Month: April 2026

La Voce di New York – Trump Thanks Iran As It Spares Eight Women

Eight Iranian women arrested during the January protests will not be executed. Donald Trump announced the news Wednesday on Truth Social, calling it “very good news”: four will be released immediately, four sentenced to one month in prison. “I very much appreciate that Iran, and its leaders, respected my request, as President of the United States, and terminated the planned execution,” he wrote.

Iran’s judiciary continued to deny the women had ever faced execution, saying Trump was “misled once again by fake news” and that some had already been released while others faced charges carrying at most prison sentences. Rights groups contest that account. One documented case is that of Bita Hemmati, sentenced to death according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for her participation in protests on January 8 and 9 – charges that included throwing objects including concrete blocks and incendiary materials from rooftops and destroying public property.

Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad, who lives in the United States, had publicized the names and photos of all eight women, specifying which four were believed to be under a death sentence.

The announcement comes as U.S.-Iran negotiations remain stalled. Trump extended the ceasefire while awaiting Tehran’s response to the latest American proposal. The president reiterated that his primary goal is an agreement to end Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and retrieve an estimated 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium.

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Democracy Now – Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire But Maintains Blockade as Iran Seizes Ships in Strait of Hormuz

President Trump announced Tuesday he is extending the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely at the request of Pakistan. An Iranian official tells BBC that Iran has still not decided whether it will attend a new round of peace talks with the U.S. later this week. Vice President JD Vance has canceled a planned trip to Islamabad, Pakistan. Despite the ceasefire, the U.S. continues to blockade Iranian ports. But earlier today, Iran attacked three cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz, seizing two of them. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the blockade “an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire,” warning that Tehran knows “how to resist bullying,” and threatening to completely close the Strait of Hormuz and strike energy and desalination infrastructure across the region. Meanwhile, the head of the International Energy Agency declared Tuesday that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has created the worst energy crisis the world has ever faced. It comes as satellite images reveal multiple large oil spills spreading across the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz as a direct result of U.S., Israeli and Iranian strikes on oil facilities and vessels, with environmental experts warning of an impending ecological disaster. The Pentagon confirms 13 U.S. service members have been killed and 415 wounded in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Meanwhile, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, 3,636 people have been killed in Iran by U.S.-Israeli strikes, among them 254 children.

 

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Al-Monitor – Iran executes 14th person since war over alleged Mossad ties: What to know

Iran executed a man on Wednesday who the regime accused of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, as the Islamic Republic’s crackdown in the country deepens following anti-regime protests earlier this year and the recent war with the United States and Israel.

What happened: Mahdi Farid, 55, who was accused by authorities of providing sensitive national information to the Mossad, was hanged at dawn on Wednesday after his sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported.

He was found guilty of “intelligence cooperation and espionage for the Zionist regime” on the vague charge of “corruption on earth,” though no evidence was provided.

What we know: Mizan claimed that Farid served as the head of ​a civil ​defense unit within a sensitive ‌organization ⁠in Iran, which it did not name, and used his position to collect and transmit information to the Mossad. According to the judiciary, he confessed during the proceedings to having come into contact with a Mossad officer, who asked him to provide sensitive information such as organizational charts, internal building layouts, security conditions and details of defense-related facilities.

Farid, who was from Arak in northwestern Iran, was arrested in May 2023 and had been working at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran prior to his arrest, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group. He was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison but was given a death sentence in July 2025 on charges of cooperating with Israel.

The judiciary did not specify where the execution took place. However, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported last November that Farid had been transferred from Evin Prison in Tehran to Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj.

Why it matters: The UK-based IranWire news outlet cited a source close to the family last November as saying that Farid denied knowingly cooperating with a foreign agent and had referred the matter to “relevant authorities,” though it did not provide further details.

Rights groups have repeatedly accused Iranian authorities of issuing death sentences following unfair trials and confessions extracted under torture, a trend that has only worsened amid mass protests earlier this year and the recent war.

Iran is the world’s second-largest executioner after China, according to Amnesty International. In 2025, at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran, the highest number recorded since 1989, according to an annual report released earlier this month by Iran Human Rights and the Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty.

