Preparations for the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been completed several times but the ceremony was repeatedly postponed due to wartime conditions, the spokesman for the funeral committee said on Monday.
He said official ceremony would begin on July 4 and added that a separate ceremony would be held on July 8 in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala.
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said on Monday that the Islamic Republic is the “big brother” of countries in the region and would continue to support its smaller neighbors despite what he described as hostile actions by some states.
“Iran is the big brother of the countries in the region, although some of them attacked us and treated us unfairly,” Aref said during the opening ceremony of the Tehran Stock Exchange.
Referring to Iran’s warnings to neighboring countries during recent hostilities, Aref said Tehran had made clear that any facilities used by the United States against Iran could become targets.
“We officially told neighboring countries that if the slightest mistake by the United States originates from locations belonging to you, those locations will be our legitimate targets for defense,” Aref said.
Iran’s vice president also said that Iran’s adversaries had failed to bring people into the streets against the Islamic Republic during the two most recent wars.
“The enemy failed to exploit social capital and bring people into the streets against the system in either the 12-day war or the third war,” Mohammadreza Aref added.
An explosion and fire at Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City injured 54 people and left 18 missing on Sunday during efforts to restart operations that had been halted after Iran bombed the site during the war.
Qatar’s Interior Ministry said rescue teams were searching for the missing and described the explosion as a “technical accident,” adding that there was no threat to public safety.
QatarEnergy said the incident occurred during the start-up of operations at the Barzan local gas supply facility. Emergency response teams were deployed and the fire was brought under control, the company said.
Ras Laffan is one of Qatar’s most important energy hubs and a core site for the country’s liquefied natural gas industry.
China’s oil imports may not fully recover from the Iran war, with analysts saying the conflict accelerated a longer-term shift away from transportation fuels such as gasoline and diesel, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Rystad Energy estimated that 200,000 to 600,000 barrels per day of transport demand lost during the conflict may not return this year, while Energy Aspects put the permanent loss at about 300,000 barrels per day, the report said.
China’s crude imports are expected to fall by 3.3 million barrels per day this quarter from a year earlier, according to FGE NexantECA, as supply disruptions coincide with a halt in stockpiling, refinery run cuts and a ban on fuel exports, according to the report.
US-Iran talks in Switzerland produced a roadmap toward a final agreement within 60 days, but only after negotiators spent much of the first day grappling with the issue that nearly derailed the process: Lebanon.
A joint statement issued by mediators Qatar and Pakistan after nearly 18 hours of talks said the parties had agreed to establish a High Level Committee to oversee negotiations, launch technical working groups and begin work toward a final deal.
But one of the most notable provisions was the creation of a deconfliction cell involving the United States, Iran and Lebanon, facilitated by the two mediators, to ensure adherence to the cessation of military operations in Lebanon under the memorandum of understanding signed last week.
The prominence of the Lebanon mechanism in both the joint statement and subsequent comments by Iranian officials underscored how central the issue had become to the talks.
Vice President JD Vance met Iranian officials on Sunday at the Swiss resort of Buergenstock in the first round of negotiations aimed at implementing the memorandum between Tehran and Washington.
The talks quickly ran into difficulties.
Iranian media reported that Tehran refused to return to four-way talks after a break, citing public threats from President Donald Trump and arguing that substantive negotiations could not proceed while fighting continued in Lebanon.
US officials disputed that account.
"The Iranians never left and are still here meeting and negotiating deep into the night," a US diplomat involved in the talks said, adding that discussions covered Lebanon, the Strait of Hormuz, nuclear issues and implementation of the memorandum.
Iran argues that Washington has failed to uphold its commitment to help secure a halt to hostilities in Lebanon and has repeatedly linked progress in negotiations to developments on the Lebanese front.
The issue resurfaced throughout the talks and appears to have become one of the central subjects of mediation by Qatar and Pakistan.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi highlighted the new Lebanon mechanism after the talks concluded, calling it the "first real test" of the understandings reached in Switzerland.
According to the joint statement, chief negotiators will report regularly to the High Level Committee and lead working groups focused on nuclear issues, sanctions, and a monitoring and dispute-resolution mechanism designed to ensure implementation of the memorandum.
The committee has also approved a roadmap toward reaching a final agreement within 60 days and authorized the immediate start of further technical negotiations.
In addition, the parties agreed to establish a communication channel aimed at preventing incidents and misunderstandings and ensuring the safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite public disagreements and repeated threats from Trump that the United States could resume military action if Iran failed to restrain its regional allies, both sides emerged from the talks with new negotiating structures and a timetable for future discussions.
For now, however, the success of the diplomatic process may depend less on nuclear issues than on whether the newly created Lebanon deconfliction mechanism can prevent another flare-up from derailing negotiations altogether.
Iranian hardliners have sharply criticized a government-linked report that warned prolonged nightly pro-state gatherings could obstruct diplomacy, exposing a growing dispute over the role of street mobilization in postwar Iran.
The controversy highlights tensions within Iran's political establishment over whether the rallies represent a source of national unity or an increasingly disruptive force in debates over diplomacy and relations with the United States.
The backlash was triggered by a document published by the presidential Strategic Affairs Office (SAO) following a conference titled "The Street Movement for Protecting Iran: Nature, Opportunities and Ways to Enhance It."
The report examined the nightly gatherings that have spread across Iranian cities since the war and argued that their continued presence could complicate decision-making and undermine diplomatic efforts.
Read the full article here.