Khamenei-linked newspaper criticizes Iran president's stance on US talks

“We will in no way accept any border blockade with Armenia,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said. “The claim of a 99-year lease to the US has no basis and is fabricated news.”

Armenia’s deputy foreign minister will visit Tehran on Tuesday, while President Masoud Pezeshkian and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan are scheduled to hold a phone call later on Monday, Baghaei added during his weekly briefing.

The announcement follows a US-brokered peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan signed Friday at the White House. The agreement grants Washington rights to develop the route—renamed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”—linking mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave through southern Armenia.

Tehran has repeatedly warned against foreign control over the corridor, which bypasses both Iran and Russia.

IAEA's technical visit to Tehran

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began talks in Tehran on Monday, including meetings at the foreign ministry, Baghaei confirmed, saying that discussions were “technical and complex” but declined to predict the outcome.

“In the history of the agency’s work, we have never seen a peaceful nuclear facility under 24-hour monitoring attacked, without the IAEA condemning it,” he said, adding that the consultations would focus on future cooperation in light of recent events and parliamentary resolutions.

In late June, Iran’s parliament approved a bill to suspend the country’s cooperation with the IAEA, a day after a ceasefire with Israel following 12 days of deadly war.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the UN’s nuclear watchdog has warned that the levels of uranium enrichment Tehran is pursuing have no civilian justification.

Talks with US and EU

The spokesman denied reports that Norway would host the next round of talks between Iran and the United States.

Iran and the US held five rounds of talks between April and May this year in Muscat, Oman, and Rome, Italy. A sixth round was scheduled to take place in Muscat on June 15, but was indefinitely suspended after Israel launched airstrikes on Iran two days earlier.

The ensuing 12-day conflict in June included US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow, and Israeli strikes that destroyed critical infrastructure, killing several senior military and scientists as well as hundreds of civilians. Iran responded with missile strikes that killed 32 Israelis.

Talks with E3

On negotiations with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Baghaei said discussions had not stopped.

“At the Istanbul meeting about two weeks ago, both sides agreed to continue talks, but no time or venue has been decided,” he added.

France, Britain, and Germany have said they will activate the United Nations snapback mechanism against Iran by the end of August if no tangible progress is made on a nuclear deal.

The snapback mechanism is part of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. It allows any participant in the nuclear agreement to reimpose sanctions if Iran is deemed non-compliant. If no resolution to maintain sanctions relief is passed within 30 days, all previous UN measures return automatically.

Lebanon and regional diplomacy

On Lebanon, Baghaei said Tehran recognizes the country’s inherent right to defend itself against Israel.

“Exercising this right without weapons is impossible. The decision on this rests with Lebanon,” he said.

Lebanon's cabinet instructed the army last week to develop a plan by the end of the year aimed at creating a state monopoly on weapons—an implicit challenge to Hezbollah, which has resisted disarmament since last year’s conflict with Israel.

Hezbollah decried the move as a "grave sin" and vowed to ignore it.

Baghaei said the newly appointed Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Larijani’s visits to Iraq and Lebanon were part of Iran’s neighborhood policy, aimed at finalizing security agreements and advancing regional peace.

In Beirut, Larijani is expected to meet senior officials for talks on stability in West Asia, he added.

“Living next to an occupying entity that knows no limits in committing crimes is difficult. Our position in supporting Lebanon’s sovereignty has always been clear,” Baghaei said.

Senior Iranian officials, including Velayati and military commander Iraj Masjedi, have publicly opposed the move, describing it as an American- and Israeli-driven policy that will fail.

The Lebanese foreign ministry in a statement on X condemned the remarks as "a flagrant and unacceptable interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs."

Larijani, who also serves as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s personal representative to the council, said he would sign a “bilateral security agreement” with Iraq and meet “various currents” in the country.

“Iran’s approach with neighbors is to consider both the security of Iranians and the security of neighbors,” he told state broadcaster IRIB before departing for Baghdad.

In Iraq, Larijani’s trip comes days after Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani reiterated there was “no reason” for weapons to be held outside state institutions, and said he had used a mix of political and military pressure to prevent Iran-aligned armed groups from joining last month’s 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran.

Baghdad says it has thwarted 29 planned attacks by such groups on US bases in the country.

Iraq's political landscape is divided into competing Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish blocs. Recent power shifts have seen Shia factions, such as the Sadrist Movement and the Iran-backed Shia Coordination Framework, gain prominence, though Kurdish and Sunni groups still hold significant roles. Iran has historically backed Shia militias, some of which are now part of Iraq's security apparatus through Popular Mobilization Forces.

Trip to Lebanon

Larijani’s three-day trip will also take him to Lebanon, where he said he would deliver unspecified messages to officials and discuss expanding trade ties.

“National unity in Lebanon must be preserved in all conditions. Lebanon’s independence is important to us and we will help to maintain it,” he said.

The visit comes amid renewed friction between Tehran and Beirut over the Lebanese government’s plan to disarm Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s foreign ministry last week condemned remarks by Khamenei aide Ali-Akbar Velayati rejecting the disarmament decision, calling them “flagrant and unacceptable interference” in domestic affairs.

The ministry said Lebanon’s future and political system were matters “decided solely by the Lebanese people” and warned Tehran to “mind its own business.”

