Iran's Nuclear Enrichment Advances As It Stonewalls UN Watchdog
Iran has enough uranium enriched to up to 60% for three atom bombs and is still stonewalling the agency on key issues, confidential IAEA reports showed on Wednesday.
Iran has enough uranium enriched to up to 60% for three atom bombs and is still stonewalling the agency on key issues, confidential IAEA reports showed on Wednesday.
Iran's stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% grew by 6.7 kg (14.8 pounds) to 128.3 kg (282.9 pounds) since the last report on September 4, one of the two reports to member states seen by Reuters said. That is more than three times the roughly 42 kg (92.6 pounds) that by the IAEA's definition is theoretically enough, if enriched further, for a nuclear bomb. Weapons-grade is around 90% purity.
In the second report issued on Tuesday, the agency said there still had been no progress on two pressing issues in Iran: getting more monitoring equipment re-installed after it was removed at Tehran's behest last year and getting answers on the origin of uranium particles found at two undeclared sites.
It is the second time in a row that the IAEA's quarterly reports have said there was no progress on either issue.
Negotiation since April 2021 to revive the Obama-era JCPOA nuclear deal have failed to make progress, and Iran continues to expand its nuclear program. The previous US administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and imposed harsh economic sanctions. Iran retaliated by starting to violate the JCPOA limits and substantially increased both the quantity and the quality of its uranium enrichment. It also reduced monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran did not agree to a compromise plan proposed by the European Union in 2022 to revive the agreement, despite the Biden administration’s stated goal of finding a diplomatic solution.
There also had been no progress in getting Iran to reverse its so-called "de-designation" in September of some IAEA inspectors assigned to the country.
The move effectively barred some inspectors, who diplomats said were from France and Germany and the IAEA said were among its most experienced experts, from working in Iran.
Tehran's move, which the IAEA called "disproportionate and unprecedented", was in response to a call on Iran by the United States, France, Britain and Germany at the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors to give credible explanations on the uranium particles and let the IAEA install more surveillance cameras. In fact, the Western powers did not pursue any censure of Iran as expected, and simply issued a rebuke.
"This measure, while formally permitted... was exercised by Iran in a manner that directly and seriously affects the Agency's ability to conduct effectively its verification activities in Iran, in particular at the enrichment facilities," the second IAEA report said.
"The (IAEA) Director General (Rafael Grossi) continues to strongly condemn Iran's sudden withdrawal of the designations of several experienced Agency inspectors," it added.
Washington has informally relaxed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and allowed blocked funds in Iraq and South Korea to be released, but Tehran has shown no willingness to resolve the nuclear issue.
US officials and experts believe that having stockpiled enriched uranium, Iran can build a bomb in a matter of months. It can be considered as a nuclear threshold state.
With reporting by Reuters
The claims come as the world’s eyes are on Tehran, which has long funded the group designated a terror organization by the likes of the UK and US. Tehran has also provided military, technical and operational support to Hamas for years.
According to Reuters, three sources have claimed that “Iran's supreme leader delivered a clear message to the head of Hamas when they met in Tehran in early November … You gave us no warning of your Oct. 7 attack on Israel and we will not enter the war on your behalf.”
This message apparently delivered by three regime officials contradicts a string of meetings between the top echelons of the Islamic Republic and leaders of both Hamas and Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, over the course of this year. This went as high up as the Supreme Leader when in April, Hamas announced that its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was visiting the Supreme Leader in Tehran.
Reuters claims that on this latest visit earlier this month, “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Ismail Haniyeh that Iran -- a longtime backer of Hamas -- would continue to lend the group its political and moral support, but wouldn't intervene directly.”
As soon as war broke out, the US voiced its support of Israel, sending warships and personnel to the region, fearing a wider escalation with Iran at the helm.
Iranian officials have repeatedly made the claim that they were not involved in the terror attack, but the government immediately on October 7 praised the invasion and ordered street celebration, with large banners erected within hours.
Yet regime and Hamas sources speaking to Reuters claim “The supreme leader pressed Haniyeh to silence those voices in the Palestinian group publicly calling for Iran and its powerful Lebanese ally Hezbollah to join the battle against Israel in full force”.
While Hamas and Hezbollah leaders had met with increasing frequency in the lead up to the attack which was to be the most deadly single day for Jews since the Holocaust, with the murder of 1,200 mostly civilians and a further 240 taken hostage, regime insiders dispute Hezbollah also had knowledge of the devastating attack which was to take place.
“Hezbollah too, was taken by surprise by Hamas' devastating assault last month that killed 1,200 Israelis; its fighters were not even on alert in villages near the border that were frontlines in its 2006 war with Israel, and had to be rapidly called up,” Reuters reported.
One Hezbollah commander told the news agency, ”We woke up to a war”, in spite of multiple meetings in recent months.
The latest statements distancing himself from the war, which has seen Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen launch attacks on Israel, will shock the Supreme Leader’s domestic audience who have for years heard his cries of annihilating the Jewish state and his ‘final solution’.
On Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah has engaged in the heaviest clashes with Israel for almost 20 years, but has avoided a full-fledged war. Speaking to Israel Today, Middle East expert Professor Meir Litvak reiterated the final command of its proxies will always come from Khamenei.
“Khamenei detests Israel with all his heart and wishes for its destruction. He also did not hide his great joy at what happened to us. However, he is cautious. He does not want direct Iranian involvement, and it is very important to him that there be no Israeli hit inside Iran. That is why he is determined and sophisticated in using his proxies, Hezbollah for example, who will do the job,” he said.
“Khamenei had an opportunity on October 7, but he also has a historical vision, so he is not in a hurry to destroy Israel right now. His ideological view is that Israel's blood must be shed, brought to its collapse so that it will submit to Iran's demands and no longer exist as a Jewish state.”
In what appears to be the most coordinated attack since the regime was founded in 1979, it seems unlikely that Tehran has not been at least highly informed of operations at the highest levels. Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against A Nuclear Iran, noted the Reuters report’s sourcing. “It's Iran's regime and Axis of Resistance, so what they're telling Reuters is meant to protect Tehran. A lack of Iranian foreknowledge of October 7 is hard to believe,” he said.
"But Tehran not intervening directly, only through proxies, as well as Khamenei's frustration of Hamas operatives complaining about Iran's regime's support and requests to silence them are more believable,” he added.
Iran-backed proxies have even attacked US forces in Iraq and Syria, triggering fears of a full scale war. But as the US now enters discussions with Iran to unfreeze yet more funds, the likelihood is that Tehran knows it is the time to step back.
Last month, Iran’s foreign minister said that US officials had tried to discuss restarting nuclear talks but insisted Washington must first release $10 billion of Tehran's frozen funds as a sign of good will.
Indirect talks to revive the 2015 nuclear accord broke down in June and Iran has since rejected direct talks with the United States.
However, while Iran has billions of dollars of its frozen assets in foreign banks, mainly from exports of oil and gas, which it cannot access due to US sanctions on its banking and energy sectors, the war in Gaza and annihilation of Israel, may be lower down the list.
Earlier this year, the US unblocked $6bn from south Korea in exchange for the release of five dual-nationals held in Iran, a move which drew international condemnation fueling fears of its emboldening the regime and reinforcing its diplomatic hostage policy.
As Iran’s economy is on its knees and the world watches the number one sponsor of state terror, according to the US, and its next moves, it is perhaps playing a long game.
In the past week alone, there have been reports of the arrests of two female former political prisoners in Tehran, two female environmental activists and journalists as well as two female writers, and a female animals rights activist in Rasht, two male citizens in Izeh who participated in the anniversary ceremonies for two of last year’s protest victims – nine-year-old Kian Pir-Falak and sixteen-year-old Milad Saeedianjou – as well as the latter’s sister in the same city and several others elsewhere.
Security forces who raided the home of female journalist and former political prisoner Shaghayegh Moradi in Tehran on Monday morning seized some of her personal belongings and took her with them to her mother’s house to search the premises. It is not clear which security body is responsible for the arrest and where she is being kept.
Mahnaz Tarrah, former political prisoner, however, was violently arrested on the street and taken to a court stationed at Evin Prison.
Farzin Rezaei-Roshan, also a former political prisoner, who was with Tarrah at the time of her arrest said in a video he released on social media that he was violently assaulted by the over a dozen agents who arrested his friend.
Rezaei-Roshan who is seen in the video in bloodied clothes says the agents used tasers and broke his head before taking his friend away.
In Rasht, capital of the northern province of Gilan, writer Rozita Rajaei was arrested Saturday and journalists Nasim Tavafzadeh and Helaleh Nategheh were arrested two days later. Both journalists had carried out research and written extensively about waste management, a big environmental problem in the region.
Like most other cases, there is very little information on these arrests in Rasht, but writer Nina Golestani’s husband said in an Instagram post that his wife was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence organization on her way home from shopping.
Due to censorship regulations, the mainstream media in Iran do not report on the majority of dissidents’ and activists’ arrests, which often involve unnecessary violence and maltreatment as well as confiscation of computers and mobile phones of not only the person being arrested, but of all other members of the family.
Information including reason for arrest and place of detention is often withheld even from the families of detainees by the authorities.
Social media users, however, actively inform the public of the arrests the regime strives to hide from the public and its human rights violations.
Pressure has also been high on Sunnis and followers of the Baha’i and Yarsan (Ahl-i Haqq) faiths that the regime does not recognize and considers as heretical unlike Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism which have legal status in the Constitution.
The homes of the followers of the Baha’i faith, the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran, who have been persecuted since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 were raided in these cities by armed security agents last week with at least 19 people arrested and their personal belongings including electronic devices impounded.
The recent arrests have raised the number of Bahai’s arrested in the past month to at least 32 all of whom are still in prison.
The four members of the mystical Yarsan faith’s advisory council arrested in Kermanshah Province on Friday were reportedly freed after a few hours of interrogation but there is very little information on a Sunni cleric Abdulhakim Shahbakhsh who was arrested by security forces in Zahedan on November 8.