Calls to revise Iran’s nuclear doctrine and build an atomic bomb are gaining prominence on official platforms after gathering momentum in hardline circles, although the country’s top security official says no policy change has been approved.
Iranian officials rejected nuclear negotiations, demanded acceptance of their conditions for ending the war and threatened military retaliation, despite continuing diplomatic contacts with Qatari mediators on Sunday.
US Vice President JD Vance has offered to meet Iran's top security official Mohsen Rezaei to discuss ending the war, the Washington Post reported, as Qatari mediators returned to Tehran on Friday to pursue a deal.
US President Donald Trump confirmed he approved Vice President JD Vance's outreach to Iran, saying it focused on medical supplies, as Washington weighs a possible week-long military campaign against Tehran after next week's midterm elections.
The IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency has set out the case for Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adding to a renewed debate over Tehran's nuclear strategy as the region remains caught between diplomacy and war.
The Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Fars news agency has promoted calls for Iran to build an atomic bomb through a video of street interviews, presenting nuclear armament as a popular demand.
A senior Iranian official said on Wednesday that Qatar had presented Tehran with ideas that were unacceptable rather than a new peace proposal, casting doubt on diplomatic efforts to end the US-Israeli war on Iran as Washington weighs further military action.
China regards its relationship with Iran as largely transactional and is not firmly committed to defending the current Iranian government, according to Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Saudi Arabia should join forces with the United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates to help bring about political change in Iran, rather than continue policies that have failed to contain Tehran's regional influence, an analyst told Iran International.
Iranian officials raised the possibility of a shift in nuclear policy and threatened retaliation against further US-Israeli attacks, while Tehran outlined its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.
Decades of American sanctions strengthened Iran’s Revolutionary Guards by hollowing out the middle class, former US diplomat Joey Hood told Iran International, and once the fighting ends, Tehran will face a reckoning with its own people.
A resurfaced video of former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif saying Iran lacked enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon has ignited a fierce debate after successive wars with Israel and the United States.
Some Iranian officials have privately suggested Tehran could send forces into neighbouring countries if the United States launches new strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the warnings.
Moscow would rather live with an Iranian nuclear weapon than with a change of regime in Tehran, senior Russia scholar Mark Katz told Iran International, arguing that a pro-Western Iran is the outcome Russia actually fears.
New construction and repairs at an Iranian compound previously targeted by Israel suggest Tehran may be moving beyond clearing war damage toward restoring operations at a site linked to nuclear weapons research, according to a Washington-based research institute.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Iran had failed to take advantage of repeated opportunities to reach an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program, while also saying Tehran had “lost complete control” of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran is reviewing Washington’s response to a seven-day proposal sent through intermediaries, a senior foreign ministry official said on Sunday, as other officials offered differing assessments of whether further negotiations with the United States were needed.
Iran has spent two decades keeping al-Qaeda close as a partner it can deny, and could turn to it if the war with the United States escalates, a counterterrorism expert told Iran International. With Hezbollah and Hamas weakened, she said, it is the card Tehran has left.
A former Mossad agent says he spent years inside one of Iran's best-known telecom businesses, using its banking tricks to fund Israeli operations and deleting a file from a switch near Malard minutes before the 2011 blast that killed the father of Iran's missile program.
Tehran is making a “total miscalculation” if it believes the US midterm elections will constrain President Donald Trump’s actions against Iran, former senior US official Morgan Ortagus told Iran International.
Iranian hardliners have intensified attacks on President Masoud Pezeshkian after he signalled nuclear flexibility and backed negotiations with Washington in a Fox News interview.
Iran will not make concessions over its nuclear program even if the United States accepts Tehran’s proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported Friday citing a senior Iranian official.