former worker at an Iranian nuclear facility who was kidnapped two months ago.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Afghan officials said Iran has banned fuel exports to Afghanistan, stranding about 3,000 fuel trucks at the border and driving up wholesale prices for the refined products ahead of what many Afghans fear will be a blistery winter in their oil-poor nation.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined regional leaders for a summit on economic cooperation in Istanbul, just a month ahead of nuclear talks with world powers.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 25, In Iran a convicted drug trafficker has been hanged in the northern city of Sari after being convicted of keeping, carrying and selling the narcotic drug crack.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Iran local media reported that a death sentence has been imposed on a man suspected of spying for Israel. A Tehran prosecutor confirmed that economist Fariborz Raisdana has been arrested for trying to subvert the recent subsidies plans in radio interviews.
(AP, 12/26/10)(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 28, Iran hanged Ali Akbar Siadat, an Iranian convicted of spying for Israel. Another Iranian was hanged for membership in an exile opposition movement.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 29, A payments dispute between India and Iran escalated after Tehran refused to sell oil to India under New Delhi's prohibitive new rules. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India said deals with Iran must be settled outside the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) system, used by central banks of member nations to settle bilateral trades.
(Reuters, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Iran media reported the arrest of seven Al-Qaeda militants in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Stephen Kinzer authored “Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future."
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.87)
2010 Iran hanged at least 179 people in 2010.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 1, Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad fired 14 advisers as part of an ongoing shake-up of his administration. 4 kidnappers were put to death in Zahedan prison in the volatile border province of Sistan-Baluchestan. 8 convicted drug smugglers were also executed this week.
(AP, 1/2/11)(Reuters, 1/1/11)
2011 Jan 2, In Iran Sahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian woman, was sentenced to death for drug smuggling. Bahrami reportedly was arrested in Dec 2009 after taking part in anti-government demonstrations. She also faced trial and the possibility of another death sentence, likely within two months, for allegedly belonging to an armed opposition group.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 4, Iran’s government confirmed that it has invited world powers and its allies in the Arab and developing world to tour Iranian nuclear sites before a high-profile meeting late this month on its disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Alireza Pahlavi (44), the former shah of Iran's youngest son, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Boston. He was the second of the four children of the late Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi and former Empress Farah Pahlavi to die in exile. His sister Leila was found dead of a drug overdose in 2001.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iran hanged in public a man who committed a sensational murder captured on video, as well as a drug trafficker who was executed in a prison in the northeast of the country. Iranian media in October reported that Yaqub stabbed Mohammad Reza to death in public and in front of two policemen.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iranian authorities arrested an American woman (55), reportedly with a microphone hidden in her teeth, on suspicion of spying. The woman was identified in Farsi as Hall Talayan (Hal Talaian). State television first denied the report and then reversed itself saying the woman was arrested while filming a town on the Iran-Azerbaijan border. On Jan 9 state broadcaster IRIB said the woman was seeking an Iranian visa and never entered Iranian territory. She was denied entry and returned to Armenia on Jan 8.
(AP, 1/6/11)(Reuters, 1/6/11)(AP, 1/8/11)(Reuters, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 7, In southern Afghanistan a Taliban suicide bomber in Spin Boldak assassinated a police commander named Ramazan and killed 16 others at a public bath. Criminal investigation police chief Farid Ahmad was killed in a drive-by shooting in Kandahar. Hundreds of Afghans demonstrated outside the Iranian Embassy in Kabul to protest Iran's blocking of thousands of fuel trucks at the border with Afghanistan, a step that has sent domestic fuel prices soaring as the country's harsh winter sets in.
(AFP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 8, Iran hanged 4 convicted drug traffickers in a prison in the central city of Isfahan. At least 179 people were executed in 2010.
(AFP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 9, In northwestern Iran a passenger jet broke to pieces on impact while trying an emergency landing in a snowstorm killing at least 77 people in Orumiyeh. The Boeing-727, operated by Iran's national airline, carried 104 passengers and crew.
(AP, 1/10/11)
2011 Jan 10, Iran's intelligence services said they have arrested suspects in the assassination a year ago of nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Mohammadi in a months-long covert operation that also led them to penetrate Israel's Mossad spy agency.
(AP, 1/10/11)
2011 Jan 11, Iran said it has arrested 10 people linked to Mossad in what it calls a "severe blow" to the Israeli spy agency.
(AFP, 1/11/11)
2011 Jan 12, Iran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, denounced the country's ruling system for being 'totalitarian' like the old Nazi and Soviet regimes, with lying to its people being its defining characteristic.
(AP, 1/12/11)
2011 Jan 13, Iran's proposal for a tour of its nuclear sites floundered after China effectively rejected the invite and Russia cautioned such a trip could never replace UN inspections or talks between Tehran and world powers.
(Reuters, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 13, Iran’s state broadcaster website reported that Iran has hanged five men convicted of drug trafficking, taking to 33 the number of executions in 2011.
(AFP, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 13, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb in a marketplace killed a child outside a music cassette shop in Jalalabad. The Afghan fuel ministry said that Iran currently was allowing 1,000 tons of fuel to enter Afghanistan at three border crossings each day, compared with 3,000 to 4,000 tons daily before the trucks were blocked.
(AP, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 15, In Iran several international envoys, but crucially none from the world powers, got a look inside an Iranian nuclear site as part of a tour the Islamic Republic hopes will build support before a new round of talks on its disputed atomic activities. Ambassadors to the UN atomic energy agency from Egypt, Cuba, Syria, Algeria, Venezuela, Oman and the Arab League arrived in Tehran and visited the unfinished heavy water reactor near Arak.
(AP, 1/15/11)
2011 Jan 15, Iran said it has determined that two pilotless spy planes it claims to have shot down were operated by the United States, and offered to put them on public display. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, acting chief of the country's armed forces said "the planes were shot down outside of Iran's airspace."
(AP, 1/15/11)(AP, 1/16/11)
2011 Jan 16, The Int’l. Campaign for Human Rights said Iran has hanged at least 47 prisoners since Jan 1.
(SFC, 1/17/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 17, Iranian officials confirmed that the stoning to death sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (43) has been suspended. She still faced a prison sentence for acting as an accessory to the murder of her husband.
(SFC, 1/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 18, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency said that the ration of gasoline costing just 1,000 rials per liter (about 10 US cents, or $0.38 per US gallon) would be zero from the next Iranian month, which starts on January 21.
(Reuters, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 19, Iran hanged 10 drug smugglers in a prison in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, taking to 45 the number of executions in the Islamic republic since the start of this year according to an AFP count based on media reports.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 21, Two-day talks between Iran and six world powers started in Istanbul. A senior Iranian official said suspending uranium enrichment is not up for discussion.
(AFP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 22, In Turkey talks meant to nudge Iran toward meeting UN Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment collapsed, with Tehran shrugging off calls by six world powers to cease the activity that could be harnessed to make nuclear weapons.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 23, Iran's state TV said the country has launched its first cyber police unit in the latest attempt by authorities to gain an edge in the digital world.
(AP, 1/23/11)
2011 Jan 24, Iran hanged Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Hajaghaei, two members of the opposition People's Mujahedeen convicted over the 2009 post-election turmoil, after an appeals court upheld their death sentences.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 27, Britain's Times newspaper reported that Iran’s state-run news channel Press TV has had its British bank account frozen. The English language channel, which is headquartered in Tehran but also has an office in London, has seen its main trading account at the National Westminster Bank suspended.
(AFP, 1/27/11)
2011 Jan 29, In Iran Zahram Bahrami, an Iranian-Dutch woman detained after participating in protests against Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009, was hanged. She was allegedly hanged for possessing and selling drugs. The Dutch government froze official contacts with Iran to protest the hanging.
(AP, 1/29/11)(SSFC, 1/30/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 30, Iranian courts sentenced two people to death for running porn sites.
(AFP, 1/30/11)
2011 Jan 31, Iran’s prosecutor general said US hiker Sarah Shourd, freed on bail last year, has been summoned for trial in Iran along with her two American friends who remain in custody.
(AFP, 1/31/11)
2011 Feb 1, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced another sharp rebuke from opponents in parliament as lawmakers dismissed his transportation minister in the wake of several deadly plane crashes in the country.
(AP, 2/1/11)
2011 Feb 1, US authorities said an Iranian man has been charged with exporting specialized metals to his homeland for potential use in nuclear and ballistic missile programs, in violation of a US embargo. Milad Jafari (36) was indicted on 11 charges for "illegally exporting and attempting to export specialized metals from the United States through companies in Turkey to several entities in Iran. He remained at large and was believed to be in Iran.
(AFP, 2/2/11)
2011 Feb 4, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for an Islamic regime to be installed in Egypt, saying the wave of Arab revolts is an "earthquake" triggered by the 1979 Iranian revolution.
(AFP, 2/4/11)
2011 Feb 5, In Iran A state-owned news website said Iran's broadcasting authority has banned Iranian TV channels from showing cooking programs that present recipes for foreign cuisine. The deputy head of Iran's state broadcasting company, Ali Darabi, announced the ban during a visit to one of the country's 30 state-run TV channels.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 6, Iran opened its first centre to receive satellite images, a new stage in its space program that coincides with celebrations marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 6, In Iran a pro-government web site said Iran has executed two prison officials convicted of the 2009 torture deaths of three anti-government protesters.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran unveiled four new domestically produced “research" satellites as part of a space program that's worrying other nations. Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran is mass-producing a ballistic missile which can travel at more than three times the speed of sound and hit targets on the high seas.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran and Turkey said they plan to triple two-way annual trade to $30 billion by 2015, ahead of a visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 8, Iran's main opposition leaders charged that the Islamic republic is being run by "anti-religion... hooligans," in a statement on the eve of its 32nd anniversary.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 8, Iran's oil ministry's reported that daily oil output rose by around 100,000 barrels with the opening of the second phase of Darkhovin field in the southeast of the country.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 8, Hussein Abdullahi, Iran's ambassador to Nigeria, said that he had spoken to senior officials of the Nigerian government as soon as an arms shipment was seized last Oct 26 and told them that the intercepted cargo was the third of four Gambia-bound shipments originating from Iran.
(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 9, Iran's state prosecutor said the opposition should not stage its own rally in support of Egyptian protesters, warning of repercussions if it does so.
(AP, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 9, Iran media reported that science minister Kamran Daneshjou has called for universities to enforce strict sex segregation, saying allowing men and women to mingle on campus is a sign of the influence of alien western values.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 9, Hussein Abdullahi, Iran's ambassador to Nigeria, said that a Gambia-bound arms shipment seized at Nigeria's busiest port three months ago did not breach sanctions imposed by the UN, because Iran and Gambia had signed a secret agreement two years before the UN's 2010 ban on Iranian arms exports.
(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 11, In Iran hundreds of thousands turned out to mark the 32nd anniversary of the country’s Islamic Revolution in a rally the clerical establishment billed as a chance to show solidarity with "Islamic" protesters in Egypt.
(Reuters, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 13, Iran's opposition renewed its call for a rally in support of protesters in Tunisia and Egypt despite a government warning of repercussions if demonstrations take place.
(AP, 2/13/11)
2011 Feb 13, Abdullah Gul arrived in Tehran on his first trip as Turkish president aimed at boosting economic and political ties with the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/13/11)
2011 Feb 14, Iran’s security forces cut phone lines and blockaded the home of an Iranian opposition leader in attempts to stop him attending a planned rally in support of Egypt's uprising. Eyewitnesses reported sporadic clashes in central Tehran's Enghelab or Revolution square between security forces and opposition protesters. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who is on a visit to Iran, urged governments in the Middle East to listen to the demands of their people. Student Sanee Zhaleh (26) was shot dead during the opposition rally. Authorities later announced the arrest today of an Iranian man allegedly working for the CIA.
(AP, 2/14/11)(AP, 2/16/11)(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 14, A Swiss court said an Iranian man convicted of heroin trafficking will be expelled and returned to his home country, even though the man claimed that he could be persecuted for being homosexual.
(AFP, 2/14/11)
2011 Feb 15, Hardline Iranian lawmakers called for the country's opposition leaders to face trial and be put to death, a day after clashes between opposition protesters and security forces left one person dead and dozens injured. A 2nd person, Mohammad Mokhtari (22), died today of his wounds.
(AP, 2/15/11)(AP, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 16, Iran's opposition leaders remained defiant despite calls from hard-liners for them to be brought to trial and put to death, with reform advocate Mahdi Karroubi saying he was willing to "pay any price" in pursuit of democratic change. State TV called Mousavi and Karroubi mercenaries carrying out a plot designed by Iran's enemies and urged government supporters to rally on Feb 18. Supporters and opponents of the Iranian government clashed at a funeral for a student, Sanee Zhaleh (26), shot dead during the Feb 14 opposition rally. His allegiance was claimed by both sides.
(AP, 2/16/11)(Reuters, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 17, In Iran opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was reported missing. His daughters said they had no word from either of their parents since Feb 15.
(SFC, 2/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Feb 18, In Iran thousands of government supporters called for the execution of opposition leaders at a prayer service in response to anti-government demonstrations earlier in the week. Authorities, meanwhile, appeared to tighten restrictions on one of the leaders under house arrest.
(AP, 2/18/11)
2011 Feb 19, Iran warned of a crackdown if opposition supporters stage new rallies which they have called to mourn the deaths of two victims of recent unrest and to show support to their leaders.
(AFP, 2/19/11)
2011 Feb 19, An Iranian court threw out a 20-month prison sentence for two German journalists arrested after interviewing the son of a woman condemned to die by stoning. Journalist Marcus Hellwig and photographer Jens Koch were released and departed for home.
(AP, 2/19/11)(AFP, 2/19/11)(AP, 2/5/12)
2011 Feb 20, An Iranian pro-government news agency claimed that armed opposition groups plan to fire on people participating in a rally set for this afternoon. A massive police deployment in Tehran prevented large-scale protests from erupting although Iranian opposition websites reported stray clashes and officials said the capital remained calm.
(AP, 2/20/11)(AFP, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 20, Iran finally withdrew its entire fleet of Soviet era Tupolev aircraft after a series of fatal accidents involving the planes.
(AP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 21, In Iran Ali Karroubi, son of opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi, was taken into custody. His detention was widely viewed as at attempt to gain leverage on his father.
(AP, 2/22/11)
2011 Feb 22, Two Iranian naval ships entered Egypt's Suez Canal heading for Syria, the first time in three decades that Tehran has sent military ships through the strategic waterway.
(AP, 2/22/11)
2011 Feb 23, Senegal said it will cut diplomatic ties with Iran after an investigation that showed that a seized Iranian arms shipment was intended for rebels fighting Senegalese troops. The arms shipment was discovered in Nigeria in October.
(AP, 2/23/11)
2011 Feb 26, Iran confirmed it was having to remove nuclear fuel from the reactor of its only nuclear power station, signaling more problems for the Russian-built Bushehr plant after decades of delay.
(Reuters, 2/26/11)
2011 Feb 28, Iran's state prosecutor says all outside contact with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, the country's two opposition leaders, has been cut as part of a campaign to silence dissent.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Feb, Iranian authorities arrested Omid Kokabee (29) at the Tehran airport. He was studying optics in the physics department at the University of Texas. He was charged with having "relations with a hostile country" and receiving "illegitimate funds."
(AP, 10/4/11)
2011 Mar 1, Iran's security forces fired teargas and clashed with opposition supporters in Tehran, where demonstrators rallied to demand the release of two opposition leaders. The opposition said at least 79 people were arrested at the protest rallies, which the government denied had taken place at all. Iranian diplomat Ahmed Maleki, who defected last month, said that Iran's leaders would rather "slaughter" their own people than surrender power to any popular revolt inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.
(Reuters, 3/1/11)
2011 Mar 8, Iran’s former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lost his position as the head of a powerful clerical body charged with choosing or dismissing Iran's supreme leader.
(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 9, Iranian security forces killed three people in the western province of Kurdistan who were behind an attack on a group of environmental workers. IRNA said the three had killed four environmental workers near the city of Sanandaj on March 4.
(Reuters, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 14, An Iranian state-owned newspaper reported that Iranian hackers working for the powerful Revolutionary Guard's paramilitary Basij group have launched attacks on websites of the "enemies," in a rare acknowledgment from Iran that it's involved in cyber warfare.
(AP, 3/14/11)
2011 Mar 15, The Israeli navy intercepted an Egyptian-bound ship carrying a large delivery of weapons off the Mediterranean coast, saying the arms had been sent by Syria to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. PM Netanyahu said the source of the weaponry was Iran.
(AP, 3/15/11)
2011 Mar 16, An Iranian cargo plane en route to Syria was forced to land in Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakir airport for an inspection. The plane was found to be carrying 150 tons of food but "no material contrary to international standards.
(AFP, 3/16/11)(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 17, Iran sent the country's first space capsule that is able to sustain life into orbit as a test for a future mission that may carry a live animal.
(AP, 3/17/11)
2011 Mar 17, Bahrain's Sunni monarchy detained at least seven prominent opposition activists. Iran recalled its ambassador to protest the Gulf troops backing the government against the Shiite protests.
(AP, 3/17/11)
2011 Mar 18, Malaysian police said that they had found equipment they suspect could be used to make nuclear weapons smuggled on board a ship headed to Iran. On March 8 police confiscated two containers from the MV Bunga Raya Satu traveling from China to Tehran.
(AP, 3/18/11)
2011 Mar 19, An Iranian plane bound for Syria landed in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir for a search of its cargo. The plane carried light weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket launchers and mortars, which were seized. The plane returned to Iran March 22 without the seized cargo.
(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 21, Iranians celebrated Nowruz, the Persian new year.
(AFP, 3/21/11)
2011 Mar 21, Bahrain's king blamed a foreign plot for his nation's weeks-long unrest, using veiled language to accuse Iran of fomenting an uprising by the Shiite majority in the Sunni-ruled island kingdom.
(AP, 3/21/11)
2011 Mar 24, The UN human rights council voted to appoint an investigator to monitor Iran amid a crackdown on dissent and surge in executions in the country.
(AFP, 3/24/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Iran two members of the security forces were killed in two armed attacks in Sanandaj, capital of Iran's Kurdistan province bordering Iraq. Two of the rebels who were involved in the attacks were reported killed on April 4.
(AFP, 4/4/11)
2011 Mar 26, Afghan President Hamid Karzai left on a visit to Tehran, where he will meet his Iranian counterpart following a row over fuel imports and attend a ceremony to mark the Persian new year. 3 militants and 4 civilians died when two cars they were traveling in were hit by NATO fire in Helmand province. 3 lower ranking Taliban fighters were killed in one vehicle and 4 civilians were killed in a second vehicle. Taliban militants kidnapped some 40 policemen after being tipped off that they would be traveling in Kunar province.
(AFP, 3/26/11)(AP, 3/27/11)(SFC, 3/28/11, p.A2)(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 29, The Obama administration slapped sanctions on a state-owned energy company in Belarus over a $500 million investment with an Iranian firm accused of contributing to Iran's suspect nuclear program.
(AP, 3/29/11)
2011 Mar 29, A Kuwaiti court condemned to death 3 members of a suspected spy ring. The two Iranians and a Kuwaiti national were all serving in Kuwait's army when they arrested in May 2010. Three Iranian diplomats involved in the spy cell could not b prosecuted because of their diplomatic immunity.
(AFP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, Hong Kong said it had passed laws to comply with UN sanctions against Iran, two months after 20 shipping firms in the city were accused of having links to Tehran's weapons buildup.
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 31, Iranian security forces arrested at least seven people at the funeral of the father of reformist opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
(AFP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 31, Kuwait's Cabinet resigned over regional turmoil. The resignation appeared to be an attempt by three Cabinet ministers, members of the ruling Al Sabah family, to avoid being questioned over why Kuwait did not contribute troops to the Saudi-led Gulf force that was sent to Bahrain. Kuwait announced it is to expel a number of Iranian diplomats for alleged spying.
(AP, 3/31/11)(AFP, 3/31/11)
2011 Apr 3, An Iranian news agency said four officers were killed in an attack on a police station near the Kurdish town of Marivan close to the Iraqi border.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 3, Dutch marines killed 2 pirates and captured 16 others during an operation to free a hijacked Iranian fishing boat of Somalia.
(www.dailybulletin.com/ci_17767176)
2011 Apr 4, Egypt's foreign minister said Cairo is ready to re-establish diplomatic ties with Tehran after a break of more than 30 years signaling a shift in Iran policy since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
(Reuters, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 4, Iraq handed over the remains of 17 Iranian soldiers killed in the grinding war between the two countries throughout the 1980s. The two governments signed an agreement in October 2008 to find tens of thousands of fighters still missing after the war.
(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 8, Iran's semiofficial Mehr News Agency said three explosions have hit gas pipelines near the Qom, in the same area where simultaneous blasts took place two months ago.
(AP, 4/8/11)
2011 Apr 8, Iraqi forces stormed an Iranian exile camp that Iraq's Shiite-dominated government has tried to close for years. Both sides reported casualties in the raid. A hospital official in Baqouba said 10 people were killed and 16 wounded in the clashes. A UN spokesman later said the Iraqi army raid on Camp Ashraf left 34 Iranian exiles dead.
(AP, 4/8/11)(AP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 11, Iran’s Central Bank Gov. Mahmoud Bahmani said Iran plans to slash 4 zeros from its national currency in "one to two years", seeking parity between its rial and the US dollar.
(AFP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 11, The European Union agreed to impose sanctions on 32 Iranian officials for human rights abuses.
(AP, 4/12/11)
2011 Apr 11, Iraq’s government voted to shut down a camp of Iranian dissidents and move them out of the country by year’s end, but not back to Iran.
(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 13, Iran’s first vice-president was quoted as saying in the governmental newspaper that Iran has stopped refueling "western passenger planes" since Europe-bound Iranian commercial planes were refused fuelling there.
(AFP, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 16, A senior Iranian military official said experts have determined the United States and Israel were behind a mysterious computer worm known as Stuxnet that has harmed Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 17, Iran’s Kayhan daily reported that an Iranian military commander has accused German engineering company Siemens of helping the United States and Israel launch the Stuxnet virus, a cyber attack on its nuclear facilities.
(Reuters, 4/17/11)
2011 Apr 18, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed two soldiers in the Defense Ministry in Kabul in the third attack on security installations in four days. The attacker was shot dead before he set off his explosives. Afghan and Iranian officials said armed assailants have kidnapped 12 Iranians and 2 Afghans building a road in western Farah province. 3 of the men were released April 19 and the rest on April 20 with the help of local tribal elders.
(Reuters, 4/18/11)(AP, 4/19/11)(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 19, Iran’s intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi resigned following reported internal disputes with Pres. Ahmadinejad and the president publicly accepted it. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quickly ordered that Moslehi remain on the job.
(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 20, In Iran more than 200 lawmakers warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he must obey an order from the country's supreme leader reinstating Heidar Moslehi, the powerful intelligence minister who resigned on April 19.
(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 21, Iranian security forces killed four members of "extreme religious groups" who were behind deadly attacks in the western province of Kurdistan. The four belonged to a Wahhabi group. Wahhabism is the austere form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters, 4/22/11)
2011 Apr 21, The US Justice Department indicted 3 US citizens and their two companies for illegally exporting millions of dollars worth of computers to Iran via Dubai.
(Reuters, 4/22/11)
2011 Apr 24, Iran and Iraq signed agreements to return each others' detainees, which could lead to the forced repatriation of an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq.
(AP, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 25, A senior Iranian military official said Iran has been hit by a second computer virus, the Stars virus, suggesting it was part of a concerted campaign to undermine the country's disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/11)
2011 May 1, Bahrain's chamber of commerce called on Gulf Arab nationals to boycott Iranian goods and halt financial transactions with Tehran, accusing it of interfering in the country's affairs.
(Reuters, 5/1/11)
2011 May 8, Iran's Bushehr nuclear power station began operating at a low level in a crucial step toward bringing it online.
(Reuters, 5/10/11)
2011 May 10, Iran said it has accepted the European Union's proposal for more talks about the country's controversial nuclear program.
(AP, 5/10/11)
2011 May 11, The Syrian army shelled residential areas in Homs, the country's third-largest city, sending people fleeing for cover in a sharp escalation in the government's attempts to crush a popular revolt against President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule. An official, who was not identified, said two soldiers were killed and five wounded during confrontations. Al-Jazeera said that Dorothy Parvaz, one of the network's journalists with extensive connections in the US and Canada, has been sent to Iran following her detention last month in Damascus.
(AP, 5/11/11)
2011 May 13, A report was submitted to the Security Council by a UN Panel of Experts, a group that monitors compliance with UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after it conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. It said North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions. The report said the illicit technology transfers had "trans-shipment through a neighboring 3rd country," said to be China.
(Reuters, 5/14/11)
2011 May 15, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he has temporarily assumed the duties of the oil ministry. A day earlier Ahmadinejad dismissed oil minister Masoud Mirkazemi, alongside two other ministers without parliamentary approval.
(AFP, 5/16/11)(AP, 5/16/11)
2011 May 18, Missing journalist Dorothy Parvaz, who was held by Iranian authorities after being detained in Syria, arrived in her company's home base of Qatar after winning her freedom.
(AP, 5/18/11)
2011 May 19, A US federal judge awarded $300 million in punitive damages in each of two suicide bombings blamed on Iran and Iranian-backed Islamic groups. One ruling came on behalf of the family of Alan Beer, a US citizen who was killed in Jerusalem in 2003 in the bombing of a bus by the Iran-backed organization Hamas. The other was made to American citizen Seth Haim, his father and his brother. They were injured in the 1995 bombing of a bus in the Gaza Strip by the Iranian-supported Shaqaqi Faction of the Palestine Islamic Jihad.
(AP, 5/19/11)
2011 May 20, Iranian news reported that the state constitutional watchdog body has ruled that the president cannot serve as the country's caretaker oil minister.
(AP, 5/20/11)
2011 May 21, Iran's Intelligence Ministry claimed that it has arrested at least 30 people allegedly linked to a CIA-run spy network in accusations that also could spill over into the country's deepening political power struggles.
(AP, 5/21/11)
2011 May 21, Iranian dissident Mohammad Rasoulof won the Cannes prize for best director in the Un Certain Regard section but could not attend because of "Kafkaesque" authorities at home.
(AFP, 5/21/11)
2011 May 22, Iran's Arabic-language state television said a new surface-to-surface missiles, Qiyam (Resurrection) 1, were successfully tested and delivered to the armed forces today.
(Reuters, 5/22/11)
2011 May 23, In Iran Nasser Hejazi (61), national soccer hero and symbol of resistance to the regime, died.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.96)
2011 May 23, EU foreign ministers decided to impose asset freezes and travel bans on more Iranian officials and companies with links to the nuclear program. It was not yet clear how many officials and companies were involved.
(AP, 5/23/11)
2011 May 23, Iraq's Electricity Ministry spokesman said a five-year plan with Iran will let Iraq buy 25 million cubic meters of natural gas each day to feed two power plants in northeastern suburbs of Baghdad, one built by Iran and the other by South Korea's Hyundai conglomerate.
(AP, 5/23/11)
2011 May 24, An accidental blast at Iran's Abadan's oil refinery killed one person and wounded 25 during a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was not affected.
(AFP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, The Obama administration hit seven foreign companies, including Venezuela' state-owned oil company and an Israeli shipping firm, for engaging in trade with Iran in violation of a US ban. At the same time, the administration imposed separate sanctions on more than 15 people and companies in China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and elsewhere for illicit trading in missile technology and weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 25, It was reported that Iran’s popular Lake Oroumieh, home to migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls, has shrunken by 60 percent and could disappear entirely in just a few years, drained by drought, misguided irrigation policies, development and the damming of rivers that feed it.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 26, Iran hanged 11 prisoners, including a convicted serial killer. The others had been found guilty of rape and armed robbery. The hangings brought the number of executions to 143 since the beginning of the year. Another man was hanged May 23 for drug smuggling in the city prison of Behbahan in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AFP, 5/26/11)
2011 Jun 1, Iran's parliament voted to take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to court over his takeover of the country's lucrative oil ministry, escalating the power struggle between the president and the hard-line establishment that has turned against him.
(AP, 6/1/11)
2011 Jun 1, Iran’s government media said Haleh Sahabi (54), the daughter of a prominent Iranian dissident, died of a heart attack while attending her father's funeral today, but opposition websites said she died in a scuffle with security forces. The elder Sahabi (81) died a day earlier after being hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage.
(AP, 6/1/11)
2011 Jun 8, The government of Iran announced it planned to continue nuclear enrichment, despite opposition from other nations that worried Iran was planning to build an atomic bomb.
(Reuters, 6/8/11)
2011 Jun 15, Iran launched a satellite into earth orbit, in a feat that is likely to raise concerns among those who fear Iran's intentions and nuclear development program.
(AP, 6/15/11)
2011 Jun 18, Iran's hardline press watchdog allowed the reformist Etemad newspaper to return to the newsstands after a 15-month ban on the leading daily. A convicted rapist was hanged in the southern city of Shahrekord.
(AFP, 6/18/11)
2011 Jun 20, Iran hanged in public three men convicted of rape and armed robbery in the eastern city of Zabol.
(AFP, 6/20/11)
2011 Jun 21, Iran’s Arman daily reported that human rights campaigner Emadeddin Baghi has been freed after serving a year-long jail term on charges of spreading "propaganda against the regime."
(AFP, 6/21/11)
2011 Jun 22, Iran’s state-run Press TV announced that 30 people were arrested in May on suspicion of spying for the US.
(SFC, 6/23/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 23, The US blacklisted a major Iranian port operator and the country's national airline, Iran Air, to increase pressure on Tehran to curtail its alleged nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 6/23/11)
2011 Jun 24, In Iran Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai held a three-way summit with Iran ahead of attending an anti-terrorism conference.
(AFP, 6/24/11)
2011 Jun 25, In Iran Pakistani Pres. Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai attended an international anti-terrorism conference alongside Sudan's Pres. Omar al-Bashir, Iraqi Pres. Jalal Talabani and Tajik Pres. Emomali Rahmon. The presidents of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agreed to join forces in combating militancy.
(AP, 6/25/11)(AFP, 6/25/11)
2011 Jun 26, The Israeli cabinet approved broad economic sanctions against Iran, bringing the Jewish state into line with measures taken by other governments.
(AFP, 6/26/11)
2011 Jun 29, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned the authorities against making arrests of members in his government whom he vowed to defend.
(AFP, 6/29/11)
2011 Jul 2, Iran said it will completely seal off its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan by 2015 to prevent drug smuggling and infiltration of armed groups.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 4, Iranian lawmaker Esmail Kosari told newspapers that 26 Americans, it believes violated human rights, would be tried in absentia and their files passed on to international tribunals. The list included former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, and military commanders at US detention centers Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. State news reported that Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent human rights lawyer, was sentenced to 9 years in prison for seeking to overthrow the ruling system.
(Reuters, 7/4/11)(SFC, 7/5/11, p.A2)
2011 Jul 13, Iran hanged a man convicted of raping and murdering a five-year old girl in a village near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
(AFP, 7/17/11)
2011 Jul 16, Iran and China signed a series of agreements worth $4 billion (2.8 billion euros) for infrastructure projects as part of a broader bid to boost trade volume between the two nations. The agreements were signed during a visit by He Guoqiang, a senior executive of the Chinese Communist Party.
(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 17, Several Iranian Kurdish rebels based in Iraq were wounded in hours of clashes with Tehran's forces along the two countries' border.
(AFP, 7/17/11)
2011 Jul 18, Iran’s state news said Revolutionary Guard forces have taken control of three bases of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in neighboring Iraq and that "a large number" of members of the Iranian Kurdish opposition group PEJAK have been killed in fierce ongoing clashes over the past two days. PEJAK claimed to have killed 53 Iranian soldiers and wounded 43 while only two PEJAK members were killed and seven wounded in clashes.
(AP, 7/18/11)
2011 Jul 19, Iran issued a new warning that it will halt supplies of crude to India unless the issue of billions of dollars in overdue payments is resolved. New Delhi has been struggling for more than six months to pay Tehran due to international banking sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 7/19/11)
2011 Jul 20, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it has shot down an unmanned US spy plane that was trying to gather information on the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 23, In Iran gunmen firing from motorcycles killed Dariush Rezaeinejad (35), said to be an electronics masters’ student at Khajeh Nasir University in Tehran. Initial reports said a pair of gunmen firing from motorcycles killed Darioush Rezaei (35), a physics professor whose area of expertise was neutron transport. It was later reported that he participated in developing high-voltage switches, a key component that is crucial to setting off the explosions needed to trigger a nuclear warhead.
(AP, 7/23/11)(AFP, 7/24/11)(AP, 7/28/11)
2011 Jul 25, Iranian forces shelled suspected rebel outposts in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, killing two Iraqi civilians.
(AP, 7/25/11)
2011 Jul 28, In Iraq a suicide bomber and a car bomb struck an Iraqi bank in Tikrit where policemen were picking up their paychecks, killing 12 and wounding 34 people. An Iraqi Kurd boy (10) was killed in shelling by Tehran's forces of Iranian Kurdish separatist bases in Battas, northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/28/11)(AP, 7/29/11)
2011 Jul 28, The Obama administration accused Iran of entering into a secret deal with an Al-Qaida offshoot that provides money and recruits for attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(SFC, 7/29/11, p.A7)
2011 Jul 29, In Iran a blast hit a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran to Turkey, forcing a cut in supply.
(AFP, 7/29/11)
2011 Aug 3, Venezuela and Iran signed a deal for Iran build over 10,000 homes in three central states of the South American nation in a billion-dollar investment package that signals the two country's increasingly close ties.
(AFP, 8/4/11)
2011 Aug 17, Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, speaking in Russia, said Iran is ready to resume negotiations on its nuclear program and a Russian proposal will aid the process.
(AP, 8/17/11)
2011 Aug 20, Iran's state TV reported that Americans Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, already held for two years in Tehran, have been sentenced to 8 years in jail each on charges of espionage and illegal entry. They had 20 days to appeal the sentence.
(AP, 8/20/11)
2011 Aug 24, The EU announced that it was leveling sanctions against Iran’s Al Quds military force, saying it had given technical and material aid to Pres. Assad of Syria in his efforts to quell a 5-month old uprising against his rule.
(SFC, 8/25/11, p.A2)
2011 Aug 27, Iran warned that a power vacuum in Damascus could spark an unprecedented regional crisis, as thousands of protesters insisted they will defy tanks and bullets until President Bashar Assad is toppled.
(AP, 8/27/11)
2011 Aug 27, Iran inaugurated a plant for producing carbon fiber, which it is banned from importing by international sanctions targeting dual-use materials.
(AFP, 8/27/11)
2011 Aug 27, In Iran residents of Orumiyeh residents demonstrated against parliament’s refused in mid-August to fast-track a rescue plan to save Lake Orumiyeh, Iran’s largest lake. The drying lake, situated between East and West Azarbaijan provinces in the northwest, has lost more than half of its surface over the last two decades due to drought and the damming of rivers feeding it. The protest was repressed by force.
(AFP, 9/3/11)
2011 Sep 3, A young Kurdish shepherd was killed by an Iranian sniper on the Iraq-Iran border. Iran also shelled the border area, appearing to target bases of the Iranian Kurdish rebel group PEJAK, which has been involved in sporadic cross-border clashes with Iranian forces in recent years.
(AP, 9/3/11)
2011 Sep 4, Iranian state radio said the country's first nuclear power plant has been connected to the national power grid for a test run. The power plant in the southern port of Bushehr, with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, was built with Russian help.
(AP, 9/4/11)
2011 Sep 4, Iran executed three men for homosexuality. They were hanged in the south-western city of Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province.
(Econ, 2/4/12, p.63)(http://tinyurl.com/3jkjmyn)
2011 Sep 5, Iran said its Revolutionary Guard soldiers have killed at least 30 members of Kurdish opposition group in fighting outside the border city of Sardasht in an operation that began on Sep 2. Inside Iraq a PEJAK spokesman declared an immediate, unilateral cease-fire, which Iran rejected.
(AP, 9/5/11)
2011 Sep 7, In Syria a barrage of gunfire by security forces in Homs killed at least 29 people, wounded several others and left residents cowering in their homes. State-run news agency SANA said a "terrorist group" kidnapped two Baath party officials in Rastan. The embattled regime faced surprising calls to end the violence from its closest ally, Iran.
(AP, 9/7/11)(AP, 9/8/11)(AFP, 9/8/11)
2011 Sep 10, Iran hanged 2 convicted drug traffickers in a prison in the northern city of Sari. The latest hangings bring to 186 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year.
(AFP, 9/10/11)
2011 Sep 11, Iran media reported that several Iranian banks have been targeted in one of the biggest frauds in the Islamic republic's history, losing nearly $2.6 billion in more than two years. Iran hanged a convicted drug trafficker in prison in the northwestern city of Meshkinshahr, bringing to 187 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year.
(AFP, 9/11/11)
2011 Sep 12, Iran media said state regulators have blocked the assets a mega-tycoon Amir-Mansour Aria, accused of masterminding a $2.6 billion bank fraud. Last week Bank Saderat, revealed it uncovered the alleged fraud in early August and informed security and judicial authorities. The newspaper Kayhan, which often reflects the views of Iran's ruling clerics, said Aria had links with Ahmadinejad's top ally, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Iran hanged five convicted drug traffickers jailed in the central city of Shahroud.
(AP, 9/12/11)(AFP, 9/12/11)
2011 Sep 13, An Iranian court set bail of $500,000 each for two American men, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, arrested more than two years ago and convicted on spy-related charges, clearing the way for their release a year after a similar bail-for-freedom arrangement for the third member of the group. Iran hanged five people, three of them for drug trafficking and two in public for murder.
(AP, 9/13/11)(AFP, 9/13/11)
2011 Sep 18, Iran hanged Elias Babai Chegini (39), a convicted drug trafficker, at a prison in the northwestern city of Qazvin. His hanging raised to 200 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year.
(AFP, 9/18/11)
2011 Sep 19, Iranian state television reported that authorities have arrested five people for working for the BBC's Farsi-language service.
(AP, 9/19/11)
2011 Sep 20, Iran publicly hanged a convicted murderer at a square in the capital Tehran. Sajad Karimi had confessed to shooting a doctor, who had been his mother's surgeon, following her death.
(AFP, 9/20/11)
2011 Sep 21, Iran publicly hanged Alireza Molla-Soltani (17) convicted of killing Ruhollah Dadashi, an athlete billed as "Iran's strongest man." He was sent to the gallows at the scene of the crime in the city of Karaj. A spokesman for the prosecution said the boy had reached "religious maturity" and was over 18 years of age by the Islamic lunar calendar.
(AFP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 21, Americans Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, jailed in Iran as spies, were released from Tehran's Evin prison after more than two years in custody. A $1 million bail, $500,000 for each one, was posted by Oman.
(AP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 28, Iran announced the mass production of a new cruise missile, designed to destroy warships and coastal targets. The Qader had a range of 125 miles.
(SFC, 9/29/11, p.A2)
2011 Sep 30, Iran’s Fars news agency said pastor Yusef Nadarkhani, arrested for apostasy in 2009, will not face the death penalty but is a traitorous "Zionist" who has committed "security crimes."
(AFP, 10/2/11)
2011 Oct 8, Iran sentenced actress Marzieh Vafamehr to a year in jail and 90 lashes for her role in a film about the limits imposed on artists in the Islamic republic. Vafamehr was arrested in July after appearing in "My Tehran for Sale," which came under harsh criticism in conservative circles. She was released on bail later in July. Her sentence was overturned later this month on appeal.
(AFP, 10/9/11)(AP, 10/29/11)
2011 Oct 8, Iran hanged a man (67) convicted of multiple rapes of 37 women whom he coerced by filming acts with them. He was executed in a prison in Isfahan after four years of repeated appeals against his sentence.
(AFP, 10/8/11)
2011 Oct 9, In Iran Peiman Aref, a student activist supporting the opposition, received 74 lashes before leaving the prison where he had served a yearlong term for insulting the president.
(AP, 10/11/11)
2011 Oct 12, Iranian lawmaker Ali Motahari said he is resigning to protest the parliament's failure to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over a long list of accusations, including corruption.
(AP, 10/12/11)
2011 Oct 19, Iran’s governmental newspaper reported that the government has sentenced reformist journalist Abdolreza Tajik to six year in prison after he was convicted of propaganda against the regime.
(AFP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 20, Iran reported that 13 divers, part of a team installing an underwater oil pipeline, were inside a pressurized diving chamber when their Koosha-1 ship sank in the Persian Gulf in stormy seas. The 7 Indians, 5 Iranians and one Ukrainian had about 72 hours of oxygen. 8 of the 13 divers were reported dead on Oct 23.
(AP, 10/22/11)(AP, 10/23/11)
2011 Oct 21, Turkish jets kept up bombing raids on Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq overnight, as the rebels confirmed that some Turkish troops crossed into Iraq. Turkey and Iran vowed to collaborate against the PKK and its Iranian wing, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PJAK, during a visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.
(AFP, 10/21/11)(AP, 10/22/11)
2011 Oct 24, In Iran a man convicted of drug trafficking was hanged in Ardebil. Another convicted of killing a police officer was hanged in Jam. The hanging brought to 233 the number of executions in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP tally.
(AFP, 10/24/11)
2011 Oct 26, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview to BBC Farsi said that in the next two months, the United States would open a "virtual embassy": an online site that would respond to questions about US visa and study options, and that would address the Iranian population directly.
(AFP, 10/27/11)
2011 Oct 28, In southern Iran an explosion at a state-run oil field killed a worker and injured three others. A refinery in central Iran was hit by a fire.
(AFP, 10/28/11)
2011 Oct 29, Iranian media reported a blast at a southwest oil field, the third such explosion in the country in 24 hours attributed to accidents.
(AFP, 10/29/11)
2011 Nov 3, Top UN envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, offered to broker the peaceful closing of out of Camp Ashraf, a camp of Iranian exiles, before the government in Baghdad forces its residents out at the end of the year.
(AP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 6, Israeli President Shimon Peres warned that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely, days before a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear program is due.
(AFP, 11/6/11)
2011 Nov 8, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said only crippling sanctions against Iran's central bank and its oil and gas industries will force Tehran to halt its nuclear drive. The UN atomic agency said for the first time that Iran is suspected of conducting secret experiments whose sole purpose is the development of nuclear arms.
(AFP, 11/8/11)(AP, 11/8/11)
2011 Nov 9, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran won't retreat "one iota" from its nuclear program, denying claims that it seeks atomic weapons. Key ally Russia gave the Islamic Republic a major boost, rejecting tighter sanctions despite a UN watchdog report detailing suspected arms-related advances.
(AP, 11/9/11)
2011 Nov 11, Ahmad Rezaei, the son of prominent Iranian conservative Mohsen Rezaei, died in Dubai's Gloria Hotel in an apparent suicide. Prior to his return to Iran in 2005, Ahmad Rezaei had lived in the United States and openly criticized Tehran's rulers. His father had run against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.
(AP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 11, The UN atomic agency (IAEA) shared satellite images, letters and diagrams with 35 nations as it sought to underpin its case that Iran apparently worked secretly on developing a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 11/11/11)
2011 Nov 12, In Iran an accidental explosion at a Revolutionary Guard ammunition depot west of Tehran killed at least 36 soldiers. Brig. Gen. Hassan Moqaddam, a top commander of Iran’s ballistic missile program, was among those killed.
(AP, 11/12/11)(SSFC, 11/13/11, p.A6)(SFC, 11/14/11, p.A2)(AP, 11/17/11)
2011 Nov 16, Iran’s Cabinet approved a new regulation allowing tea houses to again offer water pipes to customers. The ban remains in place for other institutions, along with the general 2005 ban on smoking in restaurants, parks and other public places.
(AP, 11/17/11)
2011 Nov 18, In Austria the US and its Western allies bluntly accused Iran of deceiving the world and declared it could no longer dismiss evidence it is working secretly on making nuclear arms.
(AP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 20, Iranian media reported that authorities have imposed a two-month ban on a reformist newspaper, Etemad, for printing what the country's press watchdog said was "lies and insults" to officials.
(AFP, 11/20/11)
2011 Nov 21, The US approved extra curbs on Iran’s banking system and oil industry in an ongoing effort to thwart the country’s nuclear program.
(SFC, 12/1/11, p.A3)
2011 Nov 23, Rafiq Tagi, a prominent Azeri journalist, died in Baku four days after he was stabbed six times by an unknown assailant. Tagi claimed the attack was retaliation for his opinion piece published earlier this month that criticized the government of neighboring Iran.
(AP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 24, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Iran has arrested 12 agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency. Parviz Sorouri, a member of the powerful parliamentary committee on foreign policy and national security, said the alleged agents were operating in coordination with Israel's Mossad and other regional agencies, targeting the country's military and its nuclear program.
(AP, 11/24/11)
2011 Nov 27, Iran's parliament voted on expel the British ambassador in retaliation for fresh Western sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program and warned that other countries could also be punished. The bill now has to go to the Guardians Council for approval.
(AFP, 11/27/11)
2011 Nov 28, Iran enacted legislation to downgrade relations with Britain in retaliation for intensified sanctions imposed last week by Western nations for their suspected nuclear development program.
(SFC, 11/29/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 29, Hard-line Iranian students stormed British diplomatic sites in Tehran, bringing down the Union Jack flag, burning an embassy vehicle and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the seizing of the US compound in 1979.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 29, Iran hanged three convicted rapists and six drug traffickers, one of them a woman, in different cities.
(AFP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 30, Britain's foreign secretary ordered all Iranian diplomats out of the UK within 48 hours following attacks on the British embassy and a residential compound in Tehran. The ransacked embassy in Tehran was shuttered.
(AP, 11/30/11)(SFC, 12/1/11, p.A3)
2011 Nov 30, Norway said it has temporarily closed its embassy in Tehran due to security concerns after the British mission in the Iranian capital was attacked by an angry mob.
(AFP, 11/30/11)
2011 Dec 3, The London-based Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization (IKWRO) reported that more than 2,800 so-called honor attacks, punishments for bringing shame on the family, were recorded by Britain's police in 2010.
(AFP, 12/3/11)
2011 Dec 4, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that Iranian armed forces have brought down an unmanned US spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along the country's eastern border. Iran said it used advanced electronic warfare measures to detect, hack and bring down an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel drone. It suffered minor damage and was now in possession of Iran's armed forces." Footage of the drone was aired on Dec 8.
(AP, 12/4/11)(SSFC, 12/11/11, p.A8)
2011 Dec 7, Iran blocked an Internet website, http://iran.usembassy.gov/, the United States was touting as a "virtual embassy," and which senior MPs slammed as an attempt to deceive the Iranian people and divide them from the government.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Dec 11, In Iran a blast caused by leftover ammunition killed at least seven workers including foreign nationals at a steel mill in the central city of Yazd.
(AP, 12/12/11)
2011 Dec 12, The head of Iran's parliamentary national security committee said Iran will reverse-engineer the US drone it has in its possession, and is in the "final stages" of unlocking the aircraft's software secrets.
(AFP, 12/12/11)
2011 Dec 16, South Korea joined a fresh multinational effort to press Iran to scrap its suspected nuclear weapons program, adding more than 100 names to a financial blacklist of Iranian firms and individuals.
(AFP, 12/16/11)
2011 Dec 18, Iranian state media reported that Russia’s Tatneft has signed a preliminary accord valued at $1 billion with the Persian Gulf country to develop the Zagheh oil field located in southwestern Iran. The next day Tatneft said no accord has been signed.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/7j78scn)
2011 Dec 19, The UN General Assembly approved a resolution denouncing human rights violations in Iran in an 89-30 vote. There were 64 abstentions.
(SFC, 12/19/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 20, Five Iranian engineers working on an electricity power plant in Jandar, close to the city of Homs, Syria, were abducted. Two others working for Iran Power Plant Projects Management Company (Mapna) were taken when they went to investigate their colleagues' disappearance. On Jan 2 an unknown group calling itself the "Movement Against the Expansion of Shiism in Syria" claimed responsibility for their abduction.
(AFP, 1/4/12)
2011 Dec 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a visit to Armenia that saw the Islamic republic and its small Christian neighbor sign a series of agreements to boost ties.
(AFP, 12/23/11)
2011 Dec 27, Iran warned that it would block the Strait of Hormuz if Western powers attempt to impose an embargo on Iranian petroleum exports in their effort to isolate the country over its suspect nuclear energy program.
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 31, Iran said it has proposed a new round of talks on its nuclear program with six world powers that have been trying for years to persuade Tehran to freeze aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec, Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi was taken into in US custody over allegations he bought advanced technological equipment in violation of US sanctions on Iran. In April, 2013, the US released Atarodi, a microchip expert at Tehran's Sharif University.
(AP, 4/26/13)
2011 Maziar Bahari authored “Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival." In 2009 Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian BBC journalist, was imprisoned and tortured in Iran for 118 days for his reports on protests following the re-election of Pres. Ahmadinejad.
(SSFC, 11/23/14, Par p.9)
2011 In Iran the comedy TV show "Payetakht" began airing on state TV. It followed a family in the north who get into all kinds of trouble.
(Econ., 5/30/20, p.40)
2012 Jan 1, Iran’s nuclear agency said its scientists have tested the first nuclear fuel rod produced from uranium ore deposits inside the country.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2012 Jan 1, In Pakistan three Iranian border guards crossed the frontier in southwestern Baluchistan province and allegedly shot at a car, killing a Pakistani national. The border guards were arrested by Pakistan paramilitary Frontier Corps.
(AFP, 1/3/12)
2012 Jan 2, Iran test-fired a surface-to-surface cruise missile called Ghader during a drill that the country's navy chief said proved Tehran was in complete control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-sixth of the world's oil supply.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Three Iranian border guards were arrested in southwestern Baluchistan province along after they allegedly crossed the frontier and shot at a car, killing a Pakistani national. On Jan 14 Pakistan deported the 3 guards after they were pardoned in court by the family of the man killed in the attack.
(AFP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 5, A US Navy destroyer rescued 13 Iranian fishermen, more than 40 days after their boat was commandeered by suspected Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea. The event was made public a day later and Iran's government on Jan 7 welcomed the rescue, calling it a positive humanitarian gesture. Iran's hard-line Fars news agency called the rescue operation a Hollywood dramatization of a routine event.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 8, A leading Iranian hardline newspaper reported Iran has begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom, well protected from possible airstrikes. Another newspaper quoted a senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard force as saying Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country's petroleum exports are blocked.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 9, Iran’s state radio reported that an Iranian court has convicted Amir Mirzaei Hekmati (28), an American man, of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death. The case added to the accelerating tension between the United States and Iran. In March the Supreme Court tossed out his death penalty and said a new trial would held. In 2014 the death sentence was overturned and reduced to 10 years in jail. In 2016 Hekmati was released as part of a US-Iran prisoner swap. In 2021 it was reported US compensation for his imprisonment was being held back due to FBI suspicions that Hekmati had traveled to Iran to sell classified secrets.
(AP, 1/9/12)(SFC, 3/6/12, p.A3)(AFP, 4/13/14)(AP, 3/15/21)
2012 Jan 9, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited his close ally President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela on the first leg of a four-nation tour that will also take Ahmadinejad to Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador.
(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 11, In Iran 2 assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a university professor working at the Natanz nuclear facility, killing him and his driver. Defiant Iranian authorities pointed the finger at archfoe Israel.
(AP, 1/11/12)
2012 Jan 11, Cuba and Iran highlighted the "right of all nations to the peaceful use of nuclear energy" during a visit by Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the communist-ruled island. Ahmadinejad slammed capitalism as bankrupt and called for a new world order.
(AFP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 14, Iran’s Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic letter to the US saying that it has "evidence and reliable information" that the CIA provided "guidance, support and planning" to assassins "directly involved" in the Jan 11 assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan. State media IRNA also reported that Iran delivered a letter to Britain accusing London of having an "obvious role" in the killing.
(AP, 1/14/12)
2012 Jan 15, An Iranian news website said a court has sentenced Pres. Ahmadinejad's press adviser to one year in prison on the charge of insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ali Akbar Javanfekr was also banned from journalism activities for five years.
(AP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 15, At Hollywood’s Golden Globes “The Artist" won 3 Golden Globes. “The Descendants" won 2. Meryl Streep won for best actress in a drama (The Iron Lady). George Clooney won for best actor (The Descendants). An Iranian film, "A Separation", won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film.
(SFC, 1/16/12, p.D1)(AFP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 15, Britain's foreign secretary William Hague said that European nations will intensify pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, but insisted the West wasn't pressing for military action.
(AP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 16, Gelareh Bagherzadeh (30), a Texas medical student well-known in her community as an Iranian activist, was mysteriously shot and killed in her car around midnight, just yards from her home in Houston.
(AP, 1/18/12)
2012 Jan 17, India said it was continuing to buy oil from Iran, despite an intensifying US campaign to smother Tehran's vital oil exports until it abandons its nuclear program.
(AFP, 1/17/12)
2012 Jan 18, Iran's currency, the rial, hit a record low against the dollar, based on rates in black market trading that the government has tried to ban.
(AFP, 1/18/12)
2012 Jan 20, British authorities revoked the license of Press TV, the Iranian state broadcaster's English-language outlet, saying the channel had breached a string of regulations.
(AFP, 1/20/12)
2012 Jan 21, An Iranian boat sank while sailing between Hormuz Island and the port city of Bandar Abbas on the mainland. 17 people died after a storm capsized the passenger boat.
(AP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 25, Azerbaijan officials said 2 men have been arrested in a plot to assassinate Israeli targets in Baku. Local mercenaries, suspected of being recruited by a well-known gangster with ties to Iran, were arrested. Azerbaijani media later said that two Iranian Quds Force members were arrested. In addition, around 20 people, mostly from the same family, were arrested in connection with the planned attacks, in a village on the outskirts of Baku.
(http://tinyurl.com/6rqkkdc)(www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/26/190617.html)(SFC, 2/22/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 26, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is ready to revive talks with the world powers, as toughening sanctions aim at forcing Tehran to sharply scale back its nuclear program. A US-made F-14 Iranian fighter jet crashed in southern Iran. Both the pilot and the co-pilot were killed.
(AP, 1/26/12)
2012 Jan 26, Iranian security forces killed six Pakistani traders taking goats into Iran. Gunmen in Syria kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims traveling by road from Turkey to Damascus.
(AP, 1/26/12)(AFP, 2/3/12)
2012 Jan 27, In Syria heavy gunfire hammered Homs in a second day of chaos. Activists said 21 people were killed across the country. The UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting to discuss the crisis, a step toward a possible resolution against the Damascus regime. The rebel Free Syrian Army said it had captured five Iranian soldiers in Homs who it said were under orders of the Syrian intelligence service.
(AP, 1/27/12)(AFP, 1/27/12)
2012 Jan 29, Iranian media confirmed that Saeed Malekpour (36), an Iranian man with Canadian residency, has had a death sentence against him reinstated by the supreme court on charges he operated a pornographic website. Malekpour was arrested in Iran in 2008 while visiting his dying father.
(AFP, 1/29/12)
2012 Jan 29, UN nuclear inspectors began a critical mission to Iran to probe allegations of a secret atomic weapons program amid escalating Western economic pressure and warnings about safeguarding Gulf oil shipments from possible Iranian blockades.
(AP, 1/29/12)
2012 Jan 30, Iran's top diplomat offered to extend the current visit of UN nuclear inspectors and expressed optimism their findings would help ease tensions despite international claims that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Iran's state TV reported the development of laser-guided artillery shells capable of hitting moving targets.
(AP, 1/30/12)
2012 Feb 1, Eleven Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped in the central Syrian city of Hama.
(AFP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 1, Senior UN nuclear expert Herman Nackaerts announced plans to revisit Tehran soon after a "good trip," indicating progress on his team's quest to probe suspicions that the Islamic Republic is secretly working on an atomic arms program.
(AP, 2/1/12)
2012 Feb 2, Israel's chief of military intelligence, General Aviv Kochavi, warned at a security conference that Iran has enough radioactive material to produce four nuclear bombs.
(AFP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 3, Iran successfully launched a new small satellite into orbit. The home-made satellite, Navid, or Gospel, was designed to collect data on weather conditions and monitor for natural disasters.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 3, Iran banned its citizens from traveling to Syria by road following the recent abductions of 29 Iranians in the escalating uprising in its key Middle East ally.
(AFP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 4, Iran’s state television's website said has the government begun mass production of an anti-ship cruise missile.
(AFP, 2/4/12)
2012 Feb 5, The Iranian navy rushed to a site in the Gulf of Aden after it received a distress signal from an oil tanker, which was under attack from some 35 pirate boats. The navy opened fire on the pirates to foil an attack on an Iranian oil tanker.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2012 Feb 5, Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, said Iranian authorities are increasingly arresting and threatening the families of BBC journalists to force them to quit its Persian news service.
(Reuters, 2/5/12)
2012 Feb 6, Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency says authorities have arrested several people over alleged links to the British Broadcasting Corporation's Farsi-language service.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2012 Feb 6, Washington ordered the new penalties on Monday, giving US banks additional powers to freeze assets linked to the Iranian government and close loopholes that officials say Iran has used to move money despite earlier restrictions imposed by the US and Europe.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Iran's parliament decided to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over a long list of accusations, including that he mismanaged the nation's economy.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 12, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh that Iran would always stand by the Palestinian resistance against Israel and warned him against compromisers. Pres. Ahmadinejad said it was Iran’s duty to stand by the Palestinians.
(SFC, 2/13/12, p.A3)
2012 Feb 13, Many Iranian web users said their access to foreign email services such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail appears to have been restored after a four day outage.
(AP, 2/13/12)
2012 Feb 13, In India and Georgia assailants targeted Israeli diplomats in near-simultaneous strikes that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu blamed on archenemy Iran, and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. The attacks wounded four people. A hitman on a rented motorbike attached a magnetic bomb to the back of an Israeli embassy car carrying the 42-year-old diplomat as she went to pick up her children from school in New Delhi. The woman, also the wife of the defense attache at the embassy, was left in a critical condition with spinal injuries and was flown to Israel for further treatment. 3 men of Iranian origin were later identified as suspects.
(AP, 2/13/12)(AFP, 3/15/12)
2012 Feb 14, US filmmaker Sean Stone (27), son of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, converted to Islam in Iran, where he is making a documentary.
(AFP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 14, In Thailand an Iranian man, Saeid Moradi, carrying grenades lost at least one leg in a grenade blast and wounded four civilians in Bangkok after an earlier blast shook his rented house. Mohammad Kharzei, a 2nd man was arrested in Bangkok as he tried to board a flight to Malaysia.
(AP, 2/14/12)(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 15, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran has added 3,000 more centrifuges to its uranium enrichment effort increasing the total to 9,000, as he unveiled progress in his country's controversial nuclear program. Iran began loading domestically made nuclear fuel rods into its Tehran research reactor. Iran also said it was considering cutting oil sales to six EU countries in retaliation to an EU ban on Iranian oil imports that is being phased in as existing contracts expire up to July 1.
(AFP, 2/15/12)(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 15, Malaysia police arrested Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, a third Iranian suspect sought after explosive blasts in Bangkok.
(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 16, Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance said it has agreed to begin evacuating its long-time base in a camp in central Iraq to transfer to a UN-approved site near Baghdad.
(AFP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 16, Pakistan welcomed the leaders of Afghanistan and Iran for a regional summit at a key juncture in peace efforts with the Taliban and amid rising tensions between Tehran and Israel.
(AFP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 18, In Iran a trial began in a $2.6 billion dollar banking fraud case with some 32 people involved in taking bribes and financial corruption. At the center of the fraud, which surfaced last September, is a company called the Aria group, which was founded in 2005 with a mere $50,000. In 2011, estimates put its value at more than $3.5 billion.
(AFP, 2/18/12)
2012 Feb 18, In Iraq some 400 members of an Iranian exile group reluctantly moved from Camp Ashraf in the northwest to Camp Liberty, a deserted military base outside Baghdad in what they called a show of good faith that they eventually will be allowed to leave the country peacefully. It was the first group to move of the more than 3,300 members of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran who have lived at the camp for three decades.
(AP, 2/18/12)
2012 Feb 19, UN nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran in the latest push to hold key talks with Iranian officials about how far the country's controversial nuclear program has come. Access to Parchin, a military site suspected of testing nuclear weapon components, was denied.
(AP, 2/20/12)(Econ, 2/25/12, p.28)
2012 Feb 21, Iran said it views its nuclear activities as a non-negotiable right, but confirmed they will be discussed in mooted talks with world powers aimed at defusing a crisis containing the seeds of a new Middle East war.
(AFP, 2/21/12)
2012 Feb 22, The UN nuclear agency acknowledged renewed failure after a trip to probe suspicions of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work. Their statement was issued just hours after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike against any foe threatening the country.
(AP, 2/22/12)
2012 Feb 24, Angola's state oil company Sonangol announced it is withdrawing from a natural-gas project in Iran due to international sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 2/24/12)
2012 Feb 26, In Los Angeles the Iranian film “A Separation" won an Oscar for best foreign film. Director Asghar Farhadi's movie explores troubles in Iranian society through the story of a marriage in collapse.
(AP, 2/27/12)
2012 Feb 28, Iran’s head of the central bank said Iran will accept gold for trade payments, along with agreed currencies of other nations. The remarks suggested Iran was broadening its payment system in the face of increasingly tough financial sanctions imposed by the West over Tehran's controversial nuclear program.
(AFP, 2/29/12)
2012 Feb 29, A Pakistani official said Iran has offered to supply Pakistan with 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day and a $250 million loan to help build a gas pipeline from the Iranian border.
(AFP, 2/29/12)
2012 Feb, Monica Elfriede Witt arrived in Iran to attend the New Horizon Organization's "Hollywoodism" conference. She soon offered Ayatollah Hadi Barikbin the pledge of faith all Islam converts must recite: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is His messenger." She returned to Iran in 2013 and began working for the Iranian government. Witt had served in the US Air Force from 1997 to 2008 and later worked for a defense contractor. She served as an airborne crypto linguist on board a RC-135 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On Feb. 13, 2019, she was charged with espionage.
(AP, 2/14/19)(SFC, 2/14/19, p.A7)(The National Interest, 7/23/19)
2012 Mar 2, Iranians voted in their first national poll since the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, choosing a new parliament they hope will fix their country's sanctions-hit economy. Overall, the new parliament looked to be virtually entirely conservative, with the previous 60 reformist MPs winnowed down to a bare handful following the boycott of the main reformist blocs in the elections.
(AFP, 3/2/12)(AFP, 3/4/12)
2012 Mar 4, In Iran the family of Abdolfattah Soltani (58), a prominent human rights lawyer, was informed that he has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. He was charged with co-founding the Center for Human Rights Defenders, spreading anti-government propaganda, endangering national security and accepting an illegal prize – a reference to a German human rights prize he was awarded in 2009.
(www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/04/iranian-human-rights-lawyer-jailed)
2012 Mar 6, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported that the government will grant UN inspectors access to a military complex where the UN nuclear agency suspects secret atomic work has been carried out.
(AP, 3/6/12)
2012 Mar 7, Iran's state media said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered the creation of an Internet oversight agency that includes top military and political figures in the country's boldest attempt to control the web.
(AP, 3/7/12)
2012 Mar 7, Iranian media reported that Ali Shakouri-Rad, a ranking member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, former lawmaker and a leading reformist from a banned political party has been sentenced to four years in prison for allegedly spreading anti-regime propaganda.
(AFP, 3/7/12)
2012 Mar 8, The Israeli daily Maariv reported that the United States has offered Israel advanced weaponry in return for it committing not to attack Iran's nuclear facilities this year. In return Israel would agree to put off a possible attack on Iran till 2013.
(AFP, 3/8/12)
2012 Mar 10, Turkish journalist Adem Ozkose (34) and cameraman Hamit Coskun (21) reported from Idlib as Syrian forces with tanks and artillery were preparing to move against poorly armed rebels there. They were not heard from again until May 5 when they called their families while under Syrian detention. On May 11 Iran, acting as diplomatic go-between between Syria and Turkey, negotiated their release.
(AP, 5/11/12)
2012 Mar 14, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a defiant and at times mocking defense of his economic and political management in an unprecedented interrogation by a largely hostile parliament. It was the first time an Iranian president was summoned before parliament to answer questions about his rule since the founding of the Islamic republic in 1979.
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 14, The Azerbaijan national security ministry said it has arrested 22 Azeri citizens on suspicion of plotting attacks on the US and Israeli embassies in Baku on behalf of neighboring Iran.
(AP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 14, Britain launched a website and Facebook page for Iranians, harnessing the power of social media to try to evade Iranian censorship and take its message directly to the people.
(Reuters, 3/15/12)
2012 Mar 15, European Union nations agreed to ban financial transfers such as SWIFT payments to hundreds of Iranian firms and individuals blacklisted by the bloc over Tehran's contested nuclear drive.
(AFP, 3/15/12)
2012 Mar 17, A senior Iranian military commander, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, urged Afghans to use force to kick American troops out of their country, hinting that "new resistance groups" could launch attacks on US interests in Afghanistan.
(AP, 3/17/12)
2012 Mar 20, Iran ushered in its Persian New Year with a symbolic cannon blast from its flagship destroyer, and speeches from leaders vowing to fix an economy suffering under Western sanctions.
(AFP, 3/20/12)
2012 Mar 24, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari arrived in Tajikistan for regional security talks with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
(AFP, 3/24/12)
2012 Mar 26, Somali pirates seized an Iranian-owned cargo ship and its 23-strong crew in the first hijacking within Maldivian territory. The MV. Eglantine was seized off the north-western Hoarafush island in the Indian Ocean atoll nation. The Bolivian-flagged vessel was freed on April 2, and continued on to Iran with its sugar shipment.
(AFP, 3/27/12)(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Mar 29, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced his country's unwavering support for Tehran's nuclear ambitions in a meeting with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Turkey relies on Iran for 30% of its oil imports, and has refused to go along with sanctions imposed by the US and Europe, saying it will observe only UN-mandated restrictions on Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran strongly supports reforms in Syria under Pres. Assad, but visiting Turkish PM Erdogan said Assad can't be trusted and must step down.
(AFP, 3/29/12)(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Apr 6, Azerbaijan said members of a suspected terrorist group have been arrested. One security officer was shot and killed and three others were wounded in a skirmish during the arrests, and one suspect was also killed. Officials later said the group had links to al-Qaida and some trained in neighboring Iran.
(AP, 4/19/12)
2012 Apr 6, A Chinese cargo ship was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Oman, not far off the south of Iran. The Xianghuamen, owned by Yuanyang shipping company, was sailing with a crew of 28. Iran’s navy rescued the 28 crew members and detained 9 Somali pirates.
(AFP, 4/6/12)(AP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 10, Iran's official news agency said the country's intelligence department has dismantled an Israeli-linked assassination and sabotage network. State media later said 15 people were arrested for an attack planned on Feb 10.
(AP, 4/10/12)(SFC, 4/19/12, p.A4)
2012 Apr 14, Iran and senior diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, known as the P5+1, gathered at the negotiating table in Istanbul for their first meeting in 15 months hoping to ease tensions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 4/14/12)
2012 Apr 16, Iran officially launched a $1-billion first phase of an ambitious project to pump water from the Caspian Sea to a city in its vast and expanding central desert.
(AFP, 4/16/12)
2012 Apr 16, Oil prices slipped after nuclear talks over the weekend between major crude producer Iran and world powers eased concerns over Middle East supplies.
(AFP, 4/16/12)
2012 Apr 18, Iran welcomed Saudi Arabia suspending death sentences against several of its nationals convicted for drug trafficking.
(AFP, 4/18/12)
2012 Apr 22, Iran's principal oil terminal on Kharg island in the Gulf was disconnected from the Internet. A voracious virus attack hit computers running key parts of Iran's oil sector, forcing authorities to unplug the oil export terminal from the Internet and to set up a cyber crisis team.
(AFP, 4/23/12)
2012 Apr 22, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki was given a red carpet welcome by Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi at Saadabad Palace in north Tehran. He was scheduled to meet with Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a two-day official visit.
(AP, 4/22/12)
2012 Apr, Iranian authorities banned the Reuters news agency over publishing a report on martial arts training of Iranian women. The ban was lifted in May, 2013.
(AP, 5/11/13)
2012 May 4, Iranians lined up at polling stations for a second round of parliamentary elections. Conservative opponents of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already won an outright majority of seats of the new parliament in the first round of elections held in March. Of 65 seats up for grabs Ahmadinejad's opponents won 41 while the president's supporters got only 13.
(AP, 5/4/12)(AP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 8, In Iran Seo Ok-Seok, a UN nuclear inspector from South Korea, was killed and a colleague was injured in a car crash near a reactor site in Khondab.
(AP, 5/8/12)
2012 May 15, Iran said Majid Jamali Fashi, a man convicted of playing a key role in the 2010 murder of a top nuclear scientist and of spying for Israel, was hanged today.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 15, India said it would cut purchases of Iranian oil by 11% following pressure from the US to join a drive to isolate the Islamic republic over its disputed nuclear program.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 18, In Iran thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran to protest a proposed union of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
(AFP, 5/18/12)
2012 May 19, G8 leaders meeting in Maryland made progress on addressing the two biggest threats to their economies, the euro zone crisis and very high oil prices. G8 leaders sent a strong message to Iran that tough energy sanctions would be firmly applied, vowing to ensure oil markets are well supplied to prevent crude prices soaring.
(AFP, 5/19/12)
2012 May 22, UN nuclear chief Yukiya Amano said that despite some remaining differences, a deal has been reached with Iran that will allow the UN nuclear agency to restart a long-stalled probe into suspicions that Tehran has secretly worked on developing nuclear arms.
(AP, 5/22/12)
2012 May 23, Iran and six world powers resumed talks over Tehran's nuclear program. Diplomats from six world powers offered Iran new proposals to ease international concerns about its nuclear program, but appeared to reject Tehran's appeals to ease economic sanctions to help move along talks.
(AP, 5/23/12)
2012 May 23, Iran's navy saved the American-flagged Maersk Texas cargo ship that was being attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Oman. It was the first time the Iranian navy protected a US ship from pirates.
(AFP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, Iranian negotiators rejected proposals by six world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program, and demanded answers to their own counteroffer meant to alleviate concerns about the Islamic Republic's ability to build atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, Iranian negotiators rejected proposals by six world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program, and demanded answers to their own counteroffer meant to alleviate concerns about the Islamic Republic's ability to build atomic weapons. The 2-days talks ended with no clear signs of progress, but parties agreed to reconvene in Moscow in June.
(AP, 5/24/12)(SFC, 5/25/12, p.A4)
2012 May 28, Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based internet security firm, said a powerful computer virus, dubbed “Flame," with unprecedented data-snatching capabilities has attacked machines in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.
(AP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 30, A senior Iranian military official said Iran's key oil industry was briefly affected by the powerful computer virus known as "Flame" that has unprecedented data-snatching capabilities and can eavesdrop on computer users.
(AP, 5/30/12)
2012 Jun 2, Iran’s defense minister said construction of a new space center is 80% finished and will soon allow the launch more domestically made satellites into orbit.
(AP, 6/2/12)
2012 Jun 14, Iran said it arrested a number of chief suspects in the assassinations of two of its nuclear scientists in the past two years, and claimed they were linked to Israel.
(AFP, 6/14/12)
2012 Jun 18, Iran and six world powers sought elusive common ground in talks in Moscow meant to reduce tensions over Tehran's nuclear activities that both sides see as crucial to their interests but which are stalled by reluctance to commit to each other's demands.
(AP, 6/18/12)
2012 Jun 19, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stopped in Bolivia en route to a summit in Brazil, to court support from another leftist Latin American nation which has tense ties with the United States.
(AFP, 6/19/12)
2012 Jun 19, The world powers known as "P5+1," permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, failed to win any concession from Iran that would give the talks a new impulse. Negotiators in Moscow managed to prevent the diplomatic process from complete collapse by agreeing a new meeting at expert-level in Istanbul on July 3.
(AFP, 6/20/12)
2012 Jun 19, Kenyan police officers arrested two Iranians suspected of being involved in terrorism. Officials later said the men, who led authorities to a cache of explosives after their arrest, planned to attack Israeli, US, British or Saudi targets inside Kenya.
(AP, 6/22/12)(AFP, 7/3/12)
2012 Jun 22, In Venezuela Pres. Hugo Chavez and Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad pledged to stand together to battle "imperialism," with Chavez criticizing tough sanctions on Tehran.
(AFP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 23, In France thousands of Iranian exiles led a Paris rally to demand democratic change in Iran and help for Iranian resistance members in Iraq's refugee camps.
(AP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 25, A Malaysian court ruled that Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, an Iranian man accused of plotting to attack Israeli targets in Bangkok on Feb 14, must be extradited to Thailand.
(AP, 6/25/12)
2012 Jun 27, In eastern Turkey an explosion targeting a pipeline cut off Iranian natural gas shipments to the country. The pipeline was expected to be back in operation within 4 to 5 days. Turkey received 27 million cubic meters of gas a day via the Iranian pipeline. The gas flow was reported restored on July 3.
(AFP, 6/28/12)(AFP, 7/3/12)
2012 Jul 1, An EU embargo on Iranian oil went into effect, provoking anger in Tehran which said the measure will hurt talks with world powers over its sensitive nuclear activities.
(AFP, 7/2/12)
2012 Jul 3, A US federal judge ordered Iran to pay more than $813 million in damages and interest to the families of 241 US soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon. After this opinion, this court will have issued over $8.8 billion in judgments against Iran as a result of the October 23, 1983, Beirut bombing.
(AFP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 6, The United States again urged members of an exiled Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, also known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), to leave their long-time base in Iraq, saying a move could facilitate their removal from a US terror blacklist.
(AFP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 13, The United States announced charges against an Iranian citizen and Chinese resident for allegedly trying to export nuclear-related material to help Tehran enrich uranium. Iranian citizen Parviz Khaki (43), was arrested in May in the Philippines on request of the US. Chinese resident, Yi Zongcheng, remained at large.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 23, Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency reported that people had poured into the streets of Nishabur to protest a steep hike in the price of chicken.
(SFC, 7/24/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 25, Top Iranian government officials and lawmakers agreed in a meeting to budget cuts in a bid to shore up an economy struggling with Western sanctions and inflation.
(AFP, 7/25/12)
2012 Jul 29, Iran published the results of its 2011 census. It gave Iran's total population as 75.2 million, 99.4 percent of whom are Muslim. 55 percent were under 30 years of age.
(AFP, 7/29/12)
2012 Jul 29, An Israeli newspaper reported that the Obama administration's top security official has briefed Israel on US plans for a possible attack on Iran, seeking to reassure it that Washington is prepared to act militarily should diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 7/29/12)
2012 Jul 30, An Iranian official said a court has sentenced 39 people linked to a $2.6 billion bank fraud. 4 men, believed to be associates of Esfandiyar Rahim Mashaei, a controversial ally of the president, were sentenced to death and two to life in prison.
(SFC, 7/31/12, p.A4)(Econ, 8/18/12, p.43)
2012 Jul 30, The Times of India, citing a police investigation, said that five suspects were believed to have worked with a local Indian journalist to plan the Feb 13 attack on an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi. Police concluded that members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a branch of the Iranian military, carried out the attack.
(AFP, 7/30/12)
2012 Jul 30, The US Congress pressed ahead with a new package of sanctions on Iran, expanding financial penalties and further targeting Tehran’s energy and shipping sectors in an ongoing effort to undercut the country’s suspected nuclear weapons program.
(SFC, 8/1/12, p.A5)
2012 Aug 4, In Syria gunmen snatched a bus filled with 48 Iranian pilgrims from a Damascus suburb as they headed to visit a shrine holy to Shiites.
(AP, 8/4/12)
2012 Aug 5, Iran appealed for help from governments with ties to the Syrian opposition in securing the release of 48 of its nationals seized from a bus in Damascus. Rebel captors charged that their hostages were Revolutionary Guards.
(AFP, 8/5/12)
2012 Aug 5, Iranian state television broadcast purported confessions by more than a dozen suspects in connection with the killing of five nuclear scientists since 2010.
(AP, 8/6/12)
2012 Aug 6, New York State Department of Financial Services alleged that Standard Chartered PLC schemed with the Iranian government to launder $250 billion from 2001 to 2007.
(AP, 8/7/12)
2012 Aug 7, Shares in Standard Chartered PLC dropped 22% sharply as investors reacted to US charges that the bank was involved in laundering money for Iran.
(AP, 8/7/12)(Econ, 8/18/12, p.64)
2012 Aug 9, Iran hosted a 29-nation conference on Syria with the aim of stopping bloodshed there and forging a role for Tehran as peace-broker for its beleaguered Arab ally.
(AFP, 8/9/12)
2012 Aug 10, The Obama administration set new, largely symbolic, sanctions on Syria's state-run oil company and the Hezbollah militant group, moves designed to underscore Iran's key role in propping up the Syrian regime over the span of its civil war.
(AP, 8/10/12)
2012 Aug 10, Zanzibar's Vice President Seif Ali Iddi told the island's parliament the authorities had investigated and confirmed "that 36 crude oil tankers and container ships flying the Tanzania flag are indeed from Iran."
(AFP, 8/13/12)
2012 Aug 11, In northwest Iran hundreds of villages were flattened by twin earthquakes (magnitude 6.4 and 6.3), leaving 306 dead and 3,037 injured. Around half the 600 villages located in the zone were damaged or destroyed.
(AFP, 8/12/12)(AFP, 8/13/12)
2012 Aug 13, Abdallah Kombo, the director of the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA), said it was "cheated" by its Dubai-based agent Philtex Corporation, which is alleged to have reflagged the Iranian vessels. Maritime Transport Minister Rashid Suleiman Seif said The government in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, will deregister Iranian oil tankers flying its flag to dodge sanctions.
(AFP, 8/13/12)
2012 Aug 14, Britain’s Standard Chartered settled allegations that it helped Iranian clients dodge US sanctions, announcing a fine of $340 million from a New York banking watchdog. Standard Chartered also agreed to house a government anti-laundering monitor for two years at its New York branch.
(AFP, 8/15/12)
2012 Aug 18, In Iraq Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), said: “As a gesture of goodwill, the residents of Ashraf will commence the 6th convoy of 400 residents from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty on August 23."
(AFP, 8/18/12)
2012 Aug 19, The New York Times reported that Iraq is helping its neighbor Iran skirt international sanctions by smuggling oil and letting Tehran secretly move large amounts of cash through bank auctions.
(AFP, 8/19/12)
2012 Aug 21, Two leading rights groups called for an end to international cash and technical assistance to Iran's anti-drug campaign, which they said was bolstering a rise in executions.
(AFP, 8/21/12)
2012 Aug 25, An Iranian helicopter of the Revolutionary Guards crashed in western Iran near the Iraqi border killing four Guards while on a mission in Sardasht border area, which is populated by Iran's Kurdish minority.
(AFP, 8/25/12)
2012 Aug 26, Iran opened a 120-nation gathering of self-described nonaligned nations with a slap at the UN Security Council and an appeal to rid the world of nuclear weapons even as Tehran faces Western suspicions that it is seeking its own atomic arms.
(AP, 8/26/12)
2012 Aug 28, Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister Ramzi Ezzeldin Ramzi formally gave Iran the rotating presidency of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement. Iran is currently hosting the weeklong gathering of the 51-year-old group, which ends Aug 31.
(AP, 8/28/12)
2012 Aug 30, Egypt’s Pres. Mohammed Morsi urged the world to support the rebels in Syria as he spoke in Tehran before an int’l. meeting of nonaligned nations.
(SFC, 8/31/12, p.A3)
2012 Aug 31, Iran’s sole reactor at the country's Bushehr nuclear power plant reached full capacity.
(AP, 9/1/12)
2012 Aug 31, An Iranian opposition organization said that a final convoy of 680 of its members will leave Camp Ashraf on September 12 for the new Hurriya transit center near Baghdad.
(AFP, 9/1/12)
2012 Sep 1, Iran and North Korea signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement, bringing the two nations deeply at odds with the US closer together.
(AP, 9/1/12)
2012 Sep 5, American senators visiting Iraq warned the Baghdad government that it risked damaging relations with the US if it is allowing Iran to fly over its airspace to deliver weapons to Syria.
(AP, 9/5/12)
2012 Sep 7, Canada said it has closed its embassy in Iran and will expel all remaining Iranian diplomats in Canada within 5 days, denouncing Tehran as the biggest threat to global security.
(Reuters, 9/7/12)
2012 Sep 8, Sierra Leone said that 10 suspected Iranian ships "hiding" under the Sierra Leonean flag "have recently been removed from the register." The action was in relation to a vessel that was seized in Lebanon recently carrying arms for Syria, and allegedly flying the Sierra Leone flag.
(AP, 9/9/12)
2012 Sep 16, Iranian newspapers reported that the 15 Khordad Foundation, a religious foundation, has increased a reward for killing British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3 million from $2.8 million in response to alleged insults to the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 9/16/12)
2012 Sep 25, Iran's telecommunication minister said the government has blocked Google's Gmail service following a court order to bar access to the popular email service.
(AP, 9/25/12)
2012 Sep 30, A special media court found Parisa Hafezi, the Tehran bureau chief of the Thomson Reuters news agency, guilty of "spreading lies" against the Islamic system for a video story that briefly included a posted description of women training as martial arts killers.
(AP, 9/30/12)
2012 Oct 1, In Iran Mohammad Reza Aghamiri, a member of governmental Internet watchdog committee, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency that authorities have lifted the Gmail ban after resolving technical problems to separate YouTube and Gmail. YouTube remained blocked in response to video clips of an anti-Islam film.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 1, Iran's currency fell 16 percent in a single day to hit a record low against the US dollar and other foreign currencies in street trading. The collapse is a sign of the impact of Western sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 3, Iranian police threatened merchants who closed their shops in Tehran's main bazaar and launched crackdowns on sidewalk money changers as part of a push to halt the plunge of Iran's currency, which has shed more than a third its value in less than a week. 16 people were arrested during protests demanding relief from the plummeting currency.
(AP, 10/3/12)(SFC, 10/5/12, p.A3)
2012 Oct 4, Iran deployed riot police at key Tehran intersections, after tensions flared over the nation's plunging currency in the most widespread display of anger linked to the country's sanctions-hit economy.
(AP, 10/4/12)
2012 Oct 8, An Iranian oil official said the country has successfully blocked a cyber-attack on the computer network of its offshore drilling platforms. An official blamed Israel and said the attack occurred over the past two weeks, was routed through China, and affected only the communications systems of the network.
(AP, 10/8/12)
2012 Oct 14, Iranian officials denied any role in recent online attacks against oil and gas companies in the Persian Gulf and denounced American allegations of an Iranian link to the Shamoon virus that hit Saudi state oil company Aramco and Qatari natural gas producer RasGas.
(SFC, 10/15/12, p.A2)
2012 Oct 15, The European Union, concerned by what it called Iran's refusal to come clean on its nuclear program, imposed a new range of sanctions intended to hit the country's treasury and increase pressure on its Islamic regime. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the EU is banning the import of Iranian natural gas into European Union countries.
(AP, 10/15/12)
2012 Oct 19, In southeastern Iran a suicide attacker running from the police detonated his explosives near a mosque killing two people.
(AP, 10/19/12)
2012 Oct 19, In southwestern Iran a passenger bus carrying female students overturned killing 26.
(AP, 10/20/12)
2012 Oct 20, Obama administration officials said the US and Iran have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program
(SSFC, 10/21/12, p.A5)
2012 Oct 24, Iran's intelligence chief said up to 50 people have been arrested in connection with the decline in the value of the national currency and the chaos that followed the slide. Iran's rial has lost nearly 40 percent of its value against the US dollar this month.
(AP, 10/24/12)
2012 Oct 26, The European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Iranian film director Jafar Panahi and imprisoned dissident lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
(AP, 10/26/12)
2012 Oct 30, In Iran opposition blogger Sattar Beheshti (35) was arrested and taken to Evin prison. He died on Nov 3. On Nov 6 his family was asked to pick up his body.
(AP, 11/12/12)(AP, 12/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, The kaleme.org reported that 9 Iranian women have started a hunger strike after female guards at Evin prison in northern Tehran carried out unannounced inspections that included body searches, beating and verbal insults of the prisoners.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Nov 1, Iranian warplanes shot multiple rounds at a US Predator surveillance drone flying in int’l. airspace. The aircraft was not hit.
(SFC, 11/9/12, p.A4)
2012 Nov 3, In Iran an explosion from a land mine left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s killed six people and injured one. The explosion happened during a minesweeping operation near the town of Marivan.
(AP, 11/4/12)
2012 Nov 3, In Iran opposition blogger Sattar Beheshti (35) died while under police custody. On Nov 12 Iran's state prosecutor confirmed that he had died in police custody and that wounds were found on his body. 3 interrogators involved in the case were arrested. In August 2014 a policeman convicted of killing Beheshti was sentenced to 3 years in jail, another two in exile plus 74 lashes.
(AP, 11/12/12)(AP, 12/1/12)(SFC, 8/8/14, p.A2)
2012 Nov 4, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards inaugurated a new naval base to reinforce Tehran's authority over three Persian Gulf islands also claimed by the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Iran took control of the Persian Gulf islands in 1971, after British forces left the region. Since 1992 the UAE has repeatedly claimed the islands. Last month at the UN General Assembly it said Iran's "occupation" violates international law.
(AP, 11/4/12)
2012 Nov 18, Iran held a conference to reconcile Syria's government with some 200 opposition members and Syria's National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar to end the country's civil war.
(AP, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 21, Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency reported that Iran has supplied Hamas in Gaza with the technology to "quickly" produce longer-range missiles on their own without needing direct shipments.
(AP, 11/21/12)
2012 Nov 28, Iran's nuclear chief says uranium enrichment will move ahead with "intensity" with a sharp increase in the number of centrifuges used to make the nuclear fuel.
(AP, 11/28/12)
2012 Dec 1, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency says that Gen. Kamal Hadianfar, head of the cybercrimes unit, was fired due to "failure and lack of sufficient supervision over the performance of personnel under his command." Iran's judiciary confirmed last month that Sattar Beheshti died on Nov 3 in police custody and that wounds were found on his body.
(AP, 12/1/12)
2012 Dec 4, Iran claimed it had captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, but the US Navy said all its unmanned aircraft in the region were "fully accounted for."
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 5, In Iran a magnitude 5.5 earthwuake hit South Khorasan province late today. At least 6 people were killed.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, German federal prosecutors charged 2 Iranian men with allegedly smuggling dozens of German-made aircraft motors to Iran to be used in its Ababil III surveillance and attack drone.
(AP, 2/20/13)
2012 Dec 7, Iran's border police confiscated over 11 tons of narcotics after fierce clashes with drug traffickers in the southeast, the biggest single consignment ever seized in Iran's war against drugs.
(AP, 12/8/12)
2012 Dec 9, Iran said it has launched a video-sharing website in the latest move to create government-sanctioned alternatives to Internet powerhouses such as YouTube. The new site — Mehr, or affection in Farsi — seeks to promote Iranian and Islamic culture and artists.
(AP, 12/9/12)
2012 Dec 10, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it has decoded all of the data from a RQ-170 Sentinel craft, an advanced CIA spy drone captured in Dec 2011.
(AP, 12/10/12)
2012 Dec 11, Iran's official news agency reported that the country has closed its consular section in the western Afghan city of Herat, after anti-Iranian protests at the site on Dec 9. Afghan demonstrators were protesting the alleged killing of Afghan emigrants at nearby border crossings in recent months.
(AP, 12/11/12)
2012 Dec 11, Tehran's chief prosecutor said authorities have arrested 28 Iranians for alleged links to foreign-based TV networks advocating the Baha'i religion, which is banned in the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/11/12)
2012 Dec 12, Iran's deputy judiciary chief said the Islamic Republic has issued indictments against 18 unnamed current and former American officials on charges of involvement in "crimes against Iran." His remarks did not indicate that any of the men were present in Iran.
(AP, 12/12/12)
2012 Dec 18, In Iran a collapse and explosion in a coal mine killed eight workers near Tabas city in the country's east.
(AP, 12/19/12)
2012 Dec 25, An Iranian semi-official news agency said there has been another cyberattack by the sophisticated computer worm Stuxnet, this time on the industries in the country's south.
(AP, 12/25/12)
2012 Dec 27, Iranian state TV reported that the country's president has dismissed the health minister after her ministry put out a statement criticizing authorities for not providing money to import medicine.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 31, In Iran the annual inflation rate hit 27.4 percent at the end of this year, one of the highest rates ever quoted by Iranian authorities.
(AP, 1/9/13)
2012 Dec, An unnamed Iranian diplomat defected from the Iranian Embassy in Oslo and sought help from the Humlen & Rieber-Mohn law office, which specializes in immigration law.
(AP, 2/22/13)
2012 James Buchan authored “Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and its Consequences," an examination of iran’s 1978-1979 Islamic revolution.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.83)
2012 In Iran Theresa Virginia, an American citizen, was reported missing when she had traveled there to visit her husband's family. Police were able to arrest two suspects, aged 20 and 21. One of the men confessed to have strangled the woman and taken her car and cash, while the other admitted helping. In 2019 Iran's supreme court upheld the death sentence for the man accused of the murder.
(Reuters, 5/18/19)
2012 In Lebanon the Beirut-based pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Mayadeen was launched. It was backed by Iran and Syria.
(Econ, 2/14/15, p.41)
2013 Jan 2, Iranian media reported that Iran has captured 2 US RQ11 Raven surveillance drones over the last 17 months and that much of the data has been decoded by the army.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 9, Syrian rebels freed 48 Iranians held captive since August in exchange for the release of more than 2,000 detainees in the first major prisoner swap of the country's civil war.
(AP, 1/9/13)
2013 Jan 11, Spanish police said they have arrested two people and seized equipment they say was due to be shipped to Iran for use in Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/11/13)
2013 Jan 13, Gen. Ali Moayedi, head of Iran's anti-narcotics police, was quoted by newspapers as saying that some 30 drug smugglers and addicts are identified and arrested every hour in Iran. Moayedi said that over 1,286 kg (2,835 pounds) are confiscated each day.
(AP, 1/13/13)
2013 Jan 16, Senior UN investigators opened a new round of talks with Iranian officials in Tehran in the hopes of restarting a probe into allegations that the Islamic Republic carried out atomic bomb trigger tests and other suspected weapons-related studies.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 20, Iran hanged 2 men (24) publicly after a video posted on YouTube showing them robbing and assaulting a man with a machete on a Tehran street.
(AP, 1/20/13)
2013 Jan 21, German customs officials at Duesseldorf airport found a check in Venezuelan currency worth $70 million in the luggage of Tahmasb Mazaheri, Iran's former central bank chief, upon his arrival from Turkey. Mazaheri told authorities the money was to be used for the construction of 10,000 apartments funded by the Venezuelan government. The newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported the story in its Sunday Feb 3 edition.
(AP, 2/4/13)
2013 Jan 27, Iran’s government arrested 14 journalists accused of cooperation with foreign-based, Persian-language media organizations.
(AP, 1/28/13)
2013 Jan 27, The US State Department condemned an Iranian court for sentencing Saeed Abedini (32), an Iranian-American Christian pastor, to eight years in prison for reportedly threatening Iran's national security through his leadership in Christian house churches.
(Reuters, 1/27/13)
2013 Jan 28, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space, describing the launch as another step toward Tehran's goal of a manned space flight. In 2017 Iran’s space organization cancelled a project to explore sending humans into space.
(AP, 1/28/13)(SFC, 6/1/17, p.A2)
2013 Jan 29, In Iran followers of the minority Zoroastrian religion gathered after sunset to mark Sadeh — an ancient mid-winter feast dating to Iran's pre-Islamic past that is also drawing new interest from Muslims.
(AP, 1/29/13)
2013 Jan 31, Iran announced plans to install and operate advanced uranium enrichment machines, in what would be a technological leap allowing it to significantly speed up activity the West fears could be put to developing a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 1/31/13)
2013 Jan 31, Syria threatened to retaliate for an Israeli airstrike and its ally Iran said there will be repercussions for the Jewish state over the attack.
(AP, 1/31/13)
2013 Jan, Iran arrested Slovak national Matej Valuch (26) and accused him of spying for the US CIA. On Feb 8 Valuch was released and returned home.
(AP, 2/8/13)
2013 Feb 2, Iran unveiled its newest combat jet, the the Qaher F-313, or Dominant F-313. Military officials claimed the domestically manufactured fighter-bomber can evade radar.
(AP, 2/2/13)
2013 Feb 4, A senior Iranian government official, Saeed Mortazavi, was arrested two years after a parliamentary probe found him responsible for deaths by torture of at least three jailed anti-government protesters. Mortazavi was released on Feb 6, a day after Pres. Ahmadinejad denounced the arrest and pledged to pursue the case.
(AP, 2/5/13)(AP, 2/6/13)
2013 Feb 5, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began a three-day visit to Egypt, centered around an Islamic summit. He said his country is ready to provide a "big credit line" to help revive the distressed economy of Egypt.
(AP, 2/6/13)
2013 Feb 5, Iran's official news agency reported that authorities have arrested another group of local journalists accused of links with the BBC.
(AP, 2/5/13)
2013 Feb 6, The US blacklisted Iran’s state broadcasting authirity, Internet-policing agencies and a major electronics producer in widened sanctions to pressure the government over its disputed nuclear program and stifling of domestic dissent.
(SFC, 2/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 9, In Iraq rockets and mortar rounds struck a refugee camp for Iranian exiles, members of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, next to Baghdad's international airport before dawn, killing six people and wounding about 40. One of the injured died on Feb 12. The UN urged the Iraqi government to ensure the safety of the about 3,100 camp residents and move quickly to find the still-unidentified attackers. Another of the injured died on March 13.
(AP, 2/9/13)(AP, 2/12/13)(AP, 3/14/13)
2013 Feb 13, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has begun installing a new generation of uranium enrichment centrifuges at its main facility making nuclear fuel. IRNA news quoted Fereidoun Abbasi as saying that Iran began installing the new centrifuges at Natanz site about a month ago. Senior UN investigators began a new round of talks with government officials over allegations that Tehran may have carried out tests on triggers for atomic weapons.
(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Feb 13, Gen. Hassan Shateri, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was killed on the road linking Damascus with Beirut.
(AP, 2/14/13)
2013 Feb 14, Senior officials of the UN atomic agency returned from Tehran without a hoped-for deal that would have led to the resumption of a probe into allegations that Iran worked secretly on nuclear arms.
(AP, 2/14/13)
2013 Feb 15, Iran ordered a six-month ban on pistachio exports to try to control the price of the nut, which doubled in the past month. Iran was long the world's largest pistachio exporter, with over 200,000 tons a year, but was surpassed last year by the United States.
(AP, 2/15/13)
2013 Feb 17, Iran’s independent Arman daily reported that authorities are confiscating Buddha statues from shops in Tehran, to stop the promotion of Buddhism in the country.
(AP, 2/17/13)
2013 Feb 17, Bahrain's interior ministry said police have arrested eight members of an alleged terrorist cell linked to Iran and other countries following widespread clashes in the Gulf nation during protests marking the second anniversary of an Arab Spring-inspired uprising.
(AP, 2/17/13)
2013 Feb 21, An Iranian semi-official news agency said Iran is planning to build a $4 billion oil refinery in Gwadar, Baluchistan province. Iran will reportedly sell products from the refinery to Pakistan in return of food, especially wheat, meat and rice.
(AP, 2/21/13)(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.A4)
2013 Feb 23, Iran said it has selected 16 locations as suitable for new nuclear power plants it intends to build to boost its energy production over the next 15 years. State TV said the country has discovered new uranium resources.
(AP, 2/23/13)
2013 Feb 24, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Gen. Hamid Tabatabaei, a commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, has been killed in the country's Kurdish northwest.
(AP, 2/24/13)
2013 Feb 27, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top official at diplomatic talks, said negotiations in Kazakhstan with world powers over how to curb Iran's nuclear program have reached a "turning point" for the better at the close of two days of discussions aimed at preventing Tehran from building an atomic arsenal.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Feb 27, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari visited Tehran where he worked to finalize a gas pipeline deal with Iran that is being opposed by the United States.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Mar 3, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has produced more than 3,000 advanced centrifuges which are used to enrich uranium.
(AP, 3/3/13)
2013 Mar 6, Iranian authorities blocked many foreign-based virtual private networks, or VPNs, severely restricting access to many websites.
(AP, 3/12/13)
2013 Mar 11, The presidents of Iran and Pakistan marked the start of construction in Pakistan on a pipeline to bring Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.43)
2013 Mar 26, Saudi Arabia said investigations have shown that members of a spy ring arrested last week were working for Iranian intelligence.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Iran a road accident killed 18 people, including 15 Afghans, after a truck smuggling fuel slammed into a sedan packed with Afghans who were being brought illegally into the country.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Kazakhstan talks began seeking to find common ground between Iran and a group of six nations over concerns that Tehran might misuse its nuclear program to make weapons.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 6, In Kazakhstan Iran and six world powers failed to reach agreement on an approach to reducing fears that Tehran might use its nuclear technology to make weapons. The EU's foreign policy chief declared that the two sides "remain far apart on substance."
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 9, In Iran a 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 people in a sparsely populated area in the country's south.
(AP, 4/9/13)
2013 Apr 15, Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in the uranium-rich West African nation of Niger for a 2-day visit. Officials discounted that the mineral was the reason for his visit.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 16, A 7.7 earthquake, described as the strongest to hit Iran in more than half a century, flattened homes and offices on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border, killing at least 34 people in in a single village in Pakistan and swaying skyscrapers and buildings as far away as New Delhi.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 17, Diplomats said technicians upgrading Iran's main uranium enrichment facility have tripled their installations of high-tech machines that could be used in a nuclear weapons program to more than 600 in the last three months.
(AP, 4/17/13)
2013 Apr 24, In the message to its Iranian retailers, Samsung said that it cannot provide access to the store, known as Samsung Apps, in Iran because of "legal barriers," effective May 22. It apologized to customers in emailed statement. The move was seen as part of international sanctions on the country over its disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/13)
2013 May 2, A Kenyan court found 2 Iranian nationals guilty of terror-related charges. Officials accused them of planning to attack Western targets inside Kenya. Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi were arrested in June 2012 and led officials to a 15-kg (33-pound) stash of the explosive RDX. On May 6 the two men were sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 5/2/13)(AP, 5/6/13)
2013 May 8, Iran withdrew its ambassador in Cyprus to protest the country's decision to extradite an Iranian to the United States for prosecution. Iranian Saeid Mohabat (45) was extradicted to the US last month to face charges of breaching UN sanctions against Iran.
(AP, 5/10/13)
2013 May 9, Iran's defense minister said Iran has built a new, radar-evading drone that can do surveillance and fire on enemy targets. The Fars news agency quoted Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as saying that the new aircraft — dubbed Epic, or Hemaseh in Farsi — can fly at high altitudes.
(AP, 5/9/13)
2013 May 10, Iranian border guards opened fire on Afghan laborers as they tried to cross the boundary illegally looking for work. 10 laborers were killed in the shooting with 8 wounded. 21 were taken by the Iranian guards.
(AP, 5/12/13)(SFC, 5/13/13, p.A2)
2013 May 15, In Albania 14 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq arrived from Iraq, the first of 210 set to travel to new homes in Albania. The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) began settling Albania under a UN and US-backed deal after their camp in Iraq was bombed.
(AP, 5/16/13)(AFP, 3/12/20)
2013 May 19, Iran’s state radio said Mohammad Heidari, who was accused of providing Mossad with classified information in return of money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, who allegedly gave the CIA intelligence on Iran, have been hanged.
(AP, 5/19/13)
2013 May 21, Iran’s Guardian Council approved eight hopefuls, most of them hard-line candidates associated with the clerical establishment. It barred ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (78), a centrist who had revitalized reformist hopes as well as Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the top aide of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/21/13)
2013 May 22, Bahrain's Interior Ministry said an Iranian drone has been found in the strategic Gulf kingdom.
(AP, 5/22/13)
2013 May 22, The UN atomic agency detailed rapid Iranian progress in two programs that the West fears are geared toward making nuclear weapons, saying Tehran has upgraded its uranium enrichment facilities and advanced in building a plutonium-producing reactor.
(AP, 5/22/13)
2013 May 30, The US issued sanctions against Ashgar Mir-Hejazi, the deputy chief of staff of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and 50 other Iranian government officials for alleged human rights abuses.
(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A2)
2013 Jun 1, Iranian police arrested at least 7 people at a gathering to support candidate Hasan Rowhani in northern Tehran. The arrests were made after many participants chanted slogans calling for the release of Mir Hossein Mousavi, an opposition leader and candidate in Iran's disputed 2009 elections who has been under house arrest for more than two years.
(AP, 6/2/13)
2013 Jun 1, Iranian news said 6 Iranians have died and 348 have been sickened after drinking poisonous alcohol in the southeastern Kerman province. Most had consumed the bad alcohol on May 29.
(AP, 6/1/13)
2013 Jun 14, Iran held presidential elections. Results the next day said Hasan Rowhani took 50.7% of the more than 36 million votes cast.
(AP, 6/14/13)(AP, 6/16/13)
2013 Jun 15, In Iran Hasan Rohani (64), a reformist-backed presidential candidate, capped a stunning surge to claim the presidency.
(AP, 6/15/13)
2013 Jun 17, Iran's newly elected Pres. Hasan Rowhani pledged to follow a "path of moderation" and promised greater openness over the country's nuclear program, emphasizing messages from Western leaders since his victory that have brought cautious hope of new openings with Tehran.
(AP, 6/17/13)
2013 Jun 19, The UK's highest court ruled that the government was wrong to have imposed sanctions on an Iranian bank in 2009 over alleged links to Iran's nuclear program. The decision mirrored a January ruling by the European Union's General Court, which overturned sanctions imposed in 2010, and could result in the bank suing Britain for damages.
(AP, 6/19/13)
2013 Jun 20, Iran's state TV said the country's navy has detained 13 fishermen from two United Arab Emirates vessels after they trespassed into what the report said were Iranian territorial waters.
(AP, 6/21/13)
2013 Jun 25, An Iranian news agency reported that security forces have dismantled a terrorist and sabotage network in southern city of Shiraz.
(AP, 6/25/13)
2013 Jun 26, Iran burned at least 100 tons of illicit drugs, some in a Tehran ceremony attended by officials and foreign dignitaries, to highlight what it says are its unsupported efforts to stem the flow of narcotics across its territory to Europe.
(AP, 6/26/13)
2013 Jun 28, The Slovak news website www.sme.sk said a group of five or six Slovak hang-glider enthusiasts were detained 3 weeks ago in Iran on suspicion of espionage.
(Reuters, 6/28/13)
2013 Jul 1, New sanctions against Iran came into effect, targeting trade with Iran's shipping and automobile sectors, gold sales to Iran and handling of the Iranian currency, the rial - a further attempt to force Tehran to curb its nuclear activities.
(Reuters, 7/2/13)
2013 Jul 8, Iran’s communications minister said all citizens will be assigned an individual email address which the would aid interaction between state authorities and the people.
(Reuters, 7/8/13)
2013 Jul 9, Iranian security forces killed a man suspected of wanting to carry out a suicide bombing on a police headquarters in the southeastern city of of Chabahar.
(Reuters, 7/9/13)
2013 Jul 14, Iran’s new Pres. Hasan Rowhani put the country’s inflation rate at 42%, 8% above official figures.
(Econ, 8/3/13, p.43)
2013 Jul 18, The World Bank said Iran has not paid back any of its loans to the World Bank for more than six months, a further sign of the strains on the sanctions-hit Iranian economy.
(Reuters, 7/18/13)
2013 Jul 21, In Yemen armed men seized an employee of the Iranian embassy in Sanaa. Diplomat Nour Ahmad Nikbakht was freed by Iranian special operatives in March, 2015.
(Reuters, 7/21/13)(AP, 3/5/15)
2013 Jul 23, An Iraqi government spokesman said Baghdad has signed a 4-year deal with Iran to import natural gas for power generation, further intertwining the economies of the two Shiite-dominated countries. Police found the bodies of 4 off-duty policemen on a road with bullet wounds in their heads.
(AP, 7/23/13)(AP, 7/24/13)
2013 Jul 27, Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA reported that a member of Ahl Al-Haq faith, a small religious minority, set himself on fire next to the country's parliament building. He was hospitalized.
(AP, 7/28/13)
2013 Jul 31, Officials and bankers said Iran and Syrian authorities signed a deal this week to activate a $3.6 billion credit facility to buy oil products with long term payment terms.
(Reuters, 7/31/13)
2013 Aug 4, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took the oath of office before parliament in Tehran. He was expected later in the day to name a cabinet he said would be chosen from figures across the political spectrum.
(Reuters, 8/4/13)
2013 Aug 15, Iran's conservative-dominated parliament rejected three of the new president's 18 nominees for his Cabinet but approved 15 others.
(AP, 8/15/13)
2013 Aug 22, A Thai court sentenced Saeid Moradi (29), an Iranian man, to life in prison and his compatriot, Mohammad Kharzei (43), to 15 years in jail for their roles in a Feb, 2012, botched bomb plot that was exposed when an accidental explosion blew apart the Bangkok villa where they were staying.
(AP, 8/22/13)
2013 Aug 24, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said for the first time that chemical weapons had killed people in ally Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.
(Reuters, 8/24/13)
2013 Aug 28, The latest UN IAEA report said Iran has installed about 1,000 advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges and is set to test them.
(Reuters, 8/28/13)
2013 Aug 29, Iran reported that its foreign ministry has appointed Marzieh Afkham as its first-ever spokeswoman. Pres. Hassan Rowhani appeared to welcome the move as part of a campaign to empower women.
(AFP, 8/29/13)
2013 Sep 1, In Iraq members of an Iranian dissident group were killed at Camp Ashraf, home to about 100 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. MEK spokesman, Shahin Gobadi, said 52 were killed and some of them were found handcuffed behind the back.
(AP, 9/1/13)(SFC, 9/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Sep 2, Iran's Foreign Ministry said that six Slovaks, arrested last June, were released from prison and handed over to Slovak Embassy officials in Tehran. Two others remained in detention.
(AP, 9/2/13)
2013 Sep 9, In Iran 44 people were killed and 39 injured when two passenger buses collided outside Tehran and caught fire.
(Reuters, 9/10/13)
2013 Sep 18, Iran freed 11 political prisoners including human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh in another sign that hardline policies may be easing under a new president. Sotoudeh was seen by campaign groups as Iran's highest profile political prisoner.
