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Iran Says Nuclear Talks Will Fail if US Pushes for Zero Enrichment
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, June 11, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Nuclear talks between Iran and the United States “will lead nowhere” if Washington insists that Tehran drop its uranium enrichment activity to zero, Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takhtravanchi was quoted by state media on Monday as saying.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff reiterated Washington’s stance on Sunday that any new deal between the US and Iran must include an agreement to refrain from enrichment, a possible pathway to developing nuclear bombs. Tehran says its nuclear energy program has entirely peaceful purposes; Western countries have countered there is no civilian justification for the extent of Iran’s uranium enrichment.
“Our position on enrichment is clear and we have repeatedly stated that it is a national achievement from which we will not back down,” Takhtravanchi said.
During his visit to the Gulf region last week, US President Donald Trump said a deal was very close but that Iran needed to move quickly to resolve the decades-long dispute.
Washington is complicating negotiations by expressing views in public different from what is discussed privately during talks, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
“Despite hearing contradictory statements from the Americans, we are still participating in negotiations,” Esmail Baghaei added.
A fifth round of talks is expected to take place in Rome this weekend pending confirmation, an Iranian official told Reuters.
During his first, 2017-21 term as president, Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed temporary limits on Tehran’s enrichment activities in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
Trump, who branded the 2015 accord one-sided in Iran‘s favor, also reimposed sweeping US sanctions on Iran. The Islamic Republic responded by escalating enrichment.
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UK Police Arrest 55 at Parliament Rally for Banned Palestine Action Group
A detained demonstrator sits inside a police van, following a protest in support of the Palestine Action group in Parliament Square in London, Britain, July 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
Fifty-five people were arrested at a rally for the banned Palestine Action group outside Britain’s parliament on Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
The crowd in Parliament Square had been waving placards supporting the group that was banned this month under anti-terrorism legislation, the force said in a post on X.
People from the rally, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, were taken away in police vans.
British lawmakers proscribed the group earlier this month after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
Membership of Palestine Action now carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
The group has called the decision “authoritarian,” and a challenge to the ban will be heard at London’s High Court on Monday.
Palestine Action is among groups that have regularly targeted defense firms and other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza.
Police have arrested scores of the group’s supporters at rallies across Britain since the ban came in
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US Says Attack on West Bank Palestinian Church Was ‘Act of Terror’
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called on Saturday for the perpetrators of an attack on a Palestinian church in the West Bank blamed on Israeli settlers to be prosecuted, calling it an “act of terror.”
Huckabee said he had visited the Christian town of Taybeh, where clerics said Israeli settlers had started a fire near a cemetery and a 5th-century church on July 8.
“It is an act of terror, and it is a crime,” Huckabee said in a statement, “Those who carry out acts of terror and violence in Taybeh – or anywhere – (should) be found and be prosecuted. Not just reprimanded, that’s not enough.”
Israel’s government has not commented on the incident, but has previously denounced such acts.
On Tuesday, Huckabee said he had asked Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing of a Palestinian American beaten by settlers in the West Bank, similarly describing it as a “criminal and terrorist act.”
Huckabee is a staunch supporter of Israeli settlements and his comments are a rare and pointed public intervention by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Trump in January rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Settler attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank have risen since the start of Israel’s war on the Hamas terror group in Gaza in October 2023, though violence has long simmered there.
The United Nations’ highest court said last year that Israel’s settlements in territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, including the West Bank, were illegal.
Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical ties to the land as well as security needs.
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Israel and Syria Agree to Ceasefire, US Envoy Tom Barrack Announces
US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and US Special Envoy Keith Kellogg attend the Turkey-US-Ukraine trilateral talks in Istanbul, Turkey, May 16, 2025. Photo: Arda Kucukkaya/Turkish Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Israeli and Syrian leaders have agreed to a ceasefire, US envoy to Turkey and Syria Tom Barrack announced on the X platform.
Earlier in the week Israel launched an air campaign in Syria aimed to protect Syrian Druze — part of a minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
Barrack said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, with the mediation of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, agreed to a ceasefire “embraced” by Turkey, Jordan and other unidentified neighbors.
There is no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office or the Syrian Presidency.
The post Israel and Syria Agree to Ceasefire, US Envoy Tom Barrack Announces first appeared on Algemeiner.com.