Global atomic energy watchdog group believes that most of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium survived the 12-day war with Israel unscathed.

By World Israel News Staff

Most of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium survived Israeli and American airstrikes, the United Nations’ atomic energy watchdog group believes.

Israeli warplanes bombed Iranian nuclear facilities across the country during the 12-day war this past June, including atomic sites at Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz.

American B-2 stealth bombers also struck those facilities during a one-day air campaign.

While the US and Israel have assessed the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program, and in particular to the country’s capacity for uranium enrichment, questions lingered after the strikes regarding the fate of the approximately 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium already produced by Iran.

On Saturday, Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that he believes “the majority” of Iran’s uranium stockpile enriched to 60% purity survived the Israeli and American strikes.

That stockpile, which the IAEA estimated in the past was enough to produce 9 or 10 atomic bombs, most likely “remains in the nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Fordo, and some in Natanz,” Grossi told the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Grossi did suggest that some of Iran’s enriched uranium was probably destroyed in the attacks, but he estimated that around 90% of it was still intact inside the damaged facilities.

Prior to the June war, the IAEA estimated that Iran possessed 972 pounds of uranium enriched to 60% purity. After the airstrikes, Grossi said the IAEA believes Iran has around 880 pounds left from its stockpile – enough for eight or nine atomic bombs.

Regarding the condition of the three key Iranian atomic facilities at Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz, Grossi said they appeared to be “massively damaged.”

However, Grossi warned that without Iran’s cooperation, his agency would be unable to precisely gauge either the damage to Iran’s nuclear program or the fate of its uranium stockpile.

“Will we get access to this uranium?” he asked. “And what will happen to it then? Will Iran want to keep it, will it reduce its enrichment levels again, or will Iran move this uranium abroad?”

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UN atomic agency warns of massive rise in the quantity of highly enriched uranium in Iran’s nuclear stockpile, accuses Tehran of hiding nuclear material in three hidden sites.

By World Israel News Staff

Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium has risen significantly, the United Nations nuclear energy monitor agency warned on Monday, adding that Tehran in the past has concealed nuclear material at no less than three hidden locations.

On Monday, Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), addressed the agency’s board of directors, updating them on the IAEA’s operations around the globe.

During the meeting, Grossi said that the IAEA had evidence that Iran had concealed nuclear material at sites in Varamin, Marivan and Turquzabad.

Trace amounts of enriched uranium were found at all three sites, Grossi told the IAEA board of directors.

“The agency found man-made uranium particles at each of three undeclared locations in Iran – at Varamin, Marivan, and Turquzabad – at which we conducted complementary access in 2019 and 2020.”

“Since then, we have been seeking explanations and clarifications from Iran for the presence of these uranium particles, including through a number of high-level meetings and consultations in which I have been personally involved.”

When the IAEA reached out to Iran for an explanation for the presence of traces of undeclared nuclear material at the sites, Grossi said that Iran failed to provide credible explanations.

“Unfortunately, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers,” Grossi told the board,.

“These locations were part of an undeclared structured nuclear program carried out until the early 2000s.”

Grossi added that it appeared that Iran had attempted to scrub the sites of any residual evidence to prevent the IAEA from detecting their past use for undeclared nuclear activities.

“Unresolved safeguards issues persist,” Grossi said, urging Iran to cooperate fully with the IAEA. “Iran must urgently provide technically credible answers to clarify undeclared nuclear material and activities.”

Despite Iran’s history of concealing its nuclear activities, Grossi reiterated his call for a negotiated settlement between Western powers and Tehran.

“I call upon Iran urgently to cooperate fully,” Grossi continued. “Only a diplomatic solution, strongly backed by IAEA verification, can ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”

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With indirect nuclear talks between US and Iran set to continue in Oman this weekend, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi visits Iran, warning Tehran’s atomic program is closing in on nuclear weapons capabilities.

By World Israel News Staff

The director of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency warned Wednesday that Iran’s nuclear program is nearing the capacity for producing atomic weapons.

On Wednesday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi visited Iran, just days before an American delegation, headed by US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, is set to fly to Oman for the second round of indirect nuclear talks with an Iranian mission, led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

While the two sides had a “constructive and promising round of indirect talks” in Oman’s capital last Saturday, according to Araghchi, the two sides sparred this week over US demands that any new nuclear deal include a full cessation of Iranian uranium activities.

Witkoff had earlier this week appeared to indicate that civilian nuclear activities would be permitted, but later clarified that Iran would not be permitted to maintain any atomic program and that its enriched uranium would have to be placed under third-party control – possibly Russian.

During his visit to Iran, Grossi met with Araghchi in Tehran, calling the trip “timely” in light of the efforts to secure a new nuclear deal.

Grossi emphasized that any deal between Iran and the US would rely heavily on the IAEA to “provide credible assurances” that Iran’s nuclear program is of a “peaceful nature.” Grossi did not mention Witkoff’s condition that Iran cease all uranium enrichment activities – civilian or military.