Iranian authorities have intensified their crackdown on individuals accused of cooperating with the United States and Israel since the war began, arresting more than 3,646 people, including at least 767 detained after a 45-day ceasefire was announced on April 8. This comes amid a nationwide internet blackout, now in its 54th day, which rights groups warn is being used to conceal human rights violations, according to the report.

The report states that executions resumed on March 19 following an unspecified pause that came after threats by US President Donald Trump against Iranian leaders during the protests that began in December 2025.

Amid a wave of arrests, concerns are mounting that the already high number of executions could rise further. On Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, warned that “punishments will be carried out swiftly and without administrative red tape.” He had previously urged authorities to expedite trials for individuals suspected of collaborating with Israel.

Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday urged Iran to release eight female detainees who are reportedly facing execution. The eight women were arrested as part of the crackdown on anti-regime protests that erupted in January.

“To the Iranian leaders, who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives: I would greatly appreciate the release of these women,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Mizan, however, denied that the women were at risk of execution, dismissing Trump’s claim as “fake news.” In a report published Tuesday, the judiciary-affiliated outlet said some of the individuals he mentioned had already been released, while others face charges that could lead to prison sentences.

Know more: Even before the war, Iranian authorities regularly arrested individuals suspected of spying for Israel, often without publicly presenting evidence.

As many as 21,000 suspects were arrested during Iran’s 12-day war last June, during which several nuclear facilities were targeted in Israeli strikes, according to Iranian police.

Farid’s execution is the latest case linked to Iran’s nuclear sector.

Last October, Iranian nuclear engineer Javad Naeimi was executed in Qom on charges of collaborating with Israeli intelligence. According to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, he was arrested in February 2024 and sentenced to death following what was widely described as a politically motivated trial.

In August 2025, nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi was hanged at Ghezel Hesar Prison after being found guilty of spying for Israel’s Mossad. He had been working with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran at the time of his arrest in February 2024. Authorities accused him of passing information about a scientist who was killed in Israeli airstrikes in June 2025, while rights groups say his confession was obtained under severe torture.

 

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ABC News – Executions of protesters in Iran surge since start of war, human rights groups say

While the total executions carried out in Iran increased to a record number last year, executions performed by the Islamic Republic have been on an “alarming surge” since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began, human rights observers say.

Iranian authorities also appeared to accelerate arrests during the war and the current ceasefire on a range of charges, including espionage and actions against national security, according to Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC Intelligence Forces, which publish news of recent arrests in different cities almost daily.

Since the war began on Feb. 28, Iranian officials have announced the executions of at least 13 political prisoners.

This comes after at least 1,639 people were executed by the Iranian regime in 2025, which was 68% more than the year before and the highest number recorded since 1989, according to a joint report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty, on April 13.

In the latest officially announced execution, Iranian authorities said that Sultan Ali Shirzadi Fakhr was put to death on Thursday on charges including “collaboration with the Israeli intelligence service.” According to Mizan, the judiciary’s news agency, he had been involved in operations against the country.

A day earlier, on Wednesday, Mehdi Farid, a former employee of one of the country’s “sensitive state-run organizations,” was executed on espionage charges, Mizan reported. The news agency did not clarify what organization Farid had worked for, but added that he was convicted of “corruption on Earth” for alleged cooperation with Israel.

On Tuesday, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic confirmed that Amir Ali Mirjafari, one of the protesters detained during the January protests in the country, was executed by hanging, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Mizan reported that Mirjafari had allegedly “set fire” to a mosque in Tehran during the protests, accusing him of “collaboration with the Zionist regime, acting against national security and betraying the Iranian people.”

There are no independent details available on how the claimed evidence was examined in Mirjafari’s case, or whether it could be verified through a transparent judicial process, the U.S.-based Human Rights News Agency (HRANA) said in a statement on Tuesday.

Accusations like “espionage for Israel and the U.S.” and “acting against national security” are among the usual charges that the Islamic Republic has used for punishing dissidents, Iranian lawyers and human rights activists told ABC News.

Mai Sato, a U.N. expert on the human rights situation in Iran, previously warned about the new executions in Iran in a post on X, saying that the reported proceedings “include serious violations of fair trial standards.”

In the months before the war with the U.S. and Israel began in late February, the Iranian regime committed massacres to suppress a series of nationwide protests in the country while imposing an internet blackout to prevent the voices of protesters and families of the victims from being heard by the world, and to disrupt their communication with one another, according to the U.S. and international observers.

