Tehran

Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi's latest picture defying an official ban, "Taxi", will premiere Friday at the 65th Berlin film festival, marking a new chapter of his career in the shadows.
      
The 54-year-old's work is celebrated in the world's arthouses but outlawed in Iran where the regime considers his gritty, socially critical productions to be subversive.

It’s the photo-shoot that cost one of Iran’s most famous film stars permanent exile from the Islamic Republic. The reason? Nude pics, and ones of nubile actress Golshifteh Farahani no less.
The photos were published in Madam Figaro, and according to the now Paris-based actress, they’re in protest to the oppressive regime in her native country.

Iranian officials will meet with European members of the P5+1 group in Istanbul on Thursday under the ongoing diplomatic effort to secure a deal over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme.
      
The meeting with British, French and German diplomats was announced by Iran's foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham during a weekly press briefing in Tehran.
      

Turkish Industry Minister Fikri I??k has called on his counterparts from the D-8 group of developing countries to participate in creating a joint venture car brand.

Deputy foreign ministers from Iran, the U.K., France and Germany will gather in Istanbul on Jan. 29 to discuss Iran's nuclear program, according to an Iranian official.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to Iranian media, said Jan. 24's talks in the Swiss city of Zurich between representatives of the U.S. and the EU had been "constructive."

Iran no longer uses the U.S. dollar in foreign trade transactions, replacing it with other currencies, the deputy governor at Iranian Central Bank was quoted as saying by an Iranian government news agency on Jan. 24.

Iranian and US diplomats resumed talks in Switzerland on Jan. 23, as the pace intensifies towards a complex deal on Tehran's nuclear programme.
 
Two days of meetings between Iran's deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and top US negotiator Wendy Sherman began Friday morning in Zurich, a US spokesman told AFP.
 

US President Barack Obama has refused to meet Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who will make a controversial visit to the United States in early March as he fights for re-election.
      

Russia might deliver a long-overdue S-300 air defence missile system to Iran, honouring a contract that was cancelled in 2010 following strong pressure from the West, Iranian and Russian media said on Jan. 20.
   

A complex deal on Iran's nuclear programme can be reached only if global powers stop pressuring Tehran, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned Jan. 17 evening.