Araghchi lauded Grossi in a tweet following their meeting, saying that “in the coming months, the Agency can play a crucial role in a peaceful settlement of the Iranian nuclear file.”

“As a variety of spoilers are gathered to derail current negotiations, we need a director general of peace,” he quipped.

Iran has called for the IAEA to be the sole body responsible for assessing Tehran’s adherence to a possible nuclear deal, while Israel has lobbied the Trump administration to have the US itself take a role in verifying Iranian compliance.

Following his meeting with Araghchi, Grossi told the French newspaper Le Monde on Wednesday evening that Iran’s nuclear program is already “not far” from achieving weapons-producing capabilities.

“Iran has the pieces, and they could eventually put them together one day,” Grossi said, adding that only the IAEA can facilitate an agreement that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“Without us, any agreement is just a piece of paper.”

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“We will significantly increase our uranium enrichment capacity,” says spokesman for Iran’s nuclear development program.

By World Israel News Staff

Iran announced that it is “immediately” activating advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment, as a punitive measure after an international nuclear watchdog group criticized Tehran for refusing to cooperate with an oversight program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently passed a resolution urging Iran to be more transparent in regards to its nuclear development program, calling on the country to allow IAEA inspectors to visit and monitor its nuclear sites.

That resolution sparked outrage among Iran’s senior leadership, who released a statement indicating that it would ramp up nuclear development as an act of defiance against the IAEA.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s reciprocal response to this political misuse of the [IAEA] Board of Governors was immediately put into action, and the deployment of a set of new and advanced centrifuges has begun,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told Iran International.

Ghalibaf described the resolution as “anti-Iran” and “harmful,” and claimed that it was an “unjust” decision against Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program.

“We will significantly increase our enrichment capacity, deploy various advanced machines, and enhance the speed of industrial research and development for each machine,” Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said in a Farsi-language TV interview.

“Our infrastructure will be strengthened, and security measures will be improved through other actions,” he added.

Despite Iran’s decision to ramp up its nuclear program rather than allow international inspectors at its site, some countries are still urging Tehran to return to the negotiation table, with the goal of returning to the 2015 nuclear deal.

“We note with serious concern Iran’s announcement… that, instead of responding to the resolution with cooperation, it plans to respond with further expansion of its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful rationale,” the United States, Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement released by the U.S. State Department.

“We expect Iran to reengage on the path of dialogue and cooperation with the agency.”

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“Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the U.S. side,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaan said.

By Associated Press

Five prisoners sought by the U.S. in a swap with Iran flew out of Tehran on Monday, officials said, part of a deal that saw nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets unfrozen.

Despite the deal, tensions are almost certain to remain high between the U.S. and Iran, which are locked in various disputes, including over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran says the program is peaceful, but it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

Flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed a Qatar Airways flight take off from Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, which has been used for exchanges in the past. Iranian state media soon after said the flight had left Tehran.

Two people, including a senior Biden administration official, said that the prisoners had left Tehran. They both spoke on condition of anonymity because the exchange was ongoing.

In addition to the five freed Americans, two U.S. family members flew out of Tehran, according to the Biden administration official. The flight was expected to land in Doha, Qatar.

Earlier, officials said that the exchange would take place after nearly $6 billion in once-frozen Iranian assets reached Qatar. Considered by many as a “ransom payment,” this was a key element of the deal.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was the first to acknowledge the swap would take place Monday, confirming the cash sought for the exchange that had been held by South Korea was in Qatar.

“Fortunately Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea were released and God willing today the assets will start to be fully controlled by the government and the nation,” Kanaani said.

“On the subject of the prisoner swap, it will happen today and five prisoners, citizens of the Islamic Republic, will be released from the prisons in the U.S.,” he added. “Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the U.S. side.”

He said two of the Iranian prisoners will stay in the U.S.

Mohammad Reza Farzin, Iran’s Central Bank chief, later came on state television to acknowledge the receipt of over 5.5 billion euros — $5.9 billion — in accounts in Qatar. Months ago, Iran had anticipated getting as much as $7 billion.

The planned exchange comes ahead of the convening of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York, where Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi will speak.

The Qatar Airways plane landed Monday morning at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, according to flight-tracking data.

The announcement by Kanaani comes weeks after Iran said that five Iranian-Americans had been transferred from prison to house arrest as part of a confidence-building move. Meanwhile, Seoul allowed the frozen assets, held in South Korean won, to be converted into euros.

The planned swap has unfolded amid a major American military buildup in the Persian Gulf, with the possibility of U.S. troops boarding and guarding commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of all oil shipments pass.

The deal has also already opened U.S. President Joe Biden to fresh criticism from Republicans and others who say that the administration is helping boost the Iranian economy at a time when Iran poses a growing threat to American troops and Mideast allies. That could have implications in his reelection campaign as well.

