The Levant Files

Ukraine has asked Turkey to host a direct summit between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kyiv's top diplomat confirmed on Wednesday, as efforts to end the more than four-year war hit a new low. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha made the disclosure on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, saying Ukraine had approached Ankara specifically — and signaled it would welcome any neutral capital prepared to stage the meeting. "We addressed the Turks specifically," Sybiha told reporters. "But if another capital, besides Moscow and Belarus, organizes such a meeting, we will go." Turkey has not yet responded to the proposal. Ankara's silence is telling: while President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described Turkey as the "ideal host" for future Russia-Ukraine-US talks and reaffirmed that readiness during a meeting with Zelensky in Istanbul earlier this month, committing to a presidential-level summit carries significant po...

The Tudeh Party of Iran, the country's historic communist organisation, welcomes the announcement of a temporary ceasefire between Iran and the United States as a significant step toward lasting peace, while simultaneously issuing a firm demand for a popular and progressive government to lead the country's post-war national reconstruction. In a formal statement, the party described the conditional two-week ceasefire — brokered through the mediation of Pakistan in the final moments before a deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump — as "an important step for the country's future." The agreement, which requires the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz to remain unimpeded, came after weeks of relentless bombardment of Iranian territory by U.S. and Israeli military forces. The Tudeh Party underscored the catastrophic scale of destruction wrought by the conflict. Tens of thousands of Iranians were killed or injured, with tens of thousands of residential uni...

Iran is signaling that it has not abandoned diplomacy as a path to ending its conflict with the United States, but a cascade of grievances — a continuing U.S. naval blockade, what Tehran describes as broken commitments, and what it calls Washington's excessive demands at the negotiating table — has pushed the Islamic Republic to the edge of walking away. In a series of developments on Tuesday, Iranian officials simultaneously expressed readiness to resume talks and announced they would boycott a scheduled second round of Pakistani-mediated negotiations in Islamabad, painting a picture of a country frustrated by what it sees as American bad faith. Iran's negotiating team informed the American side through Pakistan — which has been serving as a back-channel mediator — that it will not travel to Islamabad on Wednesday. According to Tasnim News Agency, the decision has been "finalized." Tehran's stated reason is that the United States has systematically violated the 1...

Regional tensions are escalating sharply following the U.S. Central Command's (CENTCOM) announced attack on the Iranian oil tanker "Tosca," Iran's declared intention to retaliate, and a significant surge in American heavy-lift air movements repositioning forces and equipment across the Middle East. Taken together, these developments indicate that the confrontation between Washington and Tehran has entered a more active phase — one that goes beyond mutual deterrence and is now characterized by operational repositioning on both sides. According to an analysis published by Nour News, the United States under the administration of Donald Trump has, in this phase, doubled down on a strategy combining political, military, and media pressure — a pattern designed to alter the adversary's calculations through pre-emptive action and the imposition of operational costs. The announced strike on the tanker Tosca by CENTCOM is assessed within this framework. Washington–Tel Aviv ...

Iran's Wars — Foreign and Domestic — Are Destroying Women When a 29-year-old woman in Tehran was laid off last October — her employer shuttered after a sudden liquidity crisis following the June 2025 war with Israel — she did what Iran's economy had left her no choice but to do. She had a university degree. She had applied to dozens of positions. The law allows her husband to bar her from certain jobs. There were no jobs to take. What happened next, she does not speak about openly. She is one of millions. Iran is in free fall. By late 2025, official inflation had surpassed 48 percent — with food prices up 72 percent year-on-year. The rial had collapsed to more than one million to the dollar on street markets. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported that 41 percent of Iranians suffer from moderate or severe food insecurity. Unofficial estimates by Iran's own economists suggest up to 70 percent of the population lives below the relative poverty line. Then, on Februa...

As a fragile 14-day ceasefire between Iran and the United States approached its expiration on Wednesday, both sides dug in on their positions, leaving the fate of a second round of negotiations in Islamabad deeply uncertain — and the wider Middle East on edge. U.S. Vice President JD Vance was reported to be traveling to Pakistan for the talks, with Axios citing three American sources who said he would depart the United States by Tuesday morning, according to BBC Persian. However, Iran had still not confirmed its participation. Iranian state television flatly denied that any delegation — either principal or preliminary — had arrived in Islamabad, calling media reports of a scheduled Iranian arrival "baseless," Al Jazeera reported. A Pakistani source cited by Reuters told Iran International that the second round of talks was nonetheless scheduled for Wednesday. The diplomatic uncertainty came against a backdrop of sharp rhetoric from both capitals. President Donald Trump, on th...

As American and Iranian officials hold fragile ceasefire negotiations and a watching world awaits the outcome of what may be the most consequential diplomatic confrontation of the decade, Iran's judicial machinery has not paused for a single day. Protesters, political dissidents, and opposition supporters continue to be hanged in prisons across the country — sometimes in the very hours that diplomats debate their fate behind closed doors. The case of Afsaneh Rahimi, a woman reported by rights monitors to have been detained in connection with the wave of anti-government protests that swept Iran in late December 2025 and January 2026, reflects a broader and documented pattern: women swept up in mass arrests, held incommunicado, subjected to what rights groups describe as torture-extracted confessions, and facing accelerated trials before Revolutionary Courts. Her case — like those of thousands of others detained since the uprising — has not been officially acknowledged by Iranian aut...

The Levant Files has crossed a major threshold: over 200,000 visitors in just one year. This isn’t just a number for us — it’s a powerful signal that thoughtful, multilingual journalism focused on the Levant matters, resonates, and travels far beyond borders. From day one, our mission has been clear: to offer sharp, accessible, and reliable analysis of a region too often reduced to headlines. Today, we celebrate not only the growth of our readership but the growth of our voice — now published in five languages, ensuring that our work reaches communities across continents and cultures. And we’re not stopping here. New language editions and fresh content formats are already in development, expanding the ways we tell stories and connect with readers. This milestone belongs to every one of you who reads, shares, challenges, and supports our work. Your engagement fuels our commitment to deepen coverage, broaden perspectives, and keep building a platform worthy of the region’s complexity. Ou...

The fragile two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran teetered on the edge of total collapse on Monday, as the U.S. Navy fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel near the Strait of Hormuz — an act Tehran condemned as piracy — sending diplomatic efforts to broker a second round of peace talks in Islamabad into immediate jeopardy. With the ceasefire set to expire on Wednesday, the world is watching what could become the most dangerous 48 hours of the ongoing US-Iran war. A Ship Seized, A Ceasefire Shattered In a dramatic escalation, the U.S. Navy fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged container ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, which American officials said was defying Washington's ongoing naval blockade of Iranian ports. President Donald Trump announced the seizure on social media, simultaneously declaring that his negotiating team — led by Vice President JD Vance — was heading to Islamabad, Pakistan, for a second round of peace talks with Iran. Tehran w...