March 10
International: Two alleged Russian mob members, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, will face trial in the United States for their participation in an unsuccessful attempt to kill an Iranian American journalist and activist in New York. U.S. federal prosecutors said that Iran’s IRGC had recruited Amirov and Omarov in 2021 for the murder-for-hire plot. Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad said she was the target of the murder plot and will testify in court against the two men.
International: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow had not consulted with Tehran before or after Iran had received President Donald Trump’s letter for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Peskov said: “Iran is a sovereign country and independently formulates its position on key foreign policy issues. It is clear that very tense contacts are ahead.” He added that Russia will do its part to “bring this process of settling the Iranian nuclear dossier into a peaceful direction."
March 11
Military: China and Russia conducted joint naval drills with Iran in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil trade passes. The exercise marked the fifth year that the countries have conducted military drills to strengthen cooperation among the three countries. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center reported GPS interference in the area for several hours.
March 12
Nuclear: The United Nations Security Council held a private meeting to discuss Iran’s nuclear program and its increased production of highly enriched uranium. The meeting was requested by France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. After the meeting, the United Kingdom warned Iran that it was ready to trigger snapback sanctions to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The United States said that the Security Council “must be clear and united in addressing and condemning” Iran’s “brazen behavior.”
Nuclear: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against diplomacy with the United States. “Negotiating with this U.S. government will not lift sanctions… it will tighten the knot of the sanctions and increase the pressure.” Khamenei made his comments after the U.S. President Donald Trump said he had sent a letter to Iran seeking negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. “If we wanted to build nuclear weapons, the U.S. could not have stopped us. The fact that we do not have nuclear weapons and are not seeking them is because we ourselves do not want them for certain reasons,” Khamenei said.
March 13
Nuclear: Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Germany, and France to criticize their cooperation with the United States in the U.N. Security Council meeting on March 12 concerning Iran’s controversial nuclear program. During the meeting, Iran’s Director-General for Peace and International Security critiqued the “irresponsible and provocative” actions of the three countries and claimed that Iran’s nuclear program complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal.