IAEA Not Satisfied With Iranian Explanation on Nuclear Site

By Jastinder Khera

The UN's nuclear watchdog said Wednesday that Iran's explanations over the presence of nuclear material at an undeclared site in the country were "not technically credible.”

The news comes as observers watch to see whether Joe Biden's victory in the US presidential election will lead to detente between Iran and Western powers.

Despite Iranian authorities providing some information about the site, "the agency informed Iran that it continues to consider Iran's response to be not technically credible," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report seen by AFP.

"A full and prompt explanation from Iran regarding the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin... at a location in Iran not declared to the agency is needed," the report said.

While the IAEA has not identified the site in question, diplomatic sources have indicated to AFP that it is in the Turquzabad district of Tehran, previously identified by Israel as an alleged site of secret atomic activity.

A source familiar with the issue said there was no indication the site had been used for processing uranium but that it could have been used for storing it as late as the end of 2018.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharib Abadi, wrote on Twitter that "any hasty comments should be avoided.”

"Interactions are ongoing with a view to finalize the resolution of the matter," he added.

'Sabotage'

The report did not provide any new information about two separate locations where the IAEA took samples in September and where undeclared nuclear activity may have taken place in the early 2000s.

The analysis of those samples is ongoing.

It however confirmed that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is now more than 12 times the limit set down in a 2015 deal with world powers, even if the rate at which the stockpile is expanding has slowed since the last report.

The 2015 accord has been progressively unravelling since US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in May 2018 and went on to re-introduce crippling economic sanctions on Iran.

In retaliation, Iran has been breaking the limits on its nuclear activity laid down in the deal since May 2019.

As well as breaching limits on the stockpile amount and enrichment level of uranium laid down in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran has been using more advanced centrifuges than permitted under the deal.

Wednesday's report confirmed that, in line with previous statements by Iranian officials, centrifuges had been installed at an underground part of the Natanz nuclear facility after another part of the site was damaged in an explosion in July which Iran blamed on "sabotage"

'Maximum Pressure'

The three European powers who are still party to the 2015 deal, namely France, the UK and Germany, have been scrambling to find ways to keep the accord intact.

The election of Trump's Democrat opponent Joe Biden as the next US president has offered some hope the deal could be revived, as Biden has offered Iran a "credible path back to diplomacy".

On Wednesday Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the country would take “any opportunity" which could "lift the pressure of sanctions from the shoulders of our people".

However, obstacles remain to any detente.

Iran insists that the US has to lift sanctions imposed by the Trump administration before it will come back into compliance with the JCPOA's limits.

The "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran launched by the Trump administration has seen Tehran's distrust of the Americans intensify and tensions between the two countries have twice brought them to the brink of war since mid-2019.

Biden will face a tight window of opportunity between his inauguration on January 20 and an Iranian presidential election set for June 18 in which reformists and moderates allied to Rouhani may face a tough challenge from conservatives.

On Friday US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will start a tour of US allies, including several of Iran's neighbours, during which he is expected to discuss raising further pressure on Tehran in the remaining two months of the Trump administration.

Photo: Wikicommons

Iran Launches New 'Advanced' Nuclear Centrifuges

Iran's nuclear body said Tuesday it had launched a new "advanced centrifuges" facility to replace one badly damaged by "sabotage" at its main Natanz nuclear fuel plant in July.

"It was decided to create a more modern, larger and more improved station in the heart of the mountains around Natanz, and the implementation of this project has started," Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic agency, said on state television.

 "We started the preliminary work by supplying the equipment and setting up a series of production chambers for advanced centrifuges," he added, without giving further details.

Advanced centrifuges are used in the process of uranium enrichment.

Iran said last month that an explosion at its plant in Natanz had been caused by "sabotage.”

After the July explosion, Iran sent warnings to Washington and Israel, two countries which accuse Tehran of developing a secret military nuclear program, claims Iran has always denied.

On Sunday, Iranian atomic energy spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said that after investigations into the Natanz explosion they had identified the "elements" responsible. No further details were given.

The 2015 nuclear agreement has been faltering since US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from an international accord that gave Iran relief from sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program,

In retaliation to the US withdrawal, the Islamic republic started producing uranium at a higher grade than allowed under the deal.

Last week, the UN's nuclear watchdog said that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium stands at more than ten times the limit set down in the 2015 nuclear deal.

Photo: IRNA

Iran Says 'Sabotage' Caused Natanz Nuclear Site Blast

Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said on Sunday that "sabotage" was the cause of an explosion that damaged the Natanz nuclear facility last month.

"Security investigations confirm this was sabotage and what is certain is that an explosion took place in Natanz," said spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi.

"But how this explosion took place and with what materials... will be announced by security officials in due course," he was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

Iran said after the July 2 incident that it had determined its cause but declined to release details due to "security concerns".

Natanz governor Ramezan-Ali Ferdowsi said a fire had broken out at the site, but the country's atomic agency said it caused no casualties or radioactive pollution.

At the time, IRNA published an editorial warning Iran's arch-foes against hostile actions, saying unnamed Israeli social media accounts had claimed the Jewish state was behind it.

The incident came six days after an explosion near a military complex rocked Tehran.

The blast in the Parchin area southeast of the Iranian capital was due to "leaking gas tanks", the defense ministry said.

The Islamic republic resumed uranium enrichment at the Natanz complex, in central Iran, in September last year.

The move came after the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from an international accord that gave Iran relief from sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

Tehran has always denied its nuclear program has any military dimension.

Photo: IRNA

Iran Nuclear Crisis Escalates With New Inspections Report

By Jonathan Tirone

Iran accused an international atomic monitor of setting off explosives detectors at its main enrichment plant, ratcheting up tensions that threaten to tip the nation into a new nuclear crisis.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspector triggered alarms during routine screening on Oct. 28 at Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility, Ambassador Gharib Abadi said at a briefing in Vienna. The IAEA recalled the inspector after she was questioned by Iranian authorities over traces of explosives detected in her handbag.

The IAEA refuted the charge. “The agency does not agree with Iran’s characterization of the situation involving the inspector, who was carrying out official safeguards duties,” it said in an email. Iran shouldn’t have delayed her departure, the agency said.

The Iranian allegation was made shortly after IAEA officials said Iran had failed to cooperate with its probe into radioactive samples discovered at a site identified by Israel.

“There were suspicious materials involved in this incident,” Abadi said. “Iran expects the necessary level of cooperation during the investigation.” U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Jackie Wolcott, called the detention of the monitor for questioning an “outrageous and unwarranted act of intimidation,” according to a statement.

The agency’s top inspector, Massimo Aparo, had told diplomats in a closed-door meeting in Vienna on Wednesday that Iran is evading attempts to discover the source of man-made and natural uranium particles detected at a warehouse in Tehran earlier this year, according to two officials familiar with the briefing who asked not to be identified.

New Front

IAEA acting director General Cornel Feruta convened an extraordinary meeting of the 35-member board of governors Thursday to discuss the new concerns. The Romanian diplomat said only last month that Iran had taken “a step in the right direction” in attempting to clarify matters troubling inspectors.

“Iran should provide full and timely cooperation,” the IAEA said in an emailed statement. “The IAEA is ready to continue interactions with Iran with a view to resolving the matter as soon as possible.”

The findings threaten to open a new front in the tense confrontation that has erupted over Iran’s nuclear program since the U.S. withdrew from the multi-power nuclear deal with Tehran last year and reimposed punishing economic sanctions. Iran, which has vowed to return to the nuclear deal once the U.S. does the same, this week announced it would begin enriching uranium at Fordow, a fortified site built into the side of a mountain.

European signatories say they remain committed to the nuclear accord but have struggled to devise a mechanism that wouldn’t expose European companies to penalties if they trade with the Islamic Republic.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged the world to address what he called Iran’s nuclear “extortion.”

