Iran budget chief calls for oil revenues to go into sovereign fund

"Let me be clear, we will not tolerate growing state backed threats on UK soil. The Iranian regime poses an unacceptable threat to our domestic security which cannot continue," Cooper told parliament on Monday.

"The UK will not accept any Iranian state threat activity in the UK."

The sharp statement comes after the arrests of Iranian nationals on UK soil this month in terrorism-related cases.

In two separate operations on May 3, eight men including seven Iranians were arrested by the British counter-terrorism police.

On Saturday, three of the Iranian nationals were charged with offences under the National Security Act, accused of acting on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service and carried out surveillance targeting Iran International journalists.

All three are accused of engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between August 14, 2024 and February 16, 2025.

New counter-terror powers against IRGC

Meanwhile an advisor to the UK government on Monday recommended new powers targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as calls for the IRGC’s proscription have grown following the spate of arrests.

The UK government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Jonathan Hall published findings on Monday advising greater powers for ministers to designate people affiliated with the IRGC as terrorists.

Hall's report called for legislation proscribing public demonstrations of support for Iran's paramilitary organization such as displaying its insignia in public and recommended stiffer sentences for those aiding or benefiting from the IRGC.

The Revolutionary Guards cannot be blacklisted the same way non-state actors are, Hall argued, but he recommended its agents and supporters be targeted through a Statutory Alert and Liability Threat or Salt notice.

"It will allow the government to communicate decisive stigma at an international level for certain State and State-backed entities. Naming and shaming in a high-profile manner, accompanied by open reasons, can help address attempts at plausible deniability for serious harm caused to the UK or its allies," the report said.

"The Liability Threat Notice ... (puts the IRGC) on notice that its operations, and its minions and influence networks, are at greater risk of executive action, by way of arrest and prosecution, or deportation, or other forms of disruption, from UK authorities."

On Saturday, over 550 UK MPs and peers in an open letter urged the government to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist group.

Israel's military said it had found the Hamas documents in tunnels in the Gaza Strip, the US daily reported. Iran International in November reported that the Joe Biden administration had leaked sensitive information on the peace drive before the attack.

The Hamas documents contain minutes of a high-level meeting by the Iran-aligned militant group in Gaza purporting to show that days before the assault, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s former leader in Gaza, said an “extraordinary act” was required to derail the talks that he said risked marginalizing the Palestinian cause.

The WSJ report said the meeting minutes were from an October 2, 2023 gathering of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza, just five days before the deadly attacks on Israel. They cite Sinwar as saying, “There is no doubt that the Saudi-Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly.”

Sinwar, who was killed last year, warned a deal would “open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path.”

Since the October 7 attacks which saw at least 1,200 people killed and more than 250 more taken hostage by the militant group, Israel’s military campaign has seen over 53,000 people in Gaza killed, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health statistics.

The Israeli military says at least 20,000 of those are militants.

Normalization on hold

The Gaza war has for now succeeded in halting the normalization, which was aimed to be an extension of the 2020 US President Donald Trump-brokered Abraham Accords that saw Israel form diplomatic ties with Arab states such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Around two-thirds of Gazans have been displaced with huge swathes of the strip now in ruins after Israeli military bombing and ground incursions as international aid agencies warn the population is on the brink of famine.

During a trip to Riyadh last week, Trump reiterated his calls for Saudi Arabia to establish relations with Israel but said, “You’ll do it in your own time.”

In November, Iran International reported that an official in White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan's office leaked information about Saudi-Israeli peace talks just before the Hamas attack on Israel, suggesting it had been the final spur for the group to attack.

Speaking on the Eye for Iran podcast, Jeff Sonnenfeld, a US academic who assisted Jared Kushner in the Abraham Accords told Iran International that a deputy on Sullivan’s team leaked information on the diplomatic push.

The potential disclosures dealt with the Biden administration's talks with Saudi Arabia and Israel on expanding the Abraham Accords just prior to Oct. 7.

“It would have been amazing but by tempting fate like that Hamas realized this was their last moment to strike,” Sonnenfeld said.

A spokesperson from the national security advisor denied the allegations.

'Strategic shift'

The Palestinian militant group which has controlled Gaza since a 2007 takeover has long voiced its opposition to the normalization of ties between Israel and the kingdom, whose vast oil wealth and custodianship of the Islam's holiest sites give it heft in the region.

Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in its place.

In the alleged meeting minutes, Sinwar said the time had come “to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause”, expecting support from other Iranian-backed forces of the so-called axis of resistance to Israel.

Since the Hamas attacks, Israel has come under fire from other Iranian allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as facing two direct missile barrages from Tehran. Most were handily repelled by Israel and its allies.

In September, Saudi’s de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, said explicitly that there would be no normalization before the creation of an independent Palestinian state, telling the country's Shura Council that "we affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without one."

It came just a year after the kingdom was more openly suggesting formal ties were close, bringing the once-secret ties into the open.

In June 2023, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US went as far as saying Saudi Arabia hopes to see a “thriving Israel” as part of a unified Middle East, a tacit nod to finally acknowledge the Jewish state.

Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, told an event in Colorado: “We want to see a thriving Israel, we want to see a thriving Palestine.”

Referring to Bin Salman’s long-term agenda, in which Israel would be a part, she added: “Vision 2030 talks about a unified, integrated, thriving Middle East and last I checked, Israel was there.”

"The UK Government is clear that protecting national security remains our top priority and Iran must be held accountable for its actions," the FCDO spokesperson said in a statement.

"The summons follows this weekend’s announcement which stated that three Iranian nationals had been charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service," the statement added.

In two separate operations on May 3, eight men including seven Iranians were arrested by the British counter-terrorism police.

