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U.S. President Donald Trump's administration pledged on Tuesday to show great strictness over restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities imposed by a deal with major powers, but gave little indication of what that might mean for the agreement.

The 2015 deal between Iran and six major powers restricts Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Trump has called the agreement the worst deal ever negotiated. His administration is now carrying out a review of the accord which could take months, but it has said little about where it stands on specific issues.

The Trump administration also gave few clues about any potential policy shift on Tuesday in a statement to a quarterly meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's Board of Governors.

The United States will approach questions of JCPOA interpretation, implementation, and enforcement with great strictness indeed, the statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board said, citing the deal's full name: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Familiar wording

But the U.S. statement, the first to the Board of Governors since Trump took office in January, also repeated language used by the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama, for whom the deal was a legacy achievement.

Iran must strictly and fully adhere to all commitments and technical measures for their duration, it said wording identical to that used in the U.S. statement to the previous Board of Governors meeting in November.

The IAEA, which polices the restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities under the deal, last month produced a quarterly report saying that Iran's stock of enriched uranium had halved after coming close to a limit imposed by the agreement.

U.S. expects more details from Iran

That report was the first to specify how much enriched uranium Iran has, thanks to a series of agreements between Tehran and major powers clarifying items that would not count towards the stock.

Some major powers had criticized previous reports for not being specific enough on items such as the size of the enriched uranium stock, and the U.S. statement called for future reports to be as detailed.

We welcome inclusion of the additional level of detail, and expect it will continue in the future, it said.

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Trump Administration Pledges 'Great Strictness' on Iran Nuclear Deal - Voice of America

Swift-moving Iranian vessels came dangerously close to a U.S. Navy surveillance ship in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, U.S. officials said Monday.

The apparent harassment of the USS Invincible on two occasions, on Thursday and Saturday, came amid Iranian state media reports that Iran had tested its newly acquired S-300 missile air defense system that is designed to intercept incoming missiles.

In addition, Fox News reported that Iran had test-fired a pair of ballistic missiles that destroyed a floating barge over the weekend, but that could not be independently confirmed.

Iran fired a medium-range ballistic missile last month, apparently violating a U.N. Security Council resolution. The Trump administration responded with its first economic sanctions, placing 12 businesses and 13 people on a list that prohibits Americans from dealing with them.

The February test led President Trump to tweet, Iran is playing with fire they dont appreciate how kind President Obama was to them. Not me!

[Trump wants to push back against Iran, but the country is more powerful than ever]

Taken as a whole, the incidents form a pattern suggesting Tehran and Washington could be squaring off for a more direct confrontation. Trump came to office condemning the Obama administration for being what he characterized as weak on Iran, and he has vowed to be tougher. Iran seems to be testing whether Trump means what he says.

In the incidents involving the Invincible, an Iranian frigate came within 150 yards of the Navy ship on Thursday, a Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, told reporters. On Saturday, a number of smaller boats approached the U.S. ship, closing to within 600 yards, Davis said.

Surveillance ships like the Invincible are typically equipped with scientific instruments and radar that allow them to monitor missiles and rockets from their launching to the point that they land.

A Navy official condemned the Iranian actions as unsafe and unprofessional.

British and U.S. warships patrol the regional waters, and three ships from Britains Royal Navy were reportedly accompanying the Invincible. State Department officials said they were aware of reports that Iran had tested an air defense system but could provide no further information.

But a key Senate Republican called for more than tough words in response to what he described as Iranian provocations.

These provocative tests are just the latest example of Irans dangerous actions that demand a coordinated, multifaceted response from the United States, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). The administration has already begun to push back in the way that we should, and I look forward to working with them as we prepare to introduce bipartisan legislation to deter Irans threatening behavior on all fronts.

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Pentagon says Iranian vessels harass Navy ship, as Iran tests missile defense system - Washington Post

BEIRUT President Hassan Rouhani should apologize to the Iranian people if he cannot show that the economy has improved, one of Iran's most prominent hardliners said on Tuesday, setting a battle line for a presidential election in May.

Rouhani is opposed by hardliners who resent the nuclear deal he struck with world powers including the United States which lifted economic sanctions and was supposed to boost the economy.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the Assembly of Experts, a body that selects Iran's supreme leader, starkly criticized that policy and what he said was Rouhani's failure to improve the economy over his four years in office.

If the resistance economy has not been followed in the way that it should and must have been, then he must apologize and tell them (Iranians) the reasons, Jannati told a meeting of the Assembly where Rouhani was present, Fars News reported.

Rouhani said that his administration would present a full economic report by the end of the Iranian calendar year, in late March, according to the state TV's website.

While hardliners, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have criticized Rouhani's economic record in recent weeks, the president has sought to move the political discourse to other matters that might appeal to moderate voters.

In a speech to lawyers at the Iranian bar association later on Tuesday, he expressed, in unusually blunt terms, his hopes for better civil rights in Iran.

We need to make people more aware of their rights than in the past, Rouhani said, according to Fars News. When an investigator asks about peoples private lives they should stand strong and say this is my private area and you dont have a right to ask me about my private life.

We shouldnt interfere in peoples private lives and shouldnt search them.

