Iran won't return to talks without US confidence-building, IRGC general says

The FBI said on Thursday it was offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of Monica Witt, a former US counterintelligence agent charged with espionage for Iran.

Witt, a former US Air Force intelligence specialist and special agent, was indicted in 2019 on charges including transmitting national defense information to Iran, the FBI said.

The FBI said Witt defected to Iran in 2013 and allegedly provided information that put classified US programs, personnel and their families at risk.

“Monica Witt allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information,” Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division, said in a statement.

“If war breaks out and ‌Bahrain once again makes US bases available for attacks against us, we will strike them so hard that they will forget their name,” Iranian MP and former foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned.

He also accused Bahrain of pushing anti-Iran measures after US and Israeli strikes, saying Manama had backed a Security Council resolution against Tehran “instead of expressing sympathy with us over the killing of Ali Khamenei.”

Mottaki said Bahrain had also tried to pass an anti-Iran resolution at the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Istanbul last month, but Tehran had blocked a vote on it through “diplomatic prudence” and support from some countries.

Six Arab states demanded full legal compensation from Iran for damages and rejected Tehran’s claims of unilateral control over the Strait of Hormuz, Bahrain News Agency reported.

The letter, signed by Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Jordan, was sent to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

“No single country … may claim the right to impose unilateral administration,” the letter said.

Iran’s first vice president Mohammadreza Aref said on Thursday the government does not blame elites for leaving the country, but will support them if they decide to return.

His remarks came one day after Iran executed civil engineering graduate Ehsan Afrashteh who had returned to Iran from Turkey two years ago, on accusations of espionage and intelligence cooperation with Israel.

Earlier this week, Tehran also executed Erfan Shakourzadeh, a top-ranking graduate of Iran University of Science and Technology specializing in satellite technology, on spying charges.

US President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping “would like to see a deal made” with Iran and offered to help, in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“Look, anybody that buys that much oil has obviously got some kind of a relationship with him,” Trump said.

“But he said, ‘I would love to be a help. If I could be of any help whatsoever...’” “He’d like to see the Hormuz Strait open,” Trump added.