Ottawa is putting more money into a project aimed at communicating directly with Iranian citizens as it looks to apply a similar strategy in other countries including Russia and parts of Iraq and Syria.

It would seem that now, these young Iranians have a president willing to listen to them. (...) The current president promises to bring about the removal of all boycotts against Iran, and is not afraid of Facebook. But he, too, must tread carefully through the Iranian minefield.

With just over a month to go until the anniversary of the Iranian revolution, current President Hassan Rowani is making waves by calling for a referendum in the country.

Iran's President Hassan Rowhani said Sunday that foreign investors should no longer be viewed as a threat and signaled his country's decades-long isolation from the world economy could soon end.

The Iranian cultural attaché in Athens, Mohammad-Hossein Mozaffari, said that Iran plans to honor Iranian and Greek scholars promoting cultural and scientific relations between Iran and Greece.

According to Joseph Nye, the American political thinker who developed the concept of soft power, American culture is one of the pillars of the US power structure and instrumental in the projection of that power. The Iranian leadership fears that normal relations will result in the expansion of trade and commerce and thus, suddenly, increase the number of Iranians visiting the US and vice versa.

Three fundamental and one extraneous force are currently colliding in our region. Each of these forces has its own agenda and because none of them is truly dominant, the end result is a clash rather than competition.

Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali Jannati says that the best way to fight against Iranophobia and Shiaphobia is the clever usage of Iran’s soft power.