The United States on Friday sought clarification from Iran in response to its counter-offer involving shipping low-enriched uranium for refining abroad, senior administration officials said.Clinton told CNN that Western officials were working to determine what the Iranians are willing to do -- whether Tehran's decision is final or an interim statement. Iran sent its response Thursday to the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The agreement was designed to reduce the amount of material Iran has to possibly make a nuclear ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a Monday speech at the opening session of the Knesset, slammed a United Nations report critical of Israel's tactics during its offensive into Gaza. The report, released last month, accused Israel of committing "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" during its military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18. The report also accused Hamas of war crimes. Netanyahu told lawmakers, "We will not agree to a situation where the ...

Iraqi authorities on Sunday closed all entrances into Ramadi and imposed a curfew after a series of car bombings killed at least 19 people and injured more than 80 others, according to Interior Ministry officials. The three -- who were identified only by initials -- were accused of contacts with opposition groups, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported Saturday. The death sentences can be appealed, ISNA reported, quoting Bashiri Rad, director of public relations of the Tehran judiciary. No other ...

A man arrested in France on suspicion of links to terrorist organizations is a physicist who was working with the agency known for being home of the Large Hadron Collider -- the world's most powerful particle accelerator. Talks between American diplomat George Mitchell and Netanyahu focused on efforts to restart the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the two men agreed to continue their discussions in the coming days, the minister's office said. Mitchell will meet Saturday with two of Netanyahu's ...

At precisely the moment that Barack Obama plus the leaders of Britain and France were announcing the existence of the secret Iranian nuclear facility near Qum, a group of TIME editors were sitting down to interview Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at his New York City hotel. Our strategy was to avoid the obvious questions — Ahmadinejad has been grilled relentlessly about his heinous views on the Holocaust — but there was an obvious question that needed to be asked ...

Iran test fired a long-range Shahab-3 missile on Monday, state-run Press TV reported. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps began a series of missile exercises Sunday to promote the armed forces' defense capabilities. The tests, which are expected to conclude on Monday, are codenamed "Payghambar-e Azam 4" or "The Great Prophet 4," Press TV said. Shahab-3 missiles are touted by Iran as being able to strike targets within a range of about 800 to 1,250 miles (1,300 to 2,000 kilometers). The ...

Top U.S. officials say the underground nuclear facility that Iran revealed last week is illegal and likely intended for military purposes. "I think that certainly the intelligence people have no doubt that ... this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only ... because the Iranians kept it a secret," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so ...

Iran tested a missile-launching system and two types of missiles Sunday, the state-run Press TV said without offering details. Earlier, the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had said it would stage missile exercises beginning Sunday to promote the armed forces' defense capabilities. The tests, which are expected to go on for the next 10 to 11 days, are codenamed "Payghambar-e Azam 4" or "The Great Messenger 4," Press TV said. The station said the missiles fired Sunday were of the ...

Tehran's new uranium enrichment plant will be operational soon, and "will blind the eyes of the enemies," Iran's semi-official news agency Fars reported Saturday, quoting a senior Iranian official. Also Saturday, the head of Iran's atomic energy program said U.N. nuclear experts would be allowed to inspect the plant, according to a report from Iran-funded Press TV. Ali Akbar Salehi, the atomic energy chief, said a date would be arranged for such an inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, ...