Globalsecurity.org

European leaders hope the start Tuesday of indirect talks in Vienna between the United States and Iran about reviving an international deal to limit Tehran's nuclear capabilities, will realign Washington and European policy toward the Islamic Republic.

Representatives of Iran and the other remaining signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal have held a new round of talks in Vienna over a possible return of the United States to the agreement that it abandoned some three years ago.

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani says the Islamic Republic will under no circumstances enter negotiations beyond the nuclear agreement it clinched with six major world states in 2015.

Representatives from five world powers met with Iranian officials in Vienna in an effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, which the United States abandoned in 2018.

Head of the Iranian delegation to the 18th Regular Joint Session of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Seyyed Abbas Araghchi stressed in Vienna on Tuesday that Iran is not interested in step-by-step revival of the nuclear deal at all.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said here on Tuesday that if the United States wishes to save the disputed nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, it must terminate the entire nuclear sanctions.

The first round of the 18th session of the Joint Commission of the Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) meeting held at the Grand Hotel in Vienna ended with an agreement to continue consultations at the level of experts.

The joint naval exercise between the two Iranian and Pakistani Navies ended with the presence of the two countries' navy carriers and various maritime scenarios in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

The Pakistan carrier group departs Bandar Abbas for a designated area on Tuesday to conduct a combined naval exercise in the Persian Gulf's water and the Sea of Oman.

Iranian naval forces and a visiting flotilla of warships from the Pakistan Navy have staged joint exercises in the Persian Gulf, which extended to the Strait of Hormuz and the northern part of the Indian Ocean.

A dispute within Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has spilled into public view with a deputy commander lashing out at an aide to the IRGC's commander in chief who has ambitions to win the presidency in a June election.

Iran says it has charged 10 officials over the crash of a Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) jet that was shot down last year, killing all 176 people on board.

Russia has warned against imposing sanctions on Myanmar's military, saying punitive measures could spark a full-blown civil war in the Southeast Asian country following the recent coup there.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a bill into law enabling the incumbent head of state to run for two more terms starting 2024.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov began a two-day official visit Tuesday to Pakistan amid growing diplomatic, economic, and military ties between the two countries.

Police have detained the head of the Russian Alliance of Doctors outside a prison after she attempted to seek permission to examine jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny after he was moved to a sick ward with a severe cough and temperature amid reports of a possible tuberculosis outbreak in the facility.

Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has been moved to a prison hospital and tested for the coronavirus, Russian media reported. His hospitalization came Monday, just hours after he released a statement on social media in which he alleged a tuberculosis outbreak in the prison and complained of a heavy cough and high fever.

A Russian court has ordered a fine against the popular video-sharing application TikTok in the country's latest major dispute with a global social platform over content allegedly related to political protests.

Turkish F-16 fighter jets have conducted new airstrikes on Duhok Province in Iraq's northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, defying Baghdad's numerous protests at such violations of the Arab country's sovereignty.

European Council President Charles Michel and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday for talks on a reset in relations. After meeting Erdogan in Ankara, Michel spoke to reporters about the EU's deep concern over human rights in Turkey.