(Reuters, 9/18/13)(SFC, 9/19/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 23, Iran said it has freed 80 prisoners arrested in political crackdowns, offering another potential diplomatic boost for the country's new president and his outreach to the West at this week's UN gathering.
(AP, 9/23/13)
2013 Sep 24, Pres. Obama addressed the opening of the UN General Assembly in NYC. Obama and Iran's new Pres. Hassan Rowhani made very tentative moves to end decades of hostility between their countries but could not break the deadlock enough to organize a meeting.
(SFC, 9/24/13, p.A3)(AFP, 9/25/13)
2013 Sep 26, The US and its international partners emerged from a meeting at UN headquarters with Iran declaring that a "window of opportunity has opened" to peacefully settle their nuclear standoff. Both sides agreed to fast-track negotiations and hold a substantive round of talks on Oct. 15-16 in Geneva.
(AP, 9/27/13)
2013 Sep 27, Iran resumed payments on old loans to the World Bank.
(Reuters, 9/27/13)
2013 Sep 27, President Barack Obama and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani had a 15-minute phone conversation reflecting wide support for a peace initiative that has the backing of both reformists and the country's conservative clerical leadership. They discussed ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 9/27/13)
2013 Sep 27, A Saudi diplomat, involved in a fatal road accident, left Iran. An Iranian citizen was killed mid-March when the diplomat's car reportedly hit another vehicle on a expressway in Tehran while speeding at 130 kph (80 mph). Iranian authorities said the accident happened because the diplomat had been driving while drunk.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Sep 29, Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service said it has arrested a Belgian citizen of Iranian origin whom it claims was sent by Iran to spy on Israel under the guise of a windows and roofing salesman.
(AP, 9/29/13)
2013 Sep 30, In Iran Mojtaba Ahmadi, an official of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was found shot dead near Karaj, a town northwest of the capital Tehran.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Sep 30, An Israeli court remanded in custody for eight days Ali Mansouri (55), an alleged Iranian spy, arrested on September 11 carrying photographs of the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Mansouri, a Belgian-Iranian man, was indicted on Oct 6.
(AFP, 9/30/13)(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Sep, A US federal judge ruled that a 36-story Manhattan office tower and other properties, belonging to the Iran-linked Alavi Foundation, was subject to forfeiture because revenue from it was secretly funneled to a state-owned Iranian bank in violation of a US trade embargo.
(AP, 4/19/14)
2013 Oct 6, Iran's nuclear chief said that authorities arrested four workers in an alleged sabotage plot involving one of the country's nuclear facilities.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 8, In Iran Mahdi Khazali (48), a surgeon, blogger and veteran activist, said a court has sentenced him to six years in prison over security charges.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 10, Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency said an armed group has killed five members of the elite Revolutionary Guards in a Kurdish area near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 15, Iranian negotiators put forward what they called a potential breakthrough plan at the long-stalled talks in Geneva on easing fears that Tehran wants atomic arms.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 25, Iran's Revolutionary Guard killed 3 rebels and arrested three others in Baneh, a Kurdish populated region in northwestern Iran.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Iranian media said 14 border guards were killed overnight and three others captured by "bandits" on the southeastern frontier with Pakistan. Jaish-ul Adl, a Sunni rebel group formed last year, claimed responsibility for the attack. In response the Iranian judiciary executed 16 people it said were elements of "terrorist" groups.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Iranian media reported that a court has sentenced Pegah Ahangarani (24), an actress known for her reformist political activism, to 18 months in prison on security charges.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 30, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that four people accused of sabotaging one of the country's sensitive nuclear sites were only thieves.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Nov 1, Iran said it has launched its first submarine for tourists in the Persian Gulf waters, an all-Iranian-made undersea vehicle. The submarine, dubbed Morvarid (Pearl in Farsi), will serve tourists in Kish Island, Iran's prime tourist spot in the Gulf.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 2, An Iranian media website said China has agreed to finance $20 billion in development projects in Iran using oil money not transferred to the Islamic Republic because of international sanctions.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Iran arrested the head of reformist daily Bahar, Saeed Pourazizi, for publishing an article seen by critics as questioning the beliefs of Shia Islam.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Iran tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the streets outside the former US Embassy in Tehran in the biggest anti-American rally in years, a show of support for hard-line opponents of President Hassan Rouhani's historic outreach to Washington.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Iranian Mehr news agency reported that commander Mohammad Jamalizade of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was recently killed in Syria after volunteering to defend a Shi'ite shrine in Damascus.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Iran gunman ambushed and killed Musa Nouri, a state prosecutor, in a restive southeastern region near the Pakistani border. Sunni Islamist Baluch militants claimed responsibility for killing the prosecutor in revenge for a decision to hang 16 prisoners following a cross-border attack by the group two weeks ago.
(AP, 11/6/13)(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Iran and six world powers began a new two day round of negotiations with broad discussions about a nuclear deal. Iran’s chief negotiator said a plan to cap some of its atomic activities in exchange for selective relief from crippling economic sanctions has been accepted by six world powers and a deal could be imminent.
(AP, 11/7/13)(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 9, World powers and Iran held a third day of crunch talks on Tehran's nuclear program. France's foreign minister said Iran's refusal to suspend work on a plutonium-producing reactor and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium was standing in the way of an interim agreement to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for easing of sanctions.
(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 10, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran will not abandon its nuclear rights, including uranium enrichment, a day after a fresh round of talks with world powers. Iran and world powers failed to clinch a long-sought deal despite marathon talks in Geneva.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Iran Safdar Rahmat Abadi, a deputy minister of industry, was shot in the head and chest as he got into his car in Tehran. A suspect was soon arrested. Officials later said the killer was inside the car and talked with Abadi before shooting him.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 10, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would do all it could to keep world powers from striking a "bad and dangerous" deal with Iran over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 11, Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog agreed on a "roadmap for cooperation" over Tehran's controversial atomic drive, as the US accused Iran of scuttling efforts to end the deadlock.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Britain said it has revived diplomatic relations with Iran and appointed a non-resident charge d'affaires, two years after an angry mob ransacked the British embassy in Tehran. Iran appointed a new charge d'affaires to Britain to revive diplomatic ties.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 18, Iran unveiled its Fotros drone, a missile-equipped drone with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and a flight time of 16 to 30 hours.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Russia hosted Syrian and Iranian delegations for separate rounds of talks in a renewed diplomatic push for a Syrian peace conference in which Moscow says Tehran must also play a role.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 19, Hundreds of Iranians including university students and members of the country's Jewish community rallied in support of the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program on the eve of the resumption of talks with world powers.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Lebanon 2 suicide bombers detonated explosions outside the Iranian Embassy in a mainly Shiite district of Beirut, killing 25 people, including the Iranian cultural attaché, apparently in retaliation for the Lebanese group Hezbollah's support of Syrian President Assad.
(AP, 11/19/13)(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Nuclear talks resumed between Iran and world powers. Iran's supreme leader voiced support for the negotiations over his country's nuclear program, but insisted there are limits to the concessions Iran will make in exchange for an easing of the sanctions choking its economy.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A rights group said Iran is forcefully deporting Afghans by the thousands in violation of its international obligation to protect refugees.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 24, Iran struck a historic deal with the United States and five other world powers, agreeing to a temporary freeze of its nuclear program in the most significant agreement between Washington and Tehran in more than three decades of estrangement.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Israel's PM Netanyahu harshly condemned the international community's nuclear deal with Iran.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Iran a 5.7 magnitude earthquake on the Gulf coast near the country’s sole nuclear power plant killed eight people and injured 190.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov, Iran signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million. Public notice of the deal was only made public in Feb 2014.
(Reuters, 2/24/14)
2013 Dec 1, Iran said it is in talks with Russia to build another nuclear plant at Bushehr, with construction set to begin in 2014.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 3, Iran's foreign ministry asked Afghanistan not to sign a security deal with the US that could keep thousands of American and allied forces in its neighboring country for another decade.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 8, UN inspectors visited an Iranian plant linked to a planned heavy-water reactor that could yield nuclear bomb fuel, taking up an initial offer by Tehran to open its disputed nuclear program to greater scrutiny.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 11, Iran released the last two of eight Slovak paragliders arrested for allegedly spying after PM Robert Fico and Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak flew in to secure their release.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, The Obama adminsitration announced an expanded list of Iranian companies and individuals that it said it would target to block their trading activities around the world due to sanctions violations.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A11)
2013 Dec 12, A senior Iranian nuclear negotiator said new sanctions by the US on Iranian companies and individuals violate the spirit of a deal made between Tehran and the West over its nuclear program.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Iran quit nuclear talks with world powers, accusing Washington of going against the spirit of a landmark agreement reached last month by expanding its sanctions blacklist.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iranian intelligence authorities have arrested a man on charges of spying for Britain's MI6.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has canceled a planned $500 million loan to Pakistan to build part of a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 18, in south-east Iran 3 military personnel were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 31, A senior Iranian official said six world powers and Iran have made good progress in expert talks in Geneva on how to roll out last month's landmark nuclear deal which obliges Tehran to suspend its most sensitive atom work.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Michael Axworthy authored “Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic."
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.78)
2013 Kenneth Pollack authored “Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb and American Strategy."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.89)
2013 Iran arrested Babak Zanjani (38) as part of a crackdown on alleged corruption during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2016 he was sentenced to death. His fortune was estimated at $14 billion.
(AP, 12/3/16)
2013 Iran’s population was about 77 million.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.11)
2014 Jan 10, Iranian state television reported that talks with the European Union have ended with an agreement over outstanding issues about the practical details of implementing a nuclear agreement.
(Reuters, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 11, Inflation in Iran was reportedly running at 36%.
(Econ, 1/11/14, p.42)
2014 Jan 12, Iran's foreign ministry said that the “joint plan of action," the landmark agreement the Islamic republic clinched with world powers on its disputed nuclear program, will take effect from January 20. Under the JPA Iran would freeze its nuclear program for six months.
(AFP, 1/12/14)(Econ, 1/18/14, p.47)
2014 Jan 18, In Yemen Ali Asghar Asadi, Iran's economic attaché in Sanaa, was killed in a drive-by shooting. A military intelligence officer was killed in a drive-by shooting by gunmen who fled on a motorbike in Huta. In Al-Milah armed men ambushed an army vehicle and shot dead 2 soldiers.
(AP, 1/18/14)(AFP, 1/18/14)
2014 Jan 19, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said Iran has been invited to attend a Jan 22 meeting of foreign ministers in the Swiss city of Montreux ahead of internationally brokered peace talks between Syria's warring factions. The UN invite sparked a boycott call from the opposition and President Bashar al-Assad ruled out a power-sharing deal.
(AP, 1/19/14)(AFP, 1/20/14)
2014 Jan 20, Iran halted production of 20 percent enriched uranium, marking the entry into force of an interim deal with world powers on its disputed nuclear program. The United States eased some sanctions on Iran, pausing efforts to reduce Iranian crude oil exports, as part of a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that went into effect. The EU also agreed to suspend some economic sanctions against Iran as part of the ground-breaking nuclear deal.
(AFP, 1/20/14)(Reuters, 1/20/14)
2014 Jan 20, Iran rebuffed a precondition for taking part in Syria peace talks in Geneva this week, saying it could not accept a plan for a Syrian political transition agreed at talks in the Swiss city in 2012. In response UN leader Ban Ki-moon withdrew his surprise invitation to Iran, less than 24 hours after he announced it.
(Reuters, 1/20/14)(AFP, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 21, Britain told Iran to stop supporting the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad militarily, urging it to back efforts to broker peace in Syria instead.
(Reuters, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 23, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani told the World Economic Forum in Davos that Tehran was ready to help create a new multilateral body tasked with stabilizing global energy supplies. Rouhani also called for free and fair elections in Syria, saying it would respect any outcome.
(AFP, 1/23/14)(AP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 24, Iran's foreign minister, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, called for all "foreign elements" to leave Syria so its people can decide their future themselves.
(AP, 1/24/14)
2014 Jan 25, An Iranian embassy official who was kidnapped in Sanaa in July was found beheaded in Naarib province, central Yemen.
(Reuters, 1/25/14)
2014 Jan 29, Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Iran to bolster trade and energy relations.
(Reuters, 1/29/14)
2014 Feb 3, Iran’s state news said a first tranche of $550 million in sanctions relief agreed to under an interim nuclear deal has been paid into an Iranian Central Bank account in Switzerland.
(Reuters, 2/3/14)
2014 Feb 4, Kuwait said its coastguard has arrested six suspected Iranian drug smugglers and seized their boat when it entered the Gulf state's territorial waters.
(AFP, 2/4/14)
2014 Feb 6, Five Iranian border guards were kidnapped by militants in the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan by militants who allegedly took them across the border to Pakistan. On Feb 17 Iran said it would send forces into Pakistan to free them if Islamabad did not take measures to secure their release. The kidnapping was later claimed by Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), a Sunni Muslim rebel group. One of the guards was killed in March. On April 4 Iran’s Fars News reported that the other four have been released.
(Reuters, 2/17/14)(Reuters, 4/4/14)
2014 Feb 9, Iran agreed to start addressing UN nuclear agency suspicions that it may have worked on designing an atomic weapon, a potential breakthrough in unblocking a long-stalled investigation into Tehran's disputed atomic activities.
(Reuters, 2/9/14)
2014 Feb 14, Googoosh, an Iranian pop star living in Amsterdam, released a music video promoting gay rights. It was clicked on half a million times in the first 24 hours. Navid Akhavan, an Iranian-born Germany, wrote and directed the video for the song “Behesht" (Heaven).
(SFC, 3/5/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 17, Iran's ambassador to Moscow said Russia could build the Islamic republic a second nuclear power reactor under a proposed oil-for-goods swap that has raised grave concern in Washington.
(AFP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb 19, In Austria ambitious nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers entered a second day in Vienna with Tehran's foreign minister saying a deal was achievable.
(AFP, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 19, In Lebanon 2 suicide bombers targeted the Iranian cultural center in Beirut, killing four people and themselves in an attack claimed by Sunni militants who said it was a response to the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian war.
(Reuters, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 20, Iran and world powers agreed a timetable and framework for the ambitious and arduous process of hammering out a lasting nuclear accord by July 20 that satisfies all sides.
(AP, 2/20/14)
2014 Feb 25, Pakistan said that work on a pipeline to import gas from Iran cannot proceed because of sanctions imposed by the United Sates and the European Union on Tehran.
(AFP, 2/25/14)
2014 Mar 5, The Israeli navy seized a ship in the Red Sea that was carrying dozens of advanced Iranian-supplied rockets made in Syria and intended for Palestinian guerrillas in the Gaza Strip.
(Reuters, 3/5/14)
2014 Mar 8, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton arrived in Tehran to discuss issues including Iran's disputed nuclear program, before another round of talks between Iran and world powers.
(Reuters, 3/8/14)
2014 Mar 11, Russia signed a preliminary agreement to build at least two more nuclear power plants in the Iranian port city of Bushehr.
(AFP, 3/12/14)
2014 Mar 17, A senior Iranian official said that an alleged attempt to sabotage one of Tehran's nuclear facilities involved foreign intelligence agencies who tampered with imported pumps.
(AP, 3/17/14)
2014 Mar 18, Iranians jumped over bonfires, threw firecrackers and floated wishing lanterns to celebrate an ancient festival (Chaharshanbe Souri) marking the end of the Persian year, ignoring calls by many Islamic clerics to shun a ritual that has officially been denounced as pagan.
(AP, 3/19/14)
2014 Mar 21, Israel's Mossad intelligence agency said 8 Iranian Jews who disappeared while trying to leave the Islamic Republic from 1994-1997 were captured and killed.
(AP, 3/21/14)
2014 Mar 27, In his first visit to Afghanistan as Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani called for regional unity as regional leaders celebrated the Persian New Year in Kabul.
(AP, 3/27/14)
2014 Apr 7, The US approved a bill barring Iranian diplomat Hamid Abutalebi from entering the country. Officials objected to his selection as Iran’s new UN ambassador because of his alleged participation in a Muslim student group that held 52 Americans hostage in the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 8, Syrian state media said Iran has sent 30,000 tons of food supplies to help President Bashar Assad's government deal with shortages amid civil war.
(AP, 4/8/14)
2014 Apr 9, Iran and Azerbaijan signed deals to build a hydroelectric plant and boost environmental and athletic cooperation as Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev visited Iran.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 9, In Vienna, Austria, Iran and six major powers discussed all important issues on curbing Tehran's nuclear program and planned to begin a new round of negotiations in Vienna on May 13.
(Reuters, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 12, Iran rejected a US decision to deny a visa for its newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations, pledging to take up the case directly with the world body in a dispute that has reopened old wounds dating to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
(Reuters, 4/12/14)
2014 Apr 13, Iran state news said the government has complained to the UN about the United States refusing to grant a visa to Hamid Abutaleb, its newly appointed UN ambassador over his role in the 1979 hostage crisis.
(Reuters, 4/14/14)
2014 Apr 14, Iran said it could be a "reliable, secure and long-term" supplier of gas to Europe.
(AFP, 4/14/14)
2014 Apr 15, Dubai ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed bilateral relations and regional developments. Zarif also met the Gulf federation's foreign minister, Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi.
(AP, 4/15/14)
2014 Apr 18, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill designed to bar Iran's pick for UN ambassador from US soil over his links to the 1979 American embassy hostage siege. But Obama also issued a statement saying that he would only regard the legislation as guidance, warning it could infringe upon his executive powers as president.
(AFP, 4/18/14)
2014 Apr 25, Iran announced petrol price hikes as high as 75 percent to take immediate effect, in a long-awaited attempt to regulate energy prices in the country's flatlining, sanctions-hit economy.
(AFP, 4/25/14)
2014 Apr 26, Iran hanged in public 3 men convicted of killing prosecutor Mousa Nouri last Nov 6 in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
(AFP, 4/26/14)
2014 Apr 29, The US targeted companies from China and Dubai for allegedly helping Iran evade weapons and oil sanctions, a signal Washington will keep pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 4/29/14)
2014 May 5, In Iran UN atomic agency officials held talks in Tehran before visits to two uranium sites, as the country acts to implement a series of steps aimed at providing transparency on its nuclear research by a mid-May deadline.
(Reuters, 5/514)
2014 May 7, Iranian media said UN inspectors have visited a uranium mine and reached agreement on how to monitor a planned reactor, part of an effort to allay fears about Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 5/7/14)
2014 May 12, A confidential new report by a UN panel of experts highlighted Iran's methods of evading sanctions - from concealing titanium tubes inside steel pipes to using its petrochemical industry as a cover to obtain items for a heavy-water nuclear reactor.
(Reuters, 5/12/14)
2014 May 20, Police in Iran confirmed the arrest of six young people for posting a video online of them dancing to Pharrell Williams' hit song "Happy," showing them on state television as a public warning to youth in the Islamic Republic. On Sep 17 the six were given suspended sentences of 91 lashes and six months in prison for obscene behavior.
(AP, 5/21/14)(Reuters, 9/18/14)
2014 May 24, In Iran Mahafarid Amir Khosravi (aka Amir Mansour Aria), a billionaire businessman at the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam, was executed. His was the largest fraud case since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution. A total of 39 defendants were convicted in the case. Four received death sentences, two got life sentences and the rest received sentences of up to 25 years in prison.
(AP, 5/24/14)
2014 May 25, An Iranian court convicted the editor and a contributor of the banned Bahar Daily newspaper over a series of charges, including lying about Islam and spreading anti-regime propaganda.
(AFP, 5/25/14)
2014 May 28, Iranian media said the country has recorded its first two cases of the MERS virus.
(SFC, 5/29/14, p.A2)
2014 May 30, An Iranian an opposition website, Kaleme, said an Iranian court last week sentenced eight people to jail terms ranging from seven to 20 years for crimes including anti-regime propaganda posted on Facebook.
(AFP, 5/30/14)
2014 May 30, In Iran floods killed 3 women in the northeast. Emergency workers rescued 600 people from a neighbouring region hit by a landslide in Golestan province.
(AFP, 5/31/14)
2014 Jun 1, Iranian officials attended a ceremony to mark the death of Gen. Abdollah Eskandari, who was recently killed in Syria.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 1, Iran executed a prisoner linked to the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. Gholamreza Khosravi was sentenced to death in 2010 for providing photos of the country's military facilities as well as financial aid to the MEK, and for helping to recruit for the group.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 1, Kuwait's emir began a visit to Iran, the first by a ruler of the US-allied Gulf Arab state since the 1979 Islamic revolution, underscoring improving ties between Tehran and its Arab neighbors.
(Reuters, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 2, In Iran a massive sandstorm and record winds plunged Tehran into darkness, damaging buildings and knocking out power supplies. The freak weather left at least 5 people dead.
(AFP, 6/2/14)(AFP, 6/3/14)
2014 Jun 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with Turkish officials, including PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the first official Iranian presidential visit to Turkey since 1996.
(AP, 6/9/14)
2014 Jun 13, A representative for Iraq's top Shiite cleric urged Iraqis to defend their country. Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that former members of Tehran's powerful Revolutionary Guard have announced their readiness to fight in Iraq against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
(AP, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 16, Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration is willing to talk with Iran over deteriorating security conditions in Iraq.
(AP, 6/16/14)
2014 Jun 17, Iran and six world powers re-launched talks to rescue prospects for a deal on Tehran's nuclear activity by a July deadline.
(Reuters, 6/17/14)
2014 Jun 20, Iran and six powers made some progress on drafting the wording of a nuclear deal, but key sections of the document were left blank. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said full agreement was possible at the next round, in Vienna on July 2.
(AP, 6/20/14)
2014 Jun 20, Iran’s state TV reported that a court in Kerman province has convicted two men on charges of spying for Britain and Israel and sentenced them to 10 and five years in prison, respectively.
(AP, 6/20/14)
2014 Jun 24, In Iran an attack near its western border with Iraq killed 3 border guards.
(AP, 6/25/14)
2014 Jul 3, A European Union court annulled sanctions placed by the 28-nation bloc on a leading Iranian university because of its alleged involvement with the country's nuclear program due to insufficient evidence. An asset freeze will remain in place for another two months to hinder Tehran's Sharif University of Technology from instantly withdrawing its frozen funds.
(AP, 7/3/14)
2014 Jul 5, Iran state media reported that Colonel Shoja'at Alamdari Mourjani has been killed while fighting in Iraq, in what is thought to be Tehran's first military casualty during battles against Islamic State jihadists.
(AFP, 7/5/14)
2014 Jul 5, California-based World Eco Energy said it has signed a preliminary agreement to invest $1.175 billion (864 million euros) in Iran, in a rare joint commercial project to turn rubbish and human waste into electricity.
(AFP, 7/5/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Iranian F-4 fighter jet crashed shortly after taking off from a military air base in Shiraz killing two pilots on board.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 18, Iran and six world powers failed to meet their target date for cutting a nuclear deal but agreed to extend the talks until Nov 24.
(SFC, 7/19/14, p.A2)
2014 Jul 22, Iranian authorities arrested Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian (38) and his wife, also a journalist. Two American photographers were also arrested. In early October Yeganeh Salehi (30) was released on bail, while her husband, Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, 38, remained in detention.
(AFP, 7/26/14)(SFC, 7/26/14, p.A1)(AP, 10/6/14)
2014 Jul 25, Iranians took part in huge rallies across the country to show solidarity with Palestinians, urging them to keep up their struggle despite the Israeli assault on Gaza.
(Reuters, 7/25/14)
2014 Aug 10, In Iran 39 people were killed and nine wounded when a regional passenger plane crashed while taking off from Tehran.
(Yahoo News, 8/10/14)
2014 Aug 19, Iranian poet Simin Behbahani (87) died.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.78)
2014 Aug 24, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said it has brought down an Israeli stealth drone above the Natanz uranium enrichment site.
(AFP, 8/24/14)
2014 Aug 29, The US imposed sanctions on more than 25 Iranian businesses and individuals suspected of working to expand Iran’s nuclear program.
(SSFC, 8/31/14, p.A5)
2014 Sep 8, An Iranian government minister said Afghan and Pakistani nationals, who were planning to join the ranks of Islamic State jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq, have been arrested in Iran.
(AFP, 9/8/14)
2014 Sep 15, In France world powers backed military measures to help defeat Islamic State fighters in Iraq, boosting Washington's efforts to set up a coalition, but made no mention of the tougher diplomatic challenge next door in Syria. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said French aircraft would begin reconnaissance flights over Iraq. Iran ruled out working with any international coalition and rejected American requests for cooperation against the militants.
(Reuters, 9/15/14)(AP, 9/15/14)
2014 Sep 19, Iran and six world powers opened a new round of talks at the UN to overcome differences in the way of a deal on curbing Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 9/19/14)
2014 Sep 22, An Iranian newspaper said 11 people have been arrested in the south after allegedly sending text messages deemed insulting to the founder of the Islamic Republic, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
(AP, 9/22/14)
2014 Sep 30, Iran said it will supply the Lebanese army with military equipment to fight Muslim extremist groups.
(SFC, 10/1/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 1, A Kenyan court ordered two Iranians held under anti-terrorism laws to serve two years in jail or pay a hefty fine after they pleaded guilty to using fake Israeli passports to enter the East African country last month.
(Reuters, 10/1/14)
2014 Oct 7, Iran said it had seized explosives destined for an attack on one of its holy cities and that more than 130 members of militant extremist groups had been arrested.
(AFP, 10/7/14)
2014 Oct 11, In Iran a police airplane crashed outside the provincial capital of Zahedan killing all 7 people aboard.
(SSFC, 10/12/14, p.A4)
2014 Oct 15, A magnitude 6 earthquake struck western Iran at a depth of 36.7 km.
(Reuters, 10/15/14)
2014 Oct 20, Iranian news reported that authorities have arrested four people suspected of throwing acid on women.
(AP, 10/20/14)
2014 Oct 22, In Iran around 1,000 people took to the streets of Isfahan to demand action after four women were maimed in acid attacks reportedly linked to them not wearing the veil.
(AFP, 10/22/14)
2014 Oct 25, In Iran Reyhaneh Jabbari (26), on death row for five years, was hanged at dawn. The interior designer was convicted for the 2007 stabbing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former intelligence officer. She claimed he had tried to sexually assault her.
(AFP, 10/25/14)
2014 Oct 24, Iran’s interior minister said several men arrested on suspicion of committing horrific acid attacks on women in Isfahan have been released due to insufficient evidence.
(AFP, 10/25/14)
2014 Oct 31, Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on the government to rush to the aid of Sunni tribes battling Islamic State, after the militant group executed at least 220 tribesmen west of Baghdad this week.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Nov 2, In Iran Ghoncheh Ghavami (25), an Iranian-British woman detained last June 20 while trying to attend a men's volleyball game in Iran, was found guilty of spreading propaganda against the ruling system and sentenced to a year in prison. Charges against her were reported dropped on April 2, 2015, as a court waived the remaining seven months of her sentence.
(AP, 11/2/14)(AP, 4/2/15)
2014 Nov 7, Russia signed a contract to build two more nuclear reactors in Iran to be possibly followed by another six, a move intended to cement closer ties between the two nations.
(AP, 11/11/14)
2014 Nov 9, In Syria 5 nuclear scientists were killed in a machine gun ambush outside Damascus. One of the men was an Iranian nuclear technician. Syrian rebels working for Israel were blamed.
(SFC, 11/11/14, p.A4)
2014 Nov 10, Iran said that it has successfully tested its own version of a US-made drone based on one it captured in 2011.
(AP, 11/10/14)
2014 Nov 15, Iran's semiofficial ISNA news agency reported that the Supreme Court has disbarred judge Saeed Mortazavi over his role in the death by torture of at least three jailed anti-government protesters in 2009.
(AP, 11/15/14)
2014 Nov 20, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan after six years in prison for spreading propaganda, insulting Islam and cooperating with hostile countries. He was imprisoned in 2008 in Tehran on suspicion of spying for Israel and sentenced in 2010 to 19-1/2 years in prison.
(Reuters, 11/20/14)
2014 Nov 24, Iran and six powers failed for a second time this year o resolve their 12-year dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and gave themselves seven more months to overcome the deadlock that has prevented them from clinching an historic deal.
(AP, 11/24/14)
2014 Dec 3, The Afghan government said it will send a delegation to Iran to ask the government to extend temporary visas to allow 760,000 Afghan refugees who have no documents and risk deportation to stay on for at least a year.
(Reuters, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 3, In the Turkmen frontier village of Ak-Yayla the presidents of Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan attended the official opening of a railway line linking landlocked Central Asia with the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 3, US officials said they have indications that Iran has carried out air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq 10 days earlier.
(Reuters, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 3, In Yemen a car bomb attack on the Iranian ambassador's house in the capital Sanaa killed 2 Yemeni soldiers and a civilian. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility.
(Reuters, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 6, An Iranian court charged Jason Rezaian, a reporter for the Washington Post jailed since last July. He was not told the charges.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 11, Iran media reported that authorities have arrested 12 people for syphoning off more than $4.5 billion (3.6 billion euros) from one of the country's main banks over several years. The suspects embezzled from the Kerman branch of Tejarat Bank from 2009 until their arrest in 2013.
(AFP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 11, In Vienna, Austria, several states (Britain, Norway, Netherlands and the US) pledged to back a UN nuclear agency (IAEA) request for 4.6 million euros ($5.7 million) as soon as possible to pay for its monitoring of an extended, interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
(AP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 12, Iran said it had agreed to extend temporary visas for 450,000 Afghan refugees for six months, lifting a threat to send them back home to a country facing attacks by resurgent militants.
(Reuters, 12/13/14)
2014 Dec 26, Iran said it is to expand what it calls "smart filtering" of the Internet, a policy of censoring undesirable content on websites without banning them completely, as it used to.
(Reuters, 12/26/14)
2014 Dec 28, Iran media reported that a sniper has killed Revolutionary Guards commander Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi. He was training Iraqi troops and Shi'ite militia fighting Islamic State (IS) militants in the Iraqi city of Samarra.
(Reuters, 12/28/14)
2014 Dec 28, In Iran 3 members of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), sent to reinforce border police, were killed in an attack in the southeast, an area rife with drug and arms traffickers.
(Reuters, 12/29/14)
2014 Dec 30, The United States imposed sanctions on nine new targets, saying the entities and people targeted had supported Iran's efforts to avoid sanctions and backed the government's human rights abuses, including censorship.
(Reuters, 12/30/14)
2014 Iran conducted a study that found 49.8% of men and women considered the Islamic veil a private matter and that the government should have no say in it. The study was only made public in 2018.
(SFC, 2/6/18, p.A4)
2015 Jan 1, In Iran 2 people were killed in what is being labeled a terrorist attack in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 7, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the judiciary has ordered that LINE, WhatsApp and Tango, three popular apps providing free phone and messaging services, be shut down. Social websites including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have already been blocked by censors.
(AP, 1/7/15)
2015 Jan 12, Iranian police confiscated seven tons of opium from drug smugglers. It was concealed in a cement truck heading toward Tehran. Iran was the main route for drug smugglers to ship narcotics from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to Europe.
(AP, 1/13/15)
2015 Jan 14, In Argentina federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman filed a 300-page court document in which he claimed that Pres. Cristina Fernandez, the foreign minister, Hector Timerman (1953-2018), and others had opened secret negotiations with Iran to absolve Iranian suspects in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
(Econ, 1/31/15, p.29)(SFC, 1/2/19, p.C3)
2015 Jan 15, Iran announced plans to combat what it says are "immoral" online dating websites by launching an official site for young people seeking marriage.
(AFP, 1/15/15)
2015 Jan 18, Iran and major powers made "limited" progress in narrowing differences over its nuclear program, but agreed to step up efforts as the Obama administration lobbied to stave off fresh sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 1/18/15)
2015 Jan 18, An Israel air strike on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights killed Hezbollah military commander Mohammed Issa, responsible for Hezbollah's operations in Syria and Iraq, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of an assassinated commander from the group. 4 other members of Hezbollah were also killed. General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi was among 6 Iranians killed in the attack.
(AFP, 1/18/15)(AP, 1/19/15)(AFP, 1/19/15)
2015 Jan 19, More than 2,000 Iranians protested outside the French embassy in Tehran, chanting "Death to France" and urging the ambassador be expelled because of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
(AFP, 1/19/15)
2015 Jan 20, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu signed a military cooperation deal with Iran that his Iranian counterpart touted as a joint response to US interference.
(AFP, 1/20/15)
2015 Jan 21, Iran's country's official news agency said the supreme court has sentenced Mohammad Reza Rahimi, a former vice president, to five years in prison and ordered him to pay a 10 billion rial ($300,000) fine. A local court had initially sentenced him to 15 years prison, but the supreme court reduced the term to five years and three months. Details of the conviction were not provided.
(AP, 1/22/15)
2015 Jan 22, A European Union high court annulled sanctions that the 28-nation bloc imposed on an Iranian bank and a shipping line and companies linked to it, over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/22/15)
2015 Feb 2, In northern Iran a private plane carrying a Saudi national and an Iranian pilot went missing.
(AP, 2/3/15)
2015 Feb 15, Iran’s former first vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, was taken to jail to serve his 5-year 3-month prison term.
(AP, 2/15/15)
2015 Feb 22, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran is seeking to open a "third front" against Israel using Hezbollah fighters on the Syrian Golan Heights.
(AFP, 2/22/15)
2015 Feb 24, Iranian officials and Western intelligence and diplomatic sources said at least $1 billion in cash has been smuggled into Iran in recent months as it seeks to avoid Western sanctions, a bigger figure than previously reported.
(Reuters, 2/24/15)
2015 Feb 26, A new Iranian political party, Nedaye Iranian (Call of Iranians), with social democratic leanings opened its first congress, aiming to lead reformists to victory in the Islamic republic's legislative elections next year.
(AFP, 2/26/15)
2015 Feb 26, In Iran a helicopter belonging to the country's air force crashed north of Tehran, killing all three crew members on board.
(AP, 2/26/15)
2015 Mar 1, A first Iranian flight landed in the Yemeni capital, a day after officials from the Shiite militia-controlled city signed an aviation agreement with Tehran. The plane delivered medical and other supplies to Sanaa.
(AFP, 3/1/15)(SFC, 3/2/15, p.A4)
2015 Mar 2, Iran’s The Center for Investigation of Organized Crime, a branch of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), accused Facebook of spreading immoral content and said it had arrested several users. State television reported Iran has monitored 8 million Facebook accounts with new software and will watch other social media sites for content that contravenes the Islamic Republic's moral codes.
(Reuters, 3/2/15)
2015 Mar 5, Iran said that a team of special operatives has freed Nour Ahmad Nikbakht, an Iranian diplomat abducted more than 19 months ago in Yemen.
(AP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 8, Iran’s state media reported that young woman, accused of marrying and divorcing 10 men in less than two years under an elaborate con trick, has been charged with fraud.
(AFP, 3/8/15)
2015 Mar 9, A letter signed by 47 Republican senators warned Iran that any nuclear deal made with US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, could last only as long as he remained in office.
(http://tinyurl.com/kkk97ph)
2015 Mar 26, Jaber, an Iranian fishing vessel believed to have up to 19 crew, was captured by Somali pirates, along with another Iranian fishing vessel, Siraj. Jaber and its crew escaped on August 27.
(Reuters, 8/28/15)
2015 Mar 30, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said a US drone strike killed two of its advisers near the Iraqi city of Tikrit on March 23, where a major offensive is underway against the Islamic State group. The US said its coalition conducted no airstrikes in the area during the time of the incident.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 31, Iran and six world powers ramped up the pace in negotiations in Switzerland over a preliminary deal on Tehran's nuclear program. Officials cautioned that any agreement would likely be fragile and incomplete.
(Reuters, 3/31/15)
2015 Mar, In Iran Mehdi Hashemi (45), son of Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was handed prison sentences totaling 25 years after being convicted on three charges in separate cases involving national security, fraud and embezzlement. He was sentenced to two terms of 10 years in prison and one of five years, and in line with Iranian law will serve the longest of the three sentences.
(AFP, 8/9/15)
2015 Apr 2, In southern Iran gunmen killed 3 police officers in Hamidiyeh near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Switzerland negotiators reached a framework for a nuclear accord with Iran. US President Barack Obama hailed it as an “historic understanding," but senior global diplomats cautioned that hard work lies ahead to strike a final deal.
(Reuters, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 3, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he and his Cabinet are united in "strongly opposing" an emerging framework agreement on curbing Iran's nuclear program and demanded that any final deal contain Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 4, Iran's State Security Council was reported to have approved a plan by the sports ministry to allow women and families to attend some sports events.
(AP, 4/4/15)
2015 Apr 6, Iran's official news agency reported that the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard has broken up a militant group linked to a "foreign intelligence" agency and killed its members. An attack by gunmen in the volatile southeast near the border with Pakistan killed 8 Iranian border guards.
(AP, 4/6/15)(AP, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 7, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani agreed to boost trade and signed a slew of deals at a meeting, but steered clear of directly addressing differences over conflict-ridden Yemen.
(Reuters, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 7, China's finance ministry said Iran has been approved as a founding member of the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Bank (AIIB).
(AFP, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 8, Iran dispatched a destroyer and another naval ship to waters off Yemen.
(SFC, 4/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 9, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded that all sanctions on Iran be lifted at the same time as any final agreement with world powers on curbing Tehran's nuclear program is concluded.
(Reuters, 4/9/15)
2015 Apr 9, In Yemen Shiite rebels and allied military units defied Saudi-led airstrikes to seize a provincial capital in a heavily Sunni tribal area as their patron Iran called the two-week air campaign a "crime" and appealed for peace talks.
(AP, 4/9/15)
2015 Apr 11, In Iran hundreds of citizens defied a government ban and protested against Saudi Arabia over the alleged abuse of two Iranian pilgrims visiting the Sunni kingdom.
(AP, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 11, Iran, a key transit route for illegal drugs trafficked from Afghanistan, announced that it has seized almost 500 tons of narcotics in the past year.
(AFP, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 11, In Yemen local militiamen in Aden reportedly captured two Iranian military officers advising Houthi rebels during fighting.
(Reuters, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 13, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin lifted a ban on supplying Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems after Tehran's landmark outline deal with the West over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 4/13/15)
2015 Apr 14, Iran proposed a four-point peace plan for Yemen and called for an end to Saudi-led air strikes against Houthi rebels allied to Tehran. It comprised of a ceasefire, humanitarian assistance, an intra-Yemeni dialogue and the establishment of a broad-based government.
(Reuters, 4/14/15)(Reuters, 4/15/15)
2015 Apr 15, Iran said it would only accept a deal over its contested nuclear program if world powers simultaneously lifted all sanctions imposed on it. A tentative deal between Iran and the six world powers was reached in Switzerland on April 2, and aimed at clearing the way for a final settlement on June 30.
(Reuters, 4/15/15)
2015 Apr 19, In Iran some 500 people protested the killings of dogs and called for an investigation. A short film showing several stray dogs dying after apparently being injected with burning acid in Shiraz had gone viral and prompted protests with celebrities joining animal lovers in condemning the cruelty.
(AFP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 20, Iran media said Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, detained about nine months ago, is being charged with four crimes, including espionage in a report offering the first details about the exact charges against him.
(Reuters, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 20, Britain informed a United Nations sanctions panel of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to two blacklisted firms.
(Reuters, 4/30/15)
2015 Apr 21, In Iran Hamid Reza Kamali, a one-time national racing champion, and two of his friends died at high speed accident in a BMW. A second deadly crash, also early this morning, saw a young girl killed when she lost control of a Porsche Boxster sports car and smashed into trees lining Shariati Avenue in northern Tehran.
(AFP, 4/26/15)
2015 Apr 28, Iranian naval ships fired across the bow of the Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, and forced it to head to Iranian territory. A day later Iran said the seizure was based on a lawsuit by a private company called Pars Talayieh Oil Product company (Golden Pars Oil Products) against the Maersk ship company. The ship was released on May 7 after the Maersk group promised to abide by an Iranian court decision.
(AFP, 4/28/15)(AFP, 4/29/15)(AP, 5/7/15)
2015 Apr 29, Iran’s Labor and Social Welfare Minister Ali Rabiei said that 200,000 wealthy Iranians — as well as Iranians living abroad — have been eliminated last week from the list of those getting handouts. Iran began handing out a monthly $15 in cash to all Iranians in 2010 as compensation for cuts in food and energy subsidies.
(AP, 4/29/15)
2015 May 14, Iranian Revolutionary Guards fired warning shots at the Alpine Eternity, a Singapore-flagged commercial ship in the Gulf, which had collided on March 22 with an Iranian oil rig. The Iranian boats then departed the area after UAE authorities deployed coast guard boats in response to calls for help.
(AFP, 5/14/15)
2015 May 24, Iran said it has agreed to grant UN inspectors access to military sites as part of a future deal over its contested nuclear program.
(SFC, 5/25/15, p.A4)
2015 Jun 1, Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Iranian Mahan Air, that acquired nine passenger jets in defiance of US sanctions, will begin using them on international routes this week. Mahan Air acquired eight second-hand Airbus A340s and one Airbus A321 in early May. The US Treasury imposed sanctions on two firms based in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of helping the purchase.
(Reuters, 6/1/15)
2015 Jun 3, A Syrian security source said thousands of Iranian and Iraqi fighters have been deployed in past weeks to bolster the defenses of Damascus and its surroundings.
(AFP, 6/3/15)
2015 Jun 8, Iranian authorities arrested Hamid Baghaei, a former vice president who served under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the second such detention of a senior official from the hard-line former leader's administration.
(AP, 6/8/15)
2015 Jun 8, Iran’s health ministry said it plans to open 150 alcohol treatment centers in an acknowledgement of the scale of abuse in a country where drinking is illegal.
(AFP, 6/8/15)
2015 Jun 11, Iran’s judiciary said the son of Iran's former president Akbar Rafsanjani will be jailed for 10 years after being convicted of financial and security crimes.
(AFP, 6/11/15)
2015 Jun 21, Iran's parliament voted to ban access to military sites, documents and scientists as part of a future deal with world powers over its contested nuclear program. The bill also demanded the complete lifting of all sanctions against Iran as part of any final nuclear accord. The bill must be ratified by the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog, to become a law.
(AP, 6/21/15)
2015 Jun 23, Iran's parliament approved a controversial bill that it said would protect the country's nuclear program, but which could also hinder final negotiations on a deal with world powers. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set out seven red lines that he said Iran would never cross.
(AFP, 6/23/15)(Econ, 7/4/15, p.39)
2015 Jun 27, Iran burned 100 tons of drugs recovered from traffickers in a ceremony to coincide with an international anti-drug day meeting in Tehran.
(AFP, 6/27/15)
2015 Jun 30, Iran and six world powers ramped up negotiations in Vienna after accepting they would miss a June 30 deadline for a nuclear deal, with both sides cautioning that major obstacles to a lasting agreement remained. Negotiators announced a new deadline of July 7.
(Reuters, 6/30/15)(AFP, 7/1/15)
2015 Jul 7, The EU extended the suspension of sanctions on Iran until July 10 to allow ongoing talks on a long-term nuclear agreement with it to succeed.
(AP, 7/7/15)
2015 Jul 10, In Iran and Iraq tens of thousands marched in Tehran and Baghdad in annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day demonstrations in support of Palestinians. Saudi Arabia this year joined arch-foe Israel as the target for protesters.
(AFP, 7/10/15)
2015 Jul 10, The European Union extended a suspension of sanctions on Iran until July 13 to allow ongoing talks about the country's nuclear ambitions to succeed.
(Reuters, 7/10/15)
2015 Jul 14, Iran and six major world powers reached a nuclear deal, capping more than a decade of negotiations with an agreement that could transform the Middle East. In the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iran will slash by around two-thirds the number of centrifuges from around 19,000 to 6,104 under the deal. The agreement will now be debated in the US Congress, but Obama said he would veto any measure to block it.
(Reuters, 7/14/15)(AFP, 7/14/15)(Econ, 7/18/15, p.21)
2015 Jul 19, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel arrived in Iran with an economic delegation, becoming the first high-ranking western politician to visit the country after it struck a nuclear deal with world powers.
(Reuters, 7/19/15)
2015 Jul 20, Iran and Germany moved tentatively towards reviving a once close trade relationship, anticipating the lifting of western economic sanctions against Tehran following a landmark nuclear deal as Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel made the first top level German government visit to Tehran in 13 years.
(Reuters, 7/20/15)
2015 Jul 20, The United Nations Security Council endorsed a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, but it will be able to re-impose UN penalties during the next decade if Tehran breaches the historic agreement.
(Reuters, 7/20/15)
2015 Jul 22, Iran said it will not accept any extension of sanctions beyond 10 years, in the latest attempt by its pragmatist government to sell a nuclear deal with world powers to skeptical hardliners.
(AP, 7/22/15)
2015 Jul 23, Amnesty Int’l. said Iran has executed 694 people between January 1 and July 15. Iran officially acknowledged only 246 executions in the same period.
(SFC, 7/24/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 25, Britain lifted an official warning against all but essential travel to Iran, citing "decreased hostility" in the wake of a landmark nuclear deal.
(AFP, 7/25/15)
2015 Jul 28, Iran and the European Union said they have agreed to start talks on issues including confronting terrorism.
(Reuters, 7/28/15)
2015 Aug 2, Iran said it will stop giving cash handouts to another million of its wealthiest citizens in order to ease a budget crisis caused in part by plunging oil prices and sanctions linked to its disputed nuclear program. The new cuts will be implemented by August 22.
(AP, 8/2/15)
2015 Aug 3, Iran banned a weekly newspaper owned by a critic of its nuclear deal and issued a formal warning to the country's leading conservative daily for alleged breaches of reporting guidelines.
(AFP, 8/3/15)
2015 Aug 7, In Turkey an Iranian bus was hit in Dogubayazit district of the eastern Agri province. The driver was fatally shot in the head. Turkish authorities blamed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants. The passengers were unhurt.
(AP, 8/8/15)
2015 Aug 15, The IAEA said Iran has given the UN Int’l. Atomic Energy Agency documents linked to the agency's probe of allegations that Tehran tried to develop atomic arms.
(AP, 8/15/15)
2015 Aug 23, Britain's foreign secretary reopened his country's embassy in Tehran in a long-awaited step signaling better relations four years after a mob stormed the compound, forcing its closure.
(AFP, 8/23/15)
2015 Aug, Iran's most expensive movie, "Muhammad", opened nationwide in the Shiite Islamic republic last week. It depicted the prophet on screen, an act that is prohibited in Sunni Islam. Saudi Arabia's top cleric soon hit out at the film describing its portrayal of the prophet's childhood as a "hostile act" and a "distortion" of Islam.
(AFP, 9/2/15)
2015 Sep 6, In western Iran 11 Iraqi Shiite religious pilgrims returning from Qom were killed after a bus overturned in the western province of Hamadan.
(AP, 9/7/15)
2015 Sep 18, In Iran Nizar Zakka, an American-Lebanese IT expert, went missing after attending a conference in Tehran. On Nov 3 state broadcaster IRIB said he has been arrested and linked to US military and intelligence agencies.
(Reuters, 11/3/15)
2015 Sep 18, In Iran flash floods triggered by heavy rains killed 10 people in Tehran, and south of the country.
(AP, 9/19/15)
2015 Sep 21, The head of the UN nuclear watchdog said environmental samples have been taken at a sensitive military site in Iran, citing "significant progress" in its investigation of Tehran's past activities.
(Reuters, 9/21/15)
2015 Sep 26, Arab coalition forces waging a military campaign against Houthi fighters in Yemen seized an Iranian boat loaded with weapons in the Arabian Sea on its way to deliver supplies to the group.
(Reuters, 9/30/15)
2015 Sep 27, An Iraqi spokesman said Iraq, Russia, Iran and Syria have agreed to set up an intelligence committee in Baghdad aimed at sharing and analyzing information.
(AFP, 9/27/15)
2015 Oct 1, Iran said its death toll from the Sep 24 Saudi hajj disaster has nearly doubled to 464 pilgrims killed.
(AP, 10/1/15)
2015 Oct 1, Two Lebanese sources said hundreds of Iranian troops had reached Syria in the past 10 days with weapons to mount a major ground offensive. Russian jets struck targets near the cities of Hama and Homs in western Syria on the second day of their surprise air campaign. The area where it struck is held by a rival insurgent alliance, which unlike Islamic State is supported by US allies including Arab states and Turkey.
(Reuters, 10/1/15)
2015 Oct 2, Iran's state TV is reported that Royal Dutch Shell and France's Total will be the first foreign companies to be allowed to operate gasoline stations inside Iran.
(AP, 10/2/15)
2015 Oct 7, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned any further negotiations with America.
(Econ, 10/24/15, p.45)
2015 Oct 10, Iran conducted a medium-range ballistic missle test that was capable of delivering a nuclear weapon. The US soon accused Iran of violating a UN Security Council resolution adopted on June 9, 2010.
(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A3)
2015 Oct 10, In South Korea Iranian director Hadi Mohaghegh's "Immortal" and "Walnut Tree" from Kazakhstan's Yerlan Nurmukhambetov were named the winners of the New Currents award for first- and second-time filmmakers at the 20th Busan International Film Festival.
(AFP, 10/10/15)
2015 Oct 11, Iran said Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian (39), who has been detained in Iran for more than a year, has been convicted on charges including espionage. The ruling was eligible for appeal within 20 days.
(AP, 10/12/15)
2015 Oct 11, Iran state media reported the successful test fire of a new guided long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile. It was the first such a test since Iran and world powers reach a historical nuclear deal.
(AP, 10/11/15)
2015 Oct 12, Syrian army and allied forces supported by Russian warplanes made further advances as they pressed an offensive against insurgents, in the fiercest clashes for nearly a week. Two Iranian senior Revolutionary Guards officers were killed fighting Islamic State. Pro-government forces including the Lebanese group Hezbollah captured the southern part of Kafr Nabuda. At least 25 government fighters were killed.
(Reuters, 10/12/15)(Reuters, 10/13/15)(Reuters, 10/14/15)
2015 Oct 13, Iran's conservative-dominated parliament passed a bill approving its nuclear deal with world powers, signaling victory for the government over hardline opponents.
(Reuters, 10/13/15)
2015 Oct 14, In Iran a senior council of clerics and officials approved implementing the landmark nuclear deal with world powers, sealing the final required step in the process despite hard-liners' efforts to derail it.
(AP, 10/14/15)
2015 Oct 17, Iran reported that 2 people were killed in a shooting attack on Shiite worshippers marking Ashura, in the town of Dezful in Khuzestan province.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 18, President Barack Obama ordered the US government to take steps towards lifting sanctions on Iran, in accordance with the historic nuclear deal struck between six world powers and Tehran.
(AFP, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 21, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the country’s nuclear deal with world powers but said Tehran should not give up core elements of its atomic program until allegations of past military dimensions had been settled.
(Reuters, 10/21/15)
2015 Oct 23, German authorities arrested an Iranian man on suspicion he was spying for Tehran. Maysam P. (31) was accused of spying since December 2013 for Iran on the opposition group known as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK.
(AP, 10/28/15)
2015 Oct 28, Iran said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and three of his deputies will attend multilateral talks on Oct 29 in Vienna aimed at resolving the conflict in Syria. Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, the European Union and France also said they would attend the talks.
(Reuters, 10/28/15)
2015 Oct 30, Iran signaled it backed a six-month transition period in Syria followed by elections to decide Bashar al-Assad's fate, a proposal floated at peace talks as a concession but which the president's foes rejected as a trick to keep him in power. Multilateral talks in Vienna failed, as expected, to reach a consensus on the future of President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 10/30/15)(Reuters, 11/2/15)
2015 Nov 2, Iran said it has begun shutting down uranium enrichment centrifuges under the terms of a deal struck with six world powers in July on limiting its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 11/2/15)
2015 Nov 2, Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport said it is preparing a contract to supply Iran with S-300 missile systems.
(Reuters, 11/2/15)
2015 Nov 3, Iranian media reported that authorities have arrested three pro-reform journalists, one of whom has been critical recently of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They included Issa Saharkhiz, Ehsan Mazandarani and Afarine Chitsaz.
(AFP, 11/3/15)
2015 Nov 3, Iran's semi-official news agency Fars said Col. Mostafa Ezzatollah Soleimani, an officer with the elite Revolutionary Guard force, had died in fighting in Syria's contested province of Aleppo.
(AP, 11/3/15)
2015 Nov 8, Iran announced the appointment of its first woman ambassador since the 1979 Islamic revolution, naming foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham to head its embassy in Malaysia.
(AFP, 11/8/15)
2015 Nov 9, Russia announced that it has agreed to push on with a deal to deliver S-300 missile systems to Iran after Moscow halted an earlier agreement due to UN sanctions slapped on Tehran.
(AFP, 11/9/15)
2015 Nov 10, Iran state media reported that the dismantling of centrifuges in two uranium enrichment plants has stopped, days after conservative lawmakers complained to President Hassan Rouhani that the process was too rushed.
(Reuters, 11/10/15)
2015 Nov 15, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that authorities have arrested administrators of more than 20 groups on the messaging app Telegram for spreading "immoral content", the latest detentions in a clampdown on freedom of expression.
(Reuters, 11/15/15)
2015 Nov 15, Iranian police warned that women who fail to wear the veil when driving will have their cars impounded for a week and are likely to be fined.
(AFP, 11/15/15)
2015 Nov 18, The UN nuclear watchdog said Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium has increased in the past three months even though Tehran is supposed to reduce it significantly under a deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 11/18/15)
2015 Nov 22, Iran state news said a court has sentenced Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian (39) to a prison term.
(Reuters, 11/22/15)
2015 Nov 23, In Iran President Vladimir Putin met with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Following their meeting a Kremlin official said Russia and Iran jointly oppose "external attempts" to bring regime change in Syria. President Vladimir Putin eased an export ban on nuclear equipment and technology to Iran.
(AFP, 11/23/15)(Reuters, 11/23/15)
2015 Nov 23, Iran's ambassador to Russia said that Moscow had started the procedure of supplying Tehran with S-300 anti-missile rocket system.
(Reuters, 11/23/15)
2015 Nov 25, Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the United States is using "money and sexual attractions" to try to infiltrate the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 11/25/15)
2015 Nov 28, Iran unveiled a new model of oil contracts aimed at attracting foreign investment once sanctions are lifted under a landmark nuclear deal reached earlier this year.
(AP, 11/28/15)
2015 Dec 8, Mahmoud Doaei, the managing editor of the moderate Ettelaat daily, Iran's oldest newspaper, was indicted for defying a national reporting ban on comments and pictures of the country's reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.
(AFP, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 8, Air France said it will resume flights to Tehran for the first time in more than seven years, as part of resuming European trade with Iran following a hard-fought deal to curb its nuclear activities.
(AP, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 9, Iran’s Fars news reported that a booby trap exploded in Nikshahr, near the border with Pakistan, killing 3 policemen and wounded an unspecified number of others.
(AP, 12/9/15)
2015 Dec 10, Iran’s Health Minister Hassan Hashemi said an outbreak of H1N1 swine flu has claimed 42 lives since mid-November.
(AFP, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 15, Iran’s the health ministry said an outbreak of swine flu has claimed 57 lives since mid-November. Hundreds of people have been diagnosed with the virus.
(AFP, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 15, The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation board decided to close its investigation into whether Iran once had a nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 16, A team of sanctions monitors said Iran violated a UN Security Council resolution on October 10 by test-firing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.
(Reuters, 12/16/15)
2015 Dec 19, In Iran residents of Tehran were warned to stay at home as a thick smog of pollution hung in the air.
(Reuters, 12/19/15)
2015 Dec 20, Iranian authorities closed all schools and kindergartens in the capital for two days beginning today, saying air pollution had reached dangerous levels.
(AP, 12/20/15)
2015 Dec 23, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a new US law putting visa restrictions on Iranians and those who had visited Iran would, if implemented, breach a nuclear deal Tehran struck with world powers earlier this year.
(Reuters, 12/23/15)
2015 Dec 27, Iran postponed two premier league football matches, as air pollution more than twice the acceptable level persisted in Tehran.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 28, Iran media reported that a swine flu outbreak has killed 112 people since mid-November and the country's first medical worker has died of the virus.
(AFP, 12/28/15)
2015 Zackeray Hearn authored “The Emergence of Modern Shiism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran."
(Econ, 7/25/15, p.69)
2015 Iran’s population was almost 80 million.
(Econ, 11/28/15, p.44)
2016 Jan 3, Saudi Arabia announced it was cutting diplomatic ties with Iran.
(Reuters, 1/4/16)
2016 Jan 4, Bahrain announced it was cutting diplomatic ties with Iran, a day after its ally and neighbor Saudi Arabia also severed relations with Tehran.
(Reuters, 1/4/16)
2016 Jan 4, Saudi Arabia widened its rift with Iran, saying it would end air traffic and trade links with the Islamic republic and demanding that Tehran must "act like a normal country" before it would restore severed diplomatic relations.
(Reuters, 1/4/16)
2016 Jan 5, The diplomatic crisis surrounding Saudi Arabia and Iran widened as Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Tehran and Bahrain severed air links in the face of growing international concern.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 6, Bahrain said it had caught an Iranian-linked cell plotting attacks on its territory, days after it followed its close ally Saudi Arabia in cutting ties with Iran.
(Reuters, 1/6/16)
2016 Jan 7, Iran and Saudi Arabia took further steps to sever commercial ties, intensifying a feud between the regional rivals, as Tehran announced a ban on imports from Saudi Arabia and Saudi groups called for boycotts of Iranian products.
(Reuters, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 7, Iran said Saudi warplanes had attacked its embassy in Yemen's capital, a development that would exacerbate tensions between the major Shi'ite and Sunni powers in the region, and Riyadh said it would investigate the accusation. Residents said an air strike had hit a public square about 700 meters (yards) away from the embassy and that some stones and shrapnel had landed in the embassy's yard.
(Reuters, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 7, Somalia cut diplomatic ties with Iran and ordered all Iranian diplomats and embassy staff out of the country within 72 hours.
(AP, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 8, Iranians held mass protests across the Islamic Republic, angered by Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shiite cleric that has enflamed regional tensions between the Mideast rivals.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 10, Arab foreign ministers meeting in Egypt accused Iran of interfering in the affairs of other Middle East states and undermining regional security, as officials met at an emergency Arab League session to discuss escalating tensions in the region.
(Reuters, 1/10/16)
2016 Jan 12, Iran said it will sell part of its stock of heavy water to the United States under its nuclear deal with world powers.
(AFP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, An Iranian Phantom fighter jet crashed close to the Pakistan border, killing two pilots.
(AP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, Kuwait sentenced two defendants to death, including Iranian Abdulreda Hayder being tried in absentia, after they were convicted of "spying for Iran" and plotting attacks in the Gulf country.
(AFP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, Two US patrol boats and their crews were seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards after unintentionally entering Iranian waters near an island naval base. The boats and crew were released the next day.
(Econ, 1/16/16, p.51)
2016 Jan 13, Iran released ten US sailors after holding them overnight, bringing a swift end to an incident that had rattled nerves days ahead of the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers. The US said two US Navy boats had entered Iranian territorial waters due to a broken navigation system.
(Reuters, 1/13/16)
2016 Jan 16, Iran freed four Americans in a prisoner swap. They included Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Idaho pastor Saeed Abedini, former Marine Amir Hekmati and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari. The US planned to release seven Iranian nationals currently serving jail terms. A fifth prisoner, American student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately. Diplomats gathered to announce the lifting of international sanctions and bringing the country of 80 million people back to the global economic stage.
(Reuters, 1/16/16)(Reuters, 1/17/16)
2016 Jan 17, The United States imposed sanctions against 11 individuals and entities involved in Iran's ballistic missile program as a result of Tehran's firing of a medium-range ballistic missile.
(AP, 1/17/16)
2016 Jan 17, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States will repay Iran a $400 million debt and $1.3 billion in interest dating to the Islamic revolution. The money was soon delivered in cash on pallets due to lack of a US-Iran banking relationship.
(AFP, 1/17/16)(SFC, 8/4/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 18, Iran’s official media reported that around 60 percent of would-be candidates for a parliamentary vote in February, including many reformists, have been rejected by the authorities.
(AFP, 1/18/16)
2016 Jan 20, Iran's reformist political factions called on the country's constitutional watchdog to reverse its decision to disqualify large numbers of moderates and reformists from running in next month's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 1/20/16)
2016 Jan 23, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran and China have agreed to expand bilateral ties and increase trade to $600 billion in the next 10 years, during a visit to Tehran by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
(Reuters, 1/23/16)
2016 Jan 24, Iran said it will buy 114 Airbus planes to revitalize its ageing fleet, in the first major commercial deal announced since the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear agreement.
(AFP, 1/24/16)
2016 Jan 25, Italy and Iran signed billions of dollars of business deals at the start of a visit to Europe by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani aimed at rebuilding his nation's ties with the West after years of economic sanctions.
(Reuters, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani's made his first visit to the Vatican. Pope Francis urged Iran to back peace efforts in the Middle East.
(AFP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Amnesty International said Iran is the world's most prolific executioner of children, accusing the Islamic republic of using torture and ill-treatment to extract confessions from minors.
(AFP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 29, Human Rights Watch said Iran's Revolutionary Guards has recruited thousands of Afghans, some by coercion, to fight in Syria's war alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
(AFP, 1/29/16)
2016 Feb 5, Iranian mdia said a high-ranking member of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and 6 Iranian Basij militia volunteers have been killed in fighting in Syria’s northern Aleppo province.
(Reuters, 2/5/16)
2016 Feb 5, Ottawa announced the lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran, which will allow Canadian firms access to Iran after a deal on its nuclear program recently came into force.
(AFP, 2/5/16)
2016 Feb 15, Iran's state TV said the first Chinese commercial train has arrived in Tehran to revive the Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes running through Asia. The 12-container train arrived in Tehran after a 14-day journey from eastern China.
(AP, 2/15/16)
2016 Feb 17, Iran snubbed a proposal agreed to by four influential oil producers to cap their crude output if others do the same, with a senior Oil Ministry official saying Tehran has no intention of freezing oil output levels.
(AP, 2/17/16)
2016 Feb 18, The European Union's top court ruled that the EU unfairly froze the funds of Iran's Bank Mellat for six years when it claimed the bank was backing the Islamic Republic's nuclear and missile programs. The EU lifted the freeze in January as part of an international agreement over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/18/16)
2016 Feb 24, Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fathali, said that Tehran would offer $7,000 to the families of each Palestinian killed in what he called the "Jerusalem intifada". He sad Iran will also give $30,000 to Palestinian families whose homes have been destroyed by Israel because a member is accused of carrying out an anti-Israeli attack. The next day Israel denounced the Iranian decision.
(AFP, 2/25/16)
2016 Feb 25, Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad, killing at least 15 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State militants.
(Reuters, 2/25/16)
2016 Feb 26, Iran held elections. At stake was control of the 290-seat parliament and the 88-member Assembly of Experts, the body that has the power to appoint and dismiss the supreme leader, Iran's most powerful figure. President Hassan Rouhani won a strong vote of confidence and reformist partners secured surprise gains in parliament in early results from elections. Conservative won just under half of the decided seats. 69 seats were pushed to a runoff.
(Reuters, 2/26/16)(AP, 2/28/16)(Econ, 3/5/16, p.43)
2016 Feb 26, The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ten terrorist attack victims who won financial claims against Iran can seize a $2.8 million judgment owed to that country's defense ministry.
(AP, 2/26/16)
2016 Feb, The US Treasury Department issued a license that would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7 billion it held at a bank in Oman from Omani rials to into euros by exchanging them first into US dollars. The Obama administration approached two US banks to facilitate the conversion but both declined. This was not made public until 2018.
(SFC, 6/7/18, p.A3)
2016 Mar 4, Turkey’s PM Ahmet Davutoglu visited Tehran with six ministers and discussed a high-speed rail link that might bridge Lake Van and triple bilateral trade.
(Econ, 4/2/15, p.51)
2016 Mar 5, Iran and Turkey said they aim to triple their annual trade to $30 billion within two years as Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu met Iran's first vice president Eshaq Jahangiri in Tehran. The two countries remained at odds over fighting in Syria.
(AFP, 3/5/16)
2016 Mar 6, Iran reported that a court has sentenced a well-known tycoon to death for corruption linked to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Babak Zanjani, arrested in 2013, and two of his associates were sentenced to death for "money laundering," among other charges.
(AP, 3/6/16)
2016 Mar 9, Iran fired two more long-range ballistic missiles as it continued military tests in defiance of US sanctions and fresh warnings from Washington.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 14, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani welcomed Vietnamese Pres. Truong Tan Sang, saying Tehran hopes to boost trade with the Southeast Asian nation to $2 billion from the current $350 million within five years.
(AP, 3/14/16)
2016 Mar 15, Iran's annual fire festival ahead of the Persian New Year claimed three lives and injured more than 2,500, hundreds of whom remain hospitalized.
(AFP, 3/16/16)
2016 Mar 19, US FBI agents arrested Reza Zarrab (33), a dual Turkish-Iranian national who has ties with high-ranking Turkish officials, in Miami on charges he helped Iran process millions of dollars of transactions when it faced US sanctions for its nuclear program. Prosecutors later alleged that Zarrab had paid tens of millions to three Turkish ministers and the head of Halkbank tens of millions in bribes.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Zarrab)(Reuters, 9/25/16)(Econ, 6/11/16, p.55)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani arrived in Pakistan on a landmark visit, his first since becoming president. Rouhani and Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif signed a five years strategic action plan aimed at boosting bilateral trade to the level of US Dollars five billion by 2021.
(AP, 3/25/16) (Reuters, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's official IRNA news agency said that an air ambulance helicopter has crashed in southern Iran, killing all seven onboard.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 28, Iran said it will pursue its development of ballistic missiles despite the US blacklisting of more Iranian companies linked to the program.
(Reuters, 3/28/16)
2016 Mar 28, The presidents of Russia and Iran agreed to step up bilateral contacts, including over the Syrian conflict, in which both countries are allies of President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 3/28/16)
2016 Apr 3, Iran's Revolutionary Guard detained Zaghari-Ratcliffe (37), a British-Iranian mother and employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport and later transferred her to a prison in the country's Kerman province. She faced charges of trying to cause the "soft toppling" of the government.
(AP, 6/15/16)
2016 Apr 4, An Iranian military official said Iran has sent commandos to Syria as advisers, suggesting it is using its army as well as paramilitary forces to help President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the country's civil war.
(Reuters, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 4, Air France decided to allow female flight attendants to refuse to work the company's new route to Iran, beginning April 17, for which they must wear a headscarf.
(AP, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 11, Iranian media reported that Russia has delivered the first part of an advanced missile defense system to Iran, starting to equip Tehran with technology that was blocked before it signed a deal with world powers on its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 4/11/16)
2016 Apr 11, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that 4 soldiers in its regular army were killed in Syria, the, only a week after Tehran announced the deployment of army commandos to help President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war there.
(Reuters, 4/11/16)
2016 Apr 12, Italian PM Matteo Renzi became the highest-ranking European leader to visit Tehran since its nuclear deal with world powers. Renzi began a two-day visit to the Islamic republic aimed at restoring ties that before sanctions had seen Italy ranked as Iran's top European trading partner.
(AFP, 4/12/16)
2016 Apr 16, In Turkey Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They vowed to boost trade between their two countries at talks following the lifting of most international sanctions on Tehran.
(AFP, 4/16/16)
2016 Apr 26, Iranian state TV said a court has sentenced four pro-reform journalists to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years after convicting them on charges of acting against national security.
(AP, 4/26/16)
2016 Apr 29, Iranians voted in the country's parliamentary runoff elections for 68 seats where no candidate had won decisively in the first round. Reformist and moderate politicians allied with President Hassan Rouhani won twice as many seats as their conservative rivals in the second round of parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/29/16)(AFP, 4/30/16)
2016 May 3, Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani, imprisoned over portraying lawmakers as animals to criticize a draft law restricting contraception and criminalizing voluntary sterilization, was released from Evin prison after an appeals court last month reduced her initial 12-year prison sentence to 18 months.
(AP, 5/3/16)
2016 May 6, In Syria rebels seized a village from government forces near Aleppo overnight. 43 rebels and 30 government forces were reported killed in the battle for Khan Touman, some 15 km (9 miles) southwest of Aleppo. 13 military advisers with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were killed as rebels seized the village of Khan Touman. 18 others wounded and five to six were captured.
(Reuters, 5/6/16)(AFP, 5/7/16)(Reuters, 5/9/16)
2016 May 12, Iran announced that it will not send pilgrims to Saudi Arabia this year for the annual hajj pilgrimage, after a disaster during the event last year killed at least 2,426 people including 464 of its pilgrims.
(AP, 5/12/16)
2016 May 12, The World Health Organization said air pollution causes more than 3 million premature deaths worldwide every year. The worst air pollution was recorded at Zabol in Iran. The WHO said India has four of the 10 cities in the world with the worst air pollution and Saudi Arabia had two.
(Reuters, 5/12/16)(SFC, 5/13/16, p.A2)
2016 May 14, Iranians staged an international contest for cartoons depicting the Holocaust but insisted the event was aimed at criticizing alleged Western double standards regarding free expression and not at denying the Nazi genocide.
(AP, 5/14/16)
2016 May 14, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Internet was promoting un-Islamic thoughts that should be promptly dealt with.
(Reuters, 5/16/16)
2016 May 15, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said eight members of a modeling network have been arrested and accused of publishing photos of women without the obligatory hijab headscarf on the picture-sharing application Instagram.
(Reuters, 5/16/16)
2016 May 17, Iran's parliament passed a bill requiring the government demand payment from the United States as compensation for alleged damages Tehran suffered as a result of American policies over past decades.
(AP, 5/17/16)
2016 May 22, In France the Iranian film "The Salesman" won two prizes at the Cannes film festival. Lead actor Shahab Hosseini won a Palme d'Or for best actor and director Asghar Farhadi picked up the award for best screenplay.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2016 May 23, India said it will invest up to $500 million in a deal to develop a strategic port in Iran and both countries planned a number of projects they say are worth hundreds of millions of dollars as Indian PM Narendra Modi visited Tehran.
(AP, 5/23/16)
2016 May 24, In Iran Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati (89) was chosen to lead the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that picks the country's next supreme leader. The hard-line cleric has been in the country's power structure since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 26, In Iran the Mizan news agency said more than 30 college students have been arrested, interrogated and given 99 lashes for attending a graduation party that included men and women.
(SFC, 5/28/16, p.A2)
2016 May 28, Iran said eight people producing obscene music videos, whose clips were broadcast on a famous anti-revolutionary television channel, were arrested in Tehran last week.
(AFP, 5/28/16)
2016 May 29, Iran said its pilgrims would not attend the annual Muslim haj pilgrimage, blaming regional rival Saudi Arabia for "sabotage" and failing to guarantee the safety of pilgrims.
(Reuters, 5/29/16)
2016 Jun 6, Iran arrested Homa Hoodfar (65), a visiting Canadian-Iranian expert in gender and Islam. This was at least the fifth detention of a dual-national reported in recent months.
(Reuters, 6/9/16)
2016 Jun 13, Iran's state TV reported that a firefight between Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards and Kurdish militants in western Iran has left 5 militants dead. IRNA news agency reported a clash in the country's restive Sistan-Baluchistan province near the border with Pakistan, saying Iranian security forces killed 5 members of the Jaish al-Adl group. An Iranian police officer was also killed in the clash.
(AP, 6/13/16)
2016 Jun 15, Iran's Revolutionary Guard battled armed members of an insurgent Kurdish group, leading to fatalities near Oshnavieh, a predominantly Kurdish town in West Azerbaijan province.
(AP, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 16, The European Commission said Iran's state airline, which has just reached an agreement with Boeing Co to purchase new jetliners, can resume flights in the EU.
(Reuters, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 19, Iran said it has reached an agreement with American aerospace giant Boeing to purchase 100 aircraft to renew its ageing fleet, though the deal must still be approved by the US government.
(AFP, 6/19/16)
2016 Jun 20, Iran's intelligence ministry said it had thwarted a major jihadist plot to carry out bomb attacks in the capital Tehran and other parts of the country.
(AFP, 6/20/16)
2016 Jun 20, In Iran the Ghanoon newspaper said in a statement on its website that Tehran's prosecutor ordered it to halt operations based on allegations of "libel and spreading lies to create public anxiety," following complaints from the Revolutionary Guard.
(AP, 6/20/16)
2016 Jun 22, In southern Iran a road accident in killed 19 people when a bus plunged into a ravine near Shiraz.
(AP, 6/22/16)
2016 Jun 24, Iranian security forces clashed with Kurdish separatists who infiltrated a northwestern village to stage "terrorist and propagandist operations." Later reports said 5 armed rebels linked to counter-revolutionary groups were killed.
(AP, 6/25/16)(AFP, 6/26/16)
2016 Jul 1, In Iran tens of thousands of people marched in Tehran as part of the al-Quds day rallies held each year on the last Friday of Ramadan. Some protesters trampled the Israeli flag and also chanted "down with the USA." Similar rallies took place across the country.
(AP, 7/1/16)
2016 Jul 4, Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami (b.1940) died in Paris. He was later buried in a private ceremony in northern Tehran. He wrote and directed dozens of films including "Taste of Cherry" (1997), which won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Kiarostami)
2016 Jul 5, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard killed two Kurdish insurgents who have been on the run since last week. They were part of a larger group, 11 of whom were killed in clashes with Iranian forces last week in Iran's western Kurdistan province.
(AP, 7/7/16)
2016 Jul 6, In Iran "armed bandits" killed four border guards in an ambush near the Pakistani border. Several of the gunmen were reported killed or wounded.
(AP, 7/6/16)
2016 Jul 10, Iranian news reported that unknown gunmen in western Iran killed two people and injured a lawmaker and a local governor after opening fire on their car.
(AP, 7/10/16)
2016 Jul 11, Iran detained Robin Shahini of San Diego who travelled there to see his mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He received an 18-year prison sentence for "collaboration with a hostile government". On Feb 15, 2017, Shahini began a hunger strike to contest his incarceration. After two weeks he was released on bail.
(AP, 4/3/17)
2016 Jul 15, UNESCO put four new sites on its World Heritage List. The new sites, announced in Istanbul, include China's Zuojiang Huashan rock art cultural landscape, Iran's ancient aqueducts known as Qanat, and India's archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara. The World Heritage Committee also selected Micronesia's artificial islets of Nan Madol and simultaneously placed it on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 21, Iran's official IRNA news agency said authorities have arrested 40 suspects linked to the discovery of an underground tunnel in the country's far east, near the Pakistani border. The subterranean tunnel was discovered two nights ago and was reportedly meant for carrying out attacks and militant activities.
(AP, 7/21/16)
2016 Jul 24, Iran destroyed 100,000 satellite dishes and receivers as part of a widespread crackdown against the illegal devices that authorities say are morally damaging. General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, head of Iran's Basij militia, warned of the impact that satellite television was having in the conservative country. 70% of Iranians violate the 1994 law and own satellite dishes which can gather television programming worldwide.
(AFP, 7/24/16)(https://tinyurl.com/ybttvudh)
2016 Jul 26, Iran's government said it would cap salaries for public officials as it seeks to dampen a scandal over exorbitant pay that has threatened to derail President Hassan Rouhani's re-election hopes. The payslips of executives at several public companies were leaked in May, showing that many earned over 100 times more than the average worker.
(AFP, 7/26/16)
2016 Aug 2, Iran hanged 20 "terrorist" Sunni prisoners, in one of the Islamic republic's biggest mass executions in recent years. A statement detailed 24 armed attacks between 2009 and 2011, including bombings and robberies, allegedly committed by the Kurdish militants.
(AFP, 8/4/16)(SSFC, 8/7/16, p.A4)
2016 Aug 3, Iran state IRNA news agency reported that Hassan Abbasi, the head of the Center for Doctrinal Strategic Studies, a think-tank, has been arrested on charges of "spreading lies" and "creating an atmosphere of skepticism about the armed forces."
(AP, 8/3/16)
2016 Aug 7, Iran said it has executed Shahram Amiri (39), a nuclear scientist convicted of handing over "confidential and vital" information to the United States. Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia in June 2009 and resurfaced a year later in the United States. He returned to Tehran in July 2010, saying he had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Farsi-speaking CIA agents in the Saudi city of Medina.
(AFP, 8/7/16)
2016 Aug 8, Iran detained Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-American history researcher. In 2017 he sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of "infiltrating" and sending confidential material abroad.
(AP, 7/17/17)(AP, 8/8/19)
2016 Aug 9, Iran said it would auction off property owned by billionaire Babak Zanjani (41), who was sentenced to death for corruption earlier this year. He was accused of fraudulently pocketing $2.8 billion.
(AFP, 8/9/16)
2016 Aug 15, In Iran a senior member of Islamic State was killed this evening in an operation in Kermanshah province, a largely Sunni Kurdish area, during which other supporters of the group were arrested.
(Reuters, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 16, Iranian security forces killed 3 Sunni militants linked to Islamic State in Kermanshah city close to the Iraqi border, confiscating a weapons cache and belts armed with explosives.
(Reuters, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 16, Iran said that it arrested a British-Iranian last week on suspicion of links to the UK intelligence service.
(AFP, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 16, Russian warplanes took off from a base in Iran to target Islamic State fighters and other militants in Syria.
(AP, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 18, Kimia Alizadeh won the first ever Olympic medal by an Iranian woman after claiming taekwondo bronze in Rio.
(AFP, 8/18/16)
2016 Aug 27, In Iran Brig. Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, head of an Iranian military unit in charge of combatting cybersabotage, acknowledged Iran's petrochemical industry had been the target of cyberattacks. He put the blame on imported and installed components at the facilities.
(AP, 9/22/16)
2016 Aug 30, Iran’s state media reported that authorities have released Omid Kokabee, a man jailed while home from his graduate studies in Texas. He was arrested in February 2011 and convicted of having "relations with a hostile country" and receiving "illegitimate funds." The judiciary will allow Kokabee to enjoy "conditional freedom" for the rest of his 10-year sentence.
(AP, 8/30/16)
2016 Aug 30, In Syria retired Iranian general Ahmad Gholami, died while fighting in Aleppo. He had served as a senior Revolutionary Guards commander in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s.
(AFP, 8/31/16)
2016 Sep 1, Iran said operations to build two new nuclear power plants in Bushehr with assistance from Russia will start on 10 September and it will take 10 years for the power plants to be completed.
(AFP, 9/1/16)
2016 Sep 4, Iranian state TV reported that the Islamic Republic has appointed its envoy to London for the first time since 2011.
(AP, 9/5/16)
2016 Sep 5, Iranian state media reported that police had closed more than 800 clothes shops to stop them selling "unconventional" women's coats. The coats in question tended to have nonsensical phrases such as "Keep Calm I'm the Queen" written on them, but they also had short arms and no buttons in the front.
(AP, 9/5/16)
2016 Sep 5, Britain appointed its envoy to Iran for the first time since 2011.
(AP, 9/5/16)
2016 Sep 7, Iran state media reported that 8 members of the rebel Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) have been killed in overnight clashes with security forces along the Iraqi border in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AP, 9/7/16)
2016 Sep 9, The head of Iran's Hajj Organization accused Saudi Arabia of deliberately barring Iranians from the pilgrimage and refusing to discuss security measures despite last year's deadly stampede. Thousands protested in Tehran for being barred from the annual hajj pilgrimage.
(AFP, 9/9/16)
2016 Sep 9, In Iraq a camp housing members of an Iranian opposition group was officially closed after the last 280 residents were flown to Albania. The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq had been based in Iraq since the 1980s, when they received arms and support from Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.
(AP, 9/10/16)
2016 Sep 10, Iran began building a second nuclear plant with Russian help, in a $10 billion project which follows Tehran's landmark nuclear deal with world powers last year.
(Reuters, 9/10/16)
2016 Sep 11, Iran's former prosecutor of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, Saeed Mortazavi apologized for his role in 2009 accidents at Kahrizak detention center which resulted in the deaths of three political prisoners including Mohsen Rouholamini.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6a64ayk)
2016 Sep 14, In Iran a gas leak and fire at the Mobin Petrochemical Factory that services the South Pars gas field injured four workers.
(AP, 9/22/16)
2016 Sep 16, In southern Iran a soldier killed himself after shooting to death three of his comrades.
(AP, 9/17/16)
2016 Sep 20, Iran sentenced Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident detained for a year over spying allegations, to 10 years in prison and a $4.2 million fine. The Lebanese citizen has advocated for internet freedom his whose nonprofit group did work for the US government.
(AP, 9/20/16)
2016 Sep 21, Aviation sources said the United States has started issuing license unblocking the sale of Western passenger jets to Iran.
(Reuters, 9/21/16)
2016 Sep 24, Iran's state TV said the country has started its first web-based national general census.
(AP, 9/24/16)
2016 Oct 1, Iranian media reported that its Revolutionary Guard has built a new attack drone similar to the US RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone captured five years ago.
(SSFC, 10/2/16, p.A4)
2016 Oct 3, Germany's Siemens signed a contract to upgrade Iran's railway network, one of several deals agreed by German firms during a two-day visit to Tehran by Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel.
(Reuters, 10/3/16)
2016 Oct 10, Royal Dutch Shell confirmed that it had signed an initial deal with Iran's National Petrochemical Company, paving the way for its return to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/10/16)
2016 Oct 17, In Washington, DC. retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright (67) pleaded guilty to making false statements during an investigation into a leak of classified information about a covert cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He faced up to six months in prison.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A4)
2016 Oct 18, Iranian state news said Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF representative, have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for cooperating with the hostile American government. Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Lebanon, Farhad Abd-Saleh, Kamran Ghaderi, and Alireza Omidvar also received a 10-year prison sentences for espionage and collaboration with the American government.
(AFP, 10/18/16)
2016 Oct 20, The US Treasury moved to disrupt the fundraising and operation of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, imposing sanctions on commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai, a number of others and a firm that assisted the organization, long seen as a terrorist outfit by Washington. Hezbollah enjoys strong support among Lebanon's Shi'ite community and wields enormous political influence in that country. Its military wing plays a major role in the Syrian conflict.
(Reuters, 10/20/16)(SFC, 10/21/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 28, Crowds of mostly young Iranians attended the march near the ancient city of Pasargadae in central province of Fars to celebrate the day unofficially marked in the Iranian calendar as Cyrus Day. On Oct 31 prosecutor Ali Salehi said the main leaders and organizers of the gathering have been arrested.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct, In Iran molestation victims of Koran singer Saeed Tousi spoke out on Voice of America. The judiciary ruled out a public trial. Tousi remained at liberty.
(Econ, 11/19/16, p.40)
2016 Nov 3, Avi Dichter, the former head of Israel's domestic intelligence agency, said Iran now commands a force of around 25,000 Shi'ite Muslim militants in Syria, mostly made up of recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(Reuters, 11/3/16)
2016 Nov 6, In Iraq ten Iranian pilgrims were killed in a suicide attack in Samarra.
(Reuters, 11/6/16)
2016 Nov 9, The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran has exceeded a soft limit on sensitive material set under its nuclear deal with major powers. A diplomat said Iran plans to ship sensitive material out of the country within days to bring it back under a soft limit set under its nuclear deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 11/9/16)
2016 Nov 15, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the nation's intelligence service has confiscated about 2 tons of explosives linked to planned attacks by the Islamic State group in the country's west.
(AP, 11/15/16)
2016 Nov 17, The US Republican-led House acted to bar the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran. The legislation prohibited the Treasury Department from issuing the licenses US banks would need to complete transactions potentially valued in the billions of dollars.
(SFC, 11/17/16, p.A7)
2016 Nov 22, The head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said more than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict.
(AFP, 11/22/16)
2016 Nov 24, In Iraq a car bomb attack at a gas station near the city of Hilla killed at least 73 people including about 40 Iranians returning from Karbala. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
(AP, 11/25/16)
2016 Nov 25, In Iran at least 44 people were killed and 100 injured when one passenger train collided with another at a station in the northern province of Semnan. Three railway officials were soon detained.
(Reuters, 11/25/16)(AFP, 11/26/16)
2016 Nov 27, In Iran a helicopter on a mission to carry an injured person from an oil platform crashed in the Caspian Sea, killing all five people aboard.
(AP, 11/27/16)
2016 Dec 1, The US Senate voted 99-0 to renew for ten years the decades-old Iran Sanctions Act. Pres. Obama planned to sign it.
(SFC, 12/2/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 1, A Kenyan court charged two Iranian men with collecting information to facilitate a terrorist act after they were allegedly found with video footage of the Israeli embassy.
(AP, 12/1/16)
2016 Dec 2, Iran threatened to retaliate against a US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, saying it violated last year's deal with six major powers that curbed its nuclear program. The ISA had been due to expire on Dec 31.
(Reuters, 12/2/16)
2016 Dec 6, Iran's state TV reported that a rescue helicopter carrying eight people has crashed into a lake in western Tehran, killing two people.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 7, Iran struck a preliminary memorandum of understanding with Royal Dutch Shell to develop prospective oil fields.
(Econ, 12/10/16, p.62)
2016 Dec 8, The European Union banned Iran's Aseman Airlines from operating within the EU due to safety concerns, in a blow to Tehran which is buying new jets to renew the country's ageing fleet following the lifting of long-term sanctions.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 11, Iran's flag carrier finalized a major deal with US plane maker Boeing Co. to buy $16.6 billion worth of passenger planes in one of the most tangible benefits yet for the Islamic Republic from last year's landmark nuclear agreement.
(AP, 12/11/16)
2016 Dec 13, Iran ordered its scientists to start developing systems for nuclear-powered marine vessels in response to what it calls a US violation of its landmark 2015 atomic deal with world powers. This marked Tehran's first concrete reaction to a decision by the US Congress last month to extend some sanctions on Tehran that would also make it easier to reimpose others lifted under the nuclear pact.
(Reuters, 12/13/16)
2016 Dec 17, Syrian rebels blamed Iran and its Shi'ite-backed militias of holding up a deal to evacuate civilians trapped in the remaining rebel bastion in Aleppo. Trapped civilians and rebels waited desperately for evacuations to resume as the Red Cross pleaded for a deal to "save thousands of lives".
(Reuters, 12/17/16)(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 20, In northern Iraq a bombing killed five Iranian Kurdish fighters and an Iraqi Kurdish policeman in Koy Sanjaq, east of Erbil. An Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group the next day accused Iran of the bombing.
(AP, 12/21/16)
2016 Dec 20, In Syria President Bashar al-Assad's army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo. Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. They adopted a document they called the "Moscow Declaration", which set out the principles that any peace agreement should follow.
(Reuters, 12/20/16)
2016 Dec 23, Iran and six world powers released previously restricted documents about their nuclear deal to enforce their view that Tehran is not circumventing limits on its limit of enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.
(AP, 12/23/16)
2016 Dec 23, In southern Iran a man (26) gunned down 10 relatives in a rare shooting rampage.
(AP, 12/23/16)
2016 Dec 25, Iran's currency plumbed new lows against the dollar, continuing a six-month decline that has seen the rial lose some 19 percent of its value despite the lifting of sanctions.
(AFP, 12/25/16)
2016 Dec 26, Iranian officials said hundreds of thousands of birds have been killed in recent weeks as avian flu spread across seven provinces of the country. State news said 63,000 chickens, along with 800,000 fertilized eggs and day-old chicks, were culled at a farm in Qazvin province in recent days after an outbreak of the deadly H1N8 and H1N5 strains of the disease.
(AFP, 12/26/16)
2016 Dec 27, Iran’s media said Mehdi Karroubi (79), a leading member of the opposition National Trust, announced he is quitting his party. He has been under house arrest for almost six years.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed cleric Ebrahim Raisi to head the country’s largest shrine and biggest clerical conglomerate.
(Econ 5/13/17, p.40)
2017 Jan 2, Iranian state TV reported the country's coast guard has detained 21 fishermen and their three boats from neighboring Arab nations for straying into its territorial waters and fishing rare species.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 3, In Iran two pipelines were reportedly bombed in Khuzestan province. The next day the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz claimed responsibility. Iranian Interior Ministry spokesman Salman Samani denied the claim.
(AP, 1/4/17)
2017 Jan 3, Imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Arash Sadeghi ended a 71-day hunger strike as his detained wife won a temporary release from prison, a day after his case sparked a rare unauthorized protest in Tehran.
(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 3, Turkmenistan said that it has restricted natural gas deliveries to Iran over unpaid debts. Iranian state media have put the figure demanded by Turkmenistan at around $2 billion.
(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 8, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (82), former Iranian president (1989-1997) died in hospital in Tehran after suffering a heart attack. In 2003 Forbes magazine put his personal wealth at over $1 billion.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.82)
2017 Jan 8, A US Navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four Iranian fast-attack vessels after they closed in at a high rate of speed near the Strait of Hormuz.
(Reuters, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 11, The US and five other world powers approved Iran importing as much as 130 tons of uranium.
(AP, 1/13/17)
2017 Jan 17, In Iran five memorandums of understanding were signed at a ceremony attended by Syrian PM Emad Khamis and Iranian VP Eshaq Jahangiri in Tehran. Iran will be granted a license to become a mobile service operator in Syria under agreements to expand economic ties between the countries.
(Reuters, 1/17/17)
2017 Jan 19, In Iran at least 20 firefighters were reported killed when the 17-storey Plasco building, Tehran’s oldest high-rise, collapsed following a fire. Altogether at least 30 people were killed. Habibollah Elghanian, a prominent Iranian-Jewish businessman, had built the structure. He was arrested for ties to Israel and sentenced to death and executed after the 1979 Islamic revolution. On Jan 27 the final death toll was put at 26 including 16 firefighters.
(AFP, 1/19/17)(Reuters, 1/20/17)(SFC, 1/20/17, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/22/17, p.A4)(AP, 1/27/17)
2017 Jan 22, An Iranian appeals court confirmed a five-year jail sentence for British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on security charges. She works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a London-based charity that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.
(Reuters, 1/22/17)
2017 Jan 23, In Kazakhstan indirect 2-day talks began in Astana between the Syrian government and rebels. The talks were hosted by Russia, Turkey and Iran.
(Reuters, 1/23/17)(Econ, 1/28/17, p.39)
2017 Jan 24, In Kazakhstan Russia, Turkey and Iran backed a shaky truce between Syria's warring parties and agreed to monitor its compliance. On the ground rebels faced continued fighting on two fronts, which could undermine the deal.
(Reuters, 1/24/17)
2017 Jan 28, UAE state news agency WAM reported that the air force of the United Arab Emirates has shot down an Iranian-made drone in Yemen.
(Reuters, 1/28/17)
2017 Jan 29, Iran test-launched a medium-range ballistic missile that exploded after 630 miles (1,010 km).
(Reuters, 1/31/17)
2017 Jan 31, Iran said it would never use its ballistic missiles to attack another country and defended its missile tests, saying they are neither part of a nuclear accord with world powers nor a UN Security Council resolution endorsing the pact.
(Reuters, 1/31/17)
2017 Feb 1, The Trump administration condemned Iran for its recent test of a ballistic missile saying it was putting Tehran “on notice" and threatening reprisals.
(SFC, 2/2/17, p.A3)
2017 Feb 3, Iran said it had barred a US wrestling team from the Freestyle World Cup competition in retaliation for an executive order by President Donald Trump banning visas for Iranians.
(Reuters, 2/3/17)
2017 Feb 3, The US Treasury sanctioned 13 individuals and 12 entities under its Iran sanctions authority, days after the White House put Tehran "on notice" over a ballistic missile test and other activities. Trump administration officials said sanctions were only the initial steps in response to Iranian provocative behavior.
(Reuters, 2/3/17)(SFC, 2/4/17, p.A6)
2017 Feb 5, Iran lifted a ban on US wrestlers, allowing them to take part in the Freestyle World Cup later this month in the Iranian city of Kermanshah. Media said the ban was lifted after the "discriminative restrictions" on Iranian nationals traveling to the US was suspended by a US federal judge.
(AP, 2/5/17)
2017 Feb 15, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Oman and Kuwait for talks to improve relations with Gulf neighbors, strained by the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
(AFP, 2/15/17)
2017 Feb 25, Iran announced plans to buy 950 tons of uranium ore from Kazakhstan over three years and said it expects to get Russian help in producing nuclear fuel.
(Reuters, 2/25/17)
2017 Mar 1, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan agreed to improve ties, including in the fight against terrorism, on the sidelines of an economic cooperation summit in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.
(Reuters, 3/1/17)
2017 Mar 4, Iran said the six-year prison term of Ahmad Montazeri, son of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has been suspended after approval by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following a request by a top cleric.
(AP, 3/4/17)
2017 Mar 5, The Iranian judiciary said on authorities have arrested an Iranian-American on charges of defrauding people seeking US residence of $2.6 million.
(Reuters, 3/5/17)
2017 Mar 5, Azerbaijan and Iran agreed to work towards completing their portion of a planned freight railway route from Europe to South Asia.
(Reuters, 3/5/17)
2017 Mar 6, US Pres. Donald Trump signed a revised executive order temporarily banning people from six Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen). The revision would become effective on March 16.
(SFC, 3/7/17, p.A1)(Econ, 3/11/17, p.29)
2017 Mar 18, In Iran the Fars semi-official news agency reported that Faezeh Hashemi, the outspoken daughter of Iran's late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been sentenced to six months in prison for "spreading lies against the judiciary".
(AP, 3/18/17)
2017 Mar 21, The family of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran a decade ago on an unauthorized CIA assignment, filed a lawsuit against the Islamic Republic, accusing it of using "cold, cynical and false denials" to torture his loved ones.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 24, The United States State Department said it has imposed sanctions on 30 foreign companies or individuals for transferring sensitive technology to Iran for its missile program or for violating export controls on Iran, North Korea and Syria.
(Reuters, 3/24/17)
2017 Mar 26, Iran sanctioned what it described as 15 American companies, alleging they support terrorism, repression and Israel's occupation of land Palestinians want for a future state, likely in retaliation for sanctions earlier announced by the US. The list included ITT Corp., missile-maker Raytheon Co., United Technologies Corp. Denver's Re/Max Holdings Inc., a real estate company and truck maker Oshkosh.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 26, Iran's central bank said it will appeal Luxembourg's decision to freeze $1.6 billion of its assets, which the US is claiming as compensation for victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
(AFP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar, In Iran masked goons arrested 12 administrators of popular social-media news channels.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.41)
2017 Apr 6, Hungary said it will cooperate with Iran on setting up a small nuclear reactor for scientific-educational purposes.
(Reuters, 4/6/17)
2016 Apr 11, The European Union extended until April 2018 sanctions against Iran for "serious human rights violations", a narrower measure than restrictions the bloc had already lifted after an international accord on Tehran's nuclear programme.
(AP, 4/11/17)
2017 Apr 15, Iran state TV reported that death toll in flash floods triggered by heavy rains in the northwest province of eastern Azarbaijan rose to 30 with seven people missing in the cities of Ajab Shir and Azarshahr.
(AP, 4/15/17)
2017 Apr 21, Iraq released 26 hostages, including members of Qatar's ruling family. The group was kidnapped December 16, 2015, from a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq. They apparently had permits to hunt in that area inside Muthanna province. Qatar reportedly paid a billion dollars to Iran and to the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and Ahrar al-Sham, which are involved in the evacuation and transfer of detainees.
(AP, 4/21/17)(Econ 6/10/17, p.14)
2017 Apr 29, In Turkey the head of an Iranian satellite television network was shot dead in Istanbul together with a business partner. GEM TV founder Saeed Karimian was sentenced last year in absentia to six years in prison by a Tehran court. Karimian and an associate were driving in Istanbul's Maslak neighborhood after 8 p.m. (1.00 p.m. ET) when their car was blocked by a jeep and shots were fired.
(Reuters, 4/30/17)
2017 Apr, In Iran a separatist Baluchi group killed ten Iranian border guards.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.45)
2017 May 3, In northern Iran more than 50 miners were trapped after a huge explosion in a coal mine, and some were feared to have died in the Zemestanyurt coal mine in Golestan province. At least 35 people were killed.
(Reuters, 5/3/17)(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 3, Pakistan and Iran reached an agreement to strengthen security along their shared border after last week's incident when gunmen killed 10 Iranian border guards.
(AP, 5/3/17)
2017 May 4, Iran, Russia and Turkey signed an agreement calling for the setting up of four "de-escalation zones" in war-torn Syria at the cease-fire talks in Kazakhstan and said that President Bashar Assad's air force would halt flights over the designated areas in the country's north, center and south. Members of the Syrian opposition delegation shouted in protest and walked out of the conference room in Astana. The opposition said it could not accept creating safe zones in Syria because it threatens the country's territorial integrity and said it would also not recognize Iran as a guarantor of the peace plan.
(AP, 5/4/17)(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 7, In Iran angry coal miners besieged a car carrying President Hassan Rouhani after he visited the site of a deadly mine explosion, a rare protest targeting the nation's top elected official as he campaigns for re-election.
(AP, 5/7/17)
2017 May 14, In Iran a 5.7 magnitude earthquake near the Turkmenistan border killed two people, injured hundreds and caused widespread damage.
(AFP, 5/14/17)
2017 May 16, Iran's reformist first vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, pulled out of this week's presidential election and endorsed the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani.
(AFP, 5/16/17)
2017 May 17, US officials said the administration of US President Donald Trump, who slammed the Iran nuclear deal as a candidate, will extend sanctions relief for Iran that was called for under the 2015 pact.
(Reuters, 5/17/17)
2017 May 19, Iran held presidential elections. President Hassan Rouhani secured a commanding lead of 57 percent in a race that drew more than seven out of every 10 voters to the polls. His nearest rival in the four-man race, hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, secured 38 percent of the vote. Candidates backing reform of the clerically overseen government swept municipal elections in Tehran, taking all 21 local council seats.
(AFP, 5/19/17)(AP, 5/20/17)(AP, 5/21/17)
2017 May 24, Iran signed a deal worth $615 million, €550 million, with a Spanish-Iranian consortium under which the group will provide pipes used in Iran's oil industry.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 25, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency quoted a senior commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard saying Iran has built a third underground ballistic missile production factory and will keep developing its missile program.
(Reuters, 5/25/17)
2017 May 25, The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved bipartisan legislation that would authorize the president to levy new penalties on Iran while keeping the landmark nuclear deal in place.
(AP, 5/25/17)
2017 May 26, Iranian Shaaban Nassiri, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was killed fighting Islamic State near Baaj, west of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
(Reuters, 5/27/17)(SSFC, 5/28/17, p.A7)
2017 May, In Iran Arab militants attacked a police station in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, killing two policemen.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.45)
2017 Jun 7, In Iran attacks on the parliament and a shrine to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed 17 people and were claimed by the Islamic State group. Four attackers were reported killed. The five Iranians who killed 17 people in the twin attacks were Islamic State group members who had been to its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
(AP, 6/7/17)(AFP, 6/8/17)
2017 Jun 10, Boeing said Iran's Aseman Airlines has finalized an agreement to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets for $3.0 billion, with an option to buy 30 more.
(AFP, 6/10/17)
2017 Jun 14, Iranian forces killed two suspected members of an armed group in a Sunni-majority southeastern region and arrested five others who attacked a barracks in Chabahar, Sistan Baluchistan province.
(AFP, 6/15/17)
2017 Jun 14, The US Senate voted to slap new sanctions on key sectors of Russia's economy and individuals over its interference in the 2016 US election campaign and its aggression in Syria and Ukraine. The measures were attached to a bill targeting Iran.
(AP, 6/15/17)
2017 Jun 16, Iran condemned new sanctions adopted by the US Senate and vowed to respond with "reciprocal and adequate measures".
(AFP, 6/16/17)
2017 Jun 18, An Iranian ballistic missile strike targeted the Islamic State group in Syria's eastern city of Deir el-Zour. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 6/19/17)
2017 Jun 19, Pakistani security forces recovered wreckage of an Iranian drone shot down by a Pakistani JF-17 Jet. It was unknown when the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was shot down.
(The National Interest, 8/29/19)
2017 Jun 21, Iran began exporting gas to neighboring Iraq through a pipeline straight to Baghdad.
(AP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 22, Iran media said the country is shipping more than 1,000 tons of fruits and vegetables to Qatar every day after Gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia cut relations with Doha.
(AFP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 23, Iran marked al-Quds Day and staged anti-Israel rallies across the country, with protesters condemning Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and chanting "Death to Israel" as the powerful Revolutionary Guard displayed its ballistic missiles, including the type used this week in Syria.
(AP, 6/23/17)
2017 Jul 3, Iranians opened a "Trumpism" cartoon contest in which hundreds of participants were invited to submit artwork mocking the US leader. Hadi Asadi won first prize and a $1,500 award. His cartoon shows Trump wearing a jacket made of dollar notes while drooling on books, a reference to cultural material. "I wanted to show Trump while trampling symbols of culture," said Asadi.
(AP, 7/3/17)
2017 Jul 3, French energy giant Total signed a $4.9 billion agreement to develop an Iranian offshore gas field, in the biggest foreign deal since sanctions on Iran were eased.
(AFP, 7/3/17)
2017 Jul 4, German car giant Volkswagen said it was returning to the Iranian market for the first time in 17 years due to the lifting of economic sanctions.
(AFP, 7/4/17)
2017 Jul 10, Iranian cancer researcher Mohsen Dehnavi was detained at Boston's Logan International Airport along with his wife and three young children upon arrival. They were sent back to Iran the following day despite holding a J-1 visa for visiting scholars. He was expecting to take up work at Boston Children's Hospital. It was later reported that Dehnavi had previously headed a student branch of a volunteer paramilitary militia.
(AP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 11, Iran Railways said it has signed a preliminary agreement with Italy's state railway to construct two high-speed links in Iran. Four memoranda of understanding were signed worth some $1.36 billion.
(AP, 7/11/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Iran police shot dead a man who attacked a clergyman and other people with a knife at a metro station in Tehran.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 16, Iran’s judiciary said that the brother of President Hassan Rouhani has been detained. Hossein Fereidoun was taken into custody over allegations of financial impropriety.
(Reuters, 7/16/17)
2017 Jul 16, An Iranian judiciary spokesman said a local court has sentenced a US dual national, to 10 years in jail on spying charges. The man was later identified as Xiyue Wang (37), a Chinese-American graduate student. Wang was arrested on Aug. 8, 2016 while conducting research on the 1794-1925 Qajar dynasty for his doctorate in late 19th and early 20th century Eurasian history.
(AP, 7/16/17)(AP, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 17, An Iranian serviceman shot dead three fellow soldiers at a barracks and wounded six others before killing himself in the town of Abyek, some 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Tehran.
(Reuters 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 20, In Iran elite Revolutionary Guard forces killed three terrorists and wounded four others in a clash in a border area in the country's northwest.
(AP, 7/21/17)
2017 Jul 20, Kuwait state news agency KUNA said the government has ordered Iran to reduce its embassy staff from 19 to 4 and close down its technical offices in the Gulf Arab state following a court case last year which implicated "Iranian parties" of involvement in a spy cell.
(Reuters, 7/20/17)
2017 Jul 21, Iran decided for the second time since January not to upset its nuclear pact with six world powers, despite public statements by Tehran accusing the United States of violating the deal.
(Reuters, 7/21/17)
2017 Jul 27, Iran successfully launched a satellite-carrying rocket into space. The launch involved a "Simorgh" rocket capable of carrying a satellite weighing 250 kg (550 pounds).
(AP, 7/27/17)
2017 Jul 28, The US Senate approved a new package of stiff financial sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea and sent it to President Donald Trump to sign. Russia's Foreign Ministry ordered a reduction in the number of US diplomats in Russia and said it was closing down a US recreation retreat in response to fresh sanctions against Russia.
(AP, 7/28/17)
2017 Jul 29, Iran vowed to press ahead with its missile program and condemned new US sanctions.
(AFP, 7/29/17)
2017 Aug 3, Spain’s police said 101 people, mostly Iranians and Spaniards, have been arrested in a year-long operation coordinated with British and police and Europol. The criminal network had smuggled Iranian nationals with false documents into Britain.
(AP, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 5, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was sworn-in for a second term. He accused the United States of trying to undermine Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, telling President Donald Trump that it will be his political suicide.
(Reuters, 8/5/17)
2017 Aug 6, An Iranian soldier opened fire on his colleagues, killing three and wounding 12 of them at a military air base in south Tehran. The assailant was killed in a shootout with other soldiers. Iranian media reported that the Revolutionary Guards had killed two people in clashes with a group of militants in the northwest of the country.
(AP, 8/6/17)(Reuters, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 6, Iranian media said Iran's Revolutionary Guards had killed two people in clashes with a group of militants in the northwest of the country, where shootouts with Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq are common.
(Reuters, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 7, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that security forces have broken up a group linked to Islamic State which was planning attacks in religious centers in the country and trying to hide weapons in home appliances. 27 militants were detained.
(Reuters, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 7, Iran signed the country's biggest-ever car deal o build tens of thousands of cars annually under a joint venture with French automobile manufacturer Groupe Renault, buoying its manufacturing industry in defiance of the Trump administration's moves to isolate the country.
(AP, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 8, Iranian authorities detained 64 “half naked" youths at a pool party in central Isfahan province. A report said the youngsters were dancing and drinking alcoholic beverages.
(AP, 8/9/17)
2017 Aug 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed two female vice presidents but continued to take flak from reformists for nominating no women ministers.
(AFP, 8/9/17)
2017 Aug 10, Iran executed Alireza Tajiki. He had been arrested six years earlier at age 15 for murder and sodomy.
(AP, 8/10/17)
2017 Aug 11, In Iran flash floods triggered by heavy rains killed 12 people. 38 people remained missing in Khorasan Razavi province.
(AP, 8/12/17)
2017 Aug 13, Iran's parliament voted unanimously to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, part of a sanctions bill mirroring a new US law targeting the country.
(AP, 8/13/17)
2017 Aug 13, Iran's parliament passed a long-awaited amendment to its drug trafficking laws, raising the thresholds that can trigger capital punishment and potentially saving the lives of many on death row.
(AFP, 8/13/17)
2017 Aug 15, The BBC said an Iranian court order has frozen the local assets of over 150 people associated with the BBC's Farsi-language service, the latest effort by Tehran to crack down on the service's popular newscasts.
(AP, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 16, Mehdi Karroubi (80), a detained Iranian opposition leader, started a hunger strike and wants to be out on trial rather than remain under house arrest where he has been held since 2011. Karroubi ended his hunger strike after one day after officials promised that the 12 guards watching over him would no longer be permanently stationed in his house.
