Tehran

Tehran said on March 26 that a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran 13 years ago had left the country a long time ago, despite his family saying a day earlier that he had died in Iranian custody.   

Robert Levinson went missing on Iran's Kish Island in the Gulf in March 2007. The case is another irritant in the already hostile relationship between Washington and Tehran.   

Iran has banned long-distance travel because of concerns about a second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, Reuters reported. This was reported by an Iranian official at a state-televised press conference in Tehran.

Security Minister Fahrudin Radoncic wrote on Instagram on Monday that a Bosnian company had discussed with officials at the Iranian embassy in Sarajevo the possibility of selling aluminium oxide powder to Tehran in breach of US and EU sanctions.

Iran has agreed to send black boxes from a downed Ukrainian jetliner to Kiev for analysis, an Iranian official said on March 11, a move that would end a two-month standoff over the recordings from the jet.   

Saudi's stock exchange fell 6.5 percent and other Gulf markets tumbled to multiyear lows at the start of trading Sunday after OPEC and its allies failed to clinch a deal over oil production cuts.

Human rights group Amnesty International on March 4 accused the Iranian security forces of killing 23 children, mostly with live ammunition, during a November crackdown on anti-government protests.

Deaths in Iran from coronavirus have hit 43, the highest number outside China, and the total number of infected people has risen to 593, an Iranian health official said on Feb. 29.

As several countries in the Middle East reported cases of the coronavirus stemming from Iran, the country is at the epicenter of the outbreak in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Feb. 25 the Syrian regime will not be able to achieve a military victory and the recent offensive in Idlib only heightens the risks of conflict with Turkey.

Turkey has yet to see any confirmed case of the coronavirus, but that does not mean there will never be any, said the country's top health official on Feb. 26, a day after a plane carrying 132 Turkish passengers flying from Tehran landed in Ankara, all of whom are being kept under quarantine.

A Turkish Airlines plane flying from Iran to Istanbul was diverted to Ankara on Feb. 25 at the Turkish Health Ministry's request, according to local media reports.

The plane, carrying 132 passengers, was flying from Tehran to Istanbul.

The plane has landed at Ankara's Esenboğa Airport.