Islamabad, 2 Apr - Pakistan has asked Iran to investigate the case of a suspected Indian spy who Pakistani authorities say has confessed to spying against Pakistan from Iran, according to a copy of an Interior Ministry letter to Iran obtained by Reuters on Friday.

Last month, Pakistan said it had detained the suspected spy, Kulbhushan Jadhav, in the violence-plagued province of Baluchistan after he had illegally entered the country from Iran.

Dubai, 2 Apr - Bahrain's foreign minister said on Friday that Gulf Arab states were prepared to confront Iran over its foreign policy and Tehran should drop its support for Middle East factions.

Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa also played down any difference with the United States over remarks by US President Barack Obama last month telling Saudi Arabia and Iran "to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood", Reuters reported.

Washington, 2 Apr - United States President Barack Obama on Friday criticized Iranian leaders for undermining the “spirit” of last year’s historic nuclear agreement, even as they stick to the “letter” of the pact.

In comments following the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, Obama denied speculation that the US would ease rules preventing dollars from being used in financial transactions with Iran, in order to boost the country’s engagement with the rest of the world.

Iran Focus

London, 31 Mar - On March 20 a large shipment of arms believed to have come from Iran was seized by the French Navy off the coast of Somalia. The cache, which included several hundred AK47 assault rifles, machine guns and anti-tank weapons was spotted heading toward Somalia by a helicopter performing routine surveillance although the ultimate destination is believed to be Yemen.

Iran Focus

London, 31 Mar - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has cancelled a trip to Austria planned for March 30-31. A statement from the Austrian President’s office stated the meeting had been postponed by the Iranian side for security reasons. A spokesperson for the Austrian Interior Ministry, Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said that there were “no concrete indications of any security threats”. The Iranian government confirmed the postponement of the meeting, a decision reached by “mutual agreement”.

Washington, 31 Mar - Western businesses ought to avoid dealing with Iran or risk being named and shamed by the United States Congress, Rep. Peter Roskam, chairman of the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The following is the full text of Roskam's op-ed in The Wall Street Journal:

Iran Focus

Tehran, 30 Mar - Supporters of Iranian dissident cleric Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi are calling for international pressure on Iran’s regime to free him and allow him proper medical treatment.

Ayatollah Boroujerdi, 57, was arrested in Tehran on October 8, 2006. He has spent almost 10 years in various regime jails and is currently being held in the infamous Evin Prison. Reports from the prison say that Boroujerdi is subject to physical and psychological torture. He is being denied medical treatment and is said to be suffering from heart, kidney and respiratory problems in addition to losing 90% of his vision in one eye and as much as 36kg (80lbs) in weight.

Iran Focus

London, 30 Mar - Major world powers have described Iran’s recent testing of nuclear-capable missiles as “destabilising and provocative”.

On March 9 the Iranian government tested two missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload. On Tuesday the Associated Press obtained a joint letter of protest from the US, France, Britain and Germany.

Washington, 29 Mar - By launching nuclear-capable missiles Iran has defied a United Nations Security Council resolution that endorsed last year's historic nuclear deal, the United States and its European allies said in a joint letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Iran's recent ballistic tests involved missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and were "inconsistent with" and "in defiance of" council resolution 2231, adopted last July, said the joint US, British, French, German letter to Spain's UN Ambassador Roman Oyarzun Marchesi and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Reuters reported.

Iran Focus

London, 29 Mar - Britain's Prince Charles is being urged to cancel a planned visit to Iran later this year.

The Sunday Times reported that Prince Charles is considering a visit to Iran this autumn, marking the first official royal visit to that country in more than 40 years.

Struan Stevenson, a former Member of the European Parliament representing Scotland, said in a statement on Tuesday that he was deeply concerned by the reports of the planned visit.

Washington, 29 Mar - Leading foreign policy voices in the United States Congress say they are preparing to fight against an Obama administration effort to provide Iran unprecedented access to US financial resources as part of an expanded package meant to address new demands from the Islamic Republic’s for greater economic concessions, according to several conversations between the Washington Free Beacon and top lawmakers.

London, 29 Mar - The Iranian Supreme Court has sentenced a man to have his eye gouged out after blinding another man in a street fight, The Independent reported on Monday.

The 28-year-old, identified only as Saman, was convicted under Iran’s strict retribution laws after fighting in the street with his then 25-year-old victim when he was 23, the report said.

Saman is said to have claimed that he had unintentionally blinded the man with a metal rod.

Riyadh, 27 Mar - Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Sunday that Iran must change its "behaviour" towards his country if it wants normal ties with the oil-rich Sunni kingdom.

Jubeir, speaking at a joint news conference with his South African counterpart, said Riyadh "wants to have peaceful relations" with Tehran and that it had tried to forge closer ties with Iran for more than three decades but "in exchange we received nothing", AFP reported.

Iran Focus

London, 26 Mar - Iran's main opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has called on the Austrian government to cancel the upcoming trip by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani.

"The Iranian Resistance considers the planned trip of Rouhani, President of the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran, to Austria against the highest interests of the Iranian people and the countries in the region and calls on Austrian political parties, parliamentarians and defenders of human rights to cancel this visit", the NCRI said in a statement.

London, 25 Mar - Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and the United Nations, has written a commentary in The Wall Street Journal urging the Obama administration not to let Iraq fall into Iran's hands and suggesting steps forward to help Baghdad out of the crises it currently faces.

The following is the full text of Khalilzad's opinion piece:

New York, 24 Mar - The Obama administration on Thursday announced the indictment of seven Iranian hackers for a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks on dozens of US banks and a New York dam from 2011 to 2013, signaling an effort by US officials to more publicly confront cyber crime waged on behalf of foreign nations.

The indictment, filed in a federal court in New York City, described the suspects, who live in Iran, as "experienced computer hackers" believed to have been working on behalf of the Iranian government.