(Reuters, 8/16/17)(SFC, 8/18/17, p.A2)
2017 Aug 23, Qatar restored full diplomatic relations with Iran and promised to send its ambassador back to Tehran, a move counter to the demands of Arab nations trying to isolate Doha as part of a regional dispute.
(AP, 8/24/17)(Econ, 9/2/17, p.41)
2017 Aug 26, Iranians were joined by a minister in protest after Apple recently removed popular apps from its store, which the American company says has been done to comply with US sanctions.
(AFP, 8/26/17)(SFC, 8/26/17, p.D1)
2017 Aug 27, Ebrahim Yazdi (85), a dissident Iranian politician and a former foreign minister (1979), died at the age of 85 in Izmir, Turkey, where he was being treated for complications from cancer after being denied a US visa for follow-up treatment in Houston.
(AP, 8/31/17)
2017 Aug 28, Yehya al-Sinwar, the Palestinian militant group's new leader in Gaza, said Hamas and Iran have patched up relations, and Tehran is again its biggest backer after years of tension over the civil war in Syria.
(Reuters, 8/28/17)
2017 Sep 3, The Iranian judiciary said a court has re-imposed the death penalty on Mohammad Ali Taheri, founder of Erfan Halgheh which calls itself "Interuniversalism" in English, after the first sentence was struck down by the supreme court. He was sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in 2015 for "corruption on earth" but the Supreme Court later quashed the sentence.
(Reuters, 9/3/17)
2017 Sep 15, Iranian state news agency IRNA said the China Development Bank has signed a memorandum of understanding for $15 billion. Iranian media reports have said projects would include water management, energy, environment and transport.
(AP, 11/30/17)
2017 Sep 15, Turkey’s foreign ministry said Russia, Iran and Turkey have agreed to post observers on the edge of a de-escalation zone in northern Syria's Idlib region, which is largely controlled by Islamist militants.
(Reuters, 9/15/17)
2017 Sep 16, Iran's central bank president said a Chinese state-owned investment firm has provided a $10 billion credit line for Iranian banks. In total, China has agreed to allocate $35 billion in financing and loans for Iran's economy.
(AFP, 9/16/17)
2017 Sep 16, Counterterrorism officials and analysts said thousands of Shiite Muslims from Afghanistan and Pakistan are being recruited by Iran to fight with President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria, lured by promises of housing, a monthly salary of up to $600 and the possibility of employment in Iran when they return.
(AP, 9/16/17)
2017 Sep 18, Iran released Mahvesh Sabet (64), a member of the Baha'i faith. She and six other leaders of the minority community were arrested in March 2008 and sentenced to 20 years in jail for heresy and espionage for Israel. Her six colleagues remained imprisoned. The Baha'i faith considers Bahaullah, an Iranian born in 1817, to be the latest prophet sent by God, in contrast with Islamic orthodoxy.
(AP, 9/19/17)
2017 Sep 19, The Israeli military shot down an Iranian-made spy drone operated by the Hezbollah militant group as it approached the Golan Heights, and vowed to take further tough action against any attempts by its archenemies to violate the country's sovereignty.
(AP, 9/19/17)
2017 Sep 20, US security firm FireEye said hackers likely linked to Iran's government are behind attacks on Saudi and other Western aerospace and petrochemical firms, signaling a rise in Iranian cyber-spying prowess.
(Reuters, 9/20/17)
2017 Sep 21, In Iran an explosion at a guesthouse near the Fatima Masumeh shrine in the city of Qom left four dead and 15 wounded, most of them Iraqi pilgrims.
(Reuters, 9/21/17)
2017 Sep 21, The foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Iraq voiced concerns that a Kurdish referendum on independence would endanger gains Iraq has made against Islamic state, and reiterated worries of potential new conflicts in the region and agreed to consider counter-measures against the planned independence referendum.
(Reuters, 9/21/17)
2017 Sep 23, Iran said it had successfully tested a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and would keep developing its arsenal, despite US pressure to stop.
(Reuters, 9/23/17)
2017 Sep 24, Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard launched a military exercise in its northwestern Kurdish region one day ahead of Iraqi Kurds voting in an independence referendum, in a sign of Tehran's concerns over the vote. Iran also closed its airspace to flights taking off from Iraq's Kurdish region following an Iraqi request.
(AP, 9/24/17)
2017 Sep 26, Thousands of Iranian Kurds marched in the streets to show their support for an independence referendum staged by Kurdish authorities in neighboring Iraq, defying a show of power by Tehran which flew fighter jets over their areas.
(AP, 9/26/17)
2017 Sep 27, Iran's supreme leader and thousands of others mourned Mohsen Hojaji (25), a Revolutionary Guard soldier beheaded by the Islamic State group. His killing struck a nerve within Iran as its forces continue to suffer casualties in Iraq and Syria.
(AP, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 29, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Iran has banned the transportation of refined crude oil products by Iranian companies to and from Iraq's Kurdistan region, after Tehran vowed to stand by Baghdad following the region's vote for independence.
(Reuters, 9/29/17)
2017 Sep 30, Iran's state television reported that Iranian and Iraqi central government forces are to hold joint military exercises near their borders, as part of Tehran's effort to support Baghdad after the Kurdish independence referendum. Media reported that Iran has embargoed exports and imports of fuel products to and from Iraqi Kurdistan in response to the region's controversial independence referendum.
(Reuters, 9/30/17)(AFP, 9/30/17)
2017 Oct 2, Iranian university academic Mohammad Reza Jalaipour said seven reformists, including himself and a brother of ex-president Mohammad Khatami, have been given one-year jail terms and banned from all political and media activity for two years. The seven were leaders of the Islamic Iran Participation Front which authorities dissolved in 2010 following a wave of unprecedented protests against the re-election the previous year of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AFP, 10/2/17)
2017 Oct 2, A Kurdish official said Iranian and Iraqi forces staged joint military exercises near the border with Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.
(AFP, 10/2/17)
2017 Oct 3, In Qatar Iran's foreign minister held talks with the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani aimed at strengthening "co-operation," nearly four months into a Saudi-led blockade against the Gulf emirate.
(AP, 10/3/17)
2017 Oct 4, The presidents of Iran and Turkey vowed during talks in Tehran to work closely together to prevent the disintegration of Iraq and Syria and to oppose the Iraqi Kurds' drive for independence.
(Reuters, 10/4/17)
2017 Oct 4, An Iranian a semiofficial news agency reported that Abdolrasoul Ddorri Esfahani, a dual Iranian-Canadian national, has been sentenced to five years in prison for espionage. Esfahani was a member of Iran’s team nuclear negotiators that struck a 2015 deal with world powers.
(SFC, 10/5/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct 6, Iranian news website Tabnak said authorities have arrested Mahdi Jahangiri, the brother of the country's senior vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, apparently over finance-related matters.
(AP, 10/6/17)
2017 Oct 7, Iran’s semi-official ILNA news agency reported that the country's authorities have banned former reformist President Mohammad Khatami from appearing at public ceremonies for three months.
(AP, 10/7/17)
2017 Oct 9, The UN atomic agency chief affirmed Iran's commitment to a 2015 nuclear deal, in a statement that came as US President Donald Trump said Tehran was not living up to the "spirit" of the agreement.
(AFP, 10/9/17)
2017 Oct 13, US Pres. Donald Trump kicked the fate of the landmark Iran nuclear deal to the US Congress and said he might ultimately terminate the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions in return for Tehran rolling back technologies with nuclear bomb-making potential.
(AFP, 10/14/17)(AP, 10/14/17)
2017 Oct 16, The EU reaffirmed its support for a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers despite sharp criticism of the accord by President Donald Trump, and it urged US lawmakers not to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.
(Reuters, 10/16/17)
2017 Oct 17, Norwegian solar panel maker Saga Energy signed a deal worth 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) with Iran's state-owned company Amin Energy Developers to build solar power plants.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 23, Amnesty International said that Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian doctor who studied and taught in Sweden, had been sentenced to death in Iran on espionage charges. Neither Iran nor Amnesty said when the verdict was issued.
(Reuters, 10/24/17)
2017 Oct 25, The BBC said it has filed a complaint to the United Nations over Iran freezing the assets of more than 150 people associated with its Persian service, calling the Islamic Republic's actions "a deprivation of human rights."
(AP, 10/25/17)
2017 Oct 25, The Swiss government said neutral Switzerland's embassies in Riyadh and Tehran have signed agreements to represent Iranian interests in Saudi Arabia and Saudi interests in Iran.
(Reuters, 10/25/17)
2017 Oct 29, In southern Iran a fire broke out at an oil rig, killing at least two workers near the town of Omideih just days after another fire at an oil refinery in Tehran killed seven workers.
(AP, 10/29/17)
2017 Oct 29, India shipped its first consignment of wheat to Afghanistan by sea through Iran's strategic Chahbahar Port, launching a trade route bypassing longtime rival Pakistan.
(AP, 10/29/17)
2017 Oct 30, It was reported that Iranian environmentalists have mobilized to protect the world's last Asiatic cheetahs, estimated to number just 50 and faced with the threats of becoming roadkill, a shortage of prey and farmers' dogs.
(AFP, 10/30/17)
2017 Oct 31, The head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has restricted the range of ballistic missiles manufactured in the country to 2,000 km (1,240 miles).
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Nov 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Iran for trilateral talks with Tehran and Azerbaijan.
(AP, 11/1/17)
2017 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians protested in Tehran against President Donald Trump's policies and to mark the anniversary of the 1979 US embassy siege.
(AFP, 11/4/17)
2017 Nov 7, Saudi Arabia's crown prince said Iran's supply of rockets to militias in Yemen is an act of "direct military aggression" that could be an act of war.
(Reuters, 11/7/17)
2017 Nov 7, The United States accused Iran of supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the UN to hold Tehran accountable for violating two UN Security Council resolutions.
(Reuters, 11/7/17)
2017 Nov 8, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani criticized Saudi Arabia over what he called "unprecedented" interference in Lebanese affairs, adding his voice to those who suspect the Gulf kingdom forced Lebanon's prime minister to resign.
(AP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 8, Iranian state television reported that more than two million Iranian pilgrims have crossed the border into Iraq for the annual Arbaeen Shiite pilgrimage to be celebrated on Nov. 9.
(AFP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 8, In the Netherlands Iranian political activist Ahmad Mola Nissi (52), who founded an Arab nationalist group seeking an independent state inside Iran, was shot dead at The Hague. A suspect was detained at the scene. Nissi had established the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), which seeks a separate state in the country's oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 8, The United States accused Iran of supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles, echoing allegations made by Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 9, It was reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals during the past two years, mostly on spying charges, according to lawyers, diplomats and relatives, twice as many as earlier reported by local or international media.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 12, In Iran a Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter crashed in the central Wasit province, killing all three crew members on board.
(AP, 11/12/17)
2017 Nov 12, A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake late today near the Iraq-Iran border killed over 530 people across both countries. Iran's western Kermanshah province bore the brunt of the temblor. In Iraq, nine people were killed and 550 were injured, all in the country's northern Kurdish region.
(AP, 11/13/17)(Reuters, 11/14/17)(AFP, 11/26/17)(AP, 1/11/18)
2017 Nov 14, Iranian officials called off rescue operations, saying there was little chance of finding more survivors from the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that shook parts of western Iran on Nov 12, killing at least 530 people.
(Reuters, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 16, In Syria Kheyrollah Samadi, a commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, was killed fighting the Islamic State in the Albu Kamal region.
(AP, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 17, Iranian ambassador Hamid Baeedinejad said Britain will soon repay a debt of over 400 million pounds ($527 million) to Iran. Britain owes the money after Iran's Shah paid up front for 1,750 Chieftain tanks and other vehicles, almost none of which were eventually delivered after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 toppled the US-backed leader.
(Reuters, 11/17/17)
2017 Nov 18, In eastern Syria Iranian fighter Mehdi Movahednia was killed in clashes with Islamic State in the town of Mayadin.
(Reuters, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 19, In Turkey top diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey met in Antalya to discuss the civil war in Syria ahead of a three-way summit in the Russian city of Sochi Nov. 22.
(AFP, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 20, Iran called on Saudi Arabia to stop its "barbaric attacks" on Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been at war with Tehran-backed rebels since March 2015. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi also called on Saudi Arabia to drop its boycott of the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar, which has warm ties with Iran.
(AP, 11/20/17)
2017 Nov 21, In Manhattan a federal indictment was unsealed accusing Behsad Mesri, a member of an Iran hacking group, of hacking into the HBO computer system in New York and stealing unaired episodes and scripts of hit shows and then attempting to extort HBO out of $6 million. Mesri was believed to be overseas and not in custody.
(SFC, 11/22/17, p.A6)
2017 Nov 22, Vladimir Putin called for "concessions and compromise" from all parties in Syria's six-year conflict as he kicked off a key summit in Sochi with the leaders of Turkey and Iran aimed at reviving stuttering peace negotiations.
(AFP, 11/22/17)
2017 Nov 23, Armenia's foreign-language film submission to the Academy Awards for this year, “Yeva" directed by Anahid Abad, premiered in Tehran. Her film is a joint production between the National Cinema Center of Armenia and the Iranian Farabi Cinema Foundation.
(AP, 11/24/17)
2017 Nov 29, It was reported that 66,000 people out of Iran's 80 million people have HIV, though about 30,000 of them have no idea they have the virus. The report cited government statistics.
(AP, 11/29/17)
2017 Dec 1, Iranian state television aired a new video about imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, accusing her of taking part in covert activities against the country financed by Britain and the United States.
(AFP, 12/1/17)
2017 Dec 3, Iran awarded its biennial $500,000 Mustafa Prize to two computer science experts, Iranian Amin Shokrollahi and Turkish-French national Sami Erol Gelenbe, for their achievements in systems assessment in model-making and computer coding.
(AP, 12/3/17)
2017 Dec 7, In southwestern Iran eight climbers died in an avalanche and a ninth was missing on Oshtorankouh mountain in the Zagros range.
(AP, 12/9/17)
2017 Dec 9, Iran said Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Iran's largest state-owned bank, has been given a 20-year prison sentence and $6 million fine in absentia over a record-breaking $2.6 billion embezzlement scandal. Khavari fled to Canada after the scandal broke in 2011. Canada does not have an extradition agreement with Iran.
(AFP, 12/9/17)
2017 Dec 10, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani promised high economic growth as he laid out next year's budget. Britain's foreign minister Boris Johnson met with Rouhani, wrapping up a visit in which they discussed a full range of regional and bilateral issues. A key focus of Johnson's visit was the case of British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving five years for taking part in mass protests in 2009, which she denies.
(AFP, 12/10/17)
2017 Dec 17, Iran shut primary schools in Tehran and other parts of the country due to choking levels of air pollution. In the northwestern cities of Tabriz and Urmia, schools remained closed for the second day straight.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 19, Iran sentenced Hamid Baghaei, a former vice president, to 63 years in prison over misuse of public funds while in office. Baghaei was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vice president in charge of executive affairs.
(AP, 12/20/17)
2017 Dec 20, In Iran schools were closed for a fourth straight day in Tehran as dangerous air pollution covered the Iranian capital and traffic restrictions failed to clear the thick smog.
(AFP, 12/20/17)
2017 Dec 21, In Iran police arrested 140 of the young partygoers late today in a garden on the outskirts of Tehran and 90 in the city's uptown while dancing and drinking alcohol.
(AP, 12/22/17)
2017 Dec 22, The US State Department re-designated China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as "countries of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act for having engaged in or tolerated egregious violations of religious freedom.
(AP, 1/4/18)
2017 Dec 27, Tehran's police chief said Iranian police are taking a softer approach to breaches of Islamic rules, opting for education over punishment. Police will no longer arrest women for failing to observe the Islamic dress code imposed since 1979. Violators will be made to attend classes.
(AFP, 12/27/17)(SFC, 12/29/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 28, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said people have been detained following protests in the northeastern city of Mashdad over price hikes. The prices of many basic goods, including eggs, have increased by 30-40 percent in recent days.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 29, Iranians protesting the country's strained economy gathered in Tehran and the western city of Kermanshah, for the second day of spontaneous, unsanctioned demonstrations placing pressure on President Hassan Rouhani's government.
(AP, 12/29/17)
2017 Dec 30, In Iran a wave of spontaneous protests over a weak economy swept into Tehran, with college students and others chanting against the government. The relatively small protest erupted at the University of Tehran but was vastly outnumbered by a pro-regime demonstration. Two demonstrators were shot dead late today in the western town of Dorud.
(AP, 12/30/17)(AFP, 12/30/17)(Reuters, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 30, In Iran a Sunni jihadist group claimed to have blown up an oil pipeline in southern Khuzestan province, the scene of other attacks by Arab separatists.
(AP, 12/30/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran blocked access to Instagram and the popular Telegram messaging app used by activists to organize and publicize the protests now roiling the Islamic Republic. The free Telegram app, created by Russian national Pavel Durov, was used by an estimated 40 million Iranians.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran warned of a tough crackdown against demonstrators who pose one of the most audacious challenges to its clerical leaders since nationwide pro-reform unrest jolted the Islamist theocracy in 2009. In apparent response to the protests The government backed down on plans to raise fuel prices and promised to increase cash handouts to the poor and create more jobs in coming years. 10 people were killed in widespread anti-government protests across the country in cities including Kermanshah, Khorramabad and Shahinshahr.
(Reuters, 12/31/17)(AFP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec, Iran's Supreme Court upheld a death sentence against Ahmadreza Djalali, a Sweden-based Iranian academic convicted of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate several senior nuclear scientists.
(Reuters, 2/4/18)
2017 In Iran Vida Movahed (30) was dubbed the "Girl of Enghelab Street" and briefly arrested after she took off her headscarf and held it in the air. A court sentenced her in March, 2018, after finding her guilty of encouraging public "corruption." She was arrested in November. In 2019 she was sentenced to one year in prison but pardoned by the supreme leader.
(AP, 4/14/19)
2018 Jan 1, Iran’s state TV said nationwide protests saw their most violent night as "armed protesters" tried to overrun military bases and police stations before security forces repelled them, bringing the death toll in the unrest to at least 12. Fresh protests broke out as night fell in Tehran. Nine Iranians were killed in Isfahan province during anti-government protests this evening as security forces struggled to contain the boldest challenge to the clerical leadership since unrest in 2009. A gunman reportedly killed one policeman and wounded three other officers during a protest gathering in Najafabad.
(AP, 1/1/18)(AFP, 1/1/18)(Reuters, 1/2/18)(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran's supreme leader blamed the country's "enemies" for days of unrest that have seen 21 killed and hundreds arrested in the biggest test for the Islamic regime in years.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran re-opened two crossings with the Iraqi Kurdistan region that it had closed after a referendum in favor of independence in the Kurdish area.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 3, Thousands of Iranians took part in pro-government rallies in several cities as the elite Revolutionary Guards deployed forces to three provinces to put down an eruption of anti-government unrest. Six days of protests have left 21 people dead.
(Reuters, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 3, Israel's internal security agency said it has busted an Iranian espionage ring operating in the West Bank and arrested Mohammed Maharmeh (29) its Palestinian leader. Maharmeh was allegedly tasked with enlisting suicide bombers and gunmen for attacks against Israelis.
(AP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 4, Iran's army chief declared that police had already quelled anti-government unrest that has killed 21 people but that his troops were ready to intervene if needed, as Tehran staged more pro-government rallies.
(Reuters, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 5, Iran’s state TV reported that tens of thousands of government supporters rallied across the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and accusing the US of instigating the largest anti-government protests in nearly a decade.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, The US imposed sanctions against five Iranian firms alleged to have been working on an illegal ballistic missile program, linking the move to the protests, and called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 6, In Iran thousands of government supporters staged rallies for a fourth day, in a backlash against widespread protests that the clerical establishment has blamed on the country's enemies.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 6, A senior education official said Iran has banned the teaching of English in primary schools, after the country's Supreme Leader said early learning of the language opened the way to a Western "cultural invasion".
(Reuters, 1/7/18)
2018 Jan 6, An official in the Fatemiyoun Brigade of Afghan "volunteer" recruits told Iranian media that more than 2,000 Afghans deployed by Iran have been killed fighting in Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
(AFP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 6, The Sanchi tanker carrying Iranian oil and run by the country's top oil shipping firm was ablaze and spewing cargo into the East China Sea after colliding with the Chinese CF Crystal freight ship, leaving the tanker's 32 crew members missing. The Panama-registered tanker was sailing from Iran to South Korea, carrying 136,000 tons of condensate, an ultra light crude, equivalent to just under 1 million barrels.
(Reuters, 1/7/18)
2018 Jan 7, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said that the nation and its security forces have ended the wave of unrest linked to anti-government protests that erupted last month.
(AP, 1/7/18)
2018 Jan 8, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani went all-in with a push for greater civil liberties in the wake of the deadly unrest that rocked Iran in recent days.
(AFP, 1/8/18)
2018 Jan 8, In Iran a judiciary official announced that a detainee had committed suicide in Tehran's Evin prison.
(Reuters, 1/9/18)
2018 Jan 9, An Iranian lawmaker said security forces arrested some 3,700 people during widespread protests and unrest over the past two weeks. A judiciary official announced that a detainee in Arak, a town approximately 200 km south of Tehran, had died after committing suicide.
(AP, 1/9/18)
2018 Jan 10, Iran’s pro-reform Shargh newspaper and other dailies reported that Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani, the head of the judiciary, has ordered officials to "quickly" review cases and implement new regulations that will prevent thousands of convicted drug smugglers from being executed.
(AP, 1/10/18)
2018 Jan 10, Rescue crews were forced to retreat from the stricken Sanchi, an Iranian oil tanker in the East China Sea, following an explosion on the ship as a fire raged for a fourth day after a dramatic collision.
(Israel, 1/10/18)
2018 Jan 10, The Iranian naval destroyer Damavand crashed into a breakwater during a storm, killing two crew members. It sank in the Caspian Sea following the crash.
(AP, 1/28/18)
2018 Jan 13, A Chinese salvage team recovered two bodies from the stricken Sanchi Iranian oil tanker, still blazing a week after it caught fire and was left adrift following a collision in the East China Sea. 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis remained missing.
(Reuters, 1/13/18)
2018 Jan 14, Iranian officials said that hundreds of people detained in recent weeks during anti-government protests have been released and acknowledged that at least 25 people were killed during the unrest. Iran lifted restrictions imposed during recent protests on the country's most popular social media app Telegram.
(AP, 1/14/18)(AFP, 1/14/18)
2018 Jan 14, Chinese state media said the Sanchi, an Iranian oil tanker, has sunk after burning for more than a week following a collision on Jan. 6 in the East China Sea, adding that a large amount of oil was burning in the surrounding waters.
(Reuters, 1/14/18)
2018 Jan 20, Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered both the country's regular military and the Revolutionary Guard to get out of businesses not directly affiliated to their work.
(AP, 1/21/18)
2018 Jan 24, Iranian media said a fire broke out at a bitumen storage facility in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, killing three workers.
(AP, 1/24/18)
2018 Jan 27, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards clashed with Islamic State militants in the western part of the country.
(AP, 1/27/18)
2018 Jan 28, Iran's first heavy snowfall of the season forced both international airports in the capital to close. Many welcomed the heavy snow, which comes amid a severe drought.
(AP, 1/28/18)
2018 Jan 29, Iran oil ministry said it said it is ready to file a case with the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) over the quality and price of gas it receives from Turkmenistan, as a dispute between the two nations over payments escalates.
(Reuters, 1/29/18)
2018 Jan 31, Iranian police detained 29 women who removed their obligatory Islamic veils. They were taking part in an antihijab campaign known as “White Wednesdays," advocated by the foreign-based Farsi language satellite TV networks. Women showing their hair in public can be jailed for up to two months or fined $25.
(SFC, 2/2/18, p.A2)
2018 Jan, Pres. Donald Trump extended sanctions waivers on Iran but said he would not do so again when they come up for renewal in May unless his concerns are addressed.
(AP, 2/5/18)
2018 Feb 4, Iran’s prosecutor-general said a court has sentenced a suspect to six years in prison for relaying information on the country's nuclear program to a US intelligence agent and a European country.
(AP, 2/4/18)
2018 Feb 5, In Iran a man (35) wielding a machete was shot and arrested after trying to break into the presidential office building in Tehran.
(AP, 2/5/18)
2018 Feb 9, Iranian authorities called the wife of Seyed-Emami to say her husband had committed suicide in Tehran's Evin prison. The environmental activist, a dual national of Canada and sociology professor at Iran’s Imam Sadegh University, had been arrested on January 24 with at least nine other staff members and executives of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation.
(AP, 2/11/18)
2018 Feb 10, Israel said an Iranian drone infiltrated its airspace from Syria. Israeli planes struck 12 targets including three aerial defense batteries and four Iranian targets that were part of Iran's military establishment in Syria. An Israeli F-16 was shot down. One pilot was evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment. A second pilot was lightly wounded.
(AP, 2/10/18)
2018 Feb 11, Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied on the streets to mark the 39th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, just weeks after anti-government protests rocked cities across the country.
(AP, 2/11/18)
2018 Feb 14, Some Iranian youth celebrated Valentine's Day even though authorities have banned the celebrations as part of "decadent Western culture."
(AP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 17, India and Iran said that they would step up cooperation in combatting extremism, terrorism and drug trafficking in Afghanistan in an effort to restore peace and stability to the war-wracked country. India and Iran also signed agreements including Tehran leasing to New Delhi operational control of part of the Iranian east coast port of Chabahar for 18 months.
(AP, 2/17/18)(Reuters, 2/17/18)
2018 Feb 17, The Swedish foreign ministry confirmed that it had granted citizenship to Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian academic with Swedish residency. He was arrested in Tehran in April 2016 and later convicted of espionage, accused of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.
(Reuters, 2/20/18)
2018 Feb 18, In southern Iran a commercial ATR-72 airplane brought back into service only months ago after being grounded for seven years crashed into Mount Dena. All 65 people on board Iran’s Aseman Airlines Flight No. EP3704 were killed.
(AP, 2/18/18)
2018 Feb 19, In Iran Sufis rallied in front of a police station in Tehran demanding the release of a detainee. Sufi follower Mohammad Salas rammed a bus into a group of police officers, killing three of them before being arrested. Two members of the Basij forces also were killed in a stabbing and another car-ramming attack, which also injured 30. Police arrested over 300 Sufi followers, including the drivers of both vehicles. Salas was convicted in march and sentenced to death.
(AP, 2/20/18)(AP, 3/19/18)
2018 Feb 21, Saudi Arabia freed nine Iranian fishermen detained two years ago. A tenth fisherman was reported killed in the initial incident.
(Reuters, 2/22/18)
2018 Feb 23, In Iran a video showing a policeman shoving a woman protesting against mandatory headscarves off her makeshift podium in a busy Tehran street sparked criticism on social media.
(AFP, 2/23/18)
2018 Feb 23, An Iranian conservative-linked news website reported that three environmentalists have been detained, the latest in a series of arrests of wildlife campaigners in the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/24/18)
2018 Mar 3, Iran's armed forces spokesman said that there can be no talks on the country's missile program without the West's destruction of its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
(AFP, 3/3/18)
2018 Mar 5, Journalists flooded Iran's National Museum for the arrival of more than 50 artworks from the Louvre, the first major show by a Western museum in the country’s history.
(AFP, 3/5/18)
2018 Mar 5, A UN report said Iran has arrested activists and political opponents in a clampdown on freedom of expression as use of torture continues despite promises of reform. The report was compiled by Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer serving as UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, who died suddenly last month.
(Reuters, 3/5/18)
2018 Mar 7, In Iran Maryam Mombeini, the widow of an Iranian-Canadian university professor who died under disputed circumstances in a Tehran prison, was stopped from traveling abroad.
(AP, 3/8/18)
2018 Mar 7, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed in a phone call to speed up efforts for the implementation of a ceasefire in Syria’s eastern Ghouta region.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 10, Direct flights between Iran and Serbia resumed when an IranAir jet touched down at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport following a gap of 27 years.
(AFP, 3/10/18)
2018 Mar 11, In Iran four "terrorists" were killed after infiltrating and attacking a military checkpoint in a southeastern border area.
(AFP, 3/12/18)
2018 Mar 11, In Iran a private Turkish jet carrying a group of young women flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul crashed into a mountain in Shahr-e Kord, killing all eleven people on board.
(SFC, 3/12/18, p.A2)
2018 Mar 23, The US Justice Department announced charges against 9 Iranians and the Mabna Institute, a company US prosecutors characterized as designed to help Iranian research organizations steal information. The DOJ said Iran's government-sponsored hacking scheme had pilfered sensitive information from hundreds of universities, private companies and government agencies.
(AP, 3/23/18)(Reuters, 3/24/18)
2018 Mar 26, The Iranian rial fell to a record low, breaking through the 50,000-to-the-dollar mark for the first time, as analysts blamed uncertainty from Washington.
(AFP, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 31, An Iranian news site reported that the country will block the Telegram messenger service for reasons of national security. Officials said the app would be replaced by a similar local system.
(AP, 3/31/18)
2018 Mar, In Iran Hamid Baghaie, who served as vice president under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), was jailed for 15 years for embezzling 3,766,000 euros and $590,000. He soon went on a hunger strike and was in deteriorating health after being imprisoned on what he said were politically motivated charges.
{Iran}
(AFP, 3/28/18)
2018 Apr 4, Turkey, Iran and Russia pledged to accelerate efforts to bring stability to Syria, following a summit meeting in Ankara.
(Reuters, 4/4/18)
2018 Apr 8, In Syria a missile attack on the central T-4, air base near Homs reportedly killed 14 people, including four Iranians. Syria blamed Israel.
(AP, 4/9/18)(Reuters, 4/9/18)
2018 Apr 10, Iran moved to enforce a single exchange rate to the dollar, banning all unregulated trading after the rial hit an all-time low. As of today the official rate will be 42,000 rials to the dollar.
(AP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 12, The Council of the European Union extended the sanctions put on Iran over human rights violations by a year until April 2019.
(Reuters, 4/12/18)
2018 Apr 17, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani agreed in a telephone call to maintain the cooperation between Turkey, Iran and Russia for a political solution to the conflict in Syria.
(Reuters, 4/17/18)
2018 Apr 18, Iran's state media said the presidency has banned all government bodies from using foreign-based messaging apps to communicate with citizens, after economic protests organized through such apps shook the country earlier this year.
(AP, 4/18/18)
2018 Apr 19, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has requested an investigation after a video surfaced showing police pushing and pulling a young woman who was resisting arrest for not adhering to the Islamic dress code.
(AP, 4/19/18)
2018 Apr 19, Iran arrested a senior official after a video posted online showed young boys and girls dancing in public in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.
(AFP, 4/19/18)
2018 Apr 22, Iran's state media reported that the judiciary has arrested former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi. He was sentenced to two years in prison in late 2017 for complicity in the 2009 death of a man arrested after the pro-reform protests but had gone missing.
(Reuters, 4/22/18)
2018 Apr 25, Abbas Attar (b.1944), Iranian-born photographer, died in Paris. His book "Iran Diary 1971-2002" was published in 2002.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_(photographer))(SFC, 5/2/18, p.D7)
2018 Apr 26, Iranian media confirmed that Abbas Edalat, a British-Iranian scientist and peace campaigner, has been arrested for his alleged role in an "infiltration network." Edalat was reportedly detained on April 15.
(AFP, 4/26/18)
2018 Apr 28, In Moscow Russian, Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers talked up their successes in brokering a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
(AFP, 4/28/18)
2018 Apr 29, In central Syria missile strikes late today killed 26 pro-regime fighters, most of them Iranians, in a raid that bore the hallmarks of Tehran's archfoe Israel. The missile strikes hit two military targets in Aleppo and Hama provinces.
(AFP, 4/30/18)
2018 Apr 30, Iranian TV reported that the state judiciary has banned the popular Telegram instant messaging app to protect national security.
(Reuters, 4/30/18)
2018 Apr 30, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled what he said was evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 5/1/18)
2018 May 1, Hundreds of Iranians defied a ban on protests to mark International Labor Day, with police detaining at least six people.
(AP, 5/1/18)
2018 May 2, In Iran a magnitude 5.3 earthquake injured at least 76 people and damaged buildings in the southwestern city of Sisakht.
(Reuters, 5/2/18)
2018 May 5, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the government "does not approve" of the judiciary's recent blockage of the Telegram messaging app.
(AFP, 5/5/18)
2018 May 6, A Tehran prosecutor said sixteen women who went to Syria to join Islamic State have been jailed in Iran.
(Reuters, 5/6/18)
2018 May 8, President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement. Trump says the US will re-impose sanctions on Iran, meaning European companies must stop doing business with the country or run afoul of the US government.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, The Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar in the free market. The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard welcomed President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the 2015 nuclear deal, saying it was clear from the beginning that the Americans were "not trustworthy" and that the move would have no impact.
(Reuters, 5/9/18)(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, Britain's foreign secretary Boris Johnson said the country "has no intention of walking away" from the Iran nuclear agreement despite the United States' decision to pull out.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, China expressed regret over President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal and said it remains committed to the landmark pact.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, Germany's foreign minister vowed to work to preserve the Iran nuclear deal and prevent an "uncontrolled escalation" of tensions in the Middle East. The Federation of German Industries, or BDI, said it rejects "the extraterritorial application of sanctions" and called upon the EU to find a solution to protect European companies from the "unlawful and unilateral" application of US sanctions.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 10, The Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia will maintain close coordination on nuclear issues with Iran despite the US quitting the international agreement.
(Reuters, 5/10/18)
2018 May 13, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that, if its interests were protected, Tehran would remain committed to its 2015 nuclear deal, which his foreign minister hoped could be redesigned without Washington.
(Reuters, 5/13/18)
2018 May 13, Iranian media said eight alleged members of the Islamic State group have been sentenced to death in connection with deadly twin attacks in Tehran last June.
(AFP, 5/13/18)
2018 May 15, It was reported that the Trump administration is designating Valiollah Seif, the head of Iran's central bank, as a terrorist and hitting him with sanctions intended to further isolate Iran from the global financial system.
(AP, 5/15/18)
2018 May 16, In southwestern Iran two people were killed and 48 injured in a violent protest in Kazeroon. This was preceded by peaceful protests against a local government decision to divide some districts of the city and merge them into a new town.
(AP, 5/19/18)
2018 May 16, In the presence of the British ambassador in Tehran officials from Britain's Pergas International Consortium and the National Iranian South Oil Co. signed a preliminary deal on a partnership to develop the 55-year-old Karanj oil field.
(AP, 5/17/18)
2018 May 16, French oil and gas giant Total said it has decided to cancel a multi-billion-dollar project in Iran unless it is granted a waiver by US authorities.
(AP, 5/17/18)
2018 May 17, Danish shipping group Maersk Tankers said it would cease its activities in Iran due to the US decision to leave a landmark nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions against Tehran.
(AFP, 5/17/18)
2018 May 17, The European Commission said it will launch on May 18 the process of activating a law that bans European companies from complying with US sanctions against Iran and does not recognize any court rulings that enforce American penalties.
(Reuters, 5/17/18)
2018 May 19, The European Union's energy chief sought to reassure Iran that the bloc remained committed to salvaging a nuclear deal with Tehran despite US President Donald Trump's decision to exit the accord and reimpose sanctions.
(Reuters, 5/19/18)
2018 May 21, The United States issued a steep list of demands to be included in a nuclear treaty with Iran to replace the deal scuttled by President Donald Trump and threatened "the strongest sanctions in history" if Iran doesn't change course.
(AP, 5/21/18)
2018 May 22, The United States imposed sanctions on five Iranians it said had provided Yemen's Houthis with expertise and weaponry that were then used to launch missiles at cities and oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters, 5/22/18)
2018 May 24, The United States imposed sanctions on several Iranian and Turkish companies and a number of aircraft in a move targeting four Iranian airlines.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 25, In Austria signatories of the Iran nuclear deal met in Vienna in a bid to save the agreement, as Iran warned the deal had been put "in intensive care" by Washington's dramatic withdrawal earlier this month.
(AFP, 5/25/18)
2018 May 26, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that the country's authorities have detained a professor of Persian Literature at Azad University in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan for posting a video online insulting Sunni Muslims.
(AP, 5/26/18)
2018 May 30, Iran's oil minister gave French energy giant Total 60 days to win a sanctions waiver from Washington or it would lose its stake in a multi-billion-dollar gas project.
(AFP, 5/30/18)
2018 May 30, The United States imposed sanctions on six Iranians and three Iran-based entities, including Tehran's Evin prison. The sanctions also targeted the group Ansar-e Hezbollah and the Hanista Programing Group.
(Reuters, 5/30/18)
2018 May 31, Iran's soccer federation suspended all relations with its Greek counterpart after a friendly between the two nations scheduled in Istanbul was abruptly cancelled amid ongoing Greece-Turkey tensions.
(AP, 6/1/18)
2018 May 31, In London Husnain Rashid (32), an alleged Islamic State group supporter who encouraged attacks on 4-year-old Prince George of Britain, admitted to a string of terror offenses. The trial, which had been scheduled to last six weeks, was abruptly ended because of the plea. Sentencing is set for June 28.
(AP, 5/31/18)
2018 May 31, The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Iranian advisers and Hezbollah fighters will be withdrawing from the southern regions of Daraa and Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. A Syria-based official with the Iran-led axis of resistance denied the report saying it is "untrue".
(AP, 5/31/18)
2018 Jun 5, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has begun preparations to boost its uranium enrichment capacity, adding to pressure on European powers trying to save a nuclear accord with Tehran in peril after a US withdrawal.
(Reuters, 6/5/18)
2018 Jun 8, Iran's Revolutionary Guards reportedly killed nine militants in clashes with militants near northwestern Oshnavieh and Sarvabad.
(Reuters, 6/10/18)
2018 Jun 10, Iran’s military said Revolutionary Guards have killed six militants who had crossed the border from Iraq and intended to carry out operations inside the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 6/10/18)
2018 Jun 11, Iranian semi-official Fars news agency reported that the country's authorities have detained 27 suspected members of a terrorist group. The report said a large amount of explosives and weapons were confiscated, including machine guns and grenades.
(AP, 6/11/18)
2018 Jun 13, Iranian security forces arrested prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. The mother of two also worked as a lawyer for women detained for refusing to cover their hair in public. She has represented Iranian opposition activists and in 2010 was sentenced to six years in jail and banned from practice after being convicted of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security.
(Reuters, 6/13/18)(AP, 6/13/18)
2018 Jun 24, In Iran traders in Tehran's Grand Bazaar held a rare protest strike against the collapse of the rial on the foreign exchange market as demonstrators also took to the streets. Protesters angered by Iran's cratering economy confronted police in front of parliament, with security forces firing tear gas at them. The rial had lost 40 per cent of its value since last month, when President Donald Trump pulled out of Iran's 2015 nuclear accord and announced draconian sanctions on Tehran.
(AFP, 6/25/18)(AP, 6/25/18)(Reuters, 6/29/18)
2018 Jun 25, Three Iranian security personnel and three militants were killed in a cross-border attack on the frontier with Pakistan near Mirjaveh border area in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
(Reuters, 6/26/18)
2018 Jun 26, Russia, backed by Iran and Syria, sought to head off a Western push to endow the world's global chemical watchdog (OPCW) with new powers to identify those behind toxic arms attacks.
(AFP, 6/26/18)
2018 Jun 28, Iran said it has restarted production at a "major" uranium facility involved in its nuclear program, though it still pledges to follow the terms of the country's landmark atomic deal now under threat after Pres. Donald Trump pulled America out of the accord.
(AP, 6/28/18)
2018 Jun 28, Industry sources said India, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil after China, will be forced to take action to protect its exposure to the US financial system. They said India's oil ministry has asked refiners to prepare for a 'drastic reduction or zero' imports of Iranian oil from November.
(Reuters, 6/28/18)
2018 Jun 30, Belgium police intercepted two suspects with 500 grams of TATP, a home-made explosive produced of easily available chemicals, as well as a detonation device found in their car. They were suspected of plotting a bomb attack on a meeting of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which took place in Villepinte, just outside of Paris, a three-hour drive from Brussels.
(Reuters, 7/2/18)
2018 Jul 1, Iran called for calm after protests in a southern city over water shortages turned violent overnight with reports of police shooting at demonstrators who attacked banks and public buildings. The semi-official Fars news agency reported that 230 people have been poisoned by drinking polluted water in the county's southwest.
(AP, 7/1/18)
2018 Jul 1, In Germany a Vienna-based Iranian diplomat, identified later as Assadollah Assadi (46), was arrested over a suspected plot to carry out a bomb attack on an exiled Iranian opposition group. French police also detained a man of Iranian origin in France.
(Reuters, 7/4/18)(AP, 7/4/18)
2018 Jul 2, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Switzerland for talks expected to focus on salvaging progress from the Iran nuclear deal after the Trump administration's walkout.
(AP, 7/2/18)
2018 Jul 3, Swiss President Alain Berset urged all sides not to endanger the nuclear agreement between global powers and Iran, after meeting his Tehran counterpart, Hassan Rouhani.
(Reuters, 7/3/18)
2018 Jul 3, The United Arab Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority ordered firms to identify and freeze the accounts and assets of nine Iranian individuals and entities the UAE has placed on its terrorism list.
(Reuters, 7/3/18)
2018 Jul 4, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's and discussed issues including salvaging the Iran nuclear deal after the US decision to withdraw and reinstate sanctions on Tehran. Rouhani first met with Pres. Alexander Van der Bellen and then Chancellor Sebastian Kurz later in the day.
(AP, 7/4/18)(AFP, 7/4/18)
2018 Jul 6, Iranian state TV broadcast a video in which Maedeh Hojabri, an 18-year-old gymnast who posted dance videos on Instagram, acknowledged breaking moral norms while insisting that was not her intention, and that she was only trying to gain more followers. A local news website, said Hojabri and three other individuals had been detained on similar charges in recent weeks before being released on bail.
(AP, 7/8/18)
2018 Jul 6, Meeting in Vienna top diplomats from Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China reaffirmed their commitment to the 2015 deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
(AP, 7/6/18)
2018 Jul 6, The Dutch Intelligence service AIVD said two Iranian embassy staff have been expelled. No further information was provided.
(Reuters, 7/6/18)
2018 Jul 7, Iran's oil minister accused US President Donald Trump of insulting OPEC by ordering it to increase production and reduce prices, adding that Iranian output and exports had not changed as a result of US pressure.
(Reuters, 7/7/18)
2018 Jul 7, Iran announced that it has executed eight men convicted over the June 7, 2017, Islamic State attack on parliament and the shrine of the Islamic Republic's founding ayatollah. Over a dozen others remained on trial over the attack.
(AP, 7/7/18)
2018 Jul 7, France's CMA CGM, one of the world's biggest cargo shippers, announced it was pulling out of Iran for fear of becoming entangled in US sanctions. Pres. Hassan Rouhani demanded that European countries to do more to offset the US measures.
(Reuters, 7/7/18)
2018 Jul 9, Iranians on social media mocked clerical rulers after the hardline judiciary arrested a teenage girl for posting on Instagram videos of herself dancing in her room.
(Reuters, 7/9/18)
2018 Jul 12, Iran's state-run news agency reported that police killed a man while trying to disperse a protest over water scarcity. Protests have been held across southern Iran in recent weeks over water scarcity.
(AP, 7/12/18)
2018 Jul 13, France said the United States rejected a request for waivers for its companies operating in Iran that Paris sought after President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 7/13/18)
2018 Jul 17, The International Court of Justice said Iran has filed a suit against the United States alleging that sanctions imposed by Washington in May violate a 1955 bilateral treaty between the two countries.
(Reuters, 7/17/18)
2018 Jul 18, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic agency, said Iran has built a factory that can produce rotors for up to 60 centrifuges a day, upping the stakes in a confrontation with Washington over the Islamic Republic's nuclear work.
(Reuters, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 19, The latest Global Slavery Index showed one in 10 people in North Korea live in slavery, with most forced to work for the state. The index listed Eritrea, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Mauritania, South Sudan, Pakistan, Cambodia and Iran as the worst offenders after North Korea.
(AP, 7/19/18)
2018 Jul 21, Iranian media reported that at least 10 Iranian border guards were killed in an overnight attack by unidentified gunmen near the town of Marivan, a Kurdish area near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 21, US officials said the Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups.
(Reuters, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 22, Iranian Pres. Hassan Rouhani told US Pres. Trump that hostile policies toward Tehran could lead to "the mother of all wars." Trump soon responded saying Iran risked dire consequences "the like of which few throughout history have suffered before" if the Islamic Republic made more threats against the United States.
(AP, 7/23/18)
2018 Jul 23, The White House blamed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for inciting a war of words with President Donald Trump, who warned that verbal threats could escalate into military conflict with the US.
(AP, 7/23/18)
2018 Jul 24, Iran said it will react with equal countermeasures if Washington tries to block its oil exports, while the Islamic Republic's armed forces chief said US threats would draw an "unimaginable and regrettable" reaction.
(Reuters, 7/24/18)
2018 Jul 26, A US government report said China, Iran and Russia, along with their proxy hackers, are hard at work trying to steal trade secrets and proprietary information from the US. The report identified a Chinese cyberespionage group called APT10 and an Iranian hacker group called "Rocket Kitten".
(SFC, 7/27/18, p.A3)
2018 Jul 29, Iran's currency hit a record low of 100,000 rials to the dollar amid a deepening economic crisis and the imminent return of full US sanctions.
(AFP, 7/29/18)
2018 Jul 29, It was reported that Iran's top security body has approved the release of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest for seven years for leading mass protests in 2009.
(AFP, 7/29/18)
2018 Jul 30, US Pres. Donald Trump offered talks with Tehran without preconditions.
(Reuters, 7/31/18)
2018 Jul 31, Senior Iranian officials rejected US President Donald Trump's offer of talks without preconditions as worthless and "a humiliation" after he acted to reimpose sanctions on Tehran following his withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal. Interior minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said: "The United States is not trustworthy. How can we trust this country when it withdraws unilaterally from the nuclear deal?"
(Reuters, 7/31/18)
2018 Aug 2, In Iran scattered protests broke out in several cities over the dramatic drop of the country's currency and other economic problems ahead of the imposition of renewed American sanctions.
(AP, 8/2/18)
2018 Aug 4, In Iran sporadic protests took place in cities for a fourth day, with demonstrators attacking a Shi'ite seminary west of Tehran, as Iranians brace for a return of US sanctions.
(Reuters, 8/4/18)
2018 Aug 5, Iranian news agency IRNA reported that IranAir has taken delivery of five more ATR turboprop aircraft, shortly before Washington imposes new sanctions on Iran after exiting a nuclear pact between Tehran and major world powers.
(Reuters, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 5, Iranian news agency IRNA reported that Saudi Arabia has agreed to admit an Iranian diplomat to head an office representing Iranian interests in the kingdom.
(Reuters, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 6, Iran's Central Bank lifted a ban on exchange offices, allowing them to resume work in a move aimed at bringing in badly needed hard currencies. A first set of US sanctions, that had been eased by the Obama administration under the terms of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, were set to take effect the next day.
(AP, 8/6/18)
2018 Aug 6, The US ordered the restoration of sanctions against Iran reviving economic penalties that were lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord.
(SFC, 8/7/18, p.A2)
2018 Aug 7, Iranians awoke to renewed US sanctions that had been lifted by Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. The newly imposed American sanctions targeted US dollar financial transactions, Iran's automotive sector, and the purchase of commercial planes and metals, including gold.
(AP, 8/7/18)
2018 Aug 7, US President Donald Trump warned the world against doing business with Iran as he hailed the "most biting sanctions ever imposed", triggering a mix of anger, fear and defiance in Tehran.
(AFP, 8/7/18)
2018 Aug 8, Iran’s Minister of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare, Ali Rabiei, was sacked by parliament, the latest shuffle in top economic posts as the Islamic Republic struggles to stabilize its economy.
(Reuters, 8/8/18)
2018 Aug 10, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard reportedly killed 10 militants late today in a Kurdish region near the border with Iraq.
(AP, 8/11/18)
2018 Aug 11, Iran's Guardian Council, a top constitutional body, approved measures passed by parliament to bring the country more into line with global money-laundering norms, as Tehran tries to attract investments despite the reimposition of US sanctions.
(Reuters, 8/11/18)
2018 Aug 12, Iran's judiciary said that 67 people have been arrested in recent weeks as part of a corruption crackdown approved by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
(AFP, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 12, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan agreed in principle how to divide up the potentially huge oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea.
(Reuters, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 12, The United States urged Britain to ditch its support for a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and instead join forces with Washington to counter the global threat it says Tehran poses.
(Reuters, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 13, Iran unveiled a next generation short-range ballistic missile and vowed to further boost its capabilities.
(AFP, 8/13/18)
2018 Aug 15, Lawyers for Iran's award-winning human rights advocate Nasrin Sotoudeh (55) said that her five-year sentence on spying charges was unlawful as she was never charged or given the chance to appear in court.
(AP, 8/15/18)
2018 Aug 18, Iran said it would resist the pressures of US sanctions by relying on its natural and human resources, as Washington pushes allies to cut economic ties with Tehran.
(Reuters, 8/18/18)
2018 Aug 18, Iranian police detained human rights lawyer Ghasem Sholeh-Saadi (64) after he appeared outside parliament in an "illegal gathering." A day earlier and on his Instagram account, Sholeh-Saadi posted that he will stage a sit-in protest in front of parliament to demand free elections.
(AP, 8/19/18)
2018 Aug 19, Iranian journalist Mir Mohammad-Hossein Mir-Esmaili was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "insulting" an imam from the ninth century on Twitter. He planned to appeal.
(AFP, 8/20/18)
2018 Aug 20, France told its diplomats and foreign ministry officials, in an internal memo, to postpone indefinitely all non-essential travel to Iran, citing a foiled bomb plot and a hardening of Tehran's attitude towards France.
(Reuters, 8/28/18)
2018 Aug 21, Iran unveiled its first domestic fighter jet, with President Hassan Rouhani insisting that Tehran's military strength was only designed to deter enemies and create "lasting peace".
(AFP, 8/21/18)
2018 Aug 22, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it will continue increasing the country's defensive capabilities, and will not surrender to pressure over its missile program.
(Reuters, 8/22/18)
2018 Aug 23, In Iran British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe left the Evin prison for a three-day furlough, a breakthrough in the case that her family hopes will lead to permanent freedom. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 23, British Airways said it is suspending flights between London and Tehran because they are not commercially viable.
{Britain, Iran, Aviation}
(Reuters, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 23, The European Commission unveiled a first tranche of 18 million euros ($21 million) to help bolster Iran's flagging economy — 8 million for the private sector, 8 million to cope with environmental problems and 2 million for drug abuse.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 24, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu asked Baltic state leaders for help in convincing the EU to step up pressure on Iran and slammed a Brussels aid package for Teheran at a news conference in Vilnius with his Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts.
(AFP, 8/24/18)
2018 Aug 25, Iran said it has resumed talks with Russia to build a new nuclear power plant capable of generating up to 3,000 megawatts of electricity.
(Reuters, 8/25/18)
2018 Aug 25, In northeastern Iran ten people were killed and five wounded after a boiler exploded in a residential area of the city of Mashhad.
(Reuters, 8/25/18)
2018 Aug 26, Iran's defense minister said his country will continue its support of the Syrian government to ensure improved security in the region.
(AP, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 26, Iran's parliament sacked Masoud Karbasian, the minister of economic affairs and finance, amid a sharp fall in the rial currency and a deterioration in the economic situation.
(Reuters, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 26, A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck western Iran's Kermanshah province early today, killing two people and injuring more than 250. There were three apparent aftershocks until sunrise, all at least magnitude 4.
(AFP, 8/26/18)(AP, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 26, An Iranian F-5 fighter jet crashed in southern Iran killing its pilot. Iran bought its F-5 fighters from the United States before the 1979 Islamic revolution and still has 48 in service, according to the latest estimates by Jane's IHS Markit.
(AFP, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 27, Iran's Revolutionary Guards top General Alireza Tangsiri said Iran has full control of the Gulf and the US Navy does not belong there.
(Reuters, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 27, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported that Iran and Syria have signed a deal for military cooperation in a meeting between the defense ministers of the two countries in Damascus.
(Reuters, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 27, Iranian lawyers asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order the United States to lift sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against Tehran, but Washington described the suit as meritless. Iran claimed the US policy is "plainly in violation of the 1955 Treaty of Amity."
(Reuters, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 28, Iran's parliament declared its dissatisfaction with President Hassan Rouhani, voting to reject his answers after grilling him over the deteriorating economy.
(AFP, 8/28/18)
2018 Aug 28, Iran's intelligence minister boasted on state television about his country's successful recruitment of a former Cabinet-level official from a "hostile" country, signaling Tehran's first acknowledgment of compromising an arrested Israeli official.
(AP, 8/29/18)
2018 Aug 30, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned or reduced the sentences for 615 prisoners, according to Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary.
(Reuters, 8/30/18)
2018 Aug 30, The UN atomic watchdog (IAEA) said Iran continues to comply with the nuclear deal reached in 2015 with major powers even after the withdrawal of the US.
(SFC, 8/31/18, p.A2)
2018 Aug 31, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards clashed with militants in the southeast of the country, killing four and wounding three.
(Reuters, 8/31/18)
2018 Aug 31, Iran's foreign ministry dismissed a French call for more negotiations with Tehran over the international nuclear accord and said some of France's partners are "bullying and excessive," a seeming reference to the United States.
(Reuters, 8/31/18)
2018 Sep 3, Iran called for militants to be "cleaned out" of Syria's Idlib province, as it prepared for talks with Syria and Russia about confronting the last major enclave held by rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 9/3/18)
2018 Sep 3, The Iranian rial hit another all-time low against the US dollar in spite of central bank efforts to stem the decline.
(AFP, 9/3/18)
2018 Sep 4, President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran is to move its main oil export terminal from the Gulf to the Oman Sea, sparing its tankers from using the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
(AFP, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 4, Iranian authorities arrested the husband of detained human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has campaigned for her release.
(Reuters, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 5, Iran's rial fell to a record low as worried residents of Tehran lined up outside beleaguered moneychangers, part of a staggering 140-percent drop in the currency's value since America pulled out of the nuclear deal only four months ago.
(AP, 9/5/18)
2018 Sep 7, Meeting in Tehran the presidents of Turkey, Iran and Russia failed to agree on a ceasefire that would forestall a Syrian government offensive in rebel-held Idlib province. They agreed in a final statement that there could be no military solution to the conflict and it could only end through a negotiated political process. But as Syrian government and Russian warplanes mounted air strikes in Idlib, Putin and Rouhani pushed back against Erdogan's call for a truce.
(Reuters, 9/7/18)
2018 Sep 7, In Iran a 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook the southeast, killing at least one person and damaging houses in several villages.
(AP, 9/7/18)
2018 Sep 7, In Iraq protesters broke into the Iranian consulate in Basra, shouting condemnation of what many perceive as Iran's sway over Iraq's political affairs, and set it alight. Three protesters died and 48 more were wounded.
(Reuters, 9/8/18)(SFC, 9/8/18, p.A4)
2018 Sep 8, Iran attacked the base of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in northern Iraq, killing at least 11 people and wounding scores more.
(Reuters, 9/8/18)
2018 Sep 8, Iranian media reported that authorities have hanged three Kurdish prisoners after years in prison.
(AP, 9/8/18)
2018 Sep 11, In Geneva the UN envoy for Syria hosted key diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey to discuss work toward rewriting the country's constitution, amid concerns about a possibly devastating military offensive on rebel-held Idlib province.
(AP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 12, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that a court has sentenced Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a close ally of former hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to six-and-a-half years in prison for plotting and conspiring to commit crimes against national security and for propaganda against the Islamic Republic system and for insulting officials.
(AP, 9/12/18)
2018 Sep 14, Iranian media said that the reformist "Sedayeh Eslahat" newspaper was ordered shut down on charges of insulting the Shiite religion for publishing an article on female-to-male gender reassignment surgery. Prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri also ordered the editor be punished.
(AP, 9/15/18)
2018 Sep 14, In France about 15 Kurdish activists burned the Iranian flag in front of Iran's embassy in Paris and broke some windows with stones. Some of the attackers were arrested.
(Reuters, 9/15/18)
2018 Sep 18, Cybersecurity firm FireEye said an Iranian government-aligned group of hackers launched a major campaign targeting Mideast energy firms and others ahead of US sanctions on Iran.
(SFC, 9/19/18, p.A2)
2018 Sep 20, Iran hit back at a US offer of negotiations, saying Washington had violated the terms of the last big deal they agreed, the 2015 nuclear accord.
(Reuters, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 22, In Iran gunmen shot dead at least 29 people including women and children in an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. Three attackers were killed at the scene, and a fourth died later of his injuries. The Ahvaz National Resistance, an umbrella organization of all armed movements, claimed responsibility. Five attackers were killed in the attack on a military parade in southwest Iran that killed 25 people.
(AFP, 9/22/18)(Reuters, 9/22/18)(Reuters, 9/24/18)
2018 Sep 22, In Iran nine men convicted of raping a woman were hanged. The woman had withdrawn her complaint but that authorities carried out the punishment anyway.
(AP, 9/23/18)
2018 Sep 25, British PM Theresa May lobbied for the release of detained British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during a meeting on Tuesday with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
(Reuters, 9/26/18)
2018 Sep 27, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described to the UN General Assembly what he said was a secret atomic warehouse in Tehran and accused Europe of appeasing Iran as he sought to rally support for US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 9/28/18)
2018 Sep 28, Iranian media said 11 people have died after drinking tainted homemade alcohol in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas. A man and his wife who made the liquor and their main dealer have been arrested.
(AP, 9/28/18)
2018 Sep 30, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the country's special courts have sentenced three to death over financial crimes and corruption.
(AP, 9/30/18)
2018 Sep 30, Iran's state emergency services said at least 27 people have died and more than 300 poisoned after drinking bootleg alcohol.
(Reuters, 9/30/18)
2018 Oct 1, Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired missiles at Islamic State militants in eastern Syria. It blame them for an attack on its soil on Sept. 22 and said the action shows the government's readiness to punish the "wickedness" of its enemies.
(AP, 10/1/18)(SFC, 10/2/18, p.A4)
2018 Oct 2, Iran's environment chief Isa Kalantari said his country faces losing 70 percent of its farmlands if urgent action is not taken to overcome a litany of climate woes.
(AFP, 10/5/18)
2018 Oct 3, The UN's top court (ICJ) ordered the United States to lift sanctions on humanitarian goods for Iran in a stunning rebuke to US President Donald Trump.
(AFP, 10/3/18)(SFC, 10/4/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 4, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address broadcast by state television that the people of Iran face a sensitive time because of pressure from America and economic problems. The Iranian rial has lost approximately 75 percent of its value since the beginning of 2018.
(Reuters, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 6, Iranian businessman Farhad Zahedifar, CEO of the Samen Coin website, was returned to Iran with Interpol's help after he fled abroad. He accused of defrauding thousands of investors.
(Reuters, 10/6/18)
2018 Oct 7, Iran's parliament voted to join a global convention to cut off terror financing, hoping to avoid further international sanctions as the 2015 nuclear accord unravels. The bill must be ratified by the Guardian Council, a constitutional authority, to become a law.
(AP, 10/7/18)
2018 Oct 8, Qatar Airways' boss Akbar al-Baker said US sanctions on Iran will not impact its flights to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/8/18)
2018 Oct 13, UN sanctions monitors in an unpublished report said banned charcoal exports from Somalia are thriving, generating millions of dollars a year for al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremists — and often passing through Iran to have their origins obscured.
(AP, 10/13/18)
2018 Oct 14, Iran's judiciary spokesman said a court has sentenced a dual national man, surname Tavakkoli, to eight and a half years in prison after finding him guilty of infiltration of important governmental bodies.
(AP, 10/14/18)
2018 Oct 16, At least 10 Iranian security personnel including Revolutionary Guards were kidnapped on the border with Pakistan, and a separatist group that claimed responsibility described the act as revenge for oppression of Sunni Muslims. The kidnapped security personnel were reportedly unconscious at the time. Reports followed that they had eaten drugged food and that infiltrators helped with the abduction to Pakistan.
(Reuters, 10/16/18)(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 16, The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on a network of more than 20 businesses it said had financial links to the Basij paramilitary group, which enforces internal security in Iran.
(AFP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 19, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that three seamen have died from an unspecified toxic substance that poisoned all 11 crew members of an Iranian cargo ship on the Caspian Sea. Preliminary information indicated that the crew had been poisoned by chemicals used to protect grain being carried from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan.
(AP, 10/19/18)
2018 Oct 19, American intelligence officials released a rare public statement asserting that Russia, China, Iran and other countries are engaged in ongoing efforts to influence US policy and voters in future elections.
(AP, 10/22/18)
2018 Oct 21, A Norwegian citizen of Iranian background was arrested in Sweden in connection with a plot to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition figure in Denmark. He was extradited to Denmark. The attack was meant to target the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA).
(AP, 10/30/18)
2018 Oct 22, Iran's state TV reported that the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences for two individuals convicted of financial crimes. They were identified as Vahid Mazloumin and Mohammad Esmail Ghasemi, whom local media dubbed the "Sultan of Coins" after he was arrested after hoarding two tons of gold coins in an attempt to manipulate the local currency.
(AP, 10/22/18)
2018 Oct 23, Saudi Arabia said it and Bahrain had added Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and senior officers of its Quds Force to their lists of people and organizations suspected of involvement in terrorism.
(Reuters, 10/23/18)
2018 Oct 23, The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions targeting Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency, designating eight people including two Iranians linked to Tehran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds force.
(Reuters, 10/23/18)
2018 Oct 28, Iran sold oil to private buyers through its energy exchange for the first time, as part of its efforts to counter the imminent return of US sanctions.
(AFP, 10/28/18)
2018 Oct, Iran jailed Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated academic specializing in Middle Eastern politics. The British-Australian woman was later sentenced to 10 years in Evin prison. Her detention was not reported until 2019.
(The Telegraph, 9/13/19)
2018 Oct, US federal authorities armed with a secret indictment arrested Iranian Prof. Masoud Soleimani as he touched down on US soil, on charges that he had violated trade sanctions by trying to have biological material brought to Iran. Soleimani had plans to complete the final stage of his research on treating stroke patients as a visiting scholar at the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
(AP, 7/7/19)
2018 Nov 2, The United States said it will temporarily allow eight importers to keep buying Iranian oil when it re-imposes sanctions on Nov. 5 to try to force Iran to curb its nuclear, missile and regional activities.
(Reuters, 11/3/18)
2018 Nov 3, Iran inaugurated the production line of its domestically produced fighter jet. Some military experts believe the fighter jet is a carbon copy of an F-5 first produced in the United States in the 1960s.
(Reuters, 11/3/18)
2018 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians chanting "Death to America" rallied to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent reimposition of US sanctions on Iran's oil sector.
(Reuters, 11/4/18)
2018 Nov 5, Iran greeted the re-imposition of US sanctions with air defense drills and a statement from President Hassan Rouhani that the nation faces a "war situation," raising Mideast tensions as America's maximalist approach to the Islamic Republic takes hold.
(AP, 11/5/18)
2018 Nov 5, The Trump administration's tough new sanctions on Iran took effect, but eight major importers of Iranian oil were spared from immediate penalties. They included China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey.
(AP, 11/5/18)(AFP, 11/5/18)
2018 Nov 6, President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would not abide by the renewed US sanctions on Iran's oil and shipping industries, adding that they were aimed at "unbalancing the world".
(Reuters, 11/6/18)
2018 Nov 8, Iranian celebrities including Oscar-winning film director Asghar Farhadi and Grammy winner Kayhan Kalhor launched a petition condemning US sanctions on Tehran and warning of the impact on ordinary people.
(AFP, 11/9/18)
2018 Nov 11, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported that an appeals court has upheld former Foreign Ministry official Kamal Amirbeig's 10-year prison sentence and fined him $200,000. He had been convicted of spying.
(AP, 11/11/18)
2018 Nov 11, A Pakistani official said Iranian border guards have killed two people trying to cross through an illegal route from the Panjgur district in Baluchistan.
(AP, 11/11/18)
2018 Nov 14, Iran's state media reported the hanging of two financial traders convicted of stockpiling gold coins and profiteering during a currency crisis.
(SFC, 11/15/18, p.A2)
2018 Nov 17, Iraq's President Barham Salih began a visit to Iran, where he pledged to improve relations less than two weeks after the United States restored oil sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.
(AP, 11/17/18)
2018 Nov 18, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that the country's authorities have detained four workers protesting not having been paid their salaries for months in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AP, 11/18/18)
2018 Nov 19, European Union foreign ministers endorsed a French government decision to sanction Iranian nationals accused of a bomb plot in France, a move that could enable EU-wide enforcement of the measures.
(Reuters, 11/19/18)
2018 Nov 20, In Iran a Revolutionary Court ruled to release Abdolfattah Soltani, a prominent human rights lawyer, after eight years in prison.
(AP, 11/21/18)
2018 Nov 22, Iranian media reported that the country has implemented a measure allowing officials to waive rules relating to stamping visas in foreigners' passports.
(AP, 11/22/18)
2018 Nov 22, US Ambassador Kenneth Ward told a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at The Hague that Iran had failed to report a production facility for the filling of aerial bombs and maintains a program to obtain banned toxic munitions.
(Reuters, 11/22/18)
2018 Nov 23, The Iranian judiciary’s website Mizan reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guards have detained a Saudi Arabian fishing boat and arrested its crew.
(AP, 11/23/18)
2018 Nov 26, State-owned Qatar Airways said it will add more flights to Iran from January, just weeks after the United States re-imposed sanctions aimed at crippling Tehran's economy.
(Reuters, 11/26/18)
2018 Nov 27, In Iran Sunni cleric Abdolghafour Jamalzai, who had worked to reconcile Sunnis and Shiites, was shot and killed in the town of Gorgan.
(AP, 11/27/18)
2018 Dec 1, Iran's navy launched a domestically made destroyer, which state media said has radar-evading stealth properties.
(AP, 12/1/18)
2018 Dec 1, Iran's state media reported that a revolutionary court has sentenced Hengameh Shahidi (43), a female pro-reform journalist, to a nearly 13-year prison term over security charges.
(AP, 12/1/18)
2018 Dec 2, Iran said it would continue missile tests to build up its defenses and denied this was in breach of UN resolutions following US allegations that Tehran had tested a new missile capable of carrying multiple warheads.
(Reuters, 12/2/18)
2018 Dec 6, In southeastern Iran a suicide car bombing followed by an armed assault killed at least two policemen and wounding 42 people outside police headquarters in the port city of Chabahar. The city lies in Sistan-Baluchistan province which has long been a flashpoint, with Pakistan-based Baluchi separatists and Sunni Muslim extremists carrying out cross-border attacks targeting the Shiite authorities. Security forces soon detained 10 people suspected of links to the attack.
(AFP, 12/6/18)(Reuters, 12/6/18)(AP, 12/8/18)(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 9, In Iran's judiciary said fast-track courts set up in Iran to fight economic crime have jailed 30 men for up to 20 years each, as the country faces renewed US sanctions and a public outcry against profiteering and corruption.
(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 9, Iran state media said Australian-based academic has been detained on charges of trying to "infiltrate" Iranian institutions. Hosseini-Chavoshi, a population expert, is affiliated with the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.
(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 11, Iran's Arman daily reported that human rights lawyers Ghasem Sholeh-Saadi and Arash Keikhosravi have been sentenced to six years in prison for taking part in an "illegal gathering" and one year for "propaganda" against the ruling system. Lawyer Mohammad Najafi was sentenced to 10 years for "conveying information to a hostile country" through interviews with foreign media, two years for insulting the supreme leader and one year for publicity in support of opposition groups.
(AP, 12/11/18)
2018 Dec 12, In Iran social media activist Vahid Sayyadi Nasiri, on hunger strike since October 13, 2018 to protest the denial of his right to counsel and inhumane prison conditions, died at the Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Qom.
(Reuters, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 12, Eight European Union nations (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom) underlined their commitment to the Iran nuclear deal while urging Tehran to stop its "destabilizing regional activities" especially the launch of ballistic missiles.
(AP, 12/12/18)
2018 Dec 16, In Iran the appointment of Kambiz Mehdizadeh, President Hassan Rouhani's son-in-law, as head of Iran's geological survey led to the resignation of Jafar Sargheyni, head of the mining section in the industries ministry. It was reported that the appointment has renewed accusations of nepotism.
(AFP, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 16, Iranian authorities detained an unspecified number of steel mill workers after five weeks of protests over delays in salaries in Khuzestan province.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 16, In Iran a website of the Revolutionary Guard reported that Gen. Ghodratollah Mansouri, a vetran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, accidentally shot himself in the head while cleaning a his pistol.
(SFC, 12/17/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 18, Meeting in Geneva the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey said that a new Syrian Constitutional Committee should convene early next year, kicking off a viable political peace process.
(Reuters, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 19, Albania's Foreign Ministry said two Iranian diplomats had been expelled for "violating their diplomatic status" following talks with other countries, including Israel.
(AP, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 20, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani met in Ankara and vowed to work closer to end the fighting in Syria.
(AFP, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 21, The US State Department said the US has granted Iraq a 90-day Iran sanctions waiver to allow it to continue to import electricity from Tehran.
(AP, 12/21/18)
2018 Dec 21, It was reported that Cargill, Bunge and other global traders have halted food supply deals with Iran because new US sanctions have paralyzed banking systems required to secure payments, industry and Iranian government sources say.
(AP, 12/21/18)
2018 Dec 22, Iran's state TV reported the execution by lynching of Hamid Reza Bagheri Derain, a businessman convicted of fraud, bribery and embezzlement.
(Reuters, 12/22/18)
2018 Dec 25, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani presented a $47 billion state budget with increased spending on lower income groups, saying US sanctions would affect people's lives and economic growth but not bring the government to its knees.
(Reuters, 12/25/18)
2018 Dec 25, In Iran a bus overturned at Azad University in Tehran, killing seven students and injuring 28.
(AP, 12/25/18)
2018 Dec 26, An Israeli official confirmed overnight attacks on several targets in Syria involved in Iranian arms transfers to the Hezbollah militant group.
(SFC, 12/27/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 30, Hundreds of Iranian students held protests for a second day, calling for university officials to resign over the Dec. 25 bus crash that killed 10.
(AFP, 12/30/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Iran security forces clashed with students in Tehran in the third day of protests over a deadly bus crash, adding to officials' fears that rising public unrest could threaten national security.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Iran's intelligence ministry said it had arrested 11 "economic disruptors" who misappropriated some $400 million earmarked for essential goods and smuggled the money out of the country.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Iran's GDP fell this year by 5.4%.
(Econ., 12/5/20, p.18)
2019 Jan 3, In Iran prominent human rights activist Narges Mohammadi and British-Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe announced plans to go on hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison to protest against the denial of medical treatment.
(AFP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 3, The United States issued a pre-emptive warning to Iran against pursuing three planned space rocket launches that it said would violate a UN Security Council resolution because they use ballistic missile technology.
(Reuters, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 6, In western Iran a magnitude 5.5 earthquake hit an area near the Iraqi border, injuring about 31 people.
(Reuters, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 8, The European Union froze the assets of an Iranian intelligence unit and two of its staff, as the Netherlands accused Iran of two killings on its soil and joined France and Denmark in alleging Tehran plotted other attacks in Europe.
(Reuters, 1/8/19)
2019 Jan 9, Iran confirmed that is holding US veteran Michael White at a prison in the country.
(SFC, 1/10/19, p.A2)
2019 Jan 13, The FBI arrested Marzieh Hashemi (59), a prominent American-born anchorwoman on Iranian state television's English-language service, after she arrived at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. She had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area. She has worked at the Iranian state broadcaster service for 25 years. Her son, Reza Hashemi, was also arrested.
(AP, 1/16/19)(AP, 1/17/19)
2019 Jan 14, In Iran Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a jailed UK-Iranian mother, launched a hunger strike over a lack of medical care and attempts by Tehran to force her to spy on Britain.
(AFP, 1/14/19)
2019 Jan 14, In Iran a decades-old Iranian Boeing 707 military cargo plane reportedly carrying meat from Kyrgyzstan crashed while trying to land west of Tehran, killing 15 people on board and leaving a sole survivor.
(AP, 1/14/19)
2019 Jan 15, An Iranian rocket blasted off into space, but scientists failed to put the Payam satellite into orbit in a launch previously criticized by the United States as helping the Islamic Republic further develop its ballistic missile program.
(AP, 1/15/19)
2019 Jan 16, Polish private Radio Zet said that Iran has stopped issuing tourist visas for Poles.
(Reuters, 1/16/19)
2019 Jan 19, A new UN report said fuel is being shipped illegally for Iran to Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen to finance their war against the government.
(SSFC, 1/20/19, p.A8)
2019 Jan 21, Germany said it has banned Iran's Mahan Air from landing in the country with immediate effect, citing security concerns and the airline's involvement in Syria. The airline had several weekly flights between Tehran and German cities.
(AP, 1/21/19)
2019 Jan 23, The US released Marzieh Hashemi, an American anchorwoman for Iranian state television, held for days as a material witness.
(AP, 1/24/19)(SFC, 1/24/19, p.A6)
2019 Jan 24, Amnesty International said Iran arrested more than 7,000 people last year, including dozens of journalists, and called this a "shameless campaign of repression".
(AP, 1/24/19)
2019 Jan 24, The United States targeted two Iran-backed foreign fighter militias in Syria and two airlines that help send weapons to Syria in fresh sanctions as Washington prepares for a military withdrawal from the war-torn country.
(Reuters, 1/24/19)
2019 Jan 29, Syria's Pres. Bashar Assad, during a meeting with visiting Iranian First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, said that new trade agreements with Iran will help the two countries face the "economic war" waged against them by the West. The two countries have signed 11 agreements and memoranda of understanding to promote cooperation in Syria's reconstruction after eight years of civil war.
(AP, 1/29/19)
2019 Jan 31, Britain, France and Germany launched a special payment mechanism that the EU hopes will help save a nuclear deal with Iran by bypassing US sanctions.
(AFP, 1/31/19)
2019 Feb 2, Iran announced the "successful test" of a new cruise missile with a range of over 1,350 km, coinciding with celebrations for the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. In the southeast one member of the Revolutionary Guards was killed and five were wounded in an attack on a paramilitary base in Nik Shahr.
(AFP, 2/2/19)(Reuters, 2/2/19)
2019 Feb 3, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that a court has handed down prison sentences for 13 protesters arrested during the August 2017 demonstrations over economic hardships.
(AP, 2/3/19)
2019 Feb 3, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that a fire in the country's space research center has killed three scientists.
(AP, 2/3/19)
2019 Feb 4, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported the country's top judge said that Tehran would never accept the "humiliating conditions" set by the European Union for non-dollar trade intended to evade US sanctions.
(Reuters, 2/4/19)
2019 Feb 5, Iran ruled out linkage between a new EU mechanism to trade with Tehran bypassing US sanctions and an anti-money laundering bill.
(AFP, 2/5/19)
2019 Feb 6, In Iran gunmen killed a policeman and wounded another officer in a shootout in Lorestan province during which a stray bullet hit a fuel tanker, causing it to explode. Five suspects were soon arrested.
(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Feb 7, Reporters Without Borders said that Iranian authorities arrested, jailed and sometimes executed 1.7 million people around the capital Tehran alone in the first 30 years after the 1979 Islamic revolution. At least 860 journalists were arrested, imprisoned or executed over the same period.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 10, Iran's foreign minister offered his country's military assistance to the US-backed Lebanese army, saying Iran is ready to cooperate in all sectors should the Lebanese government want it.
(AP, 2/10/19)
2019 Feb 11, In Iran vast crowds marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution at a time of heightened tensions with the United States.
(AFP, 2/11/19)
2019 Feb 13, Iran's Fars news reported that twenty members of the elite Revolutionary Guards were killed a suicide attack the southeast of the country.
(Reuters, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 13, Judges at the International Court of Justice ruled that the UN body has jurisdiction to hear a claim by Iran to recover $1.75 billion in assets frozen by Washington. The case filed in June 2016 centers on assets from the Iranian national bank, Bank Markazi, seized by US courts to compensate families of victims of a 1983 bombing of a US Marine Corps. base which Washington blames on Iran.
(Reuters, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 13, The United States charged former US Air Force intelligence officer Monica Witt with helping Iran in a cyber-spying operation that targeted her former colleagues. US officials said Witt supplied classified information about US intelligence officers after defecting to Iran in 2013.
(Reuters, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 14, Russia's Pres. Putin hosted a meeting in Sochi to weigh the future of Syria with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Russia told Turkey it had no right to create a "safe zone" in northeast Syria unless it sought and received the consent of Syria's Pres. Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 2/14/19)
2019 Feb 14, US Vice President Mike Pence demanded that Europeans drop a nuclear deal with Iran and join in seeking to cripple the regime, a cause that united Israel with longtime Arab rivals at a conference in Warsaw.
(AFP, 2/14/19)
2019 Feb 16, German Chancellor Angela Merkel robustly defended European nations' decision to stand by the Iran nuclear deal in comments at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top global defense and foreign policy officials.
(AP, 2/16/19)
2019 Feb 17, Iran's state TV reported that the country's President Hassan Rouhani has unveiled the first Iranian made semi-heavy submarine.
(AP, 2/17/19)
2019 Feb 17, Iran's Revolutionary Guards broke up a group of militants in southeast Iran who were linked to a suicide bombing that killed 27 guards near the border with Pakistan last week. Three militants were arrested and explosive material was seized from houses in the cities of Saravan and Khash.
(AP, 2/18/19)
2019 Feb 24, Iran launched a cruise missile from a submarine for the first time during an ongoing annual military drill in the Strait of Hormuz.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Feb 24, It was reported that Iran has released Nelly Erin-Cambervelle (59), a French businesswoman from Martinique, who was in jail for entering the country illegally.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Feb 25, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a US-educated veteran diplomat who helped craft the pact that curbed Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, gave no reason for his decision to quit when he announced it on Instagram.
(Reuters, 2/26/19)
2019 Feb 25, The British government said it plans to ban Lebanon-based Hezbollah as a terrorist group, accusing the Iran-backed organization of destabilizing the Middle East.
(AP, 2/25/19)
2019 Feb 27, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected the resignation of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, standing by a moderate ally long targeted by hardliners in factional struggles over a 2015 nuclear deal with the West.
(Reuters, 2/27/19)
2019 Feb 27, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif signed two agreements in Tehran with Armenia, television footage showed, continuing his duties as Iran's top diplomat.
(Reuters, 2/27/19)
2019 Mar 2, Iran criticized Britain for its decision to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, saying it ignored both the will of a large portion of the Lebanese people and the Tehran-backed group's role in fighting Islamic State.
(Reuters, 3/2/19)
2019 Mar 2, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the Central Bank has merged four banks and a credit union to reform the country's banking system and financial markets.
(AP, 3/2/19)
2019 Mar 6, An activist group said Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer in Iran who defended protesters against the Islamic Republic's mandatory headscarves for women, has been convicted and faces years in prison. She had previously served three years in prison for her work.
(AP, 3/6/19)
2019 Mar 6, The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft has detected cyberattacks linked to Iranian hackers that targeted thousands of people at more than 200 companies over the past two years. Microsoft attributed the attacks to a group it calls Holmium, and which other security researchers call APT33.
(AP, 3/7/19)
2019 Mar 7, Iranian naval forces intervened to repel pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 8, A top Iranian diplomat asserted that the UK's decision to give diplomatic protection to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman detained in Iran for nearly three years, contravenes international law.
(AP, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 8, On International Women’s Day Yasaman Aryani, her mother Monireh Arabshahi and Mojgan Keshavarz handed out flowers to female passengers on the Tehran metro and spoke of a day when women have the freedom to choose what they wear. Aryani and her mother were each sentenced to 16 years in prison for “inciting and facilitating corruption and prostitution," though the sentence was later reduced.
(AP, 3/8/21)
2019 Mar 8, Official reports said France and Iran are to exchange ambassadors after Paris suspended nomination of an envoy to Tehran last year over accusations that Iranian intelligence had planned an attack on an opposition group in Paris.
(Reuters, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 11, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani began a 3-day visit in Baghdad to deepen bilateral relations. This was his first official visit to the nation that Tehran once fought a bloody war against and later backed in the battle with the Islamic State group.
(AP, 3/11/19)
2019 Mar 11, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said Judge Mohammad Moghiseh has sentenced Nasrin Sotoudeh (55) to five years for plotting against the state and two more years for insulting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was reported that jailed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.
(AP, 3/11/19)(Reuters, 3/11/19)
2019 Mar 12, Husband Reza Khandan said Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to an extra 10 years in jail on top of the five-year term she is already serving.
(AFP, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 16, It was reported that Michael R. White, a US Navy veteran from California, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran, becoming the first American known to be imprisoned there since President Donald Trump took office. White was reportedly convicted of insulting Iran's supreme leader and posting private information online.
(AP, 3/17/19)
2019 Mar 15, In Washington state a US District judge granted a temporary restraining order that let Microsoft take over 99 websites that Iranian hackers had used to try to steal sensitive information from targets in the US.
(SSFC, 3/31/19, p.D2)
2019 Mar 17, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated a new phase in the development of a massive natural gas field. The development will allow Iran to overtake Qatar in the production of natural gas.
(AP, 3/17/19)
2019 Mar 18, Turkey and Iran carried out a joint operation against militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Turkey's eastern border.
(Reuters, 3/18/19)
2019 Mar 22, The Trump administration hit Iran with new sanctions while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced Iran's growing influence on a visit to Lebanon.
(AP, 3/22/19)
2019 Mar 25, Iranian state TV reported that flash floods in southern Iran have killed at least 17 people and injured 74.
(AP, 3/25/19)
2019 Mar 26, The US Treasury took fresh aim at the international network funneling dollars and euros to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), naming 25 individuals and entities for financial sanctions.
(AFP, 3/26/19)
2019 Mar 27, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani travelled to flood-hit zones for the first time after nine days of heavy rains inundated most of the country and killed 43 people.
(AFP, 3/27/19)
2019 Mar 30, Authorities in Iran worked to evacuate villages threatened by flooding in southwestern areas as forecasters predicted more of the heavy rains that have killed at least 45 people this week.
(Reuters, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 31, Iranian media said a man has shot dead seven members of his wife's family in the southwestern city of Dezful.
(AP, 3/31/19)
2019 Apr 1, Iranian authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of flood-stricken cities in a western province as rivers burst their banks, dams overflowed and vast areas were cut off from communication.
(AFP, 4/1/19)
2019 Apr 3, Iranian media reported that the number of dead from recent flooding has risen to 62, up from 57 the day before.
(AP, 4/3/19)
2019 Apr 5, France said it will airlift 12 tons of humanitarian aid, including 114 pumps, to flood-hit regions in Iran.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 6, Iranian state TV reported that authorities have ordered the evacuation of six more towns in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, which is widely inundated with floods. Authorities have put the number of dead at 70 people.
(AP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 6, Iranian state media reported that three staff in the country's defense industries have been killed in an explosion in a submarine under construction in the country's south.
(AP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 7, A majority of Iranian parliamentarians said Iran will take reciprocal action against the United States if Washington designates the elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as terrorists.
(Reuters, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 8, Iran's state-run TV said that Washington's decision to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization contradicted international law and was illegal.
(Reuters, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 8, President Donald Trump announced that the US is designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist organization," in an effort to increase pressure on the country that could have significant diplomatic implications in the Middle East.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 10, Iranian authorities ordered tens of thousands of residents of the southwestern city of Ahvaz to evacuate immediately as floodwaters entered the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province.
(AFP, 4/10/19)
2019 Apr 12, Thousands of Iranians rallied after prayers against the US's decision to designate the country's powerful Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization.
(AP, 4/12/19)
2019 Apr 15, Iran's supreme leader approved the use of special emergency funds to deal with damage from major flooding that has killed at least 76 people and injured more than 1,000 over the past several weeks.
(AP, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 15, The United States officially designated Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, according to a notice published in the US Federal Register.
(Reuters, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 16, Iran's lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill labeling US forces in the Middle East as terrorist.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 16, Syria and Iran said the United States is waging "economic terrorism" against countries that have different opinions and should pursue its aims through diplomacy instead.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 18, Officials said Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent 95 tons of humanitarian aid to their rival Iran as it reels from deadly floods, after Tehran complained US sanctions were obstructing relief.
(AFP, 4/18/19)
2019 Apr 20, Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mohamed al-Halbousi led a one-day summit between Iraq and its six neighbors: Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, and Kuwait, in an effort to bridge relations and invest in Iraq.
(AP, 4/20/19)
2019 Apr 22, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said that a new joint security force with Pakistan will be formed to combat militants based along the two countries' shared border.
(AP, 4/22/19)
2019 Apr 22, The Trump administration said that it will no longer exempt any countries from US sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil, stepping up pressure on Iran. The decision means sanctions waivers for five nations, including China and India and US treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey, won't be renewed when they expire on May 2. China, one of Iran's largest customers, slammed the step, calling it more evidence of US "unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction." Iran's commander of the Revolutionary Guards' navy said Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if Tehran is barred from using it.
(AP, 4/22/19)(Reuters, 4/22/19)
2019 Apr 23, Iranian lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill that labels all US military forces as terrorist, a day after Washington ratcheted up pressure on Tehran by announcing that no country would any longer be exempt from US sanctions if it continues to buy Iranian oil.
(AP, 4/23/19)
2019 Apr 28, Iranian police said that the suspect in the killing of a 46-year-old cleric in the western city of Hamedan had died in a shootout with police. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for a crackdown on illegal weapons.
(AP, 4/28/19)
2019 Apr 30, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signed a bill into law declaring all US forces in the Middle East terrorists and calling the US government a sponsor of terrorism.
(Reuters, 4/30/19)
2019 May 1, Iran's oil minister hit out against the use of oil sanctions "as a weapon" by the United States and the damage it was doing to OPEC.
(Reuters, 5/1/19)
2019 May 4, Iranian state news reported that a court has sentenced Hossein Fereydoun, President Hassan Rouhani’s brother, to an unspecified jail term, in a corruption case the president’s supporters allege is politically motivated.
(Reuters, 5/4/19)
2019 May 5, US national security adviser John Bolton said the Trump administration is deploying a carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East in response to troubling "indications and warnings" from Iran and to show the United States will retaliate with "unrelenting force" to any attack.
(Reuters, 5/05/19)
2019 May 8, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani announced steps that stop short of violating its 2015 deal with world powers for now, but threatening more action if countries did not shield it from US sanctions. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Tehran's decision to scale back some curbs to its nuclear program was legal and reversible.
(Reuters, 5/08/19)
2019 May 8, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weaponry.
(Reuters, 5/08/19)
2019 May 9, US Pres. Donald Trump urged Iran's leadership to sit down and talk with him about giving up Tehran's nuclear program and said he could not rule out a military confrontation given the heightened tensions between the two countries.
(Reuters, 5/10/19)
2019 May 10, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Tehran will not negotiate with the United States and denied any US attack was likely, a day after US President Donald Trump urged talks and said he could not rule out a military confrontation.
(Reuters, 5/10/19)
2019 May 13, Iran said it had sentenced an Iranian woman to 10 years prison for spying for Britain, as tension rises between Tehran and some Western countries over its nuclear and missile programs.
(Reuters, 5/13/19)
2019 May 14, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi, days after India decided to follow US restrictions on buying Iranian oil. Zarif held discussions with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on issues of mutual interest, including the evolving situation in Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/14/19)
2019 May 18, Iran's top diplomat dismissed the possibility of war erupting in the region, saying Tehran did not want a conflict and that no country had the "illusion it can confront Iran".
(Reuters, 5/18/19)
2019 May 18, Bahrain warned its citizens against travel to Iraq and Iran and asked those already there to return "immediately" for their safety.
(Reuters, 5/18/19)
2019 May 24, Pres. Donald Trump said the United States is deploying 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East to counter "credible threats" from Iran.
(AFP, 5/25/19)(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A4)
2019 May 24, US Pres. Donald Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, swept aside objections from Congress to complete the sale of $8.1 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, citing a threat from Iran, infuriating lawmakers who fear the weapons could kill civilians in Yemen. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had pushed the sales to Saudi Arabia of munitions, mostly made by Raytheon, despite a two-year bipartisan congressional hold on the proposed transfer of the arms, comprising 22 packages. Mr. Pompeo did that by declaring an “emergency" over Iran’s activities in the region. In August, 2020, the US State Dept. of the Inspector General concluded that Pompeo had the legal authority to declare an emergency and bypass Congress under the Arms Export Control Act.
(AFP, 5/24/19)(Reuters, 5/25/19)(SFC, 8/12/20, p.A6)
2019 May 25, Iran denounced a US move to deploy 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East as "a threat to international peace".
(AFP, 5/25/19)
2019 May 28, In Iran Mitra Najafi (35), the second wife of Mohammad Ali Najafi (67), a former reformist mayor of Tehran and a Rouhani confidant, was found dead in her bathtub on the seventh floor of a residential high-rise in northern Tehran. Ali Najafi soon turned himself over to police and confessed to shooting his wife.
(AP, 5/28/19)(SFC, 5/30/19, p.A2)
2019 May 29, In Iran Cleric Mohammad Khorsand, a prayer leader in the city of Kazeroon, was killed while on his way home from a religious ceremony. Police soon arrested suspect Hamid Darakhshandeh.
(AP, 5/29/19)
2019 May 30, In Iran hackers took down the website belonging to the country's non-governmental Social Security Organization. The website was down for an unspecified amount of time, but was soon restored.
(AP, 5/31/19)
2019 May 31, Iranians in the capital Tehran set fire to effigies of US President Donald Trump, while in Baghdad, Iran-backed militiamen marched over a large Israeli flag as part of rallies marking Quds, or Jerusalem Day. The annual protests come as the Trump administration tries to market its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
(AP, 5/31/19)
2019 Jun 7, Iran rejected French calls for wider international talks over its nuclear and military ambitions, saying it would only discuss it existing 2015 atomic pact with world powers.
(Reuters, 6/7/19)
2019 Jun 7, The United States placed sanctions on Iran’s largest petrochemical holding group for indirectly supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a step it said aimed to dry up revenues to the elite Iranian military force but that analysts called largely symbolic.
(Reuters, 6/8/19)
2019 Jun 8, Tehran's police chief said 547 restaurants and cafes in Tehran have been shut down over the last ten days for not observing "Islamic principles". Tehran's guidance court, which deals with "cultural crimes and social and moral corruption", called on Tehran citizens to report cases of "immoral behavior" by texting a designated phone number.
(AFP, 6/8/19)
2019 Jun 9, Iran said Europe was in no position to criticize Tehran for its military capabilities and it called on European leaders to normalize trade ties with the Islamic Republic despite US sanctions, or face consequences.
(Reuters, 6/9/19)
2019 Jun 10, Iranian state television reported that Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident held for years in Iran after his conviction on disputed spying charges, will be released in the coming hours.
(AP, 6/10/19)
2019 Jun 10, Iranian activist Alireza Shirmohammadali (21) was stabbed to death by two other prisoners. He had been in jail since July and sentenced to eight years in prison over insulting the country's Islamic identity and government.
(http://tinyurl.com/yydt5ccy)(AP, 6/17/19)
2019 Jun 10, The head of the UN atomic watchdog urged world powers to continue dialogue with Iran to keep it in the landmark 2015 deal aimed at preventing the country from building nuclear weapons, and to help defuse mounting tensions in the region.
(AP, 6/10/19)
2019 Jun 11, Nizar Zakka, Lebanese businessman and US resident imprisoned in Iran on spying charges since 2015, landed at Beirut's Rafik Hariri airport aboard a private jet, accompanied by the chief of Lebanon's General Security Directorate, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Abbas, who traveled to Tehran to bring him home.
(AP, 6/11/19)
2019 Jun 12, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe held talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran during a rare diplomatic mission aimed at defusing tensions between the Islamic republic and Tokyo's ally Washington.
(AFP, 6/12/19)
2019 Jun 13, Two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz were damaged in suspected attacks. The MT Front Altair, a Marshall Islands-flagged crude oil tanker owned by Norway-based Frontline, and Kokuka Courageous, managed by a Singapore company were attacked in the Gulf of Oman.
(AP, 6/13/19)
2019 Jun 14, President Donald Trump publicly accused Iran of responsibility for recent attacks on oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The US military released a video it said showed Iran's Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the oil tankers targeted near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, suggesting Tehran wanted to hide evidence of its alleged involvement.
(AP, 6/14/19)
2019 Jun 15, Richard Ratcliffe said his wife, British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (40), has begun another hunger strike in protest at her detention in a Tehran prison on sedition charges. Ratcliffe said he would hold a vigil outside Iran's London embassy, and would fast in support of his wife. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe ended her hunger strike after 15 days.
(AP, 6/15/19)(Reuters, 6/29/19)
2019 Jun 15, A Iraqi government source said the United States has granted Iraq another 90-day waiver to continue with vital energy imports from neighboring Iran despite re-imposed sanctions.
(AFP, 6/15/19)
2019 Jun 16, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman joined the US in accusing its bitter rival Iran of being behind the attacks on two oil tankers traveling near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route for Arabian energy exports to Asia.
(AP, 6/16/19)
2019 Jun 17, Iran said it will surpass from June 27 its uranium stockpile limit set under the nuclear deal with world powers, turning up the pressure after the US walked away from the landmark pact last year.
(AFP, 6/17/19)
2019 Jun 17, Iran said it had exposed a large cyber espionage network it alleged was run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and that several US spies had been arrested in different countries as the result of this action.
(Reuters, 6/17/19)
2019 Jun 18, Iran said it has dismantled a new espionage network linked to the US Central Intelligence Agency and arrested a number of spies. Iranian state television gave details of a 2013 operation to dismantle another CIA network.
(AFP, 6/18/19)
2019 Jun 18, The US said it is sending 1,000 more troops to the Middle East as tensions in the Persian Gulf mounted over Iran's announcement it will not comply with the international agreement that keeps it from making nuclear weapons.
(AP, 6/18/19)
2019 Jun 20, Iran shot down a US spy drone near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, with the two sides at odds whether it was in Iranian or international airspace, in the latest incident stoking tensions between the arch-foes.
(AFP, 6/20/19)
2019 Jun 20, US military cyber forces launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems as President Donald Trump backed away from plans for a more conventional military strike in response to Iran's downing of a US surveillance drone. The attack degraded Tehran's ability to covertly target shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 6/23/19)(SFC, 8/29/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 21, President Donald Trump said the US was "cocked and loaded" to retaliate against Iran for downing an unmanned American surveillance drone, but he canceled the strikes 10 minutes before they were to be launched after being told 150 people could die.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, Major airlines from around the world began rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz following Iran's shooting down of a US military surveillance drone there.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 22, Cybersecurity firms said Iran has increased its offensive cyberattacks against the US government and critical infrastructure as tensions have grown between the two nations.
(AP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 22, State media reported that Iran summoned the United Arab Emirates' top envoy to Tehran to protest the neighboring Arab nation's decision to allow the US to use a base there to launch a drone that Iran says entered its airspace. The US said its RQ-4A Global Hawk was shot down June 20 over international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, not inside Iranian airspace.
(AP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 24, Iran said US cyber attacks on its military had failed, as Washington sought to rally support in the Middle East and Europe for a hardline stance that has brought it to the verge of conflict with its long-time foe.
(Reuters, 6/24/19)
2019 Jun 24, US Pres. Donald Trump enacted new sanctions against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates.
(AP, 6/25/19)
2019 Jun 25, Iran warned that new US sanctions targeting its supreme leader and other top officials meant "closing the doors of diplomacy" between Tehran and Washington amid heightened tensions. Iran said it will further free itself from the 2015 nuclear deal in defiance of new American sanctions.
(AP, 6/25/19)(AFP, 6/25/19)
2019 Jun 28, Iran said it had formally lodged a complaint to the UN Security Council against the United States over a drone violating its airspace.
(AFP, 6/28/19)
2019 Jun 28, In Vienna, Austria, senior officials from Iran and the remaining signatories to its 2015 nuclear deal met with the future of the accord under threat as Tehran was poised to surpass a uranium stockpile threshold.
(AP, 6/28/19)
2019 Jun 28, The US special envoy for Iran said the United States will sanction any country that imports Iranian oil and there are no exemptions in place.
(Reuters, 6/28/19)
2019 Jul 1, Iran acknowledged it had exceeded the limit set on its low-enriched uranium stockpiles by a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, its first major departure from the agreement a year after Washington unilaterally withdrew from it.
(AP, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 1, Mojtaba Zolnour, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy commission, said Israel will be destroyed in half an hour if the US attacks Iran.
(Reuters, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 1, It was reported that Iraq is establishing a financial "loophole" to continue buying vital gas and electricity from Iran despite US sanctions, mirroring a European mechanism that came into effect on June 28.
(AFP, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 1, The head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency said that Iran was behind a string of recent attacks on targets across the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 2, Members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard killed two gunmen trying to infiltrate the country through the border with Turkey. Two Iranian guards were also killed in the skirmish in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AP, 7/3/19)
2019 Jul 3, Iran ignored US and EU warnings and vowed to exceed within days the maximum uranium enrichment level it agreed to in the landmark 2015 nuclear accord. Iran warned it will restore a mothballed reactor and step up enrichment if European nations fail to offer it economic guarantees by a July 7 deadline. Iran's intelligence minister said Tehran and Washington could hold talks only if the US ended its sanctions and Iran's top authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave his approval.
(AFP, 7/3/19)(Reuters, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 3, President Donald Trump warned Iran against stepping up uranium enrichment, the latest escalation of the conflict over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program that has plunged the Gulf into renewed uncertainty.
(Bloomberg, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 4, The supertanker Grace 1 was halted in the early hours by Gibraltar police and customs agencies, aided by a detachment of British Royal Marines. The tanker was believed to be carrying oil from Iran to the Banyas Refinery in Syria.
(Telegraph, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 4, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is willing to mediate between the United States and Iran to ease tensions over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 5, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee voted to add Iran's Hyrcanian forests to its World Heritage List, praising the area for its "remarkable" biodiversity.
(AFP, 7/5/19)
2019 Jul 7, Iran announced it will increase its uranium enrichment to an unspecified level beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, breaking another limit set under the accord and furthering heightening tensions with the US.
(AP, 7/7/19)
2019 Jul 7, It was reported that a new law in Iran could see the organs of convicts on death row pre-sold to buyers if the prisoners agree before their executions.
(The Telegraph, 7/8/19)
2019 Jul 7, The French government said it will not trigger the Iran nuclear deal's dispute resolution mechanism for now, instead giving itself one week to try to get all parties talking again after Iran decided to enrich uranium above limits agreed in 2015.
(Reuters, 7/7/19)
2019 Jul 8, Iran began enriching uranium to 4.5%, just breaking the limit set by its nuclear deal with world powers, while it is still seeking a way for Europe to help it bypass US sanctions amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.
(AP, 7/8/19)
2019 Jul 9, European powers urged Iran to reverse its move to increase uranium enrichment, as a French envoy was due in Tehran to boost efforts to save a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
(AFP, 7/9/19)
2019 Jul 9, An ambush by Kurdish militants killed three Revolutionary Guard members in western Iran.
(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 10, Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched deadly strikes against "terrorists" across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. The two-day operation killed at least one civilian.
(AFP, 7/12/19)(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 10, French President Emmanuel Macron's top diplomatic advisor held high-level talks in Tehran aimed at saving the 2015 nuclear deal and easing tensions between Iran and the US.
(AFP, 7/10/19)
2019 Jul 10, The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran is enriching uranium to 4.5% purity, above the 3.67% limit set by its deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 7/10/19)
2019 Jul 11, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that the United States and Britain will "strongly regret" the seizure of a tanker off Gibraltar.
(AFP, 7/11/19)
2019 Jul 12, Iran demanded the British navy release an Iranian oil tanker seized last week off Gibraltar, accusing London of playing a "dangerous game" and threatening retribution, while London announced it was sending a destroyer to the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 12, Police in Gibraltar said they have arrested the two second mates of an Iranian supertanker seized last week by the British navy on suspicion of carrying Tehran's oil to Syria. The vessel's captain and chief officer were arrested a day earlier. All four arrested men are Indian.
(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 12, The US House of Representatives voted to restrict President Donald Trump's ability to attack Iran, voicing fear that his hawkish policies are pushing toward a needless war.
(AFP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 13, The European Union's foreign policy chief said the EU is fully supportive of an Iraqi proposal to hold a regional conference amid rising tensions between the US and Iran.
(AP, 7/13/19)
2019 Jul 13, The Riah, a 58-meter (190-foot) oil tanker from the United Arab Emirates traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, entered Iranian waters and turned off its tracker. Foreign Ministry spokesman later said the Islamic Republic helped an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz amid US concern that Tehran seized one there. On July 18 Iranian Revolutionary Guards said they had seized a foreign oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Its 12 crew members were arrested.
(AP, 7/16/19)(The Telegraph, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 14, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech that Iran is ready to hold talks with the United States if Washington lifts sanctions and returns to the 2015 nuclear deal it exited last year.
(Reuters, 7/14/19)
2019 Jul 15, European Union nations threw their diplomatic weight behind the unraveling Iran nuclear deal, trying to rescue the pact from collapsing under US pressure.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 16, In Iran 11 people died after a minibus plunged into a ravine in a valley in the central province of Isfahan. A crash between a bus and a car in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province killed seven people.
(AP, 7/16/19)
2019 Jul 18, Pres. Donald Trump said the USS Boxer took action after an Iranian drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored commands to stay away. The Revolutionary Guard said the Iranian drone had been carrying out regular surveillance when the USS Boxer arrived, and transmitted photos of the ship.
(AP, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 18, The US Treasury named a group of companies in Iran, Belgium and China to its sanctions blacklist for acting as a supply network for Tehran's nuclear enrichment program.
(AFP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 19, Iran denied President Donald Trump's claim that a US warship destroyed an Iranian drone near the Persian Gulf in another escalation of tensions between the two countries less than a month after Trump nearly launched an airstrike.
(AP, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 19, Iran's Revolutionary Guard seized the Stena Impero, a British-flagged oil tanker. Iran says it intervened because the British-flagged tanker hit an Iranian fishing boat. A second Liberian-flagged ship was briefly detained.
(AP, 7/20/19)
2019 Jul 19, In northern Iraq an unmanned aircraft dropped explosives on a base belonging to Iran-linked Shi'ite paramilitary groups, killing at least one person. Two Iranian military commanders were killed. US officials later confirmed that Israel was responsible for the bombing in Amirli, Salaheddin province. A Turkish soldier was killed and six wounded in an operation in northern Iraq during clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
(Reuters, 7/19/19)(AP, 8/23/19)(SFC, 8/24/19, p.A4)
2019 Jul 19, Panama's maritime authority began the process of withdrawing the registration of an oil tanker called MT Riah, which was towed to Iran after it disappeared from ship tracking maps in the Strait of Hormuz on July 14. The authority said an investigation has determined the tanker had "deliberately violated international regulations" by not reporting any unusual situation,
(Reuters, 7/20/19)
2019 Jul 19, The United States targeted a senior operative of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group with sanctions as part of its pressure campaign against Tehran. The government also issued a $7 million reward for information leading to the capture of the operative, Salman Rauf Salman, who is said to have coordinated the 1994 on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(AP, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 19, Twitter suspended the accounts of several Iranian state media outlets. The next day Twitter said this was due to harassment of people linked to the Baha'i faith.
(AFP, 7/20/19)
2019 Jul 21, Stena Bulk, the British operator of the Stena Impero tanker seized by Iran, said it has made a formal request to visit the ship's 23 crew members and is awaiting a formal response.
(Reuters, 7/21/19)
2019 Jul 22, Iran said it has arrested 17 Iranian nationals allegedly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on the country's nuclear and military sites, and that some of them have already been sentenced to death.
(AP, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 22, It was reported that tankers are offloading millions of barrels of Iranian oil into storage tanks at Chinese ports, creating a hoard of crude sitting on the doorstep of the world’s biggest buyer.
(Bloomberg, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 22, Britain called on Iran to release a British-flagged tanker and its crew immediately, describing the seizure of the Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz as illegal.
(Reuters, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 22, A group of American citizens and legal residents trying to bring their Iranian spouses and other family to join them in the United States filed a federal lawsuit saying they are being unfairly blocked by the Trump administration's travel ban.
(AP, 7/23/19)
2019 Jul 23, Iran threatened to cut its imports from Brazil unless it allows the refueling of at least two Iranian ships stranded off the Brazilian coast, a sign of the global repercussions of US sanctions on the Islamic republic.
(Bloomberg, 7/24/19)
2019 Jul 23, Saudi Arabia's cabinet said that Iran's interception of commercial vessels in Gulf waters, including its seizure of a British tanker, violated international law and must be prevented.
&nb
Return to home
Go to Iran before 2005
2005 Jan 1, Iran was forecast for 4.6% annual GDP growth with a population at 71 million and GDP per head at $2,400.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.94)
2005 Jan 5, The head of the IAEA said Iran has agreed to give U.N. inspectors access to a huge military site that the United States alleges is linked to a secret nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 13, In Iran a malfunctioning heater in an Iranian school ignited a barrel of kerosene, touching off a blaze that killing 13 children.
(AP, 1/13/05)
2005 Jan 17, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami arrived in Zimbabwe to a red carpet welcome from his counterpart Robert Mugabe with whom he is due to hold talks over two days.
(AP, 1/18/05)
2005 Jan 22, Iran's state-run television reported that the hard-line constitutional watchdog has decided that women can run for president in June elections.
(AP, 1/22/05)
2005 Jan 23, Iran's hard-line leadership ruled out allowing women to run for president in June elections, denying reports in the state-run media that it had decided to allow female candidates for the first time.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 26, Afghan President Hamid Karzai started a two-day visit to Iran mainly focused on boosting economic relations and inaugurating a new cross-border highway.
(AFP, 1/26/05)
2005 Feb 3, Iran and Syria rejected President Bush's charges that they sponsored terrorism. An Iranian official called the claims groundless. The Syrian information minister said the democracy America seeks for the Middle East could not come through force.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb 4, Diplomats said Iran has agreed to give the UN nuclear watchdog agency a fresh look at a military complex linked by the US to possible atomic arms research.
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 13, Iran rejected a European demand to stop building a heavy water nuclear reactor in return for a light-water reactor.
