Iran sharply rejected any notion of negotiations with the United States on Wednesday, directly contradicting President Donald Trump’s claim a day earlier that talks were underway. The public rebuke highlights the deep mistrust between the two nations and underscores the fragility of efforts to resolve tensions over nuclear proliferation and regional security. Newsweek has contacted the State Department via email comment. Why It Matters The standoff underscores the perilous state of U.S.-Iran relations,…

The head of the UN nuclear agency on Wednesday renewed his call for Iran to allow inspections at key nuclear sites attacked by Israel and the United States in June. Tensions between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have repeatedly flared in recent years and were further inflamed after a 12-day war in June that saw Israeli and US strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities. Since the war,…

The Iranian middle class, long a force of political moderation, stability, economic growth, and the base of the country’s reform movement, is shrinking fast under the pressure of Western sanctions, researchers say. Left in its wake are rising societal resentments and an ever-increasing wealth gap. A study published in the European Journal of Political Economy has used an innovative method to investigate…

Citizen Lab found that an online network pushed out deepfake videos during Israel’s airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin Prison. An investigation by TheMarker and Haaretz reveals the Persian-language online campaigns indirectly funded by Israel In early 2023, Reza Pahlavi made his first official visit to Israel. He’s the son of the last shah of Iran, who was overthrown in the 1979…

A few weeks ago, in a public act at the White House, with Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, surprised, Donald Trump – the man whom the prime minister and his followers are convinced they have in their pocket – announced that the United States was opening direct, high-level talks with Iran. The gap between what the U.S. president is doing…

Iran say they plan to boycott Friday’s 2026 World Cup draw in the United States because of the limited number of visas for their delegation. According to the Tehran Times, the US has issued four visas to Iran’s delegation, but they do not include one for Mehdi Taj, the president of the country’s football federation. Taj said he had spoken to Fifa president Gianni Infantino about the issue. “We are…