On the U.S. side, Washington has said the planned swap includes Siamak Namazi, who was detained in 2015 and was later sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges; Emad Sharghi, a venture capitalist sentenced to 10 years; and Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who was arrested in 2018 and also received a 10-year sentence. All of their charges have been widely criticized by their families, activists and the U.S. government.

U.S. officials have so far declined to identify the fourth and fifth prisoner.

The five prisoners Iran has said it seeks are mostly held over allegedly trying to export banned material to Iran, such as dual use electronics that can be used by a military.

The cash represents money South Korea owed Iran — but had not yet paid — for oil purchased before the U.S. imposed sanctions on such transactions in 2019.

The U.S. maintains that, once in Qatar, the money will be held in restricted accounts and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food. Those transactions are currently allowed under American sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic over its advancing nuclear program.

Iranian government officials have largely concurred with that explanation, though some hard-liners have insisted, without providing evidence, that there would be no restrictions on how Tehran spends the money.

Iran and the U.S. have a history of prisoner swaps dating back to the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage crisis following the Islamic Revolution. Their most recent major exchange happened in 2016, when Iran came to a deal with world powers to restrict its nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions.

Four American captives, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, flew home from Iran at the time, and several Iranians in the U.S. won their freedom. That same day, then-President Barack Obama’s administration airlifted $400 million in cash to Tehran.

The West accuses Iran of using foreign prisoners — including those with dual nationality — as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.

Negotiations over a major prisoner swap faltered after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal in 2018. From the following year on, a series of attacks and ship seizures attributed to Iran have raised tensions.

Fears of wider conflagration with Israel

Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear program now enriches closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. While the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has warned that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to produce “several” bombs, months more would likely be needed to build a weapon and potentially miniaturize it to put it on a missile — if Iran decided to pursue one.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, and the U.S. intelligence community has kept its assessment that Iran is not pursuing an atomic bomb.

Iran has taken steps in recent months to settle some issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the advances in its program have led to fears of a wider regional conflagration as Israel has vowed it would not allow Tehran to develop the bomb. Israel bombed both Iraq and Syria to stop their nuclear programs, giving the threat more weight. It also is suspected in carrying out a series of killings targeting Iran’s nuclear scientists.

Iran also supplies Russia with the bomb-carrying drones Moscow uses to target sites in Ukraine in its war on Kyiv, which remains another major dispute between Tehran and Washington.

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Prime Minister Netanyahu excoriates IAEA decision to close probes of Iran’s nuclear program, calling move ‘surrender’ that leaves ‘black mark’ on the agency’s legacy.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s “surrender” to Iran is a “black mark” on the UN watchdog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the beginning of Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting.

He was referring to the IAEA’s decision to end its probe into a nuclear facility in Marivan, in western Iran, where traces of uranium were found in 2019. According to Iran, the IAEA also closed a separate investigation into uranium particles found in the underground Fordow facility.

“Regarding Iran – Iran continues to lie to the International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA. The IAEA’s surrender to Iranian pressure is a black mark on its conduct,” said Netanyahu.

“We revealed information to the world that we brought Iran’s secret nuclear archive to Israel five years ago. Information that unequivocally proved that Iran violates the inspection agreements and that it operates in the nuclear field for military purposes and not for innocent civilian purposes,” the Prime Minister added, referring to the Mossad’s 2018 theft of an entire archive of Iranian nuclear documents.

“The excuses that Iran has provided in the years since then, for having nuclear material in prohibited places, these excuses are not only unreliable, they are not even technically possible. The lax conduct of the IAEA in the face of these failed excuses sends a message to the rulers of Iran that they are not required to pay any price for their violations and that they can continue to deceive the international community in their attempts to obtain nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said.

“If the Atomic Energy Agency becomes a political organization, its monitoring activities in Iran will have no meaning, nor will the reports it produces on Iran’s nuclear activities have any meaning. In any case, Israel under our leadership does not stand by. We stand our ground firmly both in public and behind closed doors.”

Netanyahu also said that Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi returned from the US where they held high level discussions regarding Iran.

Netanyahu also expressed his condolences to three soldiers killed on the Egyptian border on Saturday, congratulated Israel’s under-20 soccer team for advancing to the World Cup semi-finals, and said that a committee being formed to lower the cost of living would begin meeting this week.

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The new workshop comes after Iran’s centrifuge facility in Karaj found itself targeted in what Iran described as a sabotage attack.

By Associated Press

The United Nations atomic watchdog said Thursday it installed surveillance cameras to monitor a new centrifuge workshop at Iran’s underground Natanz site after a request from Tehran, even as diplomatic efforts to restore Iran’s tattered nuclear deal appear stalled.

The start of work at the new workshop comes after Iran’s centrifuge facility in Karaj found itself targeted in what Iran described as a sabotage attack in June.