(AP, 2/13/05)
2005 Feb 14, In Iran a mosque fire killed 59 people and injured another 350. it was blamed on a kerosene heater that was placed too close to a thick curtain that separated male and female worshippers.
(AP, 2/15/05)
2005 Feb 16, Syria and Iran announced a united front amid perceived US threats.
(WSJ, 2/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 18, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin said that Moscow will continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran and that he is convinced Tehran does not intend to develop atomic weapons.
(AP, 2/18/05)
2005 Feb 22, In central Iran’s Kerman province a 6.4 earthquake flattened villages and collapsed mud-brick homes, killing over 500 people and injuring nearly 1,000.
(AP, 2/23/05)(SFC, 2/24/05, p.A11)
2005 Feb 27, Iran and Russia signed a deal that would deliver nuclear fuel to the Middle East country for the startup of its first reactor.
(AP, 2/27/05)
2005 Mar 5, Iran said it will never agree to a permanent halt on enriching uranium and warned that a more unstable Middle East would result from a U.S.-backed effort to haul Tehran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 10, Iran’s Pres. Khatami began a 3-day visit to Venezuela and planned to strengthen political and economic ties with Pres. Chavez.
(WSJ, 3/10/05, p.A15)
2005 Mar 23, Iran agreed to extend nuclear talks with EU nations and maintain a suspension of uranium enrichment but insisted it won’t scrap the program.
(WSJ, 3/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 18, Iran suspended the nationwide operations of Arab TV broadcaster Al-Jazeera, accusing it of inflaming violent protests by the Arab minority in its southwest.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr, The Ahwazi intifada (uprising) began in Iran’s southwest Khuzestan province. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution a third of some 5 million Ahwazis, the native Arabs, were driven from the oil-rich province.
(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.A16)
2005 May 9, Iran confirmed that it has processed 37 tons of uranium into gas, a key step into the using the material as a fuel for reactors or weapons.
(WSJ, 5/10/05, p.A1)
2005 May 10, Iran officially launched production of its first locally built submarine, dubbed Ghadir, a craft that can fire missiles and torpedoes at the same time.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 26, The WTO agreed to allow Iran to open talks to join the body that governs international commerce, a day after Iranian nuclear negotiators renewed Tehran's vow to refrain from developing atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 28, Iran's hard-line Guardian Council approved a law that puts pressure on the government to develop nuclear technology that could be used to build atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 Jun 12, In Iran 4 bombs exploded in Ahwaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province on the Iranian border with Iraq. 9 people were killed and 36 wounded in the deadliest explosions in the nation in more than a decade.
(AP, 6/12/05)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.42)
2005 Jun 17, Iranians voted in an election shaping up as the closest presidential race since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Young people disillusioned by the theocracy called for a boycott of the balloting. Voters failed to give any candidate an outright majority and hard-liners made an unexpectedly strong showing. A 2nd round between former president Rafsanjani and conservative Tehran mayor Ahmadinejad was scheduled in a week.
(AP, 6/17/05)(AP, 6/18/05)(WSJ, 6/20/05, p.A13)
2005 Jun 24, Iranians packed polling stations in a tight presidential race. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (49), the hardline Tehran mayor, won Iran’s presidency in a landslide election victory that cements conservative control over the nation's political leadership.
(AP, 6/24/05)(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, Iran’s new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he seeks to make his country a "modern, advanced, powerful, and Islamic" model for the world.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 26, Iran President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to pursue a peaceful nuclear program, an effort the US maintains is really a cover for trying to build atomic bombs, and said his government will not be an extremist one.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jul 4, In an illegal overflight an American Shadow-200 aircraft crashed about 38 miles inside Iranian territory in the province of Ilam. On Nov 7 Iran circulated letters at the UN protesting the violation of its territory and airspace.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Jul 19, Iran publicly executed two teenagers accusing them of raping a 13-year-old boy and having gay sex, according to Iran's ISNA news agency. Before Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were executed in Edalat ("Justice") Square in Mashhad, they were held in prison for 14 months and lashed 228 times.
(AP, 7/22/05)(http://tinyurl.com/q7qyt)
2005 Jul 24, Iran's state-run media reported that its hard-line judiciary had acknowledged widespread human rights violations in prisons, including the use of torture.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 27, Iran said it will restart some nuclear activities as soon as August and that it has fully developed solid-fuel technology in producing missiles, a major breakthrough that increases the accuracy of missiles hitting targets.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 28, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch told the US House International Relations Committee said Iranian cadres are training Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 31, Hasan Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said his European counterparts have proposed a guarantee that Iran will not be invaded if Tehran agrees to permanently halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Aug 2, Hassan Moghaddas, an Iranian judge who sentenced several reformist dissidents to jail, including hunger-striking reporter Akbar Ganji, was shot dead in his car by a lone gunman riding a motorcycle.
(Reuters, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, France, Britain and Germany hardened their tone toward Iran, warning that Tehran risked triggering an international crisis and could face U.N. sanctions if it follows through with a threat to resume its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 5, European negotiators offered Iran long term support for its civilian nuclear program, including access to nuclear fuel, in exchange for a binding commitment not to develop atomic weapons.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 6, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as Iran's president, saying he wants peaceful relations with the world but rejecting outside pressure to change course.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, Iran rejected Europe's proposal for ending the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, saying it was "unacceptable" because it did not give the country the right to enrich uranium.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 8, Iran resumed uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan nuclear facility, a step that Europeans and the US warned would prompt them to seek UN sanctions against Tehran.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 10, Iran removed the final seals from equipment at a uranium conversion plant as U.N. inspectors watched, paving the way for Tehran to fully open the facility despite European and U.S. calls for it to maintain the suspension of its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 11, In Vienna the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unanimously approved a resolution demanding that Iran suspend all nuclear activities it resumed earlier this week.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 13, In Iran at least 17 people were reported killed over the last 3 weeks and many more wounded during anti-government protests in the western province of Kurdistan.
(AP, 8/13/05)(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.A15)
2005 Aug 25, In an illegal overflight an American Hermes aircraft crashed 125 miles inside Iranian territory in the Khoram Abad area.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Aug 26, An Iranian daredevil died while attempting to break the world record for jumping over buses on a motorcycle. Javad Palizbanian (44) was trying to leap over 22 buses parked side-by-side when his motorbike came down on the 13th bus.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, Iran rejected what it termed conditional negotiations with Europe over Tehran's nuclear program and said it wanted instead to have talks with the UN's international nuclear watchdog agency.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Sep 7, Iran offered to send the US 20 million barrels of crude oil to help it overcome the devastation of Hurricane Katrina if Washington waives trade sanctions.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 14, In NYC Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted US unilateralism, militarism and privilege and called for the UN to promote spirituality. The conservative Muslim leader advanced unusual broad concepts, including recommendations that the UN "institutionalize justice at the international level" and ensure all members have "equal rights."
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, Iran's Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is willing to provide nuclear technology to other Muslim states. Hours later, European nations renewed an offer of economic incentives if the Mideast nation would halt its uranium enrichment.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 18, Iran said that it has no plans to resume uranium enrichment soon but warned that it might change its mind if the International Atomic Energy Agency asks the UN Security Council to consider sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 24, The 35-nation board of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency approved a resolution that could lead to Iran's referral to the U.N. Security Council for violating a nuclear arms control treaty, something the United States has been urging for years.
(AP, 9/24/05)
2005 Sep 25, Iran rejected a resolution by the UN nuclear watchdog agency that put it one step away from Security Council referral, calling the move "illegal and illogical" and orchestrated by the United States.
(AP, 9/25/05)
2005 Oct 2, A Dubai-based newspaper said it stands by a story in which it quoted Iran's president as saying he might curtail oil sales if his nation is referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 5, Iran's foreign minister met with Omani officials, part of a tour of Gulf countries to win support for his government's standoff with the West over its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 11, Diplomats said Iran has signaled it is ready to compromise on granting access to sites linked to possible work on nuclear weapons and other demands from the UN atomic watchdog agency to try to avoid referral to the Security Council.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 15, In Iran 2 bombs hit a shopping center Saturday in Ahvaz, near the southwestern border with Iraq, killing two people and wounding at least 50.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 20, Iranian state-run television said that the country's Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, issued the ban on foreign films that promote what were termed "arrogant powers", a propaganda term the Iranians use to refer to the United States.
(http://tinyurl.com/87t7u)(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 21, Iran's supreme leader, long a critic of the United States, praised the U.S.-backed constitutional referendum in Iraq as "blessed" and urged Iraqis to participate December's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 26, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was a "disgraceful blot" and should be "wiped off the map." He also said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state.
(AP, 10/26/05)(AP, 10/26/06)
2005 Oct 27, Iran launched its Sina-1 satellite from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia, a major step in the country's long-term ambitions. Sina-1 gave Iran a limited space reconnaissance capability over the entire Middle East, including Israel.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4381436.stm)(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Oct 28, Tens of thousands of Iranians staged anti-Israel demonstrations across the country, repeating calls by their ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the destruction of the Jewish state.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Nov 2, Iran's government said it was removing 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats, including supporters of warmer ties with the West, from their posts in a shake-up that comes as the Islamic republic takes a more confrontational international stance. Thousands of Iranians burned flags and chanted slogans against Israel and the US in the largest demonstration in years outside the former US Embassy in Tehran. Nov 4 marked the 26th anniversary of the 1979 embassy seizure.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 6, Iran said it supported a stable Iraq and called for expediting the construction of an oil pipeline and railway between the two neighbors.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 10, Senior officials said the US and Europe are ready to compromise with Iran over its nuclear program and have tentatively approved a plan that would allow it to make the gas used in producing enriched uranium.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 20, Iran’s Parliament approved a bill requiring the government to block international inspections of its atomic facilities if the UN nuclear monitoring agency refers Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 27, In southern Iran an earthquake measuring at least magnitude-5.9 shook a sparsely populated area, flattening seven villages and killing 10 people.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Dec 2, Russian media reported that Russia plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of tactical surface-to-air missiles and other defense hardware to Iran.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 3, Iran's hard-line constitutional watchdog approved a bill blocking international inspections of atomic facilities if the nation is referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 6, A C-130 Iranian military transport plane crashed into a 10-story apartment building as it was trying to make an emergency landing, ripping open the top of the structure and igniting a huge fire. At least 115 people were killed including 21 on the ground in the Azadi suburb of Tehran.
(AP, 12/06/05)(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 10, Iran's top nuclear official said that his country will enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel despite the U.S.-led international campaign to persuade it to abandon such ambitions.
(AP, 12/10/05)
2005 Dec 11, Iran's parliament approved Kazem Vaziri Mahaneh, who has been acting minister for the past three months, the 4th nominee for the key post of oil minister.
(AP, 12/11/05)
2005 Dec 11, Iran offered the United States a share in building a new nuclear power plant in an apparent effort to curb U.S. opposition to its atomic program.
(AP, 12/11/05)
2005 Dec 14, Iran's hard-line president lashed out with a new outburst at Israel on, calling the Nazi Holocaust a "myth" used as a pretext for carving out a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 15, European and US officials said the EU has formally protested to Russia about its sale of sophisticated missiles to Iran, saying the diplomatic row reflected disarray on how to pressure Tehran to scale back its suspect nuclear program.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 17, India and Pakistan agreed to begin work by 2007 on a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran, moving ahead with the project despite US disapproval. Iran hoped to break ground this year on a 1,700 mile, $4 billion natural gas pipeline to deliver gas across Pakistan to India. The US opposed the line and threatened sanctions under the 1996 Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) law.
(AP, 12/18/05)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.A4)
2005 Dec 19, In Iran Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad banned all Western music from state radio and TV stations.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A2)
2005 Dec 24, Russia's Foreign Ministry made a formal offer to Iran to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, raising diplomatic pressure on Tehran to accept the Western-backed plan it has so far rejected.
(AP, 12/24/05)
2005 Dec 25, Iran denied that it received a proposal to move its uranium enrichment facilities to Russian soil, a compromise Europe is seeking to resolve a standoff over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 12/25/05)
2005 Dec 29, Top Iranian and Russian officials agreed to hold talks on a Russian proposal aimed a resolving Tehran's nuclear standoff with the West.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Dec, US Teamster Pres. James Hoffa sent a letter to Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad demanding the release of 14 union workers unjustly detained and beaten.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.E3)
2005 Iran’s Parliament ordered that the country’s foundations (bonyads) start paying at least some taxes. Several were exempted including the Imam Reza Shrine.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.A12)
2005 In Iran Kord Zanganeh was selected as head of the Iranian Privatization Organization, putting him at the center of the new divestment drive. Over the next five years, he oversaw the sale of about $67 billion worth of shares.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2005 North Korea delivered over a dozen intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Iran. [see April 27, 2006]
(WSJ, 7/6/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 1, An Islamic militant group kidnapped nine Iranian soldiers near that country's border with Pakistan. On Jan 4 Al-Arabiya said the group threatened to kill them unless the Tehran government released 16 members from prison.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 2, In Iran the daily Asia newspaper and Nour-e-Banovan magazine were ordered closed by the Culture Ministry, which monitors the press.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 3, A top official said Iran has decided to resume research into nuclear fuel production in a statement certain to increase concerns that Iran is moving toward production of nuclear weapons.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 9, Iran state TV reported that 14 alleged members of an Islamic extremist group had been detained. The group in late December grabbed and held nine soldiers hostage.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 9, In northwestern Iran a small military passenger jet crashed, killing at least 13 people, including the commander of the ground forces of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
(AP, 1/9/06)
2006 Jan 10, Iran removed UN seals on uranium enrichment equipment and resumed nuclear research Tuesday, defying demands it maintain a two-year freeze on its nuclear program and sparking an outcry from the US and Europe.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 11, British PM Tony Blair said that Western countries were likely to seek economic sanctions against Iran after Tehran restarted its nuclear program, but a powerful cleric said it would not curtail its research.
(AP, 1/11/06)
2006 Jan 12, The British, French and German foreign ministers said that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a "dead end" and the Islamic republic should be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Jan 13, Iran threatened to block inspections of its nuclear sites if confronted by the UN Security Council over its atomic activities. The hard-line president reaffirmed his country's intention to produce nuclear energy.
(AP, 1/13/06)
2006 Jan 14, An Iraqi sailor was killed and nine were captured by an Iranian Navy vessel during a skirmish in the Gulf near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Iraqi coast guardsmen were pursuing suspected oil smugglers in disputed territorial waters.
(AP, 1/17/06)(SFC, 1/18/06, p.A7)
2006 Jan 15, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed his 1st budget bill. The government expected some $36 billion in oil revenues, promised to build 300,000 housing units and planned to maintain energy subsidies amounting to 10% of GDP.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinezhad)
2006 Jan 15, Iran said it would sponsor a conference to examine the scientific evidence supporting the Holocaust.
(AP, 1/15/06)
2006 Jan 16, State radio reported that Iran has allocated the equivalent of $215 million for the construction of what would be its second and third nuclear power plants.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Jan 17, Iran lifted its ban on CNN, a day after the government barred the US network from the country because of its mistranslation of nuclear comments by Pres. Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 19, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began a visit to Syria to consolidate an old alliance made increasingly crucial as both countries face mounting US pressure and the threat of international sanctions.
(AP, 1/19/06)
2006 Jan 20, Iran’s Central Bank Governor said Iran moving its foreign currency reserves out of European banks as a pre-emptive measure against any possible UN sanctions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 1/20/06)
2006 Jan 22, Iran said it was not withdrawing its foreign currency reserves from European banks, despite reports late last week that it already had begun the process.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 23, A senior envoy said Iran will immediately retaliate if referred to the UN Security Council next week by forging ahead with developing a full-scale uranium enrichment program.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 24, In Iran 2 bombs exploded in a bank and outside a government building in Ahvaz, a southwestern city with a history of violence involving members of Iran's Arab minority. 6 people were killed and 46 others wounded. A Web site claiming to represent Arab secessionists in the Ahvaz region said they carried out the attack. On June 8 a court found 9 defendants to be enemies of God, and sentenced them to death. 15 other defendants received sentences ranging from seven to 30 years in prison. In July Iran's Supreme Court confirmed death sentences for five Iranian Arab separatists convicted for the bombings.
(AP, 1/24/06)(AP, 6/28/06)(AP, 7/30/06)
2006 Jan 25, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said that Tehran views Moscow's offer to have Iran's uranium enriched in Russia as a positive development but no agreement has been reached between the countries.
(AP, 1/25/06)
2006 Jan 26, Iran's Civil Aviation Organization said it has proposed resuming direct flights between Iran and the United States after more than 25 years, despite political hostilities between the two countries.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 27, Georgia's president said that Iran had agreed to start providing emergency gas supplies to the Caucasus mountain nation as early as this weekend, signaling an end to an energy crisis made worse by an extreme cold snap.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Jan 28, Iran's foreign minister said Tehran and Moscow have agreed to expand the number of countries participating in the plan to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, describing a compromise that could satisfy U.S. concerns about the nuclear program.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 30, Iran’s Interior Ministry said 7 Iranian soldiers kidnapped last month by Jundallah, (God's Brigade), have been freed. No word was given on the fate of 2 other kidnapped soldiers.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Jan 31, Iran struck back at the Big Five's decision to refer the country's nuclear file to the Security Council, saying the move has no legal justification and would be the end of diplomacy.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Feb 3, Iran warned it no longer would consider a Kremlin proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia if it is referred to the UN Security Council for allegedly violating a nuclear arms control treaty.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 4, The ISNA news agency reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the cancellation of economic contracts with countries where the media have carried cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
(AFP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 4, The UN nuclear watchdog reported Iran to the UN Security Council in a resolution expressing concern that Tehran's nuclear program may not be "exclusively for peaceful purposes." Iran retaliated immediately, saying it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia.
(AP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 5, Iran ended all voluntary cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog but said it was open to a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, softening its earlier response to being reported to the Security Council over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms.
(AP, 2/5/06)
2006 Feb 7, A prominent Iranian newspaper said it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 11, Iran's president rejected US and European pressure to freeze the country's nuclear program and hinted that Iran may withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 12, Iran reaffirmed its commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a day after its hard-line president implied Tehran was considering withdrawing from the pact after being reported to the UN Security Council.
(AP, 2/12/06)
2006 Feb 13, Diplomats said Iran has started small-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or bombs. Talks with Moscow on moving Iranian enrichment to Russia as a way ensuring Iran has no direct control were put on indefinite hold.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 14, Iran said it had resumed uranium enrichment; Russia and France immediately called on Iran to halt its work.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2006 Feb 18, India confirmed the H5N1 bird flu virus in chickens. Iran confirmed the virus in wild swans. Indonesia confirmed its 19th death from the virus. Germany France and Austria reported more dead birds. Nigeria claimed to be bringing the virus under control.
(AP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 20, Russian and Iranian negotiators concluded a day of talks on Moscow's offer to enrich uranium for Iran and agreed to continue.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 22, Iran offered to help finance a Palestinian Authority run by the Hamas militant group, state radio said in a report that brought a quick warning from Israel that it would do all it could legally to stop the Palestinians from receiving the money.
(AP, 2/22/06)
2006 Feb 26, Iran's nuclear chief said an agreement was reached with Moscow to set up a joint uranium enrichment facility on Russian soil, a deal that could assuage global concerns that Tehran wants to build atomic bombs.
(AP, 2/26/06)
2006 Feb 27, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told Japan that Tehran would not suspend its atomic research and development, casting doubt over whether a Russian agreement would defuse a crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 2/27/06)
2006 Feb, Iranian security forces, according to a Kurdish group, killed 10 demonstrators.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.42)
2006 Mar 3, In Austria talks between EU negotiators and Iran over its nuclear ambitions broke up without any agreement, paving the way for potential UN Security Council action against Tehran as early as next week.
(AP, 3/3/06)
2006 Mar 3, Iran offered to suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years during discussion in Moscow. The proposal reflected Tehran's attempts to escape UN Security Council action over the activity, which can be used to make nuclear arms.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 5, Iran warned it will start large-scale uranium enrichment if it is referred to the UN Security Council because of international concerns over its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 7, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the IAEA, the UN nuclear agency, to compensate Iran for suspending its nuclear activities since 2003.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 8, Iran threatened the US with "harm and pain" for its role in hauling Tehran before the UN Security Council over its nuclear program. America's ambassador to the United Nations said Iran's comments reflected the menace it poses.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 8, Train services linking Pakistan with neighboring Iran were suspended indefinitely following bombings and rocket attacks on the rail in southwestern Pakistan.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 9, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and its president said that Tehran would not abandon its nuclear program and rejected its referral to the U.N. Security Council as unjust.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 11, Iran threatened to use oil as a weapon if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 12, Iran said it had ruled out a proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, further complicating the international dispute over the country's nuclear program.
(AP, 3/12/06)
2006 Mar 13, Iranian lawmakers approved spending $15 million to investigate alleged American intervention in the country.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Mar 14, China and Russia objected to a tough UN Security Council statement backed by the United States, Britain and France calling for a report in two weeks on Iran's compliance with demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 3/14/06)
2006 Mar 16, The White House issued a 49-page security strategy report that listed Iran as the single country that may pose the biggest danger to the US and reaffirmed pre-emptive military actions as a central tenet of US security policy.
(WSJ, 3/16/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 16, In Iran rebels under Abdolmalek Rigi, posing as security forces, killed 22 people on the southeastern Zabol-Zahedan road in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
(AP, 3/17/06)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.43)
2006 Mar 17, Akbar Ganji (46), an Iranian dissident journalist, was freed after spending most of his six-year prison term in solitary confinement. He vowed to keep criticizing the hard-line clerical regime. Ganji was jailed in 2000 after reporting on the killings of five dissidents by Intelligence Ministry agents.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 25, In India PM Manmohan Singh and Iranian Vice-President Rahim Mashaee held talks in New Delhi during which they stressed the need to strengthen bilateral ties, particularly in the energy sector.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 29, The UN Security Council demanded that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, the first time the body directly urged Tehran to clear up suspicions that it was seeking nuclear weapons.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2006 Mar 31, The air force chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards said Iran successfully test-fired a new missile, the Fajir-3, with the ability to avoid radar and hit several targets simultaneously.
(AP, 3/31/06)(SFC, 4/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 31, In western Iran 3 strong earthquakes and several aftershocks reduced villages to rubble, killing 70 people and injuring about 1,200 others.
(AP, 3/31/06)(AP, 3/31/07)
2006 Apr 2, Iran announced its second major new missile test within days, saying it has successfully fired a high-speed torpedo called Hoot (whale), capable of destroying huge warships and submarines.
(AP, 4/3/06)(SFC, 4/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 4, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran is prepared to negotiate on the large-scale enrichment of uranium but will never abandon its right to enrich uranium.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 May 7, Iran's hard-line parliament threatened to pass legislation that would force the Tehran government to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2006 Apr 8, The New Yorker magazine reported in its April 17 issue that the administration of Pres. George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility.
(AFP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 9, A Swiss investigator has issued an international arrest warrant for Iran's former intelligence chief in the killing of an exiled Iranian opposition leader. It demands the arrest of Ali Fallahian, intelligence minister from 1989-1997, on grounds he "decided and ordered the execution of Kazem Rajavi." Rajavi was shot to death in Geneva in 1990.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 11, Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said that Iran has enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a major development in nuclear fuel cycle technology.
(AP, 4/11/06)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.47)
2006 Apr 12, Iran’s deputy nuclear chief said the country intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges, signaling its resolve to expand a program the international community has insisted it halt.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 16, State-run television reported that Iran will give the financially strapped Palestinian Authority $50 million in aid.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 22, Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog agency said the Islamic republic had reached a "basic deal" with the Kremlin to form a joint uranium enrichment venture on Russian territory, state-run television reported.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 25, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said that the country is ready to transfer its nuclear technology to other countries. Tehran threatened to halt all cooperation with the UN atomic energy agency if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions, warning that it might hide its nuclear program if the West takes any other "harsh measures."
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 25, Russia launched a satellite for Israel that the Israelis say will be used to spy on Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 27, Iran's UN ambassador denounced Israel's election as a vice-chair of the U.N. Disarmament Commission, calling the Jewish state a threat to peace in the Middle East.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 27, Israel's military intelligence chief said in a published interview that Iran has received its first batch of North Korean-made surface-to-surface missiles that put European countries within firing range.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 29, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki to suspend enriching uranium and ensure full-scale cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
(Reuters, 4/29/06)
2006 May 2, In Iran a court sentenced two Swedes to three years in prison each for photographing military installations. The two men, both in their 30s, were convicted of photographing military buildings and telecommunications equipment on Qeshm, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 3, Britain and France introduced a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Iran abandon its uranium enrichment program, possibly setting the stage for sanctions if Tehran does not comply.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 4, Over Chinese and Russian opposition, Western nations circulated a UN Security Council resolution that would demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment or face the threat of unspecified further measures, a possible reference to sanctions.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to President Bush, proposing "new solutions" to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian head of state to an American president in 27 years.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2006 May 8, Indonesia said it supported Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful means ahead of a visit to the country by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 9, Officials said Iran will supply crude oil and equity investment to build an oil refinery in Indonesia that will supply China and provide Iran with a secure outlet in the face of possible sanctions.
(WSJ, 5/10/06, p.A8)
2006 May 9, Iran's president declared in a letter to President Bush that democracy had failed worldwide and lamented "an ever-increasing global hatred" of the U.S. government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swiftly rejected the letter, saying it didn't resolve questions about Tehran's suspect nuclear program.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 11, Iran's president said he was ready to negotiate with the United States and its allies over his country's nuclear program but he also suggested that any threats against Tehran would make the dialogue more difficult.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 13, In southeastern Iran armed bandits stopped four cars and killed 12 passengers on the road between the cities of Kerman and Bam.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 15, A top official said the EU will support an Iranian nuclear program that cannot be put to military use and will boost political and economic cooperation if Tehran accepts international oversight.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, In Iran Mohammadi-Ashtiani was convicted of having an "illicit relationship" with two men, according to her lawyer and London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International. Amnesty said she received 99 lashes as per her sentence but was subsequently accused of "adultery while being married" in September 2006 during the trial of a man accused of murdering her husband. In 2010 her sentence of death by stoning was temporarily halted.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2006 May 17, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a possible European offer for incentives, including a light-water nuclear reactor, in return for allaying fears about his country's nuclear program by giving up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 21, Pakistan and Iran officials met again in Islamabad to discuss a proposed 1,735-mile pipeline that would deliver Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 23, Iran’s government closed one of the country's top three newspapers, detaining its editor and cartoonist, Mana Neyestani, for publishing a caricature that caused members of Iran's Azeri minority to riot in protest. Amnesty International said in a report in 2007 that 19 people were reported killed in the unrest and hundreds arrested. Neyestani was released from jail after 3 months and fled the country with his wife. In 2012 he published his autobiographical comic book "An Iranian Metamorphosis," a Kafkaesque story recounting his 2006 jailing.
(AP, 5/23/06)(AFP, 2/10/12)
2006 May 24, Stone-throwing Iranian students fought police and Islamic vigilantes on in protest against restrictions imposed by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(Reuters, 5/24/06)
2006 May 25, In Iran protests by Iranian Azeris peaked when 4 demonstrators were killed in the part-Azeri town of Naghadeh.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.42)
2006 May 28, Afghanistan and Iran pledged to crack down on drugs passing over their shared border as Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Tehran. Officials also signed seven agreements dealing with the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 30, Iran's foreign minister said that Tehran is ready to restart negotiations with the European Union on its nuclear program, but he ruled out direct talks with the US.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 31, The US said it would join in face-to-face talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program if Tehran first agreed to put challenged atomic activities on hold; Iran dismissed the offer as "a propaganda move."
(AP, 5/31/07)
2006 Jun 1, In Vienna the US and 5 world powers agreed to offer Iran proposals that would bring it significant benefits if it halts its drive to master nuclear power.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 6/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 3, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, attending a security conference in Singapore, branded Iran the world's leading terrorist nation yet hoped Tehran seriously would consider incentives from the West in exchange for suspending suspect nuclear activities.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2006 Jun 6, Diplomats in Austria said the US is prepared to provide Iran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 8, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran was ready to discuss "mutual concerns" over his country's nuclear program, but he refused to first suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 11, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said that his country wants "unconditional" nuclear talks and that a Western incentives package has "weak points."
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 13, In Austria Western countries at a 35-nation UN meeting pushed for consensus on the need for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, but diplomats said that most nonaligned countries were preparing to endorse Tehran's right to continue the work.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 21, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country will respond in mid-August to the package of incentives on its nuclear program offered by the West. "We are studying the proposals. Hopefully, we will present our views about the package by mid-August."
(AP, 6/21/06)
2006 Jun 21, Scores of students chanting "Bush Go Home!" marched through Austria's capital to protest a visit by President Bush for the annual US-EU summit. The summit produced no breakthroughs but showed Bush moving toward better cooperation with Europe on Iran, energy, climate change and other fronts. Bush accused Iran of dragging its feet on a Western incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activity.
(AP, 6/21/06)(WSJ, 6/22/06, p.A4)(AP, 6/21/07)
2006 Jun 23, Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said Iran will halt gasoline imports from September 23 and start rationing gasoline supplies to motorists because of budget constraints.
(AP, 6/23/06)
2006 Jun 25, It was reported that Iran had purchased 800 high-caliber sniper rifles made by Steyr Mannlicher, an Austrian firm.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, Par p.7)
2006 Jun, In Iran a Revolutionary Guard engineering group won a $2.3 billion contract to develop part of a big gas field in Iran’s part of the Persian Gulf.
(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun, Iran exported about 2.8 million barrels of oil per day, some 3% of world demand.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.46)
2006 Jul 6, In Iraq a suicide car bomb tore through buses carrying Iranian pilgrims near a Shiite shrine on the outskirts of Kufa, killing 14 people and wounding 38.
(AP, 7/7/06)(SFC, 7/7/06, p.A10)
2006 Jul 12, The EU joined the US in warning Iran it faced UN Security Council action if no solution could be found to a stand-off over its nuclear program. World powers agreed to send Iran back to the UN Security Council for possible punishment, saying the clerical regime has given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 14, Israel tightened its seal on Lebanon, blasting its air and road links to the outside world and bringing its offensive to the capital for the first time to punish Hezbollah and with it, the country for the capture of 2 Israeli soldiers. Israel destroyed the home and office of Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Lebanese guerrillas fired a barrage of at least 60 Katyusha rockets throughout the day, hitting more than a dozen communities across northern Israel. Israeli warplanes destroyed the building housing the headquarters of Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Beirut. Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli warship that had been firing missiles into southern Beirut. A senior Israeli intelligence official said Iranian troops helped Hezbollah fire a missile that damaged the warship off the Lebanese coast. He also said about 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-802 at the ship that killed 4 sailors. Deaths in 3 days of fighting rose to 61 people in Lebanon and 10 in Israel.
(AP, 7/14/06)(AP, 7/14/07)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.58)
2006 Jul 16, Iran said that Western incentives to halt its nuclear program were an "acceptable basis" for talks, and it is ready for detailed negotiations.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 24, Hezbollah's representative in Iran struck a defiant tone, warning that his Islamic militant group plans to widen its attacks on Israel until "no place" is safe for Israelis.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2006 Jul 25, The first edition of a newspaper owned by the Iranian version of Hezbollah appeared on newsstands with messages of support for its Lebanese cousins in their fight against Israel.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Jul 28, The five permanent members of the UN Security Council reached a deal on a resolution that would give Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 29, Iran state radio said the government would reject a proposed UN resolution to suspend uranium enrichment by Aug. 31 or face the threat of international sanctions. State media also reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves."
(AP, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul 29, In Tehran the presidents of Iran and Venezuela pledged to support one another in disputes with Washington, with the Iranian calling Hugo Chavez "a brother and trench mate."
(AP, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul 31, Akbar Mohammadi (34) died in Tehran’s Evin Prison after a nine-day hunger strike to protest a lack of medical care. Mohammadi had been arrested for taking part in protests at Tehran University in July 1999, Iran's biggest anti-government demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The EU later expressed grave concern regarding the harsh treatment of dissidents, opposition leaders, student activists and all human rights defenders in Iranian prisons.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Jul 31, The UN passed Resolution 1696, which demanded that Iran suspend uranium enrichment by the end of August.
(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8792.doc.htm)
2006 Aug 1, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the UN Security Council resolution giving Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment. Ahmadinejad added that Tehran will pursue its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/1/06)
2006 Aug 6, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said that Iran will expand uranium enrichment, in defiance of a UN Security Council resolution giving the Islamic Republic until Aug. 31 to halt the activity or face the threat of political and economic sanctions.
(AP, 8/6/06)
2006 Aug 18, A bus carrying Iranian tourists crashed into a truck in eastern Turkey, killing 18 and injuring 29.
(AP, 8/18/06)
2006 Aug 19, The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that it had forced two Syria-bound Iranian planes to land and be searched for rockets and other military equipment, one on Jul 27 and the other on Aug 8, during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/19/06)
2006 Aug 21, Diplomats and UN officials said Iran has turned away UN inspectors wanting to examine its underground nuclear site in an apparent violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2006 Aug 22, The Orizont, a leased Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran, came under fire from Iranian military vessels and was later occupied by Iranian troops. A 2nd Romanian rig had recently been towed from Iranian waters due to unpaid bills.
(AP, 8/22/06)(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.A8)
2006 Aug 23, Iran urged Europe to pay attention to what it called "positive" signals in its counterproposal to a nuclear incentives package aimed at persuading Tehran to roll back its nuclear program. Russia and China backed Iran's call for negotiations to end the standoff.
(AP, 8/23/06)
2006 Aug 26, Iran's hard-line president inaugurated a heavy-water production plant, a facility the West fears will be used to develop a nuclear bomb, as Tehran remained defiant ahead of a UN deadline that could lead to sanctions.
(AP, 8/26/06)
2006 Aug 27, Iran test fired a new submarine-to-surface missile during war games in the Persian Gulf. A brief video clip showed the long-range missile, called Thaqeb, or Saturn, exiting the water and hitting a target on the water's surface within less than a mile.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Aug 29, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged the authority of the UN Security Council as Iran faces a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment and he called for a televised debate with President Bush on world issues.
(AP, 8/29/06)
2006 Aug 30, Iran released Ramin Jahanbegloo, a Canadian-Iranian writer, who was accused of working with the US to overthrow the government.
(Reuters, 8/30/06)
2006 Sep 1, Iran underlined its disregard for the UN deadline to halt uranium enrichment, now expired, when its president vowed never to give up its nuclear program and accused the West of misrepresenting Tehran's nuclear activities.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 1, In northeastern Iran a Russian-made Tupolev 154 airplane with 148 people on board skidded off the runway and caught fire, killing 29 people.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 2, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Iran would defend the aims of its nuclear program during any negotiations as the EU gave Tehran extra time to show it was serious about talks. Iran offered to help support the cease-fire in Lebanon in talks with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and insisted that diplomacy is the only way to resolve Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 6, Iran unveiled its first locally manufactured fighter plane during large-scale military exercises. The report said the bomber Saegheh is similar to the American F-18 fighter plane, but "more powerful."
(AP, 9/6/06)
2006 Sep 7, Mohammad Khatami, former president of Iran (1997-2005), spoke at Washington National Cathedral as part of a 2-week speaking tour in the US. He urged dialogue instead of threats. A group of Jewish Iranians, who say their missing relatives were kidnapped and tortured by the Iranian government, filed suit in Manhattan against Khatami. They delivered the summons to him directly the next day as he visited the US.
(SFC, 9/8/06, p.A13)(AP, 9/10/06)
2006 Sep 8, The Bush administration said it has blocked access to the US financial system by Iran’s Bank Saderat. The bank was alleged to have helped transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist organizations including Hezbollah and Hamas. (WSJ, 9/9/06, p.A4)
2006 Sep 9, Iran's top nuclear negotiator met with the European Union foreign policy chief for crucial talks seen as the last chance for Iran to avoid U.N. sanctions over its nuclear defiance.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 11, Iran closed down two opposition newspapers, one of which had recently poked fun at hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the way his government has handled nuclear talks with the West.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Sep 12, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki made his first official visit to Iran since taking office and planned to ask Tehran to prevent al-Qaida members believed to be in Iran from crossing into Iraq to carry out attacks. A parked car bomb detonated in Baghdad's upscale Mansour neighborhood, killing at least six people and wounding 18 others. Bombings, mortar attacks and shootings overnight and during the day left at least 24 people dead and dozens wounded around the country.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 13, The EU's foreign policy chief and Iran's top nuclear negotiator abruptly postponed talks on easing tensions over the refusal of the Tehran regime to suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 13, A letter from the office of IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, sent to the head of the US House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence, said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's nuclear activity.
(AP, 9/14/06)(SFC, 9/14/06, p.A15)
2006 Sep 14, An Iranian opposition figure said Iran has secretly revived a program to enrich uranium using laser technology, reportedly with favorable results, citing information from members of the resistance inside the country.
(AP, 9/14/06)
2006 Sep 17, Iran's president made his first visit to Venezuela, seeking to strengthen ties with a government that also opposes the US.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 19, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly and took aim at US policies in Iraq and Lebanon. He accused Washington of abusing its power in the UN Security Council to punish others while protecting its own interests and allies.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 26, Russia and Iran signed a deal in Moscow whereby Russia will ship fuel to a controversial atomic power plant it is building in Iran by March.
(AP, 9/26/06)
2006 Sep 28, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country rejected the suspension of uranium-enrichment activities by Tehran, "even for one day."
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Sep 28, An explosion on a natural gas pipeline outside Bazargan, an Iranian border city, shut down the flow of gas to Turkey. Officials believed the explosion was an act of sabotage by separatist Kurdish rebels.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Sep 29, A press report said Japan has decided to stop financial support for the development of Iran's largest onshore oil field if the Islamic republic continues uranium enrichment. The move means Japan's virtual withdrawal from its two billion-dollar contract to develop the Azadegan field. The contract was signed in 2004 by Inpex Corp., a Japanese oil exploration company that is supported by the government but also has private stakeholders.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Oct 3, A top Iranian nuclear official proposed that France create a consortium to enrich uranium in Iran, saying that could satisfy international demands for outside oversight of Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 8, In Iran Hossein Kazemeini Boroujerdi, a popular Shiite Muslim cleric who opposes mixing religion and politics, was detained after his supporters clashed with police outside his home in the capital Tehran.
(AP, 10/8/06)
2006 Oct 17, The EU said it felt obliged to back limited sanctions against Iran's nuclear program after Tehran refused to halt uranium enrichment as a condition to start negotiations.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 21, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia was ready to discuss ways to pressure Iran into accepting a broader international oversight of its nuclear program, but added that "any measures of influence should encourage creating conditions for talks." He said Russia will not allow the UN Security Council to be used to punish Iran over its nuclear program. Russia indicated it would strictly enforce sanctions on North Korea as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met top leaders in Moscow at the end of a tour to push for full implementation of the UN penalties in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test.
(AP, 10/21/06)(AFP, 10/21/06)
2006 Oct 25, A semiofficial news agency reported that Iran has expanded its controversial nuclear work by starting a second cascade of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Oct 25, Argentine prosecutors asked a federal judge to order the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed scores of people.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Oct 26, Russia rejected a draft UN resolution put forward by European powers targeting Iran's nuclear program, saying the proposed measures did not advance objectives agreed on earlier by major world powers.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Nov 1, Ignoring widespread condemnation, Iran awarded the top prize in a Holocaust cartoon contest to a Moroccan artist for his depiction of Israel's security wall with a picture of the Auschwitz concentration camp on it.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 2, Iran successfully test-fired three new models of sea missiles in a show of force to assert its military capacities in the Gulf.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 2, Russian and China indicated that they will not support a draft UN resolution imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 3, Russia proposed major amendments to a European draft resolution on Iran, saying it wants sanctions limited to measures that will keep Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles while keeping the door open for negotiations.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 10, Iran's state media paid scant attention to an Argentine's judge request for the arrest of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and other officials for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations reached their first international agreement to implement what has been dubbed the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and seven other nations agreed to meet at least every two years to identify vital rail routes, coordinate standards and financing and plan upgrades and expansions, among other measures. The UN first conceived the Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 19, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has demanded more ties with North Korea and urged for nuclear disarmament in Korean peninsula.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2006 Nov 19, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe left on a four-day state visit to Iran to beef up trade and political ties.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 20, Iran invited Iraq and Syria to talks in Tehran aimed at curbing violence in Iraq.
(SFC, 11/21/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 20, In Austria 35 nations tried to find common ground in a fractious session focusing on what to do about Iran's requests to the UN nuclear watchdog agency for help on projects including building a plutonium-producing reactor.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 23, The UN nuclear agency decided to deny Iran technical help in building a plutonium-producing reactor, but left room for Tehran to eventually renew its request. The IAEA said Iran has agreed to crack open the books on its uranium enrichment activities, a move that could give experts a better grasp of a program the Security Council fears could be misused to produce atomic bombs.
(AP, 11/23/06)(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 24, A Defense Ministry official said Russia has begun delivery of Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran, confirming that Moscow would proceed with arms deals with Tehran in spite of Western criticism.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 26, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would help the US calm Iraq if Washington changes what he described as its "bullying" policy toward Iran.
(AP, 11/26/06)
2006 Nov 27, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Tehran to meet with his Iranian counterpart amid increasing calls for Washington to enlist Iran's help in calming the escalating violence in neighboring Iraq. In Baghdad gunmen opened fire on a crowded street, killing six Iraqis and wounding three, some of whom were sitting in a parked car. Police in western Baghdad found the bodies of two Iraqis who had been kidnapped, blindfolded and shot. A bomb exploded under an oil pipeline and set it on fire south of Baghdad. A US Air Force jet carrying one pilot crashed in Iraq.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2006 Nov 27, In Iran a Russian-designed antonov-74 crashed in Tehran, killing 38 people. They included members of the elite Revolutionary Guards and high-ranking officers. This was Iran’s third military air plane crash in the last year.
(AP, 11/27/06)(SFC, 11/27/06, p.A3)
2006 Nov 29, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed a letter to the American people to be released at UN headquarters in New York. He urged the American people to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and reject what he called the Bush administration's "blind support" for Israel and its "illegal and immoral" actions in fighting terrorism.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2006 Nov, Venezuela inaugurated its Venirauto car factory, a joint venture with Iran. The first 300 units were released on July 9, 2007.
(Econ, 11/28/09, p.42)(www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2491)
2006 Dec 1, In Argentina a court declared former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others fugitives from justice in Argentina, where they are wanted in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 5, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to stick by the nuclear program and issued a new threat to downgrade relations with the EU if European negotiators opted for tough sanctions. A media rights group warned that Internet censorship in Iran is on the rise after Iran blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.com.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, said that Iran will face UN sanctions for refusing to halt its nuclear program but that major world powers remain divided over their extent.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 11, Iran promised $250 million to Palestine’s Hamas-led government.
(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 11, Iran opened a Holocaust conference that it said would examine whether the genocide took place.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 12, A two-day conference questioning the existence of the Nazi Holocaust ended in Tehran.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2006 Dec 15, Iranians voted in local council elections that were expected to be a first test of support for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since he took office more than a year ago.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 16, Iran's president said his country was ready to transfer nuclear technology to neighboring countries, Kuwaiti television reported, a week after Arab states on the Persian Gulf announced plans to consider a joint nuclear program. Early election returns showed hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conservative opponents leading in elections for local councils and a powerful clerical body.
(AP, 12/16/06)(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 18, Opponents of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took an early lead in key races in Iran's local elections, according to partial results announced, with moderate conservatives winning control of councils across Iran.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 21, In Iran final election results showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's opponents won local council elections.
(AP, 12/21/06)
2006 Dec 23, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. The Security Council resolution ordered all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs. It also froze the Iranian assets of 10 key companies and 12 individuals related to those programs. Iran denounced the sanctions. China’s endorsement was an important symbolic act.
(AP, 12/24/06)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.37)
2006 Dec 24, Iran vowed to push forward efforts to enrich uranium and to change its relations with the international nuclear watchdog.
(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 Dec, US military commanders showed US lawmakers mortar rounds and other munitions and fragments that had Iranian serial numbers and markings. The news was made public Feb 9, 2007.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2006 Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr authored “Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty" (Oxford Univ. Press).
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.85)
2006 Iran passed legislation empowering individuals to sell their own kidneys, and is believed to be the only country in the world where this is the case.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplant)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.15)
2006 In Iran yoga was named as a threat to Islam during a conference of intelligence and security officials in Qom.
(Econ, 5/17/14, p.48)
2006 Executions in Iran nearly doubled this year to 177, making it the world’s heaviest user of capital punishment per head of population.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.46)
2007 Jan 9, The Bush administration barred Bank Sepah, Iran’s oldest bank, from doing any future business in the US, accusing it of transferring Iranian missile payments to North Korea. Germany’s Commerzbank AG said it will stop handling dollar transactions for Iran at its new York branch by Jan 31.
(AP, 1/10/07)(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 10, In central Iran a truck smashed into a bus, killing at least 14 people.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, In Iraq US-led multinational forces detained six Iranians at Tehran's diplomatic mission in the northern city of Irbil. A suicide truck bomber hit the house of the head of the municipal council in Samarra, killing three people and wounding 33. Gunmen killed a professor driving home from the University of Mosul. Suspected Sunni insurgents set fire to a large oil pipeline in northern Iraq, interrupting the flow from the Kirkuk oil fields.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 14, The US military said 5 Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 16, Russia said it had delivered new anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran and would consider further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 22, Iran barred 38 nuclear inspectors on a UN list from entering the country in what appeared to be retaliation for the UN sanctions imposed last month.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Rosoboronexport chief Sergei Chemezov said Russia had fulfilled a contract to sell air defense missiles to Iran. This included 29 sophisticated missile systems under a $700 million contract signed in December 2005.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 26, An Iranian opposition group based in France claimed Iran has thousands of paid operatives working in neighboring Iraq.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 30, The Saudi foreign minister said Saudi Arabia and Iran are working together to try to calm the crises in Iraq and Lebanon.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Feb 1, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched anniversary celebrations for Iran's Islamic Revolution with a defiant promise to push ahead with the country's controversial nuclear program.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2007 Feb 2, Iran said it will allow UN surveillance cameras at its Natanz nuclear complex.
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 7, Aron Groiss, director of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, presented a study in London saying textbooks used in Iran's schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the United States, and urging them to become "martyrs" in a global holy war against countries perceived to be enemies of Islam.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 9, The UN atomic monitor suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran, a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 11, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, vowed his country would not give up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 12, EU foreign ministers approved plans for implementing UN sanctions against Iran, a move that is meant to punish Tehran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 14, A car loaded with explosives blew up near a bus carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran, killing 11 of them and wounding 31. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group reportedly claimed responsibility. Within a week Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi was convicted and executed for the bombing.
(AP, 2/14/07)(SFC, 2/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 15, An adviser to Iraq's prime minister said that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of arrest during an escalating security crackdown.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 16, Japan's Cabinet approved sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program under UN Security Council guidelines.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 17, Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in Iran to discuss Iraq and other Middle East issues with President Mahmoud Ahmadinajed.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 21, India said it has banned the export to Iran of all material, equipment and technology which could contribute to Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 25, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would proceed with its nuclear program, comparing its nuclear drive to a train that has no reverse gear or brakes. Iran said it had successfully launched its first rocket into space for research purposes. The rocket reached an altitude of 150 kilometers (93 miles) but did not stay in orbit.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 28, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit to Khartoum, for talks with his Sudanese opposite number Omar al-Beshir.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Syria said it would participate in a Baghdad-organized conference of Iraq's neighbors that the US plans to attend. Iran said it was considering whether to take part.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 3, Saudi Arabia's king personally welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad upon his arrival, a rapprochement many hope will help calm sectarian tensions threatening the Middle East. The leaders pledged to fight the spread of sectarian strife in the Middle East, which they said was the biggest danger facing the region.
(AP, 3/3/07)(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 6, Iran said its former deputy defense minister was missing while on a private trip to neighboring Turkey, and its top police chief accused Western intelligence services of possibly kidnapping the official.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 7, Russian nuclear energy officials hosted an Iranian delegation for talks on the construction of a Russian-built plant that has fallen behind schedule because of what Moscow said were delays in payments by Tehran.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Austria delegates to a 35-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved the suspension of nearly two dozen nuclear technical aid programs to Iran as part of UN sanctions imposed because its nuclear defiance.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Syria’s Pres. Bashar Assad inaugurated the first stage of a joint Syrian-Iranian auto factory, test-driving one of the new cars and declaring that the project will boost cooperation between the allies.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, In Iran Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent, disappeared from the island of Kish, a free trade zone. Levinson retired from the FBI in 1998 and became a private investigator. He was investigating cigarette smuggling in early 2007, and his family has said that effort took him to Iran. In 2010 the AP confirmed Levinson’s ties to the CIA. In late 2010 his family received proof that the father of seven was alive. In 2015 the US offered a $5 million reward to find Levinson. Levinson's family received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others. In 2019 Iran acknowledged for the first time it has an open case before its Revolutionary Court over the disappearance Levinson.
(AP, 3/4/11)(AFP, 3/4/11)(SFC, 12/14/13, p.A5)(Reuters, 3/9/15)(AP, 11/9/19)
2007 Mar 11, Iranian TV quoted government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham as saying Ahmadinejad "intends to attend a UN Security Council meeting to be held on Iran's nuclear case in order to defend the rights of the Iranian nation in exploiting peaceful nuclear energy."
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 12, Iran issued a bank note with a nuclear symbol in a move seen as an assertion of its national will in the face of international sanctions over its insistence on enriching uranium.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 12, Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said in a newly released interview that it's "indisputable" Iran is training and arming militants to fight against US-led troops in Iraq. Police found only nine bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad, apparent victims of Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 14, The Russian state-run company building a nuclear plant in Iran warned that Iranian payment delays may cause "irreversible" damage to the project, another strong signal of Moscow's annoyance with Tehran.
(AP, 3/14/07)
2007 Mar 15, Interpol said it plans to issue international requests for the arrest of five prominent Iranians and a Lebanese militant in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 15, The six world powers reached an agreement on a draft resolution for a new package of sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program. It included an embargo on arms exports and an asset freeze on more individuals and companies associated with Tehran's nuclear and missile programs.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 16, Six major powers sent a strong signal to Iran that they remain united in seeking to rein in its nuclear ambitions, compromising on a sanctions package to step up pressure on the Islamic republic to suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 18, Iran's justice ministry said Shahram Jazayeri, a fugitive Iranian businessman, was arrested outside the country after escaping from authorities last month. Jazayeri had been sentenced in 2002 to 27 years in prison for embezzlement in a high-profile conviction.
(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 20, Russia confirmed that it has begun pulling out experts from the Iranian nuclear power plant they were helping build and that it is withholding nuclear fuel for Iran’s reactors.
(SFC, 3/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 23, Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors and marines who had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf as part of efforts to protect the Iraqi coastline and its oil terminals; they were held for 13 days.
(AP, 3/23/07)(AP, 3/23/08)
2007 Mar 24, The UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose additional sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium, a move intended to show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Iran announced it was partially suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog agency, citing what it called “illegal and bullying" Security Council sanctions imposed on the country for its refusal to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2007 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair said that the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran as they searched for smugglers off the Iraqi coast were not in Iranian waters and warned that Britain viewed their fate as a "fundamental" issue.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 28, Iran aired a video of 15 captured British sailors and marines; the lone female captive, shown in a white tunic and a black head scarf, said the British boats had "trespassed." The crew members were released April 4, 2007.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2007 Mar 29, Britain took its escalating crisis with Iran over 15 captured sailors to the UN Security Council, as Tehran said it would not release the only woman among the detainees.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2007 Mar 30, One of the 15 British service members held captive in Iran appeared on the government's Arabic-language TV and said he apologized "deeply" for entering Iranian waters without permission.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 31, President Bush called for the release of 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, calling their capture by Tehran "inexcusable behavior." The crew members were released on April 4.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2007 Apr 1, In Iran about 200 students threw rocks and firecrackers at the British Embassy, calling for the expulsion of the country's ambassador because of the standoff over Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines. Britain examined options for new dialogue with Tehran over the seized crew of 15 sailors and marines, as a poll suggested most Britons back the government's goal of resolving the standoff through diplomacy. Iran's state television aired new video showing two of the 15 captured British sailors pointing to a spot on a map of the Persian Gulf where they were seized and saying it was in Iranian territorial waters; Britain's Foreign Office immediately denounced the video.
(AP, 4/1/07)(AP, 4/1/08)
2007 Apr 2, The US asked Tehran for information on the disappearance of a former FBI agent who went missing on a private business trip to Iran.
(WSJ, 4/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 3, Iran reported that an Iranian diplomat in Iraq seized two months ago by uniformed gunmen has been released.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, In Baghdad a senior foreign ministry official said his government was "intensively" seeking the release of five Iranians detained there by the US. Two US soldiers were killed by small-arms fire, one in eastern Baghdad and another on foot patrol in the southern outskirts of the capital. Iraqi and US troops found a huge stash of weapons in a raid on the home of Sunni legislator Khalaf al-Ilyan. They detained at least a dozen men for questioning. Khalaf al-Ilyan, in Jordan for surgery, later denied the charges and accused the Iraqi government and Iran of trying to discredit him because of his criticism of state policies.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AP, 4/6/07)(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 4, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad freed the 15 detained British sailors and marines as an Easter holiday "gift" to the British people. Syria said it played a key role in resolving the standoff over the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran. Turkey brokered the release of the British sailors.
(AP, 4/4/07)(Econ, 8/21/10, p.42)
2007 Apr 6, A Royal Navy lieutenant who was among the captives held by Iran said British sailors and marines held for nearly two weeks were blindfolded, bound and threatened with prison if they did not say they strayed into Iranian waters.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 8, In western Iran at least 26 people were killed and 18 others injured after a truck smashed into a bus.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 9, Iran announced that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, dramatically expanding a program that the UN has demanded it halt. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard general visited Russia despite a UN travel ban over Tehran nuclear defiance. Russia denied any violation.
(AP, 4/9/07)(WSJ, 4/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 15, Iran said it is seeking bids for the building of two more nuclear power plants, despite international pressures to curb its controversial program.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 16, In Iran 2 Swedish construction workers, who had been convicted of espionage and imprisoned for taking photographs of military installations, were released after being pardoned.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, Israel's Shin Bet security agency said that it has broken up an Iranian plot to recruit Israelis of Iranian origin as spies, part of what it says is a burgeoning Iranian intelligence operation against the Jewish state. Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian militant near Jenin. Four Israelis were shot and wounded as they were driving near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Naaleh.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, US Marine Gen. Peter Pace said US-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan recently intercepted Iranian-made weapons that were being shipped to Taliban fighters. A roadside bomb hit a United Nations vehicle in southern Afghanistan's main city, killing four Nepalese guards and an Afghan driver. An old artillery shell exploded outside a school compound in the western city of Herat, killing four children and wounding five others.
(AP, 4/17/07)(SFC, 4/18/07, p.A9)
2007 Apr 19, Iranian engineers began filling a new dam as archaeologists warned that its reservoir will flood newly discovered antiquities and could damage Iran's grandest site, the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 21, Iran signed a major gas development and production agreement with Austrian energy group OMV.
(Reuters, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr, In India Mahindra Renault, a joint venture formed in 2005, launched a new version of the Logan priced at $7,100 before taxes. The original Logan was designed in Romania. It went on sale in Iran in March under the name Tondar (thunder), with record orders and deliveries due in May. Iran’s model was built by Iran Khodro (IKCO) and Saipa.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.78)
2007 May 1, Iran stood firm in opposing language in a nuclear conference agenda that reaffirms the need for full compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a stance that diplomats said could scuttle the meeting aimed at strengthening the accord.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 2, The Iranian state news agency reported that the country's former nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, has been arrested on an unspecified security charge.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 3, In France Claude Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told a news conference that there is no reason why Iran should not have nuclear energy.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 4, Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami met with Pope Benedict XVI for talks the Vatican hoped would help heal tensions left from the pontiff's remarks on Islam and violence, but the Iranian said the wounds were still very deep.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 8, Iran accepted a compromise on the agenda of a 130-nation nuclear conference, meeting in Austria, clearing the way for the meeting to approve it and end six days of deadlock that threatened to doom the gathering to failure.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 11, Iran detained Kian Tajbakhsh (45), an Iranian-American working for the George Soros Open Society Institute.
(SFC, 5/24/07, p.A12)
2007 May 12, Yemen said it was recalling its ambassadors to Iran and Libya over what it sees as their support for Shi'ite Muslim rebels involved in bloody clashes with government forces. The government of Sunni-dominated Yemen accused the rebels of seeking to oust its secular administration and install Islamist rule.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 13, Iran confirmed that it has detained Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American academic. A hardline newspaper accused her of spying for the United States and Israel and trying to start a revolution inside Iran.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, The US said it is willing to talk to Iran if discussions deal only with Iraq, where the Bush administration says Tehran is undermining the Baghdad government and exporting deadly roadside bombs. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said that Tehran has agreed to a formal request from the US to talk about security in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak toward the end of a regional tour, focusing on ways to stem chaos in Iraq and on Iran's impact on security in the Gulf.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 15, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Gulf Arab neighbors to send experts to inspect his country's nuclear power plant, in an apparent effort to ease fears over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 21, The presidents of Belarus and Iran sought to cement ties that the Belarusian leader called "a strategic partnership." Belarus will develop an oil field in Iran under an agreement announced by President Alexander Lukashenko during a visit by Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Iran charged Haleh Esfandiari, a jailed Iranian-American academic, with setting up a network to overthrow the Islamic establishment, the government announced. Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 22, Iran jumped gasoline prices 25% in a new blow to consumers already disgruntled over high inflation, and the government said it will begin rationing fuel in two weeks.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 24, The head of the UN nuclear agency said he agreed with CIA estimates that Iran was three to eight years from being able to make nuclear weapons and he urged the US and other powers to pursue talks with the Islamic country.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 26, An Iranian official said that Iran, embroiled in a row with Washington over its nuclear program, has increased the amount of its oil export earnings in currencies other than US dollars to about 70%.
(Reuters, 5/26/07)
2007 May 28, The US ambassador in Baghdad said he and his Iranian counterpart agreed broadly on policy toward Iraq during four-hour groundbreaking talks, but insisted that Iran end its support for militants. The Iranian ambassador later said the two sides would meet again in less than a month. A suicide car bomber struck a busy commercial district in central Baghdad, killing at least 21 people and damaging a Sunni shrine. In central Baghdad a battle raged after insurgents hijacked two buses and kidnapped at least 15 passengers. At least 3 policemen were killed. A roadside bomb killed 2 people and injured 9 when it detonated under a parked car in the central Baghdad district of Bab al-Muadham. Another 2 people were killed and 6 were wounded after two mortar rounds slammed into a street in Karrada, a Shiite-dominated neighborhood in downtown Baghdad.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, In northwest Iran 7 Revolutionary Guard members and five militants were killed in clashes with armed insurgents.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Iran's judiciary spokesman said US academic Haleh Esfandiari and two other Iranian-Americans have been "formally charged" with endangering national security and espionage.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 30, Iranian troops killed 10 militants in ongoing clashes in the country's northwest, near the border with Turkey.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 31, Iran pledged to end years of stonewalling and provide answers on past suspicious activities to the UN nuclear monitoring agency probing its atomic program, in a move being seen as an attempt to avoid new UN sanctions. Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Iran's hard-line interior minister, encouraged temporary marriages as a way to avoid extramarital sex, a stance many in this conservative country fear would instead encourage prostitution. A temporary marriage, or "sigheh," refers to a Shiite Muslim tradition under which a man and a woman sign a contract that allows them to be "married" for any length of time, even a few hours.
(AP, 6/1/07)(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 2, Iran detained 3 Finns for allegedly straying into its territorial waters during a fishing trip in the Persian Gulf. In June 6 Iran agreed to release them.
(AP, 6/6/07)
2007 Jun 4, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iranian weapons have begun flowing into Afghanistan, but he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed involvement by Tehran cannot yet be proved. Six Taliban rebels were killed in a gunfight with Afghan and NATO-led troops in the eastern province of Paktia.
(AP, 6/4/07)(AFP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 6, Cyclone Gonu battered Oman's coast on its path toward the world's most important crude oil tanker route. It waned after killing 49 in Oman and 9 people in Iran, where severe flooding encircled over 100 villages.
(AP, 6/7/07)(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.A1)(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Jun 8, The US froze bank accounts of four Iran banks tied to Tehran’s nuclear efforts. Iran confirmed for the first time that it is holding Ali Shakeri of Lake Forest, Calif., an Iranian-American peace activist, the fourth dual citizen it has detained in recent months.
(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.A1)(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 11, Iran announced it will help build five new refineries across Asia with a total capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day in a bid to strengthen ties in the region. The refineries will be built in China, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Syria.
(AFP, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 13, Iran's parliament voted in favor of a bill that could lead to the death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of pornographic movies.
(AP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 13, A senior U.S. diplomat said NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, providing evidence Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy. The Taliban claimed to have captured a NATO trooper.
(AP, 6/13/07)(AFP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 15, Iran was reported to have denied allegations of abuse saying it has forced Afghan laborers back home because the 1.5 million undocumented migrants are an enormous burden on its economy.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 17, Iran said it had received indications from Russia's president that he would not follow through with an offer to allow the US to use a radar station in neighboring Azerbaijan for missile defense against Tehran.
(AP, 6/17/07)
2007 Jun 22, Iran interior minister was quoted saying Iran has produced more than 220 pounds of enriched uranium.
(AP, 6/22/07)
2007 Jun 26, Iran's state broadcasting company said it is launching an English-speaking satellite television channel to counter the West's influence in covering news.
(AP, 6/26/07)
2007 Jun 27, In Iran 2 gas stations were torched early in Tehran as angry Iranians protested fuel rationing measures suddenly enforced by the government, while many other Iranians lined up to fill their tanks.
(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jun 30, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez arrived in Iran for a two-day visit.
(AP, 7/1/07)
2007 Jul 2, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated an English-language satellite television channel to counter what he claims is the West's influence in covering news.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Iran's leading reformist daily newspaper was ordered closed, less than two months after it was allowed to resume publishing.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Venezuela’s energy minister said in newly published comments that Venezuela has agreed to sell gasoline to Iran.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 5, In northern Iran Jafar Kiani, a man convicted of adultery, was stoned to death in Aghchekand, the first time in years that the country has confirmed such an execution.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 8, Iran’s state TV said 4 fuel-smuggling trucks crashed into each other and caught fire in southeastern Iran, killing 13 people.
(AP, 7/9/07)
2007 Jul 8, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who leads the group Islamic State in Iraq, said in an audiotape that his Sunni fighters have been preparing for four years to wage a battle against Shiite-dominated Iran. He threatened to wage war against Iran unless it stops supporting Shiites in Iraq within two months. A suicide truck bomber killed 23 new Iraqi army recruits when he rammed into their vehicle south of Baghdad. A flurry of bombings in Baghdad killed 26 people.
(AP, 7/8/07)(Reuters, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 12, Iranian artillery shelled near Iraqi Kurd villages as Iranian troops clashed with Kurdish guerrillas making an incursion across the border.
(AP, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 13, The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has agreed to answer lingering questions about its nuclear experiments and will let UN inspectors return to a plutonium-producing reactor it is building.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 13, In northern Iran at least 18 people were killed and 24 others injured in a road accident when a truck slammed into a bus full passengers.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 14, PM Nouri al-Maliki said that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want," though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training. A car bomb in Baghdad leveled a two-story apartment building, and a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-packed vehicle into a line of cars at a gas station. The two attacks killed at least eight people. A group of 24 Iranians escaped from detention in an Iraqi police station in the southern town of Badra. Four were quickly recaptured, but the remainder may have fled across the nearby border.
(AP, 7/14/07)(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 16, A court in Iran sentenced Adnan Hassanpour (27), a journalist for the closed Kurdish-Persian weekly, to death on charges of endangering national security and propaganda against the state. Abdolvahed “Hiva" Botimar (29) was also sentenced to death by a revolutionary tribunal in Marivan.
(http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15054)
2007 Jul 19, An armed group killed 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard in clashes in the country's lawless southeast. A report said the Guards clashed with drug traffickers in a mountainous area near Iran's borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan and killed four of them.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 24, The US and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq also began talks in Baghdad in a bid to find ways to use their influence to bring stability to Iraq. A suicide bomber struck a busy commercial center in the Shiite city of Hillah, killing at least 24 people and wounding dozens as the streets were packed with shoppers and commuters.
(AP, 7/24/07)
2007 Jul 25, Iranian authorities announced new arrests in the cases of two Iranian-Americans held on charges of conspiring against the government, saying that an unspecified number of Iranians had been detained.
(AP, 7/25/07)
2007 Jul 30, UN inspectors visited a nuclear reactor being built in central Iran, a facility that has been off-limits since April. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman criticized a US plan to sell state-of-the-art weapons to Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, Ayatollah Ali Meshkini (85), a founding member of Iran's Islamic regime and leader of an important government assembly, died.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul, US Teamster Pres. James Hoffa sent a letter to Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad demanding the release of Mansour Ossanlou, a Bus Transport Workers Union leader, and condemned the Iranian government’s flagrant disdain for freedom of association and expression.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.E3)
2007 Aug 1, Iran publicly hanged seven men in the second round of collective executions in 10 days. The Web site of the state's broadcasting company said they were hanged on charges of rape, kidnapping and robbery in Mashad. Iran arrested more than 200 music fans at an underground rock concert that one official called a "satanic" gathering and authorities accused the youths of breaking Islamic law.
(AP, 8/1/07)(AP, 8/5/07)
2007 Aug 5, Iran showed off for the first time a new fighter jet said to be modeled on the American F-5 but built using domestic technology. The "Azarakhsh" (Lightning) jet, one of the first to be home-produced by Iran, made a successful flight in the central city of Isfahan.
(AFP, 8/5/07)
2007 Aug 6, Iran's leading reformist newspaper was shut down for the second time in a year after publishing an interview with a poet who called for greater gender equality.
(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 6, Iranian and US diplomats held "frank and serious" expert-level talks in Baghdad on security issues in Iraq.
(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 7, A European diplomat said that Russian officials told the Iranians about two weeks ago that Russian fuel roads to the Bushehr reactor would be held back as long as unresolved questions about Tehran's past nuclear activities remained.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 8, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Iran for talks expected to focus on bilateral relations and overcoming "terrorism challenges." Iraqis told they will not get automatic asylum in Britain despite braving death threats to work alongside British troops will now have their cases reviewed. US-led forces swooped into the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, killing 32 suspected militants and detaining 12 others in fighting and an airstrike targeting alleged smuggling networks from Iran. Police and witnesses said 9 civilians were killed in the attack.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 9, Iranian officials told Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki that they were doing everything they could to help stabilize his nation, but only a US pullout would bring true peace.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 11, Iran’s state-run news network said Iran and Iraq have signed an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil and oil products.
(AFP, 8/11/07)
2007 Aug 12, Up to five militants were killed and 13 others detained during a raid on Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City. The US military claimed those they rounded up in that raid were linked to Tehran’s elite Quds Force.
(AP, 8/13/07)
2007 Aug 13, US troops in Iraq launched a major assault against Al-Qaeda-linked militants and alleged Iranian-aided extremist groups as a Sunni leader accused Iran of plotting genocide against his people. The US military also said it had arrested a top "financier" of Iraqi extremist groups believed to be supported by Tehran’s Quds Force in a Baghdad raid.
(AFP, 8/13/07)
2007 Aug 15, State radio reported that Iran has detained two Chinese nationals on charges of spying on its military and nuclear facilities. A drug crackdown was launched throughout Iran and police seized more than 54 kilos (118 pounds) of heroin and crack from the gang in airports in Tehran and several other cities. In the operation 90 members of a drug network, including 85 Africans from Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana as well as two Pakistanis, were arrested.
(AP, 8/15/07)(AFP, 8/18/07)
2007 Aug 21, Haleh Esfandiari, a detained Iranian-American academic accused of conspiring against the government, was freed on bail from the Tehran prison where she had been jailed since early May. Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was freed on $333,000 bail.
(AP, 8/21/07)
2007 Aug 23, State-run TV reported that Iran has developed a new 2,000-pound "smart" bomb, the latest in a recent series of announcements heralding new weapons systems.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2007 Aug 26, Iran vowed to use a new 2,000-pound "smart" bomb against its enemies and unveiled mass production of the new weapon.
(AP, 8/26/07)
2007 Aug 29, A group of eight Iranians, including two diplomats, were released by US forces after being detained a day earlier because unauthorized weapons were found in their cars. An aide said Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force. An American soldier died from wounds suffered the day before in fighting near the northern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 8/29/07)
2007 Aug 30, The UN nuclear agency said that Iran was producing less nuclear fuel than expected and praised Tehran for "a significant step forward" in explaining past atomic actions that have raised suspicions.
(AP, 8/30/07)
2007 Aug, Iran and Turkey concluded a number of energy deals including the establishment of a joint company to carry Iranian natural gas via Turkey to Europe and the construction of three thermal power plants by Turkish companies in Iran.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.49)
2007 Sep 2, Iran's president claimed that his country is now running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its controversial nuclear program. Haleh Esfandiari (67), an Iranian-American academic imprisoned for months and accused of trying to create a "soft revolution" in Iran was permitted to leave the country and rejoin her family.
(AP, 9/2/07)(AP, 9/3/07)
2007 Sep 4, Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani was picked to head a key clerical body empowered with choosing or dismissing the country's supreme leader, state media reported, in a vote seen as a setback for hard-liners in Iran's ruling establishment.
(AP, 9/4/07)
2007 Sep 7, A US federal judge said Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 US service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, in a ruling that left survivors and families shedding tears of joy. A day later Iran rejected the ruling.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 11, Iran opened the doors of its most feared prison to journalists, allowing them to interview Kian Tajbakhsh, a jailed Iranian-American academic in a move seen as an effort to blunt criticism of the country's human rights record.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 16, Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister, warned that the world should prepare for war if Iran obtains nuclear weapons and said European leaders were considering their own economic sanctions against the Islamic country.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 18, Parnaz Azima, an Iranian-American reporter who was trapped in Iran for months on suspicion of trying to stir up a revolution, was allowed to leave the country and return to the United States. Azima was one of the one of Radio Azadi’s, a US-funded service later renamed Radio Farda, original broadcasters in Prague. In March, 2008, an Iranian revolutionary court sentenced her to a one-year prison term in absentia for her “antirevolutionary" work.
(AP, 9/18/07)(WSJ, 6/13/08, p.A10)
2007 Sep 19, In Iran Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute, was released after he spent four months in a notorious prison on suspicion of trying to stir up a revolution.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Iranian air force pilots made successful test flights in two of Iran's new domestically manufactured fighter jet. The Saegheh jet is a new generation of the Azarakhsh class of fighter planes. Both Azarakhsh and Saegheh mean lightening in Farsi.
(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 20, An Iranian officer accused of smuggling powerful roadside bombs into Iraq was arrested. The suspect, a member of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was detained in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. A car bombing at an Iraqi checkpoint in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood killed two Iraqi soldiers and a civilian, and wounded seven others. A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi police patrol near a stadium in eastern Baghdad, killing one officer and wounding 5 people. The chief judge of the mostly Shiite Karrada district court and his driver were shot by masked gunmen in eastern Baghdad. Both died of their wounds later in a hospital. The US military said 7 Shiite extremists were detained following a pre-dawn raid by Iraqi special forces and US troops in Sadr City. Residents claimed a civilian and a 5-year-old boy were killed in the raid. An American soldier was killed in an explosion in Diyala province.
(AP, 9/20/07)(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 21, US Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice said the US and France have agreed on increasing diplomatic and economic pressure to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Sep 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left Tehran for New York to address the United Nations; state media quoted him as saying the American people were eager for different opinions about the world, and that he was looking forward to providing them with "correct and clear information."
(AP, 9/23/08)
2007 Sep 24, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in NYC for a speech at Columbia University followed by a scheduled address to the UN General Assembly. Ahmadinejad defended Holocaust revisionists and raised questions about who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in a tense showdown at Columbia University.
(AP, 9/24/07)(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 24, Iran closed major border crossings with northeastern Iraq to protest the US detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling. The International Atomic Energy Agency technical officials began talks with Iran to resolve remaining issues surrounding the country's controversial nuclear program. Iran released from jail peace activist Ali Shakeri, the last of four Iranian-Americans imprisoned in recent months after being accused of stirring up a revolution.
(AP, 9/24/07)(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 25, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing the United Nations, announced "the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed," and indicated Tehran would disregard Security Council resolutions imposed by what he called "arrogant powers."
(AP, 9/25/08)
2007 Sep 27, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled stopped in Bolivia, where he pledged $1 billion in investment. He pledged investment over the next five years to help the poor Andean nation tap its vast natural gas reserves, extract minerals, generate more electricity and fund agricultural and construction projects. He then visited Venezuela to meet President Hugo Chavez. Chavez embraced the Iranian leader, calling him "one of the greatest anti-imperialist fighters" and "one of the great fighters for true peace."
(AP, 9/28/07)
2007 Sep 29, Iran's parliament voted to designate the CIA and the US Army as "terrorist organizations," a largely symbolic response to a US Senate resolution seeking a similar designation for Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
(AP, 9/30/07)
2007 Oct 4, Iranian state television reported that Iran and Syria have signed an agreement for Tehran to export a billion dollars worth of gas every year to its chief regional ally.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 8, Iran reopened five border crossing points with Kurdish-run northern Iraq, closed last month by Tehran to protest the US detention of an Iranian official. An estimated 100 students staged a rare demonstration against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" and scuffling with hardline students at Tehran University.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Satoshi Nakamura (23), a Japanese tourist, was abducted in a restive region of southeast Iran bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan as he headed from his hotel for the ancient mud-built citadel of Bam. Nakamura was released on July 14. A bandit called Esmail Shahbakhsh, blamed for the kidnapping, had reportedly demanded the release of his arrested son in exchange for Nakamura.
(AFP, 6/15/08)
2007 Oct 16, In Iran Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian counterpart and implicitly warned the US not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations should not pursue oil pipeline projects that are not backed by regional powers.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 17, Iran hanged eight men and one woman on murder charges in the notorious Evin Prison in northern Tehran.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 21, The US military said its forces killed an estimated 49 militants during a dawn raid to capture an Iranian-linked militia chief in Baghdad's Sadr City enclave. Iraqi police and hospital officials reported only 15 deaths including three children. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said all the dead were civilians.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 25, The Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the harshest since the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979, charging anew that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Nov 6, Kurdish rebels released another Iranian soldier captured two months ago in northern Iraq.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 7, Interpol put Ali Fallahian, Iran’s former intelligence chief, Mohsen Rezai, a former leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Ahmad Vahidi, a Revolutionary Guards general, and 2 other Iranians and Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese militant on its most-wanted list for a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish center in Argentina.
(AP, 11/8/07)(WSJ, 1/15/08, p.A6)
2007 Nov 9, The US military released nine Iranians from custody in Iraq, including two accused of being members of an elite force suspected of arming Shiite extremists. It said they were no longer considered security risks.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 10, Iranian state television reported that Iran and Pakistan have reached a deal to build a multi-billion-dollar pipeline to transport natural gas between the two countries.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 13, Diplomats said Iran has met a key demand of the UN nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, The official IRNA news agency reported that Hossein Mousavian, Iran's former senior nuclear negotiator, has been charged with passing classified information to foreigners, including the British Embassy.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 17, In Iran officials at Niloofar Publications, which published the first edition of a novel by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, known in the West as "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," confirmed they have been forbidden to put out a second edition. The Persian translation was titled "Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts."
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 19, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his fourth trip to Iran in two years, as the two countries sought to strengthen ties while their leaders exhort the international community to resist US policies.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 27, The news agency IRNA reported that Iran has manufactured a new missile with a range of 1,200 miles capable of reaching Israel and US bases in the Mideast. A judiciary spokesman said an Iranian court has acquitted Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator of spying charges, but convicted him of acting against the Islamic government.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 28, Iran claimed to have built a small submarine equipped with sonar-evading technology, saying the craft had been launched in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 30, An 18-month attempt to persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment collapsed after a senior EU envoy failed to dent Iran's resolve to expand the technology, despite the threat of new UN sanctions.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov, Iraqi civilian deaths due to the war numbered about 560 this month.
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.29)(www.icasualties.org)
2007 Dec 3, Iran ordered Canada's ambassador to leave the country after Canada rejected candidates Tehran had proposed to represent the Islamic Republic in Ottawa.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, In Qatar Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reached out to Gulf Arab states, proposing security and economic pacts free of "foreign influence" in the first appearance by an Iranian leader before a summit of a key group of Persian Gulf nations. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was formed shortly after the outbreak of the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, partly to counter the spread of Iran's Islamic revolution.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, A consensus judgement of the US intelligence community was released saying Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and though it continues an enriched uranium program, it apparently has not resumed moving toward a nuclear capability. On Dec 11 the national Council for Resistance in Iran said Iran’s weaponization program was relocated and restarted in 2004.
(SFC, 12/4/07, p.A14)(WSJ, 12/11/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 4, Iran's foreign minister welcomed the US decision to "correct" its claim that Tehran has an active nuclear weapons program, while Israel's defense minister said Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to develop an atomic weapon.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iran Makwan Moloudzadeh, a man convicted of raping three boys when he was 13 years old, was hanged despite a chief justice's order that the case be reviewed.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 9, Iran signed a contract with China's Sinopec for the development of Iran's huge Yadavaran oil field, the kind of energy deal the United States has been trying to prevent. Hundreds of Iranian students angry over a crackdown on activists protested at Tehran University, the second such demonstration in less than a week.
(Reuters, 12/9/07)(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 13, Russia and Iran reached agreement on a schedule for finishing construction of a nuclear power plant that plays a central role in the international tensions over Iran's atomic program, Russian news agencies reported.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 17, Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said the first nuclear fuel shipment for the Bushehr atomic power plant has arrived in Iran from Russia. Aghazadeh said the Bushehr plant was 95 percent complete and would begin operations next year.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 20, Iran’s state television reported that security forces killed four leaders of a Sunni Muslim rebel group that Tehran has previously linked to al-Qaeda and blamed for several attacks in the Islamic state.
(Reuters, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 26, Iran and Malaysia signed a $16 billion agreement to develop two Iranian gas fields, in a deal described as the largest energy contract in Iran.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, Iran's defense minister said that Iran had agreed to buy an S-300 surface-to-air missile system from Russia.
(Reuters, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 28, Iran received the second shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia for a power plant being constructed in the southern Iranian town of Bushehr.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 30, Turkmenistan turned off gas supplies to Iran, citing technical problems, after Iran balked at a price increase to $140 per thousand cubic meters, almost double the contracted rate. The move had a domino effect causing Iran to halt gas shipments to Turkey, which in turn cut off gas to Greece.
(WSJ, 2/4/08, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/3xmzam)
2007 Reese Erlich authored “The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis."
(SSFC, 10/20/07, p.M3)
2007 Zarah Ghahramani (b.1981) with Robert Hillman authored “My Life as a Traitor," an account of her arrest and 30-day imprisonment in Iraq following a protest over the firing of a beloved teacher. Ghahramani managed to escape Iran after her arrest and settled in Australia.
(SFC, 1/3/08, p.E1)
2007 Michael A. Ledeen authored “The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction," a forceful argument for regime change in Iran.
(WSJ, 9/7/07, p.W5)
2007 Masoud Dehnamaki, a former Iranian militia leader, directed his first feature film. The irreverent comedy, “Ekhrajiha" (The Outcasts), portrayed a gang of Tehran thieves and junkies as war heroes. His previous work included documentaries about prostitution and football violence.
(Econ, 4/21/07, p.54)
2007 Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad closed down the country’s Management and Planning Organization, the country’s closest thing to an independent budget auditor. In 2013 Pres. Hassan Rohani re-opened the office.
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.52)
2007 In western Iran Kurdish Law student Habibollah Latifi was arrested accused of carrying activities on behalf of "anti- revolutionary" groups. He was sentenced to death in 2008.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2007-2008 South Africa’s MTN mobile phone company invested over $1.5 billion in Iran to provide coverage for over 40% of Iranians.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.49)
2008 Jan 6, Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three US Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast. The US Navy Times newspaper later reported that a threatening radio message at the end of a video showing Iranian patrol boats swarming near US warships in the Persian Gulf may have come from a prankster rather than from the Iranian vessels.
(AP, 1/7/08)(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 7, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented Iran's budget to parliament, promising it would curb a sharp rise in inflation and redistribute Iran's abundant oil revenues among the country's 70 million people.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 9, The US imposed sanctions on Mishan Jaburi, owner of Al Zawra television in Syria, and Brig. Gen. Ahmed Foruzandeh, leader of the Iranian Quds Force, for broadcasting attacks on American troops and calls to violence. Jaburi, a former parliamentarian in Iraq, had fled to Syria in 2006 amid charges that he had embezzled millions from Iraq’s treasury. The BBC said the station was last seen July 27.
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.A13)
2008 Jan 10, Afghanistan urged Iran to stop deporting its citizens during the winter months, saying doing so could cause a humanitarian disaster.
(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 14, PM Ehud Olmert told a powerful parliamentary panel that Israel rejects "no options" to block Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 20, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that a fourth Russian shipment of nuclear fuel had arrived, destined for a power plant being constructed in the southern port of Bushehr.
(AP, 1/20/08)
2008 Jan 21, Iran's supreme leader reversed a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and ordered him to implement a law supplying natural gas to remote villages amid rising dissatisfaction with the president's performance. Local media have reported 64 cold-related deaths this winter and say gas cuts are to blame.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 22, The UN Security Council's permanent members and Germany agreed on a new draft resolution on sanctions against Iran, strengthening existing measures over the country's refusal to suspend its nuclear program.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Iran a top interior ministry official said more than 2,000 reformers seeking democratic changes within Iran's hard-line ruling establishment have been disqualified from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Russia said a new draft UN resolution on Iran's disputed nuclear program does not call for any harsh sanctions, and the Iranian president said new measures would not deter the country in its pursuit of nuclear technology.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 24, Iran received a sixth shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia, destined for a power plant being constructed in the southern port of Bushehr.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 28, Iran received the final shipment of uranium fuel from Russia for its first nuclear plant, state media reported, a key step toward the launch of the reactor's operations expected later this year.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 29, Iran’s state media reported that more than 50 followers of the minority Baha'i faith were convicted of distributing propaganda against the country's Islamic regime. The faith was banned after the 1979 Islamic revolution, and it is not recognized in the Iranian constitution as a religious minority.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Feb 4, Iran said it launched a research rocket and unveiled its first major space center, which will be used to launch research satellites.
(AP, 2/4/08)
2008 Feb 7, Experts said Iran's nuclear project has developed its own version of an advanced centrifuge to churn out enriched uranium much faster than its previous machines.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 17, Iran inaugurated its first stock exchange for oil products and petrochemicals, in a bid to become a major player in the global downstream industry.
(AFP, 2/17/08)
2008 Feb 24, Iran said that it has started using new centrifuges that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate of the machines that now form the backbone of the Islamic nation's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/24/08)
2008 Mar 2, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his landmark visit to Iraq opened a new chapter in "brotherly" relations between the two countries, which were once bitter enemies. 13 gunmen were killed and eight were injured in clashes with American and Iraqi forces in the town of Tal Afar. 2 police officers were also killed and four were injured. In two other separate attacks in Diyala, police reported that five people were killed when a roadside bomb hit a bus, while another assault killed a patrolling police officer. The US military found a grave in Samarra with 14 bodies, believed to be members of the Iraqi security forces executed by al-Qaida in Iraq. A car bomb in Samarra had killed four people, including one child. Police in Samarra, however, reported that at least seven people were killed and 10 people were injured. In central and northern Iraq US and Iraqi forces killed 9 suspected insurgents and detained 44 others in raids targeting al-Qaida. 3 Iraqi troops were killed in one of the operations. During the operation, the SWAT teams found bomb-making materials, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, rifles, grenades, a landmine and ammunition.
(AP, 3/2/08)(AP, 3/3/08)(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 3, In Iraq Pres. Talabani and Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad signed 7 memorandums of understanding on issues including industrial development, trade and customs. At least 23 people were killed and dozens were wounded when two suicide car bombs exploded in different parts of Baghdad. 3 police officers were killed by a parked car bomb in the town of Shikaat, north of Baghdad.
(AP, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 3, Parvin Ardalan (36), an Iranian women's rights activist, was to receive the 2007 Olof Palme award in Stockholm, Sweden, but was told just before her flight that she was not allowed to leave the country.
(AP, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 3, The UN Security Council imposed another round of sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran defiantly vowed to continue its nuclear program, which it insists is aimed only at generating power.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 4, China and Russia scuttled a Western attempt to introduce a resolution on Iran's nuclear defiance at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 12, The US Treasury said it blacklisted Future Bank of Bahrain because it is controlled by Bank Melli of Iran, which plays a role in financing Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs.
(WSJ, 3/13/08, p.A3)
2008 Mar 14, Iranians voted in elections. About 4,500 candidates nationwide ran for parliament's 290 seats. With final results reported from all races except those in Tehran, 113 of parliament's 290 seats went to conservatives.
(AP, 3/14/08)(AP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 15, In Iran hard-line allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pulled ahead in Iran's parliamentary elections, according to partial results, but the president's conservative critics were making a strong showing that could unsettle his domination of the legislature.
(AP, 3/15/08)
2008 Mar 16, Iran's Culture Ministry announced the closure of nine cinema and lifestyle magazines for publishing pictures and stories about the life of "corrupt" foreign film stars and promoting "superstitions."
(AP, 3/16/08)
2008 Mar 23, Iranian artillery shelled three border towns in northern Iraq where Iranian Kurdish rebels are believed to be operating.
(AP, 3/23/08)
2008 March 29, Azerbaijan customs halted a shipment of Russian equipment for Iran’s first nuclear power plant. The equipment was released May 1.
(WSJ, 5/2/08, p.A8)
2008 Apr 2, Diplomats said that China has given the UN nuclear watchdog intelligence linked to Tehran's alleged attempts to make nuclear arms.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 5, Iran said it would not make any concession in exchange for incentives offered by the West to halt sensitive atomic activities.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 8, Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned for the first time rocket and mortar attacks against the US-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad by supporters of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A US soldier died from wounds sustained when his vehicle was destroyed in a roadside bombing the previous evening.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2008 Apr 10, Iran reported that the SenIran Auto plant in Thies, Senegal's second largest city, has built its first Iran-Khodro Samand sedan. Iran Khodro is the largest carmaker in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa regions with annual production of more than one million various vehicles including cars, trucks and buses.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.49)
2008 Apr 12, In Iran an explosion killed 14 people inside a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz. A Police official said a homemade bomb caused the explosion. The next day Abbas Mohtaj, deputy interior minister in charge of security, said the explosion was "the result of an accident." In May a report by the official news agency IRNA again said the explosion was no accident, and those responsible had ties to the West. In November Iran's Revolutionary Court convicted three men of involvement in an explosion and sentenced them to death.
(AP, 4/13/08)(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.A7)(SFC, 4/14/08, p.A13)(AP, 5/8/08)(AP, 11/29/08)
2008 Apr 14, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, Iran's most senior dissident cleric, charged that recent parliamentary elections were not free or fair because thousands of reformists were barred from running.
(AP, 4/14/08)
2008 Apr 23, Switzerland said it had frozen the assets of a further 12 Iranian companies in accordance with new UN sanctions aimed at stopping Tehran's alleged nuclear program.
(AP, 4/23/08)
2008 Apr 23, The UN nuclear monitoring agency announced what it called a "milestone" agreement with Iran that aims to provide answers about allegations that Tehran tried to develop nuclear weapons.
(AP, 4/23/08)
2008 Apr 25, Iranians voted in parliamentary run-off elections expected to leave conservatives firmly in control because most reformist candidates were barred from running.
(AP, 4/25/08)
2008 Apr 26, In Iran according to final results Conservatives consolidated their control of the legislature in runoff elections but moderates within the bloc opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emerged as a stronger force.
(AP, 4/26/08)
2008 Apr 28, Iran and Russia discussed the outlines of "serious proposals" aimed at assuring the international community that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful, state media reported.
(AP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 28, Sri Lanka hailed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit as an important step in cementing closer ties between the two nations.
(AP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 29, A $7 billion gas pipeline that would link Iran and India topped the agenda as the Islamic republic's president made his first visit to New Delhi, despite strong US objections to the project.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 May 1, It was reported that Iran has stopped using dollars for oil deals as it seeks to reduce reliance on the US.
(WSJ, 5/1/08, p.A1)
2008 May 5, An Iranian envoy rejected nuclear inspections while Israel stays outside the global nonproliferation treaty.
(WSJ, 5/6/08, p.A1)
2008 May 10, Sudanese soldiers clashed with Darfur rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in the north of the capital Khartoum where a curfew has now been imposed. Officials later said more that 200 people were killed in the weekend fighting. The rebels had traveled from Chad in 191 land cruisers and pick-up trucks. On May 27 an official Egyptian newspaper claimed that Sudanese forces searching the rebel JEM movement found modern Iranian weapons with them and that authorities had seized large amounts of ammunition and Iranian equipment.
(AFP, 5/10/08)(AP, 5/13/08)(Econ, 5/17/08, p.59)(AFP, 5/27/08)
2008 May 14, Iran raided the homes of top Baha’i leaders and threw six of them in the notorious Evin prison north of Tehran. A 7th Bahai leader was detained March 5. A government spokesman said the arrests aimed to defend Iran's national security and had "nothing to do with ideological issues." In 2010 Iran cut the jail terms imposed on the seven from 20 to 10 years.
(AP, 5/22/08)(AFP, 9/18/10)
2008 May 15, Government troops began house-to-house searches for al-Qaida in Iraq militants in Mosul, part of a major security operation to cleanse Iraq's third largest city from cells of the terror network. An Iranian Embassy convoy came under fire in Baghdad, wounding four people, including three Iranians and an Iraqi. Overnight and early morning clashes between US-backed Iraqi forces and militiamen loyal to al-Sadr left eight men killed and 19 wounded.
(AP, 5/15/08)(AP, 5/16/08)
2008 May 25, Iran's state media said at least 30 people have died and 38 were injured in an explosion caused by fire at a factory in central Iran.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 25, An Iranian-born Israeli was charged with passing defense information to Tehran. The man told interrogators he repeatedly visited the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and gave the Iranians names of acquaintances he said served in the Israeli security forces.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 28, Iran's lawmakers overwhelmingly picked conservative Ali Larijani as parliament speaker, sending another strong message of discontent with Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leadership by boosting one of his likely challengers in elections next year.
(AP, 5/28/08)
2008 Jun 5, A Turkish TV station quoted a senior military commander as saying that Turkey and Iran have carried out coordinated strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
(AP, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 9, Iran's supreme leader told the visiting Iraqi prime minister that the US military presence is the main cause of Iraq's problems. A parked car packed with munitions exploded near a passing Iraqi army patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing three civilians and an army lieutenant. An alleged al-Qaida in Iraq bomber was captured with another suspect in Mosul, and another five men were arrested south of the city. US soldiers under heavy fire during a raid in northwestern Iraq called in airstrikes and killed five suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants.
(AP, 6/9/08)
2008 Jun 10, President Bush, speaking in Slovenia at his final EU-US summit, said the United States and Europe must rally to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, calling the threat an incredible danger to world peace.
(AP, 6/10/08)
2008 Jun 11, Abbas Palizdar, a former staff member of Iran’s parliament, was arrested. He had revealed that dozens of top clerical leaders had used their connections to swindle hundreds of millions of dollars from the state.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.58)(www.wikio.co.uk/news/Abbas+Palizdar)
2008 Jun 14, The EU presented Iran with a modified package of incentives to suspend its uranium enrichment program, but an Iran government spokesman said the country would reject the offer if it requires a halt to sensitive nuclear work. As part of the package Western nations told Iran that they could cut off any new help to Iran's anti-drug units unless the Islamic regime halts uranium enrichment.
(AP, 6/14/08)(AP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 16, An Iranian weekly said Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions.
(Reuters, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 16, Iran’s pro-reform daily Kargozaran reported that police were questioning women and men where they bought their clothes or had their hair done, then targeting the shops. A Police spokesman said 32 clothing shops and hairdressers in Tehran were shut down so far.
(AP, 6/17/08)
2008 Jun 16, US President George W. Bush won Europe's backing for tighter sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program and secured a British pledge to send more troops to Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 17, A human rights group said Iran has sentenced 177 people under the age of 18 to death over the past decade and has executed nearly three dozen of them.
(AP, 6/17/08)
2008 Jun 23, European Union nations approved new sanctions against Iran, including an assets freeze of the country's biggest bank. The sanctions also include a travel ban on high-level experts dealing with Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 6/23/08)
2008 Jun 24, The EU named Iran's largest commercial bank, the chief of the Revolutionary Guards and the head of the country's nuclear program as the targets of new sanctions imposed over Tehran's nuclear defiance as part of an updated blacklist of nuclear experts and companies in Iran being targeted under new sanctions.
(AP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 25, Iran condemned as a "disgrace" the decision by Britain to lift a ban on the main Iranian armed opposition group, the People's Mojehedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
(AP, 6/25/08)
2008 Jun 30, A special Iranian court sentenced Ali Ashtari (45), an Iranian man, to death on charges of spying for Israel. It was the country's first known conviction for espionage linked to Israel in almost a decade. The salesman of electronic merchandise had a job supplying military, security and defense centers across the country with electronic devices.
(AP, 6/30/08)
2008 Jun, Iranian HIV doctor Arash Alaei and his brother Kamiar were arrested and accused of communicating with the United States in a bid to unseat the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both were released in 2011.
(AFP, 8/29/11)
2008 Jul 1, Iranian state radio said that at least 25 people were killed and 16 injured in a bus accident near Tehran.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 4, State television said Iran delivered its response to an international offer of incentives for it to suspend uranium enrichment, a central part of its nuclear program. It did not say what the response was.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 5, An Iranian government spokesman says the country's nuclear program remains unchanged, indicating that Tehran has no plans to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 9, Iran test-fired nine long- and medium-range missiles during war games that officials said aimed to show the country can retaliate against any US and Israeli attack.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 10, Iran test-fired more long-range missiles overnight in a second round of exercises meant to show that the country can defend itself against any attack by the US or Israel.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 13, Iranian state TV said the country is exploring a newly discovered oil field believed to contain more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Geneva a decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled, with Iran stonewalling Washington and 5 other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Activists said Iran has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to death by stoning. The nine, who are between 27 and 50 years old, were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 26, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran now has 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in the number of uranium-enriching machines in its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 27, Iran hanged 29 people at dawn after they had been convicted of murder, drug trafficking and other crimes.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Aug 4, In Iran journalist Yaghoob Mirnehad was executed in the city of Zahedan after being sentenced to death earlier this year. Iran accused Mirnehad of being involved in the armed Jundallah group, which operates along the Iranian-Pakistani border. The Jundallah group, or God's Brigade, has launched attacks against Iranian soldiers and police in the area near Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is a key crossing point for narcotics.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Iran Ali Kordan was narrowly approved as the new interior minister. An honorary Oxford degree that he cited was soon disclosed as a fake.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 8, The EU tightened trade sanctions against Iran to punish Tehran for not committing to a long-standing demand of the international community that it freeze its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 13, In northwest Iran three Kurdish separatists and one Iranian soldier were killed in a shootout.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, A senior US military intelligence officer said Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as US and Iraqi troops.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 21, Armed pirates hijacked a Japanese chemical tanker with 19 crew, an Iranian bulk carrier with 29 crew, and a German cargo ship with a crew of 9 off Somalia's coast.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 24, Iran's official news agency said the country has begun designing its second light-water nuclear power plant, a 360-megawatt facility in the southwest.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 25, Iranian state TV said the country has launched production of a domestically built submarine capable of firing missiles and torpedoes. Two other submarines, which began production in 2005, have been delivered to Iran's navy.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 28, Iran’s Junior trade minister Mohammadali Zeyghami said Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology with Nigeria to help the energy-starved west African powerhouse boost electricity generation.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug, St. Vincent and Iran established ties after PM Gonsalves visited Iran for a summit of the Nonaligned Movement, an organization of 120 developing nations. St. Vincent later announced that it would receive US$7 million in aid from Iran. A portion of that will go toward construction of a US$200 million international airport.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 1, Most of the Muslim Mideast began the first day of Ramadan, but Iraqi Shiites, some Lebanese Shiites and Iran will start observing the holy month of fasting on Sep 2.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 2, Bolivia and Iran pledged cooperation and signed energy pacts, rebuffing US concerns over improved ties.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, Iran sentenced four female activists to six months in prison for writings demanding equality for women. Sweden had awarded a human rights prize to Parvin Ardalan, one of the activists, earlier this year.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 10, A strong earthquake rocked southern Iran sending tremors across the Persian Gulf to the skyscrapers of Dubai. Iranian state television reported that seven people were killed and 40 others were injured.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, The US Treasury Dept. accused Iran’s national maritime carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, of helping the country’s nuclear and missile programs. The proliferator designation, designed to stop companies from doing business in the US, further block the carrier’s ability to move money through US banks.
(WSJ, 9/11/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 15, A new International Atomic Energy Agency report said that Iran has repeatedly blocked a UN investigation into allegations it tried to make nuclear arms and the probe is now deadlocked.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 17, US federal prosecutors unsealed charges against alleged members of a global network procuring potentially sensitive electronic components for Iran. 8 companies and 8 people, including Iranian, Malaysian and British nationals, were charged with violating a US embargo that restricts certain goods to Iran.
(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 23, Iran's President Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly declaring that "the American empire" is nearing collapse and should end its military involvement in other countries.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 24, The European Union warned that Iran is nearing the ability to arm a nuclear warhead even if it insists its atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 27, The UN Security Council unanimously approved a new resolution reaffirming previous sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program and offering Tehran incentives to do so.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Oct 9, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his government to suspend a controversial new sales tax, a day after a rare strike by merchants worried about how the new measure would affect their business.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 15, Esha Momeni, a student at California State University, Northridge, was driving on a highway in Tehran when she was stopped by authorities, who said they were traffic police, and later taken to Evin prison. Her computer and other materials related to her research on the Iranian women's movement were confiscated.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 16, The International Committee of the Red Cross said Iran and Iraq have signed an agreement to trace missing persons from the war between the two countries. About 1 million people died in the eight-year war that began when Saddam Hussein launched an attack on Iran in 1980.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 21, Iran, Russia and Qatar discussed the formation of an OPEC-style cartel among some of the largest natural gas producing nations, a prospect that has unnerved energy-importing nations in Europe and the United States.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 22, The Bush administration imposed financial sanctions on an Iranian state-owned bank for allegedly providing financial services in support of the country’s weapons program.
(SFC, 10/23/08, p.A11)
2008 Oct 23, A European Union court has ruled that EU governments should no longer freeze the funds of People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, an Iranian opposition group on the bloc's terror blacklist. A British court ruled in its favor last year.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 26, A top Revolutionary Guards commander said Iran is supplying weapons to "liberation armies" in the Middle East, offering the first official confirmation the country provides weapons to armed groups in the region.
(AP, 10/27/08)
2008 Nov 2, Iranian authorities arrested Hossein Derakhshan (b.1975), a well-known Canadian-Iranian blogger. In 2010 he was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Derakhshan)
2008 Nov 4, Iran's parliament impeached Interior Minister Ali Kordan after he admitted having a fake degree from Oxford University, in a vote widely seen as a defeat for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 11/4/08)
2008 Nov 12, Iran successfully test-fired the Sajjil, a new generation of long range surface-to-surface missile using solid fuel, making them more accurate than its predecessors. It had a range of about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers).
(AP, 11/12/08)
2008 Nov 13, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen kidnapped Hashmatullah Atharzadeh, an Iranian diplomat, and killed his local guard. Peshawar’s police chief Suleman Shah said the spate of killings and abductions was in reaction to the military operations against insurgents in the adjoining tribal belt. Iranian intelligence agents freed Atharzadeh in late March, 2010.
(AFP, 11/13/08)(AP, 3/30/10)
2008 Nov 17, Venezuela and Iran announced a plan to start a new university program in the South American country with a focus on teaching socialist principles.
(AP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 17, In Iran Ali Ashtari (45), convicted of spying for Israel, was hanged after being sentenced to death on June 30 by a revolutionary court in Tehran. The electronics salesman worked in supplying military, security and defense centers across the Iran.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 18, Separate bands of pirates seized a Thai fishing trawler with 16 crew members and an Iranian cargo vessel with a crew of 25 in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates on the trawler then apparently fired on the Indian naval frigate Tabar. The Indians, believing the trawler to be a pirate "mother ship," returned fire turning the Ekawat Nava 5 into a massive fireball and killing 14 of the 15 crew as well as the pirates. The Tabar then chased two attack boats into the night. A surviving sailor spent six days adrift in the shark-infested ocean before another ship picked him up. The Iranian vessel was released on Jan 9, 2009.
(AP, 11/19/08)(AP, 11/26/08)(SFC, 11/26/08, p.A3)(AP, 1/10/09)(AP, 6/5/09)
2008 Nov 19, Iran's official news agency said Iranian border guards have killed several Kurdish separatists in a shootout in the western part of the country. The gunmen were said to be part of the Kurdish separatist group, known as the PEJAK, the Iranian wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
(AP, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 25, Iran said it has broken a spy ring working for Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad. The prosecutor general said it would the death penalty for 3 suspects in custody.
(SFC, 11/26/08, p.A8)
2008 Nov 26, In Iran a court sentenced a man who blinded a woman with acid also to be blinded with acid under the country's Islamic law. Majid Movahedi (27) confessed to attacking Ameneh Bahrami (24) in 2004 to dissuade anyone from marrying the woman he loved. Movahedi was sentenced to be blinded in both eyes in February, 2009. In 2011 Bahrami announced that it would cost Movahedi two million euros to escape a court-ordered blinding. In 2011 Bahrami pardoned Mohavedi as he knelt in an operating room with her attacker waiting for her to drop acid in his eyes.
(AP, 11/27/08)(AP, 5/17/11)(AP, 7/31/11)
2008 Nov 30, The head of Iran's nuclear power agency said the country is willing to help neighboring Arab countries build joint light-water nuclear power plants if they are interested.
(AP, 11/30/08)
2008 Nov 30, Iraqi and Iranian troops exchanged the remains of soldiers killed during the 1980-1988 war between the two countries. It was the first such handover since the two signed an agreement in October to work together in tracing thousands still missing after the war.
(AP, 11/30/08)
2008 Dec 5, Iranian state radio said police confirmed that a militant group active in Iran has killed all 16 police officers it abducted in June. Shortly after the abduction, the Sunni Muslim Jundallah group said it had executed two of the officers and threatened to kill the remaining 14 unless imprisoned members of the group were released.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 20, Iranian state radio said Iran has sent a warship to the coast of Somalia to protect its cargo ships against piracy.
(AP, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 21, Iran reported that Russia has begun delivering S-300 air defense systems, which could help repel any Israeli and US air strikes on its nuclear sites.
(AP, 12/21/08)
2008 Dec 28, Iran's supreme leader issued a religious decree that said anyone killed while defending Palestinians in Gaza would be considered a martyr.
(AP, 12/29/08)
2008 Dec 29, In Iran 5 hard-line student groups and a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2008 Dec, Ecuador’s Central Bank signed an agreement under which Iran’s Central Bank would set up a credit line of $40 million, extendable by $80 million, for the use of Ecuadorean importers.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.44)
2008 Dec, Unemployment in Iran was estimated at 4 million people and expected to rise under falling oil prices.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.66)
2008 Ronen Bergman authored “The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most dangerous Terrorist Power."
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.98)
2008 Dubai handled an estimated 60% of Iran’s merchandise trade, hosted nearly 10,000 Iranian-owned firms and was linked to Iran by over 250 flights a week.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.65)
2008 Sudan and Iran signed an agreement to strengthen bilateral military relations.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2009 Jan 6, Turkey held a shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran saying it contains equipment that can make explosives.
(WSJ, 1/7/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 9, Somali pirates released a captured Iranian-chartered cargo ship. The ship Delight was carrying 36 tons of wheat when it was attacked in the Gulf of Aden Nov. 18 and seized by pirates. All 25 crew were in good health and the vessel sailed toward Iran.
(AP, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 13, Iran’s judiciary announced that 2 men were stoned to death last month for adultery.
(WSJ, 1/14/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 14, Guerrillas in Lebanon rocketed northern Israel for the second time in a week, drawing Israeli artillery fire and threatening to drag the Jewish state into a second front as diplomatic efforts to broker a truce in Gaza intensified. Gaza health ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said the offensive has killed 1,000 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 300 children. The Israeli navy intercepted an Iranian ship loaded with medicine, food and clothing destined for Gaza and forced the vessel to Egypt instead. Palestinian surveyors estimated that Israel's fierce assault on Gaza's Hamas rulers has destroyed at least $1.4 billion worth of buildings, roads, pipes, power lines and other infrastructure.
(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 16, Australia granted asylum to 28 people from Afghanistan and Iran, in the first such move since relaxing tough rules on asylum seekers.
(AFP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 17, Iran's state news IRNA reported that four Iranians have been convicted and sentenced to prison in an alleged US-backed plot to topple the government.
(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 19, Iran's state news agency reported that two internationally renowned Iranian AIDS physicians were among four men sentenced to prison over the weekend for allegedly participating in a US-backed plot to overthrow Iran's Islamic regime. Arash and Kamyar Alaei have been held in prison since June 2008.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 21, North Korea and Iran, two nations with nuclear aspirations the US wants to thwart, both signaled that they were open to new initiatives from President Barack Obama that could defuse tensions.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 23, Iraq's top security official called a decision by his government to close Camp Ashraf, housing some 3,500 members of an armed Iranian opposition group north of Baghdad "irreversible," saying the Iraqi authorities do not allow anti-Iran activities on their soil. Members of the terrorist People's Mujahedeen, known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, will either be deported to Iran or be given the option of going to a third country. A bomb hidden inside a traffic police booth exploded in western Baghdad, killing a 7-year-old boy and wounding his mother.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 26, Iran’s state radio reported that several members of its border security forces were killed in an ambush near the Pakistani border.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, The European Union decided to remove an Iranian opposition group from the EU's terror list and lift the restrictions on its funds, a move likely to further damage relations strained over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 31, Roxana Saberi (31), Iranian-American journalist, was detained in Tehran. In April she was charged with espionage, two days after her parents visited their daughter in prison. The government had revoked her press credentials in 2006. On April 13, 2009, she was tried and soon sentenced to 8 years in jail for spying. Her lawyer appealed. She was released in May and in 2010 authored “Between Two Worlds" My Life and Captivity In Iran."
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101315579)(AP, 4/8/09)(AP, 4/18/09)(SSFC, 4/18/10, p.F7)
2009 Jan, In northeast Sudan Israel carried out an attack in which at least 30 people were killed, to stop weapons being transported to Gaza during its offensive against Hamas. Reports from Sudan quoted a lone survivor of the attack as saying two planes flew over the convoy then came back and shot up the "four or five" trucks. Israeli aircraft or drones destroyed 23 lorries carrying Iranian arms destined for Hamas.
(Reuters, 3/27/09)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.50)
2009 Feb 1, In Iran police killed 10 drug smugglers in a shootout near the Afghan border. After the shootout, police confiscated more than 2,500 pounds of drugs, most of it opium.
(AP, 2/1/09)
2009 Feb 2, Iran successfully launched a missile carrying Omid (hope in Farsi), its first domestically made satellite into orbit. In 2005, Iran launched its first commercial satellite on a Russian rocket in a joint project with Moscow, which appears to be the main partner in transferring space technology to Iran.
(AP, 2/3/09)
2009 Feb 5, The British Council said that it has suspended work in Iran because of what it calls intimidation by the authorities there. The British Council reopened its Tehran office in 2001 after a 22-year break following the 1979 Islamic revolution. It said 13,000 Iranians took part in English lessons and other programs it ran in Tehran last year.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 18, Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in published remarks that Iran has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles, enough to reach Israel. Iran announced two years ago that it had built an unmanned aircraft, but Vahidi's comments were the first by a top official revealing its range.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 22, Iran's official news agency says the country's first nuclear power plant will begin preliminary phase operation on Feb 25 after a series of delays.
(AP, 2/22/09)(SFC, 2/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Feb 24, Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad arrived in Kenya with a delegation of nearly 100 officials and business people. He soon struck a deal to export 4 million tons of crude oil a year, to open direct flights between Tehran and Nairobi, and to provide scholarships for study in Iran.
(http://tinyurl.com/yewhqnk)(Econ, 2/6/10, p.49)
2009 Feb 25, Iranian and Russian technicians conducted a test run of Iran's first nuclear power plant, a major step toward launching full operations at the facility.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Feb, US jets shot down an Iranian unmanned surveillance aircraft over Iraqi territory about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. The Ababil 3 was tracked for about 70 minutes before US jets shot it down "well-inside Iraqi airspace."
(AP, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 1, An adviser to Iran's president demanded an apology from a team of visiting Hollywood actors and movie industry officials, including Annette Bening, saying films such as "300" and "The Wrestler" were "insulting" to Iranians. The film "300," portrays the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days. It angered many Iranians for the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks.
(AP, 3/1/09)
2009 Mar 2, Iran dismissed US concerns about how much fissile material the country has produced, saying it isn't developing a nuclear bomb and that any effort to make weapons-grade uranium would be difficult under the eyes of international inspectors.
(AP, 3/2/09)
2009 Mar 6, Morocco cut diplomatic links with Iran after an outcry in the Sunni Muslim world over a statement by an Iranian official questioning Sunni-ruled Bahrain's sovereignty.
(Reuters, 3/6/09)
2009 Mar 8, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan carried out their first joint counter narcotics operation.
(AP, 3/11/09)
2009 Mar 11, In Iraq Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's former foreign minister, was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 1992 execution of 42 merchants accused of price gouging while Iraq was under UN sanctions.
(AP, 3/11/09)
2009 Mar 14, Iran’s state TV said Iran and China have signed a $3.2 billion gas deal to produce more than 10 tons of liquid natural gas.
(AP, 3/14/09)
2009 Mar 18, In Iran Omid Mirsayafi (29), a blogger convicted of insulting the country’s ruling clerics, died in Tehran’s main prison.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 18, Russian news agencies cited a top defense official as confirming that a contract to sell powerful air-defense missiles to Iran was signed two years ago, but saying no such weapons have yet been delivered.
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 20, Iranian engineer Majid Kakavand (37) was taken into custody in Paris as he arrived in Paris from Moscow as part of a European tour with his wife. He was arrested at the airport under a US warrant suspected of evading export controls to buy US technology for Iran's military. He was held in La Sante prison until Aug. 26, then released on condition he stay in Paris. He faced a Feb. 17 Paris hearing on whether to be extradited to the United States.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2009 Mar 21, Iran's supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama's latest outreach, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in US policy.
(AP, 3/21/09)
2009 Mar 31, The US Government Accountability Office released a report saying 4 countries designated a terrorism sponsors received $55 million from a US supported program promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the IAEA’s Technical Cooperation program. Between 1997 and 2007 Iran received over $15 million, $14 million went to Syria, while Sudan and Cuba received over $11 million each.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A3)
2009 Apr 9, Iran's president inaugurated a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor. Pres. Ahmadinejad was attending celebrations in Isfahan for Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, which marks the day in 2006 when Iran enriched uranium for the first time. Iran has been building the 40-megawatt hard-water reactor in the central town of Arak for the past four years.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 10, Iran hanged three men for their involvement in a bombing inside a packed mosque that killed 14 people on April 12, 2008.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), an Iranian-American journalist, was convicted of spying and soon sentenced to 8 years in jail. She was released from jail on May 11 after an appeals court suspended her sentence.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101315579)(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 Apr 15, Iranian scientists at the Royan Research Institute cloned a goat and planned future experiments they hope will lead to a treatment for stroke patients. The female goat, named Hana, was born in the city of Isfahan in central Iran.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 17, Canadian police, acting on a tip-off from the United States, charged a Toronto man with trying to illegally export nuclear technology to Iran. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Mahmoud Yadegari had attempted to obtain pressure transducers, devices that are used to make enriched uranium but can also have military applications.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 20, A UN racism conference opened in Geneva. Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime," sparking a walkout by angry Western diplomats. The US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland boycotted the conference out of concern that it could be used by Muslim countries to criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to criticizing their religion.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), dual American-Iranian citizen convicted on April 13 of spying for the United States, went on a hunger strike. She was sentenced to eight years in prison after a swift, closed door trial. Saberi ended her hunger strike on April 5 and waited for her appeal process to move forward.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 Apr 23, Iran's official news agency says Tehran has reached an agreement with Iraq to build a pipeline that will feed Iraqi crude to an Iranian refinery.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 May 1, Iran hanged a young woman (23) who was convicted of murder when she was a minor, drawing condemnation from international human rights groups who have sought to end capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Delara Darabi, initially pleaded guilty to killing her father's cousin in 2003, but later retracted her confession and said her boyfriend carried out the killing.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 4, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad and handed him a letter of protest, demanding that Iran halt shelling against Kurdish rebels in the country's north and warned the "extremely dangerous violations" of Iraqi territory could harm relations between the two countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, South Korean snipers hovering in a helicopter chased away pirates pursuing a North Korean freighter, while the Russian destroyer Admiral Panteleyev freed eight Iranian citizens held hostage for more than three months.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 5, The leaders of Iran and Syria reaffirmed their support for Palestinian resistance, a defiant message to the US and its Mideast allies who are uneasy over Washington's efforts to forge closer ties with the hard-line government in Tehran.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 7, Iran’s state media reported that 9 people, including a 30-year-old woman, have been hanged. 4 of the 9 including the woman were convicted of murder in separate cases and were hanged on May 6. The woman was found guilty of killing her husband with a hammer.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 11, In Iran an appeals court reduced the jail term of Roxana Saberi (32), dual Iranian-American citizen, to a two-year suspended sentence. She planned to return home to Fargo, North Dakota.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 20, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran test-fired a new advanced missile with a range capable of reaching Israel and US Mideast bases. The solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles, far enough to strike at southeastern Europe.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 24, Iran blocked access to Facebook, prompting government critics to condemn the move as an attempt to muzzle the opposition ahead of next month's presidential election.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 25, It was reported that a secret Israeli government report said Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 26, Iran restored access to Facebook, after a block on the social networking Web site last week generated accusations that the government was trying to muzzle one of the main presidential campaign tools of the reformist opposition.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 28, In southeast Iran a bombing in a Shiite mosque at Zahedan killed 25 people. The next day Iran blamed the US and Israel saying the countries were trying to stoke sectarian tension with the Sunni Muslim minority.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, A moderate think tank led by Iran's former top nuclear negotiator accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of distorting facts about the country's nuclear program to depict himself as a hero and improve his chances in the upcoming election.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Iran 3 people convicted of involvement in the May 28 mosque bombing in Zahedan were hanged. The men, identified as Haji Nouti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Shahoo Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui, were also involved in several other bombings including a bus attack in March, 2006, that left 21 dead. Jundallah or God's Brigade, a Sunni militant group believed to have links with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is composed of Sunni Muslims from the Baluchi ethnic minority who have been fighting a low level insurgency in southeastern Iran for years.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 Jun 1, Iran state media reported that five people are dead in an arson attack on a bank in Zahedan, a restive southeastern city where 25 died in a mosque bombing last week.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 3, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri vanished during a pilgrimage to the Saudi kingdom. In October Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said: "We hold Saudi Arabia responsible for Shahram Amiri's situation and consider the US to be involved in his arrest."
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Jun 12, Iranians packed polling stations with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Iran supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires as authorities declared the hard-line president was re-elected with 62.6% of the vote to 33.75% to Mousavi. Saeed Leilaz, a university economics professor, was among a number or protesters who were arrested. In March 2010 Leilaz was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, violating public order and participating in a plan to disturb the country's security.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 3/11/10)
2009 Jun 14, In Iran protesters set fires and smashed store windows in a second day of violence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities. Anti-riot police lashed back and the regime blocked Internet sites used to rally the pro-reform campaign.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Iran tens of thousands of supporters of pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi streamed through the center of Tehran in a boisterous protest against election results that declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Iran's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud. 7 demonstrators were shot and killed.
(AP, 6/15/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 16, A spokesman said Iran's Islamic leadership is prepared to conduct a limited recount of disputed presidential elections, as thousands of people took to the streets to show support for the regime. Authorities clamped down on independent media in an attempt to control images of election protests, but pictures and videos leaked out anyway, showing how difficult it is to shut off the flow of information in the Internet age.
(AP, 6/16/09) (AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Russia welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his first trip abroad since his bitterly disputed re-election, a show of support for a leader facing major protests at home and questions from the West about the legitimacy of the vote count.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 17, Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a direct challenge to the country's supreme leader and cleric-led system, calling for a mass rally to protest disputed election results and violence against his followers. International human rights organizations said that many prominent activists and politicians have been arrested in Iran in response to protests over the country's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 6/17/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi for a 4th straight day rallied in the streets of Tehran over the disputed presidential election, answering the opposition leader's call to turn out dressed in black to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 19, Iran’s Ayatullah Ali Khamenei said that the country's disputed presidential vote had not been rigged, sternly warning protesters of a crackdown if they continue massive demonstrations demanding a new election.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 20, In Iran witnesses said police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in Tehran in open defiance of Iran's clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A blast at the Tehran shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wounded two. The clashes left at least 10 dead and 100 injured. Among those killed was Neda Agha Soltan (b.1982), whose death was captured on video.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neda_(Iranian_protester))
2009 Jun 21, In Iran an eerie calm settled over the streets of Tehran as state media said authorities had arrested the daughter and four other relatives of ex-President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran's most powerful men. The reports brought the official death toll for a week of boisterous confrontations to at least 19. Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, a dual Iranian-Canadian citizen, was arrested. He was released on bail on Oct 17.
(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Iran riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in central Tehran, carrying out a threat by the country's most powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election. The Guardian Council, acknowledged voting irregularities in 50 electoral districts in the June 12 vote, the most serious official admission so far of problems in the election that the opposition has labeled a fraud.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 23, Iran's top electoral body said it found "no major fraud" and will not annul the results of the presidential election, closing the door to a do-over sought by angry opposition supporters alleging systematic vote-rigging. The 12-member Guardian Council also received approval for an extension of its examination to June 29. 185 out of 290 members of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away from a victory celebration for Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 6/23/09)(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A2)(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 24, Iran's supreme leader said that the government would not yield to demonstrators demanding the annulment of a disputed presidential election. The wife of the opposition leader said protesters would not buckle under a situation she compared to martial law. 70 university professors were detained after a meeting with opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the June 12 vote. All but four of the professors were soon released. Iranian authorities barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices.
(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, Iran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, pledged not to withdraw his election challenge despite what he said were attempts to isolate and discredit him, while the declared winner, hard-line Pres. Ahmadinejad, accused US Pres Barack Obama of meddling in Iran's affairs.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 26, Group of Eight foreign ministers, meeting in Trieste, Italy, criticized Iran's postelection violence, and urged its ruling clergy to ensure the outcome of the disputed ballot reflects the will of the Iranian people. The G8 countries also condemned North Korea's nuclear and missile tests and called on the country to return to the negotiating table.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 28, Iranian media reported that eight local British embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests. Rot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near the Ghoba Mosque in north Tehran. It was Iran's first major post-election unrest in four days.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Iran conducted a partial recount of votes cast in its disputed presidential election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked a top judge to investigate the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman who has become a potent symbol of the opposition's struggle. Iranian authorities said 17 protesters and eight Basijis have been killed in two weeks of unrest, and that hundreds of people have been arrested. The Guardian Council, an electoral authority the opposition accused of favoring Ahmadinejad, said that it had found only "slight irregularities" after randomly selecting and recounting 10 percent of nearly 40 million ballots.
(AP, 6/29/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jul 1, In Iran opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi reasserted his claim that the June 12 election was illegitimate, and demanded that Iran's cleric-led government release all political prisoners and institute electoral reforms and press freedoms. A reformist political group said that authorities banned the daily Etemad-e-Melli (National Confidence) newspaper allied to presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi after he denounced Iran's government as "illegitimate" because of claims of voting fraud. Former President Mohammad Khatami lashed out at what he termed "a poisonous security situation" in the wake of violent street protests.
(AP, 7/1/09)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 1, In Iran Clotilde Reiss (24), a French academic, was among the hundreds of people detained following the disputed presidential elections. She was released on bail after a month and a half and later convicted of provoking unrest and spying. In May, 2010, she was released after paying a $300,000 fine.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AP, 5/16/10)
2009 Jul 3, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a top Iranian cleric, said that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 5, Iran said it has released a British-Greek journalist held for more than two weeks following its disputed presidential elections as dissent continued. Ali Reza Beheshti, the son of a prominent Iranian revolutionary icon, made a rare public push for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's removal from office. The Assembly of Qom Seminary Scholars and Researchers, a pro-reform Iranian clerical group, said the outcome of last month's presidential vote was "invalid," even though Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has upheld the result.
(AP, 7/5/09)(Reuters, 7/5/09)
2009 Jul 9, In Iran hundreds of young men and women chanted "death to the dictator" and fled baton-wielding police in Tehran as opposition activists sought to revive street protests despite authorities' vows to "smash" any new marches.
(AP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 14, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that authorities in the southeastern city of Zahedan hanged 13 members of a Sunni Muslim rebel group convicted of bombings and killings in the area. The report said Abdulhamid Rigi, brother of Abdulmalik Rigi, leader of the group known as Jundallah or soldiers of God, had been scheduled to be hanged along with the 13 men, but his execution was postponed.
(AP, 7/14/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Iran a Russian-made Caspian Airlines TU-154 jet plane carrying nearly 170 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. It was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan. All on board were killed.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 16, Iran announced that Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of its nuclear agency, has resigned, a move that may have been connected to the country's postelection turmoil. Aghazadeh told the semiofficial ISNA news agency that he submitted his resignation from Iran's Atomic Energy Organization 20 days ago and also resigned from his other post as one of Pres. Ahmadinejad's vice presidents.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 16, In Iraq 18 people were injured in an explosion that targeted a minibus transporting Shiite pilgrims to a holy shrine in Najaf. 3 US soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on a base outside of Basra. On July 18 an Iranian-backed militiaman confessed to the rocket attack near the Basra airport.
(AP, 7/16/09)(AP, 7/17/09)(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 Jul 17, In Iran tens of thousands of government opponents packed Iran's main Islamic prayer sermon, chanting "freedom, freedom" and other slogans as their top clerical backer Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered a sermon bluntly criticizing the country's leadership over the crackdown on election protests. Outside, pro-government Basiji militiamen in front of a line of riot police fired tear gas at thousands of protesters who chanted "death to the dictator" and called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to resign.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 Jul 20, Iran's supreme leader issued a tough warning to the opposition to back down after pro-reform former president Mohammad Khatami called for a referendum on the government's legitimacy.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 21, Iran's supreme leader handed a humiliation to Pres. Ahmadinejad, ordering him to dismiss Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, his choice for top deputy, after the appointment drew sharp condemnation from their hard-line base. Mashai, a relative by marriage to Ahmadinejad, angered hard-liners in 2008 when he said Iranians were "friends of all people in the world, even Israelis." Ahmadinejad appeared to openly defy the order.
(AP, 7/22/09)(SFC, 7/22/09, p.A3)
2009 Jul 23, The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said that her brother is among the hundreds arrested in Iran's postelection crackdown, and she warned authorities not to publish any "forced confessions" from him or other detainees.
(AP, 7/23/09)
2009 Jul 24, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caved into pressure from hardline clerics and the country's supreme leader and allowed the resignation of his top deputy, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, who last year angered conservatives when he made friendly comments toward Israel.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 24, In Iran a Russian Ilyushin-62 plane, operated by Tehran-based Aria Airlines and carrying 153 passengers and crew, skidded off the runway and hit a wall while landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad. 13 of the 16 people killed in the crash were members of the crew, 9 of them from Kazakhstan. The plane landed at high speed and the tires failed.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 25, Iran's opposition leaders appealed to the top clerics in the holy city of Qom to pressure the ruling Islamic regime to release protesters and activists, who they say have been tortured following last month's disputed presidential election. Protesters across the world called on Iran to end its clampdown on opposition activists, demanding the release of hundreds rounded up during demonstrations against the country's disputed election.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 26, Human Rights Watch said Iranian authorities are spreading fear by arresting prominent human rights lawyers to prevent them from representing protesters detained in the aftermath of the country's disputed presidential election. An appeals court found Iran's Industry, Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian, guilty of fraud, in a new embarrassment for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad's office announced the dismissal of Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi. No reasons were given but the two had differed over top vice president Rahim Mashai.
(AP, 7/27/09)(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Jul 27, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of Kahrizak prison, where rights workers say protesters detained in the country's election turmoil have died.
(AP, 7/28/09)
2009 Jul 28, An Iranian parliament official said 140 people detained in Iran's postelection turmoil have been released from Tehran's main prison Evin.
(AP, 7/28/09)
2009 Jul 29, Iran's top diplomat in Bolivia said the Islamic republic has approved a $280 million low-interest loan for President Evo Morales' government to use as it sees fit. Gas and oil exploration are possibilities.
(AP, 7/29/09)
2009 Jul 30, Iranian police fired tear gas and beat anti-government protesters with batons to disperse thousands attending a graveside memorial for victims of post-election violence.
(AP, 7/30/09)
2009 Jul 31, Iran detained 3 Americans after they mistakenly crossed the border from northern Iraq. They crossed into Iranian territory while hiking in a mountainous area near the town of Ahmed Awaa. Freelance journalist Shane Bauer, Sara Shourd and Josh Fattal, all graduates of the University of California, Berkeley, were detained after apparently straying across the border while hiking in Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
(AP, 8/1/09)(AP, 11/9/09)
2009 Aug 3, In Iran Fahimeh Mousavi-nejad, the wife of former Vice President Mohammad Abtahi on trial for postelection violence, said his televised "confessions" were made under pressure. Her husband was one of the top figures in a trial that began Aug 1 for around 100 people detained in the postelection crackdown. Iran's supreme leader formally endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as president in a ceremony that sought to portray unity among the country's leadership but was snubbed by prominent critics of the disputed election.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 5, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term as Iran's president while security forces battled hundreds of protesters chanting "Death to the Dictator" in the streets around parliament where the ceremony was held.
(AP, 8/5/09)
2009 Aug 9, Iran's police chief acknowledged that detained protesters were abused in prison and the country's top prosecutor said those responsible for the mistreatment should be punished, in unusually pointed criticism of security officials. Revolutionary Guard Commander Yadollah Javani called for opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and former President Mohammad Khatami to be put on trial.
(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Aug 11, Iran's opposition said at least 69 people have died in two months of postelection unrest based on accounts from the victims' families, more than double the official toll released by parliament. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the top opposition leader, said that the abuse and death of protesters detained after the disputed presidential elections shows the need for "deep change" in the country, in the most sweeping call for reform of the system to date.
(AP, 8/11/09)(AP, 8/12/09)
2009 Aug 13, In Iran a group of former reformist lawmakers appealed to a powerful clerical body to investigate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's qualification to rule in an unprecedented challenge to the country's most powerful man over the postelection crackdown.
(AP, 8/14/09)
2009 Aug 16, Iran expanded its mass trial of opposition supporters, adding 25 more defendants including a Jewish teenager who are accused of involvement in unrest over the disputed presidential election.
(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 17, The new head of Iran's judiciary suggested that he would prosecute security agents accused of torture in the postelection crackdown, a nod from the country's conservative leadership to widespread anger to reports that jailed protesters were abused.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Aug 19, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated Ahmad Vahidi as Defense Minister. Vahidi had commanded a unit of the Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force at the time of the July 18, 1994, attack on a Jewish cultural center in Argentina. The Quds Force is involved in operations abroad, including working with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, which is accused to carrying out the Buenos Aires attack.
(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Aug 19, Syrian President Bashar Assad opened talks with Iranian officials in a visit expected to include an appeal to free a French academic accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime.
(AP, 8/19/09)
2009 Aug 20, Diplomats said Iran has lifted a year-long ban and allowed UN nuclear inspectors to visit a nearly completed nuclear reactor as well as granting greater monitoring rights at another atomic site.
(SFC, 8/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Aug 24, In Iran conservative rivals handed a new snub to Pres. Ahmadinejad, appointing Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, the man he fired from the post of intelligence minister, as the country's state prosecutor. Senior opposition figure Mahdi Karroubi made public an account of a prisoner who was raped by jailers. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of Kahrizak prison, where at least 3 prisoners are known to have died.
(AP, 8/24/09)(SFC, 8/25/09, p.A3)
2009 Aug 26, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim (b.1950), the scion of a revered clerical family, died of lung cancer in Iran, the country that was long his key ally. He channeled rising Shiite Muslim power after the fall of Saddam Hussein to become one of Iraq's most influential politicians.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Aug 28, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the leaders of the opposition to be prosecuted over the postelection turmoil, stepping up pressure against the pro-reform movement that says he won the election by fraud. Ahmadinejad also admitted for the first time that some detained protesters were abused in custody but also denied any government involvement, claiming instead that it was the work of Iran's enemies and the opposition.
(AP, 8/28/09)
2009 Aug 28, The United Arab Emirates confirmed that it has seized a cargo ship earlier this month bound for Iran with a cache of banned arms from North Korea. Diplomats identified the vessel as a Bahamas-flagged cargo vessel, the ANL Australia, carrying rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.
(AP, 8/29/09)
2009 Sep 2, In Germany 6 countries met for talks to try to address concerns about Iran's nuclear program. The German government said it has received no official word yet on new proposals that Tehran is pledging to make.
(AP, 9/2/09)
2009 Sep 6, In Iran Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez sealed an agreement to export 20,000 barrels per day of gasoline to Iran. The deal would give Tehran a cushion if the West carries out threats of fuel sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. The two countries also agreed to set up a bank together to help finance joint projects.
(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 7, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will neither halt uranium enrichment nor negotiate over its nuclear rights but is ready to sit and talk with world powers over "global challenges."
(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 8, Iranian security forces cracked down on the opposition's campaign to highlight torture and abuse of prisoners in the country's postelection crisis, shutting down offices of pro-reform leaders and arresting five of their aides in a startling series of raids.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 11, The US said it would accept Iran's offer of wide-ranging talks with major powers despite the Islamic Republic's stated refusal to discuss its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 9/11/09)
2009 Sep 14, In Iran authorities arrested at least 7 children and grandchildren of senior clerics in Qom in fresh pressure on religious leaders who sympathize with the opposition.
(SFC, 9/16/09, p.A5)
2009 Sep 18, In Iran hard-liners attacked senior pro-reform leaders in the streets on Quds Day as tens of thousands marched in competing mass demonstrations by the opposition and government supporters. Opposition protesters, chanting "death to the dictator," hurled stones and bricks in clashes with security forces firing tear gas. The Quds Day ceremony was established in 1979 by the leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as an annual event opposing Israel’s control of Jerusalem.
(AP, 9/18/09)(www.alqudsday.com/)
2009 Sep 19, Russia said it will scrap a plan to deploy missiles near Poland since Washington has dumped a planned missile shield in Eastern Europe. It also harshly criticized Iran's president for new comments denying the Holocaust.
(AP, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 22, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran is stronger than ever and warned that its military will "cut the hand" of anyone who attacks. But a military parade where he spoke was marred when an air force plane crashed, killing seven people.
(AP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 23, Iranian police warned shop owners against displaying female mannequins wearing underwear or showing off their curves as part of a government campaign against Western influence. Azar Mansouri, a senior leader from reformist political party, Islamic Iran Participation Front, was arrested during a widespread crackdown on opposition supporters who challenged the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009. In March 2010 Mansouri was sentenced to three years in jail for plotting to harm national security.
(www.sign4change.info/english/spip.php?article579)(AP, 9/23/09)(AFP, 3/13/10)
2009 Sep 25, The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran has revealed the existence of a secret uranium-enrichment plant, a development that could heighten fears about Tehran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon and escalate its diplomatic confrontation with the West. Armed with the disclosure President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain demanded that Tehran fully disclose its nuclear ambitions "or be held accountable" to an impatient world community.
(AP, 9/25/09)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.51)
2009 Sep 26, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear chief, said his country will allow the UN nuclear agency to inspect its newly revealed, still unfinished uranium enrichment facility.
(AP, 9/26/09)
2009 Sep 26, In Iran, one day before the sale of Telecommunication Co. of Iran (TCI), the Pishgaman Kavir Yazd Cooperative Co. received a letter from the Iranian Privatization Organization (IPO) stating that it wasn't qualified to participate in the bid process.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2009 Sep 27, Iran said it successfully test-fired short-range missiles during military drills by the elite Revolutionary Guard, a show of force days after the US warned Tehran over a newly revealed underground nuclear facility it was secretly constructing.
(AP, 9/27/09)(AP, 9/28/09)
2009 Sep 27, In Iran a consortium of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a multi-billion dollar business empire known as Setad, that is controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bid on a controlling stake in Telecommunication Co of Iran, or TCI, which had a near monopoly on landline telephone services. They won the stake for $7.8 billion, Iran's largest privatization ever.
(AP, 9/28/09)(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2009 Sep 29, Iran's nuclear chief said his country built its newly revealed uranium enrichment facility inside a mountain and next to a military site near the city of Qom to ensure continuity of its nuclear activities in case of an attack. Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi said the site will be open to inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog.
(AP, 9/29/09)
2009 Sep 30, In Iran Saeed Hajjarian (55), considered a top architect and ideologue of the movement pushing for more social and political freedoms, was released on bail after more than three months in jail on charges of inciting the country's postelection unrest.
(AP, 10/1/09)
2009 Oct 1, In Switzerland senior American and Iranian delegates met one-on-one during a lunch break at seven-nation talks in Geneva. Iran brought a broad range of geopolitical issues to the table, while the six powers, the permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany, sought to soften Iran's resistance to freezing its uranium enrichment program. Iran accepted a demand to allow UN inspectors into its covertly built enrichment plant.
(AP, 10/1/09)(AP, 10/2/09)
2009 Oct 9, Amnesty Int’l. said Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani (37) was the first person to be sentenced to death in connection with the unrest in Iran following the disputed June12 elections. He was convicted of “enmity against God" through membership in a group that seeks the end of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a monarchy.
(SFC, 10/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 10, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported that 3 defendants in the mass trial of opposition figures accused of fueling the country's postelection unrest have been sentenced to death. Two of them were convicted of membership in a monarchist group seeking to topple Iran's Islamic Republic and restore a monarchy. A third defendant was convicted of having ties to a terrorist group for his alleged links to the People's Mujahedeen.
(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 15, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said that China intends to strengthen its cooperation with Iran, an indication Beijing would oppose growing calls in the West for additional sanctions against the Islamic regime for its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/15/09)
2009 Oct 18, In Iran a suicide bomber killed 5 senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard, 10 other members of the Guard and at least 27 others in an area of the southeast that has been at the center of a simmering Sunni insurgency. The dead included the deputy commander of the Guard's ground force, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. A militant group from Iran's Sunni Muslim minority called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility. Jundallah, made up of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority, is also found in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/18/09)(AP, 10/22/09)
2009 Oct 20, Iran’s state news agency said Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American academic, has been convicted for his alleged role in the post-election unrest in the country and sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
(AP, 10/20/09)
2009 Oct 20, Talks in Vienna meant to persuade Iran to send most of its enriched uranium abroad, and thus delay its potential to make a nuclear weapon, bogged down over fierce Iranian resistance to French participation.
(AP, 10/20/09)
2009 Oct 21, Diplomats in Vienna said Iranian negotiators expressed support for a deal that, if accepted by their leaders, would delay Tehran's ability to make nuclear weapons by sending most of its existing enriched uranium to Russia for processing.
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 21, Indonesia’s customs chief said a group of 10 alleged Iranian drug smugglers, including eight veiled women, were caught with $12.5 million worth of methamphetamines at the main airport. The group had arrived on flights from Malaysia, Syria and Qatar on Oct 19-20.
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 25, In Iran UN IAEA inspectors got their first look inside the Fordo uranium enrichment site 20 miles north of Qom, a once-secret uranium enrichment facility that has raised Western suspicions about the extent of Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/25/09)
2009 Oct 26, Pakistani police arrested 11 Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers for illegally entering the country, amid tensions over a suicide attack on Oct 18 that Tehran alleges was carried out by militants backed by Pakistani intelligence officials. The 11 officers were released the next day.
(AP, 10/26/09)(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 26, Yemeni coast guards seized a boat that illegally entered the country's territorial waters and arrested five Iranians on board. Local media reported the next day that an Iranian boat smuggling weapons was captured and its Iranian crew arrested.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 27, Iran’s state television says Iran will agree to the "general framework" of a UN-drafted plan to ship enriched uranium out of the country for processing, but will seek "important changes" in the deal.
(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 28, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said that questioning the results of Iran's June presidential election is a crime.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 31, Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected a UN-backed plan to ship much of the country's uranium abroad for further enrichment, raising further doubts about the likelihood Tehran will finally approve the deal.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Oct, In Iran Yusuf Nadarkhani (30) was arrested and condemned to death for apostasy under Islamic sharia law. He had turned to Christianity when he was 19 and later became a pastor in the northern city of Rasht. The conviction was upheld in 2010. In July, 2011, the supreme court overturned the death sentence and sent the case back to the court in his hometown in Gilan province. His release was reported on Sep 9, 2012.
(AP, 9/29/11)(AP, 10/2/11)(AP, 9/9/12)
2009 Nov 4, Iranian security forces beat anti-government protesters with batons on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover. The counter-demonstrations were the opposition's first major show of force on Tehran's streets in nearly two months. Iranian reporter Farhad Pouladi was taken into custody as he headed to cover a state-sanctioned rally outside the former US Embassy. Anti-government protesters also clashed with anti-riot police during counter marches not far from the rally. Police detained 109 people for "disturbing public order" during an opposition rally. 62 of those detained were handed over to judicial authorities for trial and the rest were released after questioning. Among those detained were a Japanese reporter and 2 Canadian reporters.
(AP, 11/4/09)(AP, 11/5/09)(AP, 11/7/09)(SFC, 11/7/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 4, A 4.9-magnitude earthquake struck Bandar Abbas, a key port city in southern Iran, injuring at least 700 people and cutting power and telephone lines.
(AP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 5, Pakistani security forces arrested three Iranians suspected of planning a suicide attack in Iran's southeastern region last month which killed 42 people. Militants blew up a girls' school in the Khyber tribal region, but no one was injured. Missiles believed fired by US drones killed two alleged militants in a northwestern tribal region.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 6, A UN report said 2 Iranian businessmen working at a Dubai-based firm were linked to video surveillance devices sold to Sudan and used in unmanned drones in Darfur in violation of a UN arms embargo.
(Reuters, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 7, Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected any possibility of Tehran shipping uranium abroad for further enrichment, intensifying pressures on the government to reject the UN-backed plan altogether. Iranian authorities released 3 journalists who were among more than 100 people arrested during pro-government and opposition street demonstrations on Nov 4.
(AP, 11/7/09)
2009 Nov 10, Iran announced it will use Italy to launch a communications satellite after waiting years for Russia to do the job.
(AP, 11/10/09)
2009 Nov 10, Ramin Pourandarjani (26), an Iranian doctor, died amid conflicting reports of a heart attack, a car accident or suicide, raising opposition accusations that he was killed. Authorities had barred the family from performing an autopsy on the body. He had gone public with reports of tortured protesters he treated at Tehran's most feared detention facility, known as Kahrizak on Tehran's outskirts. Pourandarjani, a general practitioner, was the only doctor there, serving there once a week as part of his mandatory military service. Prosecutors later alleged that he died of poisoning from an overdose of an anti-hypertension drug in his salad, fueling opposition fears that he was killed because of what he knew about the abuse.
(AP, 11/18/09)(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Nov 11, Iran executed Ehsan Fattahian (28), a Kurdish activist, at a prison in Sanandaj. He was a member of the Party of Free Life in Kurdistan, a militant group outlawed by Iran.
(SFC, 11/12/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 11, The Israeli military released a series of documents and photos it said proved Iran was behind a massive shipment of weapons Israel's navy commandos intercepted last week. Among the arms Israel says it found aboard the vessel were 9,000 mortar bombs, 3,000 Katyusha rockets, 3,000 gun shells, 20,000 grenades and over a half million rounds of small arms ammunition.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 11, An Italian company that helped build a communications satellite for Iran said there are no plans to launch it, denying an announcement made in Tehran this week.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 14, In Iran local newspapers reported that the government has formed a special unit to monitor Web sites and fight Internet crimes, in a clear attack on an opposition that relies almost exclusively on online means to broadcast its message. (AP, 11/14/09)
2009 Nov 17, Iran vowed to continue enriching uranium despite a wrist slap by the UN nuclear watchdog, as US President Barack Obama warned of "consequences" if Tehran refused to come clean on its atomic program.
(AFP, 11/17/09)
2009 Nov 17, Iran’s state television reported that five defendants have been sentenced to death in a mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the unrest that followed the disputed June presidential election. They apparently included 3 death sentences announced last month.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Nov 18, Iran's foreign minister said his country would not export its enriched uranium for further processing, brushing aside the latest UN plan aimed at preventing Tehran from potentially building nuclear weapons.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Nov 22, Iran began large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting the country's nuclear facilities against any possible attack. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president, (1997-2005) was released on a $700,000 bail. His lawyer said he had been sentenced to six years in prison in the mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting post-election unrest.
(AP, 11/22/09)
2009 Nov 22, Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad arrived in Gambia for a 24-hour working visit aimed at fostering relations between the Islamic republic and the West African nation.
(AFP, 11/22/09)
2009 Nov 22, Former Iranian Interior Minister Ali Kordan (51), who was dismissed after being accused of faking a law degree from the University of Oxford, died. Iran's parliament dismissed Kordan in 2008 after questions arose over his credentials from Oxford. The university denied it awarded him an honorary doctorate of law.
(AP, 11/23/09)
2009 Nov 23, Iran's central bank chief said that the country has gained five billion dollars by replacing the US dollar with the euro in its currency basket. Iran’s conservative Jomhuri Eslami reported that the moral police have arrested a dozen couples for engaging in illicit sexual acts, including swapping of partners.
(AFP, 11/23/09)
2009 Nov 23, Jacques Monsieur (56), a Belgian arms dealer pleaded guilty, in an Alabama courtroom to conspiracy to illegally export F-5 fighter jet engines and parts from the US to Iran. Monsieur, along with Dara Fotouhi, an Iranian national living in France, was charged in a six-count indictment with conspiracy, money laundering and smuggling.
(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 24, Iran released on $500,000 bail prominent reformist Mohammad Atrianfar who has been convicted in connection with street protests after June's disputed presidential election.
(AFP, 11/24/09)(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 24, Iran said it was ready to exchange its low-enriched uranium with a higher enriched material, but only on its own soil, to guarantee the West follows through with promises to give the fuel.
(AFP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 24, Iran’s state media reported that authorities have banned the Hamshahri daily, the country's largest-circulation newspaper, for publishing a photo of a Baha'i temple. Iran's Shiite cleric-led regime views the Baha'i religion as heretical and has banned it since the 1979 revolution. The ban was lifted after one day.
(AP, 11/24/09)(AP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 24, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gave a welcoming bear hug Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and urged Western nations to drop threats of punishment over the Iranian nuclear program and instead negotiate a fair solution.
(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 25, Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad arrived in Caracas for a meeting with President Hugo Chavez, as the two outspoken anti-US leaders try to boost ties.
(AFP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 25, An Iranian cleric said religious authorities have started taking control of schools, part of a wider ideological drive by hard-liners to wage what authorities call a "soft war" against Western influence.
(AP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 25, Iran stopped the yacht, “Kingdom of Bahrain," owned by Sail Bahrain as it sailed from Bahrain to the Gulf city of Dubai. It had been due to join the 360-mile (580km) Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race, which was to begin Nov. 26. Five British sailors were detained. The 5 sailors were released on Dec 2.
(AP, 11/30/09)(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Nov 26, A human rights group said Iran has brought new espionage charges against Kian Tajbakhsh (47), an Iranian-American scholar, who was already convicted of spying and sentenced to 15 years in prison in the country's crackdown following June's disputed presidential election. Prominent political activist Behzad Nabavi (67) was released on $800,000 bail. Shapoor Kazemi, opposition leader Mousavi's brother-in-law, was freed on $50,000 bail.
(AP, 11/26/09)
2009 Nov 26, Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, said that Iranian authorities took her medal about three weeks ago from a safe-deposit box, claiming she owed taxes on the $1.3 million she was awarded. Ebadi said that such prizes are exempt from tax under Iranian law. In Norway, where the peace prize is awarded, the government said the confiscation of the gold medal was a shocking first in the history of the 108-year-old prize.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 26, In Vienna Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that his probe of allegations that Iran tried to make nuclear arms is at "a dead end" because Tehran is not cooperating and warned that confidence in Tehran had shrunk in the wake of its belated revelation of a previously secret nuclear facility.
(AP, 11/26/09)
2009 Nov 27, The board of the UN nuclear watchdog censured Iran, with 25 nations backing a resolution that demands Tehran immediately freeze construction of its newly revealed nuclear facility and heed Security Council resolutions calling on it to stop uranium enrichment.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 29, Iran's parliament passed a law earmarking $20 million to support militant groups opposing the West and to investigate alleged US and British plots against the Islamic Republic. Iran’s Cabinet ordered an expansion of the country’s nuclear program that included an additional 10 nuclear plants.
(AP, 11/29/09)(SFC, 11/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Nov 30, Iran's nuclear chief said UN criticism pushed his country to retaliate by announcing ambitious plans for more uranium enrichment. With tensions rising over deadlocked negotiations, France said diplomacy was not working and sanctions against Iran were needed.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 2, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would enrich uranium to a higher level itself, apparently ruling out a UN-brokered deal meant to dispel fears Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons capability.
(Reuters, 12/2/09)
2009 Dec 2, Iran freed five British sailors detained last week when their racing yacht drifted accidentally into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. Britain said it was delighted with the release and praised Tehran's handling of the incident. The Fars agency reported that analyst Saeed Leilaz, known for his criticism of the government, was sentenced to nine years in prison for possession of classified documents. The Revolutionary Court also slapped the brother-in-law of opposition leader Mir Houssein Mousavi with a one-year sentence.
(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Dec 6, Iranian authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl or choked them off completely before expected student protests on Dec 7, to deny the opposition a vital means of communication. Authorities also ordered journalists working for foreign media organizations not to leave their offices to cover the demonstrations.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 7, In Iran security forces and militiamen clashed with thousands of protesters shouting "death to the dictator" outside Tehran University, beating them with batons and firing tear gas on the officially designated “Student Day." Students demonstrated nationwide.
(AP, 12/7/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.51)
2009 Dec 8, In Iran pro-government militiamen assaulted university students demonstrating for a second straight day and hard-liners on motorcycles harassed the top opposition leader at his office Tuesday, signs of a possible intensified crackdown after the biggest anti-government demonstrations in months.
(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 9, Iran claimed that a newly built UN station to detect nuclear explosions was built in Turkmenistan near its border to give the West a post to spy on the country. The Vienna-based Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, or CTBTO, said the station has now been fully constructed and is currently undergoing testing.
(AP, 12/9/09)
2009 Dec 11, Thousands of Iranian government supporters staged rallies denouncing opposition students who burned photos of the supreme leader in protests this week.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, Iran said it is ready to exchange the bulk of its stockpile of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods, as proposed by the UN, but according to its own mechanisms and timetable. Iran also said it needs up to 15 nuclear plants to generate electricity. Tens of thousands of hard-line clerics rallied in cities across the country to denounce student protesters who burned photos of the country's supreme leader in a taboo-shattering act earlier in the week.
(AP, 12/12/09)(Reuters, 12/12/09)
2009 Dec 13, In Iran police surrounded the campus of Tehran University on Sunday, trapping hundreds of students protesting what they said were fabricated government images of the burning of a photo of the Islamic Republic's revered founder.
(AP, 12/13/09)
2009 Dec 14, Iran's main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed more anti-government protests as the authorities announced several arrests over a reported insult to Islamic revolution founder Ayatollah Khomeini.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 15, Credit Suisse confirmed that it was fined $536 million for helping Iran hide financial transactions.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.68)
2009 Dec 16, Iran test-fired an upgraded version of its most advanced missile, which is capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, in a new show of strength aimed at preventing any military strike against it amid the nuclear standoff with the West.
(AP, 12/16/09)
2009 Dec 17, Iranian forces took control of Well 4, a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border in Maysan province. Well 4 lies in the Fauqa Field, part of a cluster of fields Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil majors in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels. There have been a number of meetings in recent years aimed at reaching agreement on border fields, so far without success.
(AFP, 12/18/09)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 19, Iran's hard-line judiciary acknowledged for the first time that at least 3 prisoners detained after June's disputed presidential election were beaten to death by their jailers. The judiciary said 12 officials at Kahrizak prison were charged, three of them with murder.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 19, Iraqi troops massed near an oil well on the border in a standoff with Iranian forces that seized control of the site in a sudden flare up of tension between the two uneasy neighbors.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 20, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (87), Iran's most senior dissident cleric, died. He had emerged as the spiritual father of the reform movement.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 20, Iraqi oil workers returned to the disputed oil well No. 4 in southern Iraq that was seized by Iranian forces Dec 17. Baghdad also confirmed that Iranian troops left the well.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 21, Tens of thousands of Iranian mourners turned the funeral procession of the country's most senior dissident cleric into an anti-government protest, chanting "death to the dictator" and slogans in support of the opposition amid heavy security.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 22, Iran's president dismissed a year-end deadline set by the Obama administration and the West for Tehran to accept a UN-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, and claimed his government is now "10 times stronger" than a year ago. A state television Web site said Pres. Ahmadinejad had appointed a new chief of the Art Academy, removing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from the post. In southern Iran police shot dead two relatives of convicts during a melee that erupted at a public execution. Relatives, who came to watch the hanging of two convicts, started a scuffle, prompting the police to open fire.
(AP, 12/22/09)(AP, 12/23/09)(AP, 12/24/09)
2009 Dec 23, In Iran security forces in Isfahan clashed with opposition protesters gathered for a memorial for Iran's most senior dissident cleric, beating men and women and firing tear gas.
(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 24, In Iran local media reported that the central bank has warned people not to write on banknotes and sought to collect defaced ones after the appearance of opposition slogans on many.
(AFP, 12/24/09)
2009 Dec 26, Iranian security forces beat protesters in central Tehran, a sign of mounting tensions ahead of planned opposition rallies to mark a religious festival and the death of a dissident cleric a week ago.
(AP, 12/26/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran Ali Mousavi, a nephew of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, was killed in fighting between protesters and security forces. Security forces fired on anti-government protesters in Tehran, killing 8 people in the fiercest clashes in months.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran authorities detained two German diplomats and accused them of playing a role in organizing deadly anti-government protests. Iran's state media only reported this on Jan 27, 2010. Germany's Foreign Ministry said it had no knowledge about any diplomats being detained and dismissed accusations that German officials had a hand in the demonstrations and clashes that left eight people dead.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2009 Dec 28, Iranian security forces rounded up at least seven prominent activists, stepping up a crackdown on the country's pro-reform movement a day after eight people, including the nephew of the chief opposition leader, were killed in anti-government protests. Journalist Emadeddin Baghi was among those arrested. In July, 2010, he was sentenced to a year in prison and banned from political activities for five years.
(AP, 12/28/09)(AFP, 7/26/10)
2009 Dec 29, Iran's conservative parliament called for maximum punishment of opposition demonstrators as the regime stepped up its crackdown on dissent arresting the sister of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. Tens of thousands of government supporters rallied, and a reformist party called on Iran's rulers to apologize to the nation two days after eight people were killed in anti-government protests.
(AFP, 12/29/09)(Reuters, 12/29/09)
2009 Dec 30, In Iran tens of thousands of hard-line government supporters turned out for state-sponsored rallies, some of them calling for the execution of opposition leaders as Iran's police chief threatened to show "no mercy" in crushing any new protests by the pro-reform movement.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dilip Hiro authored “Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran."
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.98)
2010 Jan 1, In Iran a shootout with drug smugglers in an eastern desert region left 11 policemen dead.
(AP, 1/3/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Iran dozens of Tehran University professors appealed to the supreme leader to halt the ongoing violence against protesters, adding a new and respected voice in support of the opposition.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 6, A conservative Iranian Web site reported that a parliamentary probe has found Saeed Mortazavi, a former Tehran prosecutor, responsible for the death by torture of at least 3 anti-government protesters detained in the turmoil following the disputed June elections.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 6, A diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Norway told Norwegian television that he had resigned in protest over a crackdown on demonstrators in Iran. The government in Tehran denied the report. In mid-February the Norwegian Immigration Directorate gave Mohammed Reza Heydari and his family permission to remain in Norway as political refugees after going through "all necessary information pertaining to the case."
(AP, 1/6/10)(AP, 2/18/10)
2010 Jan 6, In Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new gas pipeline link to Iran from Turkmenistan, which he said would take ties to a "new level."
(AFP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 7, In Iran armed pro-government demonstrators opened fire on the car of former presidential candidate and opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi, as he was leaving a building in Qazvin .
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 9, In Iran about 30 "mourning mothers," with children who were killed or disappeared during the post-election unrest, were arrested in a Tehran park and taken to a detention center in the capital. The mothers had gather in Tehran's Laleh park every Saturday.
(Reuters, 1/10/10)
2010 Jan 10, In Iran a parliamentary investigation was made public that found Saeed Mortazavi, the former Tehran prosecutor, responsible for the deaths of at least three anti-government protesters imprisoned in the turmoil following Iran's disputed June elections. Iran freed a Syrian journalist working for Dubai television who was detained during anti-government protests two weeks ago.
(AP, 1/10/10)(Reuters, 1/10/10)
2010 Jan 12, In Iran Masoud Ali Mohammadi (50), a nuclear physics professor who publicly backed Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed June presidential election, was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle blew up outside his home in Tehran. The government blamed the rare assassination on an armed Iranian opposition group that it said operated under the direction of Israel and the US. In 2011 Majid Jamali Fashi, charged with the killing of Mohammadi, went on trial. Fashi was also accused of cooperating with Mossad. On Aug 28 Fashi was sentenced to death.
(AP, 1/12/10)(AP, 8/23/11)(AP, 8/28/11)
2010 Jan 15, Iran's police chief warned opposition supporters not to use cell phones and e-mail messages to organize protest rallies against the government, saying those who do so will be prosecuted and punished.
(AP, 1/15/10)
2010 Jan 16, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran said they had agreed to work together more closely to combat extremism, illegal weapons trading and drug trafficking.
(AP, 1/16/10)
2010 Jan 17, In Iran lawyer Hooshang Pour-Babai said senior reformist and former MP Mohsen Safai Farahani (61), detained since June 20, has been sentenced to six years in jail. He was accused of "acting against national security, propaganda against the system, insulting officials and spreading lies."
(AFP, 1/17/10)
2010 Jan 18, In Iran gunmen fatally shot Vali Hajgholizadeh, a court prosecutor, outside his home in the town of Khoy, near the Turkish border. An Iranian official said Kurdish rebels may have been involved in the assassination. Opposition groups flooded the Web with calls for a huge show of force on the Feb 11 commemoration of the Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 1/19/10)(SFC, 1/19/10, p.A3)
2010 Jan 24, In Iran a Russian-made Iranian Taban Air plane carrying 157 passengers and 13 crew caught fire upon landing at northeastern Mashhad airport injuring at least 46 people.
(AP, 1/24/10)
2010 Jan 26, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the US of trying to use the Internet as a tool to confront the Islamic Republic, declaring that such a policy only showed Washington's frustration. The US Senate voted in July to adopt the Victims of Iranian Censorship Act which authorizes up to $50 million for expanding Farsi language broadcasts, supporting Iranian Internet and countering government efforts to block it.
(Reuters, 1/26/10)
2010 Jan 28, Iran executed two men, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour, accused of involvement in an armed anti-government group. The public prosecutor announced that new death sentences have been issued against opposition activists involved in protests over June's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 1/28/10)(AFP, 3/8/10)
2010 Jan 29, Afghan troops backed by NATO attack helicopters battled Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests who launched an assault in the heart of a Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province. 6 militants were killed in the assault. In Ghazni province 2 Afghans were killed after failing to stop their vehicle when ordered. An Afghan interpreter working for the US military shot dead two American soldiers in Wardak province. Iranian guards opened fire and killed 5 laborers as they crossed into Iran from the southwestern province of Nimroz.
(AP, 1/29/10)(AFP, 1/30/10)(SFC, 1/30/10, p.A3)(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 30, Thousands of Iranians gathered at dusk against a snowy mountain backdrop to light giant bonfires in an ancient mid-winter festival. Sadeh was the national festival of ancient Persia when Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion, before the conquest of Islam in the 7th century.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2010 Jan, Five Iranian exiles issued a Manifesto from abroad calling for the resignation of Pres. Ahmadinejad, fresh elections and the lifting of restrictions on political activity.
(http://garysick.tumblr.com/)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.26)
2010 Feb 2, Iran said it was ready to send its uranium abroad for further enrichment as requested by the UN.
(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Feb 3, Iran announced it has successfully launched a research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space. The launch of the rocket Kavoshgar-3, which means Explorer-3 in Farsi, was announced by Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi to mark the National Day of Space Technology.
(AP, 2/3/10)
2010 Feb 4, Australia said it used an anti-weapons of mass destruction law to block three shipments to Iran but calls for new sanctions against the Islamic state opened up a new international divide.
(AFP, 2/4/10)
2010 Feb 4, China told other world powers that discussing broader sanctions against Iran was counterproductive, striking a blow to a Western push to rein in Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/4/10)
2010 Feb 4, A leading Russian lawmaker said Russia and Western powers have moved closer to agreement on the need for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 2/4/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his country's atomic agency to begin enriching uranium to a higher level, a move that's likely to deepen international suspicion over the country's intentions for its nuclear program.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iran's state media said Tehran has arrested seven people linked to the US-funded Radio Farda and accused some them of working for American spy agencies.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 8, Iran moved closer to being able to produce nuclear warheads with formal notification that it will enrich uranium to higher levels, even while insisting that the move was meant only to provide fuel for its research reactor. The semiofficial ISNA agency said that former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh was sentenced to six years in prison by a Revolutionary court. The defense minister announced that Iran has launched two production lines to build unmanned aircraft with surveillance and attack capabilities.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 8, Iran said it will cut ties with the British Museum because of the museum's failure to lend Tehran the Cyrus Cylinder, an ancient Babylonian artifact described as the world's earliest bill of rights.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 9, Iran began enriching uranium to a higher level over the vociferous objections of the US and its allies who fear the process could eventually be used to give the Islamic republic nuclear weapons.
(AP, 2/9/10)
2010 Feb 10, Iran's top police official says authorities have made a series of arrests of suspected opposition activists before expected Feb 11 protest rallies.
(AP, 2/10/10)
2010 Feb 10, The US Treasury Department said it was freezing the assets in US jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the US imposed new sanctions. Hundreds of thousands of government supporters massed in central Tehran to mark the anniversary of the revolution that created Iran's Islamic republic, while a heavy security force that fanned across the city moved quickly to snuff out counter protests by the opposition.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 15, Israel's PM Netanyahu called for "crippling sanctions" against Iran over its nuclear program after a meeting in Moscow with Russia's top officials, whom he praised for showing "an understanding" over the issue.
(AP, 2/15/10)
2010 Feb 16, Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shrugging off international concerns, announced the country was moving ahead to expand its nuclear enrichment capacities by installing more advanced machinery at its main enrichment facility.
(AP, 2/16/10)
2010 Feb 21, Iranian state television reported that intelligence agents have killed four members of an armed Kurdish separatist group near the Kurdish town of Sardasht. The report accused the four of killing three policemen in a clash on Dec 26.
(AP, 2/21/10)
2010 Feb 22, Iran said it plans to build two new uranium enrichment facilities deep inside mountains to protect them from attack, a new challenge to Western powers trying to curb Tehran's nuclear program for fear it is aimed at making weapons.
(AP, 2/22/10)
2010 Feb 23, Iran formally set out its terms for giving up most of its cache of enriched uranium in a confidential document, and the conditions fall short of what has been demanded by the United States and other world powers.
(AP, 2/23/10)
2010 Feb 23, Iran said that its security forces have captured Abdulmalik Rigi, leader of the Jundallah group (Soldiers of God), an armed Sunni group whose insurgency in the southeast has destabilized the border region with Pakistan. State-run English-language Press TV said that Rigi was captured on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan.
(AP, 2/23/10)
2010 Feb 24, Qatar signed a defense pact with Iran.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.47)(www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=214868)
2010 Feb 25, Syria and Iran defended their strong ties and dismissed US efforts to break up the 30-year-alliance, saying America should not dictate relationships in the Middle East.
(AP, 2/25/10)
2010 Feb 26, The Jundallah insurgency, which says it's fighting for equal rights for the Sunni minority in southeast Iran, named al-Hajj Mohammed Dhahir Baluch as its new leader. The statement described the capture of former leader Abdulmalik Rigi's by Iranian forces on Feb 23, but said all the tribes of Baluchistan had pledged allegiance to the new leader.
(AP, 2/28/10)
2010 Mar 1, In Iran editor Behrouz Behzadi of the Etemaad daily said his newspaper was banned by the Press Supervisory Board. The order cited article six of the press law without elaborating. That article allows newspapers to be closed for offenses from security violations to insulting articles. A weekly called Irandokht was also closed down. One of its editors was arrested last month. Iranian media said six journalists and opposition activists held for suspected involvement in the country's postelection turmoil have been released on bail. Jafar Panahi (49), an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, was taken into custody along with another person who was in his company. Panahi was released on bail on May 25. In December Panahi was sentenced to 6 years in prison and barred from making films or participating in political activities for two decades.
(AP, 3/1/10)(AP, 3/2/10)(AP, 5/25/10)(SFC, 12/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 2, In Iran the kaleme opposition Web site reported that an appeals court has upheld the death sentence for Mohammad Amin Valian (20), a student who took part in an anti-government rally in December that left eight people dead. Valian was found guilty of Moharebeh, a religious offense that translates as defiance of God, a crime punishable by death under Iranian law.
(AP, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 3, Italian police arrested seven people on suspicion of trafficking arms to Iran, two Iranians they believe are secret agents and five Italians. Two more Iranians were being sought. On April 29 Ali Damirchi-Lou and state television reporter Hamid Masoumi-Nejad were released from jail and placed under house arrest.
(AP, 3/3/10)(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Mar 7, Iran announced that it has started a new production line of highly accurate, short range cruise missiles, which would add a new element to the country's already imposing arsenal.
(AP, 3/7/10)
2010 Mar 9, In Switzerland a senior Google executive welcomed a US decision to relax restrictions on exporting Internet communications services to Iran, Sudan and Cuba.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 10, Iran hanged two convicted drug traffickers in the Shiite shrine city of Qom. Another man, convicted of drug trafficking, was hanged in the city of Ahvaz. The latest hangings bring to at least 30 the number of people executed in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP count based on news reports.
(AFP, 3/11/10)(AFP, 3/12/10)
2010 Mar 13, Iran’s Fars the news agency said Iran has busted what it says was a US-funded cyber network group linked to an exiled opposition movement that collected data on its nuclear scientists. 30 members of the network with links to the outlawed People's Mujahedeen and monarchists were said to have been arrested.
(AFP, 3/14/10)
2010 Mar 16, Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi, defying government warnings, said the Islamic republic was "plagued with despotism," in remarks published ahead of a national celebration that could trigger more protests.
(Reuters, 3/16/10)
2010 Mar 16, Pakistan and Iran signed a $7.6 billion deal in Turkey paving the way for the construction of a much-delayed pipeline pumping Iranian natural gas to the energy-starved South Asian country.
(AP, 3/17/10)
2010 Mar 17, Iran released Mohsen Mirdamadi, the leader of the country's biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front. He was temporarily freed on $450,000 bail. Authorities also released filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, journalist Ali Akbar Montajabi and female activist Farzaneh Qassemi, all of whom were detained in recent weeks.
(AP, 3/18/10)
2010 Mar 18, In Iran former vice president Hossein Marashi was arrested after an appeals court upheld his one-year prison sentence. He was convicted of spreading propaganda against the ruling clerical establishment. Marashi was temporarily released on March 20 for Iran's new year celebrations.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 21, Iranian authorities detained Hasan Lahouti, the grandson of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, upon arrival from London. Rafsanjani, the most powerful opposition supporter inside the country's clerical leadership, has come under harsh criticism from hard-liners for his support of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Lahouti was freed the next day on a $73,000 bail.
(AP, 3/22/10)(AP, 3/23/10)
2010 Mar 27, Iran used an ancient new year celebration to reach out to Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey at a summit meeting that projected Iranian leadership in the strategic region straddling the Middle East and Central Asia.
(AP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 29, In Canada a 2-day G-8 meeting opened in the Quebec town of Gatineau. Canada said it would press the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations to tighten UN sanctions on Iran.
(Reuters, 3/28/10)
2010 Mar 30, Iran's state television reported that its intelligence agents mounted a "complicated" cross-border mission and freed an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in 2008 by gunmen in northwestern Pakistan. Heshmatollah Attarzadeh and his Pakistani bodyguard were driving over a narrow bridge in Peshawar on Nov. 13, 2008 when two gunmen blocked their way with a car and opened fire.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Quebec, Canada, the world's leading industrial nations (G8) called for stronger action against Iran over its nuclear program and the United States said it was confident China would agree on the need for sanctions.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 31, Six major world powers agreed to begin putting together proposed new sanctions on Iran over its suspect nuclear program after China dropped its opposition.
(AP, 3/31/10)
2010 Apr 1, US President Barack Obama called on Chinese President Hu Jintao to join forces on the Iranian nuclear standoff as he stepped up efforts to block Tehran's atomic program.
(AFP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, Iran's top nuclear envoy called for negotiations without threat of sanctions, following meetings in Beijing in the wake of US reports saying China had dropped its opposition to possible new UN measures against Iran.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 8, In Prague President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the biggest nuclear arms pact in a generation and envisioned a day when they can compromise on the divisive issue of missile defense. Obama and Medvedev warned Iran of possible sanctions over its nuclear program shortly after signing the disarmament deal.
(AP, 4/8/10)(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 9, Iran unveiled a third generation of domestically built centrifuges as the country pushes ahead with plans to accelerate a uranium enrichment program that has alarmed world powers fearful of the nuclear program's aims.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 10, In western Iran assailants blasted open a prison wall with rocket propelled grenades, allowing 2 convicted murderers to escape from the central prison in the city of Ilam. 5 people convicted of drug trafficking were hanged at a prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(Reuters, 4/10/10)(AFP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Iran Sharq, a prominent pro-reform daily, reappeared on newsstands after a three-year ban. Sharq was closed by the Press Supervisory Board, run by the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, in 2007 for publishing an interview with a "counter-revolutionary" poet abroad.
(Reuters, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 12, President Barack Obama and presidents, prime ministers and other top officials from 47 countries started work on a battle plan to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. Egypt called for world powers to press both Iran and Israel on nuclear weapons, saying that the Middle East should be a zone free of the ultra-destructive arms. China said sanctions were not the answer to the Iranian atomic standoff. Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog spurned the US nuclear summit, saying any decision taken at the conference is not binding on nations absent from the event.
(AP, 4/12/10)(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 14, Six major powers wrapped up what they said was a "very constructive" meeting on fresh UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but diplomats cautioned against expecting early adoption.
(AFP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 16, In Iran cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, the acting prayer leader of Tehran, said women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 18, Iran’s pro-reform Sharq daily said that filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad was convicted on charges of spreading propaganda against the clerical establishment and insulting the country's leaders. Nourizad was arrested in November after writing a protest letter to the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urging him to apologize to the nation for the bloody crackdown on the opposition movement after the disputed June presidential elections. In May it was later reported that Nourizad was beaten in prison and had gone on a hunger strike.
(AP, 4/18/10)(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Iran a senior adviser said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the location for a new uranium enrichment facility Iran plans to begin building over the next year.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Iran the semi-official Fars news agency reported that the Press Supervisory Board ordered the pro-reform Bahar daily closed for "spreading doubts on fundamental issues such as elections. The official IRNA news agency reported that Iran has sentenced prominent political activists Mohsen Mirdamadi, Mostafa Tajzadeh and Davood Soleimani to six years in prison each for involvement in the country's post-election turmoil. They were convicted of spreading propaganda against Iran.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Iran an explosion in a car killed 2 people and wounded 8 in the western city of Ilam. The car was not a gas-powered vehicle of the sort that has seen a number of accidental explosions in recent years.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 22, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a meeting of two leaders united in fierce opposition to the West.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 23, Diplomats said Iran has agreed to give the UN nuclear monitoring agency greater inspection and monitoring rights to a sensitive site where it is enriching uranium to higher levels.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 24, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Iran has amnestied 110 "terrorists" since it captured the leader of a Sunni insurgency in southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province in February. Provincial governor Ali Mohammad Azad said 300 militants had "expressed regret" for their actions since Abdolmalek Rigi's arrest.
(AFP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 26, Iran’s state television reported that Iran is cutting red tape and easing ownership rules to encourage foreign investment in stocks and bonds, as the major oil producer faces further UN sanctions over its nuclear work.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 27, Brazil, a UN Security Council member, demanded that Iran guarantee its nuclear program has no military aims, saying the crisis has become the single most important security issue in the world.
(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 30, The EU's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said that China is willing to discuss sanctions on Iran as long as they are carefully targeted and bolster efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 May 2, In Iran the Fars news agency reported that 9 bronze statues, some of famous Iranians and costing thousands of dollars, have been stolen in Tehran in what is said to be serial thievery.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 3, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seized center stage at the opening of a monthlong debate at the United Nations on how to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. But behind the scenes, UN Security Council powers were discussing ways to punish Iran for defying their demands that it curb nuclear activities that could be used to make bombs.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Kuwait said that several suspects are being questioned in connection with a busted spy cell which a local newspaper said had been working for Iran.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 4, Iran called for independent verification of US claims it has pared its stockpile of nuclear warheads back to 5,113 and queried whether Washington was justified in holding such a lethal load.
(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Iran 5 Kurdish rebels, including two women, were killed after they battled Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in the western province of Kermanshah.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 8, Iran voiced optimism about Turkish and Brazilian mediation efforts in its nuclear dispute with the West, welcoming in principle ideas aimed at reviving a stalled fuel deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 5/8/10)
2010 May 9, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened what is being dubbed as the Middle East's biggest car plant set up by Iranian state-run automobile company Saipa.
(AFP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, Iran hanged five Kurdish activists, including one woman, convicted of membership of armed opposition groups and involvement in bombings.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, In Iran Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari was sentenced in absentia to more than 13 years in prison and 74 lashes, raising concerns about a new government crackdown ahead of the anniversary of disputed presidential elections.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Iran said that Brazil and Turkey have offered a promising new proposal for a nuclear fuel deal as Tehran steps up a diplomatic push to stave off new UN sanctions over its disputed nuclear program. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, could hold talks with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton in Turkey. The Fars news agency reported that Iranian border guards have arrested 9 Iraqi fishermen in Iranian waters in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in recent days.
(AP, 5/11/10)(AFP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Iranian border guards have arrested 9 Iraqi fishermen in Iranian waters in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in recent days.
(AFP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 15, In Iran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed the death sentence for six opposition activists arrested in protests after last year's disputed presidential election. They included Ahmad Daneshpour Moghadam, Mohsen Daneshpour Moghadam and Alireza Ghanbari, who were arrested after opposition protests during the Shiite mourning holiday of Ashura last December. Mohammad Ali Saremi, Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad-Ali Haj-Aghai were arrested in September.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 16, In Iran Brazil's Pres. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva met with Iranian leaders to try to broker a compromise in the international standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, even as the US says new sanctions are the only way to force Iran's cooperation.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, In Iran acclaimed filmmaker and opposition supporter Jafar Panahi went on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. He was this month freed on a bail of around 200,000 US dollars. Panahi is known for his gritty, socially critical movies such as the "Circle," which bagged the 2000 Venice Golden Lion award, "Crimson Gold," and "Offside," winner of the 2006 Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival.
(AP, 5/19/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 May 16, Iran arrested Mohsen Armin, a senior member of the banned reformist party, the Organization of Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution. He was released from Tehran's Evin prison in July after posting a bail of $200,000.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 May 16, Clotilde Reiss (24), a young French academic who battled spying charges in Iran for more than 10 months, returned to France and thanked President Nicolas Sarkozy and other officials for insisting on her innocence and pressing for her release.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 17, Iran agreed to ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in a surprise nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country's disputed atomic program and deflate a US-led push for tougher sanctions. The deal was reached in talks between Brazils’ Pres. Silva, Turkey’s PM Erdogan and Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/17/10)(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A2)
2010 May 17, France decided to send home an Iranian agent it had jailed for murdering the Shah's last prime minister, two days after Tehran freed a young French academic accused of spying. Ali Vakili Rad was serving a life sentence for stabbing Shapour Bakhtiar to death at his home outside Paris in August 1991.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 19, Iran dismissed as "illegitimate" a draft UN Security Council resolution seeking to impose harsher sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 20, In Iran 3 Americans, jailed for 10 months, hugged and kissed their mothers in an emotional reunion after the women arrived on a mission to secure the release of their children. One of the prisoners said they all hoped to go home together in the trio's first public comments since their arrest.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 21, Three Americans jailed in Iran for 10 months met with their mothers a second time as Iranian authorities used their visit to underline their complaints about their own citizens detained by the United States.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 23, Iran said it will abandon an offer to ship some of its uranium stockpile abroad if the United States imposes new sanctions. Iran's intelligence minister said he had no doubt three US citizens arrested last July near the Iraq border were spies and called on Washington to propose a prisoner swap to secure their release.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 24, Iran hanged the brother of captured Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi for "terrorism" in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan province in the southeast.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran’s state IRNA news agency reported that police launched a crackdown on irreverent social behavior, seizing some 60 cars over the weekend whose drivers were deemed to be harassing women.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran, seeking to evade new UN sanctions, formally submitted its plan to swap some of its enriched uranium for reactor fuel and said the onus was on world powers to defuse tensions by accepting the deal.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Germany Daryush Shokof (55), a Berlin resident and Iranian dissident, disappeared in Cologne, the day he planned to board a train to Paris to promote his new film "Iran Zendan," or "Iran Prison." The small independent movie is highly critical of the Iranian regime and shows scenes of torture and rape in an Iranian prison. It was shown once last month to a closed audience of friends at a Berlin theater and then posted on YouTube, but has since been removed. On June 5, almost two weeks after he went missing, Shokof was found by a group of teenagers, drenched, exhausted and confused, near the Rhine river in Cologne, and taken to a hospital.
(AP, 6/11/10)
2010 May 29, A fire at an Iranian oil well at the Naft Shahr border region near the Iraq border killed three people and injured 10 more.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 31, The UN atomic agency said Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 Jun 1, China called on Iran to improve its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, after the agency said in a report that Tehran was pressing ahead with its controversial atomic program.
(AFP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 2, It was reported that Iran has barred private schools from teaching music, saying it clashes with the establishment’s Islamic values. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned 81 jailed opposition supporters who had been found guilty of having a role in the unrest triggered by last June's disputed presidential election.
(SFC, 6/2/10, p.A2)(AP, 6/3/10)
2010 Jun 4, Mahmoud Reza Banki (33), an Ivy League-educated man whose family sent him millions of dollars from Iran, was convicted of violating the Iran trade embargo and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Banki, born in Tehran, faced up to 25 years in prison. He has been a US citizen since 1996.
(AP, 6/4/10)
2010 Jun 5, Germany and Russia declared that the five world powers negotiating with Iran support a fresh set of international sanctions, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said they could pass soon.
(AP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 5, A senior Kurdish official in northern Iraq said Iranian troops have crossed the Iraqi border in pursuit of Iranian Kurdish rebels. Jabar Yawar, a deputy minister in the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, said that 35 Iranian soldiers remain in the Iraqi village of Perdunaz after crossing the border on June 3.
(AP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 7, Iranian state television showed a video of a man it identified as a missing nuclear scientist, who said he had been abducted and taken to the United States. The scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009. US media reports in March said he defected to the US and is assisting the CIA in efforts to undermine Iran's nuclear program. Iran has repeatedly said Amiri was abducted by the US.
(AP, 6/7/10)
2010 Jun 7, Iran's first women-only bank branch opened, allowing women to manage their finances without dealing with unrelated men, something likely to appeal to religious families who oppose mingling between the sexes.
(Reuters, 6/7/10)
2010 Jun 7, The Iranian Red Crescent said that it will send three aid ships to Gaza in the latest bid to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory by Iran's archfoe Israel.
(AFP, 6/7/10)
2010 Jun 8, A Russian source close to Security Council talks told reporters that UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program have been "completely agreed upon."
(Reuters, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 9, The US, Russia and France dismissed a proposal by Iran to swap some of its enriched uranium for reactor fuel hours before an expected UN Security Council vote on new sanctions. The UN Security Council adopted a resolution imposing a 4th round of sanctions on Iran. It banned Iran from undertaking any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
(AP, 6/9/10)(Econ, 6/12/10, p.15)(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A3)
2010 Jun 10, Iran said it will review relations with the UN nuclear watchdog a day after the UN Security Council approved a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear program. Russia looked set to freeze the sale to Tehran of S300 air defense missiles in response to new UN sanctions on Iran.
(AP, 6/10/10)(AFP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 10, An Iranian state-owned newspaper said three policemen in western Iran have been killed by a roadside bomb detonated by Kurdish rebels. Members of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK) were blamed.
(AP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 10, Turkey called the imposition of UN sanctions on Iran a "mistake" and said that it and Brazil would continue to seek a diplomatic solution to remove concerns over Iran's nuclear program.
(Reuters, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 11, Russia signaled it was scrapping the controversial sale of S-300 missiles to Iran in a major shift the Kremlin said was needed after fresh UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 6/11/10)
2010 Jun 12, Iranian police arrested 91 people as the nation marked the anniversary of last year's disputed presidential election.
(AFP, 6/13/10)
2010 Jun 13, Iran and Pakistan formally signed a $7 billion export deal which commits the Islamic republic to supplying its eastern neighbor with natural gas from 2014.
(Reuters, 6/13/10)
2010 Jun 14, Iran’s state radio said Iran is sending aid ships to blockaded Gaza, a move likely to be considered provocative by Israel which accuses Tehran of arming Hamas, the Palestinian enclave's Islamist rulers.
(Reuters, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 14, An Iranian airport official said 71 Iranian women "improperly" dressed were prevented from boarding flights in recent months, as a police crackdown on the behavior of young people intensified.
(AFP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 15, Iran signed contracts worth 21 billion dollars with local firms to develop six gas fields, some of them awarded to the elite Revolutionary Guards.
(AFP, 6/15/10)
2010 Jun 16, Iran's nuclear chief said his country is designing a new atomic research reactor in another snub of international efforts to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 6/16/10)
2010 Jun 17, European Union leaders agreed tighter sanctions against Iran, including measures to block oil and gas investment and curtail its refining and natural gas capability.
(Reuters, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 19, An Iranian newspaper, the Economic daily Pool (Money), voluntarily suspended publication after being warned by the national press watchdog for printing "false material."
(AFP, 6/19/10)
2010 Jun 20, In Iran Abdulmalik Rigi, head of Jundallah, was hanged for leading the Sunni insurgent group active near the country's border with Pakistan.
(AP, 6/20/10)
2010 Jun 21, An Iranian newspaper said police have issued warnings to 62,000 women who were "badly veiled" in the Shiite holy province of Qom as part of a clampdown on dress and behavior.
(AFP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 21, Iran said it has banned two UN nuclear inspectors from entering the country because they had leaked "false" information about Iran's disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 21, A United Arab Emirates reported that the UAR has closed down 40 international and local firms as part of a crackdown on companies that violate UN sanctions on Iran.
(AFP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 22, Iran's state television says the country will send an aid ship to the blockaded Gaza Strip with 1,100 tons of relief supplies.
(AP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 22, Austin Heap (26) launched Proxyheap, the precursor to anti-censorship software called Haystack. He soon received a license from the US treasury, State Dept. and commerce Dept. to export it to Iran. The software was withdrawn on Sep 10 due to security issues.
(Econ, 9/18/10, p.75)
2010 Jun 23, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has produced 17 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent, defying UN demands to halt the controversial program.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2010 Jun 24, The US Congress approved tough new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran's energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran.
(Reuters, 6/25/10)
2010 Jun 26, An Iranian lawmaker said the country's plan to send a blockade-busting ship from Iran to Gaza has been canceled.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jun 29, An Indonesian court sentenced 8 Iranians to life in prison for smuggling hundreds of methamphetamine tablets in their stomachs into the resort island of Bali. The Jakarta Post newspaper, quoting police, said Iranian drugs syndicates have become the main suppliers of heroin and crystal methamphetamine to Indonesia, replacing West African countries.
(AFP, 6/29/10)
2010 Jun, Stuxnet, computer malware, was first detected by VirusBlokAda, a security firm in Belarus. It was tailored for Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities. It was able to recognize a specific facility's control network and then destroy it. The code had a technology fingerprint of the control system it was seeking and would go into action automatically when it found its target. In September German computer security researcher Ralph Langner said he suspected that Stuxnet's mark was the Bushehr nuclear facility in Iran. Unspecified problems have been blamed for a delay in getting the facility fully operational. Stuxnet used 4 main exploits, packets of computer code that allow hackers to infiltrate or gain control of computers running software with design flaws.
(AP, 9/24/10)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.63)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.65)
2010 Jul 1, An Iranian military court convicted and sentenced to death two suspects charged with torturing and killing three anti-government protesters in prison.
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, Pres. Obama signed into law new sanctions on Iran that, for the first time, will bar from the American market foreign companies that work with Iranian businesses charged with aiding Tehran’s nuclear program.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 6, A Toronto man was convicted of attempting to illegally export nuclear-related technology to Iran, in the first Canadian criminal case resulting from UN sanctions against the Middle East nation. An Ontario judge found Mahmoud Yadegari guilty of attempting to export pressure transducers, which can be used in the building of both nuclear plants and weapons.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Iran to stop the execution of three people including a woman who faces death by stoning for adultery. Ashton said she was "deeply concerned" about reports that the executions of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, who was sentenced to hang for a murder he committed when he was a minor, and the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, "may be imminent." She also renewed her call for Iran to drop the death sentence against Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurd who awaits execution for being an "enemy of God."
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, The EU banned most of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, emphasizing that the move was not related to UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 7, Iranian media reported that the Veil and Modesty Festival, a fashion organization, has issued a new list of culturally appropriate haircuts for men, possibly indicating a new crackdown on male attire after years of strict rules for women, Iranian media reported.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Iran at least two people were arrested in Tehran's grand bazaar, the third day of a major strike that has alarmed the authorities. A wave of anti-tax strikes by merchants in Tehran unsettled government authorities.
(http://tinyurl.com/24nw65k)(SFC, 7/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 11, Iran said it has produced around 20 kg of 20% enriched uranium, in defiance of the world powers who want Tehran to suspend the controversial nuclear work.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Iran a judicial official said that the controversial death sentence by stoning for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted of adultery, will not be implemented for now. She was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband, for which a court in Tabriz, in northwestern Iran, sentenced her to 99 lashes. Later that year she was also convicted of adultery, despite having retracted a confession which she claims was made under duress.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 12, Iran said it has reached a final agreement with merchants on raising taxes following protests that flared in Tehran's main bazaar earlier this week. The new rate would set a top tax bracket of around 17 percent. The strike continued into a 2nd week.
(AP, 7/12/10)(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 12, Shahram Amiri, a missing Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran claims was abducted by the US, took refuge at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and asked to return to his homeland. Amiri (32) disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said the cabinet had decided to summon representatives of the Kurdish regional government to discuss oil smuggling to Iran and "to put an end to it, as it harms Iraq's national and economic interests." Reports about the oil smuggling surfaced just over a week after the US imposed new sanctions barring the export of refined fuels to Iran.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 14, Iran's Foreign Ministry said nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was on a flight home, traveling through the Gulf nation of Qatar and was expected to arrive in Tehran on July 15. A US official confirmed that Amiri left the United States. The Washington Post said that Amiri had been working for the CIA for more than a year. It said he was paid $5 million out of a secret program aimed at inducing scientists and others with information on Iran's nuclear program to defect.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 19, The Wall Street Journal reported that Tehran has used a small Iranian-owned bank in Germany to circumvent sanctions slapped on firms blacklisted for involvement in the Islamic republic's missile programs.
(AFP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iran's parliament authorized tit-for-tat retaliation against countries that inspect cargo on Iranian ships and aircraft as part of new UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iranian newspapers reported the hanging of 3 men in a prison in Kerman and one in public in the city of Ahvaz after they were convicted of drug trafficking.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 21, Iran's nuclear agency said it will conduct scientific studies for the construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, an engineering challenge that no nation has yet overcome.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Southern Iran was shaken by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake killing one person.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran warned it would stop trading with countries that impose restrictions on its assets abroad in the face of tightening international sanctions over the Islamic state's disputed nuclear activities.
(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran hanged three drug traffickers identified only by their initials as A.A., S.Z. and S.M., in the city of Ahvaz in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 24, The German government said it is offering asylum to 50 Iranian dissidents who took part in the massive street protests that erupted after elections there last year.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 25, Iran's official news agency said an explosion at a petrochemical factory at its Kharg island oil terminal has killed four people.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Turkey foreign ministers of Turkey and Brazil urged Iran to be flexible and open in dealings with the West over its atomic program as Iran renewed its readiness to resume frozen nuclear talks. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Iran has expressed willingness to have talks with the European Union on its nuclear program after the month of Ramadan ends in early September.
(AFP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 26, The EU adopted tighter sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, with steps to block oil and gas investment and curtail Tehran's refining and natural gas capability.
(Reuters, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran's decades of internationally-acclaimed family planning as ungodly and a Western import.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iran vowed to press ahead with its nuclear program even as it expressed readiness to resume talks on the thorny issue despite being slapped with tough new EU sanctions. Russia condemned new EU sanctions on Iran, tempering hopes of closer cooperation between Moscow and the West over Iran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 7/27/10)(Reuters, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran said it will suspend uranium enrichment to 20% if it acquires nuclear fuel for a research reactor.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran hanged Yousef Fardi, a convicted rapist, in the northern city of Qazvin.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 29, Australia said it will impose new sanctions against Iran, including restrictions for the first time on business dealings with that country's oil and gas sector.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 30, Iran said it was ready for immediate talks with the US, Russia and France over an exchange of nuclear fuel and added that it was also against stockpiling higher enriched uranium.
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In northeastern Iran an earthquake injured 274 people. A slightly stronger tremor struck central Iran the next day.
(Reuters, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, A senior Iranian official said China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the Islamic republic's oil and gas sector.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, UNESCO added seven cultural sites to its World Heritage List including Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, home to nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s. Also added to the list were the Turaif District in Saudi Arabia; Australia's penal colony sites; the Jantar Mantar astronomical observation site in India; a shrine in Ardabil in Iran; the Tabriz historic bazaar complex, also in Iran; and the historic villages of Hahoe and Yangdong in South Korea.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 5, Afghan Pres. Karzai departed to attend a summit held among the presidents of host country Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Following the summit Feda Hussein Maliki, Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan, handed Umar Daudzai, Karzai’s chief of staff, a large plastic bag stuffed with euro bills. The money was part of a secret stream of Iranian cash to buy the loyalty of Daudzai and promote Iran’s interests in Afghanistan’s presidential palace. It was later reported that Daudzai owns at least 6 homes located in Dubai, in the UAR and in Vancouver, Canada.
(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 9, Brazil formally offered asylum to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death in Iran on an adultery conviction. On July 31 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested he would be willing to provide the woman refuge.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, Iran announced plans to get rid of its dollar and euro reserves in response to the latest UN sanctions over its contested nuclear program. The IAEA said Iran has activated equipment to enrich uranium more efficiently in a move that defies the UN Security Council.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Two Bahai activists said an Iranian court has sentenced seven leaders of their faith to 20 years in prison after charging them with espionage and engaging in propaganda against Islam.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 10, Brazil signed on to UN sanctions against Iran despite misgivings over the measures following its efforts to negotiate a nuclear-swap deal with the Islamic state.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession by Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, of being an accomplice to the murder of her husband. The Iranian woman had faced death by stoning for adultery. Ashtiani was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband. The next day her lawyer told a British newspaper that she was tortured for two days before confessing on state TV to being an accomplice to her husband's death.
(AP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Toyota said it has suspended auto exports to Iran indefinitely in line with global sanctions against Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Turkey said it will support petrol sales by Turkish companies to Iran, despite US sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Iran PJAK Kurdish rebels killed a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards and two Islamist militiamen in clashes near northwestern Orumieh city.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 16, Iran said it plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain strongholds, with construction on the first starting in March, in continuing defiance of international efforts to curb its nuclear development.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 17, An Iranian fighter jet crashed in southern Iran near the country's nuclear power plant that is to start up over the weekend. The two pilots ejected safely.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 18, Iran took its case against the United States to the UN and strongly condemned the top US military chief for saying military action remains a possibility if the country develops nuclear weapons.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 20, Iran’s Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced that Iran has test fired a surface-to-surface missile, Qiam, a day before it is due to launch its Russian-built first nuclear power plant.
(AFP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 21, Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Moscow has promised to safeguard to prevent material at the site from being used in any potential weapons production.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 22, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the country's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Tehran, Iran, the headquarters of Sweden-based Oriflame, a direct-sales cosmetics firm, were "searched and sealed" and "four top managers were arrested on accusations of 250,000 cases of fraud" linked to a 70-million-dollar (55-million-euro) pyramid scheme.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran media reported the suspension of three senior judiciary officials over last year's torture deaths of three imprisoned anti-government protesters. On Aug 30 they were identified as former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and two judges.
(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats, warning its enemies not to "play with fire" as it boosts security along its coastline.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 25, Iran said that it has successfully test-fired an upgraded version of a short-range surface-to-surface missile. The third generation of the Fateh-110, which means "conqueror" in Farsi and Arabic, with an improved range of 250 km and better precision than previous models.
(AP, 8/25/10)(Reuters, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 26, An Iranian government newspaper reported that 5 rebels and 2 members of the Revolutionary Guards have been killed in clashes in Iran's Kordestan province near the Iraqi border.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 27, The UN anti-racism panel called on Iran to counter racism and ethnic discrimination, including incitement to hatred by officials and "double discrimination suffered by women from minorities.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Iran three people died in the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that shook the country's remote northeast. Forty others were injured.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Iran pro-government militiamen attacked the home of opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally the next day.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Japan imposed new sanctions against Iran, including an assets freeze on people and entities linked to its contentious nuclear program and tighter restrictions on financial transactions.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 4, Iran’s hardline Kayhan newspaper reported that security forces have killed four members of an outlawed Kurdish group in the western province of Kordestan. Nasrin Sotoudeh (45) was summoned by official notice to Tehran's Evin Prison, and did return home. She had represented opposition activists and political figures. State media reported in December that she was accused of spreading propaganda against the ruling system. On Jan 10, 2011, her husband said has been convicted of security offenses and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(AFP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/8/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Sep 6, The lawyer for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, said she was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper on Aug 28 ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A4)(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, Iran said that it was within its rights to vet UN inspectors who monitor its nuclear facilities after the UN watchdog said its work was being hampered by the barring of some of its staff.
(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, The EU condemned the stoning to death sentence passed against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, saying it was "barbaric."
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 8, An Iranian judiciary official told Fars news agency that the woman facing death by stoning has expressed surprise over reports that she was lashed after a British newspaper published a picture showing her without a headscarf. Fars reported that Vahid Kazemzadeh, a member of the Iranian judiciary's Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he has met Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who also complained to him that she has never met her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, South Korea said it will ban unauthorized financial dealings with Iran and impose other penalties as part of a US-led campaign to enforce sanctions against the country over its disputed nuclear enrichment program. South Korea listed 126 Iranian companies and individuals for the sanctions.
(AP, 9/8/10)(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 9, An Iranian opposition group claimed to have discovered a new uranium enrichment plant being built about 75 miles (120 km) west of Tehran and said it was 85 percent complete. The head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the country has no undeclared nuclear sites. A US government official also disputed the claim by the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, saying the site did not appear to have a nuclear role.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Iran’s Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told English-language Press TV that Sarah Shourd (31), one of the three US hikers currently held in Iran for more than a year, will be released on Sep 11. Iran’s judiciary abruptly halted plans to release Shourd, pointing to the internal rivalries within Iran's leadership.
(AFP, 9/10/10)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep 10, In Iran a gas pipeline exploded near the northeastern holy city of Mashhad and killed 6 people with another 20 people hurt.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Finland Hossein Alizadeh (45), a senior official at the Iranian embassy, said that he has resigned from his post to join the political opposition against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Alizadeh's mission in Finland had ended on August 20.
(AP, 9/11/10)(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 12, A senior Iranian prosecutor said that authorities will release Sarah Shourd, a jailed American woman, on $500,000 bail because of health problems, another sudden about-face by Iran in a case that has added to tension with the United States.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 13, Iran's internal battles over the handling of American detainee Sarah Shourd flared again as the mouthpiece of the powerful Revolutionary Guard led the backlash against a decision to free her on $500,000 bail.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency warned that Iran's selective cooperation with his inspectors means that he cannot confirm that all of Tehran's atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 14, Iran released Sarah Shourd (32), an American woman, on a bail of $500,000 more than a year after she was detained. Authorities said they were not considering the immediate release of two companions arrested with her.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Farzad Farhangian, a press attache at the Iranian embassy in Brussels, called for an uprising against the Tehran government, as he became the third Europe-based envoy to defect this year and announced he was seeking asylum in Norway.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 15, Iranian security forces raided the office of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the top opposition leader, and seized computers after days of intimidating visitors with a heavy force presence around the building.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Iran Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, whose stoning sentence for adultery was suspended in July, appeared on state TV to say she has not been whipped or tortured.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Iran assailants abducted six people, 5 soldiers and a bank clerk, in the southeast of the country. The Sunni militant group Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility and said those abducted were Revolutionary Guard forces. On Sep 18 the state news IRNA reported that Revolutionary Guard forces rescued five of the hostages and killed 3 gunmen. A sixth hostage died in the operation. Amir Bilchi Kangarlu, a man convicted of raping several young girls, was hanged in the town of Varamin, south of the capital Tehran.
(AFP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/18/10)(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was seeking closer commercial ties with Iran and aims to triple trade volumes in the next five years while still respecting the limits set by UN sanctions.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 18, Iranian media reported that Shiva Nazar Ahari, journalist and founder of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters in Tehran, has been to six years in prison on anti-government charges.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 21, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported that three men, who were found guilty of drug trafficking, have been hanged in a prison in the central city of Yazd.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 22, Iran’s pro-reform Sharq daily said that Emadoddin Baghi (48), a human rights activist, was convicted of "spreading propaganda" against the ruling establishment as well as planning to "violate national security." He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Baghi has been on trial or in jail almost continually since 2000 over similar charges. In the northwest a bomb exploded at a military parade in Mahabad killing 12 people. One official blamed Kurdish separatists who have fought Iranian forces in the area for decades. In 2014 Iranian authorities detained three suspects over the deadly bombing in Mahabad.
(AP, 9/22/10)(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 5/18/14)
2010 Sep 22, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp said it would freeze all new business with Iran with immediate effect and terminate existing contracts there as soon as possible in response to ever-harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Russian news agencies reported that Russia has dropped plans to supply Iran with S-300 missiles because they are subject to international sanctions.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 23, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said most people believe the US government staged the September 11 attacks, setting off a Western walk out at the UN.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters that Iran would consider ending higher level uranium enrichment, the most crucial part of its controversial nuclear activities, if world powers send Tehran nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 25, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency says Iranian nuclear experts met this week to discuss how to remove the malicious computer code, dubbed Stuxnet, which can take over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 26, Iranian officials said the malicious Stuxnet computer worm has hit 30,000 industrial computers, but denied the Islamic republic's first nuclear plant at Bushehr was among those infected. The malware has infected as many as 45,000 computer systems around the world. 60% of the infected computers were in Iran, 18% in Indonesia, and less than 2% in the US. Two computer servers in Malaysia and Denmark, which controlled the malware, have been shut down.
(AFP, 9/26/10)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_computer_attacks)(SFC, 9/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 26, Iran media said elite Revolutionary Guards said they had killed the "main elements" behind the Sep 22 bomb attack in the Mahabad. Gen. Abdolrasoul Mahmoudabadi of the elite Revolutionary Guards said the "terrorists" were killed the previous day in a clash "beyond the border" and that his forces were still in pursuit of two men who escaped the ambush.
(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 27, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that the Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking further havoc on computerized industrial equipment in Iran where about 30,000 IP addresses have already been infected.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 28, An Iranian news website said a court has sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, a well-known Canadian-Iranian blogger, to more than 19 years in prison for cooperating with hostile states and insulting Islam. Derakhshan, who made trips to Israel and blogged in both English and Farsi, has been in prison since 2008. Iran banned two newspapers for insulting political and religious figures, in a continued crackdown on dissent more than a year after a disputed presidential election.
(AP, 9/28/10)(Reuters, 9/28/10)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.60)
2010 Sep 28, Iran offered the first official indication that Oman is playing a role in trying to secure the release of two American men imprisoned for more than a year.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Pres. Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on 8 Iranian officials deemed responsible for serious human rights abuses.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 1, European oil majors resisted pressure from the US to stop all business with Iran, in spite of Washington's drive to isolate Tehran over a nuclear program the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 2, Visiting Iran Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assured Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that their ties were solid, a view unlikely to please Washington which is working to isolate the Islamic state.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 3, In Iran a top official said Industrial computers infected by Stuxnet have been cleaned and returned to their units, following reports that the malware was mutating and wreaking havoc with equipment.
(AFP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Egyptian and Iranian airlines agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries for the first time since 1979.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 5, Iran claimed that the Stuxnet computer worm, found on the laptops of several employees at the country's nuclear power plant, is part of a covert Western plot to derail its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Iran a pair of gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in its Kurdish region, killing four officers and a bystander.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov told reporters that Russia is reimbursing Iran for its down payments on a deal for advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles, which Moscow halted in the face of tough new UN sanctions.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, South Korean financial regulators said they will suspend the operations of an Iranian bank for two months, as part of international sanctions over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 9, Iran said it is ready to hold talks over its nuclear program with the US and other major powers in late October or early November. Iran also revealed for the first time that some personnel at the country's nuclear facilities were lured by promises of money to pass secrets to the West, but said increased security and worker privileges have put a stop to the spying.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 10, Iranian Sunni rebels said they had kidnapped a nuclear scientist and would publish secrets he knows about Iran's nuclear program unless 200 political prisoners were released.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Iran arrested two German nationals in Tabriz as they approached the home of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman whose sentence of death-by-stoning on an adultery conviction has drawn international condemnation. Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh, and lawyer Houtan Kian were arrested along with two the German nationals, who were seeking to interview the son. On Feb 5, 2012, reporter Marcus Hellwig told the Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he was regularly beaten up during the first 10 "brutal" days in captivity until a German diplomat intervened. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Tehran for a rare meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Westerwelle then brought Hellwig and his German photographer Jens Koch home.
(AP, 10/12/10)(AP, 11/4/10)(AP, 2/5/12)
2010 Oct 11, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree paving the way for a state takeover of Islamic Azad University, the country's largest private university, in a crushing blow to the nation's moderates. Khamenei's decree declared the university's 2009 endowment, which keeps it financially independent, to be religiously illegitimate and therefore null and void.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Iran 18 members of the powerful Revolutionary Guard were killed in an explosion that struck the force's base in the city of Khoramabad. The blast was caused by a fire that had reached the ammunition storage area. 14 other troops were wounded.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Tehran's chief prosecutor said authorities have arrested five people on suspicion of spying for the country's "enemies," a common reference in Iran for the US and Israel.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, welcomed by thousands of Shiite supporters throwing rose petals, sought to pull Lebanon firmly into his country's fold in a visit that underscored the growing power of Tehran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 15, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran was ready to resume talks about its nuclear program with the international community within a matter of weeks.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 16, Iranian local media reported that a judge has ordered the amputation of the hand of a man (21) who confessed to robbing a candy shop. The ruling came days after authorities amputated the hand of another man convicted of theft in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad endorsed the idea of new talks with the international community over his country's nuclear program, while warning that negotiations would fail if the West does not clearly come out against Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran freed Reza Taghavi (71), an Iranian-American businessman. The next day he said he had spent some of his more than two years in prison alongside protesters detained in Iran's postelection crackdowns and praised his first taste of freedom as a blessing "no one can imagine." Taghavi, who regularly visits Iran to conduct business and see family, had been jailed for 29 months for passing $200 to someone suspected of links to a rebel group known as Tondar, which seeks to topple the Islamic system and was implicated in the mosque bombing.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The Washington Post reported that the United States believes some Chinese firms are helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons and has asked Beijing to prevent such activity.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iran took part for the first time in talks in Rome with the international contact group on Afghanistan that set "sufficient stability" and basic human rights as the most realistic aims for the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki was in Tehran to drum up support for his premiership bid, as his chief rival Iyad Allawi accused Iran of meddling in Baghdad's political affairs. In Iraq a roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying Jassim al-Saiedi, a member of Baghdad's local government, killing him and wounding eight people. Two Associated Press journalists were among those assaulted by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cover the bombing.
(AFP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Iran said some Western companies were refusing to refuel its planes in Europe and warned it would "confront" such measures, which it deemed illegal under international law.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Iran Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez held talks with leaders expected to focus on boosting cooperation between the countries' oil, gas and petrochemical industries.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 20, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left Iran after signing 11 deals focused on energy cooperation between the two major oil producers who are foes of the United States.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 24, Iran state radio reported that the government has imposed new restrictions on 12 university social sciences deemed to be based on Western schools of thought and therefore incompatible with Islamic teachings. The list includes law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and the two subjects that appear to cause the most concern among Iran's conservative leadership, women's studies and human rights. State radio also reported that authorities have amputated the hand of a convicted thief in front of other prisoners.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 25, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that once or twice a year Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses, and that Washington also provides "bags of money" because his office lacks funds. Gunmen seized a Dutch aid worker and his Afghan driver in Takhar province. The NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) said at least 15 insurgents were killed in a NATO raid and air strike targeting a Taliban commander overnight in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/25/10)(Reuters, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Bolivian President Evo Morales was in Tehran on a 3-day visit aimed at securing Iranian investment in the South American country.
(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran acknowledged that it has been sending funds to neighboring Afghanistan for years, saying the money was intended to aid reconstruction of the embattled country.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran began loading fuel into the core of its first atomic power plant, moving closer to the start up of the Bushehr facility that leaders have touted as defying of international efforts to curtail the country's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 28, Ali Shakouri-rad, a leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and former MP, was freed on bail, two weeks after his arrest for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi termed "security reasons." On Dec 9 he was sent back to jail for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies."
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Oct 28, Israeli officials said that the military-grade armaments seized at a shipping terminal in Nigeria came from Iran and were bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. On Oct 30 an international shipping company said the weapons cache originally came from Iran. Last week, the Iranian shipper filed a request for the containers to be picked up again and this time shipped to the West African nation of Gambia. On Feb 1, 2011, Azim Aghajani of Iran and his alleged accomplice, Nigerian national Usman Abbas Jega, both maintained their innocence against three charges over the shipment.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 2/1/11)
2010 Oct 29, Iran notified the EU that it is willing to restart international negotiations over its nuclear program after Nov. 10, potentially reviving talks that foundered a year ago.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 30, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales confirmed that his country plans to build a nuclear plant with Iran's help, stressing the facility would be for peaceful purposes.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Nov 2, Israel's military intelligence chief said Iran possesses enough enriched uranium to build one nuclear bomb and soon will have enough to produce a second.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians chanted "Death to America" as they staged a mass protest against the "Great Satan" to mark the 31st anniversary of the capture of the American embassy by Islamist students. Iran reported the arrest of four Kurdish rebels of the banned Komala group, who worked for commander Jalil Fattahi, a militant based in Britain. They were arrested in Iran's western city of Marivan.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 7, Iran proposed that a new round of international talks on its nuclear program be held in Turkey, an ally that also has close ties to the West and has sought to mediate in the standoff.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 8, Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi said that opposition to the Iranian government is growing, spurred by an increase in government violence, more human rights violations and deepening poverty. Ebadi has lived outside her homeland since a day before last year's disputed presidential elections.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, A UN report suggesting North Korea may have supplied Syria, Iran and Myanmar with banned nuclear technology headed to the Security Council. The latest report by the so-called Panel of Experts on Pyongyang's compliance with UN sanctions was delivered to the Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee in May, but did not move for nearly six months due to Chinese objections.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 11, A Nigerian government report identified Iranians Azimi Agajany and Sayed Akbar Tahmaesebi as the men who organized a shipment of arms through a Tehran-based company called International Trading and General Construction. The arms containers sat at Lagos' busy Apapa port from July until Oct. 26, when Nigerian security agents carried out a raid and discovered the weapons inside.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 13, Iranian authorities detained lawyers Maryam Kianersi, Maryam Karbasi and Sara Sabaghian on their return home from Turkey. All three are women and were among signatories of an open letter in September that called for the release of prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. Two other lawyers related to the three were also detained. Kianersi and Rosa Gharachorlu were released on Nov 19.
(AP, 11/14/10)(Reuters, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 14, Iranian officials reported that Iran’s Entekhab Industrial Group has signed a contract sealing its acquisition of South Korea's Daewoo Electronics for some $518 million. Daewoo was set up in the 1960s and became one of the biggest companies in the world before it disintegrated in financial disarray in the 1990s. Its shipbuilding and auto units are now independent companies in their own right.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Authorities in Hong Kong detained the Decretive, a Maltese-flagged container vessel, over a debt dispute with several European banks. The target of the dispute is the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), the guarantor of bank loans which funded the Decretive's construction in 2008. Loan defaults totaled 268 million US dollars.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Nov 15, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that the issue of an alleged Iranian arms shipment intercepted in Nigeria was a "misunderstanding" that has been settled.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 18, Nigeria's drug enforcement found and seized 286 pounds (130 kg) of high-quality heroin, destined for Europe, hidden inside a shipment of auto parts sent from Iran.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, A UN General Assembly committee passed resolutions condemning human rights violations in Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, provoking a furious reaction from their delegations. The committee passed the resolution by 80 votes to 44, with 57 abstentions.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 21, Iranian newspapers reported that Pres. Ahmadinejad said the best age for girls to get married was between 16 and 18. The Iranian intelligence ministry said its security forces have killed two "terrorists" in clashes in the Kurdish-populated western city of Sanandaj.
(Reuters, 11/21/10)(AFP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 22, Diplomats said Iran’s nuclear program has suffered a recent setback with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of centrifuges enriching uranium.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 22, A Gambian Foreign Ministry statement was issued giving Iranian government officials 48 hours to leave the country. The next day a senior Gambian security official said the move was linked to Nigeria's recent seizure of arms sent from Iran which were allegedly destined for Gambia.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Iran’s state radio reported that authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Mahdi Hashemi, the son of influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on charges of helping foment last year's postelection unrest. Hashemi has been living in Britain since shortly after the election.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 25, A court in Nigeria charged an alleged member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and three Nigerians over a shipment of mortars and rockets seized in the main port of Lagos last month.
(Reuters, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 27, Iran's state radio reported that a man attempting to hijack a Syria-bound flight carrying a number of Iranian lawmakers was arrested on board. ISNA news agency reported that Iran has hanged in prison a man convicted of raping several women in Isfahan. The latest hanging brings the number of executions in Iran to at least 145 so far this year.
(AP, 11/27/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri expressed concerns for stability in the Middle East as he began a visit to Tehran to rally Iran's support for his efforts to keep Lebanon stable amid tensions over a U.N. probe into the assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 28, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad and Turkmen Pres. Berdymukhamedov inaugurated the last section of the Sarakhs-Tehran pipeline to export Turkmen gas to northeast Iran.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, More than 250,000 classified US State Department documents were released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks. Among the leaked memos was information that Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel. Memos said the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments." Documents also detailed concerns by US officials in Baghdad about Iran’s influence on Iraq. Memos also said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. One cable revealed that the US kept nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.35)
2010 Nov 29, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad admitted that "several" uranium enrichment centrifuges were damaged by "software installed in electronic equipment," amid speculation Iran's nuclear activities had come under cyberattack.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Iran assailants on motorcycles attached magnetized bombs to the cars of two nuclear scientists as they were driving to work in Tehran, killing Majid Shahriari and wounding Fereidoun Abbasi. Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel and the West of being behind the attacks.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 30, The EU announced that Iran has agreed to discuss its nuclear program at a meeting next week in Geneva.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Iran for the second time in a month, heavy air pollution in the smog-filled capital of Tehran, home to over 12 million people, has forced authorities to close government offices and schools and declare a two-day public holiday because of the health dangers of being outdoors.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Iran hanged Shahla Jahed (40), a former soccer player's mistress. She was convicted in 2002 of murdering her love rival in a case that captivated the Iranian public for several years.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Iraq bombs killed 17 people across Baghdad, including Iranian pilgrims near a revered shrine and shoppers at a Shiite neighborhood market.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 5, Iran claimed it could now use domestically mined uranium to produce nuclear fuel, giving the country complete control over a process the West suspects is geared toward producing weapons.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Switzerland six world powers held their first meeting in 14 months with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, sounding out Tehran's intentions after it claimed to have taken a new step in making fissile material.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 7, Leaders of six US-allied Gulf Arab nations, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), said they were monitoring with "utmost concern" developments in Iran's disputed nuclear program and issued a thinly veiled warning to their Persian neighbor not to meddle in their internal affairs. The 2-day gathering of leaders from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman followed the publication of leaked US diplomatic memos that revealed deeper concern among Gulf Arab leaders over Tehran's nuclear program than had previously been known.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Switzerland 6 world powers wrapped up two days of "substantive" talks with Iran on its contentious nuclear program, with the two sides agreeing to meet again in Istanbul next month.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Iran Ali Shakouri-rad, one of the prisoners of the post-election events, was jailed for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies." He was released on Jan 24, 2011. He was previously freed on bail on October 28, two weeks after being arrested for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi called "security reasons."
(AFP, 1/24/11)
2010 Dec 10, Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, confessed to helping a man kill her husband and re-enacted the alleged crime in an interview broadcast by Iranian state television, an apparent effort by the government to deflect international criticism over the case.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Iran Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a prominent reformist journalist and head of the Journalists' Association of Iran, said he has been sentenced to 16 months in jail on charges of insulting Pres. Ahmadinejad and undermining the Islamic regime. Shamsolvaezin went on trial in October and has 20 days to appeal. Sajjad Qaderzadeh, the son of a woman whose death sentence by stoning caused world outrage, was released after paying a $40,000 bail.
(AFP, 12/12/10)(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Iran 2 suicide bomb attacks outside a mosque killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 during a Shi'ite religious ceremony in the southeastern city of Chabahar. Jundollah, a Sunni Muslim rebel group, claimed responsibility for the bombings.
(Reuters, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, Human Rights Watch said Iranians convicted for same-sex activities are on death row and awaiting hanging, including several who were minors when arrested.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, At least 27 refugees, thought to be from Iran and Iraq, died after their wooden boat shattered in violent seas off Australia before horrified witnesses, with fears as many as 50 could have perished.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 16, Iranian security forces arrested 9 suspects in connection with the Dec 15 bombings that killed 39 people. The Jerusalem Post reported that Iran has cut its annual budget to Lebanon-based Hezbollah more than 40%.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 18, Iran's president announced the start of a plan to slash energy and food subsidies, part of government efforts to boost the country's ailing economy.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 19, Iran levied up to a five-fold hike in fuel prices as the government started scrapping subsidies as part of a long-awaited economic overhaul, despite initial resistance by conservatives. Thousands of truck drivers nationwide stopped working because they were not allowed to increase their prices.
(AFP, 12/19/10)(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 20, Iran and Qatar pledged to cooperate for greater regional security during a visit to Tehran by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of the tiny but energy-rich Gulf state.
(AFP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran hanged 11 men authorities said were members of Jundallah, an armed Sunni militant group, convicted of bombings.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran's judiciary spokesman confirmed that Mohammad Reza Rahimi, the country's first vice president, was facing corruption charges. Iran has 12 vice presidents but Rahimi is the most senior among them.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In southeastern Iran a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck a remote area late at night, killing at least 11 people and injuring 40 people.
