Iran, Britain | featured news

An air of cautious optimism hung over Almaty, Kazakstan, on Friday as Western and Iranian negotiators began another round of nuclear talks. The six powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – met Iranian officials with the aim of settling a decade-long tussle over Tehran's nuclear program.

New York’s top banking regulator had charged the British bank with laundering $250 billion in tainted money for Iranian clients.

Standard Chartered won some help from Britain's central bank governor on Wednesday in its fightback against the New York banking regulator's allegations that it had hidden $250 billion of transactions with Iran.

New York's top bank regulator threatened to strip Standard Chartered Plc of its state banking license, saying the British bank was a "rogue institution" that hid $250 billion in transactions tied to Iran, in violation of U.S. law.

Iran has stopped selling crude to British and French companies, the oil ministry said on Sunday.

Iran said on Monday that Germany, Britain and the United Arab Emirates were refusing to provide fuel to Iranian passenger planes following unilateral U.S. sanctions on the Islamic state, the ISNA news agency reported.

"There will be consequences" if Iran mistreats a British Embassy employee who was arrested in Tehran, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Sunday, as cracks began to appear in the Iranian leadership.

The announcement by Iranian authorities to put some embassy staff members on trial for spurring on protests against the government could deepen the diplomatic crisis with the European Union.

The UK prime minister has called for the release of the remaining British embassy staff detained in Tehran. Gordon Brown said it was "unacceptable" and "unjustifiable" that the local employees had been held. Five out of nine local staff from the UK ...