News Digest: Week of March 22

March 24, 2021

March 22

Afghanistan: Iran's special envoy for Afghanistan spoke with the U.N. Secretary General's office about the Afghan peace process. "The two sides reviewed various aspects of Afghanistan developments, and highlighted the necessity of mitigating the pains of Afghan people and accelerating the achievement of peace and sustainable stability through diplomatic and political solutions," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said. 

Nowruz:

 

March 23

Nuclear: The International Atomic Energy Agency would hold talks in Tehran in April, Newsweek reported. The nuclear watchdog plans to ask about uranium particles detected at two undeclared sites. "We have some information, we have some hypotheses, and we are going to be putting very clear questions to our Iranian counterparts in order to see whether we can clarify this," IAEA chief Raphael Grossi said. 

Yemen: Tehran backed a political solution to the conflict in Yemen, one day after Saudi Arabia proposed a comprehensive ceasefire and reopening the Sanaa airport. "Since the beginning of this war, the Islamic Republic of Iran has emphasized that the Yemen crisis has no military solution," Iran's Foreign Ministry said, "and that Iran supports any peace plan focused on ending the aggression, declaring a nationwide ceasefire, ending the occupation, lifting the economic siege, starting the political dialogue, and finally letting Yemenis take the helm of shaping their political future free from any foreign interference."

Diplomacy: 

 

March 24

Diplomacy: Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with counterparts from Britain, Germany and France to discuss Iran. "We are all very much on the same page when it comes to Iran, when it comes to our common interest in seeing if Iran wants to engage in diplomacy to come back fully into compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA," he told reporters in Brussels. "We are, again, prepared to engage on that. To date Iran has not been, but let’s see what happens in the weeks ahead."

Nuclear: