China's representative at talks on Iran's nuclear program said on Thursday he saw hope that a deal would be done, a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said "significant gaps" remained to be negotiated.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Gulf Arab foreign ministers in Riyadh on Thursday to brief them on progress in the nuclear talks with Iran and offer reassurance that any deal would not damage their interests.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United States on Tuesday that it was negotiating a bad deal with Iran that could spark a "nuclear nightmare," drawing a rebuke from President Barack Obama and exposing a deepening U.S.-Israeli rift.
Iran had a "deeply troubling" number of executions last year and did not keep a promise to protect ethnic and religious minorities, the United Nations said on Tuesday in its annual report on Tehran's human rights record.
Iran on Tuesday rejected as "unacceptable" U.S. President Barack Obama's demand that it freeze sensitive nuclear activities for at least 10 years, but said it would continue talks aimed at securing a deal, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will escalate his campaign against U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran diplomacy on Tuesday in a speech to Congress whose staging has put unprecedented stress on the two leaders' already strained ties.
The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said on Monday Iran had still not handed over key information to his staff, and his body's investigation into Tehran's atomic program could not continue indefinitely.
President Barack Obama would veto a bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate allowing Congress to weigh in on any deal the United States and other negotiating countries reach with Iran on its nuclear capabilities, the White House said on Saturday.
Signs are growing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress against a possible nuclear deal with Iran could damage his country's broad alliance with the United States.
The revamp of Argentina's intelligence service faced its final legislative hurdle on Wednesday, with Congress poised to create a new agency after the government said a renegade spy was linked to the death of a star prosecutor.
The United States made some progress in talks with Iran on its nuclear program and managed to "sharpen up some of the tough issues", a senior U.S. official said on Monday, but both sides said much remained to be done.
High-level nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran resumed in Geneva on Monday as both sides work through technical and political differences to come up with an initial deal by a March 31 deadline.
Iran has still not addressed specific issues that could feed suspicions it may have researched an atomic bomb, a U.N. watchdog report showed on Thursday, potentially complicating efforts by six powers to clinch a nuclear deal with Tehran.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed on Wednesday that his country would resist global sanctions imposed over its disputed nuclear program, saying that Iran might respond to international pressure by cutting back gas exports.
Iran has denied a Wall Street Journal report that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently responded to a letter sent in October by U.S. President Barack Obama suggesting cooperation with Iran in fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
A deal with Iran on its controversial nuclear program would help it escape from sanctions and allow more efforts to be spent on economic development, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a trip to Tehran.
India and the United States vowed on Thursday to step up joint efforts to halt illicit money flows after revelations that Iranian oil export revenues had been siphoned out of an Indian bank in a suspected money-laundering scheme.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denied on Sunday a media report that he had told the United States during nuclear talks that President Hassan Rouhani's political clout would be heavily damaged if negotiations failed.
Argentine investigators failed on Thursday to track down a former spymaster wanted for questioning over the death of a prosecutor who had accused President Cristina Fernandez of covering up Iran's alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center.
A U.S. judge on Thursday rejected an agreement by Dutch company Fokker Services B.V. to pay $10.5 million to resolve criminal charges it illegally shipped aircraft parts to Iran, Sudan and Myanmar, describing it as "grossly disproportionate" given the seriousness of the company's actions.
The United States is pressing Cuba to allow the opening of its embassy in Havana by April, U.S. officials told Reuters, despite the Communist island's demand that it first be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
