Iran and Nicaragua Discussed Military Cooperation, Leaked Report Says

New York Times

April 13th 2023

By: Vivian Yee

Iran and Nicaragua held discussions in February about bolstering their military cooperation as a way of countering American influence in Latin America, according to an intelligence update contained in a cache of leaked documents that appears to be based on electronic intercepts gathered by the C.I.A.

A trip by an Iranian delegation to Nicaragua that month was no secret. Both the Nicaraguan and Iranian authorities trumpeted the visit, though their announcements were vague on details, focused generally on trade and did not mention any talks about military cooperation.

But the intelligence report, dated Feb. 23, notes that the delegation, led by Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, had met with senior Nicaraguan Army commanders. According to the report, the commanders told Mr. Amir Abdollahian that Nicaragua opposed “perceived U.S. efforts to expand influence in Latin America and expressed a willingness to engage with Tehran and other like-minded countries.”

The paragraph-long intelligence update was included in a series of leaked images that were posted on a Discord server, and provided to The New York Times. American officials, though acknowledging that documents in an earlier series of leaked documents posted on the same server were authentic, warned that some had been altered, while others were outdated or inaccurate.

The Times described the new batch of documents to multiple U.S. officials, who neither disputed the information nor confirmed that they were authentic.

Read more on the original:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/world/middleeast/iran-nicaragua-military-cooperation.html