Natanz itself has twice been targeted in sabotage attacks amid uncertainty over the nuclear deal, assaults that Tehran has blamed on Israel. Iran has previously said it would be moving the plant at Karaj to Natanz.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said it installed cameras and removed seals from machines at the workshop on Tuesday. Those machines will be used to make centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows, crucial parts for the devices that spin at very high speeds to enrich uranium gas.

Iranian media later Thursday acknowledged the installation of the cameras and said that all footage from them would be held by Iran — and not given to the IAEA — amid the standoff over the nuclear deal.

Iran has been holding footage from IAEA surveillance cameras since February 2021 as a pressure tactic to restore the atomic accord.

On Wednesday, “Iran informed the agency that the machines would start operating at the new workshop the same day,” the IAEA said in a statement. It did not elaborate on the location of the workshop at Natanz, a vast facility that includes laboratories and enrichment halls buried underground to protect them from airstrikes.

Efforts to restore the nuclear deal

Natanz became a flashpoint for Western fears about Iran’s nuclear program in 2002, when satellite photos showed Iran building an underground facility at the site, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.

Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003.

In July 2020, Natanz found itself targeted in sabotage that blew up a centrifuge assembly building. In April 2021, a sabotage attack in its underground halls destroyed centrifuges. Iran since has begun building a new extension to Natanz in a nearby mountain, likely to further harden the site.

Israel, also suspected in the killing of a scientist who found Iran’s nuclear military program, has hinted it carried out the Natanz attacks.

The camera installation comes as efforts to restore the nuclear deal, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment for the lifting of economic sanctions, appear deadlocked over an Iranian demand for America to delist the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

Despite repeated Iranian claims that a separate deal would see billions of dollars in assets unfrozen, the State Department reiterated that no deal is imminent on either a prisoner swap or the nuclear deal.

“Our partners have not released these restricted funds to Iran, nor has the United States authorized or approved any such transfer of restricted funds to Iran,” the State Department said late Wednesday.

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“If there’s an explosion, that’s the end for everyone,” Zelensky said.

By World Israel News Staff and Associated Press

The Russian military seized Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant on Friday morning after a massive fire was extinguished.

“Operational personnel are monitoring the condition of power units,” the country’s State Emergency Service said on social media.

“Russian tanks are equipped with thermal imagers, they know where to shoot,” Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky stated, indicating that the plant was intentionally targeted.

“If there’s an explosion, that’s the end for everyone,” he said.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that a state has resorted to nuclear terror,” he added.

Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said he was “deeply concerned with the situation.”

I’m deeply concerned with situation at #Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Spoke with #Ukraine PM Denys Shmygal; @IAEAorg‘s monitoring and in close contact with #Ukraine‘s nuclear regulator and operator. I appeal to parties to refrain from actions that can put NPPs in danger.

— Rafael MarianoGrossi (@rafaelmgrossi) March 4, 2022

Grossi said that the building hit was a training center and “not part of the reactor,” and that the Ukrainians are still in control of the reactor.

“What we understand that this projectile is coming from the Russian forces. We do not have details of what kind of projectile it is.”

Grossi said there has been no release of radiation and that the fire had been extinguished. Two people on the site were injured in the fire.

Only one reactor at the plant is operating, at about 60%, he said.

Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator concurred that no changes in radiation levels have been recorded so far . But it caused worldwide concern — and evoked memories of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, at Ukraine’s Chernobyl.

The shelling of the plant came as the Russian military advanced on a strategic city on the Dnieper River near where the facility is located, and gained ground in their bid to cut the country off from the sea. That move would deal a severe blow to Ukraine’s economy and could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.

With the invasion in its second week, another round of talks between Russia and Ukraine yielded a tentative agreement to set up safe corridors to evacuate citizens and deliver humanitarian aid to the country. A handful cities are without heat and at least one is struggling to get food and water.

“The real threat to Ukrainian lives continues to be the violent invasion and bombing of their country,” the American Nuclear Society said in a statement.

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“You cannot put the genie back into the bottle,” warned the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Rafael Grossi.

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Besides surpassing the purity and stockpiles allowed, Iran has also been spinning advanced centrifuges and producing uranium metal.

By Associated Press

Iran officially started restricting international inspections of its nuclear facilities Tuesday, a bid to pressure European countries and President Joe Biden’s administration to lift crippling economic sanctions and restore the 2015 nuclear deal.

World powers slammed the restrictions as a “dangerous” move.

It came as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in a confidential document distributed to member countries and seen by The Associated Press that Iran had added 17.6 kilograms (38.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 20% to its stockpile as of Feb. 16.

It was the first official confirmation of plans Iran announced in January to enrich to the greater purity, which is just a technical step away from weapons-grade levels and far past the 3.67% purity allowed under the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

Iran also increased its total enriched uranium stockpile to 2,967.8 kilograms (6,542.9 pounds), up from 2,442.9 kilograms (5,385.7 pounds) reported on Nov. 2, the IAEA reported.

