Iran, Middle East | featured news

Iran warned Tuesday it would strike against an "enemy" threatening it if needed to protect its national interests -- even if the enemy didn't attack first. Gen. Mohammad Hejazi, a deputy head of Iran's armed forces, said his country "will no more wait to see enemy action against us," according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

China, India and Japan are planning cuts of at least 10 percent in Iranian crude imports as tightening U.S. sanctions make it difficult for the top Asian buyers to keep doing business with the OPEC producer.

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

Iran will present a new advance in its atomic program Wednesday by loading domestically made nuclear fuel into a research reactor in the capital Tehran, a senior Iranian official told a Russian news agency Tuesday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Saturday that the nation will reveal "several major achievements in the nuclear domain" within days, state media reported.

Saudia Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report. Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a paywall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

After two days of rare and intensive talks in Tehran, senior U.N. nuclear officials may have felt they were finally making headway towards getting Iran to address suspicions that it is bent on developing the ability to make atom bombs.

Panetta won't dispute a report that he believes Israel may attack Iran this spring in an attempt to set back Iran's nuclear program.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Sunday that Iran is only one year away from producing a nuclear weapon. In an interview on the CBS show "60 Minutes," Panetta said that “the consensus is that, if they decided to do it, it would probably take them about a year to be able to produce a bomb and then possibly another one to two years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle of some sort in order to deliver that weapon.”

The Obama administration said Friday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to four Latin American countries is is a sign of desperation as the country becomes politically isolated due to sanctions and warned Latin American leaders against expanding ties with Iran.