Mideast Crisis

Shayan Kabiri came to Canada with his family seven years ago. Today, he sees many friends who arrived from Iran alone, hoping to build a more stable future, trapped in a crisis that threatens not only their education but also their mental health and immigration status.

South Korea summoned Iran’s ambassador on Wednesday to protest an attack on a South Korean-operated vessel in the Strait of Hormuz after investigators found the ship was likely hit by Iranian-developed anti-ship missiles, Yonhap reported.

Israel could return to military action against Iran if diplomacy with Tehran fails to meet core objectives, Israel’s ambassador to Australia told Iran International in an exclusive interview.

As Washington says a deal with Tehran is drawing closer, Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday echoed his slain father’s call for Israel’s destruction while Hezbollah intensified drone attacks on northern Israel, raising questions over the timing.

More than six weeks after Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the United States moved to enforce a naval blockade, the confrontation increasingly appears to be entering a new phase: negotiations driven by exhaustion.

The release of frozen Iranian assets has emerged as the main sticking point in talks between Iran and the United States, with officials in Tehran insisting that guaranteed access to funds must come before any preliminary agreement can move forward.

US President Trump’s approach toward Iran may better be explained by the political timing of the World Cup and the culture of New York real estate dealmaking: performance, delay, leverage and spectacle.

The Trump administration’s most powerful pressure point against Tehran may not lie in military action but in China’s deep financial and energy ties with Iran, a former US Treasury sanctions official told the Eye for Iran podcast.

Pakistani top general Asim Munir’s trip to Tehran has fueled speculation about a possible temporary Iran-US agreement to end the war and resume broader talks, although Tehran says the high-profile visit does not necessarily mean a deal is close.

A small port on Oman’s Musandam Peninsula has become part of Iran’s workaround to the maritime blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, traders say, as goods once routed through the UAE are shifted through costlier channels.

Iranian officials’ recent comments about Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei are aimed at showing he remains in charge and will ultimately decide whether Tehran accepts a deal with the United States to end the war, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

A growing range of political voices in Tehran are calling for realism abroad and reconciliation at home rather than deeper confrontation as Washington signals both openness to talks and readiness for further military action.

President Donald Trump’s claim that he postponed a planned military strike on Iran has deepened uncertainty in Tehran, where officials and analysts remain divided over whether Washington is bluffing, buying time or preparing for another round of strikes.

The competing narratives surrounding the latest US-Iran standoff have become so stark that even basic questions—who is deterring whom, who wants talks and who fears escalation—now produce entirely different answers depending on which capital is speaking.

Long viewed as merely an oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz is now emerging as a digital flashpoint, after Iran floated “protection fees” for subsea fiber-optic cables crossing the waterway in a move experts warn could give Tehran new leverage.

Two years after former president Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter vanished in fog, Iran has lost far more than a president: its succession plan, regional shield, aura of safety and confidence that time was on its side.

China is showing growing unease over the economic and strategic costs of Iran’s confrontation with the United States, even as it continues to shield Tehran diplomatically at the United Nations.

The Iran war has entered a more ambiguous phase, with the regime battered but not broken, the US struggling to define victory, and the Strait of Hormuz emerging as Iran’s most potent bargaining tool, two Middle East experts said at an Iran International townhall in Washington DC.