The conservatives who hope aim to stop Rouhani winning a second four-year term, have yet to identify their candidate, but they hope the election of U.S. President Donald Trump and his ban on travelers from Iran will swing public opinion their way.

Its a gift to the most radical elements of the Islamic Republic of Iran who have been saying for years that America is not interested in genuinely good relations with Iranian people, said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

KABUL Gunmen dressed as doctors attacked a military hospital close to the U.S. embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday and were engaging security forces inside the building, officials and witnesses said.

SEOUL A man claiming to be the son of the slain, estranged half brother of North Korea's leader said he was lying low with his mother and sister, in a video posted online by a group that said it helped rescue them following the murder a month ago.

KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak struck a softer tone with North Korea on Wednesday, a day after accusing it of treating Malaysians as "hostages" amid a diplomatic meltdown over the murder of the estranged half-brother of the North's leader.

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Rouhani talks rights as Iran election nears, critic attacks him on economy - Reuters

New York Times

Trump's New Travel Ban Blocks Migrants From Six Nations, Sparing Iraq New York Times The new order continued to impose a 90-day ban on travelers, but it removed Iraq, a redaction requested by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who feared it would hamper coordination to defeat the Islamic State, according to administration officials. Trump removed Iraq from travel ban in recognition of fight against Isis,The Independent Trump's first victory in deportation feud is IraqWashington Times US says Iraq removed from travel ban partly for fight against Islamic StateReuters CNN -Washington Post -The White House all 2,250 news articles »

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Trump's New Travel Ban Blocks Migrants From Six Nations, Sparing Iraq - New York Times

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces on Tuesday recaptured the main government building in Mosul, the central bank branch and the museum where three years ago the militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues.

A Rapid Response team stormed the Nineveh governorate complex in an overnight raid that lasted more than an hour, killing dozens of Islamic State fighters, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi said.

The buildings, already in ruins, were not being used by Islamic State, but their capture is a landmark in the push to retake the militants' last major stronghold in Iraq, now restricted to the heavy populated western half of Mosul.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew into to Mosul to visit the troops fighting to oust Islamic State from the city in which it declared its sprawling caliphate in 2014.

"Iraqis shall walk tall when the war is over," Abadi told state TV as he arrived.

Islamic State snipers continued to fire at the main government building after it was stormed, restricting the movements of the soldiers, and forces pushing further into western Mosul came under rifle and rocket fire.

"The fighting is strong because most of them are foreigners and they have nowhere to go," said the head of a sniper unit for the Rapid Response, al-Moqdadi al-Saeedi.

Some of Islamic State's foreign fighters are trying to flee Mosul, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler said.

"The game is up," Isler told Reuters at the Qayyara West Airfield, south of the city. "They have lost this fight and what you're seeing is a delaying action."

Iraq's Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), which spearheaded the assaults that won back east Mosul, was on Tuesday moving into the western half of the city, the final and trickiest battleground in the nearly five-month campaign due to the dense civilian population living in its narrow streets.

STREET BY STREET

The CTS forces had fought their way well into the Mansour neighborhood and were trying to advance street by street, sending heavy fire on IS sniper positions, a Reuters correspondent visiting the special forces' front lines reported.

Federal Police units arrived at a house that CTS forces were stationed in but had to move out, one-by-one, to a neighboring building as IS rocket fire hit homes nearby.

One CTS operative on the ground said he thought it would take a few hours to retake Mansour, one of Mosul's biggest neighborhoods which lies southwest of the old city and could serve as a base to advance into the historic center.

U.S. special forces were seen walking between buildings in the same area, some carrying assault rifles with scopes and silencers. Helicopters attacked targets just to the north and thick smoke filled the sky from various explosions.

Dozens of civilians streamed out of the Mamoun district toward the CTS troops as machinegun fire rang out in the background, adding to a wave of people displaced from Mosul that now numbers 211,000, 40,000 of whom fled last week alone, U.N. agencies say.

Some 750,000 people were estimated to live in west Mosul when the offensive began on Feb. 19.

Among the symbolic buildings retaken overnight was one that had served at Islamic State's main court, known for sentences including stonings, throwing people off roofs and chopping off hands, reflecting the group's hardline ideology.

The militants looted the central bank when they took over the city in 2014 and took videos of themselves destroying archaeological artifacts. Traffic in antiquities that abound in the territory under their control, from Palmyra in Syria to Nineveh in Iraq, was one of their main sources of income.

The number of Islamic State fighters in Mosul was estimated at 6,000 at the start of the offensive on Mosul on Oct. 17, by the Iraqi military which estimates that several thousands have been killed since.

Lined up against them is a 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi'ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytell; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

WASHINGTON Faced with a growing test of resolve for a new U.S. president who vowed while campaigning to get tough on North Korea, Donald Trump's aides are pressing to complete a strategy review on how to counter Pyongyang's missile and nuclear threats.

SEOUL North Korea's latest weapons test showed it can accurately fire multiple medium-range ballistic missiles, an attack strategy that experts said could test the advanced U.S. THAAD anti-missile system which began to arrive in South Korea on Tuesday.

KABUL Gunmen dressed as doctors attacked a military hospital close to the U.S. embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday and were engaging security forces inside the building, officials and witnesses said.

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Iraqi forces retake Mosul museum, close in on IS-controlled old town - Reuters