Iran’s violations of the JCPOA and the move Tuesday to limit international inspections underscore the daunting task facing Biden as he seeks to reverse former President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the deal in 2018. That left Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia struggling to keep it alive.

The JCPOA was the most significant pact between Iran and major world powers since its 1979 Islamic revolution, and Germany, France and Britain stressed their commitment Tuesday to preserving it, urging Iran to “stop and reverse all measures that reduce transparency.”

“The E3 are united in underlining the dangerous nature of this decision,” the European powers said in a statement. “It will significantly constrain the IAEA’s access to sites and to safeguards-relevant information.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a new law had gone into effect Tuesday morning, under which Iran will no longer share surveillance footage of its nuclear facilities with the U.N. agency.

“We never gave them live video, but (recordings) were given daily and weekly,” Zarif said of the IAEA’s access to information recorded by camera monitors. “The tape recording of our (nuclear) program will be kept in Iran.”

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Tehran’s civilian nuclear agency, has promised to preserve the tapes for three months, then hand them over to the IAEA — but only if granted sanctions relief. Otherwise, Iran has vowed to erase the tapes, narrowing the window for a diplomatic breakthrough.

Since Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA, Iran has gradually been violating its restrictions to put pressures on the remaining nations to come up with economic incentives to offset crippling American sanctions.

Besides surpassing the purity and stockpiles allowed, Iran has also been spinning advanced centrifuges and producing uranium metal.

Zarif stressed in a tweet Tuesday that Iran’s new limits on nuclear inspections and other violations of the pact are reversible, insisting that the U.S. move first to revive the deal.

In a show of defiance, Cabinet spokesman Ali Rabiei outlined further developments in Iran’s nuclear program on Tuesday. Over the last three weeks, he told reporters, Iran has installed and started feeding gas into an additional 148 high-tech IR2-m centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear enrichment facility and its fortified nuclear complex at Fordo, bringing the total number of centrifuges to up to 492. Another set of 492 centrifuges will be installed in the coming month, he said.

He added that Iran has installed two cascades of even more advanced centrifuges at its nuclear enrichment facilities, but did not specify where.

On Monday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also signaled Iran would refuse to capitulate to U.S. pressure over its nuclear program. Khamenei said that Iran could enrich uranium up to 60% purity if necessary, but stressed the country forbids nuclear weapons. Tehran has long insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, such as power generation and medical research, despite evidence to the contrary produced by Israel.

Before the nuclear deal, in 2013, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was already more than 7,000 kilograms (7.72 tons) with higher enrichment.

The Biden administration has said it’s ready to join talks with Iran and world powers to discuss a return to the deal. Zarif responded to the overture cautiously Tuesday, saying Iran is “assessing the idea of an unofficial meeting” with the parties to the accord “in which America is invited as a non-member.”

In further diplomatic moves, the new U.S. administration rescinded the Trump-imposed U.N. sanctions and eased restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats posted to the United Nations.

Rabiei praised the steps on Tuesday but threw cold water on hopes for a swift revival of the deal.

“While we consider this as putting America on a constructive path, we see (the steps) as extremely insufficient,” he said.

Before Iran implemented its new restrictions on IAEA inspections, the agency’s director-general, Rafael Grossi, negotiated a temporary deal during an emergency weekend trip to Tehran. It allowed him to keep the same number of inspectors on the ground.

In the report to members, the IAEA said the understanding would enable the agency to continue with its necessary JCPOA verification and monitoring activities for three months.

It added it would also “enable the agency to resume its full verification and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA if and when Iran resumes its implementation of those commitments

The IAEA also said it was still awaiting answers from Iran on three sites where inspections had revealed traces of uranium of man-made origin

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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the IAEA would be prevented from accessing footage from their cameras at nuclear sites.

By Associated Press

Iran will begin to offer United Nations inspectors “less access” to its nuclear program as part of its pressure campaign on the West, though investigators will still be able to monitor Tehran’s work, the U.N. atomic watchdog’s chief said Sunday.

Rafael Grossi’s comments came after an emergency trip to Iran in which he said the International Atomic Energy Agency reached a “technical understanding” with Tehran to continue to allow monitoring of its nuclear program for up to three months. But his remarks to journalists underlined the belligerence of Iran, which is already enriching and stockpiling uranium at levels far beyond those allowed by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“The hope of the IAEA has been to stabilize a situation which was very unstable,” Grossi said at the airport after his arrival back in Vienna, where the agency is based. “I think this technical understanding does it so that other political consultations at other levels can take place and most importantly we can avoid a situation in which we would have been, in practical terms, flying blind.”