While protests had been ignited over the severe economic hardships with the dramatic fall of the country’s currency in the last days of 2025, some protesters across the country would go on to demand the fall of the Islamic regime and shout “death to the Islamic Republic.”

According to HRANA, over 7,000 people — including at least 6,488 protesters — were killed in the protests, and over 50,000 people were arrested. ABC News could not independently verify those figures.

The first execution of protesters arrested for charges related to January’s unrest was officially announced by the Islamic Republic authorities on March 19. The Iranian judiciary said that three protestors — Saleh Mohammadi, Saeed Davoudi and Mehdi Ghasemi — were executed for charges including “action in favor of the Israeli regime and the hostile government of the United States of America.”

Amirhossein Hatami, an 18-year-old protester, was one of the dissidents who was executed after the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began. He was executed on April 2, according to Mizan. The report alleged that Hatami was involved in burning government property.

Amnesty International, writing on social media, described Hatami’s trial as “grossly unfair.”

Two other protesters, Mohammadamin Biglari and Shahin Vahedparast, who had been arrested for the same case as Hatami, were executed three days later on April 5, Mizan reported.

Executions for security and intelligence-related charges are not limited to protesters. Like Farid and Shirzadi, who were executed on espionage charges, Hamed Validi and Nima Shahi are among the former political prisoners who were executed. They were executed on April 20, on charges of “enmity against God” and “cooperation with Mossad,” according to Iran’s judiciary.

The head of Iran’s Forensic Medicine Organization, Abbas Masjedi, said on April 13 that they had identified 3,375 victims killed during the ongoing war, adding that 2,875 of the victims were men and 496 were women. Given the age breakdown he provided, at least 383 children were among the dead. He didn’t specify how many of those killed were military-affiliated or civilians.

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The New Region – Iran executes man on dissent, espionage charges

Iran on Thursday executed a man on charges of being a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), an Iranian opposition group, and espionage for Israel.

 

Sultan Ali Shirzadifakhr “was hanged for the crime of membership in the terrorist group of the MEK and cooperation with the Zionist regime’s spy service,” state broadcaster IRIB reported on Thursday.

 

Iran recorded its highest number of executions in more than 15 years in 2025, according to Amnesty International. Many of the cases involved allegations of espionage, national security charges, and alleged ties to Israel or the US.

 

The statement claimed that he had confessed to “terrorist operations against Iran,” while adding that his sentence was carried out after completing legal procedures.

 

Iran has a long history of broadcasting alleged confessions from detainees that are widely believed to be coerced, often obtained through threats, psychological pressure, and, in some cases, physical torture, and commonly described as “forced confessions.”

 

Especially during periods of heightened tension, such as the January nationwide protests, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that more than 240 forced confessions were broadcast in the aftermath of the crackdown.

 

Iranian state media described Shirzadifakhr as a longtime member of the opposition group with “extensive cooperation” over the years, saying he was smuggled to Iraq in coordination with the group and had been active in the neighboring country.

 

In the aforementioned conflict, Iranian authorities carried out a wave of arrests on alleged espionage charges and executed several men convicted of spying for Israel’s intelligence services.

 

On Tuesday, Iran hanged a man after he was accused of spying for Israel’s intelligence Mossad agency and convicted of being a main collaborator in burning a mosque during the country’s nationwide protests.

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Zocalo – Iranians Are Stuck in the Middle of an Information War

On the first day of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury against Iran, the United States military struck a school in the south of the country multiple times, reportedly killing at least 175 people, mostly young children.

“I swear, it was the government that hit the school,” Alireza, my 33-year-old relative, insisted in an Instagram voice message to me. He claimed that Iran’s own armed forces had struck the Minab school. I shared multiple Western media sources and investigations revealing that American Tomahawk missiles had inflicted the damage. Where did Alireza, living in Iran, attain such misinformation, and why was he adamant about his position, even after the Pentagon tacitly admitted fault?

In Iran’s hyper-polarized society, events like the Minab tragedy spawn conspiracies, suspicions, and outright denials of reality rather than shared moments for mourning. Everything is part of a struggle for narrative control of this war. Nuance be damned. The result is bitter ruptures among Iranians inside and outside of the country as we reckon with the unrest and transformation of our besieged, beloved homeland.

