A visit by Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to Iran's capital city of Tehran is a milestone, which helped Doha and Tehran to enhance relations in 2020. […] Iran has good relations with Qatar, and Tehran has taken friendly stances when the Qatari people and government were grappling with oppressive siege by some littoral states of the Persian Gulf; so, Doha is grateful for the Iranians' support, Al-Qahtani stated. In 2020, the two friendly countries also held the seventh joint economic commission in Isfahan, Iran, in order to expand bilateral trade ties.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said in mid-October that Moscow will consider military technical cooperation with Iran in line with mutual interests after the expiration of a United Nations arms embargo on Tehran. “We are convinced that all possibilities stemming from the expiration of the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 that are linked with military technical cooperation with Iran will be duly taken into account and used on the basis of mutual benefit and in the interests of the peoples of our two states,” Maria Zakharova said. […] Elsewhere in his interview, Jalali said the US must compensate Iran for losses due to its sanctions if it wants to returns to the nuclear deal with world powers. […] The Iranian ambassador also noted that the Islamic Republic seeks to boost cooperation with Russia in the production of the coronavirus vaccine while negotiations have been held over the issue in the recent months.

This week, Iran’s Supreme Leader leaves the door open for Iran to negotiate with the U.S. under President Elect Biden. Also, Iran’s execution of dissident Ruhollah Zam provoked international condemnation, while the Rouhani administration submitted its budget proposal. 

Recent Western reporting and analyses of Iran depict dire circumstances and make natural assumptions about how the population must be reacting to an economy battered by sanctions from the United States and ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. A public opinion survey conducted in September and early October by the University of Maryland’s Center on International and Security Studies and IranPoll provides data to compare with these assumptions. The telephone survey included a national probability sample of 1,004 respondents. Some results are surprising, and some are remarkably similar to public attitudes about the pandemic in the United States and European countries. The survey finds that Iran’s public is more pessimistic about the economy than they were earlier in the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign. But domestic mismanagement and rising inflation appear to be bigger factors in this shift than the sanctions per se. Those most directly affected by COVID-19 are more negative about the economy. Yet, the Iranian public is generally satisfied by the government’s response to the pandemic and support public health efforts, even when they make a bad economic situation worse.