Iran Focus

AP: USA Wrestling says that Iran has pulled out of a dual meet set for Sunday in Los Angeles. The organization said Friday that the Iranian Wrestling Federation told them the team’s schedule has changed and that it has returned to Iran. No further reasons were given for Iran’s departure.

Reuters: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Turkey had already significantly reduced its oil imports from Iran, which is under the choke of Western sanctions, and further cutbacks would depend on his country's energy needs.

AFP: Divers leap from a helicopter into the Gulf's choppy waters to destroy a mine, while a US marine fires at a floating target, as forces from 41 countries gathered for naval manoeuvres facing Iran's shores.

New York Times: Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani headed a family empire that owned the second biggest Iranian airline, Mahan, had a near monopoly on the lucrative pistachio trade and controlled the country’s largest private university, Azad.

AFP: The United States and European nations should take "decisive sanctions" against Iran over its controversial nuclear program, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday.

AP: The head of Iran's constitutional watchdog says it may disqualify candidates in June presidential elections who seek full relations with the United States.

AFP: The United States on Friday steered clear of taking a tough stand on reports that Iran's electoral watchdog appears to have barred women from running in the June 14 presidential elections.

Reuters: France spelled out on Friday that it would oppose a peace conference for Syria if Bashar al-Assad's regional ally Iran is invited, clouding the prospect for a U.S.-Russian initiative to end the two-year-old war.

AFP: The United States on Friday removed sanctions on an Iraqi bank that was blacklisted last year for helping Iran skirt international financial controls over its nuclear activities.

AFP: Iran's firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address a forum on water security in Thailand next week, an embassy official said on Friday, just weeks before he stands down from the post.

Los Angeles Times: Iranians must wait until next week to find out who will be on the ballot in next month's presidential election, a key electoral panel said Thursday, as it continued to mull the fate of two prospective candidates who have shaken up the race.

Fox News: The conservative administration of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has taken a hard-line stance against Iran as the Islamic Republic's June elections approach, mounting a social media campaign aimed at toppling Iran's theocratic rulers and leveling unusually harsh rhetoric at Tehran.

AFP: US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted Thursday that Bashar al-Assad must still quit power despite moves to organize peace talks in Syria's bloody civil war.

AP: The first group of exiles from an Iranian opposition group have moved to Albania from a former U.S. military base near Baghdad as part of a relocation process, the United Nations mission to Iraq said Thursday.

Reuters: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Iran must take part in a proposed international conference to end Syria's civil war, but that Western states wanted to limit the participants and possibly predetermine the outcome of the talks.

AFP: Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said on Thursday that nuclear talks with the EU'S foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton were "long and useful" and that both sides have decided to continue the discussions.

Bloomberg: Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad must be pleased at how, within a week, the conversation has shifted from his regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons to an international peace conference on Syria’s civil war.

AP: A member of Iran's constitutional watchdog says women cannot be presidential candidates, effectively killing the longshot bids by about 30 women seeking to run in the June 14 election.

Reuters: Iran is prepared to pursue nuclear diplomacy with world powers before or after next month's presidential election in the Islamic Republic, its chief negotiator said on Thursday.

Bloomberg: Members of Congress from both parties today urged Obama administration officials to impose greater economic pressure to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions and punish its human-rights violations.

AFP: The United States is working to block sales of gold to Iranians in order to undermine their currency the rial and to step up pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program, officials said Wednesday.

AFP: US officials Wednesday slammed a campaign of "unrelenting repression" ahead of Iran's presidential elections, and said the outcome would be very hard to predict amid a secret vetting process.

AP: U.N. nuclear agency officials on Wednesday again failed to reach a deal with Iranian counterparts that would allow the agency to relaunch its probe of suspicions that Tehran might have worked on atomic arms.

Wall Street Journal: U.S. economic sanctions on Iran are likely changing the thinking of its leadership toward its nuclear program, administration officials told a Senate foreign relations panel Wednesday.