Beirut’s cabinet earlier this month instructed the army to draft a plan by year-end to bring all weapons under state control, an implicit challenge to Hezbollah, which has vowed to resist disarmament.

Senior Iranian officials, including Velayati and military commander Iraj Masjedi, have publicly opposed the move, describing it as an American- and Israeli-driven policy that will fail.

Khamenei appointed Larijani to his new role on Thursday, two days after President Masoud Pezeshkian named him as SNSC secretary.

With the appointment, Larijani replaces Ali Akbar Ahmadian both as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and as one of Khamenei’s two designated representatives to the body. Saeed Jalili, who served as SNSC secretary from 2007 to 2013, is the other representative currently serving in that capacity.

The prisoners had been moved to Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary as part of a broader reshuffling of inmates following Israeli strikes in June that damaged parts of Evin prison.

“On the night of August 6, 2025, we were told that at 4 a.m. we would be transferred back to Evin prison, to pack our belongings and be ready,” the statement read. “We had already announced that we would not wear handcuffs or leg shackles. The last time we complied was during the bombing of Evin prison. This time, conditions are normal, and we will not repeat it.”

They said officials initially agreed to no restraints, but police later tried to force handcuffs on them.

“Mehdi Mahmoudian, Matlab Ahmadian, Mohammad-Bagher Bakhtiar, Khashayar Safidi, Hossein Shanbehzadeh, Morteza Parvin, Saeed Ahmadi, and Ehsan Ravazjian were beaten,” the letter said, adding that Abolfazl Ghadiani, 80, injured his hand and Mostafa Tajzadeh was thrown onto the asphalt and handcuffed.

Other prisoners protested by chanting slogans. The statement also accused officials of insulting and assaulting inmates on death row before taking them to an undisclosed location.

An earlier statement by the Judiciary said that the transfer was “calm and uneventful.” However, the prisoners rejected the statement and asked why violence was used only to be denied later.

They said about 40 inmates were kept in the bus for six hours without access to water or food for a trip of at most two hours, with sick prisoners left without medication or proper facilities.

Green Movement leader denounces treatment of inmates

Earlier in the day, Zahra Rahnavard, a leader of Iran’s Green Movement who has been under house arrest since 2011, condemned the incident and what she described as the authorities’ escalating repression of political prisoners following the war with Israel.

“The ugly face of despotism and violence still dominates this system, and it is the first and last word,” Rahnavard wrote in a statement published Sunday on Kalameh website.

Rahnavard, an Iranian academic and politician, has been under house arrest along with her husband, former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, since February 2011, more than a year after the 2009 Green Movement protests.

She said that after the 12-day war with Israel, the nation had hoped the government would respond with introspection and meaningful reforms—releasing political prisoners and lifting censorship—but instead, repression has escalated, marked by executions, beatings, and the harsh transfer of detainees.

“Alas, the rulers added to the violence...dragging political prisoners in shackles, beating them, moving these proud free people from one prison to another, splattering blood on their noble faces and wounding their hands and feet," she wrote.

Rahnavard called on the authorities to apologize, release all political prisoners, and choose solidarity over stubbornness with the Iranian people.

“The lake's water level on August 1, 2025, was 1,269.74 meters, its area had shrunk to 581 square kilometers, and its volume was down to about half a billion cubic meters,” said Ahmadreza Lahijanzadeh, deputy for marine and wetland affairs at Iran’s Department of Environment.

This indicates "a sharp and unprecedented decline from last year," he said in an interview with the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News.

The official said the lack of water inflow means the situation will not improve in autumn and that while the lake could be revived, it would not return to its ideal conditions of 1995, when it held 32 billion cubic meters of water.

Despite repeated government pledges over two decades, the lake’s revival plans have faltered due to chronic underfunding, bureaucratic turf wars, and weak enforcement.

Lahijanzadeh said drought was one of the important factors behind the lake's current crisis, alongside drinking water shortages in some cities.

Last week, head of the Water Institute at the University of Tehran warned the lake may have reached a “point of no return” and could never be preserved in its current form, blaming the expansion of farmland beyond the watershed’s capacity.

Last September, the lake dried up completely for the second time after briefly refilling in the spring.

Over 90 percent of the country is experiencing some level of drought, with rainfall plummeting and water reserves dwindling.

The drying of major water bodies like Lake Urmia and the Zayandeh Rud River has intensified Iran’s overlapping economic and ecological crises, as decades of mismanagement catches up with the theocratic establishment.

Olga Weissberg collapsed in her home late Saturday and was pronounced dead at the scene by Magen David Adom medics.

She had been wounded on June 15 in an Iranian missile strike during the 12-day war, but was later discharged from hospital. Israeli media reports said her health had deteriorated in recent days.

Weissberg is the second Holocaust survivor whose death has been linked to the June attacks. Ivette Shmilovitz, 95, was killed in a missile strike on Petah Tikva, a city east of Tel Aviv, on June 17.

Iran and Israel fought a 12-day conflict in June that included US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow, and Israeli strikes that destroyed critical infrastructure, killing several senior military and scientific figures as well as hundreds of civilians.

Iran responded with missile strikes that killed 31 civilians and one off-duty soldier, according to official figures published by the Israeli government.

The Islamic Republic says 1,062 people were also killed by Israel during the 12-day conflict, including 786 military personnel and 276 civilians.