The Iranian government tightly controls media inside the country. This isolation is entrenched by international sanctions, which deprive ordinary citizens from accessing the world. Persian-language media based outside of Iran have filled this vacuum—and they have their own motivations and state funding sources.

In the past decade, Iran International and Manoto, two London-based channels with mysterious origins and a clear anti-Islamic Republic editorial direction, have become the de facto sources of information for millions of Iranians. Both promote the son of Iran’s deposed last king, Reza Pahlavi, as the head of an inevitable government-in-waiting. Iran International received an initial investment of $250 million from the Saudi Arabian crown prince; Manoto’s funding comes from private venture capital sources with cultural ties to Israel and fondness for the Pahlavis. Pahlavi has also received support from Israel in the form of a reported cyber campaign that created automated bot followers and fake engagement with his social media posts.

On the algorithmic battlefront, Iranian state television and media (and other accounts sympathetic to the current government such as the media collective Explosive News) have set a new standard for 21st-century AI agitprop with offerings ranging from Lego rap videos to AI-generated film trailers, all supporting a narrative of this war as an American strategic blunder and distraction from the Epstein files. Through statements on X, Iranian officials are hoping to influence panic in the oil markets and exploit Trump’s lack of cohesive messaging about this war by, well, trolling him. Official Chinese accounts have waded in. For a brief while, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unable to disprove convincingly an internet theory that he was dead.

We are now in a new era in which the digital world increasingly determines the analog one instead of vice versa. Donald Trump claims that Iran is a master manipulator in this kind of warfare, even as he excels at it too, timing Truth Social statements with the opening and closing of financial markets. All of this makes the intelligibility of this war an example of contemporary warfare itself. Narratives, economies, and geopolitics move in lockstep.

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Economic Times – Iran reports 3,468 deaths in war with US, Israel: Official

Tehran: Iran’s state-run Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs said on Saturday that the war with the US and Israel had killed more than 3,400 people in the country. The announcement came during a two-week ceasefire in the conflict, which began in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Tehran.

Foundation chief Ahmad Mousavi, quoted by ISNA news agency, said 3,468 “martyrs” had died in the recent conflict.

A previous toll issued on April 12 by Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization had put the death count at 3,375.

US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said on April 7 that at least 3,636 people had been killed, including 1,701 civilians – among them at least 254 children – as well as 1,221 military personnel.

 

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Middle East Forum – The United Nations and Western Relativists Are Natural Allies of Iran’s Executioners

The United Nations Economic and Social Council has just appointed Iran to the Committee for Programme and Coordination—the body that sets the global direction on human rights, women’s rights, disarmament, and counter-terrorism.

In the same round of votes, China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan were elected by acclamation to the Committee on NGOs—the very tribunal that decides which civil society organizations are allowed to enter the sacred temple of human rights in Geneva.

Only the United States had the courage to call Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua “unfit.” The rest of the so-called “free world”—Canada, France, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland, Switzerland, and Austria—approved the appointments.

The theocratic Iran that slaughters dissidents, brutally represses women who dare to show a lock of hair, finances Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, spreading terror from Lebanon to Yemen, and that has massacred thousands of protesters in recent months, will now sit and decide global policies on women’s rights and the fight against terrorism.

This is the third major appointment for Iran at the UN in just one month. First, the Iranian regime was elected vice-president (Abbas Tajik) of the UN Commission for Social Development, which deals with “the promotion of democracy, gender equality, and the guarantee of tolerance and non-violence.” Then Tehran secured the vice-presidency of the commission tasked with implementing the United Nations Charter.

With its total surveillance apparatus and the re-education camps in Xinjiang—where one million Uyghurs are “re-educated” through forced labor, sterilizations, and indoctrination—Beijing will now oversee the NGOs that dare to criticize authoritarian regimes.

The scene is worthy of the Palace of the Absurd: a Tibetan dissident or a Hong Kong human rights lawyer who requests a hearing at the UN only to find themselves facing a Chinese Communist Party official who decides whether their voice deserves to be heard.

Then there’s Cuba. The island that exports misery and repression, where opponents end up in prison for “crimes against the revolution,” now sits with veto power over the NGOs that would like to denounce these violations.

