Iran’s capital faces summer water strain despite recent rain, official says
Tehran’s dam reserves remain worrying despite recent rainfall, and the capital will need public and government cooperation to get through the summer, a city council official said on Tuesday.
Mehdi Pirhadi, head of Tehran city council’s health, environment and urban services committee, said recent rainfall had not restored reservoirs supplying the capital to acceptable levels.
He said nearly 10 provinces, home to about 35 million people, still faced rainfall shortages compared with long-term averages.
Shahab Dalili, a US permanent resident jailed in Iran for nearly a decade after traveling there for his father’s funeral, has returned to Washington following his release from Tehran’s Evin prison, Hostage Aid Worldwide said on Monday.
“After a long journey from Evin to Yerevan to DC, we joyfully announce that Shahab Dalili is finally home safe with his family after a decade+ of wrongful detention in Iran,” the advocacy group wrote on X, adding that his relatives now hope he can “reintegrate smoothly into normal life.”
Dalili, a former captain with Iran’s state shipping company who later settled in the United States with his wife and two sons, traveled to Tehran in 2016 to attend his father’s funeral. He was arrested before reaching the airport for his return flight to Virginia.
Iranian authorities later sentenced him to 10 years in prison on charges including espionage and cooperation with what Iranian courts described as a hostile government, referring to the United States.
AI-enhanced photo of Shahab Dalili.
Dalili’s case drew attention during a 2023 prisoner exchange between Iran and the United States that secured the release of five detained Americans. His family publicly questioned why he had been excluded from the agreement despite years of appeals to successive US administrations.
His son Darian Dalili said at the time that the family received little information from Washington beyond assurances that officials were monitoring the case. The US government also never formally designated Dalili as “wrongfully detained,” a status that can increase diplomatic pressure for a prisoner’s release.
Hostage Aid Worldwide did not specify the terms of Dalili’s release or whether it was linked to negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
Shahab Dalili, US resident held in Iran since 2016, returned home to his family after his release from Iranian detention, Hostage Aid Worldwide said on Tuesday.
“After a long journey from Evin to Yerevan to DC, we joyfully announce that Shahab Dalili is finally home safe with his family after a decade+ of wrongful detention in Iran,” the group said in a post on X.
Iran’s recent proposal to the United States calls for the lifting of sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian funds and an end to the US naval blockade, the country’s deputy foreign minister said on Tuesday.
The proposal also called for an end to the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, Kazem Gharibabadi told members of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee.
He said Iran’s framework included compensation from the United States for war damage, the withdrawal of US forces from areas around Iran, and an end to unilateral sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions.
He also said Iran’s negotiating team had insisted on Tehran’s right to uranium enrichment.
Pakistan’s ambassador-designate to Iran, Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, met Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday before leaving for Tehran, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said.
Dar said Pakistan was committed to expanding cooperation with Iran in trade, connectivity, people-to-people exchanges and regional collaboration.
An Iranian lawmaker said on Tuesday that enemy vessels would not be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz under a new legal framework the parliament is preparing.
The framework would be approved by parliament to manage the strategic waterway, said Ebrahim Rezaei, the spokesman for national security and foreign policy committee.
“The Americans must either submit to diplomacy and our conditions, or to the power of our missiles,” he said.
The MP added that any new strikes on Iran would face a stronger response and that Tehran was prepared for all scenarios.
