via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
On April 3 the European Parliament (EP) passed a resolution on EU Strategy towards Iran. It proposes the opening of a EU delegation in Tehran; cooperation in a number of areas such as the fight against narcotic drugs, environmental protection, and exchanges of students and academics; engaging [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
Iranian news agencies are reporting that a “knowledgeable source” is suggesting Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif cancelled his dinner meeting with EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton on the eve of nuclear talks in Vienna to protest her meeting with civil and women’s rights activists, including the [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
Let me begin by saying that I have been a long-standing critic of US sanctions against Iran. Irrespective of my distaste for Iran’s structure of governance, I have not been shy in calling out the sanctions regime as collective punishment of the Iranian people. I have also been [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
The meeting between Javad Zarif and John Kerry on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 2 was reportedly mostly focused on nuclear negotiations. But this didn’t prevent a “senior US official” from telling reporters that Kerry also tried to bring in Syria.
According [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
Speaking to CNN during the World Economic Forum in Davos this week Foreign Minister Javad Zarif got personal.
He chided the US president, though he only named the “the White House”, for playing fast and loose with facts.
The White House version of the first-phase deal reached [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
I have recently returned from a three-month trip to Iran. I arrived in Tehran in early September before the famous Rouhani/Obama phone call and departed last week as the mood was turning more skeptical regarding the potential for some sort of final nuclear deal, which, in the [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi & Jasmin Ramsey
Editor’s Note: Following is Jasmin Ramsey’s introduction and interview with Farideh Farhi, an independent scholar and expert on Iran from the University of Hawaii who has been in Tehran since the end of August.
The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
I read about the Obama-Rouhani phone call in Farsnews, the hardline Iranian agency sometimes referred to as False News for the way it manages to distort certain events. (The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) was apparently the first to report the call). Feeling skeptical, I turned [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
Following declarations that the Obama administration could soon strike Syria, very little has been left unsaid. The fact that President Barack Obama has been a reluctant warrior lends weight to the justification of his attack, we are told. Surely a reluctant warrior would not use a humanitarian [...]
via LobeLog
by Farideh Farhi
Iran’s cabinet confirmation hearings this week were painful, but not for its new president Hassan Rouhani, despite the rejection of 3 out of his 18 ministerial nominees. They were painful for Iran’s hardliners, whose mismanagement of the country was spotlighted along with their weakening form of political speech.
A [...]
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