VIENNA: Iran is enriching uranium to close to weapons-grade at a steady pace while discussions aimed at improving its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog are stalled, two confidential reports by the watchdog showed on Monday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency faces a range of difficulties in Iran, including the fact it only implemented a small fraction of the steps IAEA chief Rafael Grossi thought it committed to in a “Joint Statement” on cooperation last year.
“There has been no progress in the past year toward implementing the Joint Statement of 4 March 2023,” one of the two reports to member states, both of which were seen by Reuters, said.
Grossi traveled to Iran this month for talks with Iranian officials aimed at improving cooperation and IAEA monitoring in Iran. Follow-up talks have stalled, however, after the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last week.
“The Director General reiterates to the new government of Iran his call for, and disposition to continue with, the high-level dialogue and ensuing technical exchanges commenced ... on 6-7 May 2024,” the report added.
It is 18 months since the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors last passed a resolution against Iran, ordering it to cooperate urgently with a years-long IAEA investigation into uranium particles found at three undeclared sites.
While the number of sites has since been reduced to two, Iran has still not explained how the traces got there.
“The Director General regrets that the outstanding safeguards issues have not been resolved,” the report said, referring to those traces.
France and Britain are pushing for a new resolution at next week’s Board meeting, which the United States has so far not supported, diplomats say. Iran usually bristles at such resolutions, taking nuclear-related steps in response.
The other report said Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent of weapons-grade, grew by 20.6 kg over the quarter to 142.1 kg as of May 11, and Iran later diluted 5.9 kg to a lower enrichment level.
That means Iran now has roughly enough material enriched to up to 60 percent purity, if enriched further, for three nuclear weapons in theory, according to an IAEA yardstick. It has enough for more at lower enrichment levels.
Western powers say there is no credible civil reason for Iran to enrich to that level. Iran says its aims are peaceful.
Iran’s near-bomb-grade uranium stock grows, talks stall, IAEA reports say
https://arab.news/5aqu7
Iran’s near-bomb-grade uranium stock grows, talks stall, IAEA reports say
- Grossi traveled to Iran this month for talks with Iranian officials aimed at improving cooperation and IAEA monitoring in Iran
- Follow-up talks have stalled, however, after the death of Iranian President Raisi in a helicopter crash last week
Iraqi army fully takes over key base following US withdrawal
BAGHDAD: US forces have fully withdrawn from an air base in western Iraq in implementation of an agreement with the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down a US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group in Iraq by September 2025, with US forces departing bases where they had been stationed.
However, a small unit of US military advisers and support personnel remained. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in October told journalists that the agreement originally stipulated a full pullout of US forces from the Ain Al-Asad air base in western Iraq by September. But “developments in Syria” since then required maintaining a “small unit” of between 250 and 350 advisers and security personnel at the base.
Now all US personnel have departed.
Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Rashid Yarallah oversaw the assignment of tasks and duties to various military units at the base on Saturday following the withdrawal of US forces and the Iraqi Army’s full assumption of control over the base, the military said in a statement.
The statement added that Yarallah “instructed relevant authorities to intensify efforts, enhance joint work, and coordinate between all units stationed at the base, while making full use of its capabilities and strategic location.”
A Ministry of Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly confirmed that all US forces had departed the base and had also removed all American equipment from it.
There was no statement from the US military on the withdrawal.
US forces have retained a presence in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and in neighboring Syria.
The departure of US forces may strengthen the hand of the government in discussions around disarmament of non-state armed groups in the country, some of which have used the presence of US troops as justification for keeping their own weapons.
Al-Sudani said in a July interview with The Associated Press that once the coalition withdrawal is complete, “there will be no need or no justification for any group to carry weapons outside the scope of the state.”
