VIENNA: Iran has resumed enriching uranium at a similar rate as at the start of the year, the IAEA said Tuesday, as the country accelerates its nuclear program while denying it is developing a bomb.
Iran has “increased its production of highly enriched uranium, reversing a previous output reduction from mid-2023,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.
Iran has increased its production of 60 percent enriched uranium to a rate of about 9 kilogrammes (20 pounds) a month since the end of November. That’s up from about 3 kilogrammes a month since June, and a return to the 9 kilogrammes a month it was producing during the first half of 2023, the IAEA said.
“On 19 and 24 December, IAEA inspectors verified the rate of production of uranium enriched to this level at the two facilities where Iran is carrying out these activities — the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant and the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” it said.
Nuclear weapons require uranium enriched to 90 percent, while 3.67 percent is enough for nuclear power stations.
Iran appeared to have slowed its enrichment as a gesture while informal talks for a nuclear treaty had resumed with the United States.
But animosity between the two countries has intensified in recent months, with each one accusing the other of exacerbating the war between Israel and Hamas.
In November, a confidential IAEA report seen by AFP indicated that Iran’s enriched uranium stocks were 22 times the limits authorized in the 2015 accord limiting Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting sanctions.
That accord fell apart in 2018 when then president Donald Trump pulled out the United States.
His successor Joe Biden has tried to revive the accord through talks in Vienna, but the process has been at a standstill since the summer of 2022.
Iran, which has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has prevented IAEA inspections and disconnected surveillance cameras installed at its nuclear program sites.
In November, it held 567.1 kilogrammes of uranium enriched at 20 percent and 128.3 kilogrammes at 60 percent, three times what would be needed to build an atomic bomb if enriched to 90 percent.
Iran resumes pace of 60 percent uranium enrichment, IAEA says
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Iran resumes pace of 60 percent uranium enrichment, IAEA says
- Iran increased its production of 60 percent enriched uranium to a rate of about 9 kg a month since the end of November
Sudan paramilitary used mass graves to conceal war crimes: ICC deputy prosecutor
- Reports of mass killings, sexual violence, abductions and looting emerged in the wake of the RSF’s sweep of El-Fasher
UNITED NATIONS: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces carried out mass killings in Darfur and attempted to conceal them with mass graves, the International Criminal Court’s deputy prosecutor said on Monday.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council, Nazhat Shameem Khan said it was the “assessment of the office of the prosecutor that war crimes and crimes against humanity” had been committed in the RSF’s takeover of the city of El-Fasher in October.
“Our work has been indicative of mass killing events and attempts to conceal crimes through the establishment of mass graves,” Khan said in a video address, citing audio and video evidence as well as satellite imagery.
Since April 2023, a civil war between the Sudanese army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
Reports of mass killings, sexual violence, abductions and looting emerged in the wake of the RSF’s sweep of El-Fasher, which was the army’s last holdout position in the Darfur region.
Both warring sides have been accused of atrocities throughout the war.
Footage reviewed by the ICC, Khan said, showed RSF fighters detaining, abusing and executing civilians in El-Fasher, then celebrating the killings and “desecrating corpses.”
According to Khan, the material matched testimony gathered from affected communities, while submissions from civil society groups and other partners had further corroborated the evidence.
The atrocities in El-Fasher, she added, mirror those documented in the West Darfur capital of El-Geneina in 2023, where UN experts determined the RSF killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people, mostly from the Massalit tribe.
She said a picture was emerging of “appalling organized, widespread mass criminality.”
“It will continue until this conflict and the sense of impunity that fuels it are stopped,” she added.
Khan also issued a renewed call for Sudanese authorities to “work with us seriously” to ensure the surrender of all individuals subject to outstanding warrants, including former longtime president Omar Al-Bashir, former ruling party chairman Ahmed Haroun and ex-defense minister Abdul Raheem Mohammed Hussein.
She said Haroun’s arrest in particular should be “given priority.”
Haroun faces 20 counts of crimes against humanity and 22 war-crimes charges for his role in recruiting the Janjaweed militia, which carried out ethnic massacres in Darfur in the 2000s and later became the RSF.
He escaped prison in 2023 and has since reappeared rallying support for the Sudanese army.
Khan spoke to the UN Security Council via video link after being denied a visa to attend in New York due to sanctions in place against her by the United States.