On Saturday, British counter-terrorism police charged three Iranian nationals with offences under the National Security Act, alleging they acted on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service and carried out surveillance targeting Iran International journalists.

The men — Mostafa Sepahvand, 39, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 56 — were arrested at their homes in London on May 3 and charged on Friday.

All three are accused of engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between August 14, 2024 and February 16, 2025, in breach of Section 3 of the National Security Act 2023.

In response, Iran's foreign ministry on Sunday summoned the UK chargé d'affaires in Tehran in protest over what it called the "unlawful and baseless" arrest of several Iranian nationals in the United Kingdom in two separate anti-terror operations.

Earlier on Monday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said all signs of arbitrary detention were evident in the UK’s handling of the case.

“In the UK, as in other European countries, there is a pattern of imitation. All elements of arbitrary detention are present in the arrest of Iranian nationals in the UK. It is still unclear what charges they were arrested on,” he said.

Baghaei added that three individuals remain in custody while others have been released without clear explanation of the accusations. “The very notion of ‘connection with the Iranian government’ is vague, because a citizen must have contact with their own government for consular matters,” he said.

“The country’s air defense readiness—especially in detection, identification, and elimination of aerial threats—has advanced significantly compared to last year,” Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, was quoted as saying on Monday by IRGC-Tasnim News Agency.

Bagheri said radar and surveillance systems monitoring foreign movements have increased fivefold, while systems for intercepting and destroying enemy aircraft have improved by two to three times.

He added that Iran’s command-and-control systems are functioning efficiently and that the country’s airspace is under constant surveillance.

“Our air defense forces control the skies 24/7 and regularly conduct drills to prepare for any possible scenario,” he said.

Bagheri warned Iran’s adversaries that any violation of its airspace would have serious consequences. “Enemies of the Iranian nation should know that any intrusion will result in extensive damage and costs far greater than they expect,” he said.

Last October, Israel carried out a major strike on Iranian targets, destroying large sections of the country’s air defense infrastructure.

The attack followed two massive airstrikes from Tehran against the Jewish state while Israel was also fighting Iran's allies across its borders amid the Gaza war.

Reports in Fox News and the Wall Street Journal said all of Iran’s S-300s were taken out of action.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time: “We severely damaged Iran’s defense systems and its ability to export missiles."

At the time, the Institute For The Study of War said the Israeli military had conducted precision strikes targeting around 20 locations across Iran, including facilities tied to the Iranian drone and missile programs and air defense network.

"Even though the strikes caused relatively little visible destruction, they will likely have significant and long-lasting consequences by disrupting Iran’s ability to produce certain kinds of ballistic missiles for itself and its partners as well as by severely degrading Iran’s ability to defend against future air attacks," the analysis said at the time.

Speaking at a press briefing in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Bagahei said, “The difficulty of negotiating with the US lies in the fact that you are dealing with a party that respects none of the established norms of a diplomatic process.”

“The very act of imposing sanctions while claiming to pursue diplomacy with the Islamic Republic of Iran shows a lack of seriousness and goodwill,” he added, warning that Washington’s shifting positions undermined trust.

“The Americans’ shifting position on enrichment is like a game of snakes and ladders—just as we make progress, the US adopts a different stance,” Bagahei said, referring to recent comments by US nuclear envoy Steve Witkoff that Washington would not accept any level of uranium enrichment in a future agreement.

Bagahei stressed that Iran’s enrichment program was “non-negotiable,” calling it both a legal right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a national achievement.

“Uranium enrichment is not some kind of fantasy that we can simply suspend or stop. It is a technology and a necessity to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of Iran’s nuclear industry,” he said. “We cannot give it up.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also dismissed Witkoff’s remarks, saying they were “completely at a distance from the reality of the negotiations.”

In a post on X on Sunday, Araghchi wrote: “If the US is interested in ensuring that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, a deal is within reach, and we are ready for a serious conversation to achieve a solution that will forever ensure that outcome. Enrichment in Iran, however, will continue with or without a deal.”

He accused the US of contradictory messaging. “Iran can only control what we Iranians do, and that is to avoid negotiating in public—particularly given the current dissonance we are seeing between what our US interlocutors say in public and in private, and from one week to the other,” Araghchi said.

Next round of talks expected soon

Elsewhere in his press conference, Baghaei said the date and location for the next round of indirect US-Iran nuclear talks have not been set. Araghchi, however, said on Sunday that the date is set and will soon be announced by Oman, which is mediating.

Baghaei denied reports of parallel negotiations between other Iranian and US officials, specifically between Ali Shamkhani – Iran's former top security official and currently an advisor to the Supreme Leader -- and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“There are no parallel negotiations. The only negotiation process that exists is this indirect one, led by the Iranian foreign minister and the US president’s special envoy,” Bagahei said.

The US and Iran have held four previous rounds of talks in Muscat and Rome. Witkoff said on Sunday that the next round could take place in Europe later this week.

President Donald Trump said Thursday the US was “very close” to a deal but issued a warning on Friday. “They have a proposal. More importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad—something bad’s going to happen,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Baghaei said on Monday, “We have not received any written proposal from the United States, and their verbal offers constantly shift,” echoing remarks made by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi the previous day.

Iran to respond if E3 triggers snapback

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman also warned on Monday that Tehran will respond to any hostile action, including a possible move by European countries to trigger the snapback mechanism—a process that would automatically reimpose UN sanctions on Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal.

“We will not leave any hostile action without a response,” Baghaei said. “There is no legal basis for activating the snapback mechanism, and the insistence of some European countries on doing so is baseless.”

“If the Europeans use the snapback mechanism, we will definitely take measures in response,” he added.