Grossi, the IAEA’s director general, offered few specifics of the agreement he had reached with Iranian leaders. He said the number of inspectors on the ground would remain the same but that “what changes is the type of activity” the agency was able to carry out, without elaborating further. He stressed monitoring would continue “in a satisfactory manner.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who under President Hassan Rouhani helped reach the atomic accord, said the IAEA would be prevented from accessing footage from their cameras at nuclear sites. That came during a state TV interview Sunday even before his meeting with Grossi.

“This is not a deadline for the world. This is not an ultimatum,” Zarif told the government-run, English-language broadcaster Press TV. “This is an internal domestic issue between the parliament and the government.”

“We have a democracy. We are supposed to implement the laws of the country. And the parliament adopted legislation — whether we like it or not.”

Zarif’s comments marked the highest-level acknowledgement yet of what Iran planned to do when it stopped following the so-called “Additional Protocol,” a confidential agreement between Tehran and the IAEA reached as part of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. The IAEA has additional protocols with a number of countries it monitors.

Under the protocol with Iran, the IAEA “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” the agency said in 2017. The agency also said then that it had placed “2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment.”

In his interview, Zarif said authorities would be “required by law not to provide the tapes of those cameras.” It wasn’t immediately clear if that also meant the cameras would be turned off entirely as Zarif called that a “technical decision, that’s not a political decision.”

“The IAEA certainly will not get footage from those cameras,” Zarif said.

Grossi didn’t address Zarif’s camera remarks Sunday night, but stressed that European and U.S. leaders needed to salvage the situation through negotiations.

“What we have agreed is something that is viable. It is useful to bridge this gap,” Grossi said. “It salvages this situation now, but, of course, for a stable, sustainable situation there will have to be a political negotiation and that is not up to me.”

There are 18 nuclear facilities and nine other locations in Iran under IAEA safeguards.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. unilaterally out of the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, saying it needed to be renegotiated.

Even as Iran has backed away from restrictions of the deal since then to put pressure on the other signatories — Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China — to provide new economic incentives to offset U.S. sanctions, those countries have insisted it’s critical to keep the deal alive so that inspectors are able to continue to verify Iran’s nuclear activities.

From Washington, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden remained willing to negotiate with Iran over a return to the nuclear deal, an offer earlier dismissed by Zarif.

“He is prepared to go to the table to talk to the Iranians about how we get strict constraints back on their nuclear program,” Sullivan told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “That offer still stands, because we believe diplomacy is the best way to do it.”

On U.S. citizens being held by Iran, Sullivan added: “We have begun to communicate with the Iranians on this issue.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told state TV late Sunday night responding to Sullivan that “there are no direct talks between Iran and the U.S. in any field.” However, Khatibzadeh said the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which has looked out for American interests in the decades since the 1979 hostage crisis, has passed messages between the countries on prisoner issues since Biden took office.

Grossi met earlier Sunday with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

Iran’s parliament in December approved a bill that would suspend part of U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities if European signatories do not provide relief from oil and banking sanctions by Tuesday.

Already, Iran has slowly walked away from all the nuclear deal’s limitations on its stockpile of uranium and has begun enriching up 20%, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels. It also has begun spinning advanced centrifuges barred by the deal, which saw Iran limit its program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Iranian escalations since the U.S.’ withdrawal has threatened the wider Mideast. Over a year ago, a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general. Tehran launched ballistic missiles that wounded dozens of American troops in Iraq.

A mysterious explosion also struck Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, which Iran has described as sabotage. In November, Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who founded the country’s military nuclear program some two decades earlier, was killed in an attack Tehran blames on Israel.

Zarif brought up the attacks in his interview with state TV, saying the IAEA must keep some of its information confidential for safety reasons.

“Some of them may have security ramifications for Iran, whose peaceful nuclear sites have been attacked,” Zarif said. “For a country whose nuclear scientists have been murdered in terrorist operations in the past — and now recently with Mr. Fakhrizadeh — confidentiality is essential.”

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Iranian official announces additional enrichment of uranium in violation of international obligations.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

A senior Iranian official said Tuesday that additional centrifuges have been installed, enriching even more uranium than is allowed and effectively increasing Iran’s violation of the nuclear deal.

“Thanks to our diligent nuclear scientists, two cascades of 348 IR2m centrifuges with almost 4 times the capacity of IR1 are now running with UF6 successfully in Natanz. Installation of 2 cascades of IR6 centrifuges has also been started in Fordow. There’s more to come soon,” tweeted Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, home to the world body’s nuclear watchdog agency the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Last month, Iran started enriching uranium to levels that European leaders have said could only be used for producing nuclear weapons.

Iran took the move apparently to increase pressure on the new administration of President Joe Biden to force the U.S. to return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear deal, that President Trump withdrew from in 2018, reimposing harsh economic sanctions on the regime in Tehran.

Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that the government justified the increased enrichment because of the U.S. “delay in fulfilling their obligations under the agreement, Iran began steps under IAEA oversight to reduce its obligations” under the JCPOA.

Interviewed on CNN Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif repeated Iran’s demand that the U.S. first re-enter the nuclear deal before Iran would take any steps away from its accelerated pace of purifying uranium that is widely perceived as having only military use.

“U.S. should return to compliance. Iran will then immediately reverse remedial measures,” Zarif said.

In New York, the spokesman for Iran’s mission to the UN, Alireza Miryousefi, reiterated that Iran would not discuss any other issues or demands before a full American return to the nuclear agreement, saying “our defensive missile program is not up for negotiation.”

“The time for the United States to come back to the nuclear agreement is not unlimited,” Miryousefi said. “The United States has a limited window of opportunity, because President Biden does not want to portray himself as trying to take advantage of the failed policies of the former Trump administration.”

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“Iranians continue to enrich uranium, and to a much higher degree than they have committed themselves to,” says nuclear watchdog agency.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

The head of the international nuclear watchdog agency says Iran is enriching uranium at a levels beyond which the Iranians themselves had planned, a published report said Saturday.

“The Iranians continue to enrich uranium, and to a much higher degree than they have committed themselves to. And this amount is growing by the month,” the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said in an interview published in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse and reported by Reuters.

Grossi said the IAEA does not think that Iran currently has enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon, but was evasive when asked about the “breakout time” Iran would need to get enough military grade uranium for an atomic bomb.

“In the IAEA we do not talk about breakout time,” Grossi said. “We look at the significant quantity, the minimum amount of enriched uranium or plutonium needed to make an atomic bomb. Iran does not have this significant quantity at the moment.”

In June, the IAEA reported that Iran has exponentially increased its enriched uranium stockpile and was not allowing international inspectors to check suspected nuclear sites in the country.

Iran claims its nuclear program is purely peaceful, but the Iranians have a long history of lying to the IAEA and refusing to cooperate. For years, IAEA reports on Iran documented Iranian refusal to allow inspections at its nuclear facilities to the point that the UN watchdog agency said Iranian actions “seriously undermined the Agency’s ability to conduct effective verification.”

Leading up to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the late IAEA director Yukiya Amano repeatedly warned that his agency was “not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

Two years into the deal, Amano admitted that the IAEA did not have all the tools to totally ensure that Iran was complying. Critics of the deal pointed out that Iran refused to give the IAEA access to military sites and demanded advanced notice of “surprise inspections,” rendering them useless.

The terms of the nuclear deal demanded that Iran provide a full history of its work in the nuclear field. Iran stonewalled the IAEA over requests to inspect two sites where suspected nuclear-related work was carried out in the early 2000s but never declared by the country’s mullahs.

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One day after Iran announced it’s continuing to break from the 2015 nuclear deal, the United Nations’ Cornel Feruta arrived in Tehran to meet with officials from the Islamic Republic.

By World Israel News Staff

The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sent its acting director, Cornel Feruta, to Tehran on Sunday, just one day after Iran announced it is taking further steps to breach the nuclear agreement it signed in 2015 in concert with major Western powers.

According to the semi-official ISNA news agency, Feruta will meet with several of Iran’s highest ranking officials, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, National Security Secretary Ali Shamkhani, and Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi.

Iran’s latest step in breaking the nuclear deal reportedly consists of operating 20 IR-4 and 20 IR-6 advanced centrifuges, in violation of the 2015 agreement, Times of Israel reported.

While Feruta’s presence was characterized as part of its “ongoing interaction” with Tehran to monitor Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear pact, the visit occurs against the backdrop of escalating Iranian aggression in international shipping lanes, Tehran’s open support for terror proxy armies across the region, and Iran’s decision to breach key obligations under the nuclear deal.

Since the United States withdrew from the agreement, Iran has taken a number of steps to breach the deal, including increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium in July beyond the agreement’s 300-kilogram limit and exceeding the agreement’s uranium enrichment limit of 3.67 percent.

On August 30, the IAEA claimed it is continuing to monitor compliance through cameras and on-site inspections. However, Iran regularly declares its ability to break the accord, unless Europe furnishes the economic relief it demands.

Also, The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing diplomats as its source,  that “Iran is stifling a United Nations probe of its alleged storage of nuclear equipment and radioactive material in Tehran.”

On Monday, the IAEA board of governors is scheduled to convene its quarterly meeting in Vienna, at which the Iranian nuclear program will be a key item on the agenda.

The 2015 agreement left Iran flush with cash and other forms of economic relief, in exchange for its assent to permit international monitors to inspect Iranian nuclear facilities.

In the past, Israel has gathered and presented evidence to the international community demonstrating that Iran seeks nuclear weapons and that its “peaceful” nuclear activities provide cover for its military strategies. Iran routinely calls for Israel’s destruction and arms and funds Palestinian terror groups that pursue this aim.

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International nuclear agency assailed for ignoring critical Israeli intelligence as it praises Iranian ‘cooperation’ with 2015 nuclear deal.

By The Algemeiner

A prominent think tank has criticized the report published this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirming the Tehran regime’s continuing compliance with the JCPOA — the watershed nuclear deal on the country’s illicit nuclear program reached in July 2015, but decertified by the US in May this year as part of President Donald Trump’s new offensive against Iran’s Islamist rulers.

The Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security — a private think tank that houses several nuclear weapons experts, including former senior IAEA inspectors — said on its Twitter feed that Monday’s IAEA report on Iran made “no mention of its receipt of or efforts to investigate the nuclear archive seized from Tehran, despite its mandate to investigate new information relevant to possible military dimensions as it arises.”

The IAEA tweet was a reference to the revelations earlier this year by Israeli intelligence agencies about “Project Amad” — a covert nuclear program that the Iranian regime ran between 1999 and 2003. Details of Iran’s attempts over that period to weaponize its covert nuclear program were presented to the international community by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May and, more recently, at the UN General Assembly in New York in September.

In his speech at the UN, Netanyahu called on Yukiya Amano — the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — to dispatch IAEA inspectors to what Israel had identified as “a secret atomic warehouse in Tehran for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.”

“Go and inspect this atomic warehouse immediately before the Iranians clean it out,” Netanyahu urged the IAEA chief in his UN speech. “While you’re at it, inspect the other sites. Once and for all, tell the world the truth about Iran.”

IAEA: ‘Timely and proactive cooperation’

Monday’s IAEA report, however, asserted that the agency had accessed all the sites in Iran that it needed to visit. IAEA inspectors confirmed Iran had kept within the limits of heavy water and low-enriched uranium stockpiles set by the 2015 nuclear deal.

“Timely and proactive cooperation by Iran in providing such access facilitates implementation of the additional protocol and enhances confidence,” the IAEA report stated, referring to the procedure detailing safeguards and tools for verification.

But that claim was also criticized by the Institute for Science and International Security, which accused the IAEA of “failing to mention how exactly it is implementing Section T, given that it recently failed to act on information that Iran was moving relevant equipment from a warehouse identified by Israel.”

“Section T” refers to a set of key paragraphs in an appendix to the JCPOA that governs Iranian “activities that could lead to the design and development of an explosive nuclear device.” Under the terms of that section of the deal, Iran agreed to refrain from all activities relating to nuclear weapons design.

The IAEA’s latest decision to award Iran a clean bill of health was portrayed in Iran’s official media as a sign that the robust sanctions imposed by the US on Nov. 5 were not being adhered to by America’s allies and partners, five of whom remain parties to the nuclear agreement.

“The other parties to the JCPOA have repeatedly announced that the deal is working and should stay in place,” Press TV — the Tehran regime’s English-language mouthpiece — stated on Monday. It further claimed that “Britain, Germany and France have been scrambling to shield companies from the effects of new US sanctions and protect Iranian oil revenues.”

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Iran called for global nuclear disarmament at the United Nations on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Iran indicated that the framework nuclear agreement with the P5+1 would not give UN nuclear inspectors access to military sites. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is up for review in three weeks.

At a meeting of the UN Disarmament Commission, Iranian deputy UN ambassador Gholam Hossein Dehghani accused the global powers of failing to make progress on nuclear disarmament. As a non-nuclear state and NPT signatory, Iran believes that the current process is too slow, he said.

Dehghani suggested that a “comprehensive, binding, irreversible, verifiable” treaty would provide the framework necessary to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He further noted the wide support for a 2013 proposal by the Nonaligned Movement to negotiate a final deadline for eliminating nuclear weapons.

Iran’s proposal came mere hours after the country refuted media reports indicating that IAEA inspectors would have access to Iranian military sites in order to ensure that it was not developing nuclear weapons. “No such agreement has been reached and basically, visiting military centers are among the red lines, and no visit to these centers will be allowed,” said Brigadier General Hossein Dehgan on behalf of the Ministry of Defense. He described reports to the contrary as “lies” and “deceits,” adding, “The determination of the nuclear negotiating team of the Islamic Republic of Iran is so that it will not allow anything be imposed on the Iranian nation.”

Russia: US is Stoking Nuclear Arms Race

Russia, meanwhile, blamed the United States for stoking a nuclear arms race by positioning missile defense systems in countries that would be threatened by Russia or Iran. Olga Kuznetsova, a counselor at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said Tuesday that states pursuing anti-missile capabilities must be careful not to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other states. She added that the development of high-precision, non-nuclear weapons disrupts the “strategic parity” between the US and Russia and could lead to “global destabilization.”

Iran’s proposal comes just days after a nuclear framework agreement was made between Iran and the P5+1. US President Barack Obama admitted that the deal leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact and that by the time the agreement is ready to expire, breakout time to a nuclear weapon will be practically zero.

By Lauren Calin, United with Israel

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