(AP, 12/21/10)(SFC, 12/22/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 22, Iran's armed Sunni militant group said it will kill an abducted Iranian after authorities rejected an offer to swap the hostage for 200 of the group's imprisoned members. The man was identified as a former worker at an Iranian nuclear facility who was kidnapped two months ago.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Afghan officials said Iran has banned fuel exports to Afghanistan, stranding about 3,000 fuel trucks at the border and driving up wholesale prices for the refined products ahead of what many Afghans fear will be a blistery winter in their oil-poor nation.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined regional leaders for a summit on economic cooperation in Istanbul, just a month ahead of nuclear talks with world powers.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 25, In Iran a convicted drug trafficker has been hanged in the northern city of Sari after being convicted of keeping, carrying and selling the narcotic drug crack.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Iran local media reported that a death sentence has been imposed on a man suspected of spying for Israel. A Tehran prosecutor confirmed that economist Fariborz Raisdana has been arrested for trying to subvert the recent subsidies plans in radio interviews.
(AP, 12/26/10)(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 28, Iran hanged Ali Akbar Siadat, an Iranian convicted of spying for Israel. Another Iranian was hanged for membership in an exile opposition movement.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 29, A payments dispute between India and Iran escalated after Tehran refused to sell oil to India under New Delhi's prohibitive new rules. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India said deals with Iran must be settled outside the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) system, used by central banks of member nations to settle bilateral trades.
(Reuters, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Iran media reported the arrest of seven Al-Qaeda militants in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Stephen Kinzer authored “Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future."
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.87)
2010 Iran hanged at least 179 people in 2010.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 1, Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad fired 14 advisers as part of an ongoing shake-up of his administration. 4 kidnappers were put to death in Zahedan prison in the volatile border province of Sistan-Baluchestan. 8 convicted drug smugglers were also executed this week.
(AP, 1/2/11)(Reuters, 1/1/11)
2011 Jan 2, In Iran Sahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian woman, was sentenced to death for drug smuggling. Bahrami reportedly was arrested in Dec 2009 after taking part in anti-government demonstrations. She also faced trial and the possibility of another death sentence, likely within two months, for allegedly belonging to an armed opposition group.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 4, Iran’s government confirmed that it has invited world powers and its allies in the Arab and developing world to tour Iranian nuclear sites before a high-profile meeting late this month on its disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Alireza Pahlavi (44), the former shah of Iran's youngest son, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Boston. He was the second of the four children of the late Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi and former Empress Farah Pahlavi to die in exile. His sister Leila was found dead of a drug overdose in 2001.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iran hanged in public a man who committed a sensational murder captured on video, as well as a drug trafficker who was executed in a prison in the northeast of the country. Iranian media in October reported that Yaqub stabbed Mohammad Reza to death in public and in front of two policemen.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, Iranian authorities arrested an American woman (55), reportedly with a microphone hidden in her teeth, on suspicion of spying. The woman was identified in Farsi as Hall Talayan (Hal Talaian). State television first denied the report and then reversed itself saying the woman was arrested while filming a town on the Iran-Azerbaijan border. On Jan 9 state broadcaster IRIB said the woman was seeking an Iranian visa and never entered Iranian territory. She was denied entry and returned to Armenia on Jan 8.
(AP, 1/6/11)(Reuters, 1/6/11)(AP, 1/8/11)(Reuters, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 7, In southern Afghanistan a Taliban suicide bomber in Spin Boldak assassinated a police commander named Ramazan and killed 16 others at a public bath. Criminal investigation police chief Farid Ahmad was killed in a drive-by shooting in Kandahar. Hundreds of Afghans demonstrated outside the Iranian Embassy in Kabul to protest Iran's blocking of thousands of fuel trucks at the border with Afghanistan, a step that has sent domestic fuel prices soaring as the country's harsh winter sets in.
(AFP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 8, Iran hanged 4 convicted drug traffickers in a prison in the central city of Isfahan. At least 179 people were executed in 2010.
(AFP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 9, In northwestern Iran a passenger jet broke to pieces on impact while trying an emergency landing in a snowstorm killing at least 77 people in Orumiyeh. The Boeing-727, operated by Iran's national airline, carried 104 passengers and crew.
(AP, 1/10/11)
2011 Jan 10, Iran's intelligence services said they have arrested suspects in the assassination a year ago of nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Mohammadi in a months-long covert operation that also led them to penetrate Israel's Mossad spy agency.
(AP, 1/10/11)
2011 Jan 11, Iran said it has arrested 10 people linked to Mossad in what it calls a "severe blow" to the Israeli spy agency.
(AFP, 1/11/11)
2011 Jan 12, Iran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, denounced the country's ruling system for being 'totalitarian' like the old Nazi and Soviet regimes, with lying to its people being its defining characteristic.
(AP, 1/12/11)
2011 Jan 13, Iran's proposal for a tour of its nuclear sites floundered after China effectively rejected the invite and Russia cautioned such a trip could never replace UN inspections or talks between Tehran and world powers.
(Reuters, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 13, Iran’s state broadcaster website reported that Iran has hanged five men convicted of drug trafficking, taking to 33 the number of executions in 2011.
(AFP, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 13, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb in a marketplace killed a child outside a music cassette shop in Jalalabad. The Afghan fuel ministry said that Iran currently was allowing 1,000 tons of fuel to enter Afghanistan at three border crossings each day, compared with 3,000 to 4,000 tons daily before the trucks were blocked.
(AP, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 15, In Iran several international envoys, but crucially none from the world powers, got a look inside an Iranian nuclear site as part of a tour the Islamic Republic hopes will build support before a new round of talks on its disputed atomic activities. Ambassadors to the UN atomic energy agency from Egypt, Cuba, Syria, Algeria, Venezuela, Oman and the Arab League arrived in Tehran and visited the unfinished heavy water reactor near Arak.
(AP, 1/15/11)
2011 Jan 15, Iran said it has determined that two pilotless spy planes it claims to have shot down were operated by the United States, and offered to put them on public display. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, acting chief of the country's armed forces said "the planes were shot down outside of Iran's airspace."
(AP, 1/15/11)(AP, 1/16/11)
2011 Jan 16, The Int’l. Campaign for Human Rights said Iran has hanged at least 47 prisoners since Jan 1.
(SFC, 1/17/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 17, Iranian officials confirmed that the stoning to death sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (43) has been suspended. She still faced a prison sentence for acting as an accessory to the murder of her husband.
(SFC, 1/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 18, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency said that the ration of gasoline costing just 1,000 rials per liter (about 10 US cents, or $0.38 per US gallon) would be zero from the next Iranian month, which starts on January 21.
(Reuters, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 19, Iran hanged 10 drug smugglers in a prison in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, taking to 45 the number of executions in the Islamic republic since the start of this year according to an AFP count based on media reports.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 21, Two-day talks between Iran and six world powers started in Istanbul. A senior Iranian official said suspending uranium enrichment is not up for discussion.
(AFP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 22, In Turkey talks meant to nudge Iran toward meeting UN Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment collapsed, with Tehran shrugging off calls by six world powers to cease the activity that could be harnessed to make nuclear weapons.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 23, Iran's state TV said the country has launched its first cyber police unit in the latest attempt by authorities to gain an edge in the digital world.
(AP, 1/23/11)
2011 Jan 24, Iran hanged Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Hajaghaei, two members of the opposition People's Mujahedeen convicted over the 2009 post-election turmoil, after an appeals court upheld their death sentences.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 27, Britain's Times newspaper reported that Iran’s state-run news channel Press TV has had its British bank account frozen. The English language channel, which is headquartered in Tehran but also has an office in London, has seen its main trading account at the National Westminster Bank suspended.
(AFP, 1/27/11)
2011 Jan 29, In Iran Zahram Bahrami, an Iranian-Dutch woman detained after participating in protests against Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009, was hanged. She was allegedly hanged for possessing and selling drugs. The Dutch government froze official contacts with Iran to protest the hanging.
(AP, 1/29/11)(SSFC, 1/30/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 30, Iranian courts sentenced two people to death for running porn sites.
(AFP, 1/30/11)
2011 Jan 31, Iran’s prosecutor general said US hiker Sarah Shourd, freed on bail last year, has been summoned for trial in Iran along with her two American friends who remain in custody.
(AFP, 1/31/11)
2011 Feb 1, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced another sharp rebuke from opponents in parliament as lawmakers dismissed his transportation minister in the wake of several deadly plane crashes in the country.
(AP, 2/1/11)
2011 Feb 1, US authorities said an Iranian man has been charged with exporting specialized metals to his homeland for potential use in nuclear and ballistic missile programs, in violation of a US embargo. Milad Jafari (36) was indicted on 11 charges for "illegally exporting and attempting to export specialized metals from the United States through companies in Turkey to several entities in Iran. He remained at large and was believed to be in Iran.
(AFP, 2/2/11)
2011 Feb 4, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for an Islamic regime to be installed in Egypt, saying the wave of Arab revolts is an "earthquake" triggered by the 1979 Iranian revolution.
(AFP, 2/4/11)
2011 Feb 5, In Iran A state-owned news website said Iran's broadcasting authority has banned Iranian TV channels from showing cooking programs that present recipes for foreign cuisine. The deputy head of Iran's state broadcasting company, Ali Darabi, announced the ban during a visit to one of the country's 30 state-run TV channels.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 6, Iran opened its first centre to receive satellite images, a new stage in its space program that coincides with celebrations marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 6, In Iran a pro-government web site said Iran has executed two prison officials convicted of the 2009 torture deaths of three anti-government protesters.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran unveiled four new domestically produced “research" satellites as part of a space program that's worrying other nations. Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran is mass-producing a ballistic missile which can travel at more than three times the speed of sound and hit targets on the high seas.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran and Turkey said they plan to triple two-way annual trade to $30 billion by 2015, ahead of a visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 8, Iran's main opposition leaders charged that the Islamic republic is being run by "anti-religion... hooligans," in a statement on the eve of its 32nd anniversary.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 8, Iran's oil ministry's reported that daily oil output rose by around 100,000 barrels with the opening of the second phase of Darkhovin field in the southeast of the country.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 8, Hussein Abdullahi, Iran's ambassador to Nigeria, said that he had spoken to senior officials of the Nigerian government as soon as an arms shipment was seized last Oct 26 and told them that the intercepted cargo was the third of four Gambia-bound shipments originating from Iran.
(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 9, Iran's state prosecutor said the opposition should not stage its own rally in support of Egyptian protesters, warning of repercussions if it does so.
(AP, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 9, Iran media reported that science minister Kamran Daneshjou has called for universities to enforce strict sex segregation, saying allowing men and women to mingle on campus is a sign of the influence of alien western values.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 9, Hussein Abdullahi, Iran's ambassador to Nigeria, said that a Gambia-bound arms shipment seized at Nigeria's busiest port three months ago did not breach sanctions imposed by the UN, because Iran and Gambia had signed a secret agreement two years before the UN's 2010 ban on Iranian arms exports.
(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 11, In Iran hundreds of thousands turned out to mark the 32nd anniversary of the country’s Islamic Revolution in a rally the clerical establishment billed as a chance to show solidarity with "Islamic" protesters in Egypt.
(Reuters, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 13, Iran's opposition renewed its call for a rally in support of protesters in Tunisia and Egypt despite a government warning of repercussions if demonstrations take place.
(AP, 2/13/11)
2011 Feb 13, Abdullah Gul arrived in Tehran on his first trip as Turkish president aimed at boosting economic and political ties with the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/13/11)
2011 Feb 14, Iran’s security forces cut phone lines and blockaded the home of an Iranian opposition leader in attempts to stop him attending a planned rally in support of Egypt's uprising. Eyewitnesses reported sporadic clashes in central Tehran's Enghelab or Revolution square between security forces and opposition protesters. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who is on a visit to Iran, urged governments in the Middle East to listen to the demands of their people. Student Sanee Zhaleh (26) was shot dead during the opposition rally. Authorities later announced the arrest today of an Iranian man allegedly working for the CIA.
(AP, 2/14/11)(AP, 2/16/11)(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 14, A Swiss court said an Iranian man convicted of heroin trafficking will be expelled and returned to his home country, even though the man claimed that he could be persecuted for being homosexual.
(AFP, 2/14/11)
2011 Feb 15, Hardline Iranian lawmakers called for the country's opposition leaders to face trial and be put to death, a day after clashes between opposition protesters and security forces left one person dead and dozens injured. A 2nd person, Mohammad Mokhtari (22), died today of his wounds.
(AP, 2/15/11)(AP, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 16, Iran's opposition leaders remained defiant despite calls from hard-liners for them to be brought to trial and put to death, with reform advocate Mahdi Karroubi saying he was willing to "pay any price" in pursuit of democratic change. State TV called Mousavi and Karroubi mercenaries carrying out a plot designed by Iran's enemies and urged government supporters to rally on Feb 18. Supporters and opponents of the Iranian government clashed at a funeral for a student, Sanee Zhaleh (26), shot dead during the Feb 14 opposition rally. His allegiance was claimed by both sides.
(AP, 2/16/11)(Reuters, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 17, In Iran opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was reported missing. His daughters said they had no word from either of their parents since Feb 15.
(SFC, 2/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Feb 18, In Iran thousands of government supporters called for the execution of opposition leaders at a prayer service in response to anti-government demonstrations earlier in the week. Authorities, meanwhile, appeared to tighten restrictions on one of the leaders under house arrest.
(AP, 2/18/11)
2011 Feb 19, Iran warned of a crackdown if opposition supporters stage new rallies which they have called to mourn the deaths of two victims of recent unrest and to show support to their leaders.
(AFP, 2/19/11)
2011 Feb 19, An Iranian court threw out a 20-month prison sentence for two German journalists arrested after interviewing the son of a woman condemned to die by stoning. Journalist Marcus Hellwig and photographer Jens Koch were released and departed for home.
(AP, 2/19/11)(AFP, 2/19/11)(AP, 2/5/12)
2011 Feb 20, An Iranian pro-government news agency claimed that armed opposition groups plan to fire on people participating in a rally set for this afternoon. A massive police deployment in Tehran prevented large-scale protests from erupting although Iranian opposition websites reported stray clashes and officials said the capital remained calm.
(AP, 2/20/11)(AFP, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 20, Iran finally withdrew its entire fleet of Soviet era Tupolev aircraft after a series of fatal accidents involving the planes.
(AP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 21, In Iran Ali Karroubi, son of opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi, was taken into custody. His detention was widely viewed as at attempt to gain leverage on his father.
(AP, 2/22/11)
2011 Feb 22, Two Iranian naval ships entered Egypt's Suez Canal heading for Syria, the first time in three decades that Tehran has sent military ships through the strategic waterway.
(AP, 2/22/11)
2011 Feb 23, Senegal said it will cut diplomatic ties with Iran after an investigation that showed that a seized Iranian arms shipment was intended for rebels fighting Senegalese troops. The arms shipment was discovered in Nigeria in October.
(AP, 2/23/11)
2011 Feb 26, Iran confirmed it was having to remove nuclear fuel from the reactor of its only nuclear power station, signaling more problems for the Russian-built Bushehr plant after decades of delay.
(Reuters, 2/26/11)
2011 Feb 28, Iran's state prosecutor says all outside contact with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, the country's two opposition leaders, has been cut as part of a campaign to silence dissent.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Feb, Iranian authorities arrested Omid Kokabee (29) at the Tehran airport. He was studying optics in the physics department at the University of Texas. He was charged with having "relations with a hostile country" and receiving "illegitimate funds."
(AP, 10/4/11)
2011 Mar 1, Iran's security forces fired teargas and clashed with opposition supporters in Tehran, where demonstrators rallied to demand the release of two opposition leaders. The opposition said at least 79 people were arrested at the protest rallies, which the government denied had taken place at all. Iranian diplomat Ahmed Maleki, who defected last month, said that Iran's leaders would rather "slaughter" their own people than surrender power to any popular revolt inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.
(Reuters, 3/1/11)
2011 Mar 8, Iran’s former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lost his position as the head of a powerful clerical body charged with choosing or dismissing Iran's supreme leader.
(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 9, Iranian security forces killed three people in the western province of Kurdistan who were behind an attack on a group of environmental workers. IRNA said the three had killed four environmental workers near the city of Sanandaj on March 4.
(Reuters, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 14, An Iranian state-owned newspaper reported that Iranian hackers working for the powerful Revolutionary Guard's paramilitary Basij group have launched attacks on websites of the "enemies," in a rare acknowledgment from Iran that it's involved in cyber warfare.
(AP, 3/14/11)
2011 Mar 15, The Israeli navy intercepted an Egyptian-bound ship carrying a large delivery of weapons off the Mediterranean coast, saying the arms had been sent by Syria to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. PM Netanyahu said the source of the weaponry was Iran.
(AP, 3/15/11)
2011 Mar 16, An Iranian cargo plane en route to Syria was forced to land in Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakir airport for an inspection. The plane was found to be carrying 150 tons of food but "no material contrary to international standards.
(AFP, 3/16/11)(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 17, Iran sent the country's first space capsule that is able to sustain life into orbit as a test for a future mission that may carry a live animal.
(AP, 3/17/11)
2011 Mar 17, Bahrain's Sunni monarchy detained at least seven prominent opposition activists. Iran recalled its ambassador to protest the Gulf troops backing the government against the Shiite protests.
(AP, 3/17/11)
2011 Mar 18, Malaysian police said that they had found equipment they suspect could be used to make nuclear weapons smuggled on board a ship headed to Iran. On March 8 police confiscated two containers from the MV Bunga Raya Satu traveling from China to Tehran.
(AP, 3/18/11)
2011 Mar 19, An Iranian plane bound for Syria landed in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir for a search of its cargo. The plane carried light weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket launchers and mortars, which were seized. The plane returned to Iran March 22 without the seized cargo.
(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 21, Iranians celebrated Nowruz, the Persian new year.
(AFP, 3/21/11)
2011 Mar 21, Bahrain's king blamed a foreign plot for his nation's weeks-long unrest, using veiled language to accuse Iran of fomenting an uprising by the Shiite majority in the Sunni-ruled island kingdom.
(AP, 3/21/11)
2011 Mar 24, The UN human rights council voted to appoint an investigator to monitor Iran amid a crackdown on dissent and surge in executions in the country.
(AFP, 3/24/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Iran two members of the security forces were killed in two armed attacks in Sanandaj, capital of Iran's Kurdistan province bordering Iraq. Two of the rebels who were involved in the attacks were reported killed on April 4.
(AFP, 4/4/11)
2011 Mar 26, Afghan President Hamid Karzai left on a visit to Tehran, where he will meet his Iranian counterpart following a row over fuel imports and attend a ceremony to mark the Persian new year. 3 militants and 4 civilians died when two cars they were traveling in were hit by NATO fire in Helmand province. 3 lower ranking Taliban fighters were killed in one vehicle and 4 civilians were killed in a second vehicle. Taliban militants kidnapped some 40 policemen after being tipped off that they would be traveling in Kunar province.
(AFP, 3/26/11)(AP, 3/27/11)(SFC, 3/28/11, p.A2)(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 29, The Obama administration slapped sanctions on a state-owned energy company in Belarus over a $500 million investment with an Iranian firm accused of contributing to Iran's suspect nuclear program.
(AP, 3/29/11)
2011 Mar 29, A Kuwaiti court condemned to death 3 members of a suspected spy ring. The two Iranians and a Kuwaiti national were all serving in Kuwait's army when they arrested in May 2010. Three Iranian diplomats involved in the spy cell could not b prosecuted because of their diplomatic immunity.
(AFP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, Hong Kong said it had passed laws to comply with UN sanctions against Iran, two months after 20 shipping firms in the city were accused of having links to Tehran's weapons buildup.
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 31, Iranian security forces arrested at least seven people at the funeral of the father of reformist opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
(AFP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 31, Kuwait's Cabinet resigned over regional turmoil. The resignation appeared to be an attempt by three Cabinet ministers, members of the ruling Al Sabah family, to avoid being questioned over why Kuwait did not contribute troops to the Saudi-led Gulf force that was sent to Bahrain. Kuwait announced it is to expel a number of Iranian diplomats for alleged spying.
(AP, 3/31/11)(AFP, 3/31/11)
2011 Apr 3, An Iranian news agency said four officers were killed in an attack on a police station near the Kurdish town of Marivan close to the Iraqi border.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 3, Dutch marines killed 2 pirates and captured 16 others during an operation to free a hijacked Iranian fishing boat of Somalia.
(www.dailybulletin.com/ci_17767176)
2011 Apr 4, Egypt's foreign minister said Cairo is ready to re-establish diplomatic ties with Tehran after a break of more than 30 years signaling a shift in Iran policy since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
(Reuters, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 4, Iraq handed over the remains of 17 Iranian soldiers killed in the grinding war between the two countries throughout the 1980s. The two governments signed an agreement in October 2008 to find tens of thousands of fighters still missing after the war.
(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 8, Iran's semiofficial Mehr News Agency said three explosions have hit gas pipelines near the Qom, in the same area where simultaneous blasts took place two months ago.
(AP, 4/8/11)
2011 Apr 8, Iraqi forces stormed an Iranian exile camp that Iraq's Shiite-dominated government has tried to close for years. Both sides reported casualties in the raid. A hospital official in Baqouba said 10 people were killed and 16 wounded in the clashes. A UN spokesman later said the Iraqi army raid on Camp Ashraf left 34 Iranian exiles dead.
(AP, 4/8/11)(AP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 11, Iran’s Central Bank Gov. Mahmoud Bahmani said Iran plans to slash 4 zeros from its national currency in "one to two years", seeking parity between its rial and the US dollar.
(AFP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 11, The European Union agreed to impose sanctions on 32 Iranian officials for human rights abuses.
(AP, 4/12/11)
2011 Apr 11, Iraq’s government voted to shut down a camp of Iranian dissidents and move them out of the country by year’s end, but not back to Iran.
(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 13, Iran’s first vice-president was quoted as saying in the governmental newspaper that Iran has stopped refueling "western passenger planes" since Europe-bound Iranian commercial planes were refused fuelling there.
(AFP, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 16, A senior Iranian military official said experts have determined the United States and Israel were behind a mysterious computer worm known as Stuxnet that has harmed Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 17, Iran’s Kayhan daily reported that an Iranian military commander has accused German engineering company Siemens of helping the United States and Israel launch the Stuxnet virus, a cyber attack on its nuclear facilities.
(Reuters, 4/17/11)
2011 Apr 18, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed two soldiers in the Defense Ministry in Kabul in the third attack on security installations in four days. The attacker was shot dead before he set off his explosives. Afghan and Iranian officials said armed assailants have kidnapped 12 Iranians and 2 Afghans building a road in western Farah province. 3 of the men were released April 19 and the rest on April 20 with the help of local tribal elders.
(Reuters, 4/18/11)(AP, 4/19/11)(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 19, Iran’s intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi resigned following reported internal disputes with Pres. Ahmadinejad and the president publicly accepted it. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quickly ordered that Moslehi remain on the job.
(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 20, In Iran more than 200 lawmakers warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he must obey an order from the country's supreme leader reinstating Heidar Moslehi, the powerful intelligence minister who resigned on April 19.
(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 21, Iranian security forces killed four members of "extreme religious groups" who were behind deadly attacks in the western province of Kurdistan. The four belonged to a Wahhabi group. Wahhabism is the austere form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters, 4/22/11)
2011 Apr 21, The US Justice Department indicted 3 US citizens and their two companies for illegally exporting millions of dollars worth of computers to Iran via Dubai.
(Reuters, 4/22/11)
2011 Apr 24, Iran and Iraq signed agreements to return each others' detainees, which could lead to the forced repatriation of an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq.
(AP, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 25, A senior Iranian military official said Iran has been hit by a second computer virus, the Stars virus, suggesting it was part of a concerted campaign to undermine the country's disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/11)
2011 May 1, Bahrain's chamber of commerce called on Gulf Arab nationals to boycott Iranian goods and halt financial transactions with Tehran, accusing it of interfering in the country's affairs.
(Reuters, 5/1/11)
2011 May 8, Iran's Bushehr nuclear power station began operating at a low level in a crucial step toward bringing it online.
(Reuters, 5/10/11)
2011 May 10, Iran said it has accepted the European Union's proposal for more talks about the country's controversial nuclear program.
(AP, 5/10/11)
2011 May 11, The Syrian army shelled residential areas in Homs, the country's third-largest city, sending people fleeing for cover in a sharp escalation in the government's attempts to crush a popular revolt against President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule. An official, who was not identified, said two soldiers were killed and five wounded during confrontations. Al-Jazeera said that Dorothy Parvaz, one of the network's journalists with extensive connections in the US and Canada, has been sent to Iran following her detention last month in Damascus.
(AP, 5/11/11)
2011 May 13, A report was submitted to the Security Council by a UN Panel of Experts, a group that monitors compliance with UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after it conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. It said North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions. The report said the illicit technology transfers had "trans-shipment through a neighboring 3rd country," said to be China.
(Reuters, 5/14/11)
2011 May 15, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he has temporarily assumed the duties of the oil ministry. A day earlier Ahmadinejad dismissed oil minister Masoud Mirkazemi, alongside two other ministers without parliamentary approval.
(AFP, 5/16/11)(AP, 5/16/11)
2011 May 18, Missing journalist Dorothy Parvaz, who was held by Iranian authorities after being detained in Syria, arrived in her company's home base of Qatar after winning her freedom.
(AP, 5/18/11)
2011 May 19, A US federal judge awarded $300 million in punitive damages in each of two suicide bombings blamed on Iran and Iranian-backed Islamic groups. One ruling came on behalf of the family of Alan Beer, a US citizen who was killed in Jerusalem in 2003 in the bombing of a bus by the Iran-backed organization Hamas. The other was made to American citizen Seth Haim, his father and his brother. They were injured in the 1995 bombing of a bus in the Gaza Strip by the Iranian-supported Shaqaqi Faction of the Palestine Islamic Jihad.
(AP, 5/19/11)
2011 May 20, Iranian news reported that the state constitutional watchdog body has ruled that the president cannot serve as the country's caretaker oil minister.
(AP, 5/20/11)
2011 May 21, Iran's Intelligence Ministry claimed that it has arrested at least 30 people allegedly linked to a CIA-run spy network in accusations that also could spill over into the country's deepening political power struggles.
(AP, 5/21/11)
2011 May 21, Iranian dissident Mohammad Rasoulof won the Cannes prize for best director in the Un Certain Regard section but could not attend because of "Kafkaesque" authorities at home.
(AFP, 5/21/11)
2011 May 22, Iran's Arabic-language state television said a new surface-to-surface missiles, Qiyam (Resurrection) 1, were successfully tested and delivered to the armed forces today.
(Reuters, 5/22/11)
2011 May 23, In Iran Nasser Hejazi (61), national soccer hero and symbol of resistance to the regime, died.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.96)
2011 May 23, EU foreign ministers decided to impose asset freezes and travel bans on more Iranian officials and companies with links to the nuclear program. It was not yet clear how many officials and companies were involved.
(AP, 5/23/11)
2011 May 23, Iraq's Electricity Ministry spokesman said a five-year plan with Iran will let Iraq buy 25 million cubic meters of natural gas each day to feed two power plants in northeastern suburbs of Baghdad, one built by Iran and the other by South Korea's Hyundai conglomerate.
(AP, 5/23/11)
2011 May 24, An accidental blast at Iran's Abadan's oil refinery killed one person and wounded 25 during a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was not affected.
(AFP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, The Obama administration hit seven foreign companies, including Venezuela' state-owned oil company and an Israeli shipping firm, for engaging in trade with Iran in violation of a US ban. At the same time, the administration imposed separate sanctions on more than 15 people and companies in China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and elsewhere for illicit trading in missile technology and weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 25, It was reported that Iran’s popular Lake Oroumieh, home to migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls, has shrunken by 60 percent and could disappear entirely in just a few years, drained by drought, misguided irrigation policies, development and the damming of rivers that feed it.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 26, Iran hanged 11 prisoners, including a convicted serial killer. The others had been found guilty of rape and armed robbery. The hangings brought the number of executions to 143 since the beginning of the year. Another man was hanged May 23 for drug smuggling in the city prison of Behbahan in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AFP, 5/26/11)
2011 Jun 1, Iran's parliament voted to take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to court over his takeover of the country's lucrative oil ministry, escalating the power struggle between the president and the hard-line establishment that has turned against him.
(AP, 6/1/11)
2011 Jun 1, Iran’s government media said Haleh Sahabi (54), the daughter of a prominent Iranian dissident, died of a heart attack while attending her father's funeral today, but opposition websites said she died in a scuffle with security forces. The elder Sahabi (81) died a day earlier after being hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage.
(AP, 6/1/11)
2011 Jun 8, The government of Iran announced it planned to continue nuclear enrichment, despite opposition from other nations that worried Iran was planning to build an atomic bomb.
(Reuters, 6/8/11)
2011 Jun 15, Iran launched a satellite into earth orbit, in a feat that is likely to raise concerns among those who fear Iran's intentions and nuclear development program.
(AP, 6/15/11)
2011 Jun 18, Iran's hardline press watchdog allowed the reformist Etemad newspaper to return to the newsstands after a 15-month ban on the leading daily. A convicted rapist was hanged in the southern city of Shahrekord.
(AFP, 6/18/11)
2011 Jun 20, Iran hanged in public three men convicted of rape and armed robbery in the eastern city of Zabol.
(AFP, 6/20/11)
2011 Jun 21, Iran’s Arman daily reported that human rights campaigner Emadeddin Baghi has been freed after serving a year-long jail term on charges of spreading "propaganda against the regime."
(AFP, 6/21/11)
2011 Jun 22, Iran’s state-run Press TV announced that 30 people were arrested in May on suspicion of spying for the US.
(SFC, 6/23/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 23, The US blacklisted a major Iranian port operator and the country's national airline, Iran Air, to increase pressure on Tehran to curtail its alleged nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 6/23/11)
2011 Jun 24, In Iran Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai held a three-way summit with Iran ahead of attending an anti-terrorism conference.
(AFP, 6/24/11)
2011 Jun 25, In Iran Pakistani Pres. Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai attended an international anti-terrorism conference alongside Sudan's Pres. Omar al-Bashir, Iraqi Pres. Jalal Talabani and Tajik Pres. Emomali Rahmon. The presidents of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agreed to join forces in combating militancy.
(AP, 6/25/11)(AFP, 6/25/11)
2011 Jun 26, The Israeli cabinet approved broad economic sanctions against Iran, bringing the Jewish state into line with measures taken by other governments.
(AFP, 6/26/11)
2011 Jun 29, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned the authorities against making arrests of members in his government whom he vowed to defend.
(AFP, 6/29/11)
2011 Jul 2, Iran said it will completely seal off its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan by 2015 to prevent drug smuggling and infiltration of armed groups.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 4, Iranian lawmaker Esmail Kosari told newspapers that 26 Americans, it believes violated human rights, would be tried in absentia and their files passed on to international tribunals. The list included former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, and military commanders at US detention centers Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. State news reported that Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent human rights lawyer, was sentenced to 9 years in prison for seeking to overthrow the ruling system.
(Reuters, 7/4/11)(SFC, 7/5/11, p.A2)
2011 Jul 13, Iran hanged a man convicted of raping and murdering a five-year old girl in a village near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
(AFP, 7/17/11)
2011 Jul 16, Iran and China signed a series of agreements worth $4 billion (2.8 billion euros) for infrastructure projects as part of a broader bid to boost trade volume between the two nations. The agreements were signed during a visit by He Guoqiang, a senior executive of the Chinese Communist Party.
(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 17, Several Iranian Kurdish rebels based in Iraq were wounded in hours of clashes with Tehran's forces along the two countries' border.
(AFP, 7/17/11)
2011 Jul 18, Iran’s state news said Revolutionary Guard forces have taken control of three bases of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in neighboring Iraq and that "a large number" of members of the Iranian Kurdish opposition group PEJAK have been killed in fierce ongoing clashes over the past two days. PEJAK claimed to have killed 53 Iranian soldiers and wounded 43 while only two PEJAK members were killed and seven wounded in clashes.
(AP, 7/18/11)
2011 Jul 19, Iran issued a new warning that it will halt supplies of crude to India unless the issue of billions of dollars in overdue payments is resolved. New Delhi has been struggling for more than six months to pay Tehran due to international banking sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 7/19/11)
2011 Jul 20, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it has shot down an unmanned US spy plane that was trying to gather information on the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 23, In Iran gunmen firing from motorcycles killed Dariush Rezaeinejad (35), said to be an electronics masters’ student at Khajeh Nasir University in Tehran. Initial reports said a pair of gunmen firing from motorcycles killed Darioush Rezaei (35), a physics professor whose area of expertise was neutron transport. It was later reported that he participated in developing high-voltage switches, a key component that is crucial to setting off the explosions needed to trigger a nuclear warhead.
(AP, 7/23/11)(AFP, 7/24/11)(AP, 7/28/11)
2011 Jul 25, Iranian forces shelled suspected rebel outposts in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, killing two Iraqi civilians.
(AP, 7/25/11)
2011 Jul 28, In Iraq a suicide bomber and a car bomb struck an Iraqi bank in Tikrit where policemen were picking up their paychecks, killing 12 and wounding 34 people. An Iraqi Kurd boy (10) was killed in shelling by Tehran's forces of Iranian Kurdish separatist bases in Battas, northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/28/11)(AP, 7/29/11)
2011 Jul 28, The Obama administration accused Iran of entering into a secret deal with an Al-Qaida offshoot that provides money and recruits for attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(SFC, 7/29/11, p.A7)
2011 Jul 29, In Iran a blast hit a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran to Turkey, forcing a cut in supply.
(AFP, 7/29/11)
2011 Aug 3, Venezuela and Iran signed a deal for Iran build over 10,000 homes in three central states of the South American nation in a billion-dollar investment package that signals the two country's increasingly close ties.
(AFP, 8/4/11)
2011 Aug 17, Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, speaking in Russia, said Iran is ready to resume negotiations on its nuclear program and a Russian proposal will aid the process.
(AP, 8/17/11)
2011 Aug 20, Iran's state TV reported that Americans Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, already held for two years in Tehran, have been sentenced to 8 years in jail each on charges of espionage and illegal entry. They had 20 days to appeal the sentence.
(AP, 8/20/11)
2011 Aug 24, The EU announced that it was leveling sanctions against Iran’s Al Quds military force, saying it had given technical and material aid to Pres. Assad of Syria in his efforts to quell a 5-month old uprising against his rule.
(SFC, 8/25/11, p.A2)
2011 Aug 27, Iran warned that a power vacuum in Damascus could spark an unprecedented regional crisis, as thousands of protesters insisted they will defy tanks and bullets until President Bashar Assad is toppled.
(AP, 8/27/11)
2011 Aug 27, Iran inaugurated a plant for producing carbon fiber, which it is banned from importing by international sanctions targeting dual-use materials.
(AFP, 8/27/11)
2011 Aug 27, In Iran residents of Orumiyeh residents demonstrated against parliament’s refused in mid-August to fast-track a rescue plan to save Lake Orumiyeh, Iran’s largest lake. The drying lake, situated between East and West Azarbaijan provinces in the northwest, has lost more than half of its surface over the last two decades due to drought and the damming of rivers feeding it. The protest was repressed by force.
(AFP, 9/3/11)
2011 Sep 3, A young Kurdish shepherd was killed by an Iranian sniper on the Iraq-Iran border. Iran also shelled the border area, appearing to target bases of the Iranian Kurdish rebel group PEJAK, which has been involved in sporadic cross-border clashes with Iranian forces in recent years.
(AP, 9/3/11)
2011 Sep 4, Iranian state radio said the country's first nuclear power plant has been connected to the national power grid for a test run. The power plant in the southern port of Bushehr, with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, was built with Russian help.
(AP, 9/4/11)
2011 Sep 4, Iran executed three men for homosexuality. They were hanged in the south-western city of Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province.
(Econ, 2/4/12, p.63)(http://tinyurl.com/3jkjmyn)
2011 Sep 5, Iran said its Revolutionary Guard soldiers have killed at least 30 members of Kurdish opposition group in fighting outside the border city of Sardasht in an operation that began on Sep 2. Inside Iraq a PEJAK spokesman declared an immediate, unilateral cease-fire, which Iran rejected.
(AP, 9/5/11)
2011 Sep 7, In Syria a barrage of gunfire by security forces in Homs killed at least 29 people, wounded several others and left residents cowering in their homes. State-run news agency SANA said a "terrorist group" kidnapped two Baath party officials in Rastan. The embattled regime faced surprising calls to end the violence from its closest ally, Iran.
(AP, 9/7/11)(AP, 9/8/11)(AFP, 9/8/11)
2011 Sep 10, Iran hanged 2 convicted drug traffickers in a prison in the northern city of Sari. The latest hangings bring to 186 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year.
(AFP, 9/10/11)
2011 Sep 11, Iran media reported that several Iranian banks have been targeted in one of the biggest frauds in the Islamic republic's history, losing nearly $2.6 billion in more than two years. Iran hanged a convicted drug trafficker in prison in the northwestern city of Meshkinshahr, bringing to 187 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year.
(AFP, 9/11/11)
2011 Sep 12, Iran media said state regulators have blocked the assets a mega-tycoon Amir-Mansour Aria, accused of masterminding a $2.6 billion bank fraud. Last week Bank Saderat, revealed it uncovered the alleged fraud in early August and informed security and judicial authorities. The newspaper Kayhan, which often reflects the views of Iran's ruling clerics, said Aria had links with Ahmadinejad's top ally, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Iran hanged five convicted drug traffickers jailed in the central city of Shahroud.
(AP, 9/12/11)(AFP, 9/12/11)
2011 Sep 13, An Iranian court set bail of $500,000 each for two American men, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, arrested more than two years ago and convicted on spy-related charges, clearing the way for their release a year after a similar bail-for-freedom arrangement for the third member of the group. Iran hanged five people, three of them for drug trafficking and two in public for murder.
(AP, 9/13/11)(AFP, 9/13/11)
2011 Sep 18, Iran hanged Elias Babai Chegini (39), a convicted drug trafficker, at a prison in the northwestern city of Qazvin. His hanging raised to 200 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year.
(AFP, 9/18/11)
2011 Sep 19, Iranian state television reported that authorities have arrested five people for working for the BBC's Farsi-language service.
(AP, 9/19/11)
2011 Sep 20, Iran publicly hanged a convicted murderer at a square in the capital Tehran. Sajad Karimi had confessed to shooting a doctor, who had been his mother's surgeon, following her death.
(AFP, 9/20/11)
2011 Sep 21, Iran publicly hanged Alireza Molla-Soltani (17) convicted of killing Ruhollah Dadashi, an athlete billed as "Iran's strongest man." He was sent to the gallows at the scene of the crime in the city of Karaj. A spokesman for the prosecution said the boy had reached "religious maturity" and was over 18 years of age by the Islamic lunar calendar.
(AFP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 21, Americans Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, jailed in Iran as spies, were released from Tehran's Evin prison after more than two years in custody. A $1 million bail, $500,000 for each one, was posted by Oman.
(AP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 28, Iran announced the mass production of a new cruise missile, designed to destroy warships and coastal targets. The Qader had a range of 125 miles.
(SFC, 9/29/11, p.A2)
2011 Sep 30, Iran’s Fars news agency said pastor Yusef Nadarkhani, arrested for apostasy in 2009, will not face the death penalty but is a traitorous "Zionist" who has committed "security crimes."
(AFP, 10/2/11)
2011 Oct 8, Iran sentenced actress Marzieh Vafamehr to a year in jail and 90 lashes for her role in a film about the limits imposed on artists in the Islamic republic. Vafamehr was arrested in July after appearing in "My Tehran for Sale," which came under harsh criticism in conservative circles. She was released on bail later in July. Her sentence was overturned later this month on appeal.
(AFP, 10/9/11)(AP, 10/29/11)
2011 Oct 8, Iran hanged a man (67) convicted of multiple rapes of 37 women whom he coerced by filming acts with them. He was executed in a prison in Isfahan after four years of repeated appeals against his sentence.
(AFP, 10/8/11)
2011 Oct 9, In Iran Peiman Aref, a student activist supporting the opposition, received 74 lashes before leaving the prison where he had served a yearlong term for insulting the president.
(AP, 10/11/11)
2011 Oct 12, Iranian lawmaker Ali Motahari said he is resigning to protest the parliament's failure to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over a long list of accusations, including corruption.
(AP, 10/12/11)
2011 Oct 19, Iran’s governmental newspaper reported that the government has sentenced reformist journalist Abdolreza Tajik to six year in prison after he was convicted of propaganda against the regime.
(AFP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 20, Iran reported that 13 divers, part of a team installing an underwater oil pipeline, were inside a pressurized diving chamber when their Koosha-1 ship sank in the Persian Gulf in stormy seas. The 7 Indians, 5 Iranians and one Ukrainian had about 72 hours of oxygen. 8 of the 13 divers were reported dead on Oct 23.
(AP, 10/22/11)(AP, 10/23/11)
2011 Oct 21, Turkish jets kept up bombing raids on Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq overnight, as the rebels confirmed that some Turkish troops crossed into Iraq. Turkey and Iran vowed to collaborate against the PKK and its Iranian wing, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PJAK, during a visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.
(AFP, 10/21/11)(AP, 10/22/11)
2011 Oct 24, In Iran a man convicted of drug trafficking was hanged in Ardebil. Another convicted of killing a police officer was hanged in Jam. The hanging brought to 233 the number of executions in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP tally.
(AFP, 10/24/11)
2011 Oct 26, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview to BBC Farsi said that in the next two months, the United States would open a "virtual embassy": an online site that would respond to questions about US visa and study options, and that would address the Iranian population directly.
(AFP, 10/27/11)
2011 Oct 28, In southern Iran an explosion at a state-run oil field killed a worker and injured three others. A refinery in central Iran was hit by a fire.
(AFP, 10/28/11)
2011 Oct 29, Iranian media reported a blast at a southwest oil field, the third such explosion in the country in 24 hours attributed to accidents.
(AFP, 10/29/11)
2011 Nov 3, Top UN envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, offered to broker the peaceful closing of out of Camp Ashraf, a camp of Iranian exiles, before the government in Baghdad forces its residents out at the end of the year.
(AP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 6, Israeli President Shimon Peres warned that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely, days before a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear program is due.
(AFP, 11/6/11)
2011 Nov 8, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said only crippling sanctions against Iran's central bank and its oil and gas industries will force Tehran to halt its nuclear drive. The UN atomic agency said for the first time that Iran is suspected of conducting secret experiments whose sole purpose is the development of nuclear arms.
(AFP, 11/8/11)(AP, 11/8/11)
2011 Nov 9, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran won't retreat "one iota" from its nuclear program, denying claims that it seeks atomic weapons. Key ally Russia gave the Islamic Republic a major boost, rejecting tighter sanctions despite a UN watchdog report detailing suspected arms-related advances.
(AP, 11/9/11)
2011 Nov 11, Ahmad Rezaei, the son of prominent Iranian conservative Mohsen Rezaei, died in Dubai's Gloria Hotel in an apparent suicide. Prior to his return to Iran in 2005, Ahmad Rezaei had lived in the United States and openly criticized Tehran's rulers. His father had run against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.
(AP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 11, The UN atomic agency (IAEA) shared satellite images, letters and diagrams with 35 nations as it sought to underpin its case that Iran apparently worked secretly on developing a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 11/11/11)
2011 Nov 12, In Iran an accidental explosion at a Revolutionary Guard ammunition depot west of Tehran killed at least 36 soldiers. Brig. Gen. Hassan Moqaddam, a top commander of Iran’s ballistic missile program, was among those killed.
(AP, 11/12/11)(SSFC, 11/13/11, p.A6)(SFC, 11/14/11, p.A2)(AP, 11/17/11)
2011 Nov 16, Iran’s Cabinet approved a new regulation allowing tea houses to again offer water pipes to customers. The ban remains in place for other institutions, along with the general 2005 ban on smoking in restaurants, parks and other public places.
(AP, 11/17/11)
2011 Nov 18, In Austria the US and its Western allies bluntly accused Iran of deceiving the world and declared it could no longer dismiss evidence it is working secretly on making nuclear arms.
(AP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 20, Iranian media reported that authorities have imposed a two-month ban on a reformist newspaper, Etemad, for printing what the country's press watchdog said was "lies and insults" to officials.
(AFP, 11/20/11)
2011 Nov 21, The US approved extra curbs on Iran’s banking system and oil industry in an ongoing effort to thwart the country’s nuclear program.
(SFC, 12/1/11, p.A3)
2011 Nov 23, Rafiq Tagi, a prominent Azeri journalist, died in Baku four days after he was stabbed six times by an unknown assailant. Tagi claimed the attack was retaliation for his opinion piece published earlier this month that criticized the government of neighboring Iran.
(AP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 24, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Iran has arrested 12 agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency. Parviz Sorouri, a member of the powerful parliamentary committee on foreign policy and national security, said the alleged agents were operating in coordination with Israel's Mossad and other regional agencies, targeting the country's military and its nuclear program.
(AP, 11/24/11)
2011 Nov 27, Iran's parliament voted on expel the British ambassador in retaliation for fresh Western sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program and warned that other countries could also be punished. The bill now has to go to the Guardians Council for approval.
(AFP, 11/27/11)
2011 Nov 28, Iran enacted legislation to downgrade relations with Britain in retaliation for intensified sanctions imposed last week by Western nations for their suspected nuclear development program.
(SFC, 11/29/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 29, Hard-line Iranian students stormed British diplomatic sites in Tehran, bringing down the Union Jack flag, burning an embassy vehicle and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the seizing of the US compound in 1979.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 29, Iran hanged three convicted rapists and six drug traffickers, one of them a woman, in different cities.
(AFP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 30, Britain's foreign secretary ordered all Iranian diplomats out of the UK within 48 hours following attacks on the British embassy and a residential compound in Tehran. The ransacked embassy in Tehran was shuttered.
(AP, 11/30/11)(SFC, 12/1/11, p.A3)
2011 Nov 30, Norway said it has temporarily closed its embassy in Tehran due to security concerns after the British mission in the Iranian capital was attacked by an angry mob.
(AFP, 11/30/11)
2011 Dec 3, The London-based Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization (IKWRO) reported that more than 2,800 so-called honor attacks, punishments for bringing shame on the family, were recorded by Britain's police in 2010.
(AFP, 12/3/11)
2011 Dec 4, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that Iranian armed forces have brought down an unmanned US spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along the country's eastern border. Iran said it used advanced electronic warfare measures to detect, hack and bring down an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel drone. It suffered minor damage and was now in possession of Iran's armed forces." Footage of the drone was aired on Dec 8.
(AP, 12/4/11)(SSFC, 12/11/11, p.A8)
2011 Dec 7, Iran blocked an Internet website, http://iran.usembassy.gov/, the United States was touting as a "virtual embassy," and which senior MPs slammed as an attempt to deceive the Iranian people and divide them from the government.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Dec 11, In Iran a blast caused by leftover ammunition killed at least seven workers including foreign nationals at a steel mill in the central city of Yazd.
(AP, 12/12/11)
2011 Dec 12, The head of Iran's parliamentary national security committee said Iran will reverse-engineer the US drone it has in its possession, and is in the "final stages" of unlocking the aircraft's software secrets.
(AFP, 12/12/11)
2011 Dec 16, South Korea joined a fresh multinational effort to press Iran to scrap its suspected nuclear weapons program, adding more than 100 names to a financial blacklist of Iranian firms and individuals.
(AFP, 12/16/11)
2011 Dec 18, Iranian state media reported that Russia’s Tatneft has signed a preliminary accord valued at $1 billion with the Persian Gulf country to develop the Zagheh oil field located in southwestern Iran. The next day Tatneft said no accord has been signed.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/7j78scn)
2011 Dec 19, The UN General Assembly approved a resolution denouncing human rights violations in Iran in an 89-30 vote. There were 64 abstentions.
(SFC, 12/19/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 20, Five Iranian engineers working on an electricity power plant in Jandar, close to the city of Homs, Syria, were abducted. Two others working for Iran Power Plant Projects Management Company (Mapna) were taken when they went to investigate their colleagues' disappearance. On Jan 2 an unknown group calling itself the "Movement Against the Expansion of Shiism in Syria" claimed responsibility for their abduction.
(AFP, 1/4/12)
2011 Dec 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a visit to Armenia that saw the Islamic republic and its small Christian neighbor sign a series of agreements to boost ties.
(AFP, 12/23/11)
2011 Dec 27, Iran warned that it would block the Strait of Hormuz if Western powers attempt to impose an embargo on Iranian petroleum exports in their effort to isolate the country over its suspect nuclear energy program.
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 31, Iran said it has proposed a new round of talks on its nuclear program with six world powers that have been trying for years to persuade Tehran to freeze aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2011 Dec, Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi was taken into in US custody over allegations he bought advanced technological equipment in violation of US sanctions on Iran. In April, 2013, the US released Atarodi, a microchip expert at Tehran's Sharif University.
(AP, 4/26/13)
2011 Maziar Bahari authored “Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival." In 2009 Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian BBC journalist, was imprisoned and tortured in Iran for 118 days for his reports on protests following the re-election of Pres. Ahmadinejad.
(SSFC, 11/23/14, Par p.9)
2011 In Iran the comedy TV show "Payetakht" began airing on state TV. It followed a family in the north who get into all kinds of trouble.
(Econ., 5/30/20, p.40)
2012 Jan 1, Iran’s nuclear agency said its scientists have tested the first nuclear fuel rod produced from uranium ore deposits inside the country.
(AFP, 1/1/12)
2012 Jan 1, In Pakistan three Iranian border guards crossed the frontier in southwestern Baluchistan province and allegedly shot at a car, killing a Pakistani national. The border guards were arrested by Pakistan paramilitary Frontier Corps.
(AFP, 1/3/12)
2012 Jan 2, Iran test-fired a surface-to-surface cruise missile called Ghader during a drill that the country's navy chief said proved Tehran was in complete control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-sixth of the world's oil supply.
(AP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Three Iranian border guards were arrested in southwestern Baluchistan province along after they allegedly crossed the frontier and shot at a car, killing a Pakistani national. On Jan 14 Pakistan deported the 3 guards after they were pardoned in court by the family of the man killed in the attack.
(AFP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 5, A US Navy destroyer rescued 13 Iranian fishermen, more than 40 days after their boat was commandeered by suspected Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea. The event was made public a day later and Iran's government on Jan 7 welcomed the rescue, calling it a positive humanitarian gesture. Iran's hard-line Fars news agency called the rescue operation a Hollywood dramatization of a routine event.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2012 Jan 8, A leading Iranian hardline newspaper reported Iran has begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom, well protected from possible airstrikes. Another newspaper quoted a senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard force as saying Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country's petroleum exports are blocked.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 9, Iran’s state radio reported that an Iranian court has convicted Amir Mirzaei Hekmati (28), an American man, of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death. The case added to the accelerating tension between the United States and Iran. In March the Supreme Court tossed out his death penalty and said a new trial would held. In 2014 the death sentence was overturned and reduced to 10 years in jail. In 2016 Hekmati was released as part of a US-Iran prisoner swap. In 2021 it was reported US compensation for his imprisonment was being held back due to FBI suspicions that Hekmati had traveled to Iran to sell classified secrets.
(AP, 1/9/12)(SFC, 3/6/12, p.A3)(AFP, 4/13/14)(AP, 3/15/21)
2012 Jan 9, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited his close ally President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela on the first leg of a four-nation tour that will also take Ahmadinejad to Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador.
(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 11, In Iran 2 assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a university professor working at the Natanz nuclear facility, killing him and his driver. Defiant Iranian authorities pointed the finger at archfoe Israel.
(AP, 1/11/12)
2012 Jan 11, Cuba and Iran highlighted the "right of all nations to the peaceful use of nuclear energy" during a visit by Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the communist-ruled island. Ahmadinejad slammed capitalism as bankrupt and called for a new world order.
(AFP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 14, Iran’s Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic letter to the US saying that it has "evidence and reliable information" that the CIA provided "guidance, support and planning" to assassins "directly involved" in the Jan 11 assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan. State media IRNA also reported that Iran delivered a letter to Britain accusing London of having an "obvious role" in the killing.
(AP, 1/14/12)
2012 Jan 15, An Iranian news website said a court has sentenced Pres. Ahmadinejad's press adviser to one year in prison on the charge of insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ali Akbar Javanfekr was also banned from journalism activities for five years.
(AP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 15, At Hollywood’s Golden Globes “The Artist" won 3 Golden Globes. “The Descendants" won 2. Meryl Streep won for best actress in a drama (The Iron Lady). George Clooney won for best actor (The Descendants). An Iranian film, "A Separation", won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film.
(SFC, 1/16/12, p.D1)(AFP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 15, Britain's foreign secretary William Hague said that European nations will intensify pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, but insisted the West wasn't pressing for military action.
(AP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 16, Gelareh Bagherzadeh (30), a Texas medical student well-known in her community as an Iranian activist, was mysteriously shot and killed in her car around midnight, just yards from her home in Houston.
(AP, 1/18/12)
2012 Jan 17, India said it was continuing to buy oil from Iran, despite an intensifying US campaign to smother Tehran's vital oil exports until it abandons its nuclear program.
(AFP, 1/17/12)
2012 Jan 18, Iran's currency, the rial, hit a record low against the dollar, based on rates in black market trading that the government has tried to ban.
(AFP, 1/18/12)
2012 Jan 20, British authorities revoked the license of Press TV, the Iranian state broadcaster's English-language outlet, saying the channel had breached a string of regulations.
(AFP, 1/20/12)
2012 Jan 21, An Iranian boat sank while sailing between Hormuz Island and the port city of Bandar Abbas on the mainland. 17 people died after a storm capsized the passenger boat.
(AP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 25, Azerbaijan officials said 2 men have been arrested in a plot to assassinate Israeli targets in Baku. Local mercenaries, suspected of being recruited by a well-known gangster with ties to Iran, were arrested. Azerbaijani media later said that two Iranian Quds Force members were arrested. In addition, around 20 people, mostly from the same family, were arrested in connection with the planned attacks, in a village on the outskirts of Baku.
(http://tinyurl.com/6rqkkdc)(www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/26/190617.html)(SFC, 2/22/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 26, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is ready to revive talks with the world powers, as toughening sanctions aim at forcing Tehran to sharply scale back its nuclear program. A US-made F-14 Iranian fighter jet crashed in southern Iran. Both the pilot and the co-pilot were killed.
(AP, 1/26/12)
2012 Jan 26, Iranian security forces killed six Pakistani traders taking goats into Iran. Gunmen in Syria kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims traveling by road from Turkey to Damascus.
(AP, 1/26/12)(AFP, 2/3/12)
2012 Jan 27, In Syria heavy gunfire hammered Homs in a second day of chaos. Activists said 21 people were killed across the country. The UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting to discuss the crisis, a step toward a possible resolution against the Damascus regime. The rebel Free Syrian Army said it had captured five Iranian soldiers in Homs who it said were under orders of the Syrian intelligence service.
(AP, 1/27/12)(AFP, 1/27/12)
2012 Jan 29, Iranian media confirmed that Saeed Malekpour (36), an Iranian man with Canadian residency, has had a death sentence against him reinstated by the supreme court on charges he operated a pornographic website. Malekpour was arrested in Iran in 2008 while visiting his dying father.
(AFP, 1/29/12)
2012 Jan 29, UN nuclear inspectors began a critical mission to Iran to probe allegations of a secret atomic weapons program amid escalating Western economic pressure and warnings about safeguarding Gulf oil shipments from possible Iranian blockades.
(AP, 1/29/12)
2012 Jan 30, Iran's top diplomat offered to extend the current visit of UN nuclear inspectors and expressed optimism their findings would help ease tensions despite international claims that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Iran's state TV reported the development of laser-guided artillery shells capable of hitting moving targets.
(AP, 1/30/12)
2012 Feb 1, Eleven Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped in the central Syrian city of Hama.
(AFP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 1, Senior UN nuclear expert Herman Nackaerts announced plans to revisit Tehran soon after a "good trip," indicating progress on his team's quest to probe suspicions that the Islamic Republic is secretly working on an atomic arms program.
(AP, 2/1/12)
2012 Feb 2, Israel's chief of military intelligence, General Aviv Kochavi, warned at a security conference that Iran has enough radioactive material to produce four nuclear bombs.
(AFP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 3, Iran successfully launched a new small satellite into orbit. The home-made satellite, Navid, or Gospel, was designed to collect data on weather conditions and monitor for natural disasters.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 3, Iran banned its citizens from traveling to Syria by road following the recent abductions of 29 Iranians in the escalating uprising in its key Middle East ally.
(AFP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 4, Iran’s state television's website said has the government begun mass production of an anti-ship cruise missile.
(AFP, 2/4/12)
2012 Feb 5, The Iranian navy rushed to a site in the Gulf of Aden after it received a distress signal from an oil tanker, which was under attack from some 35 pirate boats. The navy opened fire on the pirates to foil an attack on an Iranian oil tanker.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2012 Feb 5, Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, said Iranian authorities are increasingly arresting and threatening the families of BBC journalists to force them to quit its Persian news service.
(Reuters, 2/5/12)
2012 Feb 6, Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency says authorities have arrested several people over alleged links to the British Broadcasting Corporation's Farsi-language service.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2012 Feb 6, Washington ordered the new penalties on Monday, giving US banks additional powers to freeze assets linked to the Iranian government and close loopholes that officials say Iran has used to move money despite earlier restrictions imposed by the US and Europe.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Iran's parliament decided to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over a long list of accusations, including that he mismanaged the nation's economy.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 12, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh that Iran would always stand by the Palestinian resistance against Israel and warned him against compromisers. Pres. Ahmadinejad said it was Iran’s duty to stand by the Palestinians.
(SFC, 2/13/12, p.A3)
2012 Feb 13, Many Iranian web users said their access to foreign email services such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail appears to have been restored after a four day outage.
(AP, 2/13/12)
2012 Feb 13, In India and Georgia assailants targeted Israeli diplomats in near-simultaneous strikes that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu blamed on archenemy Iran, and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. The attacks wounded four people. A hitman on a rented motorbike attached a magnetic bomb to the back of an Israeli embassy car carrying the 42-year-old diplomat as she went to pick up her children from school in New Delhi. The woman, also the wife of the defense attache at the embassy, was left in a critical condition with spinal injuries and was flown to Israel for further treatment. 3 men of Iranian origin were later identified as suspects.
(AP, 2/13/12)(AFP, 3/15/12)
2012 Feb 14, US filmmaker Sean Stone (27), son of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, converted to Islam in Iran, where he is making a documentary.
(AFP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 14, In Thailand an Iranian man, Saeid Moradi, carrying grenades lost at least one leg in a grenade blast and wounded four civilians in Bangkok after an earlier blast shook his rented house. Mohammad Kharzei, a 2nd man was arrested in Bangkok as he tried to board a flight to Malaysia.
(AP, 2/14/12)(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 15, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran has added 3,000 more centrifuges to its uranium enrichment effort increasing the total to 9,000, as he unveiled progress in his country's controversial nuclear program. Iran began loading domestically made nuclear fuel rods into its Tehran research reactor. Iran also said it was considering cutting oil sales to six EU countries in retaliation to an EU ban on Iranian oil imports that is being phased in as existing contracts expire up to July 1.
(AFP, 2/15/12)(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 15, Malaysia police arrested Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, a third Iranian suspect sought after explosive blasts in Bangkok.
(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 16, Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance said it has agreed to begin evacuating its long-time base in a camp in central Iraq to transfer to a UN-approved site near Baghdad.
(AFP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 16, Pakistan welcomed the leaders of Afghanistan and Iran for a regional summit at a key juncture in peace efforts with the Taliban and amid rising tensions between Tehran and Israel.
(AFP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 18, In Iran a trial began in a $2.6 billion dollar banking fraud case with some 32 people involved in taking bribes and financial corruption. At the center of the fraud, which surfaced last September, is a company called the Aria group, which was founded in 2005 with a mere $50,000. In 2011, estimates put its value at more than $3.5 billion.
(AFP, 2/18/12)
2012 Feb 18, In Iraq some 400 members of an Iranian exile group reluctantly moved from Camp Ashraf in the northwest to Camp Liberty, a deserted military base outside Baghdad in what they called a show of good faith that they eventually will be allowed to leave the country peacefully. It was the first group to move of the more than 3,300 members of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran who have lived at the camp for three decades.
(AP, 2/18/12)
2012 Feb 19, UN nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran in the latest push to hold key talks with Iranian officials about how far the country's controversial nuclear program has come. Access to Parchin, a military site suspected of testing nuclear weapon components, was denied.
(AP, 2/20/12)(Econ, 2/25/12, p.28)
2012 Feb 21, Iran said it views its nuclear activities as a non-negotiable right, but confirmed they will be discussed in mooted talks with world powers aimed at defusing a crisis containing the seeds of a new Middle East war.
(AFP, 2/21/12)
2012 Feb 22, The UN nuclear agency acknowledged renewed failure after a trip to probe suspicions of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work. Their statement was issued just hours after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike against any foe threatening the country.
(AP, 2/22/12)
2012 Feb 24, Angola's state oil company Sonangol announced it is withdrawing from a natural-gas project in Iran due to international sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 2/24/12)
2012 Feb 26, In Los Angeles the Iranian film “A Separation" won an Oscar for best foreign film. Director Asghar Farhadi's movie explores troubles in Iranian society through the story of a marriage in collapse.
(AP, 2/27/12)
2012 Feb 28, Iran’s head of the central bank said Iran will accept gold for trade payments, along with agreed currencies of other nations. The remarks suggested Iran was broadening its payment system in the face of increasingly tough financial sanctions imposed by the West over Tehran's controversial nuclear program.
(AFP, 2/29/12)
2012 Feb 29, A Pakistani official said Iran has offered to supply Pakistan with 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day and a $250 million loan to help build a gas pipeline from the Iranian border.
(AFP, 2/29/12)
2012 Feb, Monica Elfriede Witt arrived in Iran to attend the New Horizon Organization's "Hollywoodism" conference. She soon offered Ayatollah Hadi Barikbin the pledge of faith all Islam converts must recite: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is His messenger." She returned to Iran in 2013 and began working for the Iranian government. Witt had served in the US Air Force from 1997 to 2008 and later worked for a defense contractor. She served as an airborne crypto linguist on board a RC-135 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On Feb. 13, 2019, she was charged with espionage.
(AP, 2/14/19)(SFC, 2/14/19, p.A7)(The National Interest, 7/23/19)
2012 Mar 2, Iranians voted in their first national poll since the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, choosing a new parliament they hope will fix their country's sanctions-hit economy. Overall, the new parliament looked to be virtually entirely conservative, with the previous 60 reformist MPs winnowed down to a bare handful following the boycott of the main reformist blocs in the elections.
(AFP, 3/2/12)(AFP, 3/4/12)
2012 Mar 4, In Iran the family of Abdolfattah Soltani (58), a prominent human rights lawyer, was informed that he has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. He was charged with co-founding the Center for Human Rights Defenders, spreading anti-government propaganda, endangering national security and accepting an illegal prize – a reference to a German human rights prize he was awarded in 2009.
(www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/04/iranian-human-rights-lawyer-jailed)
2012 Mar 6, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported that the government will grant UN inspectors access to a military complex where the UN nuclear agency suspects secret atomic work has been carried out.
(AP, 3/6/12)
2012 Mar 7, Iran's state media said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered the creation of an Internet oversight agency that includes top military and political figures in the country's boldest attempt to control the web.
(AP, 3/7/12)
2012 Mar 7, Iranian media reported that Ali Shakouri-Rad, a ranking member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, former lawmaker and a leading reformist from a banned political party has been sentenced to four years in prison for allegedly spreading anti-regime propaganda.
(AFP, 3/7/12)
2012 Mar 8, The Israeli daily Maariv reported that the United States has offered Israel advanced weaponry in return for it committing not to attack Iran's nuclear facilities this year. In return Israel would agree to put off a possible attack on Iran till 2013.
(AFP, 3/8/12)
2012 Mar 10, Turkish journalist Adem Ozkose (34) and cameraman Hamit Coskun (21) reported from Idlib as Syrian forces with tanks and artillery were preparing to move against poorly armed rebels there. They were not heard from again until May 5 when they called their families while under Syrian detention. On May 11 Iran, acting as diplomatic go-between between Syria and Turkey, negotiated their release.
(AP, 5/11/12)
2012 Mar 14, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a defiant and at times mocking defense of his economic and political management in an unprecedented interrogation by a largely hostile parliament. It was the first time an Iranian president was summoned before parliament to answer questions about his rule since the founding of the Islamic republic in 1979.
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 14, The Azerbaijan national security ministry said it has arrested 22 Azeri citizens on suspicion of plotting attacks on the US and Israeli embassies in Baku on behalf of neighboring Iran.
(AP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 14, Britain launched a website and Facebook page for Iranians, harnessing the power of social media to try to evade Iranian censorship and take its message directly to the people.
(Reuters, 3/15/12)
2012 Mar 15, European Union nations agreed to ban financial transfers such as SWIFT payments to hundreds of Iranian firms and individuals blacklisted by the bloc over Tehran's contested nuclear drive.
(AFP, 3/15/12)
2012 Mar 17, A senior Iranian military commander, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, urged Afghans to use force to kick American troops out of their country, hinting that "new resistance groups" could launch attacks on US interests in Afghanistan.
(AP, 3/17/12)
2012 Mar 20, Iran ushered in its Persian New Year with a symbolic cannon blast from its flagship destroyer, and speeches from leaders vowing to fix an economy suffering under Western sanctions.
(AFP, 3/20/12)
2012 Mar 24, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari arrived in Tajikistan for regional security talks with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
(AFP, 3/24/12)
2012 Mar 26, Somali pirates seized an Iranian-owned cargo ship and its 23-strong crew in the first hijacking within Maldivian territory. The MV. Eglantine was seized off the north-western Hoarafush island in the Indian Ocean atoll nation. The Bolivian-flagged vessel was freed on April 2, and continued on to Iran with its sugar shipment.
(AFP, 3/27/12)(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Mar 29, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced his country's unwavering support for Tehran's nuclear ambitions in a meeting with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Turkey relies on Iran for 30% of its oil imports, and has refused to go along with sanctions imposed by the US and Europe, saying it will observe only UN-mandated restrictions on Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran strongly supports reforms in Syria under Pres. Assad, but visiting Turkish PM Erdogan said Assad can't be trusted and must step down.
(AFP, 3/29/12)(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Apr 6, Azerbaijan said members of a suspected terrorist group have been arrested. One security officer was shot and killed and three others were wounded in a skirmish during the arrests, and one suspect was also killed. Officials later said the group had links to al-Qaida and some trained in neighboring Iran.
(AP, 4/19/12)
2012 Apr 6, A Chinese cargo ship was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Oman, not far off the south of Iran. The Xianghuamen, owned by Yuanyang shipping company, was sailing with a crew of 28. Iran’s navy rescued the 28 crew members and detained 9 Somali pirates.
(AFP, 4/6/12)(AP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 10, Iran's official news agency said the country's intelligence department has dismantled an Israeli-linked assassination and sabotage network. State media later said 15 people were arrested for an attack planned on Feb 10.
(AP, 4/10/12)(SFC, 4/19/12, p.A4)
2012 Apr 14, Iran and senior diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, known as the P5+1, gathered at the negotiating table in Istanbul for their first meeting in 15 months hoping to ease tensions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 4/14/12)
2012 Apr 16, Iran officially launched a $1-billion first phase of an ambitious project to pump water from the Caspian Sea to a city in its vast and expanding central desert.
(AFP, 4/16/12)
2012 Apr 16, Oil prices slipped after nuclear talks over the weekend between major crude producer Iran and world powers eased concerns over Middle East supplies.
(AFP, 4/16/12)
2012 Apr 18, Iran welcomed Saudi Arabia suspending death sentences against several of its nationals convicted for drug trafficking.
(AFP, 4/18/12)
2012 Apr 22, Iran's principal oil terminal on Kharg island in the Gulf was disconnected from the Internet. A voracious virus attack hit computers running key parts of Iran's oil sector, forcing authorities to unplug the oil export terminal from the Internet and to set up a cyber crisis team.
(AFP, 4/23/12)
2012 Apr 22, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki was given a red carpet welcome by Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi at Saadabad Palace in north Tehran. He was scheduled to meet with Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a two-day official visit.
(AP, 4/22/12)
2012 Apr, Iranian authorities banned the Reuters news agency over publishing a report on martial arts training of Iranian women. The ban was lifted in May, 2013.
(AP, 5/11/13)
2012 May 4, Iranians lined up at polling stations for a second round of parliamentary elections. Conservative opponents of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already won an outright majority of seats of the new parliament in the first round of elections held in March. Of 65 seats up for grabs Ahmadinejad's opponents won 41 while the president's supporters got only 13.
(AP, 5/4/12)(AP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 8, In Iran Seo Ok-Seok, a UN nuclear inspector from South Korea, was killed and a colleague was injured in a car crash near a reactor site in Khondab.
(AP, 5/8/12)
2012 May 15, Iran said Majid Jamali Fashi, a man convicted of playing a key role in the 2010 murder of a top nuclear scientist and of spying for Israel, was hanged today.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 15, India said it would cut purchases of Iranian oil by 11% following pressure from the US to join a drive to isolate the Islamic republic over its disputed nuclear program.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 18, In Iran thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran to protest a proposed union of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
(AFP, 5/18/12)
2012 May 19, G8 leaders meeting in Maryland made progress on addressing the two biggest threats to their economies, the euro zone crisis and very high oil prices. G8 leaders sent a strong message to Iran that tough energy sanctions would be firmly applied, vowing to ensure oil markets are well supplied to prevent crude prices soaring.
(AFP, 5/19/12)
2012 May 22, UN nuclear chief Yukiya Amano said that despite some remaining differences, a deal has been reached with Iran that will allow the UN nuclear agency to restart a long-stalled probe into suspicions that Tehran has secretly worked on developing nuclear arms.
(AP, 5/22/12)
2012 May 23, Iran and six world powers resumed talks over Tehran's nuclear program. Diplomats from six world powers offered Iran new proposals to ease international concerns about its nuclear program, but appeared to reject Tehran's appeals to ease economic sanctions to help move along talks.
(AP, 5/23/12)
2012 May 23, Iran's navy saved the American-flagged Maersk Texas cargo ship that was being attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Oman. It was the first time the Iranian navy protected a US ship from pirates.
(AFP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, Iranian negotiators rejected proposals by six world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program, and demanded answers to their own counteroffer meant to alleviate concerns about the Islamic Republic's ability to build atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, Iranian negotiators rejected proposals by six world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program, and demanded answers to their own counteroffer meant to alleviate concerns about the Islamic Republic's ability to build atomic weapons. The 2-days talks ended with no clear signs of progress, but parties agreed to reconvene in Moscow in June.
(AP, 5/24/12)(SFC, 5/25/12, p.A4)
2012 May 28, Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based internet security firm, said a powerful computer virus, dubbed “Flame," with unprecedented data-snatching capabilities has attacked machines in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.
(AP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 30, A senior Iranian military official said Iran's key oil industry was briefly affected by the powerful computer virus known as "Flame" that has unprecedented data-snatching capabilities and can eavesdrop on computer users.
(AP, 5/30/12)
2012 Jun 2, Iran’s defense minister said construction of a new space center is 80% finished and will soon allow the launch more domestically made satellites into orbit.
(AP, 6/2/12)
2012 Jun 14, Iran said it arrested a number of chief suspects in the assassinations of two of its nuclear scientists in the past two years, and claimed they were linked to Israel.
(AFP, 6/14/12)
2012 Jun 18, Iran and six world powers sought elusive common ground in talks in Moscow meant to reduce tensions over Tehran's nuclear activities that both sides see as crucial to their interests but which are stalled by reluctance to commit to each other's demands.
(AP, 6/18/12)
2012 Jun 19, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stopped in Bolivia en route to a summit in Brazil, to court support from another leftist Latin American nation which has tense ties with the United States.
(AFP, 6/19/12)
2012 Jun 19, The world powers known as "P5+1," permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, failed to win any concession from Iran that would give the talks a new impulse. Negotiators in Moscow managed to prevent the diplomatic process from complete collapse by agreeing a new meeting at expert-level in Istanbul on July 3.
(AFP, 6/20/12)
2012 Jun 19, Kenyan police officers arrested two Iranians suspected of being involved in terrorism. Officials later said the men, who led authorities to a cache of explosives after their arrest, planned to attack Israeli, US, British or Saudi targets inside Kenya.
(AP, 6/22/12)(AFP, 7/3/12)
2012 Jun 22, In Venezuela Pres. Hugo Chavez and Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad pledged to stand together to battle "imperialism," with Chavez criticizing tough sanctions on Tehran.
(AFP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 23, In France thousands of Iranian exiles led a Paris rally to demand democratic change in Iran and help for Iranian resistance members in Iraq's refugee camps.
(AP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 25, A Malaysian court ruled that Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, an Iranian man accused of plotting to attack Israeli targets in Bangkok on Feb 14, must be extradited to Thailand.
(AP, 6/25/12)
2012 Jun 27, In eastern Turkey an explosion targeting a pipeline cut off Iranian natural gas shipments to the country. The pipeline was expected to be back in operation within 4 to 5 days. Turkey received 27 million cubic meters of gas a day via the Iranian pipeline. The gas flow was reported restored on July 3.
(AFP, 6/28/12)(AFP, 7/3/12)
2012 Jul 1, An EU embargo on Iranian oil went into effect, provoking anger in Tehran which said the measure will hurt talks with world powers over its sensitive nuclear activities.
(AFP, 7/2/12)
2012 Jul 3, A US federal judge ordered Iran to pay more than $813 million in damages and interest to the families of 241 US soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon. After this opinion, this court will have issued over $8.8 billion in judgments against Iran as a result of the October 23, 1983, Beirut bombing.
(AFP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 6, The United States again urged members of an exiled Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, also known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), to leave their long-time base in Iraq, saying a move could facilitate their removal from a US terror blacklist.
(AFP, 7/6/12)
2012 Jul 13, The United States announced charges against an Iranian citizen and Chinese resident for allegedly trying to export nuclear-related material to help Tehran enrich uranium. Iranian citizen Parviz Khaki (43), was arrested in May in the Philippines on request of the US. Chinese resident, Yi Zongcheng, remained at large.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 23, Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency reported that people had poured into the streets of Nishabur to protest a steep hike in the price of chicken.
(SFC, 7/24/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 25, Top Iranian government officials and lawmakers agreed in a meeting to budget cuts in a bid to shore up an economy struggling with Western sanctions and inflation.
(AFP, 7/25/12)
2012 Jul 29, Iran published the results of its 2011 census. It gave Iran's total population as 75.2 million, 99.4 percent of whom are Muslim. 55 percent were under 30 years of age.
(AFP, 7/29/12)
2012 Jul 29, An Israeli newspaper reported that the Obama administration's top security official has briefed Israel on US plans for a possible attack on Iran, seeking to reassure it that Washington is prepared to act militarily should diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 7/29/12)
2012 Jul 30, An Iranian official said a court has sentenced 39 people linked to a $2.6 billion bank fraud. 4 men, believed to be associates of Esfandiyar Rahim Mashaei, a controversial ally of the president, were sentenced to death and two to life in prison.
(SFC, 7/31/12, p.A4)(Econ, 8/18/12, p.43)
2012 Jul 30, The Times of India, citing a police investigation, said that five suspects were believed to have worked with a local Indian journalist to plan the Feb 13 attack on an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi. Police concluded that members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a branch of the Iranian military, carried out the attack.
(AFP, 7/30/12)
2012 Jul 30, The US Congress pressed ahead with a new package of sanctions on Iran, expanding financial penalties and further targeting Tehran’s energy and shipping sectors in an ongoing effort to undercut the country’s suspected nuclear weapons program.
(SFC, 8/1/12, p.A5)
2012 Aug 4, In Syria gunmen snatched a bus filled with 48 Iranian pilgrims from a Damascus suburb as they headed to visit a shrine holy to Shiites.
(AP, 8/4/12)
2012 Aug 5, Iran appealed for help from governments with ties to the Syrian opposition in securing the release of 48 of its nationals seized from a bus in Damascus. Rebel captors charged that their hostages were Revolutionary Guards.
(AFP, 8/5/12)
2012 Aug 5, Iranian state television broadcast purported confessions by more than a dozen suspects in connection with the killing of five nuclear scientists since 2010.
(AP, 8/6/12)
2012 Aug 6, New York State Department of Financial Services alleged that Standard Chartered PLC schemed with the Iranian government to launder $250 billion from 2001 to 2007.
(AP, 8/7/12)
2012 Aug 7, Shares in Standard Chartered PLC dropped 22% sharply as investors reacted to US charges that the bank was involved in laundering money for Iran.
(AP, 8/7/12)(Econ, 8/18/12, p.64)
2012 Aug 9, Iran hosted a 29-nation conference on Syria with the aim of stopping bloodshed there and forging a role for Tehran as peace-broker for its beleaguered Arab ally.
(AFP, 8/9/12)
2012 Aug 10, The Obama administration set new, largely symbolic, sanctions on Syria's state-run oil company and the Hezbollah militant group, moves designed to underscore Iran's key role in propping up the Syrian regime over the span of its civil war.
(AP, 8/10/12)
2012 Aug 10, Zanzibar's Vice President Seif Ali Iddi told the island's parliament the authorities had investigated and confirmed "that 36 crude oil tankers and container ships flying the Tanzania flag are indeed from Iran."
(AFP, 8/13/12)
2012 Aug 11, In northwest Iran hundreds of villages were flattened by twin earthquakes (magnitude 6.4 and 6.3), leaving 306 dead and 3,037 injured. Around half the 600 villages located in the zone were damaged or destroyed.
(AFP, 8/12/12)(AFP, 8/13/12)
2012 Aug 13, Abdallah Kombo, the director of the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA), said it was "cheated" by its Dubai-based agent Philtex Corporation, which is alleged to have reflagged the Iranian vessels. Maritime Transport Minister Rashid Suleiman Seif said The government in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, will deregister Iranian oil tankers flying its flag to dodge sanctions.
(AFP, 8/13/12)
2012 Aug 14, Britain’s Standard Chartered settled allegations that it helped Iranian clients dodge US sanctions, announcing a fine of $340 million from a New York banking watchdog. Standard Chartered also agreed to house a government anti-laundering monitor for two years at its New York branch.
(AFP, 8/15/12)
2012 Aug 18, In Iraq Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), said: “As a gesture of goodwill, the residents of Ashraf will commence the 6th convoy of 400 residents from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty on August 23."
(AFP, 8/18/12)
2012 Aug 19, The New York Times reported that Iraq is helping its neighbor Iran skirt international sanctions by smuggling oil and letting Tehran secretly move large amounts of cash through bank auctions.
(AFP, 8/19/12)
2012 Aug 21, Two leading rights groups called for an end to international cash and technical assistance to Iran's anti-drug campaign, which they said was bolstering a rise in executions.
(AFP, 8/21/12)
2012 Aug 25, An Iranian helicopter of the Revolutionary Guards crashed in western Iran near the Iraqi border killing four Guards while on a mission in Sardasht border area, which is populated by Iran's Kurdish minority.
(AFP, 8/25/12)
2012 Aug 26, Iran opened a 120-nation gathering of self-described nonaligned nations with a slap at the UN Security Council and an appeal to rid the world of nuclear weapons even as Tehran faces Western suspicions that it is seeking its own atomic arms.
(AP, 8/26/12)
2012 Aug 28, Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister Ramzi Ezzeldin Ramzi formally gave Iran the rotating presidency of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement. Iran is currently hosting the weeklong gathering of the 51-year-old group, which ends Aug 31.
(AP, 8/28/12)
2012 Aug 30, Egypt’s Pres. Mohammed Morsi urged the world to support the rebels in Syria as he spoke in Tehran before an int’l. meeting of nonaligned nations.
(SFC, 8/31/12, p.A3)
2012 Aug 31, Iran’s sole reactor at the country's Bushehr nuclear power plant reached full capacity.
(AP, 9/1/12)
2012 Aug 31, An Iranian opposition organization said that a final convoy of 680 of its members will leave Camp Ashraf on September 12 for the new Hurriya transit center near Baghdad.
(AFP, 9/1/12)
2012 Sep 1, Iran and North Korea signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement, bringing the two nations deeply at odds with the US closer together.
(AP, 9/1/12)
2012 Sep 5, American senators visiting Iraq warned the Baghdad government that it risked damaging relations with the US if it is allowing Iran to fly over its airspace to deliver weapons to Syria.
(AP, 9/5/12)
2012 Sep 7, Canada said it has closed its embassy in Iran and will expel all remaining Iranian diplomats in Canada within 5 days, denouncing Tehran as the biggest threat to global security.
(Reuters, 9/7/12)
2012 Sep 8, Sierra Leone said that 10 suspected Iranian ships "hiding" under the Sierra Leonean flag "have recently been removed from the register." The action was in relation to a vessel that was seized in Lebanon recently carrying arms for Syria, and allegedly flying the Sierra Leone flag.
(AP, 9/9/12)
2012 Sep 16, Iranian newspapers reported that the 15 Khordad Foundation, a religious foundation, has increased a reward for killing British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3 million from $2.8 million in response to alleged insults to the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 9/16/12)
2012 Sep 25, Iran's telecommunication minister said the government has blocked Google's Gmail service following a court order to bar access to the popular email service.
(AP, 9/25/12)
2012 Sep 30, A special media court found Parisa Hafezi, the Tehran bureau chief of the Thomson Reuters news agency, guilty of "spreading lies" against the Islamic system for a video story that briefly included a posted description of women training as martial arts killers.
(AP, 9/30/12)
2012 Oct 1, In Iran Mohammad Reza Aghamiri, a member of governmental Internet watchdog committee, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency that authorities have lifted the Gmail ban after resolving technical problems to separate YouTube and Gmail. YouTube remained blocked in response to video clips of an anti-Islam film.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 1, Iran's currency fell 16 percent in a single day to hit a record low against the US dollar and other foreign currencies in street trading. The collapse is a sign of the impact of Western sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 3, Iranian police threatened merchants who closed their shops in Tehran's main bazaar and launched crackdowns on sidewalk money changers as part of a push to halt the plunge of Iran's currency, which has shed more than a third its value in less than a week. 16 people were arrested during protests demanding relief from the plummeting currency.
(AP, 10/3/12)(SFC, 10/5/12, p.A3)
2012 Oct 4, Iran deployed riot police at key Tehran intersections, after tensions flared over the nation's plunging currency in the most widespread display of anger linked to the country's sanctions-hit economy.
(AP, 10/4/12)
2012 Oct 8, An Iranian oil official said the country has successfully blocked a cyber-attack on the computer network of its offshore drilling platforms. An official blamed Israel and said the attack occurred over the past two weeks, was routed through China, and affected only the communications systems of the network.
(AP, 10/8/12)
2012 Oct 14, Iranian officials denied any role in recent online attacks against oil and gas companies in the Persian Gulf and denounced American allegations of an Iranian link to the Shamoon virus that hit Saudi state oil company Aramco and Qatari natural gas producer RasGas.
(SFC, 10/15/12, p.A2)
2012 Oct 15, The European Union, concerned by what it called Iran's refusal to come clean on its nuclear program, imposed a new range of sanctions intended to hit the country's treasury and increase pressure on its Islamic regime. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the EU is banning the import of Iranian natural gas into European Union countries.
(AP, 10/15/12)
2012 Oct 19, In southeastern Iran a suicide attacker running from the police detonated his explosives near a mosque killing two people.
(AP, 10/19/12)
2012 Oct 19, In southwestern Iran a passenger bus carrying female students overturned killing 26.
(AP, 10/20/12)
2012 Oct 20, Obama administration officials said the US and Iran have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program
(SSFC, 10/21/12, p.A5)
2012 Oct 24, Iran's intelligence chief said up to 50 people have been arrested in connection with the decline in the value of the national currency and the chaos that followed the slide. Iran's rial has lost nearly 40 percent of its value against the US dollar this month.
(AP, 10/24/12)
2012 Oct 26, The European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Iranian film director Jafar Panahi and imprisoned dissident lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
(AP, 10/26/12)
2012 Oct 30, In Iran opposition blogger Sattar Beheshti (35) was arrested and taken to Evin prison. He died on Nov 3. On Nov 6 his family was asked to pick up his body.
(AP, 11/12/12)(AP, 12/1/12)
2012 Oct 31, The kaleme.org reported that 9 Iranian women have started a hunger strike after female guards at Evin prison in northern Tehran carried out unannounced inspections that included body searches, beating and verbal insults of the prisoners.
(AP, 11/1/12)
2012 Nov 1, Iranian warplanes shot multiple rounds at a US Predator surveillance drone flying in int’l. airspace. The aircraft was not hit.
(SFC, 11/9/12, p.A4)
2012 Nov 3, In Iran an explosion from a land mine left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s killed six people and injured one. The explosion happened during a minesweeping operation near the town of Marivan.
(AP, 11/4/12)
2012 Nov 3, In Iran opposition blogger Sattar Beheshti (35) died while under police custody. On Nov 12 Iran's state prosecutor confirmed that he had died in police custody and that wounds were found on his body. 3 interrogators involved in the case were arrested. In August 2014 a policeman convicted of killing Beheshti was sentenced to 3 years in jail, another two in exile plus 74 lashes.
(AP, 11/12/12)(AP, 12/1/12)(SFC, 8/8/14, p.A2)
2012 Nov 4, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards inaugurated a new naval base to reinforce Tehran's authority over three Persian Gulf islands also claimed by the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Iran took control of the Persian Gulf islands in 1971, after British forces left the region. Since 1992 the UAE has repeatedly claimed the islands. Last month at the UN General Assembly it said Iran's "occupation" violates international law.
(AP, 11/4/12)
2012 Nov 18, Iran held a conference to reconcile Syria's government with some 200 opposition members and Syria's National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar to end the country's civil war.
(AP, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 21, Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency reported that Iran has supplied Hamas in Gaza with the technology to "quickly" produce longer-range missiles on their own without needing direct shipments.
(AP, 11/21/12)
2012 Nov 28, Iran's nuclear chief says uranium enrichment will move ahead with "intensity" with a sharp increase in the number of centrifuges used to make the nuclear fuel.
(AP, 11/28/12)
2012 Dec 1, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency says that Gen. Kamal Hadianfar, head of the cybercrimes unit, was fired due to "failure and lack of sufficient supervision over the performance of personnel under his command." Iran's judiciary confirmed last month that Sattar Beheshti died on Nov 3 in police custody and that wounds were found on his body.
(AP, 12/1/12)
2012 Dec 4, Iran claimed it had captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, but the US Navy said all its unmanned aircraft in the region were "fully accounted for."
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 5, In Iran a magnitude 5.5 earthwuake hit South Khorasan province late today. At least 6 people were killed.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, German federal prosecutors charged 2 Iranian men with allegedly smuggling dozens of German-made aircraft motors to Iran to be used in its Ababil III surveillance and attack drone.
(AP, 2/20/13)
2012 Dec 7, Iran's border police confiscated over 11 tons of narcotics after fierce clashes with drug traffickers in the southeast, the biggest single consignment ever seized in Iran's war against drugs.
(AP, 12/8/12)
2012 Dec 9, Iran said it has launched a video-sharing website in the latest move to create government-sanctioned alternatives to Internet powerhouses such as YouTube. The new site — Mehr, or affection in Farsi — seeks to promote Iranian and Islamic culture and artists.
(AP, 12/9/12)
2012 Dec 10, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it has decoded all of the data from a RQ-170 Sentinel craft, an advanced CIA spy drone captured in Dec 2011.
(AP, 12/10/12)
2012 Dec 11, Iran's official news agency reported that the country has closed its consular section in the western Afghan city of Herat, after anti-Iranian protests at the site on Dec 9. Afghan demonstrators were protesting the alleged killing of Afghan emigrants at nearby border crossings in recent months.
(AP, 12/11/12)
2012 Dec 11, Tehran's chief prosecutor said authorities have arrested 28 Iranians for alleged links to foreign-based TV networks advocating the Baha'i religion, which is banned in the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/11/12)
2012 Dec 12, Iran's deputy judiciary chief said the Islamic Republic has issued indictments against 18 unnamed current and former American officials on charges of involvement in "crimes against Iran." His remarks did not indicate that any of the men were present in Iran.
(AP, 12/12/12)
2012 Dec 18, In Iran a collapse and explosion in a coal mine killed eight workers near Tabas city in the country's east.
(AP, 12/19/12)
2012 Dec 25, An Iranian semi-official news agency said there has been another cyberattack by the sophisticated computer worm Stuxnet, this time on the industries in the country's south.
(AP, 12/25/12)
2012 Dec 27, Iranian state TV reported that the country's president has dismissed the health minister after her ministry put out a statement criticizing authorities for not providing money to import medicine.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 31, In Iran the annual inflation rate hit 27.4 percent at the end of this year, one of the highest rates ever quoted by Iranian authorities.
(AP, 1/9/13)
2012 Dec, An unnamed Iranian diplomat defected from the Iranian Embassy in Oslo and sought help from the Humlen & Rieber-Mohn law office, which specializes in immigration law.
(AP, 2/22/13)
2012 James Buchan authored “Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and its Consequences," an examination of iran’s 1978-1979 Islamic revolution.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.83)
2012 In Iran Theresa Virginia, an American citizen, was reported missing when she had traveled there to visit her husband's family. Police were able to arrest two suspects, aged 20 and 21. One of the men confessed to have strangled the woman and taken her car and cash, while the other admitted helping. In 2019 Iran's supreme court upheld the death sentence for the man accused of the murder.
(Reuters, 5/18/19)
2012 In Lebanon the Beirut-based pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Mayadeen was launched. It was backed by Iran and Syria.
(Econ, 2/14/15, p.41)
2013 Jan 2, Iranian media reported that Iran has captured 2 US RQ11 Raven surveillance drones over the last 17 months and that much of the data has been decoded by the army.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Jan 9, Syrian rebels freed 48 Iranians held captive since August in exchange for the release of more than 2,000 detainees in the first major prisoner swap of the country's civil war.
(AP, 1/9/13)
2013 Jan 11, Spanish police said they have arrested two people and seized equipment they say was due to be shipped to Iran for use in Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/11/13)
2013 Jan 13, Gen. Ali Moayedi, head of Iran's anti-narcotics police, was quoted by newspapers as saying that some 30 drug smugglers and addicts are identified and arrested every hour in Iran. Moayedi said that over 1,286 kg (2,835 pounds) are confiscated each day.
(AP, 1/13/13)
2013 Jan 16, Senior UN investigators opened a new round of talks with Iranian officials in Tehran in the hopes of restarting a probe into allegations that the Islamic Republic carried out atomic bomb trigger tests and other suspected weapons-related studies.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 20, Iran hanged 2 men (24) publicly after a video posted on YouTube showing them robbing and assaulting a man with a machete on a Tehran street.
(AP, 1/20/13)
2013 Jan 21, German customs officials at Duesseldorf airport found a check in Venezuelan currency worth $70 million in the luggage of Tahmasb Mazaheri, Iran's former central bank chief, upon his arrival from Turkey. Mazaheri told authorities the money was to be used for the construction of 10,000 apartments funded by the Venezuelan government. The newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported the story in its Sunday Feb 3 edition.
(AP, 2/4/13)
2013 Jan 27, Iran’s government arrested 14 journalists accused of cooperation with foreign-based, Persian-language media organizations.
(AP, 1/28/13)
2013 Jan 27, The US State Department condemned an Iranian court for sentencing Saeed Abedini (32), an Iranian-American Christian pastor, to eight years in prison for reportedly threatening Iran's national security through his leadership in Christian house churches.
(Reuters, 1/27/13)
2013 Jan 28, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space, describing the launch as another step toward Tehran's goal of a manned space flight. In 2017 Iran’s space organization cancelled a project to explore sending humans into space.
(AP, 1/28/13)(SFC, 6/1/17, p.A2)
2013 Jan 29, In Iran followers of the minority Zoroastrian religion gathered after sunset to mark Sadeh — an ancient mid-winter feast dating to Iran's pre-Islamic past that is also drawing new interest from Muslims.
(AP, 1/29/13)
2013 Jan 31, Iran announced plans to install and operate advanced uranium enrichment machines, in what would be a technological leap allowing it to significantly speed up activity the West fears could be put to developing a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 1/31/13)
2013 Jan 31, Syria threatened to retaliate for an Israeli airstrike and its ally Iran said there will be repercussions for the Jewish state over the attack.
(AP, 1/31/13)
2013 Jan, Iran arrested Slovak national Matej Valuch (26) and accused him of spying for the US CIA. On Feb 8 Valuch was released and returned home.
(AP, 2/8/13)
2013 Feb 2, Iran unveiled its newest combat jet, the the Qaher F-313, or Dominant F-313. Military officials claimed the domestically manufactured fighter-bomber can evade radar.
(AP, 2/2/13)
2013 Feb 4, A senior Iranian government official, Saeed Mortazavi, was arrested two years after a parliamentary probe found him responsible for deaths by torture of at least three jailed anti-government protesters. Mortazavi was released on Feb 6, a day after Pres. Ahmadinejad denounced the arrest and pledged to pursue the case.
(AP, 2/5/13)(AP, 2/6/13)
2013 Feb 5, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began a three-day visit to Egypt, centered around an Islamic summit. He said his country is ready to provide a "big credit line" to help revive the distressed economy of Egypt.
(AP, 2/6/13)
2013 Feb 5, Iran's official news agency reported that authorities have arrested another group of local journalists accused of links with the BBC.
(AP, 2/5/13)
2013 Feb 6, The US blacklisted Iran’s state broadcasting authirity, Internet-policing agencies and a major electronics producer in widened sanctions to pressure the government over its disputed nuclear program and stifling of domestic dissent.
(SFC, 2/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 9, In Iraq rockets and mortar rounds struck a refugee camp for Iranian exiles, members of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, next to Baghdad's international airport before dawn, killing six people and wounding about 40. One of the injured died on Feb 12. The UN urged the Iraqi government to ensure the safety of the about 3,100 camp residents and move quickly to find the still-unidentified attackers. Another of the injured died on March 13.
(AP, 2/9/13)(AP, 2/12/13)(AP, 3/14/13)
2013 Feb 13, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has begun installing a new generation of uranium enrichment centrifuges at its main facility making nuclear fuel. IRNA news quoted Fereidoun Abbasi as saying that Iran began installing the new centrifuges at Natanz site about a month ago. Senior UN investigators began a new round of talks with government officials over allegations that Tehran may have carried out tests on triggers for atomic weapons.
(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Feb 13, Gen. Hassan Shateri, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was killed on the road linking Damascus with Beirut.
(AP, 2/14/13)
2013 Feb 14, Senior officials of the UN atomic agency returned from Tehran without a hoped-for deal that would have led to the resumption of a probe into allegations that Iran worked secretly on nuclear arms.
(AP, 2/14/13)
2013 Feb 15, Iran ordered a six-month ban on pistachio exports to try to control the price of the nut, which doubled in the past month. Iran was long the world's largest pistachio exporter, with over 200,000 tons a year, but was surpassed last year by the United States.
(AP, 2/15/13)
2013 Feb 17, Iran’s independent Arman daily reported that authorities are confiscating Buddha statues from shops in Tehran, to stop the promotion of Buddhism in the country.
(AP, 2/17/13)
2013 Feb 17, Bahrain's interior ministry said police have arrested eight members of an alleged terrorist cell linked to Iran and other countries following widespread clashes in the Gulf nation during protests marking the second anniversary of an Arab Spring-inspired uprising.
(AP, 2/17/13)
2013 Feb 21, An Iranian semi-official news agency said Iran is planning to build a $4 billion oil refinery in Gwadar, Baluchistan province. Iran will reportedly sell products from the refinery to Pakistan in return of food, especially wheat, meat and rice.
(AP, 2/21/13)(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.A4)
2013 Feb 23, Iran said it has selected 16 locations as suitable for new nuclear power plants it intends to build to boost its energy production over the next 15 years. State TV said the country has discovered new uranium resources.
(AP, 2/23/13)
2013 Feb 24, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Gen. Hamid Tabatabaei, a commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, has been killed in the country's Kurdish northwest.
(AP, 2/24/13)
2013 Feb 27, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top official at diplomatic talks, said negotiations in Kazakhstan with world powers over how to curb Iran's nuclear program have reached a "turning point" for the better at the close of two days of discussions aimed at preventing Tehran from building an atomic arsenal.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Feb 27, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari visited Tehran where he worked to finalize a gas pipeline deal with Iran that is being opposed by the United States.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Mar 3, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has produced more than 3,000 advanced centrifuges which are used to enrich uranium.
(AP, 3/3/13)
2013 Mar 6, Iranian authorities blocked many foreign-based virtual private networks, or VPNs, severely restricting access to many websites.
(AP, 3/12/13)
2013 Mar 11, The presidents of Iran and Pakistan marked the start of construction in Pakistan on a pipeline to bring Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.43)
2013 Mar 26, Saudi Arabia said investigations have shown that members of a spy ring arrested last week were working for Iranian intelligence.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Iran a road accident killed 18 people, including 15 Afghans, after a truck smuggling fuel slammed into a sedan packed with Afghans who were being brought illegally into the country.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 5, In Kazakhstan talks began seeking to find common ground between Iran and a group of six nations over concerns that Tehran might misuse its nuclear program to make weapons.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 6, In Kazakhstan Iran and six world powers failed to reach agreement on an approach to reducing fears that Tehran might use its nuclear technology to make weapons. The EU's foreign policy chief declared that the two sides "remain far apart on substance."
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Apr 9, In Iran a 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 people in a sparsely populated area in the country's south.
(AP, 4/9/13)
2013 Apr 15, Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in the uranium-rich West African nation of Niger for a 2-day visit. Officials discounted that the mineral was the reason for his visit.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 16, A 7.7 earthquake, described as the strongest to hit Iran in more than half a century, flattened homes and offices on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border, killing at least 34 people in in a single village in Pakistan and swaying skyscrapers and buildings as far away as New Delhi.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 17, Diplomats said technicians upgrading Iran's main uranium enrichment facility have tripled their installations of high-tech machines that could be used in a nuclear weapons program to more than 600 in the last three months.
(AP, 4/17/13)
2013 Apr 24, In the message to its Iranian retailers, Samsung said that it cannot provide access to the store, known as Samsung Apps, in Iran because of "legal barriers," effective May 22. It apologized to customers in emailed statement. The move was seen as part of international sanctions on the country over its disputed nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/13)
2013 May 2, A Kenyan court found 2 Iranian nationals guilty of terror-related charges. Officials accused them of planning to attack Western targets inside Kenya. Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi were arrested in June 2012 and led officials to a 15-kg (33-pound) stash of the explosive RDX. On May 6 the two men were sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 5/2/13)(AP, 5/6/13)
2013 May 8, Iran withdrew its ambassador in Cyprus to protest the country's decision to extradite an Iranian to the United States for prosecution. Iranian Saeid Mohabat (45) was extradicted to the US last month to face charges of breaching UN sanctions against Iran.
(AP, 5/10/13)
2013 May 9, Iran's defense minister said Iran has built a new, radar-evading drone that can do surveillance and fire on enemy targets. The Fars news agency quoted Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as saying that the new aircraft — dubbed Epic, or Hemaseh in Farsi — can fly at high altitudes.
(AP, 5/9/13)
2013 May 10, Iranian border guards opened fire on Afghan laborers as they tried to cross the boundary illegally looking for work. 10 laborers were killed in the shooting with 8 wounded. 21 were taken by the Iranian guards.
(AP, 5/12/13)(SFC, 5/13/13, p.A2)
2013 May 15, In Albania 14 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq arrived from Iraq, the first of 210 set to travel to new homes in Albania. The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) began settling Albania under a UN and US-backed deal after their camp in Iraq was bombed.
(AP, 5/16/13)(AFP, 3/12/20)
2013 May 19, Iran’s state radio said Mohammad Heidari, who was accused of providing Mossad with classified information in return of money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, who allegedly gave the CIA intelligence on Iran, have been hanged.
(AP, 5/19/13)
2013 May 21, Iran’s Guardian Council approved eight hopefuls, most of them hard-line candidates associated with the clerical establishment. It barred ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (78), a centrist who had revitalized reformist hopes as well as Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the top aide of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/21/13)
2013 May 22, Bahrain's Interior Ministry said an Iranian drone has been found in the strategic Gulf kingdom.
(AP, 5/22/13)
2013 May 22, The UN atomic agency detailed rapid Iranian progress in two programs that the West fears are geared toward making nuclear weapons, saying Tehran has upgraded its uranium enrichment facilities and advanced in building a plutonium-producing reactor.
(AP, 5/22/13)
2013 May 30, The US issued sanctions against Ashgar Mir-Hejazi, the deputy chief of staff of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and 50 other Iranian government officials for alleged human rights abuses.
(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A2)
2013 Jun 1, Iranian police arrested at least 7 people at a gathering to support candidate Hasan Rowhani in northern Tehran. The arrests were made after many participants chanted slogans calling for the release of Mir Hossein Mousavi, an opposition leader and candidate in Iran's disputed 2009 elections who has been under house arrest for more than two years.
(AP, 6/2/13)
2013 Jun 1, Iranian news said 6 Iranians have died and 348 have been sickened after drinking poisonous alcohol in the southeastern Kerman province. Most had consumed the bad alcohol on May 29.
(AP, 6/1/13)
2013 Jun 14, Iran held presidential elections. Results the next day said Hasan Rowhani took 50.7% of the more than 36 million votes cast.
(AP, 6/14/13)(AP, 6/16/13)
2013 Jun 15, In Iran Hasan Rohani (64), a reformist-backed presidential candidate, capped a stunning surge to claim the presidency.
(AP, 6/15/13)
2013 Jun 17, Iran's newly elected Pres. Hasan Rowhani pledged to follow a "path of moderation" and promised greater openness over the country's nuclear program, emphasizing messages from Western leaders since his victory that have brought cautious hope of new openings with Tehran.
(AP, 6/17/13)
2013 Jun 19, The UK's highest court ruled that the government was wrong to have imposed sanctions on an Iranian bank in 2009 over alleged links to Iran's nuclear program. The decision mirrored a January ruling by the European Union's General Court, which overturned sanctions imposed in 2010, and could result in the bank suing Britain for damages.
(AP, 6/19/13)
2013 Jun 20, Iran's state TV said the country's navy has detained 13 fishermen from two United Arab Emirates vessels after they trespassed into what the report said were Iranian territorial waters.
(AP, 6/21/13)
2013 Jun 25, An Iranian news agency reported that security forces have dismantled a terrorist and sabotage network in southern city of Shiraz.
(AP, 6/25/13)
2013 Jun 26, Iran burned at least 100 tons of illicit drugs, some in a Tehran ceremony attended by officials and foreign dignitaries, to highlight what it says are its unsupported efforts to stem the flow of narcotics across its territory to Europe.
(AP, 6/26/13)
2013 Jun 28, The Slovak news website www.sme.sk said a group of five or six Slovak hang-glider enthusiasts were detained 3 weeks ago in Iran on suspicion of espionage.
(Reuters, 6/28/13)
2013 Jul 1, New sanctions against Iran came into effect, targeting trade with Iran's shipping and automobile sectors, gold sales to Iran and handling of the Iranian currency, the rial - a further attempt to force Tehran to curb its nuclear activities.
(Reuters, 7/2/13)
2013 Jul 8, Iran’s communications minister said all citizens will be assigned an individual email address which the would aid interaction between state authorities and the people.
(Reuters, 7/8/13)
2013 Jul 9, Iranian security forces killed a man suspected of wanting to carry out a suicide bombing on a police headquarters in the southeastern city of of Chabahar.
(Reuters, 7/9/13)
2013 Jul 14, Iran’s new Pres. Hasan Rowhani put the country’s inflation rate at 42%, 8% above official figures.
(Econ, 8/3/13, p.43)
2013 Jul 18, The World Bank said Iran has not paid back any of its loans to the World Bank for more than six months, a further sign of the strains on the sanctions-hit Iranian economy.
(Reuters, 7/18/13)
2013 Jul 21, In Yemen armed men seized an employee of the Iranian embassy in Sanaa. Diplomat Nour Ahmad Nikbakht was freed by Iranian special operatives in March, 2015.
(Reuters, 7/21/13)(AP, 3/5/15)
2013 Jul 23, An Iraqi government spokesman said Baghdad has signed a 4-year deal with Iran to import natural gas for power generation, further intertwining the economies of the two Shiite-dominated countries. Police found the bodies of 4 off-duty policemen on a road with bullet wounds in their heads.
(AP, 7/23/13)(AP, 7/24/13)
2013 Jul 27, Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA reported that a member of Ahl Al-Haq faith, a small religious minority, set himself on fire next to the country's parliament building. He was hospitalized.
(AP, 7/28/13)
2013 Jul 31, Officials and bankers said Iran and Syrian authorities signed a deal this week to activate a $3.6 billion credit facility to buy oil products with long term payment terms.
(Reuters, 7/31/13)
2013 Aug 4, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took the oath of office before parliament in Tehran. He was expected later in the day to name a cabinet he said would be chosen from figures across the political spectrum.
(Reuters, 8/4/13)
2013 Aug 15, Iran's conservative-dominated parliament rejected three of the new president's 18 nominees for his Cabinet but approved 15 others.
(AP, 8/15/13)
2013 Aug 22, A Thai court sentenced Saeid Moradi (29), an Iranian man, to life in prison and his compatriot, Mohammad Kharzei (43), to 15 years in jail for their roles in a Feb, 2012, botched bomb plot that was exposed when an accidental explosion blew apart the Bangkok villa where they were staying.
(AP, 8/22/13)
2013 Aug 24, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said for the first time that chemical weapons had killed people in ally Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.
(Reuters, 8/24/13)
2013 Aug 28, The latest UN IAEA report said Iran has installed about 1,000 advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges and is set to test them.
(Reuters, 8/28/13)
2013 Aug 29, Iran reported that its foreign ministry has appointed Marzieh Afkham as its first-ever spokeswoman. Pres. Hassan Rowhani appeared to welcome the move as part of a campaign to empower women.
(AFP, 8/29/13)
2013 Sep 1, In Iraq members of an Iranian dissident group were killed at Camp Ashraf, home to about 100 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. MEK spokesman, Shahin Gobadi, said 52 were killed and some of them were found handcuffed behind the back.
(AP, 9/1/13)(SFC, 9/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Sep 2, Iran's Foreign Ministry said that six Slovaks, arrested last June, were released from prison and handed over to Slovak Embassy officials in Tehran. Two others remained in detention.
