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A group of Iranian dissidents said on Tuesday that Iran has an “underground top-secret site’ that is enriching uranium intended for nuclear weapons and which has been hidden from the West for years, Fox News reports. According to the Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the complex, called Lavizan-3, is right outside Tehran, “buried deep underground in tunnels and underground facilities” with “radiation-proof doors” to prevent any leaks that could be detected by the United Nations International Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. The revelations were unveiled during a Washington, DC, news conference by the NCRI, which...

A large majority of Americans believe that Republican congressional leaders should not have invited Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress without consulting the White House, a new CNN/ORC survey release on Tuesday found. The poll found that 63% of Americans believe it was a bad move for congressional leadership to extend the invitation without giving President Barack Obama a heads up that it was coming. Only 33% said the Republican move was the right thing to do. The speech has become a point of contention between Republicans and Democrats. Obama’s allies fear the trip could be used by...

How dare he speak out on the Iranian nuclear threat!On Thursday the Obama White House said they would not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because they wanted to “avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country.”The Israeli elections are two weeks after Netanyahu is set to address a joint session of Congress.On Friday an Obama administration official told reporters Netanyahu “spat in our face.”The Times of Israel reported: The White House’s outrage over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to speak before Congress in March — a move he failed to coordinate with the administration...

A New York Times reporter will be subpoenaed to answer questions ahead of an upcoming trial of a former CIA officer accused of leaking classified information, though a Tuesday hearing indicated there is much confusion about what the journalist may be asked to reveal. Prosecutors say they will not ask James Risen if ex-CIA man Jeffrey Sterling was his anonymous source for part of the 2006 book “State Of War” that detailed a botched CIA effort to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. However, they do want to know if the two had a prior, on-the-record source relationship. Risen’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg,...

Nothing better showcases Washington’s confusion over foreign policy than the idea that – as part of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal – Iran would ship much or all of its enriched uranium to Russia, and Russia would then process it for Iranian civilian usage. Were the U.S.-led “P5+1” negotiators (the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) to reach a deal with Iran with this provision, the United States would subjugate its national security and that of its allies to two U.S. adversaries, both of which are undermining U.S. interests around the world. In addition, Washington would further legitimize Tehran...

US company World Eco Energy has signed a preliminary agreement to invest $1.175 billion to generate electricity in Iran. The plan is to turn solid waste into power. In April, the US Treasury awarded American-based Boeing and GE a license to sell spare parts to Iran to help the country’s ailing aviation industry. Iran needed new plane parts, as its jets have passed their service life and need proper replacements.

An Iranian university professor faces 18 months in jail for questioning the merit of the country’s nuclear program and for asking if a businessman convicted of fraud should have been executed, AFP reported on Thursday. The professor, Sadeq Zibakalam, said on his Facebook page that he was found guilty by a Revolutionary Court of “committing propaganda against the system, spreading rumors and insulting the judiciary.” Zibakalam, 66, who teaches politics at Tehran University, said he was given a 12-month sentence on account of letters he wrote to critics of the present government’s attempts to resolve the nuclear issue. …

The United States said on Saturday it will send its No. 2 diplomat to Geneva to meet senior Iranian officials on Monday and Tuesday in what appeared an effort to break a logjam in wider negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, who led secret U.S.-Iranian negotiations that helped bring about a Nov. 24 interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers, will head a U.S. delegation. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the primary U.S. negotiator with Iran, will accompany him on a team that will include senior White House national security staff. The...

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, all but said on Sunday that negotiations over the country’s illicit nuclear program are over and that the Islamic Republic’s ideals include destroying America. “Those (Iranians) who want to promote negotiation and surrender to the oppressors and blame the Islamic Republic as a warmonger in reality commit treason,” Khamenei told a meeting of members of parliament, according to the regime’s Fars News Agency. Khamenei emphasized that without a combative mindset, the regime cannot reach its higher Islamic role against the “oppressors’ front.” “The reason for continuation of this battle is not the warmongering of...

