LONDON: Iran has given notice of concrete steps to produce uranium metal enriched to up to 20 percent purity for reactor fuel, the UN atomic watchdog said on Tuesday, describing a move that is likely to anger Western powers in talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
Iran has been in indirect talks with the United States since April to revive the 2015 deal, which former US President Donald Trump abandoned. The deal imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions, and after Trump withdrew, Iran began violating many of its restrictions.
Tehran has already produced a small amount of uranium metal this year that was not enriched. That is a breach of the deal, which bans all work on uranium metal since it can be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb.
Iran has outlined plans to produce enriched uranium metal, saying it is developing fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor, but Washington and its European allies dispute Tehran’s intentions and have called on it to stop.
“Today, Iran informed the Agency that UO2 (uranium oxide) enriched up to 20 percent U–235 would be shipped to the R&D laboratory at the Fuel Fabrication Plant in Esfahan, where it would be converted to UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) and then to uranium metal enriched to 20 percent U–235, before using it to manufacture the fuel,” an International Atomic Energy Agency statement said.
Summarizing a report to its member states, the IAEA described the plan as a “multi-stage process,” suggesting it will take time before the enriched metal is produced.
The report is likely to increase tensions in the talks, which include the other parties to the 2015 deal. The talks adjourned on June 20 and a date for their resumption has not yet been set.
The US on Tuesday called Iran’s decision an “unfortunate step backwards” but said the window for diplomacy to allow both to resume compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal remained open.
“It is worrying that Iran chooses to escalate its non-performance of its (nuclear deal) commitments, especially with experiments that have value for nuclear weapons research. It’s another unfortunate step backwards for Iran, particularly when we for our part have demonstrated our sincere intention and willingness to return to the (deal),” US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters at a briefing.
“We continue to urge Iran to stop this brinksmanship, to return to Vienna prepared for real talks, and to be in a position to be prepared to finish the work that we have started in April,” he said.
Germany, France and Britain also voiced “grave concern” over the move by Iran that they say is a serious violation of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, warning that it threatens the outcome of talks aimed at bringing the US back into the agreement.
Uranium metal can also be used for a nuclear bomb, and research on its production is specifically prohibited under the nuclear deal. The IAEA already said in February that its inspectors had confirmed that Iran has begun the production of uranium metal.
The three European powers’ foreign ministers issued a joint statement saying of Tehran’s latest step that “Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal (research and development) and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon.”
They said it was “all the more concerning” given that no date has been set for the resumption of negotiations in Vienna, and that Iran has “significantly curtailed” IAEA access.
“We have repeatedly stressed that time is on no-one’s side,” the statement said. “With its latest steps, Iran is threatening a successful outcome to the Vienna talks despite the progress achieved in six rounds of negotiations to date.”
Bob Einhorn, a nonproliferation expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said: “This is clearly an escalation — clearly another message by Iran that in the absence of any restoration of (the nuclear deal), they are going to continue ramping up their capability and their pressure.”
(With AP, AFP and Reuters)
Iran gives IAEA notice of escalating uranium metal work
https://arab.news/w4mt5
Iran gives IAEA notice of escalating uranium metal work
- US warns Iran to stop nuclear ‘brinksmanship’
- European powers say ‘Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon’
Inaction over UAE’s role is prolonging ‘worst proxy war in the world,’ Sudan justice minister says
- Had international community characterized it as ‘military rebellion’ and countered Emirati sponsorship of ‘terrorist militia’ it would not have endured, he tells UN Human Rights Council
- He accuses paramilitary Rapid Support forces of ‘targeting basic infrastructure, strategic facilities and public services,’ and ‘atrocities beyond our capacity to describe’
NEW YORK CITY: Sudan’s justice minister on Wednesday blamed the prolongation of the near-three-year conflict in his country on what he described as the failure of the international community to properly label the war as a rebellion.
He also accused the UAE of sponsoring and arming a militia, the Rapid Support Forces, he said was responsible for widespread abuses.
“The war has outstayed its welcome and it should not have gone on for this long had the international community, and particularly the UN and its bodies, fulfilled their responsibility in rightly characterizing this military rebellion,” said Abdullah Mohammed Dirif, “and had they called a spade a spade and countered the Abu Dhabi government, which sponsored this terrorist militia and provided it with high-tech arms and provided it with mercenaries.”
Speaking during the high-level segment of the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, he warned that “the misleading characterization of this war has given a green light for the militia to keep its flagrant violations.”
The minister, who said he was speaking “on behalf of the government of Sudan and its people,” described the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, which began in April 2023, as “one of the worst proxy wars in the world,” which had “targeted the very existence of Sudan and its people.”
The RSF has “continued its methodic targeting of basic infrastructure and strategic facilities and all public services,” Dirif said, adding that “the aim is to displace civilians against whom it has committed atrocities beyond our capacity to describe them.
“The violations and crimes of the militia are going unabated. Yesterday it invaded Moustahiliya region in northern Darfur. It targeted civilians, killed them. It looted. It scorched villages and cities.”
Sudan’s military was “conducting its constitutional responsibility by standing up to the militia, protecting the civilians, preserving the unity of the country and the rule of law,” he said, and it remains “committed to international humanitarian law and the rules governing military engagement, and taking into account proportionality principles in order to protect civilians.”
Khartoum remains “open to genuine efforts which aim to end the war and the rebellion” based on a road map presented by the president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and a peace initiative submitted by the prime minister to the UN Security Council on Dec. 22, he added.
Dirif stressed his government’s commitment to continued “cooperation and coordination with human rights mechanisms in Sudan,” including the presence of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the country and the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Sudan.
“We recall, nationally, that achieving justice and redress to victims and ensuring impunity is a top priority for us,” he said, adding that authorities had made progress by investigating violations of national laws and international humanitarian laws.
He also underscored Sudan’s “commitment to continue facilitating and expediting delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by the war, including those under the control of the rebellious militia.”
Later, Sudan’s representative to the UN in Geneva exercised his right of reply and responded to prior remarks by the representative from the UAE.
“This is not a mere accusation, it is a well-known fact that is predicated on a number of evidence and documented proofs,” he said, referring to the UAE’s sponsorship of the RSF.
He cited in particular a report by a UN panel of experts on Sudan published on Jan. 15, 2024, which he described as “an official document of the Security Council” that referred to “lines of transferring weapons from Abu Dhabi International Airport” based on “clear-cut evidence.”
Other major international organizations and Sudan’s national commission of inquiry have provided further proof, he added, and Khartoum had submitted “a number of complaints, with proof, to the Security Council of the proven sabotage by the Abu Dhabi authority.”
The Sudanese representative continued: “It is paradoxical that the same authority that is sponsoring criminal militia, that the whole world is seeing and is attesting to its crimes, is now talking about peace in the Sudan. Peace is a noble value, that you have to be full of peace before you talk about it.
“The people of Sudan are only requesting this country stop sponsoring this criminal militia that is killing the innocent people in my country on a daily basis.”
The UAE has denied accusations that it provides military support to armed groups in Sudan, and says it supports efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