This NGO Committee has the power to accredit or de-accredit thousands of civil society groups. With a majority of dictatorships inside it, the risk—already highlighted by UN Watch—is glaring: the few independent voices at the UN that denounce the Uyghur genocide, Iranian repression, and Cuban prisons will be rejected, while the puppet NGOs created by the regimes themselves will be promoted—those that chant the mantra of “human rights with Eastern characteristics.”

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch said: “It’s like putting Al Capone in charge of the fight against organized crime.” He’s right, but it might actually be even worse.

At least Al Capone never pretended to be the champion of international legality.

They call it “multilateralism,” but it is the surrender of Western universalism to the most hypocritical cultural relativism.

The UN no longer defends human rights. It defends the right of dictators not to be disturbed while they trample them.

The latest mention of Iran by the UN Women agency dates back to October 5, 2022: “Standing with Iranian women, free to exercise autonomy over their own bodies”. Eureka!

In the past month, the UN Women agency has written about poverty and war in Sudan, Lebanese women victims of Israeli bombs, online misogyny, sport as inclusion, and the empowerment of Christina Koch (the first woman on a lunar mission), Dolores Huerta (trade union leader and feminist), Jane Goodall, Maya Angelou, and Aretha Franklin (the famous “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”). Zero on Iran.

Zero on Bita Hemmati, the first Iranian woman sentenced to death by the regime for the January protests, along with three other demonstrators-protests during which the regime killed at least thirty thousand people. Among the charges against those sentenced to death, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, there is also “collaboration with the United States,” in addition to “moharebeh,” a term present in a Quranic verse that means “waging war against God.” The regime accused her of throwing objects, participating in protest demonstrations, and being a “threat to national security.” In Iran’s theocracy, a woman is not a sovereign body; she is merely territory to be conquered and a symbol to be subjugated.

The statistics are chilling and speak a language that no Western euphemism can soften. In 2025, Iran officially carried out 1,630 death sentences, the highest number ever. The ayatollahs’ regime has thus sent at least four citizens to death by hanging every day. Crimes punishable by capital punishment in Iran range from drug trafficking to “corruption on Earth”- the charge frequently used as accusations against protesters in recent years.

Bita Hemmati will be the first woman explicitly hanged for participating in the January 2026 protests. Hemmati had appeared in a video broadcast by state television in January, while being interrogated by the Revolutionary Guards and “confessing” her crimes.

The regime uses the gallows as a pedagogy of terror: sham trials, confessions extracted under torture, judges issuing verdicts “in the name of Allah.” Just like in the case of the wrestling champion Saleh Mohammadi, executed at the age of nineteen.

Where have the great feminist marches gone?
Where are the influencers who shout “my body, my choice” when it comes to white, bourgeois bodies, but fall silent in front of Iranian bodies that are whipped, blinded by pellets, or hanged for claiming the same principle?

Contemporary feminism, at least in its mainstream version, has carefully chosen its enemies: white patriarchy, colonialism, Islamophobia. The Shia theocratic patriarchy, on the other hand, is absolved with the excuse of anti-colonialism or “geopolitical complexity,” while Western universities host conferences on “queer Islam” or on the veil as an act of resistance. Cultural relativism, once a sophisticated critique of ethnocentrism as Claude Lévi-Strauss intended it, has thus become an alibi for cowardice.

On the cover of Italian weekly L’Espresso, Bita Hemmati would have looked far better than the “colonialist” Israeli soldier: young, blonde, without a veil, free. But the Iranian regime laughs at our cowardice. And it’s about time we stopped giving them that pleasure.

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Yahoo – Trump: ‘Lots of bombs start going off’ if Iran ceasefire expires without deal

President Trump told PBS News on Monday that “lots of bombs” will go off in Iran if the ceasefire expires without a deal.

“Then lots of bombs start going off,” Trump told reporter Liz Landers over the phone, when she asked what would happen if the ceasefire lapses without a peace agreement.

Trump told Bloomberg on Monday that the truce, which began on April 8, expires on “Wednesday evening Washington time,” adding that he is “highly unlikely” to extend it if his administration and Iranian officials cannot reach a deal.

