
Iran says Trump shifting stance on sanctions amounts to 'psychological and media games'
DUBAI, June 30 (Reuters) - Iran criticised on Monday U.S. President Donald Trump's shifting stance on whether to lift economic sanctions against Tehran as "games" that were not aimed at solving the problems between the two countries.
"These [statements by Trump] should be viewed more in the context of psychological and media games than as a serious expression in favour of dialogue or problem-solving," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told a press conference.
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16 minutes ago
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The Iranian threat already inside Britain
Iran's online disinformation has been paired with activism from sympathetic NGOs. The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a driving force behind these campaigns. They've arranged annual Quds rallies, which is a tradition that was established by the 1979 Iranian Revolution leader Ruhollah Khomeini, and brandished Hezbollah flags until the Lebanese group was designated as a terror organisation in 2019. Despite investigations corroborating the IHRC's links to the Islamic Republic, the group still operates and is facing scrutiny for allegedly backing the Palestine Action sabotage campaign against Israeli targets. These networks thrive in part because of the endurance of Iranian dark money in the British financial system. To advance the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, Britain lifted sanctions on Melli Bank and Bank Saderat in 2016. Melli Bank has been implicated in financing Iran-aligned Kataib Hezbollah militias in Iraq and Bank Saderat has funded Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. As major Iranian financial institutions still operate London offices and do business within a stone's throw of the Bank of England, their activities have received parliamentary scrutiny. Dame Margaret Hodge, a Labour peer from Barking, and Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader of the Conservative Party, both drew attention to this issue in 2024. Owing to mounting concerns about Iran's malign activities in Britain, the authorities have taken some concrete actions. In October 2024, MI5 chief Ken McCallum vowed to give his 'fullest attention to the risk of an increase in, or broadening of, Iranian state aggression in the UK' and highlighted the service's thwarting of 20 potentially lethal Iranian plots against British citizens. In March 2025 Dan Jarvis, the security minister, declared that unregistered Iranian state agents could face up to five years in prison. These half-measures are not nearly sufficient to neutralise the full scale of Iran's shadow war against Britain. Tighter sanctions on Iranian financial networks and curbs on malign influence operations are urgently needed.


Telegraph
19 minutes ago
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The Left has no idea how dumb and bigoted ‘free Palestine' sounds
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The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Musk will ‘do everything to damage' Trump and is building political influence to rival MAGA, mogul's former friend reveals
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