DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran sentenced Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to over seven extra years in jail after she started a starvation strike, supporters mentioned Sunday, as Tehran cracks down on all dissent following nationwide protests and the deaths of hundreds by the hands of safety forces.
The brand new convictions in opposition to Mohammadi come as Iran tries to barter with the USA over its nuclear program to avert a threatened navy strike by President Donald Trump. Iran’s prime diplomat insisted Sunday that Tehran’s energy got here from its skill to “say no to the good powers,” placing a maximalist place simply after negotiations in Oman with the U.S.
Mohammadi’s supporters cited her lawyer, who spoke to Mohammadi. The lawyer, Mostafa Nili, confirmed the sentence on X, saying it had been handed down Saturday by a Revolutionary Court docket within the metropolis of Mashhad.
“She has been sentenced to 6 years in jail for ‘gathering and collusion’ and one and a half years for propaganda and two-year journey ban,” he wrote.
Iran didn’t instantly acknowledge the sentence. Supporters say Mohammadi has been on a starvation strike since Feb. 2. She had been arrested in December at a ceremony honoring Khosrow Alikordi, a 46-year-old Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate who had been based mostly in Mashhad.
The information about Mohammadi got here as International Minister Abbas Araghchi, talking to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled that Iran would follow its place that it should be capable of enrich uranium — a significant level of rivalry with Trump, who bombed Iranian atomic websites in June in the course of the 12-day Iran-Israel warfare.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is anticipated to journey to Washington this week, with Iran anticipated to be the main topic of dialogue, his workplace mentioned.
Whereas Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian praised the talks Friday in Oman with the People as “a step ahead,” Araghchi’s remarks present the problem forward. Already, the U.S. moved the plane provider USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Center East to stress Iran into an settlement and have the firepower essential to strike the Islamic Republic ought to Trump select to take action.
“I consider the key of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s energy lies in its skill to face in opposition to bullying, domination and pressures from others,” Araghchi mentioned. “They worry our atomic bomb, whereas we’re not pursuing an atomic bomb. Our atomic bomb is the facility to say no to the good powers. The key of the Islamic Republic’s energy is within the energy to say no to the powers.”
Araghchi’s option to explicitly use an “atomic bomb” as a rhetorical machine seemingly wasn’t unintended. Whereas Iran has lengthy maintained its nuclear program is peaceable, the West and the Worldwide Atomic Power Company say Tehran had an organized navy program to hunt the bomb up till 2003.
Iran had been enriching uranium as much as 60% purity, a brief, technical step to weapons-grade ranges of 90%, the one non-weapons state to take action. Iranian officers in recent times had additionally been more and more threatening that the Islamic Republic may search the bomb, even whereas its diplomats have pointed to Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s preachings as a binding fatwa, or non secular edict, that Iran wouldn’t construct one.
Pezeshkian, who ordered Araghchi to pursue talks with the People after seemingly getting Khamenei’s blessing, additionally wrote on X on Sunday in regards to the talks.
“The Iran-U.S. talks, held by the follow-up efforts of pleasant governments within the area, have been a step ahead,” the president wrote. “Dialogue has at all times been our technique for peaceable decision. … The Iranian nation has at all times responded to respect with respect, but it surely doesn’t tolerate the language of drive.”
It stays unclear when and the place, or if, there will likely be a second spherical of talks. Trump, after the talks Friday, supplied few particulars however mentioned: “Iran appears like they wish to make a deal very badly — as they need to.”
Throughout Friday’s talks, U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the pinnacle of the American navy’s Central Command, was in Oman. Cooper’s presence was apparently an intentional reminder to Iran about U.S. navy energy within the area. Cooper later accompanied U.S. particular envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to the Lincoln out within the Arabian Sea after the oblique negotiations.
Araghchi seemed to be taking the specter of an American navy strike significantly, as many nervous Iranians have in latest weeks. He famous that after a number of rounds of talks final yr, the U.S. “attacked us within the midst of negotiations.”
“If you happen to take a step again (in negotiations), it’s not clear as much as the place it’ll go,” Araghchi mentioned.
