WASHINGTON/TEHRAN: The International Atomic Energy Agency on Sunday urged Iran to resume talks “now” to avoid a crisis that could make it “extremely more difficult” to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord.
Iran this week disconnected some cameras allowing international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in response to a Western resolution passed June 8 in which the UN agency denounced Tehran’s lack of cooperation.
Twenty-seven surveillance cameras “have been removed,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in an interview broadcast Sunday by CNN, calling it a “very serious move.”
“Recent history tells us that it is never a good thing to start saying to international inspectors, go home... things get much more problematic,” he added.
The 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, gave Iran relief from crippling economic sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activities.
But in 2018, then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the pact and reimposed sanctions, prompting Iran to begin rolling back on its own commitments.
Talks to revive the deal have stalled since March.
In the CNN interview, Grossi said he was telling his Iranian counterparts, “We have to sit down now, we have to redress the situation, we have to continue working together.
“The only way for Iran to get the confidence, the trust they so badly need in order to move their economy forward... is to allow the inspectors of the IAEA to be present.”
Without the surveillance cameras, Grossi said, his agency will soon be unable to declare whether the Iranian nuclear program is “peaceful” — as Tehran has repeatedly insisted — or whether Iran is developing an atomic bomb.
Even if the Iranians reconnect the cameras in a few months, Grossi said, whatever work they do in the meantime will remain secret, possibly rendering useless any agreement.
Therefore, he said, the recent Iranian action makes “the way back to an agreement extremely more difficult.”
While Trump pulled the United States out of what he said was a badly flawed accord, his successor Joe Biden has said he is ready to again embrace the deal so long as Iran also respects its own commitments.
But negotiators have met with repeated frustration, and the possibility of failure appears closer than ever.
In a call Saturday with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on diplomats to rescue the agreement, according to a Sunday statement.
Meanwhile, Iran’s currency on Sunday dropped to its lowest value ever as US sanctions against the country are still in force.
Iran’s economy is struggling mightily mostly because of the US pullout from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that restored sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors.
In central Tehran, dozens of shop owners took to the streets in protest over the worsening economic situation, after many shut their businesses following a recent rise in business taxes. Police were present in force, but did not intervene.
(With AFP and AP)
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UN nuclear watchdog urges Iran to resume stalled nuclear talks ‘now’
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UN nuclear watchdog urges Iran to resume stalled nuclear talks ‘now’
- Talks to revive the deal have stalled since March
- Iran’s currency drops to lowest value ever amid US sanctions
Security officer arrested over Syria killings: official
DAMASCUS: Syria’s authorities have arrested an internal security officer as a suspect in the killing of four civilians in the majority-Druze Sweida province, the local internal security chief said.
Four people were shot dead and a fifth seriously wounded in the incident on Saturday, in the village of Al-Matana, said Hossam Al-Tahan, the state news agency SANA reported.
The initial investigation, carried out with the help of one of the survivors of the attack, indicated that one suspect was a member of the local Internal Security Directorate, he said.
“The officer was immediately detained and referred for investigation,” he added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported that four people were killed and a fifth wounded by gunfire from unknown assailants as they were harvesting olives.
The authorities had cleared the olive pickers to be in the northern part of the province controlled by government forces, it added.
Sweida province is the stronghold of the Druze minority in the south of the country.
Violence erupted there briefly in July last year, with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin that rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces and tribal fighters from other parts of Syria.
Syrian authorities have said their forces intervened to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the London-based Observatory have accused them of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze.
Although a ceasefire was reached later that month, the situation remained tense and access to Sweida difficult.
Residents accuse the government of having imposed a blockade on the province, from which tens of thousands of inhabitants have fled — a charge Damascus denies.
Several aid convoys have entered since then.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 185,000 people remain uprooted.
Four people were shot dead and a fifth seriously wounded in the incident on Saturday, in the village of Al-Matana, said Hossam Al-Tahan, the state news agency SANA reported.
The initial investigation, carried out with the help of one of the survivors of the attack, indicated that one suspect was a member of the local Internal Security Directorate, he said.
“The officer was immediately detained and referred for investigation,” he added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported that four people were killed and a fifth wounded by gunfire from unknown assailants as they were harvesting olives.
The authorities had cleared the olive pickers to be in the northern part of the province controlled by government forces, it added.
Sweida province is the stronghold of the Druze minority in the south of the country.
Violence erupted there briefly in July last year, with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin that rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces and tribal fighters from other parts of Syria.
Syrian authorities have said their forces intervened to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the London-based Observatory have accused them of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze.
Although a ceasefire was reached later that month, the situation remained tense and access to Sweida difficult.
Residents accuse the government of having imposed a blockade on the province, from which tens of thousands of inhabitants have fled — a charge Damascus denies.
Several aid convoys have entered since then.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 185,000 people remain uprooted.
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