Safeguards Obligations

The IAEA has satellite images showing that the Turquz-Abad site where the particles were found was cleared out after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented documents that Mossad spies smuggled out of a secret warehouse in Tehran. Those files allegedly show Iran lied about a weapons project that operated until 2003, and then intensified efforts to hide its atomic archive after agreeing to the 2015 nuclear accord. Iran denies its nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons.

The U.S. is expected to press European allies that remain committed to the pact to support authorizing IAEA inspectors to broaden their investigation, according to the diplomats. That effort would be led by Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, who’ll replace Feruta as director general next month.

The suggestion that Iran could be providing incomplete information has potentially serious consequences. The entire international apparatus of rules that the IAEA enforces is based on verifying the correctness and completeness of nations’ declared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.

The IAEA’s board referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council in 2006 for failing to fulfill safeguards obligations. The council then imposed crippling international sanctions that were only lifted after the 2015 agreement was agreed.

Photo: IAEA

Iran Begins Fordow Enrichment in Major Nuclear Deal Rollback

By Yasna Haghdoost

Iran has begun the process of enriching uranium at its Fordow research plant, in the most dramatic rollback of its commitments under its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.

About 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of uranium hexafluoride gas were brought to the facility on Wednesday, under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations watchdog, Iranian state news agencies reported.

By Saturday, the level of uranium enrichment will reach 4.5%, according to Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. The organization also said that last week it prevented a UN inspector from entering the Natanz testing facility, another uranium enrichment site, because she was carrying “suspicious material” that had set off alarms.

The renewed activities at Fordow will add to a stockpile of enriched uranium that has already exceeded caps.

“The decision to expand nuclear activities at Fordow is Iran’s most serious violation of the nuclear deal to date,” Eurasia Group said in a report. “Iran’s latest violation represents a significant escalation, not a continuation of incremental steps away from its nuclear commitments.”

Even so, the work at Fordow doesn’t mark a qualitative leap because Iran has already been enriching to 4.5%. That’s above the 3.67% purity level set down in the deal, but far from the 90% needed for weapons, or the 20% level required for research reactors.

Tehran began gradually retreating from the 2015 accord after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement last year and reimposed crippling sanctions, rendering the pact barely functional. European signatories say they remain committed, but have struggled to devise a mechanism that wouldn’t expose European companies to U.S. penalties if they trade with the Islamic Republic.

While Iran acknowledges it’s breached limits set under the pact, it rejects that it has violated the accord. That’s because the document allows participants to cease meeting commitments “in whole or in part” in the event of an unresolved dispute. Tehran argues that Europe has an obligation to help it avoid the new U.S. penalties.

The standoff over the deal has provoked tit-for-tat attacks on Gulf oil facilities, drones and shipping traffic that has raised fears of a new military confrontation in the Middle East.

Photo: IRNA

Iran Tells UN it Will Hike Uranium Enrichment Capacity

Iran has notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has launched a plan to increase its uranium enrichment capacity, nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Tuesday.

"A letter was submitted to the agency yesterday regarding the start of certain activities," said Salehi, a vice president and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

"If conditions allow, maybe tomorrow night at Natanz, we can announce the opening of the center for production of new centrifuges" for uranium enrichment, he said, quoted by conservative news agency Fars. 

"What we are doing does not violate the (2015 nuclear) agreement," he said, adding that a letter was submitted to the IAEA "yesterday regarding the start of certain activities."

He specified that this was just the start of the production process and "does not mean that we will start assembling the centrifuges."

Under the 2015 agreement, Iran can build parts for the centrifuges as long as it does not put them into operation within the first decade. 

Salehi also emphasized that these moves "do not mean the negotiations (with Europe) have failed."

European governments have been trying to salvage the agreement ever since the United States announced its withdrawal last month and said it would reimpose sanctions on foreign companies working in the Islamic republic by November.

he other parties—Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia—have vowed to stay in the accord but many of their companies have already started to wind down Iranian operations.

On Monday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the Europeans that "Iran will never tolerate both suffering from sanctions and nuclear restrictions" and called for preparations to speed up uranium enrichment.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian uses only, but opponents in the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia accuse it of seeking to build an atomic bomb.  

Photo Credit: Wikicommons