14 December 2004 -- Iran's interior minister criticized the hard-line Guardians Council for proposing to push back Iran's planned presidential election, due to be held next May.
Iranian governmental bodies are locked in a dispute over when to hold the country's next presidential election -- in May or in early June -- but three conservative figures have already declared their intention to be candidates.
14 December 2004 -- A senior Iranian official has spoken of Iran and the European Union opening a "new chapter" in their relations after talks on benefits Iran is to receive for suspending its uranium-enrichment activities.
13 December 2004 -- European and Iranian leaders say they have made progress in their talks about Iran's controversial nuclear activities.
13 December 2004 -- Officials of Iran and the European Union are due to start talks today on issues connected to Iran's nuclear activities.
Baha'is are Iran's largest religious minority, but their faith is not recognized in the country's constitution and they have long faced harassment and persecution. The European Union recently lodged a formal complaint with Iranian authorities over the arrest and harassment of journalists as well as members of religious minorities such as the Baha'is.
President Mohammad Khatami (file photo) Two conservative figures have announced their intention to be presidential candidates, although a date for the election has not been announced yet. Continuing controversy over who should or should not be a candidate makes it clear that Iran's right wing is not as monolithic as the conservatives' domination of the February 2004 parliamentary election would lead one to believe.
Vienna, 8 December 2004 -- A year ago, efforts to rein in Iran's alleged nuclear-weapons program looked like a triumph of multilateral diplomacy. Now they look like a diplomatic quagmire with no end in sight.
Iran announced on 6 December that it had tried a number of alleged members of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. The head of Tehran's Justice Department said the verdicts were issued in compliance with Iranian and Islamic laws and that high-ranking officials were satisfied with them. But the announcement has raised more questions than it has answered. Officials have refused to offer any further details on the trial. And today, Iran's top intelligence official questioned whether the suspects were even Al-Qaeda members.
8 December 2004 -- King Abdullah of Jordan says in an interview published today that Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections set for 30 January by sending thousands of Iranians into Iraq to vote and pouring in large amounts of money.
The Gulf Iranians around the world are up in arms over the publication of the National Geographic Society's new "Atlas of the World." The uproar is over the inclusion of "Arabian Gulf" as a secondary name for the "Persian Gulf," the body of water that lies between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Iran insists the area has for centuries been called the Persian Gulf. In protest, the government in Tehran has banned the sale of "National Geographic" magazine until the secondary name is removed. What's in a name?
7 December 2004 -- Iran's top nuclear negotiator today said that he will next week have talks with British, French, and German officials to discuss Iran's nuclear program.
Load more
![RFE/RL President Jamie Fly: "It is an outrage that this law targets [journalists'] work and jeopardizes their security in an attempt to silence them and deprive Russian citizens of their right to seek reliable information."](https://gdb.rferl.org/A1D7C4EB-FB44-4D9C-91CA-2D0355E89C9F_w100_r1.jpg)
![RFE/RL President Jamie Fly: "It is an outrage that this law targets [journalists'] work and jeopardizes their security in an attempt to silence them and deprive Russian citizens of their right to seek reliable information."](https://gdb.rferl.org/A1D7C4EB-FB44-4D9C-91CA-2D0355E89C9F_w33_r1.jpg)
