Mideast tensions ratchet up as US orders partial evacuation of Iraq embassy

In a statement delivered at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, the EU said Iran’s nuclear trajectory poses serious proliferation risks and accused Tehran of gaining irreversible knowledge through its expanding uranium enrichment program.

“The risk of a nuclear proliferation crisis in the region is increasing as a result of Iran’s escalating nuclear trajectory," the statement read.

“Iran’s unabated nuclear advances over the last five years are of utmost concern,” the EU said. “These actions have no credible civilian justification and carry very significant proliferation-related risks.”

Citing the IAEA’s latest report, the EU said that Iran is now producing more than one Significant Quantity of uranium enriched to 60% each month. A "significant quantity" of highly enriched uranium is defined by the agency as the amount of nuclear material where the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive cannot be excluded.

Iran is currently stockpiling 60-percent enriched uranium, which can be quickly refined to the 90% threshold required for nuclear weapons. Estimates suggest Iran could achieve this level within weeks.

Iranian officials are vocal about weapons, EU warns

The EU further warned that former Iranian officials have made public statements about the country having all capabilities to assemble a nuclear weapon, deepening suspicions about Tehran’s intentions.

"The statements made by former high-level Iranian officials about Iran having all capabilities to assemble a nuclear weapon raise grave concerns about Iran’s intentions,” the EU said without elaborating. “Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state to produce and accumulate highly enriched uranium in significantly increased amounts.”

In the past few years, Iranian officials have become increasingly explicit about the country’s readiness to produce nuclear weapons and the potential abandonment of its long-standing opposition to them.

Islamic Republic officials say that according to a fatwa (Islamic decree) by the Supreme Leader, the construction of an atomic bomb is not on Tehran's agenda. Experts note such rulings can be reversed.

Kamal Kharrazi, a senior advisor to Ali Khamenei and head of the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, said on several occasions that Iran “already has the technical capabilities to produce weapons” and would revise its military doctrine if faced with an existential threat.

His remarks in November followed similar statements by former nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi, who said Iran has crossed all technological thresholds needed for a bomb.

Parliamentarian Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani explicitly urged the decision-makers to escalate enrichment and begin weapon production, arguing further sanctions are unlikely to change Iran’s strategic calculus.

Calls for weaponization have also emerged on media affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards amid rising regional tensions.

Iran’s cooperation with IAEA

The EU also condemned Iran’s decision to cease implementation of monitoring measures under the 2015 nuclear deal and to remove IAEA surveillance equipment, actions that it said have irreparably disrupted oversight.

“The agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the production and current inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water and uranium concentrate, which it will not be possible to restore. This has detrimental implications for the agency’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” the EU said.

While expressing support for a diplomatic solution, the EU urged Iran to reverse course and return to compliance with its nuclear-related commitments.

“We strongly urge Iran to return to the provisional implementation of the Additional Protocol, to ratify it, and to resume implementation of all JCPOA-related verification measures.”

The EU also called on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA and expressed support for Director General Rafael Grossi’s efforts to re-establish monitoring access. “Timely and full cooperation with the IAEA remains absolutely crucial,” the EU said.

The statement was endorsed by multiple European countries, including Norway, Ukraine, and North Macedonia.

The EU also requested that the IAEA’s latest report on Iran be made public.

Iran should implement NPT additional protocol, US says

Later in the session, the United States also called on Iran to halt its accelerating nuclear activities, warning that its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade levels lacks any credible civilian justification and raises serious proliferation concerns.

US chargé d’affaires Howard Solomon said the IAEA's latest report makes clear that Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state enriching uranium to 60%, a level with no valid civilian purpose.

“Iran continues to accelerate its nuclear activities without any credible civilian justification,” Solomon told the Board of Governors. “The Director General’s report is an impartial statement of verifiable facts.”

“Iran now has a clear opportunity to build confidence… by implementing the Additional Protocol, not limiting inspections,” Solomon said.

The Additional Protocol to Iran's Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreement, signed in 2003, granted the UN watchdog broader rights of access and more detailed information on Iran's nuclear activities.

Although Iran never formally ratified it, it implemented the Additional Protocol from 2003 to 2006 before announcing it would no longer do so. In January 2016, Iran resumed provisional implementation of the Protocol in line with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.

However, in February 2021, Iran suspended its implementation—at the direction of its parliament— nearly three years after Trump pulled out of the accord and adopted its so-called maximum pressure sanctions.

Washington voiced its commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, with Solomon saying that the US is “negotiating in good faith” toward a diplomatic resolution.

“This path forward starts with Iran ceasing its escalatory nuclear activities,” Solomon said.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said the desert zone, now designated a restricted military area, hosts the core of what it called the Kavir Plan—a successor to the earlier Amad project.

The United States accused Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon as part of the shadowy Amad Project scrapped before 2004, an effort Washington says was overseen by Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND).