(AP, 9/2/13)
2013 Sep 9, In Iran 44 people were killed and 39 injured when two passenger buses collided outside Tehran and caught fire.
(Reuters, 9/10/13)
2013 Sep 18, Iran freed 11 political prisoners including human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh in another sign that hardline policies may be easing under a new president. Sotoudeh was seen by campaign groups as Iran's highest profile political prisoner.
(Reuters, 9/18/13)(SFC, 9/19/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 23, Iran said it has freed 80 prisoners arrested in political crackdowns, offering another potential diplomatic boost for the country's new president and his outreach to the West at this week's UN gathering.
(AP, 9/23/13)
2013 Sep 24, Pres. Obama addressed the opening of the UN General Assembly in NYC. Obama and Iran's new Pres. Hassan Rowhani made very tentative moves to end decades of hostility between their countries but could not break the deadlock enough to organize a meeting.
(SFC, 9/24/13, p.A3)(AFP, 9/25/13)
2013 Sep 26, The US and its international partners emerged from a meeting at UN headquarters with Iran declaring that a "window of opportunity has opened" to peacefully settle their nuclear standoff. Both sides agreed to fast-track negotiations and hold a substantive round of talks on Oct. 15-16 in Geneva.
(AP, 9/27/13)
2013 Sep 27, Iran resumed payments on old loans to the World Bank.
(Reuters, 9/27/13)
2013 Sep 27, President Barack Obama and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani had a 15-minute phone conversation reflecting wide support for a peace initiative that has the backing of both reformists and the country's conservative clerical leadership. They discussed ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 9/27/13)
2013 Sep 27, A Saudi diplomat, involved in a fatal road accident, left Iran. An Iranian citizen was killed mid-March when the diplomat's car reportedly hit another vehicle on a expressway in Tehran while speeding at 130 kph (80 mph). Iranian authorities said the accident happened because the diplomat had been driving while drunk.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Sep 29, Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service said it has arrested a Belgian citizen of Iranian origin whom it claims was sent by Iran to spy on Israel under the guise of a windows and roofing salesman.
(AP, 9/29/13)
2013 Sep 30, In Iran Mojtaba Ahmadi, an official of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was found shot dead near Karaj, a town northwest of the capital Tehran.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Sep 30, An Israeli court remanded in custody for eight days Ali Mansouri (55), an alleged Iranian spy, arrested on September 11 carrying photographs of the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Mansouri, a Belgian-Iranian man, was indicted on Oct 6.
(AFP, 9/30/13)(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Sep, A US federal judge ruled that a 36-story Manhattan office tower and other properties, belonging to the Iran-linked Alavi Foundation, was subject to forfeiture because revenue from it was secretly funneled to a state-owned Iranian bank in violation of a US trade embargo.
(AP, 4/19/14)
2013 Oct 6, Iran's nuclear chief said that authorities arrested four workers in an alleged sabotage plot involving one of the country's nuclear facilities.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 8, In Iran Mahdi Khazali (48), a surgeon, blogger and veteran activist, said a court has sentenced him to six years in prison over security charges.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 10, Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency said an armed group has killed five members of the elite Revolutionary Guards in a Kurdish area near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 15, Iranian negotiators put forward what they called a potential breakthrough plan at the long-stalled talks in Geneva on easing fears that Tehran wants atomic arms.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 25, Iran's Revolutionary Guard killed 3 rebels and arrested three others in Baneh, a Kurdish populated region in northwestern Iran.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Iranian media said 14 border guards were killed overnight and three others captured by "bandits" on the southeastern frontier with Pakistan. Jaish-ul Adl, a Sunni rebel group formed last year, claimed responsibility for the attack. In response the Iranian judiciary executed 16 people it said were elements of "terrorist" groups.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Iranian media reported that a court has sentenced Pegah Ahangarani (24), an actress known for her reformist political activism, to 18 months in prison on security charges.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 30, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that four people accused of sabotaging one of the country's sensitive nuclear sites were only thieves.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Nov 1, Iran said it has launched its first submarine for tourists in the Persian Gulf waters, an all-Iranian-made undersea vehicle. The submarine, dubbed Morvarid (Pearl in Farsi), will serve tourists in Kish Island, Iran's prime tourist spot in the Gulf.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 2, An Iranian media website said China has agreed to finance $20 billion in development projects in Iran using oil money not transferred to the Islamic Republic because of international sanctions.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Iran arrested the head of reformist daily Bahar, Saeed Pourazizi, for publishing an article seen by critics as questioning the beliefs of Shia Islam.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Iran tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the streets outside the former US Embassy in Tehran in the biggest anti-American rally in years, a show of support for hard-line opponents of President Hassan Rouhani's historic outreach to Washington.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Iranian Mehr news agency reported that commander Mohammad Jamalizade of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was recently killed in Syria after volunteering to defend a Shi'ite shrine in Damascus.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Iran gunman ambushed and killed Musa Nouri, a state prosecutor, in a restive southeastern region near the Pakistani border. Sunni Islamist Baluch militants claimed responsibility for killing the prosecutor in revenge for a decision to hang 16 prisoners following a cross-border attack by the group two weeks ago.
(AP, 11/6/13)(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Iran and six world powers began a new two day round of negotiations with broad discussions about a nuclear deal. Iran’s chief negotiator said a plan to cap some of its atomic activities in exchange for selective relief from crippling economic sanctions has been accepted by six world powers and a deal could be imminent.
(AP, 11/7/13)(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 9, World powers and Iran held a third day of crunch talks on Tehran's nuclear program. France's foreign minister said Iran's refusal to suspend work on a plutonium-producing reactor and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium was standing in the way of an interim agreement to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for easing of sanctions.
(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 10, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran will not abandon its nuclear rights, including uranium enrichment, a day after a fresh round of talks with world powers. Iran and world powers failed to clinch a long-sought deal despite marathon talks in Geneva.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Iran Safdar Rahmat Abadi, a deputy minister of industry, was shot in the head and chest as he got into his car in Tehran. A suspect was soon arrested. Officials later said the killer was inside the car and talked with Abadi before shooting him.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 10, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would do all it could to keep world powers from striking a "bad and dangerous" deal with Iran over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 11, Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog agreed on a "roadmap for cooperation" over Tehran's controversial atomic drive, as the US accused Iran of scuttling efforts to end the deadlock.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Britain said it has revived diplomatic relations with Iran and appointed a non-resident charge d'affaires, two years after an angry mob ransacked the British embassy in Tehran. Iran appointed a new charge d'affaires to Britain to revive diplomatic ties.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 18, Iran unveiled its Fotros drone, a missile-equipped drone with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and a flight time of 16 to 30 hours.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Russia hosted Syrian and Iranian delegations for separate rounds of talks in a renewed diplomatic push for a Syrian peace conference in which Moscow says Tehran must also play a role.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 19, Hundreds of Iranians including university students and members of the country's Jewish community rallied in support of the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program on the eve of the resumption of talks with world powers.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Lebanon 2 suicide bombers detonated explosions outside the Iranian Embassy in a mainly Shiite district of Beirut, killing 25 people, including the Iranian cultural attaché, apparently in retaliation for the Lebanese group Hezbollah's support of Syrian President Assad.
(AP, 11/19/13)(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Nuclear talks resumed between Iran and world powers. Iran's supreme leader voiced support for the negotiations over his country's nuclear program, but insisted there are limits to the concessions Iran will make in exchange for an easing of the sanctions choking its economy.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A rights group said Iran is forcefully deporting Afghans by the thousands in violation of its international obligation to protect refugees.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 24, Iran struck a historic deal with the United States and five other world powers, agreeing to a temporary freeze of its nuclear program in the most significant agreement between Washington and Tehran in more than three decades of estrangement.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Israel's PM Netanyahu harshly condemned the international community's nuclear deal with Iran.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Iran a 5.7 magnitude earthquake on the Gulf coast near the country’s sole nuclear power plant killed eight people and injured 190.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov, Iran signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million. Public notice of the deal was only made public in Feb 2014.
(Reuters, 2/24/14)
2013 Dec 1, Iran said it is in talks with Russia to build another nuclear plant at Bushehr, with construction set to begin in 2014.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 3, Iran's foreign ministry asked Afghanistan not to sign a security deal with the US that could keep thousands of American and allied forces in its neighboring country for another decade.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 8, UN inspectors visited an Iranian plant linked to a planned heavy-water reactor that could yield nuclear bomb fuel, taking up an initial offer by Tehran to open its disputed nuclear program to greater scrutiny.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 11, Iran released the last two of eight Slovak paragliders arrested for allegedly spying after PM Robert Fico and Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak flew in to secure their release.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, The Obama adminsitration announced an expanded list of Iranian companies and individuals that it said it would target to block their trading activities around the world due to sanctions violations.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A11)
2013 Dec 12, A senior Iranian nuclear negotiator said new sanctions by the US on Iranian companies and individuals violate the spirit of a deal made between Tehran and the West over its nuclear program.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Iran quit nuclear talks with world powers, accusing Washington of going against the spirit of a landmark agreement reached last month by expanding its sanctions blacklist.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iranian intelligence authorities have arrested a man on charges of spying for Britain's MI6.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has canceled a planned $500 million loan to Pakistan to build part of a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 18, in south-east Iran 3 military personnel were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 31, A senior Iranian official said six world powers and Iran have made good progress in expert talks in Geneva on how to roll out last month's landmark nuclear deal which obliges Tehran to suspend its most sensitive atom work.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Michael Axworthy authored “Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic."
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.78)
2013 Kenneth Pollack authored “Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb and American Strategy."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.89)
2013 Iran arrested Babak Zanjani (38) as part of a crackdown on alleged corruption during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2016 he was sentenced to death. His fortune was estimated at $14 billion.
(AP, 12/3/16)
2013 Iran’s population was about 77 million.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.11)
2014 Jan 10, Iranian state television reported that talks with the European Union have ended with an agreement over outstanding issues about the practical details of implementing a nuclear agreement.
(Reuters, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 11, Inflation in Iran was reportedly running at 36%.
(Econ, 1/11/14, p.42)
2014 Jan 12, Iran's foreign ministry said that the “joint plan of action," the landmark agreement the Islamic republic clinched with world powers on its disputed nuclear program, will take effect from January 20. Under the JPA Iran would freeze its nuclear program for six months.
(AFP, 1/12/14)(Econ, 1/18/14, p.47)
2014 Jan 18, In Yemen Ali Asghar Asadi, Iran's economic attaché in Sanaa, was killed in a drive-by shooting. A military intelligence officer was killed in a drive-by shooting by gunmen who fled on a motorbike in Huta. In Al-Milah armed men ambushed an army vehicle and shot dead 2 soldiers.
(AP, 1/18/14)(AFP, 1/18/14)
2014 Jan 19, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said Iran has been invited to attend a Jan 22 meeting of foreign ministers in the Swiss city of Montreux ahead of internationally brokered peace talks between Syria's warring factions. The UN invite sparked a boycott call from the opposition and President Bashar al-Assad ruled out a power-sharing deal.
(AP, 1/19/14)(AFP, 1/20/14)
2014 Jan 20, Iran halted production of 20 percent enriched uranium, marking the entry into force of an interim deal with world powers on its disputed nuclear program. The United States eased some sanctions on Iran, pausing efforts to reduce Iranian crude oil exports, as part of a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that went into effect. The EU also agreed to suspend some economic sanctions against Iran as part of the ground-breaking nuclear deal.
(AFP, 1/20/14)(Reuters, 1/20/14)
2014 Jan 20, Iran rebuffed a precondition for taking part in Syria peace talks in Geneva this week, saying it could not accept a plan for a Syrian political transition agreed at talks in the Swiss city in 2012. In response UN leader Ban Ki-moon withdrew his surprise invitation to Iran, less than 24 hours after he announced it.
(Reuters, 1/20/14)(AFP, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 21, Britain told Iran to stop supporting the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad militarily, urging it to back efforts to broker peace in Syria instead.
(Reuters, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 23, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani told the World Economic Forum in Davos that Tehran was ready to help create a new multilateral body tasked with stabilizing global energy supplies. Rouhani also called for free and fair elections in Syria, saying it would respect any outcome.
(AFP, 1/23/14)(AP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 24, Iran's foreign minister, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, called for all "foreign elements" to leave Syria so its people can decide their future themselves.
(AP, 1/24/14)
2014 Jan 25, An Iranian embassy official who was kidnapped in Sanaa in July was found beheaded in Naarib province, central Yemen.
(Reuters, 1/25/14)
2014 Jan 29, Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Iran to bolster trade and energy relations.
(Reuters, 1/29/14)
2014 Feb 3, Iran’s state news said a first tranche of $550 million in sanctions relief agreed to under an interim nuclear deal has been paid into an Iranian Central Bank account in Switzerland.
(Reuters, 2/3/14)
2014 Feb 4, Kuwait said its coastguard has arrested six suspected Iranian drug smugglers and seized their boat when it entered the Gulf state's territorial waters.
(AFP, 2/4/14)
2014 Feb 6, Five Iranian border guards were kidnapped by militants in the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan by militants who allegedly took them across the border to Pakistan. On Feb 17 Iran said it would send forces into Pakistan to free them if Islamabad did not take measures to secure their release. The kidnapping was later claimed by Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), a Sunni Muslim rebel group. One of the guards was killed in March. On April 4 Iran’s Fars News reported that the other four have been released.
(Reuters, 2/17/14)(Reuters, 4/4/14)
2014 Feb 9, Iran agreed to start addressing UN nuclear agency suspicions that it may have worked on designing an atomic weapon, a potential breakthrough in unblocking a long-stalled investigation into Tehran's disputed atomic activities.
(Reuters, 2/9/14)
2014 Feb 14, Googoosh, an Iranian pop star living in Amsterdam, released a music video promoting gay rights. It was clicked on half a million times in the first 24 hours. Navid Akhavan, an Iranian-born Germany, wrote and directed the video for the song “Behesht" (Heaven).
(SFC, 3/5/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 17, Iran's ambassador to Moscow said Russia could build the Islamic republic a second nuclear power reactor under a proposed oil-for-goods swap that has raised grave concern in Washington.
(AFP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb 19, In Austria ambitious nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers entered a second day in Vienna with Tehran's foreign minister saying a deal was achievable.
(AFP, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 19, In Lebanon 2 suicide bombers targeted the Iranian cultural center in Beirut, killing four people and themselves in an attack claimed by Sunni militants who said it was a response to the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian war.
(Reuters, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 20, Iran and world powers agreed a timetable and framework for the ambitious and arduous process of hammering out a lasting nuclear accord by July 20 that satisfies all sides.
(AP, 2/20/14)
2014 Feb 25, Pakistan said that work on a pipeline to import gas from Iran cannot proceed because of sanctions imposed by the United Sates and the European Union on Tehran.
(AFP, 2/25/14)
2014 Mar 5, The Israeli navy seized a ship in the Red Sea that was carrying dozens of advanced Iranian-supplied rockets made in Syria and intended for Palestinian guerrillas in the Gaza Strip.
(Reuters, 3/5/14)
2014 Mar 8, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton arrived in Tehran to discuss issues including Iran's disputed nuclear program, before another round of talks between Iran and world powers.
(Reuters, 3/8/14)
2014 Mar 11, Russia signed a preliminary agreement to build at least two more nuclear power plants in the Iranian port city of Bushehr.
(AFP, 3/12/14)
2014 Mar 17, A senior Iranian official said that an alleged attempt to sabotage one of Tehran's nuclear facilities involved foreign intelligence agencies who tampered with imported pumps.
(AP, 3/17/14)
2014 Mar 18, Iranians jumped over bonfires, threw firecrackers and floated wishing lanterns to celebrate an ancient festival (Chaharshanbe Souri) marking the end of the Persian year, ignoring calls by many Islamic clerics to shun a ritual that has officially been denounced as pagan.
(AP, 3/19/14)
2014 Mar 21, Israel's Mossad intelligence agency said 8 Iranian Jews who disappeared while trying to leave the Islamic Republic from 1994-1997 were captured and killed.
(AP, 3/21/14)
2014 Mar 27, In his first visit to Afghanistan as Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani called for regional unity as regional leaders celebrated the Persian New Year in Kabul.
(AP, 3/27/14)
2014 Apr 7, The US approved a bill barring Iranian diplomat Hamid Abutalebi from entering the country. Officials objected to his selection as Iran’s new UN ambassador because of his alleged participation in a Muslim student group that held 52 Americans hostage in the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 8, Syrian state media said Iran has sent 30,000 tons of food supplies to help President Bashar Assad's government deal with shortages amid civil war.
(AP, 4/8/14)
2014 Apr 9, Iran and Azerbaijan signed deals to build a hydroelectric plant and boost environmental and athletic cooperation as Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev visited Iran.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 9, In Vienna, Austria, Iran and six major powers discussed all important issues on curbing Tehran's nuclear program and planned to begin a new round of negotiations in Vienna on May 13.
(Reuters, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 12, Iran rejected a US decision to deny a visa for its newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations, pledging to take up the case directly with the world body in a dispute that has reopened old wounds dating to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
(Reuters, 4/12/14)
2014 Apr 13, Iran state news said the government has complained to the UN about the United States refusing to grant a visa to Hamid Abutaleb, its newly appointed UN ambassador over his role in the 1979 hostage crisis.
(Reuters, 4/14/14)
2014 Apr 14, Iran said it could be a "reliable, secure and long-term" supplier of gas to Europe.
(AFP, 4/14/14)
2014 Apr 15, Dubai ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed bilateral relations and regional developments. Zarif also met the Gulf federation's foreign minister, Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi.
(AP, 4/15/14)
2014 Apr 18, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill designed to bar Iran's pick for UN ambassador from US soil over his links to the 1979 American embassy hostage siege. But Obama also issued a statement saying that he would only regard the legislation as guidance, warning it could infringe upon his executive powers as president.
(AFP, 4/18/14)
2014 Apr 25, Iran announced petrol price hikes as high as 75 percent to take immediate effect, in a long-awaited attempt to regulate energy prices in the country's flatlining, sanctions-hit economy.
(AFP, 4/25/14)
2014 Apr 26, Iran hanged in public 3 men convicted of killing prosecutor Mousa Nouri last Nov 6 in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
(AFP, 4/26/14)
2014 Apr 29, The US targeted companies from China and Dubai for allegedly helping Iran evade weapons and oil sanctions, a signal Washington will keep pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 4/29/14)
2014 May 5, In Iran UN atomic agency officials held talks in Tehran before visits to two uranium sites, as the country acts to implement a series of steps aimed at providing transparency on its nuclear research by a mid-May deadline.
(Reuters, 5/514)
2014 May 7, Iranian media said UN inspectors have visited a uranium mine and reached agreement on how to monitor a planned reactor, part of an effort to allay fears about Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 5/7/14)
2014 May 12, A confidential new report by a UN panel of experts highlighted Iran's methods of evading sanctions - from concealing titanium tubes inside steel pipes to using its petrochemical industry as a cover to obtain items for a heavy-water nuclear reactor.
(Reuters, 5/12/14)
2014 May 20, Police in Iran confirmed the arrest of six young people for posting a video online of them dancing to Pharrell Williams' hit song "Happy," showing them on state television as a public warning to youth in the Islamic Republic. On Sep 17 the six were given suspended sentences of 91 lashes and six months in prison for obscene behavior.
(AP, 5/21/14)(Reuters, 9/18/14)
2014 May 24, In Iran Mahafarid Amir Khosravi (aka Amir Mansour Aria), a billionaire businessman at the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam, was executed. His was the largest fraud case since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution. A total of 39 defendants were convicted in the case. Four received death sentences, two got life sentences and the rest received sentences of up to 25 years in prison.
(AP, 5/24/14)
2014 May 25, An Iranian court convicted the editor and a contributor of the banned Bahar Daily newspaper over a series of charges, including lying about Islam and spreading anti-regime propaganda.
(AFP, 5/25/14)
2014 May 28, Iranian media said the country has recorded its first two cases of the MERS virus.
(SFC, 5/29/14, p.A2)
2014 May 30, An Iranian an opposition website, Kaleme, said an Iranian court last week sentenced eight people to jail terms ranging from seven to 20 years for crimes including anti-regime propaganda posted on Facebook.
(AFP, 5/30/14)
2014 May 30, In Iran floods killed 3 women in the northeast. Emergency workers rescued 600 people from a neighbouring region hit by a landslide in Golestan province.
(AFP, 5/31/14)
2014 Jun 1, Iranian officials attended a ceremony to mark the death of Gen. Abdollah Eskandari, who was recently killed in Syria.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 1, Iran executed a prisoner linked to the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. Gholamreza Khosravi was sentenced to death in 2010 for providing photos of the country's military facilities as well as financial aid to the MEK, and for helping to recruit for the group.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 1, Kuwait's emir began a visit to Iran, the first by a ruler of the US-allied Gulf Arab state since the 1979 Islamic revolution, underscoring improving ties between Tehran and its Arab neighbors.
(Reuters, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 2, In Iran a massive sandstorm and record winds plunged Tehran into darkness, damaging buildings and knocking out power supplies. The freak weather left at least 5 people dead.
(AFP, 6/2/14)(AFP, 6/3/14)
2014 Jun 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with Turkish officials, including PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the first official Iranian presidential visit to Turkey since 1996.
(AP, 6/9/14)
2014 Jun 13, A representative for Iraq's top Shiite cleric urged Iraqis to defend their country. Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that former members of Tehran's powerful Revolutionary Guard have announced their readiness to fight in Iraq against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
(AP, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 16, Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration is willing to talk with Iran over deteriorating security conditions in Iraq.
(AP, 6/16/14)
2014 Jun 17, Iran and six world powers re-launched talks to rescue prospects for a deal on Tehran's nuclear activity by a July deadline.
(Reuters, 6/17/14)
2014 Jun 20, Iran and six powers made some progress on drafting the wording of a nuclear deal, but key sections of the document were left blank. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said full agreement was possible at the next round, in Vienna on July 2.
(AP, 6/20/14)
2014 Jun 20, Iran’s state TV reported that a court in Kerman province has convicted two men on charges of spying for Britain and Israel and sentenced them to 10 and five years in prison, respectively.
(AP, 6/20/14)
2014 Jun 24, In Iran an attack near its western border with Iraq killed 3 border guards.
(AP, 6/25/14)
2014 Jul 3, A European Union court annulled sanctions placed by the 28-nation bloc on a leading Iranian university because of its alleged involvement with the country's nuclear program due to insufficient evidence. An asset freeze will remain in place for another two months to hinder Tehran's Sharif University of Technology from instantly withdrawing its frozen funds.
(AP, 7/3/14)
2014 Jul 5, Iran state media reported that Colonel Shoja'at Alamdari Mourjani has been killed while fighting in Iraq, in what is thought to be Tehran's first military casualty during battles against Islamic State jihadists.
(AFP, 7/5/14)
2014 Jul 5, California-based World Eco Energy said it has signed a preliminary agreement to invest $1.175 billion (864 million euros) in Iran, in a rare joint commercial project to turn rubbish and human waste into electricity.
(AFP, 7/5/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Iranian F-4 fighter jet crashed shortly after taking off from a military air base in Shiraz killing two pilots on board.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 18, Iran and six world powers failed to meet their target date for cutting a nuclear deal but agreed to extend the talks until Nov 24.
(SFC, 7/19/14, p.A2)
2014 Jul 22, Iranian authorities arrested Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian (38) and his wife, also a journalist. Two American photographers were also arrested. In early October Yeganeh Salehi (30) was released on bail, while her husband, Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, 38, remained in detention.
(AFP, 7/26/14)(SFC, 7/26/14, p.A1)(AP, 10/6/14)
2014 Jul 25, Iranians took part in huge rallies across the country to show solidarity with Palestinians, urging them to keep up their struggle despite the Israeli assault on Gaza.
(Reuters, 7/25/14)
2014 Aug 10, In Iran 39 people were killed and nine wounded when a regional passenger plane crashed while taking off from Tehran.
(Yahoo News, 8/10/14)
2014 Aug 19, Iranian poet Simin Behbahani (87) died.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.78)
2014 Aug 24, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said it has brought down an Israeli stealth drone above the Natanz uranium enrichment site.
(AFP, 8/24/14)
2014 Aug 29, The US imposed sanctions on more than 25 Iranian businesses and individuals suspected of working to expand Iran’s nuclear program.
(SSFC, 8/31/14, p.A5)
2014 Sep 8, An Iranian government minister said Afghan and Pakistani nationals, who were planning to join the ranks of Islamic State jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq, have been arrested in Iran.
(AFP, 9/8/14)
2014 Sep 15, In France world powers backed military measures to help defeat Islamic State fighters in Iraq, boosting Washington's efforts to set up a coalition, but made no mention of the tougher diplomatic challenge next door in Syria. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said French aircraft would begin reconnaissance flights over Iraq. Iran ruled out working with any international coalition and rejected American requests for cooperation against the militants.
(Reuters, 9/15/14)(AP, 9/15/14)
2014 Sep 19, Iran and six world powers opened a new round of talks at the UN to overcome differences in the way of a deal on curbing Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 9/19/14)
2014 Sep 22, An Iranian newspaper said 11 people have been arrested in the south after allegedly sending text messages deemed insulting to the founder of the Islamic Republic, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
(AP, 9/22/14)
2014 Sep 30, Iran said it will supply the Lebanese army with military equipment to fight Muslim extremist groups.
(SFC, 10/1/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 1, A Kenyan court ordered two Iranians held under anti-terrorism laws to serve two years in jail or pay a hefty fine after they pleaded guilty to using fake Israeli passports to enter the East African country last month.
(Reuters, 10/1/14)
2014 Oct 7, Iran said it had seized explosives destined for an attack on one of its holy cities and that more than 130 members of militant extremist groups had been arrested.
(AFP, 10/7/14)
2014 Oct 11, In Iran a police airplane crashed outside the provincial capital of Zahedan killing all 7 people aboard.
(SSFC, 10/12/14, p.A4)
2014 Oct 15, A magnitude 6 earthquake struck western Iran at a depth of 36.7 km.
(Reuters, 10/15/14)
2014 Oct 20, Iranian news reported that authorities have arrested four people suspected of throwing acid on women.
(AP, 10/20/14)
2014 Oct 22, In Iran around 1,000 people took to the streets of Isfahan to demand action after four women were maimed in acid attacks reportedly linked to them not wearing the veil.
(AFP, 10/22/14)
2014 Oct 25, In Iran Reyhaneh Jabbari (26), on death row for five years, was hanged at dawn. The interior designer was convicted for the 2007 stabbing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former intelligence officer. She claimed he had tried to sexually assault her.
(AFP, 10/25/14)
2014 Oct 24, Iran’s interior minister said several men arrested on suspicion of committing horrific acid attacks on women in Isfahan have been released due to insufficient evidence.
(AFP, 10/25/14)
2014 Oct 31, Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on the government to rush to the aid of Sunni tribes battling Islamic State, after the militant group executed at least 220 tribesmen west of Baghdad this week.
(Reuters, 10/31/14)
2014 Nov 2, In Iran Ghoncheh Ghavami (25), an Iranian-British woman detained last June 20 while trying to attend a men's volleyball game in Iran, was found guilty of spreading propaganda against the ruling system and sentenced to a year in prison. Charges against her were reported dropped on April 2, 2015, as a court waived the remaining seven months of her sentence.
(AP, 11/2/14)(AP, 4/2/15)
2014 Nov 7, Russia signed a contract to build two more nuclear reactors in Iran to be possibly followed by another six, a move intended to cement closer ties between the two nations.
(AP, 11/11/14)
2014 Nov 9, In Syria 5 nuclear scientists were killed in a machine gun ambush outside Damascus. One of the men was an Iranian nuclear technician. Syrian rebels working for Israel were blamed.
(SFC, 11/11/14, p.A4)
2014 Nov 10, Iran said that it has successfully tested its own version of a US-made drone based on one it captured in 2011.
(AP, 11/10/14)
2014 Nov 15, Iran's semiofficial ISNA news agency reported that the Supreme Court has disbarred judge Saeed Mortazavi over his role in the death by torture of at least three jailed anti-government protesters in 2009.
(AP, 11/15/14)
2014 Nov 20, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan after six years in prison for spreading propaganda, insulting Islam and cooperating with hostile countries. He was imprisoned in 2008 in Tehran on suspicion of spying for Israel and sentenced in 2010 to 19-1/2 years in prison.
(Reuters, 11/20/14)
2014 Nov 24, Iran and six powers failed for a second time this year o resolve their 12-year dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and gave themselves seven more months to overcome the deadlock that has prevented them from clinching an historic deal.
(AP, 11/24/14)
2014 Dec 3, The Afghan government said it will send a delegation to Iran to ask the government to extend temporary visas to allow 760,000 Afghan refugees who have no documents and risk deportation to stay on for at least a year.
(Reuters, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 3, In the Turkmen frontier village of Ak-Yayla the presidents of Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan attended the official opening of a railway line linking landlocked Central Asia with the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 3, US officials said they have indications that Iran has carried out air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq 10 days earlier.
(Reuters, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 3, In Yemen a car bomb attack on the Iranian ambassador's house in the capital Sanaa killed 2 Yemeni soldiers and a civilian. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility.
(Reuters, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 6, An Iranian court charged Jason Rezaian, a reporter for the Washington Post jailed since last July. He was not told the charges.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 11, Iran media reported that authorities have arrested 12 people for syphoning off more than $4.5 billion (3.6 billion euros) from one of the country's main banks over several years. The suspects embezzled from the Kerman branch of Tejarat Bank from 2009 until their arrest in 2013.
(AFP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 11, In Vienna, Austria, several states (Britain, Norway, Netherlands and the US) pledged to back a UN nuclear agency (IAEA) request for 4.6 million euros ($5.7 million) as soon as possible to pay for its monitoring of an extended, interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
(AP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 12, Iran said it had agreed to extend temporary visas for 450,000 Afghan refugees for six months, lifting a threat to send them back home to a country facing attacks by resurgent militants.
(Reuters, 12/13/14)
2014 Dec 26, Iran said it is to expand what it calls "smart filtering" of the Internet, a policy of censoring undesirable content on websites without banning them completely, as it used to.
(Reuters, 12/26/14)
2014 Dec 28, Iran media reported that a sniper has killed Revolutionary Guards commander Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi. He was training Iraqi troops and Shi'ite militia fighting Islamic State (IS) militants in the Iraqi city of Samarra.
(Reuters, 12/28/14)
2014 Dec 28, In Iran 3 members of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), sent to reinforce border police, were killed in an attack in the southeast, an area rife with drug and arms traffickers.
(Reuters, 12/29/14)
2014 Dec 30, The United States imposed sanctions on nine new targets, saying the entities and people targeted had supported Iran's efforts to avoid sanctions and backed the government's human rights abuses, including censorship.
(Reuters, 12/30/14)
2014 Iran conducted a study that found 49.8% of men and women considered the Islamic veil a private matter and that the government should have no say in it. The study was only made public in 2018.
(SFC, 2/6/18, p.A4)
2015 Jan 1, In Iran 2 people were killed in what is being labeled a terrorist attack in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan.
(AP, 1/2/15)
2015 Jan 7, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the judiciary has ordered that LINE, WhatsApp and Tango, three popular apps providing free phone and messaging services, be shut down. Social websites including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have already been blocked by censors.
(AP, 1/7/15)
2015 Jan 12, Iranian police confiscated seven tons of opium from drug smugglers. It was concealed in a cement truck heading toward Tehran. Iran was the main route for drug smugglers to ship narcotics from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to Europe.
(AP, 1/13/15)
2015 Jan 14, In Argentina federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman filed a 300-page court document in which he claimed that Pres. Cristina Fernandez, the foreign minister, Hector Timerman (1953-2018), and others had opened secret negotiations with Iran to absolve Iranian suspects in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
(Econ, 1/31/15, p.29)(SFC, 1/2/19, p.C3)
2015 Jan 15, Iran announced plans to combat what it says are "immoral" online dating websites by launching an official site for young people seeking marriage.
(AFP, 1/15/15)
2015 Jan 18, Iran and major powers made "limited" progress in narrowing differences over its nuclear program, but agreed to step up efforts as the Obama administration lobbied to stave off fresh sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 1/18/15)
2015 Jan 18, An Israel air strike on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights killed Hezbollah military commander Mohammed Issa, responsible for Hezbollah's operations in Syria and Iraq, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of an assassinated commander from the group. 4 other members of Hezbollah were also killed. General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi was among 6 Iranians killed in the attack.
(AFP, 1/18/15)(AP, 1/19/15)(AFP, 1/19/15)
2015 Jan 19, More than 2,000 Iranians protested outside the French embassy in Tehran, chanting "Death to France" and urging the ambassador be expelled because of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
(AFP, 1/19/15)
2015 Jan 20, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu signed a military cooperation deal with Iran that his Iranian counterpart touted as a joint response to US interference.
(AFP, 1/20/15)
2015 Jan 21, Iran's country's official news agency said the supreme court has sentenced Mohammad Reza Rahimi, a former vice president, to five years in prison and ordered him to pay a 10 billion rial ($300,000) fine. A local court had initially sentenced him to 15 years prison, but the supreme court reduced the term to five years and three months. Details of the conviction were not provided.
(AP, 1/22/15)
2015 Jan 22, A European Union high court annulled sanctions that the 28-nation bloc imposed on an Iranian bank and a shipping line and companies linked to it, over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/22/15)
2015 Feb 2, In northern Iran a private plane carrying a Saudi national and an Iranian pilot went missing.
(AP, 2/3/15)
2015 Feb 15, Iran’s former first vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, was taken to jail to serve his 5-year 3-month prison term.
(AP, 2/15/15)
2015 Feb 22, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran is seeking to open a "third front" against Israel using Hezbollah fighters on the Syrian Golan Heights.
(AFP, 2/22/15)
2015 Feb 24, Iranian officials and Western intelligence and diplomatic sources said at least $1 billion in cash has been smuggled into Iran in recent months as it seeks to avoid Western sanctions, a bigger figure than previously reported.
(Reuters, 2/24/15)
2015 Feb 26, A new Iranian political party, Nedaye Iranian (Call of Iranians), with social democratic leanings opened its first congress, aiming to lead reformists to victory in the Islamic republic's legislative elections next year.
(AFP, 2/26/15)
2015 Feb 26, In Iran a helicopter belonging to the country's air force crashed north of Tehran, killing all three crew members on board.
(AP, 2/26/15)
2015 Mar 1, A first Iranian flight landed in the Yemeni capital, a day after officials from the Shiite militia-controlled city signed an aviation agreement with Tehran. The plane delivered medical and other supplies to Sanaa.
(AFP, 3/1/15)(SFC, 3/2/15, p.A4)
2015 Mar 2, Iran’s The Center for Investigation of Organized Crime, a branch of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), accused Facebook of spreading immoral content and said it had arrested several users. State television reported Iran has monitored 8 million Facebook accounts with new software and will watch other social media sites for content that contravenes the Islamic Republic's moral codes.
(Reuters, 3/2/15)
2015 Mar 5, Iran said that a team of special operatives has freed Nour Ahmad Nikbakht, an Iranian diplomat abducted more than 19 months ago in Yemen.
(AP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 8, Iran’s state media reported that young woman, accused of marrying and divorcing 10 men in less than two years under an elaborate con trick, has been charged with fraud.
(AFP, 3/8/15)
2015 Mar 9, A letter signed by 47 Republican senators warned Iran that any nuclear deal made with US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, could last only as long as he remained in office.
(http://tinyurl.com/kkk97ph)
2015 Mar 26, Jaber, an Iranian fishing vessel believed to have up to 19 crew, was captured by Somali pirates, along with another Iranian fishing vessel, Siraj. Jaber and its crew escaped on August 27.
(Reuters, 8/28/15)
2015 Mar 30, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said a US drone strike killed two of its advisers near the Iraqi city of Tikrit on March 23, where a major offensive is underway against the Islamic State group. The US said its coalition conducted no airstrikes in the area during the time of the incident.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 31, Iran and six world powers ramped up the pace in negotiations in Switzerland over a preliminary deal on Tehran's nuclear program. Officials cautioned that any agreement would likely be fragile and incomplete.
(Reuters, 3/31/15)
2015 Mar, In Iran Mehdi Hashemi (45), son of Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was handed prison sentences totaling 25 years after being convicted on three charges in separate cases involving national security, fraud and embezzlement. He was sentenced to two terms of 10 years in prison and one of five years, and in line with Iranian law will serve the longest of the three sentences.
(AFP, 8/9/15)
2015 Apr 2, In southern Iran gunmen killed 3 police officers in Hamidiyeh near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Switzerland negotiators reached a framework for a nuclear accord with Iran. US President Barack Obama hailed it as an “historic understanding," but senior global diplomats cautioned that hard work lies ahead to strike a final deal.
(Reuters, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 3, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he and his Cabinet are united in "strongly opposing" an emerging framework agreement on curbing Iran's nuclear program and demanded that any final deal contain Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 4, Iran's State Security Council was reported to have approved a plan by the sports ministry to allow women and families to attend some sports events.
(AP, 4/4/15)
2015 Apr 6, Iran's official news agency reported that the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard has broken up a militant group linked to a "foreign intelligence" agency and killed its members. An attack by gunmen in the volatile southeast near the border with Pakistan killed 8 Iranian border guards.
(AP, 4/6/15)(AP, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 7, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani agreed to boost trade and signed a slew of deals at a meeting, but steered clear of directly addressing differences over conflict-ridden Yemen.
(Reuters, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 7, China's finance ministry said Iran has been approved as a founding member of the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Bank (AIIB).
(AFP, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 8, Iran dispatched a destroyer and another naval ship to waters off Yemen.
(SFC, 4/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 9, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded that all sanctions on Iran be lifted at the same time as any final agreement with world powers on curbing Tehran's nuclear program is concluded.
(Reuters, 4/9/15)
2015 Apr 9, In Yemen Shiite rebels and allied military units defied Saudi-led airstrikes to seize a provincial capital in a heavily Sunni tribal area as their patron Iran called the two-week air campaign a "crime" and appealed for peace talks.
(AP, 4/9/15)
2015 Apr 11, In Iran hundreds of citizens defied a government ban and protested against Saudi Arabia over the alleged abuse of two Iranian pilgrims visiting the Sunni kingdom.
(AP, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 11, Iran, a key transit route for illegal drugs trafficked from Afghanistan, announced that it has seized almost 500 tons of narcotics in the past year.
(AFP, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 11, In Yemen local militiamen in Aden reportedly captured two Iranian military officers advising Houthi rebels during fighting.
(Reuters, 4/11/15)
2015 Apr 13, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin lifted a ban on supplying Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems after Tehran's landmark outline deal with the West over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 4/13/15)
2015 Apr 14, Iran proposed a four-point peace plan for Yemen and called for an end to Saudi-led air strikes against Houthi rebels allied to Tehran. It comprised of a ceasefire, humanitarian assistance, an intra-Yemeni dialogue and the establishment of a broad-based government.
(Reuters, 4/14/15)(Reuters, 4/15/15)
2015 Apr 15, Iran said it would only accept a deal over its contested nuclear program if world powers simultaneously lifted all sanctions imposed on it. A tentative deal between Iran and the six world powers was reached in Switzerland on April 2, and aimed at clearing the way for a final settlement on June 30.
(Reuters, 4/15/15)
2015 Apr 19, In Iran some 500 people protested the killings of dogs and called for an investigation. A short film showing several stray dogs dying after apparently being injected with burning acid in Shiraz had gone viral and prompted protests with celebrities joining animal lovers in condemning the cruelty.
(AFP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 20, Iran media said Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, detained about nine months ago, is being charged with four crimes, including espionage in a report offering the first details about the exact charges against him.
(Reuters, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 20, Britain informed a United Nations sanctions panel of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to two blacklisted firms.
(Reuters, 4/30/15)
2015 Apr 21, In Iran Hamid Reza Kamali, a one-time national racing champion, and two of his friends died at high speed accident in a BMW. A second deadly crash, also early this morning, saw a young girl killed when she lost control of a Porsche Boxster sports car and smashed into trees lining Shariati Avenue in northern Tehran.
(AFP, 4/26/15)
2015 Apr 28, Iranian naval ships fired across the bow of the Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, and forced it to head to Iranian territory. A day later Iran said the seizure was based on a lawsuit by a private company called Pars Talayieh Oil Product company (Golden Pars Oil Products) against the Maersk ship company. The ship was released on May 7 after the Maersk group promised to abide by an Iranian court decision.
(AFP, 4/28/15)(AFP, 4/29/15)(AP, 5/7/15)
2015 Apr 29, Iran’s Labor and Social Welfare Minister Ali Rabiei said that 200,000 wealthy Iranians — as well as Iranians living abroad — have been eliminated last week from the list of those getting handouts. Iran began handing out a monthly $15 in cash to all Iranians in 2010 as compensation for cuts in food and energy subsidies.
(AP, 4/29/15)
2015 May 14, Iranian Revolutionary Guards fired warning shots at the Alpine Eternity, a Singapore-flagged commercial ship in the Gulf, which had collided on March 22 with an Iranian oil rig. The Iranian boats then departed the area after UAE authorities deployed coast guard boats in response to calls for help.
(AFP, 5/14/15)
2015 May 24, Iran said it has agreed to grant UN inspectors access to military sites as part of a future deal over its contested nuclear program.
(SFC, 5/25/15, p.A4)
2015 Jun 1, Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Iranian Mahan Air, that acquired nine passenger jets in defiance of US sanctions, will begin using them on international routes this week. Mahan Air acquired eight second-hand Airbus A340s and one Airbus A321 in early May. The US Treasury imposed sanctions on two firms based in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of helping the purchase.
(Reuters, 6/1/15)
2015 Jun 3, A Syrian security source said thousands of Iranian and Iraqi fighters have been deployed in past weeks to bolster the defenses of Damascus and its surroundings.
(AFP, 6/3/15)
2015 Jun 8, Iranian authorities arrested Hamid Baghaei, a former vice president who served under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the second such detention of a senior official from the hard-line former leader's administration.
(AP, 6/8/15)
2015 Jun 8, Iran’s health ministry said it plans to open 150 alcohol treatment centers in an acknowledgement of the scale of abuse in a country where drinking is illegal.
(AFP, 6/8/15)
2015 Jun 11, Iran’s judiciary said the son of Iran's former president Akbar Rafsanjani will be jailed for 10 years after being convicted of financial and security crimes.
(AFP, 6/11/15)
2015 Jun 21, Iran's parliament voted to ban access to military sites, documents and scientists as part of a future deal with world powers over its contested nuclear program. The bill also demanded the complete lifting of all sanctions against Iran as part of any final nuclear accord. The bill must be ratified by the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog, to become a law.
(AP, 6/21/15)
2015 Jun 23, Iran's parliament approved a controversial bill that it said would protect the country's nuclear program, but which could also hinder final negotiations on a deal with world powers. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set out seven red lines that he said Iran would never cross.
(AFP, 6/23/15)(Econ, 7/4/15, p.39)
2015 Jun 27, Iran burned 100 tons of drugs recovered from traffickers in a ceremony to coincide with an international anti-drug day meeting in Tehran.
(AFP, 6/27/15)
2015 Jun 30, Iran and six world powers ramped up negotiations in Vienna after accepting they would miss a June 30 deadline for a nuclear deal, with both sides cautioning that major obstacles to a lasting agreement remained. Negotiators announced a new deadline of July 7.
(Reuters, 6/30/15)(AFP, 7/1/15)
2015 Jul 7, The EU extended the suspension of sanctions on Iran until July 10 to allow ongoing talks on a long-term nuclear agreement with it to succeed.
(AP, 7/7/15)
2015 Jul 10, In Iran and Iraq tens of thousands marched in Tehran and Baghdad in annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day demonstrations in support of Palestinians. Saudi Arabia this year joined arch-foe Israel as the target for protesters.
(AFP, 7/10/15)
2015 Jul 10, The European Union extended a suspension of sanctions on Iran until July 13 to allow ongoing talks about the country's nuclear ambitions to succeed.
(Reuters, 7/10/15)
2015 Jul 14, Iran and six major world powers reached a nuclear deal, capping more than a decade of negotiations with an agreement that could transform the Middle East. In the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iran will slash by around two-thirds the number of centrifuges from around 19,000 to 6,104 under the deal. The agreement will now be debated in the US Congress, but Obama said he would veto any measure to block it.
(Reuters, 7/14/15)(AFP, 7/14/15)(Econ, 7/18/15, p.21)
2015 Jul 19, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel arrived in Iran with an economic delegation, becoming the first high-ranking western politician to visit the country after it struck a nuclear deal with world powers.
(Reuters, 7/19/15)
2015 Jul 20, Iran and Germany moved tentatively towards reviving a once close trade relationship, anticipating the lifting of western economic sanctions against Tehran following a landmark nuclear deal as Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel made the first top level German government visit to Tehran in 13 years.
(Reuters, 7/20/15)
2015 Jul 20, The United Nations Security Council endorsed a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, but it will be able to re-impose UN penalties during the next decade if Tehran breaches the historic agreement.
(Reuters, 7/20/15)
2015 Jul 22, Iran said it will not accept any extension of sanctions beyond 10 years, in the latest attempt by its pragmatist government to sell a nuclear deal with world powers to skeptical hardliners.
(AP, 7/22/15)
2015 Jul 23, Amnesty Int’l. said Iran has executed 694 people between January 1 and July 15. Iran officially acknowledged only 246 executions in the same period.
(SFC, 7/24/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 25, Britain lifted an official warning against all but essential travel to Iran, citing "decreased hostility" in the wake of a landmark nuclear deal.
(AFP, 7/25/15)
2015 Jul 28, Iran and the European Union said they have agreed to start talks on issues including confronting terrorism.
(Reuters, 7/28/15)
2015 Aug 2, Iran said it will stop giving cash handouts to another million of its wealthiest citizens in order to ease a budget crisis caused in part by plunging oil prices and sanctions linked to its disputed nuclear program. The new cuts will be implemented by August 22.
(AP, 8/2/15)
2015 Aug 3, Iran banned a weekly newspaper owned by a critic of its nuclear deal and issued a formal warning to the country's leading conservative daily for alleged breaches of reporting guidelines.
(AFP, 8/3/15)
2015 Aug 7, In Turkey an Iranian bus was hit in Dogubayazit district of the eastern Agri province. The driver was fatally shot in the head. Turkish authorities blamed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants. The passengers were unhurt.
(AP, 8/8/15)
2015 Aug 15, The IAEA said Iran has given the UN Int’l. Atomic Energy Agency documents linked to the agency's probe of allegations that Tehran tried to develop atomic arms.
(AP, 8/15/15)
2015 Aug 23, Britain's foreign secretary reopened his country's embassy in Tehran in a long-awaited step signaling better relations four years after a mob stormed the compound, forcing its closure.
(AFP, 8/23/15)
2015 Aug, Iran's most expensive movie, "Muhammad", opened nationwide in the Shiite Islamic republic last week. It depicted the prophet on screen, an act that is prohibited in Sunni Islam. Saudi Arabia's top cleric soon hit out at the film describing its portrayal of the prophet's childhood as a "hostile act" and a "distortion" of Islam.
(AFP, 9/2/15)
2015 Sep 6, In western Iran 11 Iraqi Shiite religious pilgrims returning from Qom were killed after a bus overturned in the western province of Hamadan.
(AP, 9/7/15)
2015 Sep 18, In Iran Nizar Zakka, an American-Lebanese IT expert, went missing after attending a conference in Tehran. On Nov 3 state broadcaster IRIB said he has been arrested and linked to US military and intelligence agencies.
(Reuters, 11/3/15)
2015 Sep 18, In Iran flash floods triggered by heavy rains killed 10 people in Tehran, and south of the country.
(AP, 9/19/15)
2015 Sep 21, The head of the UN nuclear watchdog said environmental samples have been taken at a sensitive military site in Iran, citing "significant progress" in its investigation of Tehran's past activities.
(Reuters, 9/21/15)
2015 Sep 26, Arab coalition forces waging a military campaign against Houthi fighters in Yemen seized an Iranian boat loaded with weapons in the Arabian Sea on its way to deliver supplies to the group.
(Reuters, 9/30/15)
2015 Sep 27, An Iraqi spokesman said Iraq, Russia, Iran and Syria have agreed to set up an intelligence committee in Baghdad aimed at sharing and analyzing information.
(AFP, 9/27/15)
2015 Oct 1, Iran said its death toll from the Sep 24 Saudi hajj disaster has nearly doubled to 464 pilgrims killed.
(AP, 10/1/15)
2015 Oct 1, Two Lebanese sources said hundreds of Iranian troops had reached Syria in the past 10 days with weapons to mount a major ground offensive. Russian jets struck targets near the cities of Hama and Homs in western Syria on the second day of their surprise air campaign. The area where it struck is held by a rival insurgent alliance, which unlike Islamic State is supported by US allies including Arab states and Turkey.
(Reuters, 10/1/15)
2015 Oct 2, Iran's state TV is reported that Royal Dutch Shell and France's Total will be the first foreign companies to be allowed to operate gasoline stations inside Iran.
(AP, 10/2/15)
2015 Oct 7, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned any further negotiations with America.
(Econ, 10/24/15, p.45)
2015 Oct 10, Iran conducted a medium-range ballistic missle test that was capable of delivering a nuclear weapon. The US soon accused Iran of violating a UN Security Council resolution adopted on June 9, 2010.
(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A3)
2015 Oct 10, In South Korea Iranian director Hadi Mohaghegh's "Immortal" and "Walnut Tree" from Kazakhstan's Yerlan Nurmukhambetov were named the winners of the New Currents award for first- and second-time filmmakers at the 20th Busan International Film Festival.
(AFP, 10/10/15)
2015 Oct 11, Iran said Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian (39), who has been detained in Iran for more than a year, has been convicted on charges including espionage. The ruling was eligible for appeal within 20 days.
(AP, 10/12/15)
2015 Oct 11, Iran state media reported the successful test fire of a new guided long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile. It was the first such a test since Iran and world powers reach a historical nuclear deal.
(AP, 10/11/15)
2015 Oct 12, Syrian army and allied forces supported by Russian warplanes made further advances as they pressed an offensive against insurgents, in the fiercest clashes for nearly a week. Two Iranian senior Revolutionary Guards officers were killed fighting Islamic State. Pro-government forces including the Lebanese group Hezbollah captured the southern part of Kafr Nabuda. At least 25 government fighters were killed.
(Reuters, 10/12/15)(Reuters, 10/13/15)(Reuters, 10/14/15)
2015 Oct 13, Iran's conservative-dominated parliament passed a bill approving its nuclear deal with world powers, signaling victory for the government over hardline opponents.
(Reuters, 10/13/15)
2015 Oct 14, In Iran a senior council of clerics and officials approved implementing the landmark nuclear deal with world powers, sealing the final required step in the process despite hard-liners' efforts to derail it.
(AP, 10/14/15)
2015 Oct 17, Iran reported that 2 people were killed in a shooting attack on Shiite worshippers marking Ashura, in the town of Dezful in Khuzestan province.
(AFP, 10/17/15)
2015 Oct 18, President Barack Obama ordered the US government to take steps towards lifting sanctions on Iran, in accordance with the historic nuclear deal struck between six world powers and Tehran.
(AFP, 10/18/15)
2015 Oct 21, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the country’s nuclear deal with world powers but said Tehran should not give up core elements of its atomic program until allegations of past military dimensions had been settled.
(Reuters, 10/21/15)
2015 Oct 23, German authorities arrested an Iranian man on suspicion he was spying for Tehran. Maysam P. (31) was accused of spying since December 2013 for Iran on the opposition group known as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK.
(AP, 10/28/15)
2015 Oct 28, Iran said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and three of his deputies will attend multilateral talks on Oct 29 in Vienna aimed at resolving the conflict in Syria. Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, the European Union and France also said they would attend the talks.
(Reuters, 10/28/15)
2015 Oct 30, Iran signaled it backed a six-month transition period in Syria followed by elections to decide Bashar al-Assad's fate, a proposal floated at peace talks as a concession but which the president's foes rejected as a trick to keep him in power. Multilateral talks in Vienna failed, as expected, to reach a consensus on the future of President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 10/30/15)(Reuters, 11/2/15)
2015 Nov 2, Iran said it has begun shutting down uranium enrichment centrifuges under the terms of a deal struck with six world powers in July on limiting its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 11/2/15)
2015 Nov 2, Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport said it is preparing a contract to supply Iran with S-300 missile systems.
(Reuters, 11/2/15)
2015 Nov 3, Iranian media reported that authorities have arrested three pro-reform journalists, one of whom has been critical recently of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They included Issa Saharkhiz, Ehsan Mazandarani and Afarine Chitsaz.
(AFP, 11/3/15)
2015 Nov 3, Iran's semi-official news agency Fars said Col. Mostafa Ezzatollah Soleimani, an officer with the elite Revolutionary Guard force, had died in fighting in Syria's contested province of Aleppo.
(AP, 11/3/15)
2015 Nov 8, Iran announced the appointment of its first woman ambassador since the 1979 Islamic revolution, naming foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham to head its embassy in Malaysia.
(AFP, 11/8/15)
2015 Nov 9, Russia announced that it has agreed to push on with a deal to deliver S-300 missile systems to Iran after Moscow halted an earlier agreement due to UN sanctions slapped on Tehran.
(AFP, 11/9/15)
2015 Nov 10, Iran state media reported that the dismantling of centrifuges in two uranium enrichment plants has stopped, days after conservative lawmakers complained to President Hassan Rouhani that the process was too rushed.
(Reuters, 11/10/15)
2015 Nov 15, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that authorities have arrested administrators of more than 20 groups on the messaging app Telegram for spreading "immoral content", the latest detentions in a clampdown on freedom of expression.
(Reuters, 11/15/15)
2015 Nov 15, Iranian police warned that women who fail to wear the veil when driving will have their cars impounded for a week and are likely to be fined.
(AFP, 11/15/15)
2015 Nov 18, The UN nuclear watchdog said Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium has increased in the past three months even though Tehran is supposed to reduce it significantly under a deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 11/18/15)
2015 Nov 22, Iran state news said a court has sentenced Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian (39) to a prison term.
(Reuters, 11/22/15)
2015 Nov 23, In Iran President Vladimir Putin met with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Following their meeting a Kremlin official said Russia and Iran jointly oppose "external attempts" to bring regime change in Syria. President Vladimir Putin eased an export ban on nuclear equipment and technology to Iran.
(AFP, 11/23/15)(Reuters, 11/23/15)
2015 Nov 23, Iran's ambassador to Russia said that Moscow had started the procedure of supplying Tehran with S-300 anti-missile rocket system.
(Reuters, 11/23/15)
2015 Nov 25, Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the United States is using "money and sexual attractions" to try to infiltrate the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 11/25/15)
2015 Nov 28, Iran unveiled a new model of oil contracts aimed at attracting foreign investment once sanctions are lifted under a landmark nuclear deal reached earlier this year.
(AP, 11/28/15)
2015 Dec 8, Mahmoud Doaei, the managing editor of the moderate Ettelaat daily, Iran's oldest newspaper, was indicted for defying a national reporting ban on comments and pictures of the country's reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.
(AFP, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 8, Air France said it will resume flights to Tehran for the first time in more than seven years, as part of resuming European trade with Iran following a hard-fought deal to curb its nuclear activities.
(AP, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 9, Iran’s Fars news reported that a booby trap exploded in Nikshahr, near the border with Pakistan, killing 3 policemen and wounded an unspecified number of others.
(AP, 12/9/15)
2015 Dec 10, Iran’s Health Minister Hassan Hashemi said an outbreak of H1N1 swine flu has claimed 42 lives since mid-November.
(AFP, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 15, Iran’s the health ministry said an outbreak of swine flu has claimed 57 lives since mid-November. Hundreds of people have been diagnosed with the virus.
(AFP, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 15, The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation board decided to close its investigation into whether Iran once had a nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 16, A team of sanctions monitors said Iran violated a UN Security Council resolution on October 10 by test-firing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.
(Reuters, 12/16/15)
2015 Dec 19, In Iran residents of Tehran were warned to stay at home as a thick smog of pollution hung in the air.
(Reuters, 12/19/15)
2015 Dec 20, Iranian authorities closed all schools and kindergartens in the capital for two days beginning today, saying air pollution had reached dangerous levels.
(AP, 12/20/15)
2015 Dec 23, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a new US law putting visa restrictions on Iranians and those who had visited Iran would, if implemented, breach a nuclear deal Tehran struck with world powers earlier this year.
(Reuters, 12/23/15)
2015 Dec 27, Iran postponed two premier league football matches, as air pollution more than twice the acceptable level persisted in Tehran.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 28, Iran media reported that a swine flu outbreak has killed 112 people since mid-November and the country's first medical worker has died of the virus.
(AFP, 12/28/15)
2015 Zackeray Hearn authored “The Emergence of Modern Shiism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran."
(Econ, 7/25/15, p.69)
2015 Iran’s population was almost 80 million.
(Econ, 11/28/15, p.44)
2016 Jan 3, Saudi Arabia announced it was cutting diplomatic ties with Iran.
(Reuters, 1/4/16)
2016 Jan 4, Bahrain announced it was cutting diplomatic ties with Iran, a day after its ally and neighbor Saudi Arabia also severed relations with Tehran.
(Reuters, 1/4/16)
2016 Jan 4, Saudi Arabia widened its rift with Iran, saying it would end air traffic and trade links with the Islamic republic and demanding that Tehran must "act like a normal country" before it would restore severed diplomatic relations.
(Reuters, 1/4/16)
2016 Jan 5, The diplomatic crisis surrounding Saudi Arabia and Iran widened as Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Tehran and Bahrain severed air links in the face of growing international concern.
(AFP, 1/5/16)
2016 Jan 6, Bahrain said it had caught an Iranian-linked cell plotting attacks on its territory, days after it followed its close ally Saudi Arabia in cutting ties with Iran.
(Reuters, 1/6/16)
2016 Jan 7, Iran and Saudi Arabia took further steps to sever commercial ties, intensifying a feud between the regional rivals, as Tehran announced a ban on imports from Saudi Arabia and Saudi groups called for boycotts of Iranian products.
(Reuters, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 7, Iran said Saudi warplanes had attacked its embassy in Yemen's capital, a development that would exacerbate tensions between the major Shi'ite and Sunni powers in the region, and Riyadh said it would investigate the accusation. Residents said an air strike had hit a public square about 700 meters (yards) away from the embassy and that some stones and shrapnel had landed in the embassy's yard.
(Reuters, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 7, Somalia cut diplomatic ties with Iran and ordered all Iranian diplomats and embassy staff out of the country within 72 hours.
(AP, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 8, Iranians held mass protests across the Islamic Republic, angered by Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shiite cleric that has enflamed regional tensions between the Mideast rivals.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 10, Arab foreign ministers meeting in Egypt accused Iran of interfering in the affairs of other Middle East states and undermining regional security, as officials met at an emergency Arab League session to discuss escalating tensions in the region.
(Reuters, 1/10/16)
2016 Jan 12, Iran said it will sell part of its stock of heavy water to the United States under its nuclear deal with world powers.
(AFP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, An Iranian Phantom fighter jet crashed close to the Pakistan border, killing two pilots.
(AP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, Kuwait sentenced two defendants to death, including Iranian Abdulreda Hayder being tried in absentia, after they were convicted of "spying for Iran" and plotting attacks in the Gulf country.
(AFP, 1/12/16)
2016 Jan 12, Two US patrol boats and their crews were seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards after unintentionally entering Iranian waters near an island naval base. The boats and crew were released the next day.
(Econ, 1/16/16, p.51)
2016 Jan 13, Iran released ten US sailors after holding them overnight, bringing a swift end to an incident that had rattled nerves days ahead of the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers. The US said two US Navy boats had entered Iranian territorial waters due to a broken navigation system.
(Reuters, 1/13/16)
2016 Jan 16, Iran freed four Americans in a prisoner swap. They included Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Idaho pastor Saeed Abedini, former Marine Amir Hekmati and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari. The US planned to release seven Iranian nationals currently serving jail terms. A fifth prisoner, American student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately. Diplomats gathered to announce the lifting of international sanctions and bringing the country of 80 million people back to the global economic stage.
(Reuters, 1/16/16)(Reuters, 1/17/16)
2016 Jan 17, The United States imposed sanctions against 11 individuals and entities involved in Iran's ballistic missile program as a result of Tehran's firing of a medium-range ballistic missile.
(AP, 1/17/16)
2016 Jan 17, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States will repay Iran a $400 million debt and $1.3 billion in interest dating to the Islamic revolution. The money was soon delivered in cash on pallets due to lack of a US-Iran banking relationship.
(AFP, 1/17/16)(SFC, 8/4/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 18, Iran’s official media reported that around 60 percent of would-be candidates for a parliamentary vote in February, including many reformists, have been rejected by the authorities.
(AFP, 1/18/16)
2016 Jan 20, Iran's reformist political factions called on the country's constitutional watchdog to reverse its decision to disqualify large numbers of moderates and reformists from running in next month's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 1/20/16)
2016 Jan 23, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran and China have agreed to expand bilateral ties and increase trade to $600 billion in the next 10 years, during a visit to Tehran by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
(Reuters, 1/23/16)
2016 Jan 24, Iran said it will buy 114 Airbus planes to revitalize its ageing fleet, in the first major commercial deal announced since the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear agreement.
(AFP, 1/24/16)
2016 Jan 25, Italy and Iran signed billions of dollars of business deals at the start of a visit to Europe by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani aimed at rebuilding his nation's ties with the West after years of economic sanctions.
(Reuters, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani's made his first visit to the Vatican. Pope Francis urged Iran to back peace efforts in the Middle East.
(AFP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Amnesty International said Iran is the world's most prolific executioner of children, accusing the Islamic republic of using torture and ill-treatment to extract confessions from minors.
(AFP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 29, Human Rights Watch said Iran's Revolutionary Guards has recruited thousands of Afghans, some by coercion, to fight in Syria's war alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
(AFP, 1/29/16)
2016 Feb 5, Iranian mdia said a high-ranking member of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and 6 Iranian Basij militia volunteers have been killed in fighting in Syria’s northern Aleppo province.
(Reuters, 2/5/16)
2016 Feb 5, Ottawa announced the lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran, which will allow Canadian firms access to Iran after a deal on its nuclear program recently came into force.
(AFP, 2/5/16)
2016 Feb 15, Iran's state TV said the first Chinese commercial train has arrived in Tehran to revive the Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes running through Asia. The 12-container train arrived in Tehran after a 14-day journey from eastern China.
(AP, 2/15/16)
2016 Feb 17, Iran snubbed a proposal agreed to by four influential oil producers to cap their crude output if others do the same, with a senior Oil Ministry official saying Tehran has no intention of freezing oil output levels.
(AP, 2/17/16)
2016 Feb 18, The European Union's top court ruled that the EU unfairly froze the funds of Iran's Bank Mellat for six years when it claimed the bank was backing the Islamic Republic's nuclear and missile programs. The EU lifted the freeze in January as part of an international agreement over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/18/16)
2016 Feb 24, Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fathali, said that Tehran would offer $7,000 to the families of each Palestinian killed in what he called the "Jerusalem intifada". He sad Iran will also give $30,000 to Palestinian families whose homes have been destroyed by Israel because a member is accused of carrying out an anti-Israeli attack. The next day Israel denounced the Iranian decision.
(AFP, 2/25/16)
2016 Feb 25, Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad, killing at least 15 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State militants.
(Reuters, 2/25/16)
2016 Feb 26, Iran held elections. At stake was control of the 290-seat parliament and the 88-member Assembly of Experts, the body that has the power to appoint and dismiss the supreme leader, Iran's most powerful figure. President Hassan Rouhani won a strong vote of confidence and reformist partners secured surprise gains in parliament in early results from elections. Conservative won just under half of the decided seats. 69 seats were pushed to a runoff.
(Reuters, 2/26/16)(AP, 2/28/16)(Econ, 3/5/16, p.43)
2016 Feb 26, The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ten terrorist attack victims who won financial claims against Iran can seize a $2.8 million judgment owed to that country's defense ministry.
(AP, 2/26/16)
2016 Feb, The US Treasury Department issued a license that would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7 billion it held at a bank in Oman from Omani rials to into euros by exchanging them first into US dollars. The Obama administration approached two US banks to facilitate the conversion but both declined. This was not made public until 2018.
(SFC, 6/7/18, p.A3)
2016 Mar 4, Turkey’s PM Ahmet Davutoglu visited Tehran with six ministers and discussed a high-speed rail link that might bridge Lake Van and triple bilateral trade.
(Econ, 4/2/15, p.51)
2016 Mar 5, Iran and Turkey said they aim to triple their annual trade to $30 billion within two years as Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu met Iran's first vice president Eshaq Jahangiri in Tehran. The two countries remained at odds over fighting in Syria.
(AFP, 3/5/16)
2016 Mar 6, Iran reported that a court has sentenced a well-known tycoon to death for corruption linked to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Babak Zanjani, arrested in 2013, and two of his associates were sentenced to death for "money laundering," among other charges.
(AP, 3/6/16)
2016 Mar 9, Iran fired two more long-range ballistic missiles as it continued military tests in defiance of US sanctions and fresh warnings from Washington.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 14, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani welcomed Vietnamese Pres. Truong Tan Sang, saying Tehran hopes to boost trade with the Southeast Asian nation to $2 billion from the current $350 million within five years.
(AP, 3/14/16)
2016 Mar 15, Iran's annual fire festival ahead of the Persian New Year claimed three lives and injured more than 2,500, hundreds of whom remain hospitalized.
(AFP, 3/16/16)
2016 Mar 19, US FBI agents arrested Reza Zarrab (33), a dual Turkish-Iranian national who has ties with high-ranking Turkish officials, in Miami on charges he helped Iran process millions of dollars of transactions when it faced US sanctions for its nuclear program. Prosecutors later alleged that Zarrab had paid tens of millions to three Turkish ministers and the head of Halkbank tens of millions in bribes.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Zarrab)(Reuters, 9/25/16)(Econ, 6/11/16, p.55)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani arrived in Pakistan on a landmark visit, his first since becoming president. Rouhani and Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif signed a five years strategic action plan aimed at boosting bilateral trade to the level of US Dollars five billion by 2021.
(AP, 3/25/16) (Reuters, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's official IRNA news agency said that an air ambulance helicopter has crashed in southern Iran, killing all seven onboard.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 28, Iran said it will pursue its development of ballistic missiles despite the US blacklisting of more Iranian companies linked to the program.
(Reuters, 3/28/16)
2016 Mar 28, The presidents of Russia and Iran agreed to step up bilateral contacts, including over the Syrian conflict, in which both countries are allies of President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 3/28/16)
2016 Apr 3, Iran's Revolutionary Guard detained Zaghari-Ratcliffe (37), a British-Iranian mother and employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport and later transferred her to a prison in the country's Kerman province. She faced charges of trying to cause the "soft toppling" of the government.
(AP, 6/15/16)
2016 Apr 4, An Iranian military official said Iran has sent commandos to Syria as advisers, suggesting it is using its army as well as paramilitary forces to help President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the country's civil war.
(Reuters, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 4, Air France decided to allow female flight attendants to refuse to work the company's new route to Iran, beginning April 17, for which they must wear a headscarf.
(AP, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 11, Iranian media reported that Russia has delivered the first part of an advanced missile defense system to Iran, starting to equip Tehran with technology that was blocked before it signed a deal with world powers on its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 4/11/16)
2016 Apr 11, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that 4 soldiers in its regular army were killed in Syria, the, only a week after Tehran announced the deployment of army commandos to help President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war there.
(Reuters, 4/11/16)
2016 Apr 12, Italian PM Matteo Renzi became the highest-ranking European leader to visit Tehran since its nuclear deal with world powers. Renzi began a two-day visit to the Islamic republic aimed at restoring ties that before sanctions had seen Italy ranked as Iran's top European trading partner.
(AFP, 4/12/16)
2016 Apr 16, In Turkey Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They vowed to boost trade between their two countries at talks following the lifting of most international sanctions on Tehran.
(AFP, 4/16/16)
2016 Apr 26, Iranian state TV said a court has sentenced four pro-reform journalists to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years after convicting them on charges of acting against national security.
(AP, 4/26/16)
2016 Apr 29, Iranians voted in the country's parliamentary runoff elections for 68 seats where no candidate had won decisively in the first round. Reformist and moderate politicians allied with President Hassan Rouhani won twice as many seats as their conservative rivals in the second round of parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/29/16)(AFP, 4/30/16)
2016 May 3, Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani, imprisoned over portraying lawmakers as animals to criticize a draft law restricting contraception and criminalizing voluntary sterilization, was released from Evin prison after an appeals court last month reduced her initial 12-year prison sentence to 18 months.
(AP, 5/3/16)
2016 May 6, In Syria rebels seized a village from government forces near Aleppo overnight. 43 rebels and 30 government forces were reported killed in the battle for Khan Touman, some 15 km (9 miles) southwest of Aleppo. 13 military advisers with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were killed as rebels seized the village of Khan Touman. 18 others wounded and five to six were captured.
(Reuters, 5/6/16)(AFP, 5/7/16)(Reuters, 5/9/16)
2016 May 12, Iran announced that it will not send pilgrims to Saudi Arabia this year for the annual hajj pilgrimage, after a disaster during the event last year killed at least 2,426 people including 464 of its pilgrims.
(AP, 5/12/16)
2016 May 12, The World Health Organization said air pollution causes more than 3 million premature deaths worldwide every year. The worst air pollution was recorded at Zabol in Iran. The WHO said India has four of the 10 cities in the world with the worst air pollution and Saudi Arabia had two.
(Reuters, 5/12/16)(SFC, 5/13/16, p.A2)
2016 May 14, Iranians staged an international contest for cartoons depicting the Holocaust but insisted the event was aimed at criticizing alleged Western double standards regarding free expression and not at denying the Nazi genocide.
(AP, 5/14/16)
2016 May 14, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Internet was promoting un-Islamic thoughts that should be promptly dealt with.
(Reuters, 5/16/16)
2016 May 15, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said eight members of a modeling network have been arrested and accused of publishing photos of women without the obligatory hijab headscarf on the picture-sharing application Instagram.
(Reuters, 5/16/16)
2016 May 17, Iran's parliament passed a bill requiring the government demand payment from the United States as compensation for alleged damages Tehran suffered as a result of American policies over past decades.
(AP, 5/17/16)
2016 May 22, In France the Iranian film "The Salesman" won two prizes at the Cannes film festival. Lead actor Shahab Hosseini won a Palme d'Or for best actor and director Asghar Farhadi picked up the award for best screenplay.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2016 May 23, India said it will invest up to $500 million in a deal to develop a strategic port in Iran and both countries planned a number of projects they say are worth hundreds of millions of dollars as Indian PM Narendra Modi visited Tehran.
(AP, 5/23/16)
2016 May 24, In Iran Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati (89) was chosen to lead the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that picks the country's next supreme leader. The hard-line cleric has been in the country's power structure since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 26, In Iran the Mizan news agency said more than 30 college students have been arrested, interrogated and given 99 lashes for attending a graduation party that included men and women.
(SFC, 5/28/16, p.A2)
2016 May 28, Iran said eight people producing obscene music videos, whose clips were broadcast on a famous anti-revolutionary television channel, were arrested in Tehran last week.
(AFP, 5/28/16)
2016 May 29, Iran said its pilgrims would not attend the annual Muslim haj pilgrimage, blaming regional rival Saudi Arabia for "sabotage" and failing to guarantee the safety of pilgrims.
(Reuters, 5/29/16)
2016 Jun 6, Iran arrested Homa Hoodfar (65), a visiting Canadian-Iranian expert in gender and Islam. This was at least the fifth detention of a dual-national reported in recent months.
(Reuters, 6/9/16)
2016 Jun 13, Iran's state TV reported that a firefight between Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards and Kurdish militants in western Iran has left 5 militants dead. IRNA news agency reported a clash in the country's restive Sistan-Baluchistan province near the border with Pakistan, saying Iranian security forces killed 5 members of the Jaish al-Adl group. An Iranian police officer was also killed in the clash.
(AP, 6/13/16)
2016 Jun 15, Iran's Revolutionary Guard battled armed members of an insurgent Kurdish group, leading to fatalities near Oshnavieh, a predominantly Kurdish town in West Azerbaijan province.
(AP, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 16, The European Commission said Iran's state airline, which has just reached an agreement with Boeing Co to purchase new jetliners, can resume flights in the EU.
(Reuters, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 19, Iran said it has reached an agreement with American aerospace giant Boeing to purchase 100 aircraft to renew its ageing fleet, though the deal must still be approved by the US government.
(AFP, 6/19/16)
2016 Jun 20, Iran's intelligence ministry said it had thwarted a major jihadist plot to carry out bomb attacks in the capital Tehran and other parts of the country.
(AFP, 6/20/16)
2016 Jun 20, In Iran the Ghanoon newspaper said in a statement on its website that Tehran's prosecutor ordered it to halt operations based on allegations of "libel and spreading lies to create public anxiety," following complaints from the Revolutionary Guard.
(AP, 6/20/16)
2016 Jun 22, In southern Iran a road accident in killed 19 people when a bus plunged into a ravine near Shiraz.
(AP, 6/22/16)
2016 Jun 24, Iranian security forces clashed with Kurdish separatists who infiltrated a northwestern village to stage "terrorist and propagandist operations." Later reports said 5 armed rebels linked to counter-revolutionary groups were killed.
(AP, 6/25/16)(AFP, 6/26/16)
2016 Jul 1, In Iran tens of thousands of people marched in Tehran as part of the al-Quds day rallies held each year on the last Friday of Ramadan. Some protesters trampled the Israeli flag and also chanted "down with the USA." Similar rallies took place across the country.
(AP, 7/1/16)
2016 Jul 4, Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami (b.1940) died in Paris. He was later buried in a private ceremony in northern Tehran. He wrote and directed dozens of films including "Taste of Cherry" (1997), which won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Kiarostami)
2016 Jul 5, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard killed two Kurdish insurgents who have been on the run since last week. They were part of a larger group, 11 of whom were killed in clashes with Iranian forces last week in Iran's western Kurdistan province.
(AP, 7/7/16)
2016 Jul 6, In Iran "armed bandits" killed four border guards in an ambush near the Pakistani border. Several of the gunmen were reported killed or wounded.
(AP, 7/6/16)
2016 Jul 10, Iranian news reported that unknown gunmen in western Iran killed two people and injured a lawmaker and a local governor after opening fire on their car.
(AP, 7/10/16)
2016 Jul 11, Iran detained Robin Shahini of San Diego who travelled there to see his mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He received an 18-year prison sentence for "collaboration with a hostile government". On Feb 15, 2017, Shahini began a hunger strike to contest his incarceration. After two weeks he was released on bail.
(AP, 4/3/17)
2016 Jul 15, UNESCO put four new sites on its World Heritage List. The new sites, announced in Istanbul, include China's Zuojiang Huashan rock art cultural landscape, Iran's ancient aqueducts known as Qanat, and India's archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara. The World Heritage Committee also selected Micronesia's artificial islets of Nan Madol and simultaneously placed it on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 21, Iran's official IRNA news agency said authorities have arrested 40 suspects linked to the discovery of an underground tunnel in the country's far east, near the Pakistani border. The subterranean tunnel was discovered two nights ago and was reportedly meant for carrying out attacks and militant activities.
(AP, 7/21/16)
2016 Jul 24, Iran destroyed 100,000 satellite dishes and receivers as part of a widespread crackdown against the illegal devices that authorities say are morally damaging. General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, head of Iran's Basij militia, warned of the impact that satellite television was having in the conservative country. 70% of Iranians violate the 1994 law and own satellite dishes which can gather television programming worldwide.
(AFP, 7/24/16)(https://tinyurl.com/ybttvudh)
2016 Jul 26, Iran's government said it would cap salaries for public officials as it seeks to dampen a scandal over exorbitant pay that has threatened to derail President Hassan Rouhani's re-election hopes. The payslips of executives at several public companies were leaked in May, showing that many earned over 100 times more than the average worker.
(AFP, 7/26/16)
2016 Aug 2, Iran hanged 20 "terrorist" Sunni prisoners, in one of the Islamic republic's biggest mass executions in recent years. A statement detailed 24 armed attacks between 2009 and 2011, including bombings and robberies, allegedly committed by the Kurdish militants.
(AFP, 8/4/16)(SSFC, 8/7/16, p.A4)
2016 Aug 3, Iran state IRNA news agency reported that Hassan Abbasi, the head of the Center for Doctrinal Strategic Studies, a think-tank, has been arrested on charges of "spreading lies" and "creating an atmosphere of skepticism about the armed forces."
(AP, 8/3/16)
2016 Aug 7, Iran said it has executed Shahram Amiri (39), a nuclear scientist convicted of handing over "confidential and vital" information to the United States. Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia in June 2009 and resurfaced a year later in the United States. He returned to Tehran in July 2010, saying he had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Farsi-speaking CIA agents in the Saudi city of Medina.
(AFP, 8/7/16)
2016 Aug 8, Iran detained Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-American history researcher. In 2017 he sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of "infiltrating" and sending confidential material abroad.
(AP, 7/17/17)(AP, 8/8/19)
2016 Aug 9, Iran said it would auction off property owned by billionaire Babak Zanjani (41), who was sentenced to death for corruption earlier this year. He was accused of fraudulently pocketing $2.8 billion.
(AFP, 8/9/16)
2016 Aug 15, In Iran a senior member of Islamic State was killed this evening in an operation in Kermanshah province, a largely Sunni Kurdish area, during which other supporters of the group were arrested.
(Reuters, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 16, Iranian security forces killed 3 Sunni militants linked to Islamic State in Kermanshah city close to the Iraqi border, confiscating a weapons cache and belts armed with explosives.
(Reuters, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 16, Iran said that it arrested a British-Iranian last week on suspicion of links to the UK intelligence service.
(AFP, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 16, Russian warplanes took off from a base in Iran to target Islamic State fighters and other militants in Syria.
(AP, 8/16/16)
2016 Aug 18, Kimia Alizadeh won the first ever Olympic medal by an Iranian woman after claiming taekwondo bronze in Rio.
(AFP, 8/18/16)
2016 Aug 27, In Iran Brig. Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, head of an Iranian military unit in charge of combatting cybersabotage, acknowledged Iran's petrochemical industry had been the target of cyberattacks. He put the blame on imported and installed components at the facilities.
(AP, 9/22/16)
2016 Aug 30, Iran’s state media reported that authorities have released Omid Kokabee, a man jailed while home from his graduate studies in Texas. He was arrested in February 2011 and convicted of having "relations with a hostile country" and receiving "illegitimate funds." The judiciary will allow Kokabee to enjoy "conditional freedom" for the rest of his 10-year sentence.
(AP, 8/30/16)
2016 Aug 30, In Syria retired Iranian general Ahmad Gholami, died while fighting in Aleppo. He had served as a senior Revolutionary Guards commander in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s.
(AFP, 8/31/16)
2016 Sep 1, Iran said operations to build two new nuclear power plants in Bushehr with assistance from Russia will start on 10 September and it will take 10 years for the power plants to be completed.
(AFP, 9/1/16)
2016 Sep 4, Iranian state TV reported that the Islamic Republic has appointed its envoy to London for the first time since 2011.
(AP, 9/5/16)
2016 Sep 5, Iranian state media reported that police had closed more than 800 clothes shops to stop them selling "unconventional" women's coats. The coats in question tended to have nonsensical phrases such as "Keep Calm I'm the Queen" written on them, but they also had short arms and no buttons in the front.
(AP, 9/5/16)
2016 Sep 5, Britain appointed its envoy to Iran for the first time since 2011.
(AP, 9/5/16)
2016 Sep 7, Iran state media reported that 8 members of the rebel Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) have been killed in overnight clashes with security forces along the Iraqi border in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AP, 9/7/16)
2016 Sep 9, The head of Iran's Hajj Organization accused Saudi Arabia of deliberately barring Iranians from the pilgrimage and refusing to discuss security measures despite last year's deadly stampede. Thousands protested in Tehran for being barred from the annual hajj pilgrimage.
(AFP, 9/9/16)
2016 Sep 9, In Iraq a camp housing members of an Iranian opposition group was officially closed after the last 280 residents were flown to Albania. The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq had been based in Iraq since the 1980s, when they received arms and support from Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.
(AP, 9/10/16)
2016 Sep 10, Iran began building a second nuclear plant with Russian help, in a $10 billion project which follows Tehran's landmark nuclear deal with world powers last year.
(Reuters, 9/10/16)
2016 Sep 11, Iran's former prosecutor of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, Saeed Mortazavi apologized for his role in 2009 accidents at Kahrizak detention center which resulted in the deaths of three political prisoners including Mohsen Rouholamini.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6a64ayk)
2016 Sep 14, In Iran a gas leak and fire at the Mobin Petrochemical Factory that services the South Pars gas field injured four workers.
(AP, 9/22/16)
2016 Sep 16, In southern Iran a soldier killed himself after shooting to death three of his comrades.
(AP, 9/17/16)
2016 Sep 20, Iran sentenced Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident detained for a year over spying allegations, to 10 years in prison and a $4.2 million fine. The Lebanese citizen has advocated for internet freedom his whose nonprofit group did work for the US government.
(AP, 9/20/16)
2016 Sep 21, Aviation sources said the United States has started issuing license unblocking the sale of Western passenger jets to Iran.
(Reuters, 9/21/16)
2016 Sep 24, Iran's state TV said the country has started its first web-based national general census.
(AP, 9/24/16)
2016 Oct 1, Iranian media reported that its Revolutionary Guard has built a new attack drone similar to the US RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone captured five years ago.
(SSFC, 10/2/16, p.A4)
2016 Oct 3, Germany's Siemens signed a contract to upgrade Iran's railway network, one of several deals agreed by German firms during a two-day visit to Tehran by Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel.
(Reuters, 10/3/16)
2016 Oct 10, Royal Dutch Shell confirmed that it had signed an initial deal with Iran's National Petrochemical Company, paving the way for its return to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/10/16)
2016 Oct 17, In Washington, DC. retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright (67) pleaded guilty to making false statements during an investigation into a leak of classified information about a covert cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He faced up to six months in prison.
(SFC, 10/18/16, p.A4)
2016 Oct 18, Iranian state news said Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF representative, have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for cooperating with the hostile American government. Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Lebanon, Farhad Abd-Saleh, Kamran Ghaderi, and Alireza Omidvar also received a 10-year prison sentences for espionage and collaboration with the American government.
(AFP, 10/18/16)
2016 Oct 20, The US Treasury moved to disrupt the fundraising and operation of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, imposing sanctions on commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai, a number of others and a firm that assisted the organization, long seen as a terrorist outfit by Washington. Hezbollah enjoys strong support among Lebanon's Shi'ite community and wields enormous political influence in that country. Its military wing plays a major role in the Syrian conflict.
(Reuters, 10/20/16)(SFC, 10/21/16, p.A2)
2016 Oct 28, Crowds of mostly young Iranians attended the march near the ancient city of Pasargadae in central province of Fars to celebrate the day unofficially marked in the Iranian calendar as Cyrus Day. On Oct 31 prosecutor Ali Salehi said the main leaders and organizers of the gathering have been arrested.
(Reuters, 10/31/16)
2016 Oct, In Iran molestation victims of Koran singer Saeed Tousi spoke out on Voice of America. The judiciary ruled out a public trial. Tousi remained at liberty.
(Econ, 11/19/16, p.40)
2016 Nov 3, Avi Dichter, the former head of Israel's domestic intelligence agency, said Iran now commands a force of around 25,000 Shi'ite Muslim militants in Syria, mostly made up of recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(Reuters, 11/3/16)
2016 Nov 6, In Iraq ten Iranian pilgrims were killed in a suicide attack in Samarra.
(Reuters, 11/6/16)
2016 Nov 9, The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran has exceeded a soft limit on sensitive material set under its nuclear deal with major powers. A diplomat said Iran plans to ship sensitive material out of the country within days to bring it back under a soft limit set under its nuclear deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 11/9/16)
2016 Nov 15, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the nation's intelligence service has confiscated about 2 tons of explosives linked to planned attacks by the Islamic State group in the country's west.
(AP, 11/15/16)
2016 Nov 17, The US Republican-led House acted to bar the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran. The legislation prohibited the Treasury Department from issuing the licenses US banks would need to complete transactions potentially valued in the billions of dollars.
(SFC, 11/17/16, p.A7)
2016 Nov 22, The head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said more than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict.
(AFP, 11/22/16)
2016 Nov 24, In Iraq a car bomb attack at a gas station near the city of Hilla killed at least 73 people including about 40 Iranians returning from Karbala. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
(AP, 11/25/16)
2016 Nov 25, In Iran at least 44 people were killed and 100 injured when one passenger train collided with another at a station in the northern province of Semnan. Three railway officials were soon detained.
(Reuters, 11/25/16)(AFP, 11/26/16)
2016 Nov 27, In Iran a helicopter on a mission to carry an injured person from an oil platform crashed in the Caspian Sea, killing all five people aboard.
(AP, 11/27/16)
2016 Dec 1, The US Senate voted 99-0 to renew for ten years the decades-old Iran Sanctions Act. Pres. Obama planned to sign it.
(SFC, 12/2/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 1, A Kenyan court charged two Iranian men with collecting information to facilitate a terrorist act after they were allegedly found with video footage of the Israeli embassy.
(AP, 12/1/16)
2016 Dec 2, Iran threatened to retaliate against a US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, saying it violated last year's deal with six major powers that curbed its nuclear program. The ISA had been due to expire on Dec 31.
(Reuters, 12/2/16)
2016 Dec 6, Iran's state TV reported that a rescue helicopter carrying eight people has crashed into a lake in western Tehran, killing two people.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 7, Iran struck a preliminary memorandum of understanding with Royal Dutch Shell to develop prospective oil fields.
(Econ, 12/10/16, p.62)
2016 Dec 8, The European Union banned Iran's Aseman Airlines from operating within the EU due to safety concerns, in a blow to Tehran which is buying new jets to renew the country's ageing fleet following the lifting of long-term sanctions.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 11, Iran's flag carrier finalized a major deal with US plane maker Boeing Co. to buy $16.6 billion worth of passenger planes in one of the most tangible benefits yet for the Islamic Republic from last year's landmark nuclear agreement.
(AP, 12/11/16)
2016 Dec 13, Iran ordered its scientists to start developing systems for nuclear-powered marine vessels in response to what it calls a US violation of its landmark 2015 atomic deal with world powers. This marked Tehran's first concrete reaction to a decision by the US Congress last month to extend some sanctions on Tehran that would also make it easier to reimpose others lifted under the nuclear pact.
(Reuters, 12/13/16)
2016 Dec 17, Syrian rebels blamed Iran and its Shi'ite-backed militias of holding up a deal to evacuate civilians trapped in the remaining rebel bastion in Aleppo. Trapped civilians and rebels waited desperately for evacuations to resume as the Red Cross pleaded for a deal to "save thousands of lives".
(Reuters, 12/17/16)(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 20, In northern Iraq a bombing killed five Iranian Kurdish fighters and an Iraqi Kurdish policeman in Koy Sanjaq, east of Erbil. An Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group the next day accused Iran of the bombing.
(AP, 12/21/16)
2016 Dec 20, In Syria President Bashar al-Assad's army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo. Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. They adopted a document they called the "Moscow Declaration", which set out the principles that any peace agreement should follow.
(Reuters, 12/20/16)
2016 Dec 23, Iran and six world powers released previously restricted documents about their nuclear deal to enforce their view that Tehran is not circumventing limits on its limit of enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.
(AP, 12/23/16)
2016 Dec 23, In southern Iran a man (26) gunned down 10 relatives in a rare shooting rampage.
(AP, 12/23/16)
2016 Dec 25, Iran's currency plumbed new lows against the dollar, continuing a six-month decline that has seen the rial lose some 19 percent of its value despite the lifting of sanctions.
(AFP, 12/25/16)
2016 Dec 26, Iranian officials said hundreds of thousands of birds have been killed in recent weeks as avian flu spread across seven provinces of the country. State news said 63,000 chickens, along with 800,000 fertilized eggs and day-old chicks, were culled at a farm in Qazvin province in recent days after an outbreak of the deadly H1N8 and H1N5 strains of the disease.
(AFP, 12/26/16)
2016 Dec 27, Iran’s media said Mehdi Karroubi (79), a leading member of the opposition National Trust, announced he is quitting his party. He has been under house arrest for almost six years.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed cleric Ebrahim Raisi to head the country’s largest shrine and biggest clerical conglomerate.
(Econ 5/13/17, p.40)
2017 Jan 2, Iranian state TV reported the country's coast guard has detained 21 fishermen and their three boats from neighboring Arab nations for straying into its territorial waters and fishing rare species.
(AP, 1/2/17)
2017 Jan 3, In Iran two pipelines were reportedly bombed in Khuzestan province. The next day the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz claimed responsibility. Iranian Interior Ministry spokesman Salman Samani denied the claim.
(AP, 1/4/17)
2017 Jan 3, Imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Arash Sadeghi ended a 71-day hunger strike as his detained wife won a temporary release from prison, a day after his case sparked a rare unauthorized protest in Tehran.
(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 3, Turkmenistan said that it has restricted natural gas deliveries to Iran over unpaid debts. Iranian state media have put the figure demanded by Turkmenistan at around $2 billion.
(AP, 1/3/17)
2017 Jan 8, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (82), former Iranian president (1989-1997) died in hospital in Tehran after suffering a heart attack. In 2003 Forbes magazine put his personal wealth at over $1 billion.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.82)
2017 Jan 8, A US Navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four Iranian fast-attack vessels after they closed in at a high rate of speed near the Strait of Hormuz.
(Reuters, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 11, The US and five other world powers approved Iran importing as much as 130 tons of uranium.
(AP, 1/13/17)
2017 Jan 17, In Iran five memorandums of understanding were signed at a ceremony attended by Syrian PM Emad Khamis and Iranian VP Eshaq Jahangiri in Tehran. Iran will be granted a license to become a mobile service operator in Syria under agreements to expand economic ties between the countries.
(Reuters, 1/17/17)
2017 Jan 19, In Iran at least 20 firefighters were reported killed when the 17-storey Plasco building, Tehran’s oldest high-rise, collapsed following a fire. Altogether at least 30 people were killed. Habibollah Elghanian, a prominent Iranian-Jewish businessman, had built the structure. He was arrested for ties to Israel and sentenced to death and executed after the 1979 Islamic revolution. On Jan 27 the final death toll was put at 26 including 16 firefighters.
(AFP, 1/19/17)(Reuters, 1/20/17)(SFC, 1/20/17, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/22/17, p.A4)(AP, 1/27/17)
2017 Jan 22, An Iranian appeals court confirmed a five-year jail sentence for British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on security charges. She works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a London-based charity that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.
(Reuters, 1/22/17)
2017 Jan 23, In Kazakhstan indirect 2-day talks began in Astana between the Syrian government and rebels. The talks were hosted by Russia, Turkey and Iran.
(Reuters, 1/23/17)(Econ, 1/28/17, p.39)
2017 Jan 24, In Kazakhstan Russia, Turkey and Iran backed a shaky truce between Syria's warring parties and agreed to monitor its compliance. On the ground rebels faced continued fighting on two fronts, which could undermine the deal.
(Reuters, 1/24/17)
2017 Jan 28, UAE state news agency WAM reported that the air force of the United Arab Emirates has shot down an Iranian-made drone in Yemen.
(Reuters, 1/28/17)
2017 Jan 29, Iran test-launched a medium-range ballistic missile that exploded after 630 miles (1,010 km).
(Reuters, 1/31/17)
2017 Jan 31, Iran said it would never use its ballistic missiles to attack another country and defended its missile tests, saying they are neither part of a nuclear accord with world powers nor a UN Security Council resolution endorsing the pact.
(Reuters, 1/31/17)
2017 Feb 1, The Trump administration condemned Iran for its recent test of a ballistic missile saying it was putting Tehran “on notice" and threatening reprisals.
(SFC, 2/2/17, p.A3)
2017 Feb 3, Iran said it had barred a US wrestling team from the Freestyle World Cup competition in retaliation for an executive order by President Donald Trump banning visas for Iranians.
(Reuters, 2/3/17)
2017 Feb 3, The US Treasury sanctioned 13 individuals and 12 entities under its Iran sanctions authority, days after the White House put Tehran "on notice" over a ballistic missile test and other activities. Trump administration officials said sanctions were only the initial steps in response to Iranian provocative behavior.
(Reuters, 2/3/17)(SFC, 2/4/17, p.A6)
2017 Feb 5, Iran lifted a ban on US wrestlers, allowing them to take part in the Freestyle World Cup later this month in the Iranian city of Kermanshah. Media said the ban was lifted after the "discriminative restrictions" on Iranian nationals traveling to the US was suspended by a US federal judge.
(AP, 2/5/17)
2017 Feb 15, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Oman and Kuwait for talks to improve relations with Gulf neighbors, strained by the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
(AFP, 2/15/17)
2017 Feb 25, Iran announced plans to buy 950 tons of uranium ore from Kazakhstan over three years and said it expects to get Russian help in producing nuclear fuel.
(Reuters, 2/25/17)
2017 Mar 1, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan agreed to improve ties, including in the fight against terrorism, on the sidelines of an economic cooperation summit in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.
(Reuters, 3/1/17)
2017 Mar 4, Iran said the six-year prison term of Ahmad Montazeri, son of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has been suspended after approval by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following a request by a top cleric.
(AP, 3/4/17)
2017 Mar 5, The Iranian judiciary said on authorities have arrested an Iranian-American on charges of defrauding people seeking US residence of $2.6 million.
(Reuters, 3/5/17)
2017 Mar 5, Azerbaijan and Iran agreed to work towards completing their portion of a planned freight railway route from Europe to South Asia.
(Reuters, 3/5/17)
2017 Mar 6, US Pres. Donald Trump signed a revised executive order temporarily banning people from six Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen). The revision would become effective on March 16.
(SFC, 3/7/17, p.A1)(Econ, 3/11/17, p.29)
2017 Mar 18, In Iran the Fars semi-official news agency reported that Faezeh Hashemi, the outspoken daughter of Iran's late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been sentenced to six months in prison for "spreading lies against the judiciary".
(AP, 3/18/17)
2017 Mar 21, The family of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran a decade ago on an unauthorized CIA assignment, filed a lawsuit against the Islamic Republic, accusing it of using "cold, cynical and false denials" to torture his loved ones.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 24, The United States State Department said it has imposed sanctions on 30 foreign companies or individuals for transferring sensitive technology to Iran for its missile program or for violating export controls on Iran, North Korea and Syria.
(Reuters, 3/24/17)
2017 Mar 26, Iran sanctioned what it described as 15 American companies, alleging they support terrorism, repression and Israel's occupation of land Palestinians want for a future state, likely in retaliation for sanctions earlier announced by the US. The list included ITT Corp., missile-maker Raytheon Co., United Technologies Corp. Denver's Re/Max Holdings Inc., a real estate company and truck maker Oshkosh.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 26, Iran's central bank said it will appeal Luxembourg's decision to freeze $1.6 billion of its assets, which the US is claiming as compensation for victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
(AFP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar, In Iran masked goons arrested 12 administrators of popular social-media news channels.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.41)
2017 Apr 6, Hungary said it will cooperate with Iran on setting up a small nuclear reactor for scientific-educational purposes.
(Reuters, 4/6/17)
2016 Apr 11, The European Union extended until April 2018 sanctions against Iran for "serious human rights violations", a narrower measure than restrictions the bloc had already lifted after an international accord on Tehran's nuclear programme.
(AP, 4/11/17)
2017 Apr 15, Iran state TV reported that death toll in flash floods triggered by heavy rains in the northwest province of eastern Azarbaijan rose to 30 with seven people missing in the cities of Ajab Shir and Azarshahr.
(AP, 4/15/17)
2017 Apr 21, Iraq released 26 hostages, including members of Qatar's ruling family. The group was kidnapped December 16, 2015, from a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq. They apparently had permits to hunt in that area inside Muthanna province. Qatar reportedly paid a billion dollars to Iran and to the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and Ahrar al-Sham, which are involved in the evacuation and transfer of detainees.
(AP, 4/21/17)(Econ 6/10/17, p.14)
2017 Apr 29, In Turkey the head of an Iranian satellite television network was shot dead in Istanbul together with a business partner. GEM TV founder Saeed Karimian was sentenced last year in absentia to six years in prison by a Tehran court. Karimian and an associate were driving in Istanbul's Maslak neighborhood after 8 p.m. (1.00 p.m. ET) when their car was blocked by a jeep and shots were fired.
(Reuters, 4/30/17)
2017 Apr, In Iran a separatist Baluchi group killed ten Iranian border guards.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.45)
2017 May 3, In northern Iran more than 50 miners were trapped after a huge explosion in a coal mine, and some were feared to have died in the Zemestanyurt coal mine in Golestan province. At least 35 people were killed.
(Reuters, 5/3/17)(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 3, Pakistan and Iran reached an agreement to strengthen security along their shared border after last week's incident when gunmen killed 10 Iranian border guards.
(AP, 5/3/17)
2017 May 4, Iran, Russia and Turkey signed an agreement calling for the setting up of four "de-escalation zones" in war-torn Syria at the cease-fire talks in Kazakhstan and said that President Bashar Assad's air force would halt flights over the designated areas in the country's north, center and south. Members of the Syrian opposition delegation shouted in protest and walked out of the conference room in Astana. The opposition said it could not accept creating safe zones in Syria because it threatens the country's territorial integrity and said it would also not recognize Iran as a guarantor of the peace plan.
(AP, 5/4/17)(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 7, In Iran angry coal miners besieged a car carrying President Hassan Rouhani after he visited the site of a deadly mine explosion, a rare protest targeting the nation's top elected official as he campaigns for re-election.
(AP, 5/7/17)
2017 May 14, In Iran a 5.7 magnitude earthquake near the Turkmenistan border killed two people, injured hundreds and caused widespread damage.
(AFP, 5/14/17)
2017 May 16, Iran's reformist first vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, pulled out of this week's presidential election and endorsed the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani.
(AFP, 5/16/17)
2017 May 17, US officials said the administration of US President Donald Trump, who slammed the Iran nuclear deal as a candidate, will extend sanctions relief for Iran that was called for under the 2015 pact.
(Reuters, 5/17/17)
2017 May 19, Iran held presidential elections. President Hassan Rouhani secured a commanding lead of 57 percent in a race that drew more than seven out of every 10 voters to the polls. His nearest rival in the four-man race, hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, secured 38 percent of the vote. Candidates backing reform of the clerically overseen government swept municipal elections in Tehran, taking all 21 local council seats.
(AFP, 5/19/17)(AP, 5/20/17)(AP, 5/21/17)
2017 May 24, Iran signed a deal worth $615 million, €550 million, with a Spanish-Iranian consortium under which the group will provide pipes used in Iran's oil industry.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 25, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency quoted a senior commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard saying Iran has built a third underground ballistic missile production factory and will keep developing its missile program.
(Reuters, 5/25/17)
2017 May 25, The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved bipartisan legislation that would authorize the president to levy new penalties on Iran while keeping the landmark nuclear deal in place.
(AP, 5/25/17)
2017 May 26, Iranian Shaaban Nassiri, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was killed fighting Islamic State near Baaj, west of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
(Reuters, 5/27/17)(SSFC, 5/28/17, p.A7)
2017 May, In Iran Arab militants attacked a police station in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, killing two policemen.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.45)
2017 Jun 7, In Iran attacks on the parliament and a shrine to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed 17 people and were claimed by the Islamic State group. Four attackers were reported killed. The five Iranians who killed 17 people in the twin attacks were Islamic State group members who had been to its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
(AP, 6/7/17)(AFP, 6/8/17)
2017 Jun 10, Boeing said Iran's Aseman Airlines has finalized an agreement to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets for $3.0 billion, with an option to buy 30 more.
(AFP, 6/10/17)
2017 Jun 14, Iranian forces killed two suspected members of an armed group in a Sunni-majority southeastern region and arrested five others who attacked a barracks in Chabahar, Sistan Baluchistan province.
(AFP, 6/15/17)
2017 Jun 14, The US Senate voted to slap new sanctions on key sectors of Russia's economy and individuals over its interference in the 2016 US election campaign and its aggression in Syria and Ukraine. The measures were attached to a bill targeting Iran.
(AP, 6/15/17)
2017 Jun 16, Iran condemned new sanctions adopted by the US Senate and vowed to respond with "reciprocal and adequate measures".
(AFP, 6/16/17)
2017 Jun 18, An Iranian ballistic missile strike targeted the Islamic State group in Syria's eastern city of Deir el-Zour. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 6/19/17)
2017 Jun 19, Pakistani security forces recovered wreckage of an Iranian drone shot down by a Pakistani JF-17 Jet. It was unknown when the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was shot down.
(The National Interest, 8/29/19)
2017 Jun 21, Iran began exporting gas to neighboring Iraq through a pipeline straight to Baghdad.
(AP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 22, Iran media said the country is shipping more than 1,000 tons of fruits and vegetables to Qatar every day after Gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia cut relations with Doha.
(AFP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 23, Iran marked al-Quds Day and staged anti-Israel rallies across the country, with protesters condemning Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and chanting "Death to Israel" as the powerful Revolutionary Guard displayed its ballistic missiles, including the type used this week in Syria.
(AP, 6/23/17)
2017 Jul 3, Iranians opened a "Trumpism" cartoon contest in which hundreds of participants were invited to submit artwork mocking the US leader. Hadi Asadi won first prize and a $1,500 award. His cartoon shows Trump wearing a jacket made of dollar notes while drooling on books, a reference to cultural material. "I wanted to show Trump while trampling symbols of culture," said Asadi.
(AP, 7/3/17)
2017 Jul 3, French energy giant Total signed a $4.9 billion agreement to develop an Iranian offshore gas field, in the biggest foreign deal since sanctions on Iran were eased.
(AFP, 7/3/17)
2017 Jul 4, German car giant Volkswagen said it was returning to the Iranian market for the first time in 17 years due to the lifting of economic sanctions.
(AFP, 7/4/17)
2017 Jul 10, Iranian cancer researcher Mohsen Dehnavi was detained at Boston's Logan International Airport along with his wife and three young children upon arrival. They were sent back to Iran the following day despite holding a J-1 visa for visiting scholars. He was expecting to take up work at Boston Children's Hospital. It was later reported that Dehnavi had previously headed a student branch of a volunteer paramilitary militia.
(AP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 11, Iran Railways said it has signed a preliminary agreement with Italy's state railway to construct two high-speed links in Iran. Four memoranda of understanding were signed worth some $1.36 billion.
(AP, 7/11/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Iran police shot dead a man who attacked a clergyman and other people with a knife at a metro station in Tehran.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 16, Iran’s judiciary said that the brother of President Hassan Rouhani has been detained. Hossein Fereidoun was taken into custody over allegations of financial impropriety.
(Reuters, 7/16/17)
2017 Jul 16, An Iranian judiciary spokesman said a local court has sentenced a US dual national, to 10 years in jail on spying charges. The man was later identified as Xiyue Wang (37), a Chinese-American graduate student. Wang was arrested on Aug. 8, 2016 while conducting research on the 1794-1925 Qajar dynasty for his doctorate in late 19th and early 20th century Eurasian history.
(AP, 7/16/17)(AP, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 17, An Iranian serviceman shot dead three fellow soldiers at a barracks and wounded six others before killing himself in the town of Abyek, some 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Tehran.
(Reuters 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 20, In Iran elite Revolutionary Guard forces killed three terrorists and wounded four others in a clash in a border area in the country's northwest.
(AP, 7/21/17)
2017 Jul 20, Kuwait state news agency KUNA said the government has ordered Iran to reduce its embassy staff from 19 to 4 and close down its technical offices in the Gulf Arab state following a court case last year which implicated "Iranian parties" of involvement in a spy cell.
(Reuters, 7/20/17)
2017 Jul 21, Iran decided for the second time since January not to upset its nuclear pact with six world powers, despite public statements by Tehran accusing the United States of violating the deal.
(Reuters, 7/21/17)
2017 Jul 27, Iran successfully launched a satellite-carrying rocket into space. The launch involved a "Simorgh" rocket capable of carrying a satellite weighing 250 kg (550 pounds).
(AP, 7/27/17)
2017 Jul 28, The US Senate approved a new package of stiff financial sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea and sent it to President Donald Trump to sign. Russia's Foreign Ministry ordered a reduction in the number of US diplomats in Russia and said it was closing down a US recreation retreat in response to fresh sanctions against Russia.
(AP, 7/28/17)
2017 Jul 29, Iran vowed to press ahead with its missile program and condemned new US sanctions.
(AFP, 7/29/17)
2017 Aug 3, Spain’s police said 101 people, mostly Iranians and Spaniards, have been arrested in a year-long operation coordinated with British and police and Europol. The criminal network had smuggled Iranian nationals with false documents into Britain.
(AP, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 5, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was sworn-in for a second term. He accused the United States of trying to undermine Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, telling President Donald Trump that it will be his political suicide.
(Reuters, 8/5/17)
2017 Aug 6, An Iranian soldier opened fire on his colleagues, killing three and wounding 12 of them at a military air base in south Tehran. The assailant was killed in a shootout with other soldiers. Iranian media reported that the Revolutionary Guards had killed two people in clashes with a group of militants in the northwest of the country.
(AP, 8/6/17)(Reuters, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 6, Iranian media said Iran's Revolutionary Guards had killed two people in clashes with a group of militants in the northwest of the country, where shootouts with Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq are common.
(Reuters, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 7, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that security forces have broken up a group linked to Islamic State which was planning attacks in religious centers in the country and trying to hide weapons in home appliances. 27 militants were detained.
(Reuters, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 7, Iran signed the country's biggest-ever car deal o build tens of thousands of cars annually under a joint venture with French automobile manufacturer Groupe Renault, buoying its manufacturing industry in defiance of the Trump administration's moves to isolate the country.
(AP, 8/7/17)
2017 Aug 8, Iranian authorities detained 64 “half naked" youths at a pool party in central Isfahan province. A report said the youngsters were dancing and drinking alcoholic beverages.
(AP, 8/9/17)
2017 Aug 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed two female vice presidents but continued to take flak from reformists for nominating no women ministers.
(AFP, 8/9/17)
2017 Aug 10, Iran executed Alireza Tajiki. He had been arrested six years earlier at age 15 for murder and sodomy.
(AP, 8/10/17)
2017 Aug 11, In Iran flash floods triggered by heavy rains killed 12 people. 38 people remained missing in Khorasan Razavi province.
(AP, 8/12/17)
2017 Aug 13, Iran's parliament voted unanimously to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, part of a sanctions bill mirroring a new US law targeting the country.
