VIENNA: Iran is further expanding its nuclear capacities, the UN atomic watchdog said Thursday, one week after the agency’s board of governors passed a resolution criticizing Tehran’s lack of cooperation with the IAEA.
The International Atomic Energy Agency informed its members that Tehran told it that it was installing more cascades at the enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow, according to a statement sent to AFP.
A diplomatic source deemed this development as “moderate.”
A cascade is a series of centrifuges, machines used in the process of enriching uranium.
The motion brought by Britain, France and Germany — but opposed by China and Russia — at the IAEA’s 35-nation board last week was the first of its kind since November 2022.
The resolution — which Tehran slammed as “hasty and unwise” — came amid an impasse over Iran’s escalating nuclear activities and as Western powers fear Tehran may be seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, a claim Iran denies.
Although symbolic in nature at this stage, the censure motion aims to raise diplomatic pressure on Iran, with the option to potentially refer the issue to the UN Security Council.
In the past, similar resolutions have prompted Tehran to retaliate by removing surveillance cameras and other equipment from its nuclear facilities and ratcheting up its uranium enrichment activities.
According to the IAEA, Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state to enrich uranium to the high level of 60 percent — just short of weapons-grade — while it keeps accumulating large uranium stockpiles.
The IAEA has said that Tehran has significantly ramped up its nuclear program and now has enough material to build several atomic bombs.
The Islamic republic has gradually broken away from its commitments under the nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015.
The landmark deal provided Iran with relief from Western sanctions in exchange for curbs on its atomic program, but it fell apart after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States under then-president Donald Trump in 2018.
Efforts to revive the deal have so far failed.
Iran expands nuclear capacities further: IAEA
https://arab.news/vrnqy
Iran expands nuclear capacities further: IAEA
- Tehran is installing more cascades at the enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow
- A cascade is a series of centrifuges, machines used in the process of enriching uranium
Israel to reopen crossing with Jordan to Gaza aid trucks Wednesday: Israeli official
- “All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security ,” the official added
- Israel closed the crossing after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September
JERUSALEM: Israel will reopen the crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to humanitarian aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
“Following the understandings and a directive of the political echelon, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) the transfer of goods and aid from Jordan to the area of Judea and Samaria and to the Gaza Strip will be permitted through the Allenby Crossing,” an Israeli official said in a statement, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.
“All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security, following a thorough security inspection,” the official added.
Israel closed the crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September.
The crossing in the Jordan Valley reopened to travelers a few days later, but not to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, devastated by more than two years of war.
Since the closure at Allenby, Jordan said it had been able to send some aid to Gaza via the Sheikh Hussein crossing, north of the West Bank.
The Allenby crossing is the only international gateway for Palestinians from the West Bank that does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the territory since 1967.
Tzav 9, an extremist Israeli right-wing activist group seeking to halt any aid arriving in Gaza so long as Israeli hostages are held in the Palestinian territory, condemned Tuesday’s announcement.
“Hamas is still on its feet and acts every day against our fighters, and the government of Israel continues to send supply trucks and treats directly to the vile murderers who murdered, beheaded, and raped on October 7,” the US-sanctioned group said in a statement.
Of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, all but the remains of Israeli Ran Gvili have been handed over.
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that entered into force on October 10, Hamas committed to returning all living and deceased hostages.
