It would be foolish for an American to come by and gawk at the "den of espionage," the Iranian government's name for the former U.S. embassy in the Islamic republic's capital. Even without the newly reinforced restrictions and spasms of street violence, this would be a strange place for anyone with U.S. citizenship to visit. For this is ground zero in the tragic history of U.S.-Iran relations: the staging ground of the 1953 CIA plot that overthrew the democratically ...

Five Iranians held in Iraq by the United States since 2007 went back to Tehran on Sunday, Iran's government-backed Press TV reported.

President Obama argued Friday that the Group of Eight nations had sent a clear message to Iran: The world will not "wait indefinitely" and allow the country to build nuclear weapons. "The international community has said, 'Here's a door you can walk through that allows you to lessen tensions and more fully join the international community,' " Obama told reporters at a news conference at the end of the G-8 summit in Italy. "If Iran chooses not to walk through ...

Seven Baha'i prisoners face a death-penalty trial Saturday in Iran amid calls for their release from a U.S. panel on religious freedom. Responding to a letter from Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist who spent four months in an Iranian jail earlier this year, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) demanded the seven prisoners be freed rather than stand trial on charges of espionage and religious violations. If convicted, they could face execution. "In addition to the hundreds ...

Nearly two weeks of silence on the streets of Tehran were broken in the evening of July 9 when thousands marched through the central districts of the Iranian capital to protest the June 12 presidential election. Another anniversary helped precipitate the show of apparent defiance: the 10th anniversary of a bloody student uprising that was brutally put down by the government. Despite threats earlier in the day of a "crushing" response, men, women and even some children went onto ...

Iason Athanasiadis' ordeal began at the airport, shortly after he checked in for his flight to leave Tehran. "I was heading to the gate," the Greek-British journalist said. "This guy materialized on my right. He said 'are you Iason Fowden' [Athanasiadis' passport name]. I said 'yeah that's me.' He said 'please step to the side ... you're not going to be flying tonight.'" It was an ominous introduction to Iran's security apparatus. Athanasiadis spent the next 21 harrowing days in ...

The quiet enforced on Tehran's streets by the postelection crackdown was shattered on July 9 in dramatic clashes between opposition activists and security forces. Plans had circulated for days on Internet social-networking sites calling for demonstrations to be staged to observe the 10th anniversary of the violent suppression of pro-reform protests at Tehran University in 1999. Opposition supporters were told to carry nothing more threatening than a rose. But the event failed to draw the huge crowds that had ...

What would you ask the cast of "Harry Potter" if you had the chance? In an interview with the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Maj. Gen. Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghadam said authorities would confront protesters and that no demonstration permit had been issued for Thursday, the 10th anniversary of a 1999 student uprising that, at the time, posed the biggest threat to the Islamic regime since its inception in 1979. Tehran's governor Morteza Tamaddon issued a similar warning as the ...

The United Nations should "urge" Iran to release political prisoners rounded up during the recent unrest following last month's disputed presidential elections, a group of Nobel Peace Prize winners have declared. The group of 10 Nobel laureates, including former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, made the request in a letter to the secretary-general of the United Nations on Monday. They also cited a concern for fellow Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. The Iranian lawyer ...

It is not now as it hath been of yore. Summits between the leaders who live in the White House and the Kremlin once transfixed the world, as competing superpowers, ideologies and worldviews clashed. But when Barack Obama visits Moscow on July 6, it will be something of a rarity for the U.S. President: a rather dull trip. Obama will encounter no cheering crowds or overly excited local media. His hosts, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir ...