Tehran Scrutinizes the Pyongyang Scenario

Iranian newspapers’ headlines on the Trump-Kim summit. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Iranian newspapers’ headlines on the Trump-Kim summit. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Tehran Scrutinizes the Pyongyang Scenario

Iranian newspapers’ headlines on the Trump-Kim summit. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Iranian newspapers’ headlines on the Trump-Kim summit. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Iranians followed with extraordinary interest the development of relations between the United States and North Korea and the meeting of the two countries’ leaders on Tuesday.

There are in fact many similarities between Tehran and Pyongyang, the most important of which are that the two countries have seen their international relations severely deteriorate and they have also been under US sanctions as the result of their development of a nuclear program and ballistic missiles.

Despite attempts to downplay the importance of the summit and question its outcome, local Iranian newspapers have shared fears and scenarios that could be available to the White House against Tehran, in the first reactions to the Singapore summit.

North Korea’s decision to abandon its nuclear programs and to normalize relations with the United States has put Iran’s conservative current in an embarrassing situation, as proponents of the nuclear program were calling for following the North Korean model.

Most Iranian newspapers said on Wednesday that Trump wanted to implement North Korea’s scenario with Iran with small modifications.

The Trump summit itself was boldly printed on the front pages of Iranian newspapers. Revolutionary Guards and conservative newspapers tried to exploit the event to attack the Iranian government’s policy of signing the nuclear deal and establishing relations, and focused on minimizing the importance of the summit.

In contrast, reformist newspapers close to the government praised the positions of the North Korean leader, who abandoned the missile program and the nuclear program. At the same time, they expressed concern over the success of the Trump plan and his intentions to increase pressure on Iran to repeat the North Korean scenario.

In a sarcastic headline, an IRGC-affiliated newspaper said: “Another American signature”, playing down the importance of the US-North Korean agreement on disarmament.

The official Kayhan newspaper, managed by Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, wanted to highlight the skepticism and the vague dimensions of the agreement. “The United States and North Korea agree for the fifth time,” it said.

In 12 paragraphs, the newspaper cited reasons for mistrusting the United States, saying that Iran was America’s main problem and not North Korea. The newspaper referred to the role of Iran in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and claimed that it was able to drag Russia into the Syrian arena.

The government-run Iran newspaper chose the first picture of the summit, which shows both Trump and Kim from behind.

In the opening article entitled “Trump and Shock Diplomacy”, the newspaper discussed the reasons for the summit between the two sides.

It compared the policy adopted by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and accused Trump of engaging in shock diplomacy in international relations and regional politics.



UN Investigator Says US Sanctions Over Her Criticism of Israel Will Seriously Impact Her Life 

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)
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UN Investigator Says US Sanctions Over Her Criticism of Israel Will Seriously Impact Her Life 

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)

An independent UN investigator and outspoken critic of Israel’s policies in Gaza says that the sanctions recently imposed on her by the Trump administration will have serious impacts on her life and work.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is a member of a group of experts chosen by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.

Both Israel and the United States, which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied that accusation. Washington has decried what it called a “campaign of political and economic warfare” against the US and Israel, and earlier this month imposed sanctions on Albanese, following an unsuccessful US pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post.

“It’s very serious to be on the list of the people sanctioned by the US,” Albanese told The Associated Press in Rome on Tuesday, adding that individuals sanctioned by the US cannot have financial interactions or credit cards with any American bank.

When used in “a political way,” she said the sanctions “are harmful, dangerous.”

“My daughter is American. I’ve been living in the US and I have some assets there. So of course, it’s going to harm me,” Albanese said. “What can I do? I did everything I did in good faith, and knowing that, my commitment to justice is more important than personal interests.”

The sanctions have not dissuaded Albanese from her work, or her viewpoints, and in July, she published a new report, focused on what she defines as “Israel’s genocidal economy” in Palestinian territories.

“There’s an entire ecosystem that has allowed Israel’s occupation to thrive. And then it has also morphed into an economy of genocide,” she said.

In the conclusion of the report, Albanese calls for sanctions against Israel and prosecution of “architects, executors and profiteers of this genocide.”

Albanese noted a recent shift in perceptions in Europe and around the world following an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war.

“It’s shocking,” she said. “I don’t think that there are words left to describe what’s happening to the Palestinian people.”

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led fighters stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians but says more than half the dead are women and children.

Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, the United Nations says hunger is rampant after a lengthy Israeli blockade on food entering the territory and medical care is extremely limited.