In mid-June, U.S. officials resumed their long-stalled efforts to mediate an agreement on the maritime border between Israel and Lebanon, as part of a broader campaign to accelerate the development of natural gas resources in the eastern Mediterranean| The Soufan Center
Over the past several years, Iran and Israel have engaged in covert warfare against one another as part of an ongoing low-intensity conflict between the two. To date, the conflict has taken the form of cyberattacks on infrastructure, strikes on oil tankers, UAS attacks, and Israeli-sponsored assassinations of Iranian security and scientific personnel and sabotage of facilities inside Iran| The Soufan Center
On January 28, an armed drone struck a building in the Iranian city of Isfahan, a site that is reportedly part of Iran’s defense production infrastructure. Despite social media videos of the strike exploding on the facility, Iran's defense ministry stated that one of the three small attacking drones| The Soufan Center
Ibrahim Raisi, a close ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was sworn in as Iran’s president on August 5 amid stalled negotiations with the United States and partners on a mutual return to full compliance with the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal| The Soufan Center
In late October, Iran’s new government formally agreed to return to talks on a restoration of the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal. The new round that will begin on November 29 follows several months of uncertainty about whether the talks would continue| The Soufan Center
As of mid-August, international diplomats and proliferation experts have begun to consider Iran a “threshold nuclear state,” based on the significant advances its nuclear program has made since President Trump withdrew the United States from the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018| The Soufan Center
Several rounds of indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian negotiators in Vienna on a mutual return to the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement have been described by both sides as “constructive.”| The Soufan Center