BUSHEHR, Iran: Iran began pouring concrete Sunday for a second nuclear reactor at its Bushehr power plant, a facility Tehran points to as its reason to break the enrichment limit set by its unraveling 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
While celebrating the start of construction, the politics of the moment weren’t lost on Iranian officials as a US pressure campaign of sanctions blocks Tehran from selling its crude oil abroad. Those sanctions took effect after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in May 2018, lighting the fuse for the current tensions now gripping the wider Mideast.
“It was not us who started breaking commitments, it was them who did not keep to their commitments and cannot accept the nuclear deal as a one-way roadmap,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency. However, Iran began 4.5 percent enrichment in part to supply Bushehr despite the deal limiting it to 3.67 percent.
While that’s still nowhere near weapons-grade levels of 90 percent, nonproliferation experts warn Iran’s growing stockpile and increasing enrichment will begin to shave off time from the estimated year Tehran would need to gather enough material for an atomic bomb.
Iran long has maintained its program is for peaceful purposes, though the deal was designed to limit its enrichment program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Those limits blocked its path to being able to have enough material for a bomb.
On Sunday, trucks with spinning concrete mixers poured their slurry into the prepared base of the second reactor as journalists watched in Bushehr, some 700 kilometers south from Iran’s capital, Tehran. Bushehr’s working reactor stood behind it.
Officials say the new reactor, and a third planned to be built, will each add over 1,000 megawatts to Iran’s power grid. It is being built with the help of Russia, which helped finally put Bushehr’s first reactor online in 2011 after decades of delays.
Salehi, speaking to reporters, praised the plant’s operations.
Gulf Arab states opposed to Tehran have raised concerns to the IAEA that Bushehr was a risk to the wider region over earthquakes that routinely hit Iran.
Meanwhile Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman rejected claims by the US and Israel over allegations of nuclear material being discovered at an undeclared site outside of Tehran. An IAEA meeting last week appeared to include discussions over what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described in a United Nations speech in 2018 as a “secret atomic warehouse.”
The IAEA has said Iran “carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” in a “structured program” through the end of 2003. Israeli officials allege material recovered from the warehouse came from that program.
Iran begins pouring concrete for second nuclear power reactor
Iran begins pouring concrete for second nuclear power reactor
- Iran began 4.5 percent enrichment in part to supply Bushehr despite the deal limiting it to 3.67 percent
- Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency
US resumes food aid to Somalia
- The United States on Thursday announced the resumption of food distribution in Somalia, weeks after the destruction of a US-funded World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse at Mogadishu’s port
NAIROBI: The United States on Thursday announced the resumption of food distribution in Somalia, weeks after the destruction of a US-funded World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse at Mogadishu’s port.
In early January, Washington suspended aid to Somalia over reports of theft and government interference, saying Somali officials had “illegally seized 76 metric tons of donor-funded food aid meant for vulnerable Somalis.”
US officials then warned any future aid would depend on the Somali government taking accountability, a stance Mogadishu countered by saying the warehouse demolition was part of the port’s “expansion and repurposing works.”
On Wednesday, however, the Somali government said “all WFP commodities affected by port expansion have been returned.”
In a statement Somalia said it “takes full responsibility” and has “provided the World Food Program with a larger and more suitable warehouse within the Mogadishu port area.”
The US State Department said in a post on X that: “We will resume WFP food distribution while continuing to review our broader assistance posture in Somalia.”
“The Trump Administration maintains a firm zero tolerance policy for waste, theft, or diversion of US resources,” it said.
US president Donald Trump has slashed aid over the past year globally.
Somalis in the United States have also become a particular target for the administration in recent weeks, targeted in immigration raids.
They have also been accused of large-scale public benefit fraud in Minnesota, which has the largest Somali community in the country with around 80,000 members.
