Iran on Tuesday banned reformist newspaper Ghanoon for publishing an article about a meeting between Iran's supreme leader and visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. "Ghanoon daily has received notification and its publication has been halted due to its (front page) headline on Tuesday," ISNA said. The order stating that Ghanoon would be "temporarily banned" was delivered to the paper's management by Tehran's culture and media court, it added, without saying how long the ban would remain in place.

Assad met Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani on Monday during a surprise visit to the Islamic republic, his first since the start of the Syrian conflict. The news agency did not elaborate on the article about their meeting, but the online version of the story was headlined "Uninvited Guest".

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019