(AP, 8/13/17)
2017 Aug 13, Iran's parliament passed a long-awaited amendment to its drug trafficking laws, raising the thresholds that can trigger capital punishment and potentially saving the lives of many on death row.
(AFP, 8/13/17)
2017 Aug 15, The BBC said an Iranian court order has frozen the local assets of over 150 people associated with the BBC's Farsi-language service, the latest effort by Tehran to crack down on the service's popular newscasts.
(AP, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 16, Mehdi Karroubi (80), a detained Iranian opposition leader, started a hunger strike and wants to be out on trial rather than remain under house arrest where he has been held since 2011. Karroubi ended his hunger strike after one day after officials promised that the 12 guards watching over him would no longer be permanently stationed in his house.
(Reuters, 8/16/17)(SFC, 8/18/17, p.A2)
2017 Aug 23, Qatar restored full diplomatic relations with Iran and promised to send its ambassador back to Tehran, a move counter to the demands of Arab nations trying to isolate Doha as part of a regional dispute.
(AP, 8/24/17)(Econ, 9/2/17, p.41)
2017 Aug 26, Iranians were joined by a minister in protest after Apple recently removed popular apps from its store, which the American company says has been done to comply with US sanctions.
(AFP, 8/26/17)(SFC, 8/26/17, p.D1)
2017 Aug 27, Ebrahim Yazdi (85), a dissident Iranian politician and a former foreign minister (1979), died at the age of 85 in Izmir, Turkey, where he was being treated for complications from cancer after being denied a US visa for follow-up treatment in Houston.
(AP, 8/31/17)
2017 Aug 28, Yehya al-Sinwar, the Palestinian militant group's new leader in Gaza, said Hamas and Iran have patched up relations, and Tehran is again its biggest backer after years of tension over the civil war in Syria.
(Reuters, 8/28/17)
2017 Sep 3, The Iranian judiciary said a court has re-imposed the death penalty on Mohammad Ali Taheri, founder of Erfan Halgheh which calls itself "Interuniversalism" in English, after the first sentence was struck down by the supreme court. He was sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in 2015 for "corruption on earth" but the Supreme Court later quashed the sentence.
(Reuters, 9/3/17)
2017 Sep 15, Iranian state news agency IRNA said the China Development Bank has signed a memorandum of understanding for $15 billion. Iranian media reports have said projects would include water management, energy, environment and transport.
(AP, 11/30/17)
2017 Sep 15, Turkey’s foreign ministry said Russia, Iran and Turkey have agreed to post observers on the edge of a de-escalation zone in northern Syria's Idlib region, which is largely controlled by Islamist militants.
(Reuters, 9/15/17)
2017 Sep 16, Iran's central bank president said a Chinese state-owned investment firm has provided a $10 billion credit line for Iranian banks. In total, China has agreed to allocate $35 billion in financing and loans for Iran's economy.
(AFP, 9/16/17)
2017 Sep 16, Counterterrorism officials and analysts said thousands of Shiite Muslims from Afghanistan and Pakistan are being recruited by Iran to fight with President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria, lured by promises of housing, a monthly salary of up to $600 and the possibility of employment in Iran when they return.
(AP, 9/16/17)
2017 Sep 18, Iran released Mahvesh Sabet (64), a member of the Baha'i faith. She and six other leaders of the minority community were arrested in March 2008 and sentenced to 20 years in jail for heresy and espionage for Israel. Her six colleagues remained imprisoned. The Baha'i faith considers Bahaullah, an Iranian born in 1817, to be the latest prophet sent by God, in contrast with Islamic orthodoxy.
(AP, 9/19/17)
2017 Sep 19, The Israeli military shot down an Iranian-made spy drone operated by the Hezbollah militant group as it approached the Golan Heights, and vowed to take further tough action against any attempts by its archenemies to violate the country's sovereignty.
(AP, 9/19/17)
2017 Sep 20, US security firm FireEye said hackers likely linked to Iran's government are behind attacks on Saudi and other Western aerospace and petrochemical firms, signaling a rise in Iranian cyber-spying prowess.
(Reuters, 9/20/17)
2017 Sep 21, In Iran an explosion at a guesthouse near the Fatima Masumeh shrine in the city of Qom left four dead and 15 wounded, most of them Iraqi pilgrims.
(Reuters, 9/21/17)
2017 Sep 21, The foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Iraq voiced concerns that a Kurdish referendum on independence would endanger gains Iraq has made against Islamic state, and reiterated worries of potential new conflicts in the region and agreed to consider counter-measures against the planned independence referendum.
(Reuters, 9/21/17)
2017 Sep 23, Iran said it had successfully tested a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and would keep developing its arsenal, despite US pressure to stop.
(Reuters, 9/23/17)
2017 Sep 24, Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard launched a military exercise in its northwestern Kurdish region one day ahead of Iraqi Kurds voting in an independence referendum, in a sign of Tehran's concerns over the vote. Iran also closed its airspace to flights taking off from Iraq's Kurdish region following an Iraqi request.
(AP, 9/24/17)
2017 Sep 26, Thousands of Iranian Kurds marched in the streets to show their support for an independence referendum staged by Kurdish authorities in neighboring Iraq, defying a show of power by Tehran which flew fighter jets over their areas.
(AP, 9/26/17)
2017 Sep 27, Iran's supreme leader and thousands of others mourned Mohsen Hojaji (25), a Revolutionary Guard soldier beheaded by the Islamic State group. His killing struck a nerve within Iran as its forces continue to suffer casualties in Iraq and Syria.
(AP, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 29, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Iran has banned the transportation of refined crude oil products by Iranian companies to and from Iraq's Kurdistan region, after Tehran vowed to stand by Baghdad following the region's vote for independence.
(Reuters, 9/29/17)
2017 Sep 30, Iran's state television reported that Iranian and Iraqi central government forces are to hold joint military exercises near their borders, as part of Tehran's effort to support Baghdad after the Kurdish independence referendum. Media reported that Iran has embargoed exports and imports of fuel products to and from Iraqi Kurdistan in response to the region's controversial independence referendum.
(Reuters, 9/30/17)(AFP, 9/30/17)
2017 Oct 2, Iranian university academic Mohammad Reza Jalaipour said seven reformists, including himself and a brother of ex-president Mohammad Khatami, have been given one-year jail terms and banned from all political and media activity for two years. The seven were leaders of the Islamic Iran Participation Front which authorities dissolved in 2010 following a wave of unprecedented protests against the re-election the previous year of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AFP, 10/2/17)
2017 Oct 2, A Kurdish official said Iranian and Iraqi forces staged joint military exercises near the border with Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.
(AFP, 10/2/17)
2017 Oct 3, In Qatar Iran's foreign minister held talks with the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani aimed at strengthening "co-operation," nearly four months into a Saudi-led blockade against the Gulf emirate.
(AP, 10/3/17)
2017 Oct 4, The presidents of Iran and Turkey vowed during talks in Tehran to work closely together to prevent the disintegration of Iraq and Syria and to oppose the Iraqi Kurds' drive for independence.
(Reuters, 10/4/17)
2017 Oct 4, An Iranian a semiofficial news agency reported that Abdolrasoul Ddorri Esfahani, a dual Iranian-Canadian national, has been sentenced to five years in prison for espionage. Esfahani was a member of Iran’s team nuclear negotiators that struck a 2015 deal with world powers.
(SFC, 10/5/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct 6, Iranian news website Tabnak said authorities have arrested Mahdi Jahangiri, the brother of the country's senior vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, apparently over finance-related matters.
(AP, 10/6/17)
2017 Oct 7, Iran’s semi-official ILNA news agency reported that the country's authorities have banned former reformist President Mohammad Khatami from appearing at public ceremonies for three months.
(AP, 10/7/17)
2017 Oct 9, The UN atomic agency chief affirmed Iran's commitment to a 2015 nuclear deal, in a statement that came as US President Donald Trump said Tehran was not living up to the "spirit" of the agreement.
(AFP, 10/9/17)
2017 Oct 13, US Pres. Donald Trump kicked the fate of the landmark Iran nuclear deal to the US Congress and said he might ultimately terminate the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions in return for Tehran rolling back technologies with nuclear bomb-making potential.
(AFP, 10/14/17)(AP, 10/14/17)
2017 Oct 16, The EU reaffirmed its support for a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers despite sharp criticism of the accord by President Donald Trump, and it urged US lawmakers not to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.
(Reuters, 10/16/17)
2017 Oct 17, Norwegian solar panel maker Saga Energy signed a deal worth 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) with Iran's state-owned company Amin Energy Developers to build solar power plants.
(AP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 23, Amnesty International said that Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian doctor who studied and taught in Sweden, had been sentenced to death in Iran on espionage charges. Neither Iran nor Amnesty said when the verdict was issued.
(Reuters, 10/24/17)
2017 Oct 25, The BBC said it has filed a complaint to the United Nations over Iran freezing the assets of more than 150 people associated with its Persian service, calling the Islamic Republic's actions "a deprivation of human rights."
(AP, 10/25/17)
2017 Oct 25, The Swiss government said neutral Switzerland's embassies in Riyadh and Tehran have signed agreements to represent Iranian interests in Saudi Arabia and Saudi interests in Iran.
(Reuters, 10/25/17)
2017 Oct 29, In southern Iran a fire broke out at an oil rig, killing at least two workers near the town of Omideih just days after another fire at an oil refinery in Tehran killed seven workers.
(AP, 10/29/17)
2017 Oct 29, India shipped its first consignment of wheat to Afghanistan by sea through Iran's strategic Chahbahar Port, launching a trade route bypassing longtime rival Pakistan.
(AP, 10/29/17)
2017 Oct 30, It was reported that Iranian environmentalists have mobilized to protect the world's last Asiatic cheetahs, estimated to number just 50 and faced with the threats of becoming roadkill, a shortage of prey and farmers' dogs.
(AFP, 10/30/17)
2017 Oct 31, The head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has restricted the range of ballistic missiles manufactured in the country to 2,000 km (1,240 miles).
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Nov 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Iran for trilateral talks with Tehran and Azerbaijan.
(AP, 11/1/17)
2017 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians protested in Tehran against President Donald Trump's policies and to mark the anniversary of the 1979 US embassy siege.
(AFP, 11/4/17)
2017 Nov 7, Saudi Arabia's crown prince said Iran's supply of rockets to militias in Yemen is an act of "direct military aggression" that could be an act of war.
(Reuters, 11/7/17)
2017 Nov 7, The United States accused Iran of supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the UN to hold Tehran accountable for violating two UN Security Council resolutions.
(Reuters, 11/7/17)
2017 Nov 8, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani criticized Saudi Arabia over what he called "unprecedented" interference in Lebanese affairs, adding his voice to those who suspect the Gulf kingdom forced Lebanon's prime minister to resign.
(AP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 8, Iranian state television reported that more than two million Iranian pilgrims have crossed the border into Iraq for the annual Arbaeen Shiite pilgrimage to be celebrated on Nov. 9.
(AFP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 8, In the Netherlands Iranian political activist Ahmad Mola Nissi (52), who founded an Arab nationalist group seeking an independent state inside Iran, was shot dead at The Hague. A suspect was detained at the scene. Nissi had established the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), which seeks a separate state in the country's oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 8, The United States accused Iran of supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles, echoing allegations made by Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 11/8/17)
2017 Nov 9, It was reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals during the past two years, mostly on spying charges, according to lawyers, diplomats and relatives, twice as many as earlier reported by local or international media.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 12, In Iran a Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter crashed in the central Wasit province, killing all three crew members on board.
(AP, 11/12/17)
2017 Nov 12, A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake late today near the Iraq-Iran border killed over 530 people across both countries. Iran's western Kermanshah province bore the brunt of the temblor. In Iraq, nine people were killed and 550 were injured, all in the country's northern Kurdish region.
(AP, 11/13/17)(Reuters, 11/14/17)(AFP, 11/26/17)(AP, 1/11/18)
2017 Nov 14, Iranian officials called off rescue operations, saying there was little chance of finding more survivors from the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that shook parts of western Iran on Nov 12, killing at least 530 people.
(Reuters, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 16, In Syria Kheyrollah Samadi, a commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, was killed fighting the Islamic State in the Albu Kamal region.
(AP, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 17, Iranian ambassador Hamid Baeedinejad said Britain will soon repay a debt of over 400 million pounds ($527 million) to Iran. Britain owes the money after Iran's Shah paid up front for 1,750 Chieftain tanks and other vehicles, almost none of which were eventually delivered after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 toppled the US-backed leader.
(Reuters, 11/17/17)
2017 Nov 18, In eastern Syria Iranian fighter Mehdi Movahednia was killed in clashes with Islamic State in the town of Mayadin.
(Reuters, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 19, In Turkey top diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey met in Antalya to discuss the civil war in Syria ahead of a three-way summit in the Russian city of Sochi Nov. 22.
(AFP, 11/19/17)
2017 Nov 20, Iran called on Saudi Arabia to stop its "barbaric attacks" on Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been at war with Tehran-backed rebels since March 2015. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi also called on Saudi Arabia to drop its boycott of the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar, which has warm ties with Iran.
(AP, 11/20/17)
2017 Nov 21, In Manhattan a federal indictment was unsealed accusing Behsad Mesri, a member of an Iran hacking group, of hacking into the HBO computer system in New York and stealing unaired episodes and scripts of hit shows and then attempting to extort HBO out of $6 million. Mesri was believed to be overseas and not in custody.
(SFC, 11/22/17, p.A6)
2017 Nov 22, Vladimir Putin called for "concessions and compromise" from all parties in Syria's six-year conflict as he kicked off a key summit in Sochi with the leaders of Turkey and Iran aimed at reviving stuttering peace negotiations.
(AFP, 11/22/17)
2017 Nov 23, Armenia's foreign-language film submission to the Academy Awards for this year, “Yeva" directed by Anahid Abad, premiered in Tehran. Her film is a joint production between the National Cinema Center of Armenia and the Iranian Farabi Cinema Foundation.
(AP, 11/24/17)
2017 Nov 29, It was reported that 66,000 people out of Iran's 80 million people have HIV, though about 30,000 of them have no idea they have the virus. The report cited government statistics.
(AP, 11/29/17)
2017 Dec 1, Iranian state television aired a new video about imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, accusing her of taking part in covert activities against the country financed by Britain and the United States.
(AFP, 12/1/17)
2017 Dec 3, Iran awarded its biennial $500,000 Mustafa Prize to two computer science experts, Iranian Amin Shokrollahi and Turkish-French national Sami Erol Gelenbe, for their achievements in systems assessment in model-making and computer coding.
(AP, 12/3/17)
2017 Dec 7, In southwestern Iran eight climbers died in an avalanche and a ninth was missing on Oshtorankouh mountain in the Zagros range.
(AP, 12/9/17)
2017 Dec 9, Iran said Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Iran's largest state-owned bank, has been given a 20-year prison sentence and $6 million fine in absentia over a record-breaking $2.6 billion embezzlement scandal. Khavari fled to Canada after the scandal broke in 2011. Canada does not have an extradition agreement with Iran.
(AFP, 12/9/17)
2017 Dec 10, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani promised high economic growth as he laid out next year's budget. Britain's foreign minister Boris Johnson met with Rouhani, wrapping up a visit in which they discussed a full range of regional and bilateral issues. A key focus of Johnson's visit was the case of British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving five years for taking part in mass protests in 2009, which she denies.
(AFP, 12/10/17)
2017 Dec 17, Iran shut primary schools in Tehran and other parts of the country due to choking levels of air pollution. In the northwestern cities of Tabriz and Urmia, schools remained closed for the second day straight.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 19, Iran sentenced Hamid Baghaei, a former vice president, to 63 years in prison over misuse of public funds while in office. Baghaei was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vice president in charge of executive affairs.
(AP, 12/20/17)
2017 Dec 20, In Iran schools were closed for a fourth straight day in Tehran as dangerous air pollution covered the Iranian capital and traffic restrictions failed to clear the thick smog.
(AFP, 12/20/17)
2017 Dec 21, In Iran police arrested 140 of the young partygoers late today in a garden on the outskirts of Tehran and 90 in the city's uptown while dancing and drinking alcohol.
(AP, 12/22/17)
2017 Dec 22, The US State Department re-designated China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as "countries of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act for having engaged in or tolerated egregious violations of religious freedom.
(AP, 1/4/18)
2017 Dec 27, Tehran's police chief said Iranian police are taking a softer approach to breaches of Islamic rules, opting for education over punishment. Police will no longer arrest women for failing to observe the Islamic dress code imposed since 1979. Violators will be made to attend classes.
(AFP, 12/27/17)(SFC, 12/29/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 28, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said people have been detained following protests in the northeastern city of Mashdad over price hikes. The prices of many basic goods, including eggs, have increased by 30-40 percent in recent days.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 29, Iranians protesting the country's strained economy gathered in Tehran and the western city of Kermanshah, for the second day of spontaneous, unsanctioned demonstrations placing pressure on President Hassan Rouhani's government.
(AP, 12/29/17)
2017 Dec 30, In Iran a wave of spontaneous protests over a weak economy swept into Tehran, with college students and others chanting against the government. The relatively small protest erupted at the University of Tehran but was vastly outnumbered by a pro-regime demonstration. Two demonstrators were shot dead late today in the western town of Dorud.
(AP, 12/30/17)(AFP, 12/30/17)(Reuters, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 30, In Iran a Sunni jihadist group claimed to have blown up an oil pipeline in southern Khuzestan province, the scene of other attacks by Arab separatists.
(AP, 12/30/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran blocked access to Instagram and the popular Telegram messaging app used by activists to organize and publicize the protests now roiling the Islamic Republic. The free Telegram app, created by Russian national Pavel Durov, was used by an estimated 40 million Iranians.
(AP, 12/31/17)
2017 Dec 31, Iran warned of a tough crackdown against demonstrators who pose one of the most audacious challenges to its clerical leaders since nationwide pro-reform unrest jolted the Islamist theocracy in 2009. In apparent response to the protests The government backed down on plans to raise fuel prices and promised to increase cash handouts to the poor and create more jobs in coming years. 10 people were killed in widespread anti-government protests across the country in cities including Kermanshah, Khorramabad and Shahinshahr.
(Reuters, 12/31/17)(AFP, 1/1/18)
2017 Dec, Iran's Supreme Court upheld a death sentence against Ahmadreza Djalali, a Sweden-based Iranian academic convicted of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate several senior nuclear scientists.
(Reuters, 2/4/18)
2017 In Iran Vida Movahed (30) was dubbed the "Girl of Enghelab Street" and briefly arrested after she took off her headscarf and held it in the air. A court sentenced her in March, 2018, after finding her guilty of encouraging public "corruption." She was arrested in November. In 2019 she was sentenced to one year in prison but pardoned by the supreme leader.
(AP, 4/14/19)
2018 Jan 1, Iran’s state TV said nationwide protests saw their most violent night as "armed protesters" tried to overrun military bases and police stations before security forces repelled them, bringing the death toll in the unrest to at least 12. Fresh protests broke out as night fell in Tehran. Nine Iranians were killed in Isfahan province during anti-government protests this evening as security forces struggled to contain the boldest challenge to the clerical leadership since unrest in 2009. A gunman reportedly killed one policeman and wounded three other officers during a protest gathering in Najafabad.
(AP, 1/1/18)(AFP, 1/1/18)(Reuters, 1/2/18)(AP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran's supreme leader blamed the country's "enemies" for days of unrest that have seen 21 killed and hundreds arrested in the biggest test for the Islamic regime in years.
(AFP, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 2, Iran re-opened two crossings with the Iraqi Kurdistan region that it had closed after a referendum in favor of independence in the Kurdish area.
(Reuters, 1/2/18)
2018 Jan 3, Thousands of Iranians took part in pro-government rallies in several cities as the elite Revolutionary Guards deployed forces to three provinces to put down an eruption of anti-government unrest. Six days of protests have left 21 people dead.
(Reuters, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 3, Israel's internal security agency said it has busted an Iranian espionage ring operating in the West Bank and arrested Mohammed Maharmeh (29) its Palestinian leader. Maharmeh was allegedly tasked with enlisting suicide bombers and gunmen for attacks against Israelis.
(AP, 1/3/18)
2018 Jan 4, Iran's army chief declared that police had already quelled anti-government unrest that has killed 21 people but that his troops were ready to intervene if needed, as Tehran staged more pro-government rallies.
(Reuters, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 5, Iran’s state TV reported that tens of thousands of government supporters rallied across the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and accusing the US of instigating the largest anti-government protests in nearly a decade.
(Reuters, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 5, The US imposed sanctions against five Iranian firms alleged to have been working on an illegal ballistic missile program, linking the move to the protests, and called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
(AP, 1/5/18)
2018 Jan 6, In Iran thousands of government supporters staged rallies for a fourth day, in a backlash against widespread protests that the clerical establishment has blamed on the country's enemies.
(Reuters, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 6, A senior education official said Iran has banned the teaching of English in primary schools, after the country's Supreme Leader said early learning of the language opened the way to a Western "cultural invasion".
(Reuters, 1/7/18)
2018 Jan 6, An official in the Fatemiyoun Brigade of Afghan "volunteer" recruits told Iranian media that more than 2,000 Afghans deployed by Iran have been killed fighting in Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
(AFP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 6, The Sanchi tanker carrying Iranian oil and run by the country's top oil shipping firm was ablaze and spewing cargo into the East China Sea after colliding with the Chinese CF Crystal freight ship, leaving the tanker's 32 crew members missing. The Panama-registered tanker was sailing from Iran to South Korea, carrying 136,000 tons of condensate, an ultra light crude, equivalent to just under 1 million barrels.
(Reuters, 1/7/18)
2018 Jan 7, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said that the nation and its security forces have ended the wave of unrest linked to anti-government protests that erupted last month.
(AP, 1/7/18)
2018 Jan 8, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani went all-in with a push for greater civil liberties in the wake of the deadly unrest that rocked Iran in recent days.
(AFP, 1/8/18)
2018 Jan 8, In Iran a judiciary official announced that a detainee had committed suicide in Tehran's Evin prison.
(Reuters, 1/9/18)
2018 Jan 9, An Iranian lawmaker said security forces arrested some 3,700 people during widespread protests and unrest over the past two weeks. A judiciary official announced that a detainee in Arak, a town approximately 200 km south of Tehran, had died after committing suicide.
(AP, 1/9/18)
2018 Jan 10, Iran’s pro-reform Shargh newspaper and other dailies reported that Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani, the head of the judiciary, has ordered officials to "quickly" review cases and implement new regulations that will prevent thousands of convicted drug smugglers from being executed.
(AP, 1/10/18)
2018 Jan 10, Rescue crews were forced to retreat from the stricken Sanchi, an Iranian oil tanker in the East China Sea, following an explosion on the ship as a fire raged for a fourth day after a dramatic collision.
(Israel, 1/10/18)
2018 Jan 10, The Iranian naval destroyer Damavand crashed into a breakwater during a storm, killing two crew members. It sank in the Caspian Sea following the crash.
(AP, 1/28/18)
2018 Jan 13, A Chinese salvage team recovered two bodies from the stricken Sanchi Iranian oil tanker, still blazing a week after it caught fire and was left adrift following a collision in the East China Sea. 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis remained missing.
(Reuters, 1/13/18)
2018 Jan 14, Iranian officials said that hundreds of people detained in recent weeks during anti-government protests have been released and acknowledged that at least 25 people were killed during the unrest. Iran lifted restrictions imposed during recent protests on the country's most popular social media app Telegram.
(AP, 1/14/18)(AFP, 1/14/18)
2018 Jan 14, Chinese state media said the Sanchi, an Iranian oil tanker, has sunk after burning for more than a week following a collision on Jan. 6 in the East China Sea, adding that a large amount of oil was burning in the surrounding waters.
(Reuters, 1/14/18)
2018 Jan 20, Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered both the country's regular military and the Revolutionary Guard to get out of businesses not directly affiliated to their work.
(AP, 1/21/18)
2018 Jan 24, Iranian media said a fire broke out at a bitumen storage facility in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, killing three workers.
(AP, 1/24/18)
2018 Jan 27, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards clashed with Islamic State militants in the western part of the country.
(AP, 1/27/18)
2018 Jan 28, Iran's first heavy snowfall of the season forced both international airports in the capital to close. Many welcomed the heavy snow, which comes amid a severe drought.
(AP, 1/28/18)
2018 Jan 29, Iran oil ministry said it said it is ready to file a case with the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) over the quality and price of gas it receives from Turkmenistan, as a dispute between the two nations over payments escalates.
(Reuters, 1/29/18)
2018 Jan 31, Iranian police detained 29 women who removed their obligatory Islamic veils. They were taking part in an antihijab campaign known as “White Wednesdays," advocated by the foreign-based Farsi language satellite TV networks. Women showing their hair in public can be jailed for up to two months or fined $25.
(SFC, 2/2/18, p.A2)
2018 Jan, Pres. Donald Trump extended sanctions waivers on Iran but said he would not do so again when they come up for renewal in May unless his concerns are addressed.
(AP, 2/5/18)
2018 Feb 4, Iran’s prosecutor-general said a court has sentenced a suspect to six years in prison for relaying information on the country's nuclear program to a US intelligence agent and a European country.
(AP, 2/4/18)
2018 Feb 5, In Iran a man (35) wielding a machete was shot and arrested after trying to break into the presidential office building in Tehran.
(AP, 2/5/18)
2018 Feb 9, Iranian authorities called the wife of Seyed-Emami to say her husband had committed suicide in Tehran's Evin prison. The environmental activist, a dual national of Canada and sociology professor at Iran’s Imam Sadegh University, had been arrested on January 24 with at least nine other staff members and executives of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation.
(AP, 2/11/18)
2018 Feb 10, Israel said an Iranian drone infiltrated its airspace from Syria. Israeli planes struck 12 targets including three aerial defense batteries and four Iranian targets that were part of Iran's military establishment in Syria. An Israeli F-16 was shot down. One pilot was evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment. A second pilot was lightly wounded.
(AP, 2/10/18)
2018 Feb 11, Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied on the streets to mark the 39th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, just weeks after anti-government protests rocked cities across the country.
(AP, 2/11/18)
2018 Feb 14, Some Iranian youth celebrated Valentine's Day even though authorities have banned the celebrations as part of "decadent Western culture."
(AP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 17, India and Iran said that they would step up cooperation in combatting extremism, terrorism and drug trafficking in Afghanistan in an effort to restore peace and stability to the war-wracked country. India and Iran also signed agreements including Tehran leasing to New Delhi operational control of part of the Iranian east coast port of Chabahar for 18 months.
(AP, 2/17/18)(Reuters, 2/17/18)
2018 Feb 17, The Swedish foreign ministry confirmed that it had granted citizenship to Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian academic with Swedish residency. He was arrested in Tehran in April 2016 and later convicted of espionage, accused of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.
(Reuters, 2/20/18)
2018 Feb 18, In southern Iran a commercial ATR-72 airplane brought back into service only months ago after being grounded for seven years crashed into Mount Dena. All 65 people on board Iran’s Aseman Airlines Flight No. EP3704 were killed.
(AP, 2/18/18)
2018 Feb 19, In Iran Sufis rallied in front of a police station in Tehran demanding the release of a detainee. Sufi follower Mohammad Salas rammed a bus into a group of police officers, killing three of them before being arrested. Two members of the Basij forces also were killed in a stabbing and another car-ramming attack, which also injured 30. Police arrested over 300 Sufi followers, including the drivers of both vehicles. Salas was convicted in march and sentenced to death.
(AP, 2/20/18)(AP, 3/19/18)
2018 Feb 21, Saudi Arabia freed nine Iranian fishermen detained two years ago. A tenth fisherman was reported killed in the initial incident.
(Reuters, 2/22/18)
2018 Feb 23, In Iran a video showing a policeman shoving a woman protesting against mandatory headscarves off her makeshift podium in a busy Tehran street sparked criticism on social media.
(AFP, 2/23/18)
2018 Feb 23, An Iranian conservative-linked news website reported that three environmentalists have been detained, the latest in a series of arrests of wildlife campaigners in the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/24/18)
2018 Mar 3, Iran's armed forces spokesman said that there can be no talks on the country's missile program without the West's destruction of its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
(AFP, 3/3/18)
2018 Mar 5, Journalists flooded Iran's National Museum for the arrival of more than 50 artworks from the Louvre, the first major show by a Western museum in the country’s history.
(AFP, 3/5/18)
2018 Mar 5, A UN report said Iran has arrested activists and political opponents in a clampdown on freedom of expression as use of torture continues despite promises of reform. The report was compiled by Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer serving as UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, who died suddenly last month.
(Reuters, 3/5/18)
2018 Mar 7, In Iran Maryam Mombeini, the widow of an Iranian-Canadian university professor who died under disputed circumstances in a Tehran prison, was stopped from traveling abroad.
(AP, 3/8/18)
2018 Mar 7, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed in a phone call to speed up efforts for the implementation of a ceasefire in Syria’s eastern Ghouta region.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 10, Direct flights between Iran and Serbia resumed when an IranAir jet touched down at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport following a gap of 27 years.
(AFP, 3/10/18)
2018 Mar 11, In Iran four "terrorists" were killed after infiltrating and attacking a military checkpoint in a southeastern border area.
(AFP, 3/12/18)
2018 Mar 11, In Iran a private Turkish jet carrying a group of young women flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul crashed into a mountain in Shahr-e Kord, killing all eleven people on board.
(SFC, 3/12/18, p.A2)
2018 Mar 23, The US Justice Department announced charges against 9 Iranians and the Mabna Institute, a company US prosecutors characterized as designed to help Iranian research organizations steal information. The DOJ said Iran's government-sponsored hacking scheme had pilfered sensitive information from hundreds of universities, private companies and government agencies.
(AP, 3/23/18)(Reuters, 3/24/18)
2018 Mar 26, The Iranian rial fell to a record low, breaking through the 50,000-to-the-dollar mark for the first time, as analysts blamed uncertainty from Washington.
(AFP, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 31, An Iranian news site reported that the country will block the Telegram messenger service for reasons of national security. Officials said the app would be replaced by a similar local system.
(AP, 3/31/18)
2018 Mar, In Iran Hamid Baghaie, who served as vice president under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), was jailed for 15 years for embezzling 3,766,000 euros and $590,000. He soon went on a hunger strike and was in deteriorating health after being imprisoned on what he said were politically motivated charges.
{Iran}
(AFP, 3/28/18)
2018 Apr 4, Turkey, Iran and Russia pledged to accelerate efforts to bring stability to Syria, following a summit meeting in Ankara.
(Reuters, 4/4/18)
2018 Apr 8, In Syria a missile attack on the central T-4, air base near Homs reportedly killed 14 people, including four Iranians. Syria blamed Israel.
(AP, 4/9/18)(Reuters, 4/9/18)
2018 Apr 10, Iran moved to enforce a single exchange rate to the dollar, banning all unregulated trading after the rial hit an all-time low. As of today the official rate will be 42,000 rials to the dollar.
(AP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 12, The Council of the European Union extended the sanctions put on Iran over human rights violations by a year until April 2019.
(Reuters, 4/12/18)
2018 Apr 17, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani agreed in a telephone call to maintain the cooperation between Turkey, Iran and Russia for a political solution to the conflict in Syria.
(Reuters, 4/17/18)
2018 Apr 18, Iran's state media said the presidency has banned all government bodies from using foreign-based messaging apps to communicate with citizens, after economic protests organized through such apps shook the country earlier this year.
(AP, 4/18/18)
2018 Apr 19, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has requested an investigation after a video surfaced showing police pushing and pulling a young woman who was resisting arrest for not adhering to the Islamic dress code.
(AP, 4/19/18)
2018 Apr 19, Iran arrested a senior official after a video posted online showed young boys and girls dancing in public in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.
(AFP, 4/19/18)
2018 Apr 22, Iran's state media reported that the judiciary has arrested former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi. He was sentenced to two years in prison in late 2017 for complicity in the 2009 death of a man arrested after the pro-reform protests but had gone missing.
(Reuters, 4/22/18)
2018 Apr 25, Abbas Attar (b.1944), Iranian-born photographer, died in Paris. His book "Iran Diary 1971-2002" was published in 2002.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_(photographer))(SFC, 5/2/18, p.D7)
2018 Apr 26, Iranian media confirmed that Abbas Edalat, a British-Iranian scientist and peace campaigner, has been arrested for his alleged role in an "infiltration network." Edalat was reportedly detained on April 15.
(AFP, 4/26/18)
2018 Apr 28, In Moscow Russian, Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers talked up their successes in brokering a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
(AFP, 4/28/18)
2018 Apr 29, In central Syria missile strikes late today killed 26 pro-regime fighters, most of them Iranians, in a raid that bore the hallmarks of Tehran's archfoe Israel. The missile strikes hit two military targets in Aleppo and Hama provinces.
(AFP, 4/30/18)
2018 Apr 30, Iranian TV reported that the state judiciary has banned the popular Telegram instant messaging app to protect national security.
(Reuters, 4/30/18)
2018 Apr 30, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled what he said was evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 5/1/18)
2018 May 1, Hundreds of Iranians defied a ban on protests to mark International Labor Day, with police detaining at least six people.
(AP, 5/1/18)
2018 May 2, In Iran a magnitude 5.3 earthquake injured at least 76 people and damaged buildings in the southwestern city of Sisakht.
(Reuters, 5/2/18)
2018 May 5, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the government "does not approve" of the judiciary's recent blockage of the Telegram messaging app.
(AFP, 5/5/18)
2018 May 6, A Tehran prosecutor said sixteen women who went to Syria to join Islamic State have been jailed in Iran.
(Reuters, 5/6/18)
2018 May 8, President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement. Trump says the US will re-impose sanctions on Iran, meaning European companies must stop doing business with the country or run afoul of the US government.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, The Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar in the free market. The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard welcomed President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the 2015 nuclear deal, saying it was clear from the beginning that the Americans were "not trustworthy" and that the move would have no impact.
(Reuters, 5/9/18)(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, Britain's foreign secretary Boris Johnson said the country "has no intention of walking away" from the Iran nuclear agreement despite the United States' decision to pull out.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, China expressed regret over President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal and said it remains committed to the landmark pact.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 9, Germany's foreign minister vowed to work to preserve the Iran nuclear deal and prevent an "uncontrolled escalation" of tensions in the Middle East. The Federation of German Industries, or BDI, said it rejects "the extraterritorial application of sanctions" and called upon the EU to find a solution to protect European companies from the "unlawful and unilateral" application of US sanctions.
(AP, 5/9/18)
2018 May 10, The Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia will maintain close coordination on nuclear issues with Iran despite the US quitting the international agreement.
(Reuters, 5/10/18)
2018 May 13, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that, if its interests were protected, Tehran would remain committed to its 2015 nuclear deal, which his foreign minister hoped could be redesigned without Washington.
(Reuters, 5/13/18)
2018 May 13, Iranian media said eight alleged members of the Islamic State group have been sentenced to death in connection with deadly twin attacks in Tehran last June.
(AFP, 5/13/18)
2018 May 15, It was reported that the Trump administration is designating Valiollah Seif, the head of Iran's central bank, as a terrorist and hitting him with sanctions intended to further isolate Iran from the global financial system.
(AP, 5/15/18)
2018 May 16, In southwestern Iran two people were killed and 48 injured in a violent protest in Kazeroon. This was preceded by peaceful protests against a local government decision to divide some districts of the city and merge them into a new town.
(AP, 5/19/18)
2018 May 16, In the presence of the British ambassador in Tehran officials from Britain's Pergas International Consortium and the National Iranian South Oil Co. signed a preliminary deal on a partnership to develop the 55-year-old Karanj oil field.
(AP, 5/17/18)
2018 May 16, French oil and gas giant Total said it has decided to cancel a multi-billion-dollar project in Iran unless it is granted a waiver by US authorities.
(AP, 5/17/18)
2018 May 17, Danish shipping group Maersk Tankers said it would cease its activities in Iran due to the US decision to leave a landmark nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions against Tehran.
(AFP, 5/17/18)
2018 May 17, The European Commission said it will launch on May 18 the process of activating a law that bans European companies from complying with US sanctions against Iran and does not recognize any court rulings that enforce American penalties.
(Reuters, 5/17/18)
2018 May 19, The European Union's energy chief sought to reassure Iran that the bloc remained committed to salvaging a nuclear deal with Tehran despite US President Donald Trump's decision to exit the accord and reimpose sanctions.
(Reuters, 5/19/18)
2018 May 21, The United States issued a steep list of demands to be included in a nuclear treaty with Iran to replace the deal scuttled by President Donald Trump and threatened "the strongest sanctions in history" if Iran doesn't change course.
(AP, 5/21/18)
2018 May 22, The United States imposed sanctions on five Iranians it said had provided Yemen's Houthis with expertise and weaponry that were then used to launch missiles at cities and oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters, 5/22/18)
2018 May 24, The United States imposed sanctions on several Iranian and Turkish companies and a number of aircraft in a move targeting four Iranian airlines.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 25, In Austria signatories of the Iran nuclear deal met in Vienna in a bid to save the agreement, as Iran warned the deal had been put "in intensive care" by Washington's dramatic withdrawal earlier this month.
(AFP, 5/25/18)
2018 May 26, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that the country's authorities have detained a professor of Persian Literature at Azad University in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan for posting a video online insulting Sunni Muslims.
(AP, 5/26/18)
2018 May 30, Iran's oil minister gave French energy giant Total 60 days to win a sanctions waiver from Washington or it would lose its stake in a multi-billion-dollar gas project.
(AFP, 5/30/18)
2018 May 30, The United States imposed sanctions on six Iranians and three Iran-based entities, including Tehran's Evin prison. The sanctions also targeted the group Ansar-e Hezbollah and the Hanista Programing Group.
(Reuters, 5/30/18)
2018 May 31, Iran's soccer federation suspended all relations with its Greek counterpart after a friendly between the two nations scheduled in Istanbul was abruptly cancelled amid ongoing Greece-Turkey tensions.
(AP, 6/1/18)
2018 May 31, In London Husnain Rashid (32), an alleged Islamic State group supporter who encouraged attacks on 4-year-old Prince George of Britain, admitted to a string of terror offenses. The trial, which had been scheduled to last six weeks, was abruptly ended because of the plea. Sentencing is set for June 28.
(AP, 5/31/18)
2018 May 31, The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Iranian advisers and Hezbollah fighters will be withdrawing from the southern regions of Daraa and Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. A Syria-based official with the Iran-led axis of resistance denied the report saying it is "untrue".
(AP, 5/31/18)
2018 Jun 5, Iran's nuclear chief said his country has begun preparations to boost its uranium enrichment capacity, adding to pressure on European powers trying to save a nuclear accord with Tehran in peril after a US withdrawal.
(Reuters, 6/5/18)
2018 Jun 8, Iran's Revolutionary Guards reportedly killed nine militants in clashes with militants near northwestern Oshnavieh and Sarvabad.
(Reuters, 6/10/18)
2018 Jun 10, Iran’s military said Revolutionary Guards have killed six militants who had crossed the border from Iraq and intended to carry out operations inside the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 6/10/18)
2018 Jun 11, Iranian semi-official Fars news agency reported that the country's authorities have detained 27 suspected members of a terrorist group. The report said a large amount of explosives and weapons were confiscated, including machine guns and grenades.
(AP, 6/11/18)
2018 Jun 13, Iranian security forces arrested prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. The mother of two also worked as a lawyer for women detained for refusing to cover their hair in public. She has represented Iranian opposition activists and in 2010 was sentenced to six years in jail and banned from practice after being convicted of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security.
(Reuters, 6/13/18)(AP, 6/13/18)
2018 Jun 24, In Iran traders in Tehran's Grand Bazaar held a rare protest strike against the collapse of the rial on the foreign exchange market as demonstrators also took to the streets. Protesters angered by Iran's cratering economy confronted police in front of parliament, with security forces firing tear gas at them. The rial had lost 40 per cent of its value since last month, when President Donald Trump pulled out of Iran's 2015 nuclear accord and announced draconian sanctions on Tehran.
(AFP, 6/25/18)(AP, 6/25/18)(Reuters, 6/29/18)
2018 Jun 25, Three Iranian security personnel and three militants were killed in a cross-border attack on the frontier with Pakistan near Mirjaveh border area in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
(Reuters, 6/26/18)
2018 Jun 26, Russia, backed by Iran and Syria, sought to head off a Western push to endow the world's global chemical watchdog (OPCW) with new powers to identify those behind toxic arms attacks.
(AFP, 6/26/18)
2018 Jun 28, Iran said it has restarted production at a "major" uranium facility involved in its nuclear program, though it still pledges to follow the terms of the country's landmark atomic deal now under threat after Pres. Donald Trump pulled America out of the accord.
(AP, 6/28/18)
2018 Jun 28, Industry sources said India, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil after China, will be forced to take action to protect its exposure to the US financial system. They said India's oil ministry has asked refiners to prepare for a 'drastic reduction or zero' imports of Iranian oil from November.
(Reuters, 6/28/18)
2018 Jun 30, Belgium police intercepted two suspects with 500 grams of TATP, a home-made explosive produced of easily available chemicals, as well as a detonation device found in their car. They were suspected of plotting a bomb attack on a meeting of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which took place in Villepinte, just outside of Paris, a three-hour drive from Brussels.
(Reuters, 7/2/18)
2018 Jul 1, Iran called for calm after protests in a southern city over water shortages turned violent overnight with reports of police shooting at demonstrators who attacked banks and public buildings. The semi-official Fars news agency reported that 230 people have been poisoned by drinking polluted water in the county's southwest.
(AP, 7/1/18)
2018 Jul 1, In Germany a Vienna-based Iranian diplomat, identified later as Assadollah Assadi (46), was arrested over a suspected plot to carry out a bomb attack on an exiled Iranian opposition group. French police also detained a man of Iranian origin in France.
(Reuters, 7/4/18)(AP, 7/4/18)
2018 Jul 2, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Switzerland for talks expected to focus on salvaging progress from the Iran nuclear deal after the Trump administration's walkout.
(AP, 7/2/18)
2018 Jul 3, Swiss President Alain Berset urged all sides not to endanger the nuclear agreement between global powers and Iran, after meeting his Tehran counterpart, Hassan Rouhani.
(Reuters, 7/3/18)
2018 Jul 3, The United Arab Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority ordered firms to identify and freeze the accounts and assets of nine Iranian individuals and entities the UAE has placed on its terrorism list.
(Reuters, 7/3/18)
2018 Jul 4, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's and discussed issues including salvaging the Iran nuclear deal after the US decision to withdraw and reinstate sanctions on Tehran. Rouhani first met with Pres. Alexander Van der Bellen and then Chancellor Sebastian Kurz later in the day.
(AP, 7/4/18)(AFP, 7/4/18)
2018 Jul 6, Iranian state TV broadcast a video in which Maedeh Hojabri, an 18-year-old gymnast who posted dance videos on Instagram, acknowledged breaking moral norms while insisting that was not her intention, and that she was only trying to gain more followers. A local news website, said Hojabri and three other individuals had been detained on similar charges in recent weeks before being released on bail.
(AP, 7/8/18)
2018 Jul 6, Meeting in Vienna top diplomats from Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China reaffirmed their commitment to the 2015 deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
(AP, 7/6/18)
2018 Jul 6, The Dutch Intelligence service AIVD said two Iranian embassy staff have been expelled. No further information was provided.
(Reuters, 7/6/18)
2018 Jul 7, Iran's oil minister accused US President Donald Trump of insulting OPEC by ordering it to increase production and reduce prices, adding that Iranian output and exports had not changed as a result of US pressure.
(Reuters, 7/7/18)
2018 Jul 7, Iran announced that it has executed eight men convicted over the June 7, 2017, Islamic State attack on parliament and the shrine of the Islamic Republic's founding ayatollah. Over a dozen others remained on trial over the attack.
(AP, 7/7/18)
2018 Jul 7, France's CMA CGM, one of the world's biggest cargo shippers, announced it was pulling out of Iran for fear of becoming entangled in US sanctions. Pres. Hassan Rouhani demanded that European countries to do more to offset the US measures.
(Reuters, 7/7/18)
2018 Jul 9, Iranians on social media mocked clerical rulers after the hardline judiciary arrested a teenage girl for posting on Instagram videos of herself dancing in her room.
(Reuters, 7/9/18)
2018 Jul 12, Iran's state-run news agency reported that police killed a man while trying to disperse a protest over water scarcity. Protests have been held across southern Iran in recent weeks over water scarcity.
(AP, 7/12/18)
2018 Jul 13, France said the United States rejected a request for waivers for its companies operating in Iran that Paris sought after President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 7/13/18)
2018 Jul 17, The International Court of Justice said Iran has filed a suit against the United States alleging that sanctions imposed by Washington in May violate a 1955 bilateral treaty between the two countries.
(Reuters, 7/17/18)
2018 Jul 18, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic agency, said Iran has built a factory that can produce rotors for up to 60 centrifuges a day, upping the stakes in a confrontation with Washington over the Islamic Republic's nuclear work.
(Reuters, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 19, The latest Global Slavery Index showed one in 10 people in North Korea live in slavery, with most forced to work for the state. The index listed Eritrea, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Mauritania, South Sudan, Pakistan, Cambodia and Iran as the worst offenders after North Korea.
(AP, 7/19/18)
2018 Jul 21, Iranian media reported that at least 10 Iranian border guards were killed in an overnight attack by unidentified gunmen near the town of Marivan, a Kurdish area near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 21, US officials said the Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups.
(Reuters, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 22, Iranian Pres. Hassan Rouhani told US Pres. Trump that hostile policies toward Tehran could lead to "the mother of all wars." Trump soon responded saying Iran risked dire consequences "the like of which few throughout history have suffered before" if the Islamic Republic made more threats against the United States.
(AP, 7/23/18)
2018 Jul 23, The White House blamed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for inciting a war of words with President Donald Trump, who warned that verbal threats could escalate into military conflict with the US.
(AP, 7/23/18)
2018 Jul 24, Iran said it will react with equal countermeasures if Washington tries to block its oil exports, while the Islamic Republic's armed forces chief said US threats would draw an "unimaginable and regrettable" reaction.
(Reuters, 7/24/18)
2018 Jul 26, A US government report said China, Iran and Russia, along with their proxy hackers, are hard at work trying to steal trade secrets and proprietary information from the US. The report identified a Chinese cyberespionage group called APT10 and an Iranian hacker group called "Rocket Kitten".
(SFC, 7/27/18, p.A3)
2018 Jul 29, Iran's currency hit a record low of 100,000 rials to the dollar amid a deepening economic crisis and the imminent return of full US sanctions.
(AFP, 7/29/18)
2018 Jul 29, It was reported that Iran's top security body has approved the release of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest for seven years for leading mass protests in 2009.
(AFP, 7/29/18)
2018 Jul 30, US Pres. Donald Trump offered talks with Tehran without preconditions.
(Reuters, 7/31/18)
2018 Jul 31, Senior Iranian officials rejected US President Donald Trump's offer of talks without preconditions as worthless and "a humiliation" after he acted to reimpose sanctions on Tehran following his withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal. Interior minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said: "The United States is not trustworthy. How can we trust this country when it withdraws unilaterally from the nuclear deal?"
(Reuters, 7/31/18)
2018 Aug 2, In Iran scattered protests broke out in several cities over the dramatic drop of the country's currency and other economic problems ahead of the imposition of renewed American sanctions.
(AP, 8/2/18)
2018 Aug 4, In Iran sporadic protests took place in cities for a fourth day, with demonstrators attacking a Shi'ite seminary west of Tehran, as Iranians brace for a return of US sanctions.
(Reuters, 8/4/18)
2018 Aug 5, Iranian news agency IRNA reported that IranAir has taken delivery of five more ATR turboprop aircraft, shortly before Washington imposes new sanctions on Iran after exiting a nuclear pact between Tehran and major world powers.
(Reuters, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 5, Iranian news agency IRNA reported that Saudi Arabia has agreed to admit an Iranian diplomat to head an office representing Iranian interests in the kingdom.
(Reuters, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 6, Iran's Central Bank lifted a ban on exchange offices, allowing them to resume work in a move aimed at bringing in badly needed hard currencies. A first set of US sanctions, that had been eased by the Obama administration under the terms of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, were set to take effect the next day.
(AP, 8/6/18)
2018 Aug 6, The US ordered the restoration of sanctions against Iran reviving economic penalties that were lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord.
(SFC, 8/7/18, p.A2)
2018 Aug 7, Iranians awoke to renewed US sanctions that had been lifted by Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. The newly imposed American sanctions targeted US dollar financial transactions, Iran's automotive sector, and the purchase of commercial planes and metals, including gold.
(AP, 8/7/18)
2018 Aug 7, US President Donald Trump warned the world against doing business with Iran as he hailed the "most biting sanctions ever imposed", triggering a mix of anger, fear and defiance in Tehran.
(AFP, 8/7/18)
2018 Aug 8, Iran’s Minister of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare, Ali Rabiei, was sacked by parliament, the latest shuffle in top economic posts as the Islamic Republic struggles to stabilize its economy.
(Reuters, 8/8/18)
2018 Aug 10, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard reportedly killed 10 militants late today in a Kurdish region near the border with Iraq.
(AP, 8/11/18)
2018 Aug 11, Iran's Guardian Council, a top constitutional body, approved measures passed by parliament to bring the country more into line with global money-laundering norms, as Tehran tries to attract investments despite the reimposition of US sanctions.
(Reuters, 8/11/18)
2018 Aug 12, Iran's judiciary said that 67 people have been arrested in recent weeks as part of a corruption crackdown approved by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
(AFP, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 12, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan agreed in principle how to divide up the potentially huge oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea.
(Reuters, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 12, The United States urged Britain to ditch its support for a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and instead join forces with Washington to counter the global threat it says Tehran poses.
(Reuters, 8/12/18)
2018 Aug 13, Iran unveiled a next generation short-range ballistic missile and vowed to further boost its capabilities.
(AFP, 8/13/18)
2018 Aug 15, Lawyers for Iran's award-winning human rights advocate Nasrin Sotoudeh (55) said that her five-year sentence on spying charges was unlawful as she was never charged or given the chance to appear in court.
(AP, 8/15/18)
2018 Aug 18, Iran said it would resist the pressures of US sanctions by relying on its natural and human resources, as Washington pushes allies to cut economic ties with Tehran.
(Reuters, 8/18/18)
2018 Aug 18, Iranian police detained human rights lawyer Ghasem Sholeh-Saadi (64) after he appeared outside parliament in an "illegal gathering." A day earlier and on his Instagram account, Sholeh-Saadi posted that he will stage a sit-in protest in front of parliament to demand free elections.
(AP, 8/19/18)
2018 Aug 19, Iranian journalist Mir Mohammad-Hossein Mir-Esmaili was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "insulting" an imam from the ninth century on Twitter. He planned to appeal.
(AFP, 8/20/18)
2018 Aug 20, France told its diplomats and foreign ministry officials, in an internal memo, to postpone indefinitely all non-essential travel to Iran, citing a foiled bomb plot and a hardening of Tehran's attitude towards France.
(Reuters, 8/28/18)
2018 Aug 21, Iran unveiled its first domestic fighter jet, with President Hassan Rouhani insisting that Tehran's military strength was only designed to deter enemies and create "lasting peace".
(AFP, 8/21/18)
2018 Aug 22, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it will continue increasing the country's defensive capabilities, and will not surrender to pressure over its missile program.
(Reuters, 8/22/18)
2018 Aug 23, In Iran British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe left the Evin prison for a three-day furlough, a breakthrough in the case that her family hopes will lead to permanent freedom. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 23, British Airways said it is suspending flights between London and Tehran because they are not commercially viable.
{Britain, Iran, Aviation}
(Reuters, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 23, The European Commission unveiled a first tranche of 18 million euros ($21 million) to help bolster Iran's flagging economy — 8 million for the private sector, 8 million to cope with environmental problems and 2 million for drug abuse.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 24, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu asked Baltic state leaders for help in convincing the EU to step up pressure on Iran and slammed a Brussels aid package for Teheran at a news conference in Vilnius with his Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts.
(AFP, 8/24/18)
2018 Aug 25, Iran said it has resumed talks with Russia to build a new nuclear power plant capable of generating up to 3,000 megawatts of electricity.
(Reuters, 8/25/18)
2018 Aug 25, In northeastern Iran ten people were killed and five wounded after a boiler exploded in a residential area of the city of Mashhad.
(Reuters, 8/25/18)
2018 Aug 26, Iran's defense minister said his country will continue its support of the Syrian government to ensure improved security in the region.
(AP, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 26, Iran's parliament sacked Masoud Karbasian, the minister of economic affairs and finance, amid a sharp fall in the rial currency and a deterioration in the economic situation.
(Reuters, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 26, A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck western Iran's Kermanshah province early today, killing two people and injuring more than 250. There were three apparent aftershocks until sunrise, all at least magnitude 4.
(AFP, 8/26/18)(AP, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 26, An Iranian F-5 fighter jet crashed in southern Iran killing its pilot. Iran bought its F-5 fighters from the United States before the 1979 Islamic revolution and still has 48 in service, according to the latest estimates by Jane's IHS Markit.
(AFP, 8/26/18)
2018 Aug 27, Iran's Revolutionary Guards top General Alireza Tangsiri said Iran has full control of the Gulf and the US Navy does not belong there.
(Reuters, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 27, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported that Iran and Syria have signed a deal for military cooperation in a meeting between the defense ministers of the two countries in Damascus.
(Reuters, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 27, Iranian lawyers asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order the United States to lift sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against Tehran, but Washington described the suit as meritless. Iran claimed the US policy is "plainly in violation of the 1955 Treaty of Amity."
(Reuters, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 28, Iran's parliament declared its dissatisfaction with President Hassan Rouhani, voting to reject his answers after grilling him over the deteriorating economy.
(AFP, 8/28/18)
2018 Aug 28, Iran's intelligence minister boasted on state television about his country's successful recruitment of a former Cabinet-level official from a "hostile" country, signaling Tehran's first acknowledgment of compromising an arrested Israeli official.
(AP, 8/29/18)
2018 Aug 30, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned or reduced the sentences for 615 prisoners, according to Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary.
(Reuters, 8/30/18)
2018 Aug 30, The UN atomic watchdog (IAEA) said Iran continues to comply with the nuclear deal reached in 2015 with major powers even after the withdrawal of the US.
(SFC, 8/31/18, p.A2)
2018 Aug 31, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards clashed with militants in the southeast of the country, killing four and wounding three.
(Reuters, 8/31/18)
2018 Aug 31, Iran's foreign ministry dismissed a French call for more negotiations with Tehran over the international nuclear accord and said some of France's partners are "bullying and excessive," a seeming reference to the United States.
(Reuters, 8/31/18)
2018 Sep 3, Iran called for militants to be "cleaned out" of Syria's Idlib province, as it prepared for talks with Syria and Russia about confronting the last major enclave held by rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 9/3/18)
2018 Sep 3, The Iranian rial hit another all-time low against the US dollar in spite of central bank efforts to stem the decline.
(AFP, 9/3/18)
2018 Sep 4, President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran is to move its main oil export terminal from the Gulf to the Oman Sea, sparing its tankers from using the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
(AFP, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 4, Iranian authorities arrested the husband of detained human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has campaigned for her release.
(Reuters, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 5, Iran's rial fell to a record low as worried residents of Tehran lined up outside beleaguered moneychangers, part of a staggering 140-percent drop in the currency's value since America pulled out of the nuclear deal only four months ago.
(AP, 9/5/18)
2018 Sep 7, Meeting in Tehran the presidents of Turkey, Iran and Russia failed to agree on a ceasefire that would forestall a Syrian government offensive in rebel-held Idlib province. They agreed in a final statement that there could be no military solution to the conflict and it could only end through a negotiated political process. But as Syrian government and Russian warplanes mounted air strikes in Idlib, Putin and Rouhani pushed back against Erdogan's call for a truce.
(Reuters, 9/7/18)
2018 Sep 7, In Iran a 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook the southeast, killing at least one person and damaging houses in several villages.
(AP, 9/7/18)
2018 Sep 7, In Iraq protesters broke into the Iranian consulate in Basra, shouting condemnation of what many perceive as Iran's sway over Iraq's political affairs, and set it alight. Three protesters died and 48 more were wounded.
(Reuters, 9/8/18)(SFC, 9/8/18, p.A4)
2018 Sep 8, Iran attacked the base of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in northern Iraq, killing at least 11 people and wounding scores more.
(Reuters, 9/8/18)
2018 Sep 8, Iranian media reported that authorities have hanged three Kurdish prisoners after years in prison.
(AP, 9/8/18)
2018 Sep 11, In Geneva the UN envoy for Syria hosted key diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey to discuss work toward rewriting the country's constitution, amid concerns about a possibly devastating military offensive on rebel-held Idlib province.
(AP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 12, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that a court has sentenced Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a close ally of former hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to six-and-a-half years in prison for plotting and conspiring to commit crimes against national security and for propaganda against the Islamic Republic system and for insulting officials.
(AP, 9/12/18)
2018 Sep 14, Iranian media said that the reformist "Sedayeh Eslahat" newspaper was ordered shut down on charges of insulting the Shiite religion for publishing an article on female-to-male gender reassignment surgery. Prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri also ordered the editor be punished.
(AP, 9/15/18)
2018 Sep 14, In France about 15 Kurdish activists burned the Iranian flag in front of Iran's embassy in Paris and broke some windows with stones. Some of the attackers were arrested.
(Reuters, 9/15/18)
2018 Sep 18, Cybersecurity firm FireEye said an Iranian government-aligned group of hackers launched a major campaign targeting Mideast energy firms and others ahead of US sanctions on Iran.
(SFC, 9/19/18, p.A2)
2018 Sep 20, Iran hit back at a US offer of negotiations, saying Washington had violated the terms of the last big deal they agreed, the 2015 nuclear accord.
(Reuters, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 22, In Iran gunmen shot dead at least 29 people including women and children in an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. Three attackers were killed at the scene, and a fourth died later of his injuries. The Ahvaz National Resistance, an umbrella organization of all armed movements, claimed responsibility. Five attackers were killed in the attack on a military parade in southwest Iran that killed 25 people.
(AFP, 9/22/18)(Reuters, 9/22/18)(Reuters, 9/24/18)
2018 Sep 22, In Iran nine men convicted of raping a woman were hanged. The woman had withdrawn her complaint but that authorities carried out the punishment anyway.
(AP, 9/23/18)
2018 Sep 25, British PM Theresa May lobbied for the release of detained British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during a meeting on Tuesday with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
(Reuters, 9/26/18)
2018 Sep 27, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described to the UN General Assembly what he said was a secret atomic warehouse in Tehran and accused Europe of appeasing Iran as he sought to rally support for US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 9/28/18)
2018 Sep 28, Iranian media said 11 people have died after drinking tainted homemade alcohol in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas. A man and his wife who made the liquor and their main dealer have been arrested.
(AP, 9/28/18)
2018 Sep 30, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the country's special courts have sentenced three to death over financial crimes and corruption.
(AP, 9/30/18)
2018 Sep 30, Iran's state emergency services said at least 27 people have died and more than 300 poisoned after drinking bootleg alcohol.
(Reuters, 9/30/18)
2018 Oct 1, Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired missiles at Islamic State militants in eastern Syria. It blame them for an attack on its soil on Sept. 22 and said the action shows the government's readiness to punish the "wickedness" of its enemies.
(AP, 10/1/18)(SFC, 10/2/18, p.A4)
2018 Oct 2, Iran's environment chief Isa Kalantari said his country faces losing 70 percent of its farmlands if urgent action is not taken to overcome a litany of climate woes.
(AFP, 10/5/18)
2018 Oct 3, The UN's top court (ICJ) ordered the United States to lift sanctions on humanitarian goods for Iran in a stunning rebuke to US President Donald Trump.
(AFP, 10/3/18)(SFC, 10/4/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 4, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address broadcast by state television that the people of Iran face a sensitive time because of pressure from America and economic problems. The Iranian rial has lost approximately 75 percent of its value since the beginning of 2018.
(Reuters, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 6, Iranian businessman Farhad Zahedifar, CEO of the Samen Coin website, was returned to Iran with Interpol's help after he fled abroad. He accused of defrauding thousands of investors.
(Reuters, 10/6/18)
2018 Oct 7, Iran's parliament voted to join a global convention to cut off terror financing, hoping to avoid further international sanctions as the 2015 nuclear accord unravels. The bill must be ratified by the Guardian Council, a constitutional authority, to become a law.
(AP, 10/7/18)
2018 Oct 8, Qatar Airways' boss Akbar al-Baker said US sanctions on Iran will not impact its flights to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/8/18)
2018 Oct 13, UN sanctions monitors in an unpublished report said banned charcoal exports from Somalia are thriving, generating millions of dollars a year for al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremists — and often passing through Iran to have their origins obscured.
(AP, 10/13/18)
2018 Oct 14, Iran's judiciary spokesman said a court has sentenced a dual national man, surname Tavakkoli, to eight and a half years in prison after finding him guilty of infiltration of important governmental bodies.
(AP, 10/14/18)
2018 Oct 16, At least 10 Iranian security personnel including Revolutionary Guards were kidnapped on the border with Pakistan, and a separatist group that claimed responsibility described the act as revenge for oppression of Sunni Muslims. The kidnapped security personnel were reportedly unconscious at the time. Reports followed that they had eaten drugged food and that infiltrators helped with the abduction to Pakistan.
(Reuters, 10/16/18)(Reuters, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 16, The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on a network of more than 20 businesses it said had financial links to the Basij paramilitary group, which enforces internal security in Iran.
(AFP, 10/17/18)
2018 Oct 19, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that three seamen have died from an unspecified toxic substance that poisoned all 11 crew members of an Iranian cargo ship on the Caspian Sea. Preliminary information indicated that the crew had been poisoned by chemicals used to protect grain being carried from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan.
(AP, 10/19/18)
2018 Oct 19, American intelligence officials released a rare public statement asserting that Russia, China, Iran and other countries are engaged in ongoing efforts to influence US policy and voters in future elections.
(AP, 10/22/18)
2018 Oct 21, A Norwegian citizen of Iranian background was arrested in Sweden in connection with a plot to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition figure in Denmark. He was extradited to Denmark. The attack was meant to target the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA).
(AP, 10/30/18)
2018 Oct 22, Iran's state TV reported that the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences for two individuals convicted of financial crimes. They were identified as Vahid Mazloumin and Mohammad Esmail Ghasemi, whom local media dubbed the "Sultan of Coins" after he was arrested after hoarding two tons of gold coins in an attempt to manipulate the local currency.
(AP, 10/22/18)
2018 Oct 23, Saudi Arabia said it and Bahrain had added Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and senior officers of its Quds Force to their lists of people and organizations suspected of involvement in terrorism.
(Reuters, 10/23/18)
2018 Oct 23, The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions targeting Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency, designating eight people including two Iranians linked to Tehran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds force.
(Reuters, 10/23/18)
2018 Oct 28, Iran sold oil to private buyers through its energy exchange for the first time, as part of its efforts to counter the imminent return of US sanctions.
(AFP, 10/28/18)
2018 Oct, Iran jailed Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated academic specializing in Middle Eastern politics. The British-Australian woman was later sentenced to 10 years in Evin prison. Her detention was not reported until 2019.
(The Telegraph, 9/13/19)
2018 Oct, US federal authorities armed with a secret indictment arrested Iranian Prof. Masoud Soleimani as he touched down on US soil, on charges that he had violated trade sanctions by trying to have biological material brought to Iran. Soleimani had plans to complete the final stage of his research on treating stroke patients as a visiting scholar at the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
(AP, 7/7/19)
2018 Nov 2, The United States said it will temporarily allow eight importers to keep buying Iranian oil when it re-imposes sanctions on Nov. 5 to try to force Iran to curb its nuclear, missile and regional activities.
(Reuters, 11/3/18)
2018 Nov 3, Iran inaugurated the production line of its domestically produced fighter jet. Some military experts believe the fighter jet is a carbon copy of an F-5 first produced in the United States in the 1960s.
(Reuters, 11/3/18)
2018 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians chanting "Death to America" rallied to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent reimposition of US sanctions on Iran's oil sector.
(Reuters, 11/4/18)
2018 Nov 5, Iran greeted the re-imposition of US sanctions with air defense drills and a statement from President Hassan Rouhani that the nation faces a "war situation," raising Mideast tensions as America's maximalist approach to the Islamic Republic takes hold.
(AP, 11/5/18)
2018 Nov 5, The Trump administration's tough new sanctions on Iran took effect, but eight major importers of Iranian oil were spared from immediate penalties. They included China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey.
(AP, 11/5/18)(AFP, 11/5/18)
2018 Nov 6, President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would not abide by the renewed US sanctions on Iran's oil and shipping industries, adding that they were aimed at "unbalancing the world".
(Reuters, 11/6/18)
2018 Nov 8, Iranian celebrities including Oscar-winning film director Asghar Farhadi and Grammy winner Kayhan Kalhor launched a petition condemning US sanctions on Tehran and warning of the impact on ordinary people.
(AFP, 11/9/18)
2018 Nov 11, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported that an appeals court has upheld former Foreign Ministry official Kamal Amirbeig's 10-year prison sentence and fined him $200,000. He had been convicted of spying.
(AP, 11/11/18)
2018 Nov 11, A Pakistani official said Iranian border guards have killed two people trying to cross through an illegal route from the Panjgur district in Baluchistan.
(AP, 11/11/18)
2018 Nov 14, Iran's state media reported the hanging of two financial traders convicted of stockpiling gold coins and profiteering during a currency crisis.
(SFC, 11/15/18, p.A2)
2018 Nov 17, Iraq's President Barham Salih began a visit to Iran, where he pledged to improve relations less than two weeks after the United States restored oil sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.
(AP, 11/17/18)
2018 Nov 18, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that the country's authorities have detained four workers protesting not having been paid their salaries for months in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AP, 11/18/18)
2018 Nov 19, European Union foreign ministers endorsed a French government decision to sanction Iranian nationals accused of a bomb plot in France, a move that could enable EU-wide enforcement of the measures.
(Reuters, 11/19/18)
2018 Nov 20, In Iran a Revolutionary Court ruled to release Abdolfattah Soltani, a prominent human rights lawyer, after eight years in prison.
(AP, 11/21/18)
2018 Nov 22, Iranian media reported that the country has implemented a measure allowing officials to waive rules relating to stamping visas in foreigners' passports.
(AP, 11/22/18)
2018 Nov 22, US Ambassador Kenneth Ward told a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at The Hague that Iran had failed to report a production facility for the filling of aerial bombs and maintains a program to obtain banned toxic munitions.
(Reuters, 11/22/18)
2018 Nov 23, The Iranian judiciary’s website Mizan reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guards have detained a Saudi Arabian fishing boat and arrested its crew.
(AP, 11/23/18)
2018 Nov 26, State-owned Qatar Airways said it will add more flights to Iran from January, just weeks after the United States re-imposed sanctions aimed at crippling Tehran's economy.
(Reuters, 11/26/18)
2018 Nov 27, In Iran Sunni cleric Abdolghafour Jamalzai, who had worked to reconcile Sunnis and Shiites, was shot and killed in the town of Gorgan.
(AP, 11/27/18)
2018 Dec 1, Iran's navy launched a domestically made destroyer, which state media said has radar-evading stealth properties.
(AP, 12/1/18)
2018 Dec 1, Iran's state media reported that a revolutionary court has sentenced Hengameh Shahidi (43), a female pro-reform journalist, to a nearly 13-year prison term over security charges.
(AP, 12/1/18)
2018 Dec 2, Iran said it would continue missile tests to build up its defenses and denied this was in breach of UN resolutions following US allegations that Tehran had tested a new missile capable of carrying multiple warheads.
(Reuters, 12/2/18)
2018 Dec 6, In southeastern Iran a suicide car bombing followed by an armed assault killed at least two policemen and wounding 42 people outside police headquarters in the port city of Chabahar. The city lies in Sistan-Baluchistan province which has long been a flashpoint, with Pakistan-based Baluchi separatists and Sunni Muslim extremists carrying out cross-border attacks targeting the Shiite authorities. Security forces soon detained 10 people suspected of links to the attack.
(AFP, 12/6/18)(Reuters, 12/6/18)(AP, 12/8/18)(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 9, In Iran's judiciary said fast-track courts set up in Iran to fight economic crime have jailed 30 men for up to 20 years each, as the country faces renewed US sanctions and a public outcry against profiteering and corruption.
(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 9, Iran state media said Australian-based academic has been detained on charges of trying to "infiltrate" Iranian institutions. Hosseini-Chavoshi, a population expert, is affiliated with the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.
(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 11, Iran's Arman daily reported that human rights lawyers Ghasem Sholeh-Saadi and Arash Keikhosravi have been sentenced to six years in prison for taking part in an "illegal gathering" and one year for "propaganda" against the ruling system. Lawyer Mohammad Najafi was sentenced to 10 years for "conveying information to a hostile country" through interviews with foreign media, two years for insulting the supreme leader and one year for publicity in support of opposition groups.
(AP, 12/11/18)
2018 Dec 12, In Iran social media activist Vahid Sayyadi Nasiri, on hunger strike since October 13, 2018 to protest the denial of his right to counsel and inhumane prison conditions, died at the Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Qom.
(Reuters, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 12, Eight European Union nations (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom) underlined their commitment to the Iran nuclear deal while urging Tehran to stop its "destabilizing regional activities" especially the launch of ballistic missiles.
(AP, 12/12/18)
2018 Dec 16, In Iran the appointment of Kambiz Mehdizadeh, President Hassan Rouhani's son-in-law, as head of Iran's geological survey led to the resignation of Jafar Sargheyni, head of the mining section in the industries ministry. It was reported that the appointment has renewed accusations of nepotism.
(AFP, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 16, Iranian authorities detained an unspecified number of steel mill workers after five weeks of protests over delays in salaries in Khuzestan province.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 16, In Iran a website of the Revolutionary Guard reported that Gen. Ghodratollah Mansouri, a vetran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, accidentally shot himself in the head while cleaning a his pistol.
(SFC, 12/17/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 18, Meeting in Geneva the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey said that a new Syrian Constitutional Committee should convene early next year, kicking off a viable political peace process.
(Reuters, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 19, Albania's Foreign Ministry said two Iranian diplomats had been expelled for "violating their diplomatic status" following talks with other countries, including Israel.
(AP, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 20, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani met in Ankara and vowed to work closer to end the fighting in Syria.
(AFP, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 21, The US State Department said the US has granted Iraq a 90-day Iran sanctions waiver to allow it to continue to import electricity from Tehran.
(AP, 12/21/18)
2018 Dec 21, It was reported that Cargill, Bunge and other global traders have halted food supply deals with Iran because new US sanctions have paralyzed banking systems required to secure payments, industry and Iranian government sources say.
(AP, 12/21/18)
2018 Dec 22, Iran's state TV reported the execution by lynching of Hamid Reza Bagheri Derain, a businessman convicted of fraud, bribery and embezzlement.
(Reuters, 12/22/18)
2018 Dec 25, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani presented a $47 billion state budget with increased spending on lower income groups, saying US sanctions would affect people's lives and economic growth but not bring the government to its knees.
(Reuters, 12/25/18)
2018 Dec 25, In Iran a bus overturned at Azad University in Tehran, killing seven students and injuring 28.
(AP, 12/25/18)
2018 Dec 26, An Israeli official confirmed overnight attacks on several targets in Syria involved in Iranian arms transfers to the Hezbollah militant group.
(SFC, 12/27/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 30, Hundreds of Iranian students held protests for a second day, calling for university officials to resign over the Dec. 25 bus crash that killed 10.
(AFP, 12/30/18)
2018 Dec 31, In Iran security forces clashed with students in Tehran in the third day of protests over a deadly bus crash, adding to officials' fears that rising public unrest could threaten national security.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 31, Iran's intelligence ministry said it had arrested 11 "economic disruptors" who misappropriated some $400 million earmarked for essential goods and smuggled the money out of the country.
(AFP, 12/31/18)
2018 Iran's GDP fell this year by 5.4%.
(Econ., 12/5/20, p.18)
2019 Jan 3, In Iran prominent human rights activist Narges Mohammadi and British-Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe announced plans to go on hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison to protest against the denial of medical treatment.
(AFP, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 3, The United States issued a pre-emptive warning to Iran against pursuing three planned space rocket launches that it said would violate a UN Security Council resolution because they use ballistic missile technology.
(Reuters, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 6, In western Iran a magnitude 5.5 earthquake hit an area near the Iraqi border, injuring about 31 people.
(Reuters, 1/6/19)
2019 Jan 8, The European Union froze the assets of an Iranian intelligence unit and two of its staff, as the Netherlands accused Iran of two killings on its soil and joined France and Denmark in alleging Tehran plotted other attacks in Europe.
(Reuters, 1/8/19)
2019 Jan 9, Iran confirmed that is holding US veteran Michael White at a prison in the country.
(SFC, 1/10/19, p.A2)
2019 Jan 13, The FBI arrested Marzieh Hashemi (59), a prominent American-born anchorwoman on Iranian state television's English-language service, after she arrived at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. She had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area. She has worked at the Iranian state broadcaster service for 25 years. Her son, Reza Hashemi, was also arrested.
(AP, 1/16/19)(AP, 1/17/19)
2019 Jan 14, In Iran Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a jailed UK-Iranian mother, launched a hunger strike over a lack of medical care and attempts by Tehran to force her to spy on Britain.
(AFP, 1/14/19)
2019 Jan 14, In Iran a decades-old Iranian Boeing 707 military cargo plane reportedly carrying meat from Kyrgyzstan crashed while trying to land west of Tehran, killing 15 people on board and leaving a sole survivor.
(AP, 1/14/19)
2019 Jan 15, An Iranian rocket blasted off into space, but scientists failed to put the Payam satellite into orbit in a launch previously criticized by the United States as helping the Islamic Republic further develop its ballistic missile program.
(AP, 1/15/19)
2019 Jan 16, Polish private Radio Zet said that Iran has stopped issuing tourist visas for Poles.
(Reuters, 1/16/19)
2019 Jan 19, A new UN report said fuel is being shipped illegally for Iran to Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen to finance their war against the government.
(SSFC, 1/20/19, p.A8)
2019 Jan 21, Germany said it has banned Iran's Mahan Air from landing in the country with immediate effect, citing security concerns and the airline's involvement in Syria. The airline had several weekly flights between Tehran and German cities.
(AP, 1/21/19)
2019 Jan 23, The US released Marzieh Hashemi, an American anchorwoman for Iranian state television, held for days as a material witness.
(AP, 1/24/19)(SFC, 1/24/19, p.A6)
2019 Jan 24, Amnesty International said Iran arrested more than 7,000 people last year, including dozens of journalists, and called this a "shameless campaign of repression".
(AP, 1/24/19)
2019 Jan 24, The United States targeted two Iran-backed foreign fighter militias in Syria and two airlines that help send weapons to Syria in fresh sanctions as Washington prepares for a military withdrawal from the war-torn country.
(Reuters, 1/24/19)
2019 Jan 29, Syria's Pres. Bashar Assad, during a meeting with visiting Iranian First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, said that new trade agreements with Iran will help the two countries face the "economic war" waged against them by the West. The two countries have signed 11 agreements and memoranda of understanding to promote cooperation in Syria's reconstruction after eight years of civil war.
(AP, 1/29/19)
2019 Jan 31, Britain, France and Germany launched a special payment mechanism that the EU hopes will help save a nuclear deal with Iran by bypassing US sanctions.
(AFP, 1/31/19)
2019 Feb 2, Iran announced the "successful test" of a new cruise missile with a range of over 1,350 km, coinciding with celebrations for the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. In the southeast one member of the Revolutionary Guards was killed and five were wounded in an attack on a paramilitary base in Nik Shahr.
(AFP, 2/2/19)(Reuters, 2/2/19)
2019 Feb 3, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that a court has handed down prison sentences for 13 protesters arrested during the August 2017 demonstrations over economic hardships.
(AP, 2/3/19)
2019 Feb 3, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that a fire in the country's space research center has killed three scientists.
(AP, 2/3/19)
2019 Feb 4, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported the country's top judge said that Tehran would never accept the "humiliating conditions" set by the European Union for non-dollar trade intended to evade US sanctions.
(Reuters, 2/4/19)
2019 Feb 5, Iran ruled out linkage between a new EU mechanism to trade with Tehran bypassing US sanctions and an anti-money laundering bill.
(AFP, 2/5/19)
2019 Feb 6, In Iran gunmen killed a policeman and wounded another officer in a shootout in Lorestan province during which a stray bullet hit a fuel tanker, causing it to explode. Five suspects were soon arrested.
(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Feb 7, Reporters Without Borders said that Iranian authorities arrested, jailed and sometimes executed 1.7 million people around the capital Tehran alone in the first 30 years after the 1979 Islamic revolution. At least 860 journalists were arrested, imprisoned or executed over the same period.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 10, Iran's foreign minister offered his country's military assistance to the US-backed Lebanese army, saying Iran is ready to cooperate in all sectors should the Lebanese government want it.
(AP, 2/10/19)
2019 Feb 11, In Iran vast crowds marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution at a time of heightened tensions with the United States.
(AFP, 2/11/19)
2019 Feb 13, Iran's Fars news reported that twenty members of the elite Revolutionary Guards were killed a suicide attack the southeast of the country.
(Reuters, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 13, Judges at the International Court of Justice ruled that the UN body has jurisdiction to hear a claim by Iran to recover $1.75 billion in assets frozen by Washington. The case filed in June 2016 centers on assets from the Iranian national bank, Bank Markazi, seized by US courts to compensate families of victims of a 1983 bombing of a US Marine Corps. base which Washington blames on Iran.
(Reuters, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 13, The United States charged former US Air Force intelligence officer Monica Witt with helping Iran in a cyber-spying operation that targeted her former colleagues. US officials said Witt supplied classified information about US intelligence officers after defecting to Iran in 2013.
(Reuters, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 14, Russia's Pres. Putin hosted a meeting in Sochi to weigh the future of Syria with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Russia told Turkey it had no right to create a "safe zone" in northeast Syria unless it sought and received the consent of Syria's Pres. Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 2/14/19)
2019 Feb 14, US Vice President Mike Pence demanded that Europeans drop a nuclear deal with Iran and join in seeking to cripple the regime, a cause that united Israel with longtime Arab rivals at a conference in Warsaw.
(AFP, 2/14/19)
2019 Feb 16, German Chancellor Angela Merkel robustly defended European nations' decision to stand by the Iran nuclear deal in comments at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top global defense and foreign policy officials.
(AP, 2/16/19)
2019 Feb 17, Iran's state TV reported that the country's President Hassan Rouhani has unveiled the first Iranian made semi-heavy submarine.
(AP, 2/17/19)
2019 Feb 17, Iran's Revolutionary Guards broke up a group of militants in southeast Iran who were linked to a suicide bombing that killed 27 guards near the border with Pakistan last week. Three militants were arrested and explosive material was seized from houses in the cities of Saravan and Khash.
(AP, 2/18/19)
2019 Feb 24, Iran launched a cruise missile from a submarine for the first time during an ongoing annual military drill in the Strait of Hormuz.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Feb 24, It was reported that Iran has released Nelly Erin-Cambervelle (59), a French businesswoman from Martinique, who was in jail for entering the country illegally.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Feb 25, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a US-educated veteran diplomat who helped craft the pact that curbed Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, gave no reason for his decision to quit when he announced it on Instagram.
(Reuters, 2/26/19)
2019 Feb 25, The British government said it plans to ban Lebanon-based Hezbollah as a terrorist group, accusing the Iran-backed organization of destabilizing the Middle East.
(AP, 2/25/19)
2019 Feb 27, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected the resignation of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, standing by a moderate ally long targeted by hardliners in factional struggles over a 2015 nuclear deal with the West.
(Reuters, 2/27/19)
2019 Feb 27, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif signed two agreements in Tehran with Armenia, television footage showed, continuing his duties as Iran's top diplomat.
(Reuters, 2/27/19)
2019 Mar 2, Iran criticized Britain for its decision to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, saying it ignored both the will of a large portion of the Lebanese people and the Tehran-backed group's role in fighting Islamic State.
(Reuters, 3/2/19)
2019 Mar 2, Iran's official IRNA news agency said the Central Bank has merged four banks and a credit union to reform the country's banking system and financial markets.
(AP, 3/2/19)
2019 Mar 6, An activist group said Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer in Iran who defended protesters against the Islamic Republic's mandatory headscarves for women, has been convicted and faces years in prison. She had previously served three years in prison for her work.
(AP, 3/6/19)
2019 Mar 6, The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft has detected cyberattacks linked to Iranian hackers that targeted thousands of people at more than 200 companies over the past two years. Microsoft attributed the attacks to a group it calls Holmium, and which other security researchers call APT33.
(AP, 3/7/19)
2019 Mar 7, Iranian naval forces intervened to repel pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 8, A top Iranian diplomat asserted that the UK's decision to give diplomatic protection to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman detained in Iran for nearly three years, contravenes international law.
(AP, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 8, On International Women’s Day Yasaman Aryani, her mother Monireh Arabshahi and Mojgan Keshavarz handed out flowers to female passengers on the Tehran metro and spoke of a day when women have the freedom to choose what they wear. Aryani and her mother were each sentenced to 16 years in prison for “inciting and facilitating corruption and prostitution," though the sentence was later reduced.
(AP, 3/8/21)
2019 Mar 8, Official reports said France and Iran are to exchange ambassadors after Paris suspended nomination of an envoy to Tehran last year over accusations that Iranian intelligence had planned an attack on an opposition group in Paris.
(Reuters, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 11, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani began a 3-day visit in Baghdad to deepen bilateral relations. This was his first official visit to the nation that Tehran once fought a bloody war against and later backed in the battle with the Islamic State group.
(AP, 3/11/19)
2019 Mar 11, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said Judge Mohammad Moghiseh has sentenced Nasrin Sotoudeh (55) to five years for plotting against the state and two more years for insulting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was reported that jailed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.
(AP, 3/11/19)(Reuters, 3/11/19)
2019 Mar 12, Husband Reza Khandan said Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to an extra 10 years in jail on top of the five-year term she is already serving.
(AFP, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 16, It was reported that Michael R. White, a US Navy veteran from California, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran, becoming the first American known to be imprisoned there since President Donald Trump took office. White was reportedly convicted of insulting Iran's supreme leader and posting private information online.
(AP, 3/17/19)
2019 Mar 15, In Washington state a US District judge granted a temporary restraining order that let Microsoft take over 99 websites that Iranian hackers had used to try to steal sensitive information from targets in the US.
(SSFC, 3/31/19, p.D2)
2019 Mar 17, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated a new phase in the development of a massive natural gas field. The development will allow Iran to overtake Qatar in the production of natural gas.
(AP, 3/17/19)
2019 Mar 18, Turkey and Iran carried out a joint operation against militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Turkey's eastern border.
(Reuters, 3/18/19)
2019 Mar 22, The Trump administration hit Iran with new sanctions while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced Iran's growing influence on a visit to Lebanon.
(AP, 3/22/19)
2019 Mar 25, Iranian state TV reported that flash floods in southern Iran have killed at least 17 people and injured 74.
(AP, 3/25/19)
2019 Mar 26, The US Treasury took fresh aim at the international network funneling dollars and euros to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), naming 25 individuals and entities for financial sanctions.
(AFP, 3/26/19)
2019 Mar 27, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani travelled to flood-hit zones for the first time after nine days of heavy rains inundated most of the country and killed 43 people.
(AFP, 3/27/19)
2019 Mar 30, Authorities in Iran worked to evacuate villages threatened by flooding in southwestern areas as forecasters predicted more of the heavy rains that have killed at least 45 people this week.
(Reuters, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 31, Iranian media said a man has shot dead seven members of his wife's family in the southwestern city of Dezful.
(AP, 3/31/19)
2019 Apr 1, Iranian authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of flood-stricken cities in a western province as rivers burst their banks, dams overflowed and vast areas were cut off from communication.
(AFP, 4/1/19)
2019 Apr 3, Iranian media reported that the number of dead from recent flooding has risen to 62, up from 57 the day before.
(AP, 4/3/19)
2019 Apr 5, France said it will airlift 12 tons of humanitarian aid, including 114 pumps, to flood-hit regions in Iran.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 6, Iranian state TV reported that authorities have ordered the evacuation of six more towns in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, which is widely inundated with floods. Authorities have put the number of dead at 70 people.
(AP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 6, Iranian state media reported that three staff in the country's defense industries have been killed in an explosion in a submarine under construction in the country's south.
(AP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 7, A majority of Iranian parliamentarians said Iran will take reciprocal action against the United States if Washington designates the elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as terrorists.
(Reuters, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 8, Iran's state-run TV said that Washington's decision to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization contradicted international law and was illegal.
(Reuters, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 8, President Donald Trump announced that the US is designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist organization," in an effort to increase pressure on the country that could have significant diplomatic implications in the Middle East.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 10, Iranian authorities ordered tens of thousands of residents of the southwestern city of Ahvaz to evacuate immediately as floodwaters entered the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province.
(AFP, 4/10/19)
2019 Apr 12, Thousands of Iranians rallied after prayers against the US's decision to designate the country's powerful Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization.
(AP, 4/12/19)
2019 Apr 15, Iran's supreme leader approved the use of special emergency funds to deal with damage from major flooding that has killed at least 76 people and injured more than 1,000 over the past several weeks.
(AP, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 15, The United States officially designated Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, according to a notice published in the US Federal Register.
(Reuters, 4/15/19)
2019 Apr 16, Iran's lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill labeling US forces in the Middle East as terrorist.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 16, Syria and Iran said the United States is waging "economic terrorism" against countries that have different opinions and should pursue its aims through diplomacy instead.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 18, Officials said Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent 95 tons of humanitarian aid to their rival Iran as it reels from deadly floods, after Tehran complained US sanctions were obstructing relief.
(AFP, 4/18/19)
2019 Apr 20, Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mohamed al-Halbousi led a one-day summit between Iraq and its six neighbors: Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, and Kuwait, in an effort to bridge relations and invest in Iraq.
(AP, 4/20/19)
2019 Apr 22, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said that a new joint security force with Pakistan will be formed to combat militants based along the two countries' shared border.
(AP, 4/22/19)
2019 Apr 22, The Trump administration said that it will no longer exempt any countries from US sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil, stepping up pressure on Iran. The decision means sanctions waivers for five nations, including China and India and US treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey, won't be renewed when they expire on May 2. China, one of Iran's largest customers, slammed the step, calling it more evidence of US "unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction." Iran's commander of the Revolutionary Guards' navy said Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if Tehran is barred from using it.
(AP, 4/22/19)(Reuters, 4/22/19)
2019 Apr 23, Iranian lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill that labels all US military forces as terrorist, a day after Washington ratcheted up pressure on Tehran by announcing that no country would any longer be exempt from US sanctions if it continues to buy Iranian oil.
(AP, 4/23/19)
2019 Apr 28, Iranian police said that the suspect in the killing of a 46-year-old cleric in the western city of Hamedan had died in a shootout with police. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for a crackdown on illegal weapons.
(AP, 4/28/19)
2019 Apr 30, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signed a bill into law declaring all US forces in the Middle East terrorists and calling the US government a sponsor of terrorism.
(Reuters, 4/30/19)
2019 May 1, Iran's oil minister hit out against the use of oil sanctions "as a weapon" by the United States and the damage it was doing to OPEC.
(Reuters, 5/1/19)
2019 May 4, Iranian state news reported that a court has sentenced Hossein Fereydoun, President Hassan Rouhani’s brother, to an unspecified jail term, in a corruption case the president’s supporters allege is politically motivated.
(Reuters, 5/4/19)
2019 May 5, US national security adviser John Bolton said the Trump administration is deploying a carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East in response to troubling "indications and warnings" from Iran and to show the United States will retaliate with "unrelenting force" to any attack.
(Reuters, 5/05/19)
2019 May 8, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani announced steps that stop short of violating its 2015 deal with world powers for now, but threatening more action if countries did not shield it from US sanctions. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Tehran's decision to scale back some curbs to its nuclear program was legal and reversible.
(Reuters, 5/08/19)
2019 May 8, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weaponry.
(Reuters, 5/08/19)
2019 May 9, US Pres. Donald Trump urged Iran's leadership to sit down and talk with him about giving up Tehran's nuclear program and said he could not rule out a military confrontation given the heightened tensions between the two countries.
(Reuters, 5/10/19)
2019 May 10, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Tehran will not negotiate with the United States and denied any US attack was likely, a day after US President Donald Trump urged talks and said he could not rule out a military confrontation.
(Reuters, 5/10/19)
2019 May 13, Iran said it had sentenced an Iranian woman to 10 years prison for spying for Britain, as tension rises between Tehran and some Western countries over its nuclear and missile programs.
(Reuters, 5/13/19)
2019 May 14, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi, days after India decided to follow US restrictions on buying Iranian oil. Zarif held discussions with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on issues of mutual interest, including the evolving situation in Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/14/19)
2019 May 18, Iran's top diplomat dismissed the possibility of war erupting in the region, saying Tehran did not want a conflict and that no country had the "illusion it can confront Iran".
(Reuters, 5/18/19)
2019 May 18, Bahrain warned its citizens against travel to Iraq and Iran and asked those already there to return "immediately" for their safety.
(Reuters, 5/18/19)
2019 May 24, Pres. Donald Trump said the United States is deploying 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East to counter "credible threats" from Iran.
(AFP, 5/25/19)(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A4)
2019 May 24, US Pres. Donald Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, swept aside objections from Congress to complete the sale of $8.1 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, citing a threat from Iran, infuriating lawmakers who fear the weapons could kill civilians in Yemen. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had pushed the sales to Saudi Arabia of munitions, mostly made by Raytheon, despite a two-year bipartisan congressional hold on the proposed transfer of the arms, comprising 22 packages. Mr. Pompeo did that by declaring an “emergency" over Iran’s activities in the region. In August, 2020, the US State Dept. of the Inspector General concluded that Pompeo had the legal authority to declare an emergency and bypass Congress under the Arms Export Control Act.
(AFP, 5/24/19)(Reuters, 5/25/19)(SFC, 8/12/20, p.A6)
2019 May 25, Iran denounced a US move to deploy 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East as "a threat to international peace".
(AFP, 5/25/19)
2019 May 28, In Iran Mitra Najafi (35), the second wife of Mohammad Ali Najafi (67), a former reformist mayor of Tehran and a Rouhani confidant, was found dead in her bathtub on the seventh floor of a residential high-rise in northern Tehran. Ali Najafi soon turned himself over to police and confessed to shooting his wife.
(AP, 5/28/19)(SFC, 5/30/19, p.A2)
2019 May 29, In Iran Cleric Mohammad Khorsand, a prayer leader in the city of Kazeroon, was killed while on his way home from a religious ceremony. Police soon arrested suspect Hamid Darakhshandeh.
(AP, 5/29/19)
2019 May 30, In Iran hackers took down the website belonging to the country's non-governmental Social Security Organization. The website was down for an unspecified amount of time, but was soon restored.
(AP, 5/31/19)
2019 May 31, Iranians in the capital Tehran set fire to effigies of US President Donald Trump, while in Baghdad, Iran-backed militiamen marched over a large Israeli flag as part of rallies marking Quds, or Jerusalem Day. The annual protests come as the Trump administration tries to market its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
(AP, 5/31/19)
2019 Jun 7, Iran rejected French calls for wider international talks over its nuclear and military ambitions, saying it would only discuss it existing 2015 atomic pact with world powers.
(Reuters, 6/7/19)
2019 Jun 7, The United States placed sanctions on Iran’s largest petrochemical holding group for indirectly supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a step it said aimed to dry up revenues to the elite Iranian military force but that analysts called largely symbolic.
(Reuters, 6/8/19)
2019 Jun 8, Tehran's police chief said 547 restaurants and cafes in Tehran have been shut down over the last ten days for not observing "Islamic principles". Tehran's guidance court, which deals with "cultural crimes and social and moral corruption", called on Tehran citizens to report cases of "immoral behavior" by texting a designated phone number.
(AFP, 6/8/19)
2019 Jun 9, Iran said Europe was in no position to criticize Tehran for its military capabilities and it called on European leaders to normalize trade ties with the Islamic Republic despite US sanctions, or face consequences.
(Reuters, 6/9/19)
2019 Jun 10, Iranian state television reported that Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident held for years in Iran after his conviction on disputed spying charges, will be released in the coming hours.
(AP, 6/10/19)
2019 Jun 10, Iranian activist Alireza Shirmohammadali (21) was stabbed to death by two other prisoners. He had been in jail since July and sentenced to eight years in prison over insulting the country's Islamic identity and government.
(http://tinyurl.com/yydt5ccy)(AP, 6/17/19)
2019 Jun 10, The head of the UN atomic watchdog urged world powers to continue dialogue with Iran to keep it in the landmark 2015 deal aimed at preventing the country from building nuclear weapons, and to help defuse mounting tensions in the region.
(AP, 6/10/19)
2019 Jun 11, Nizar Zakka, Lebanese businessman and US resident imprisoned in Iran on spying charges since 2015, landed at Beirut's Rafik Hariri airport aboard a private jet, accompanied by the chief of Lebanon's General Security Directorate, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Abbas, who traveled to Tehran to bring him home.
(AP, 6/11/19)
2019 Jun 12, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe held talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran during a rare diplomatic mission aimed at defusing tensions between the Islamic republic and Tokyo's ally Washington.
(AFP, 6/12/19)
2019 Jun 13, Two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz were damaged in suspected attacks. The MT Front Altair, a Marshall Islands-flagged crude oil tanker owned by Norway-based Frontline, and Kokuka Courageous, managed by a Singapore company were attacked in the Gulf of Oman.
(AP, 6/13/19)
2019 Jun 14, President Donald Trump publicly accused Iran of responsibility for recent attacks on oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The US military released a video it said showed Iran's Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the oil tankers targeted near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, suggesting Tehran wanted to hide evidence of its alleged involvement.
(AP, 6/14/19)
2019 Jun 15, Richard Ratcliffe said his wife, British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (40), has begun another hunger strike in protest at her detention in a Tehran prison on sedition charges. Ratcliffe said he would hold a vigil outside Iran's London embassy, and would fast in support of his wife. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe ended her hunger strike after 15 days.
(AP, 6/15/19)(Reuters, 6/29/19)
2019 Jun 15, A Iraqi government source said the United States has granted Iraq another 90-day waiver to continue with vital energy imports from neighboring Iran despite re-imposed sanctions.
(AFP, 6/15/19)
2019 Jun 16, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman joined the US in accusing its bitter rival Iran of being behind the attacks on two oil tankers traveling near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route for Arabian energy exports to Asia.
(AP, 6/16/19)
2019 Jun 17, Iran said it will surpass from June 27 its uranium stockpile limit set under the nuclear deal with world powers, turning up the pressure after the US walked away from the landmark pact last year.
(AFP, 6/17/19)
2019 Jun 17, Iran said it had exposed a large cyber espionage network it alleged was run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and that several US spies had been arrested in different countries as the result of this action.
(Reuters, 6/17/19)
2019 Jun 18, Iran said it has dismantled a new espionage network linked to the US Central Intelligence Agency and arrested a number of spies. Iranian state television gave details of a 2013 operation to dismantle another CIA network.
(AFP, 6/18/19)
2019 Jun 18, The US said it is sending 1,000 more troops to the Middle East as tensions in the Persian Gulf mounted over Iran's announcement it will not comply with the international agreement that keeps it from making nuclear weapons.
(AP, 6/18/19)
2019 Jun 20, Iran shot down a US spy drone near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, with the two sides at odds whether it was in Iranian or international airspace, in the latest incident stoking tensions between the arch-foes.
(AFP, 6/20/19)
2019 Jun 20, US military cyber forces launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems as President Donald Trump backed away from plans for a more conventional military strike in response to Iran's downing of a US surveillance drone. The attack degraded Tehran's ability to covertly target shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 6/23/19)(SFC, 8/29/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 21, President Donald Trump said the US was "cocked and loaded" to retaliate against Iran for downing an unmanned American surveillance drone, but he canceled the strikes 10 minutes before they were to be launched after being told 150 people could die.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, Major airlines from around the world began rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz following Iran's shooting down of a US military surveillance drone there.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 22, Cybersecurity firms said Iran has increased its offensive cyberattacks against the US government and critical infrastructure as tensions have grown between the two nations.
(AP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 22, State media reported that Iran summoned the United Arab Emirates' top envoy to Tehran to protest the neighboring Arab nation's decision to allow the US to use a base there to launch a drone that Iran says entered its airspace. The US said its RQ-4A Global Hawk was shot down June 20 over international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, not inside Iranian airspace.
(AP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 24, Iran said US cyber attacks on its military had failed, as Washington sought to rally support in the Middle East and Europe for a hardline stance that has brought it to the verge of conflict with its long-time foe.
(Reuters, 6/24/19)
2019 Jun 24, US Pres. Donald Trump enacted new sanctions against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates.
(AP, 6/25/19)
2019 Jun 25, Iran warned that new US sanctions targeting its supreme leader and other top officials meant "closing the doors of diplomacy" between Tehran and Washington amid heightened tensions. Iran said it will further free itself from the 2015 nuclear deal in defiance of new American sanctions.
(AP, 6/25/19)(AFP, 6/25/19)
2019 Jun 28, Iran said it had formally lodged a complaint to the UN Security Council against the United States over a drone violating its airspace.
(AFP, 6/28/19)
2019 Jun 28, In Vienna, Austria, senior officials from Iran and the remaining signatories to its 2015 nuclear deal met with the future of the accord under threat as Tehran was poised to surpass a uranium stockpile threshold.
(AP, 6/28/19)
2019 Jun 28, The US special envoy for Iran said the United States will sanction any country that imports Iranian oil and there are no exemptions in place.
(Reuters, 6/28/19)
2019 Jul 1, Iran acknowledged it had exceeded the limit set on its low-enriched uranium stockpiles by a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, its first major departure from the agreement a year after Washington unilaterally withdrew from it.
(AP, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 1, Mojtaba Zolnour, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy commission, said Israel will be destroyed in half an hour if the US attacks Iran.
(Reuters, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 1, It was reported that Iraq is establishing a financial "loophole" to continue buying vital gas and electricity from Iran despite US sanctions, mirroring a European mechanism that came into effect on June 28.
(AFP, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 1, The head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency said that Iran was behind a string of recent attacks on targets across the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 7/1/19)
2019 Jul 2, Members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard killed two gunmen trying to infiltrate the country through the border with Turkey. Two Iranian guards were also killed in the skirmish in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AP, 7/3/19)
2019 Jul 3, Iran ignored US and EU warnings and vowed to exceed within days the maximum uranium enrichment level it agreed to in the landmark 2015 nuclear accord. Iran warned it will restore a mothballed reactor and step up enrichment if European nations fail to offer it economic guarantees by a July 7 deadline. Iran's intelligence minister said Tehran and Washington could hold talks only if the US ended its sanctions and Iran's top authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave his approval.
(AFP, 7/3/19)(Reuters, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 3, President Donald Trump warned Iran against stepping up uranium enrichment, the latest escalation of the conflict over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program that has plunged the Gulf into renewed uncertainty.
(Bloomberg, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 4, The supertanker Grace 1 was halted in the early hours by Gibraltar police and customs agencies, aided by a detachment of British Royal Marines. The tanker was believed to be carrying oil from Iran to the Banyas Refinery in Syria.
(Telegraph, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 4, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is willing to mediate between the United States and Iran to ease tensions over Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 7/4/19)
2019 Jul 5, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee voted to add Iran's Hyrcanian forests to its World Heritage List, praising the area for its "remarkable" biodiversity.
(AFP, 7/5/19)
2019 Jul 7, Iran announced it will increase its uranium enrichment to an unspecified level beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, breaking another limit set under the accord and furthering heightening tensions with the US.
(AP, 7/7/19)
2019 Jul 7, It was reported that a new law in Iran could see the organs of convicts on death row pre-sold to buyers if the prisoners agree before their executions.
(The Telegraph, 7/8/19)
2019 Jul 7, The French government said it will not trigger the Iran nuclear deal's dispute resolution mechanism for now, instead giving itself one week to try to get all parties talking again after Iran decided to enrich uranium above limits agreed in 2015.
(Reuters, 7/7/19)
2019 Jul 8, Iran began enriching uranium to 4.5%, just breaking the limit set by its nuclear deal with world powers, while it is still seeking a way for Europe to help it bypass US sanctions amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.
(AP, 7/8/19)
2019 Jul 9, European powers urged Iran to reverse its move to increase uranium enrichment, as a French envoy was due in Tehran to boost efforts to save a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
(AFP, 7/9/19)
2019 Jul 9, An ambush by Kurdish militants killed three Revolutionary Guard members in western Iran.
(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 10, Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched deadly strikes against "terrorists" across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. The two-day operation killed at least one civilian.
(AFP, 7/12/19)(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 10, French President Emmanuel Macron's top diplomatic advisor held high-level talks in Tehran aimed at saving the 2015 nuclear deal and easing tensions between Iran and the US.
(AFP, 7/10/19)
2019 Jul 10, The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran is enriching uranium to 4.5% purity, above the 3.67% limit set by its deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 7/10/19)
2019 Jul 11, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that the United States and Britain will "strongly regret" the seizure of a tanker off Gibraltar.
(AFP, 7/11/19)
2019 Jul 12, Iran demanded the British navy release an Iranian oil tanker seized last week off Gibraltar, accusing London of playing a "dangerous game" and threatening retribution, while London announced it was sending a destroyer to the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 12, Police in Gibraltar said they have arrested the two second mates of an Iranian supertanker seized last week by the British navy on suspicion of carrying Tehran's oil to Syria. The vessel's captain and chief officer were arrested a day earlier. All four arrested men are Indian.
(AP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 12, The US House of Representatives voted to restrict President Donald Trump's ability to attack Iran, voicing fear that his hawkish policies are pushing toward a needless war.
(AFP, 7/12/19)
2019 Jul 13, The European Union's foreign policy chief said the EU is fully supportive of an Iraqi proposal to hold a regional conference amid rising tensions between the US and Iran.
(AP, 7/13/19)
2019 Jul 13, The Riah, a 58-meter (190-foot) oil tanker from the United Arab Emirates traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, entered Iranian waters and turned off its tracker. Foreign Ministry spokesman later said the Islamic Republic helped an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz amid US concern that Tehran seized one there. On July 18 Iranian Revolutionary Guards said they had seized a foreign oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Its 12 crew members were arrested.
(AP, 7/16/19)(The Telegraph, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 14, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech that Iran is ready to hold talks with the United States if Washington lifts sanctions and returns to the 2015 nuclear deal it exited last year.
(Reuters, 7/14/19)
2019 Jul 15, European Union nations threw their diplomatic weight behind the unraveling Iran nuclear deal, trying to rescue the pact from collapsing under US pressure.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 16, In Iran 11 people died after a minibus plunged into a ravine in a valley in the central province of Isfahan. A crash between a bus and a car in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province killed seven people.
(AP, 7/16/19)
2019 Jul 18, Pres. Donald Trump said the USS Boxer took action after an Iranian drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored commands to stay away. The Revolutionary Guard said the Iranian drone had been carrying out regular surveillance when the USS Boxer arrived, and transmitted photos of the ship.
(AP, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 18, The US Treasury named a group of companies in Iran, Belgium and China to its sanctions blacklist for acting as a supply network for Tehran's nuclear enrichment program.
(AFP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 19, Iran denied President Donald Trump's claim that a US warship destroyed an Iranian drone near the Persian Gulf in another escalation of tensions between the two countries less than a month after Trump nearly launched an airstrike.
(AP, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 19, Iran's Revolutionary Guard seized the Stena Impero, a British-flagged oil tanker. Iran says it intervened because the British-flagged tanker hit an Iranian fishing boat. A second Liberian-flagged ship was briefly detained.
(AP, 7/20/19)
2019 Jul 19, In northern Iraq an unmanned aircraft dropped explosives on a base belonging to Iran-linked Shi'ite paramilitary groups, killing at least one person. Two Iranian military commanders were killed. US officials later confirmed that Israel was responsible for the bombing in Amirli, Salaheddin province. A Turkish soldier was killed and six wounded in an operation in northern Iraq during clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
(Reuters, 7/19/19)(AP, 8/23/19)(SFC, 8/24/19, p.A4)
2019 Jul 19, Panama's maritime authority began the process of withdrawing the registration of an oil tanker called MT Riah, which was towed to Iran after it disappeared from ship tracking maps in the Strait of Hormuz on July 14. The authority said an investigation has determined the tanker had "deliberately violated international regulations" by not reporting any unusual situation,
(Reuters, 7/20/19)
2019 Jul 19, The United States targeted a senior operative of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group with sanctions as part of its pressure campaign against Tehran. The government also issued a $7 million reward for information leading to the capture of the operative, Salman Rauf Salman, who is said to have coordinated the 1994 on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(AP, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 19, Twitter suspended the accounts of several Iranian state media outlets. The next day Twitter said this was due to harassment of people linked to the Baha'i faith.
(AFP, 7/20/19)
2019 Jul 21, Stena Bulk, the British operator of the Stena Impero tanker seized by Iran, said it has made a formal request to visit the ship's 23 crew members and is awaiting a formal response.
(Reuters, 7/21/19)
2019 Jul 22, Iran said it has arrested 17 Iranian nationals allegedly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on the country's nuclear and military sites, and that some of them have already been sentenced to death.
(AP, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 22, It was reported that tankers are offloading millions of barrels of Iranian oil into storage tanks at Chinese ports, creating a hoard of crude sitting on the doorstep of the world’s biggest buyer.
(Bloomberg, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 22, Britain called on Iran to release a British-flagged tanker and its crew immediately, describing the seizure of the Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz as illegal.
(Reuters, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 22, A group of American citizens and legal residents trying to bring their Iranian spouses and other family to join them in the United States filed a federal lawsuit saying they are being unfairly blocked by the Trump administration's travel ban.
(AP, 7/23/19)
2019 Jul 23, Iran threatened to cut its imports from Brazil unless it allows the refueling of at least two Iranian ships stranded off the Brazilian coast, a sign of the global repercussions of US sanctions on the Islamic republic.
(Bloomberg, 7/24/19)
2019 Jul 23, Saudi Arabia's cabinet said that Iran's interception of commercial vessels in Gulf waters, including its seizure of a British tanker, violated international law and must be prevented.
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