Chris Matthews for an interview on Hardball Wednesday and made some news by saying he does not think the United States should bomb Iran even if they were to succeed in building an operational nuclear weapon. This statement differs not only from recent comments made by former Vice President Dick Cheney but also from the stated position of President Barack Obama. “I never have felt that Israel had a capability militarily to go 1,200 miles or more and bomb Iran effectively and then return back to Israel,” said of Cheney’s suggestion that Israel could attack Iran unilaterally. “The only country...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister headed to Washington on Sunday for a high-stakes meeting with President Barack Obama about U.S.-led Mideast peace efforts, vowing to maintain a tough line in the face of heavy international pressure to begin making concessions to the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu's defiant tone set the stage for what could be a difficult meeting Monday with Obama. But with the clock ticking toward an April target date for a preliminary agreement, the Israeli leader could soon be forced to begin laying out a clearer vision for a future peace deal with the Palestinians. Shortly before takeoff,...

Iran has received the first instalment of $4.2 billion in frozen assets as part of a nuclear deal with world powers, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told ISNA news agency Saturday. Unblocking the funds under the landmark deal in which Iran agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear programme and halt further advances is expected to breathe new life into its crippled economy.

I called a hardheaded realist, a Harvard trained PhD who has been watching the Middle East professionally for decades, to ask him about Obama's Iran deal. This is what he told me. It's done. Iran will get a bomb. They want a bomb and they will not be denied unless somebody stops them. Obama does not want to stop them. He does not want a friendly regime in Iran. He wants Iran as a counterforce to America and Israel. Obama is not a Muslim, but he is a radical. He sees the U.S. and Israel as imperialistic and oppressive. He...

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted Wednesday that the Obama administration mischaracterizes concessions by his side in the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, telling CNN in an exclusive interview that "we did not agree to dismantle anything." Zarif told CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto that terminology used by the White House to describe the agreement differed from the text agreed to by Iran and the other countries in the talks -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany. "The White House version both underplays the concessions and overplays Iranian commitments" under the agreement that took...

Iran will receive the first $550 million installment of a total of $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds on or about February 1, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday. The money will be transferred to Iran as part of the implementation of the nuclear deal reached with it in Geneva on November 24. Earlier Sunday, President Barack Obama confirmed that the agreement would be implemented starting January 20. Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if it carries out the deal, which offers sanctions relief in...

Hardline Iranian lawmakers are seeking to increase the nation's uranium enrichment to 60 percent to “provide fuel for submarine engines.” The bill is expected to give Tehran an upper hand if the Geneva deal, which limits enrichment to 20 percent, fails. Some 100 lawmakers have introduced the bill under a “double urgency status,” which means it may be debated in the Iranian parliament within a week, the official IRNA news agency reported. If the bill is approved, it will oblige the government “to enrich uranium to 60 percent in order to provide fuel for submarine engines if the sanctions are...

The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month’s interim deal in Geneva on Iran’s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told. In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs.

According to the interim agreement regarding Iran's nuclear program that was reached this weekend in Geneva, not one centrifuge will be destroyed. Not one pound of enriched uranium will leave Iran. Not one American unjustly detained in Iran's notorious prisons will be released. But Iran will start to receive, in a matter of days, $7 billion in relief from international economics sanctions. This appears to be an unfortunate case of history repeating itself. As happened with North Korea in 1994, fascination with the negotiation process has blinded American diplomats to the true nature of their negotiating partners. Substantive sanctions relief...

Iranian collaboration with North Korea on a new rocket booster for long-range missiles undermines the deal with Tehran on its nuclear program, key Senate and House Republicans said on Tuesday. “While the president was undertaking his secret negotiations—which Congress wasn’t informed of—he had to know Iran and North Korea were testing new engines for ballistic missiles to target the United States,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.) chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces. Reports of Iran-North Korea ICBM collaboration follow new anti-America and anti-Israel outbursts from the Islamist regime in Tehran, Cruz said. “The Iranian regime...

Iranian officials say that the White House is misleading the public about the details of an interim nuclear agreement reached over the weekend in Geneva. Iran and Western nations including the United States came to an agreement on the framework for an interim deal late Saturday night in Geneva. The deal has yet to be implemented The White House released a multi-page fact sheet containing details of the draft agreement shortly after the deal was announced. However, Iranian foreign ministry official on Tuesday rejected the White House’s version of the deal as “invalid” and accused Washington of releasing a factually...