Iranian President rules out meeting with Biden; US seizes Iranian news outlet websites

A day after Iran's President-elect Ebrahim Raisi urged the US to lift "all unjust sanctions" against Iran, the US on Tuesday seized dozens of websites used by Iranian news outlets, including Iranian state-owned news channel Press TV and Al-Alam, alleging "violation of sanctions." The state-owned news channels, however, began working later in the day using Iranian domains.

"Today, pursuant to court orders, the United States seized 33 websites used by the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU) and three websites operated by Kata'ib Hizballah (KH), in violation of US sanctions," said the Justice Department in a statement. The statement further added that both IRTVU and KH, a Shia militia group operating in Iraq, had been prohibited from obtaining website and domain services in the US without a license.

President-elect Raisi had ruled out a meeting with US President Joe Biden a day ago. Though Washington and Tehran have had indirect negotiations in Vienna, Austria, since April for restoring the Iran nuclear deal, formerly known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the two sides remain divided over the issue despite six rounds of talks.

In May 2018, the US government withdrew from JCPOA and unilaterally re-imposed sanctions on Iran. Responding to this, Iran suspended parts of JCPOA commitments from May 2019.