Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for May 8, 2022
Newsline: U.S. sending diplomats back to embassy in Kyiv
The Biden administration is sending a group of American diplomats back to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to coincide with Russia’s Victory Day on May 9, when the country marks the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, four U.S. officials tell CBS News. The move is part of the U.S. effort to counteract Russian propaganda surrounding the conflict, which the U.S. expects to see from the Kremlin on May 9, another U.S. official tells CBS News. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-us-embassy-kyiv-diplomats-returning-russia-victory-day/) The diplomats’ return to the embassy is meant to underscore Russian President Vladimir Putin’s failure to capture the Ukrainian capital, even though his grinding war of attrition in the country’s south and east is now underway. State Department sources said the embassy hopes to resume operations at the embassy in Kyiv and raise the American flag there in the coming weeks.
Newsline: Israel embassy in Delhi on high alert amid ‘serious’ fear of Iran attack
The Israel embassy in New Delhi has reportedly been on high alert in recent weeks amid “serious” fears of a possible terror attack by Iran-backed perpetrators. (https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/israel-embassy-in-delhi-on-high-alert-amid-serious-fear-of-iran-attack/ar-AAX1vAT)This comes more than a year after a low-intensity IED blast outside the Israeli Embassy in Lutyens’ Delhi in January 2021. Soon after the blast, the entire area around the Israeli embassy was cordoned-off with heavy deployment of police and central paramilitary forces. The date of the blast (January 29, 2021) coincided with the completion of 29 years of diplomatic ties between India and Israel. Seven months later, intelligence agencies had issued a nationwide terror alert ahead of the Jewish holidays in September. The intel had warned that terror groups can carry out attacks like the Israel embassy blast in Delhi in January 2021.
Newsline: Iran confirms EU envoy visit to save stalled nuclear deal talks
The European Union’s coordinator for talks on restoring Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers will visit Tehran on Tuesday in an effort to find a solution to a months-long standoff between Tehran and Washington. Nournews, an outlet affiliated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), which leads the nuclear deal negotiations, on Saturday confirmed the upcoming visit by Enrique Mora, the deputy secretary-general of the European External Action Service (EEAS). “Considering the EU’s role in exchanging viewpoints between Tehran and Washington, Enrique Mora’s trip to Tehran can be regarded as a new step for constructive negotiations surrounding the few but important remaining issues,” the outlet reported. It did, however, emphasise that Iran has remained in the negotiations despite “the persistence of hostile approaches by the US against our country” that it said goes against the spirit of constructive negotiations. (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/7/iran-confirms-eu-envoy-visit-to-save-stalled-nuclear-deal-talks) The talks to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the deal is formally known, began in April 2021 but have stalled for months as Iran and the United States have failed to reach agreement on a number of limited but crucial issues.
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