The president has repeatedly threatened Iran with further bombings, after 1,701 civilians, including at least 254 children, in the Middle Eastern country were killed in the first 39 days of U.S.-Israeli strikes prior to the ceasefire, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

With the ceasefire deadline rapidly approaching, Trump administration officials are set to head to Islamabad, Pakistan, this week for a second round of peace talks. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Hill on Sunday that Vice President Vance will lead that delegation, which also includes U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

The Hill has reached out to Vance’s office for clarification on when he will depart for Islamabad.

Iran has sent mixed signals on whether it will participate in the talks. Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Asim Munir, a key mediator in the talks, reportedly told Trump that the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz was a “hurdle” to continued diplomacy.

Trump denied that Munir advised him to drop the blockade in a call with The Hill on Monday morning. In a Truth Social post later in the day, he doubled down on his insistence for a deal before the U.S. will allow ships to come and go from Iranian ports.

As for whether Iranian officials will be in Islamabad, Trump told PBS News, “I don’t know.” Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters Monday that the regime has “no plans for the next round of negotiations” with the U.S.

“I mean, they’re supposed to be there,” Trump said of Iranian officials. “We agreed to be there, although they say we didn’t. But no, it was set up. And we’ll see whether or not it’s there. If they’re not there, that’s fine too.”

Asked what he wants from negotiations in Islamabad, Trump repeated that Iran “cannot have” a nuclear weapon.

“We’re not negotiating anything other than the fact that they will not have a nuclear weapon,” he told PBS News. “And that’s pretty basic when you get right down to it.”

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Kurdistan 24 – Pezeshkian Asserts Iran’s Nuclear Rights as Ceasefire Negotiations Face Impending Deadline

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated on Sunday that United States President Donald Trump cannot unilaterally deprive Iran of its nuclear rights, establishing a rigid public posture as efforts to extend a fragile two-week ceasefire stall.

The declaration coincides with parallel warnings from Tehran and Washington over operational control of the Strait of Hormuz, further complicating Pakistani-mediated negotiations aimed at permanently concluding the six-week conflict.

The competing declarations regarding nuclear capabilities and maritime sovereignty fundamentally threaten the April 8 truce, which is scheduled to expire this week.

A failure to bridge these structural divides risks transitioning the conflict from localized aerial bombardments into systemic regional warfare, a development that would cement the current blockade on global energy markets and trigger promised allied military strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure.

In remarks delivered to domestic Iranian media on Sunday, Pezeshkian clarified Tehran’s strategic framing of the ongoing conflict, which formally commenced on February 28 following joint US and Israeli military strikes.

The Iranian President asserted that his administration has no intention of attacking any sovereign nation and has not initiated any war, categorizing Iran’s military actions strictly as an exercise of its legal and legitimate right to self-defense.

Pezeshkian emphasized that Iran does not seek to expand the scope of the current hostilities, though he maintained that the nation’s nuclear program remains an inviolable sovereign right.

Pezeshkian’s statements follow direct diplomatic boundaries established earlier by his administration. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh informed the Associated Press that Tehran categorically refuses to transfer its enriched uranium to the United States, labeling the matter non-negotiable.

Khatibzadeh noted that while a substantial volume of indirect messages has been exchanged between the delegations, the US continues to insist on demands that the Iranian government views as excessive, preventing the transition to direct, face-to-face meetings.

Providing an institutional update on the diplomatic proceedings, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, confirmed that while the negotiating team has achieved incremental progress, a substantial gap remains between the Iranian and American delegations.

Iran’s top negotiator corroborated this assessment, stating that only a few specific points of insistence and established “red lines” remain unresolved between the parties.

In Washington, President Donald Trump offered a succinct assessment of the negotiation process, characterizing the indirect discussions as “very good” without elaborating on the specific diplomatic frameworks under review.

However, the US President issued a firm caveat regarding maritime security, emphasizing that Tehran cannot place the United States under pressure regarding the contested status of the Strait of Hormuz.

The strategic waterway, which historically accommodates approximately one-fifth of the world’s globally traded oil and liquefied natural gas, has emerged as the central economic theater of the conflict. Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref stated on Sunday that while Iran seeks to end all wars in West Asia, Tehran remains the sovereign authority responsible for managing the Strait of Hormuz.

Aref warned that the Iranian government will secure its maritime rights either “at the negotiating table or on the ground.”

Currently, the Persian Gulf is effectively paralyzed by reciprocal institutional blockades.

