US President Donald Trump’s fledgling administration has spent the past week trading barbs with Iran, marking a sudden escalation of tensions between two nations whose icy relationship was just beginning to thaw.
Travel bans, missile tests, sanctions and insults have been ping-ponged in a provocative show of force by both sides. It all raises concerns over the future of a deal, brokered by the Obama administration, that requires Iran to heavily restrict its nuclear program.
Here’s how it unfolded:
January 27: Trump signs an executive order banning nationals from seven Muslim-majority nations, including Iran, from entering the United States for 90 days and suspending all refugee admission for 120 days.
January 28: Iran’s Foreign Ministry slams the ban as “an obvious insult to the Islamic world and in particular to the great nation of Iran” and says that it “will be recorded in history as a big gift to extremists and their supporters.”
Iran threatens reciprocal measures through legal, consular and diplomatic actions.
January 29: Iran conducts a ballistic missile test, the first such test since Trump took office.
January 30: US officials confirm that Iran carried out the missile test and request an urgent closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council, saying the test is a violation of a council resolution.
Iran establishes a committee to deal with the US travel ban. The committee is tasked with issuing directives to Iranian embassies worldwide, aimed at “upholding the dignity of Iran