During an interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast of “NBC Nightly News,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi stated that the money that will be unfrozen under Iran’s prisoner swap with the United States “belongs to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and naturally, we will decide, the Islamic Republic of Iran will decide to spend it wherever we need it.”
The Biden administration on Thursday reportedly struck a deal with Iran to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian financial assets and release a “handful” of Iranian nationals jailed for violating U.S. sanctions in exchange for five Americans taken prisoner by Iran on highly dubious charges of espionage.
The defense ministers of Iran and Belarus signed agreements to increase their military cooperation, which may include the production of drones, experts warned.
Experts reviewing satellite images said in a report on Tuesday that Iran is reportedly building a nuclear facility so deep underground that even the most powerful American-made weapons may not be able to destroy it.
Iran’s continued harassment of vessels and interference with navigational rights in regional waters are a threat to maritime security and the global economy,” the statement continued. “In the past two years, Iran has unlawfully seized at least five commercial vessels sailing in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia’s cabinet on Wednesday approved a decision to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a China-led security bloc, in a sign of its deepening ties with Beijing.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to restore diplomatic relations in an agreement that was brokered by China — a major blow to U.S. efforts to maintain a united front in the Middle East against the Tehran regime.
Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took steps this week to restore diplomatic relations with Iran, a tacit acknowledgment that President Joe Biden’s reckless determination to restore the Iran nuclear deal will make Tehran vastly more rich and powerful, not to mention bringing it closer to deploying a nuclear umbrella.
Iran has started training Russian officials to operate advanced drones, the Biden administration said, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The report stated this is indicative of Russia’s plans to take control of the skies above Ukraine.
Tehran is technically capable of making a nuclear bomb but has yet to decide whether to build it, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Al Jazeera’s Arabic service on Sunday.
A former U.N. nuclear inspector said Iran’s nuclear breakout time is now zero and Tehran has accumulated enough highly enriched uranium to build a bomb, although it is not clear just how long it would take the Islamic Republic to assemble it.
The U.S. will have a hard time stopping Middle Eastern nations from pursuing nuclear capabilities should Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, and it must work to repair relations with allies in the region to downplay concerns, experts told Fox News Digital.
“It’s obvious that if Iran becomes nuclear, they will threaten the very existence of all the Sunni states and neighbors in the Gulf,” Brigadier General (reserve) Amir Avivi, founder of the Israel Defense & Security Forum, said. “Nobody will have the right, not the U.S., not Europe, not anybody will have the moral right to tell anybody in the Middle East not to be able to defend itself.”