Iran

Iran said on Sunday that it would hold nuclear talks in the coming days with the three European countries that initiated a censure resolution against it adopted by the U.N.'s atomic watchdog.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the meeting of the deputy foreign ministers of Iran, France, Germany and the United Kingdom would take place on Friday, without specifying a venue.

"A range of regional and international issues and topics, including the issues of Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the nuclear issue, will be discussed," the spokesman said in a foreign ministry statement.

Baghaei described the coming meeting as a continuation of talks held with the countries in September on the sidelines of the annual session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

On Thursday, the 35-nation board of governors of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution denouncing Iran for what it called a lack of cooperation.

The move came as tensions ran high over Iran's atomic program, which critics fear is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon -- something Tehran has repeatedly denied.

It also came after IAEA head Rafael Grossi returned from a trip to Tehran, where he appeared to have made headway.

During the visit, Iran agreed to an IAEA demand to cap its sensitive stock of near weapons-grade uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity.

In response to the resolution, Iran announced it was launching a "series of new and advanced centrifuges."

Centrifuges enrich uranium transformed into gas by rotating it at very high speed, increasing the proportion of fissile isotope material (U-235).

"We will substantially increase the enrichment capacity with the utilization of different types of advanced machines," Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran's atomic energy organization spokesman, told state TV.

The country, however, also said it planned to continue its "technical and safeguards cooperation with the IAEA.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in power since July and a supporter of dialogue with Western countries, has said he wants to remove "doubts and ambiguities" about his country's nuclear program.

In 2015, Iran and world powers reached an agreement that saw the easing of international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

But the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump and reimposed biting economic sanctions, which prompted Iran to begin rolling back on its own commitments.

Tehran has since 2021 decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices monitoring the nuclear program and barring U.N. inspectors.

At the same time, it has increased its stockpiles of enriched uranium and the level of enrichment to 60 percent.

That level is close, according to the IAEA, to the 90 percent-plus threshold required for a nuclear warhead, and substantially higher than the 3.67 percent limit it agreed to in 2015.

As Iran faces increasing tensions with the West and turmoil at home, a new exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is displaying Western artwork including pieces not seen by the public in at least a decade.

The unveiling of the exhibition Eye to Eye has drawn numerous women, their hair uncovered, to the underground galleries of the museum in Tehran's Laleh Park. Their presence, while unacknowledged by authorities, shows the way life has changed inside Iran just in the last few years even as the country's theocracy presses forward with enriching uranium to near-weapons grade levels and launching attacks on Israel during the ongoing Mideast wars.

"The first feeling that came to me, and I told my parents, was that I can't believe I'm seeing these works, which have always been kept far from our eyes," said Aida Zarrin, a young woman at the museum.

"If such events are held here and we can see artworks like the rest of the world, it's enough. They are really precious."

The government of Iran's Western-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, the former Empress Farah Pahlavi, built the museum and acquired the vast collection in the late 1970s, when oil boomed and Western economies stagnated. Upon opening, it showed sensational works by Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock and other heavyweights, enhancing Iran's cultural standing on the world stage.

But just two years later, in 1979, Shiite clerics ousted the shah and packed away the art in the museum's vault. Some paintings — cubist, surrealist, impressionist and even pop art — sat untouched for decades to avoid offending Islamic values and the appearance of catering to Western sensibilities. Nearly everything is believed still to be there, though an Andy Warhol print of the empress was slashed during the revolution.

Today, the collection is likely worth billions of dollars. Even with Iran now cash-strapped under Western sanctions, officials with the museum have been able to advocate for keeping the collection, though there have been occasional trades in the past for items from Persian history. Those sanctions may increase under the next administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

As Iranian politics have thawed, re-frozen and thawed again, the collection resurfaces along with those changes.

Among the over 120 works being shown are ones from Picasso, Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon, along with celebrated Iranian artists. One of the Warhols, Jacqueline Kennedy II, is a silkscreen double image of the former U.S. first lady in mourning after the 1963 assassination of her husband, President John Kennedy. Another Warhol portrait of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger also garnered attention from the cellphone photo snappers.

"A lot of these works are important works in the history of art, and that's why this show distinguishes itself from others," said Jamal Arabzadeh, the exhibition's curator. "A lot of people with less exposure to art have discovered the museum for the first time. ... We are seeing a part of the community that are discovering art and the museum and see the potential of this place, and this is something to be proud of."

The presence of Western art comes as Iran's government has long fought against items like Barbie dolls and depictions of cartoon characters from The Simpsons. Such Western influences have been deemed un-Islamic in the past and have been seen as part of a "soft" cultural war against the Islamic Republic.

With a ticket costing the equivalent of 14 U.S. cents, the exhibition offers a rare government-sanctioned event not involving the country's politics or Shiite religion.

Among the visitors were many women defying the country's mandatory headscarf, or hijab, law. Crackdowns over the hijab have slowed down after Iran's presidential election in July that elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, though individual cases of arrest continue to draw anger.

And for many, the cost of tickets to travel abroad given Iran's collapsing rial currency keep foreign museums out of reach.

"This is very attractive for art enthusiasts because not everyone can go and see museums abroad. It's extremely exciting to see the works here," said a woman who only gave her last name, Dolatshahi. "I had no idea I could see works by van Gogh and Picasso here."