The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the guided-missile destroyer USS Pinckney is actively patrolling regional waters, enforcing a naval blockade that the US military asserts has completely halted Iran’s commercial maritime exchanges.

In direct response, the military spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters confirmed that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to commercial transit under the strict management of the Iranian armed forces, directly tying the resumption of international shipping to the removal of the US blockade.

As the diplomatic delegations exchange parameters, allied military forces are visibly preparing for the potential collapse of the Islamabad-mediated talks. An unnamed senior Israeli military official recently informed the Hebrew-language daily Ma’ariv that the Israeli army and the US military maintain “very close and precise coordination” in anticipation of a sudden rupture in the ceasefire.

The official explicitly warned that in the absence of an agreement, allied forces are prepared to deliver a “very deadly and backbreaking blow” to Iran.

Significantly, the official confirmed that allied military planners have updated their strategic target matrix to prioritize Iranian energy facilities. According to operational data provided by the Israeli army, US and Israeli warplanes deployed more than 37,000 munitions against various targets in Iran during the initial 40 days of active combat, substantially neutralizing the country’s immediate defense infrastructure.

The human cost of these bombardments has been extensive. On Sunday, Ahmad Mousavi, head of the state-run Iranian Veterans Foundation, stated that more than 3,500 people lost their lives during the hostilities.

This data aligns closely with April 12 statistics released by the Iranian Forensic Medicine Organization, which recorded 3,375 fatalities.

Independent monitors have presented slightly higher figures featuring greater demographic categorization. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that as of April 7, at least 3,636 individuals had been killed.

According to HRANA’s statistical breakdown, the fatalities include 1,701 civilians—among them at least 254 children—alongside 1,221 military personnel and 714 individuals whose status remains undetermined.

Kurdistan24 cannot independently verify these casualty statistics, as independent reporting access within Iranian territory remains heavily restricted by state authorities.

The execution of the conflict and the ongoing negotiations are heavily influenced by domestic political dynamics within the United States.

According to detailed reporting by The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is attempting to balance maximalist strategic objectives against the acute risk of substantial American casualties and severe economic repercussions ahead of upcoming midterm elections.

US defense officials reportedly advised the executive branch against deploying American ground forces to seize Kharg Island—the launch point for 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports—due to presidential concerns over unacceptable troop casualties.

Furthermore, traditional European partners and the NATO alliance have formally declined to join the military campaign or assist in forcibly reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

This lack of international burden-sharing has exacerbated US domestic anxieties regarding the economic fallout of prolonged high energy prices, prompting the administration to utilize unpredictable public ultimatums to compel negotiations.

Further complicating the diplomatic architecture, Iranian officials have insisted that any permanent ceasefire must comprehensively include all regional fronts, specifically linking the bilateral US-Iran negotiations to the ongoing border conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israeli media, including Channel 12, reported that the Israeli military has established operational control over nearly one-third of the territory between the Lebanese border and the Litani River.

While a parallel 10-day ceasefire was announced for the Lebanese theater, localized combat operations persist. The Israeli military recently confirmed the death of an additional soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing the total military fatalities on that front to 15, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally.

The instability in southern Lebanon was further underscored by a recent attack on United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers, which resulted in the death of a French soldier. While French authorities and initial UN assessments attributed the attack to Hezbollah, the group has formally denied the accusations.

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem previously stated in a televised address that his forces reject a one-sided truce and remain mobilized.

Structurally, the current negotiating environment reflects an intractable convergence of local tactical realities and global strategic imperatives.

By linking the disposition of enriched uranium to the sovereign management of the Strait of Hormuz and the territorial integrity of southern Lebanon, stakeholders have transformed a bilateral security dispute into a multidimensional regional crisis.

This interdependence ensures that a diplomatic breakdown over any single variable—whether nuclear rights or maritime access—possesses the potential to unravel the entire ceasefire framework.

The immediate trajectory of the conflict now depends entirely on the ongoing back-channel discussions in Islamabad and Tehran. With the two-week ceasefire scheduled to expire this week, and both Washington and Tehran publicly reinforcing their respective red lines, the region faces acute institutional uncertainty.

The absence of a formalized schedule for direct, bilateral negotiations leaves the operative status of the Middle East suspended between a high-stakes diplomatic breakthrough and an immediate return to region-wide military engagement.

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