Iran protester Erfan Soltani released on bail, lawyer says
Iranian protester Erfan Soltani has been released on bail, his lawyer said, after the US warned he was due to be executed. Tehran denied he had been sentenced to death.
The 26-year-old “was released yesterday (Saturday) and recieved all of his belongings including his cellphone”, said lawyer Amir Mousakhani, adding that a bail of “two billion tomans” (around $12,600) was paid for his release.
Erfani was arrested in January in the city of Fardis, just west of Tehran, during a crackdown on anti-regime protests.
Tehran announces official protest crackdown toll of 3,117
The Iranian government has published an official list of victims who died during the recent protests, according to sources contacted by FRANCE 24.
Of the 3,117 deaths officially announced, the names of 2,986 people have been released.
The remaining 131 have not yet been positively identified.
Tehran maintains that this is the final death toll.
Iran official denies reports of Strait of Hormuz military drill plans
Media reports of plans for IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) naval drills in the strategic Strait of Hormuz are wrong, an Iranian official has told Reuters.
The IRGC did not make any official announcement of military exercises in the narrow waterway that serves as an entrance to the Persian Gulf, the official said.
Iran’s state-run Press TV on Thursday reported that the force would carry out the exercises in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, February 1 and Monday, February 2.
The US military’s Central Command had warned against threatening American warships or aircraft during the drill or disrupting commercial traffic in the waterway through which a fifth of all global oil shipments passes.
Iran warns US against military action amid tentative negotiations
Iran’s Khamenei says recent anti-government protests akin to ‘coup’
Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei said that recent anti-government protests that saw killings and vandalism were akin to “a coup”.
“They (rioters) attacked the police, government centres, IRGC centres, banks, and mosques, and burned the Koran… It was like a coup,” Khamenei said according to Tasnim news agency, adding that “the coup was suppressed”.
Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei warns US strike could spark regional war
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that if the US attacked Iran, it would become a regional conflict, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
Khamenei said on Sunday that if the US “start[s] a war, this time it will be a regional war.”
“We are not the instigators and we do not seek to attack any country. But the Iranian nation will deliver a firm blow to anyone who attacks or harasses it,” he added.
The comments from the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are the most-direct threat he’s made to the US so far.
Iran says it considers EU militaries to be terrorist groups
Iran speaker of parliament has said that the Islamic Republic now considers all European Union militaries to be terrorist groups.
The comment by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf follows an EU agreement last week to list Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group over its part in the bloody crackdown on nationwide protests in the country.
Qalibaf cited a 2019 law as authorization for the announcement. That law was passed after the U.S. listed the Guard as a terrorist group and allows for reciprocal action by Iran against any nations that follow that decision.
Qalibaf made the announcement as he and others wore Guard uniforms in parliament. Qalibaf was a commander in the Guard.
Trump says India will buy oil from Venezuela, not Iran
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that India will buy Venezuelan oil, as opposed to purchasing oil from Iran.
“We’ve already made that deal, the concept of the deal,” Trump told reporters while on Air Force One, en route to Florida from Washington, DC.
Trump added China was also welcome to make a deal with the US to buy Venezuelan oil.
Qatar says its FM in Iran to ‘reduce tensions’ in region
Qatari premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al, who also serves as foreign minister, held talks in Iran Saturday to try to “de-escalate tensions in the region” the kingdom’s foreign ministry said.
At a meeting with Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, he reiterated Qatar’s support for “all efforts aimed at reducing tensions… in the region,” said the statement.
The announcement came with Washington’s naval battle group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off Iran’s shores, after Trump threatened to intervene in the wake of a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
Welcome to the FRANCE 24 live blog covering tensions between Iran and the US.