“Development, testing and nuclear weapons activities (are) hidden deep in the desert, under intense security measures,” the group’s spokesperson said at a press conference in Washington DC.

The announcement came as Tehran and Washington are negotiating over Iran's nuclear program to reach a deal to curb the program in return for the lifting of sanctions.

Washington has assessed that Iran is not building nuclear weapons and its Supreme Leader has not approved them but recent discourse in Tehran urging the acquisition a bomb is emboldening advocates for such a move.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Iranian negotiators have become “much more aggressive” in recent weeks, confirming nonetheless that the sixth round of talks would take place this week.

Kavir Plan

NCRI’s leading faction, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), said it had obtained new evidence from inside Iran.

MeK spokesperson Alireza Jafarzadeh said the Kavir Plan involves at least six sites in Semnan province—Shahrud, Eyvanaki, Semnan, Sanjarian, Sorkheh Hesar and Parchin site in coordination with the SPND headquarters in Tehran—all directed by the Ministry of Defense and Revolutionary Guards.

“The Kavir Plan is not just a replacement for the Amad Plan, but it’s a more advanced, more sophisticated and more secure plan than the original one,” Jafarzadeh said.

According to NCRI, SPND serves as the coordinating body for Kavir activities. SPND was named in a 2011 IAEA report and sanctioned by the US in 2014 for proliferation efforts.

Jafarzadeh said over 400 nuclear specialists have been transferred from Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization to SPND operations under the Defense Ministry.

Among the sites, Shahrud was identified as a launch complex for Ghiam-100 solid-fuel missiles, allegedly disguised as a satellite facility. Sanjarian focused on explosive bridge wire (EBW) detonators—components critical for weaponizing a bomb, the opposition group added.

Iran has repeatedly denied pursuing nuclear weapons, dismissing MeK reports as fabrications.

"Building nuclear warheads"

The NCRI maintains that the Kavir Plan mirrors the Amad Plan’s goals—specifically, building five nuclear warheads designed for Shahab-3 missiles.

In 2002, the NCRI revealed for the first time a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Arak. In 2003, the group also disclosed the Lavizan-Shian Technological Research Center in northeastern Tehran as an undeclared nuclear site.

The Lavizan-Shian site was cited again in the UN nuclear watchdog’s May 2025 report for noncompliance and the presence of undeclared nuclear material.

Shayan Samiee, a national security expert, said the new report would heighten political pressure.

“I doubt that the intelligence and security apparatus of the US and Europe had no clue about this information. Surely they did,” he told Iran International TV.

“This report will put pressure on the House and Senate to push President Trump to either shut down negotiations with Iran or adopt a tougher stance.”

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it had acquired sensitive documents linked to Israel’s nuclear program.

Tehran warned it will use those files to hit Israel’s clandestine nuclear facilities if the Jewish state attacks Iran.

Khalid Al-Islambuli was a member of the Egyptian military who was executed after leading the assassination of Sadat during a military parade in Cairo.

The street in northern Tehran was named after Islambuli in the early 1980s, drawing repeated protests from Cairo and contributing to strained ties. Egyptian officials have long viewed the gesture as a provocation and a major obstacle to normalization.

The decision to rename the street was announced on Tuesday by Tehran's City Council.

"Following coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the street naming committee has discussed the renaming of Khalid Al-Islambuli Street, also known as 'Vozara', and several replacement suggestions have been put forward," the Council's spokesman said.

While no particular name has been announced yet, the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim says Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, is among the names being considered.

Thaw after 45 years

Tehran's decision to change the controversial street name comes after the Iranian foreign minister’s recent visit to Cairo, signaling progress toward healing one of the region's deepest rifts, which has lingered from the 1979 Revolution in Iran and Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Relations between the Sunni Muslim heavyweight and the Shi'ite theocracy has been in a deep freeze ever since.

Following Araghchi’s June 2 meeting with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the top Iranian envoy himself wrote in an Arabic post on X that diplomacy between Iran and Egypt had entered a new phase.

Egypt is a close US ally and maintains official relations with Israel. For Iran, mending the 45-year rift with Egypt could signal a softening of its revolutionary-era, anti-American posture.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini famously called for the Egyptian people to rise up and overthrow Anwar Sadat after he normalized ties with Israel.

It would also send a strong message across the region that longstanding hostilities and rivalries can give way to cooperation.

"We can seize the initiative to optimize our posture to defend the Homeland, strengthen our economic outlook, take back our right to freedom of navigation, and sustain the upper hand against an increasingly desperate Iran," US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Army General Michael Kurilla said.

"Iranian leadership understands their acute vulnerability, and the precision of Israel’s response demonstrates that Iran will remain critically exposed to future Israeli operations, even if their former defenses are reconstituted," Kurilla said in a statement to the US House Armed Services Committee.

Israel launched air strikes on Iran in October in response to a missile attack on its soil, in an operation it said knocked out Iranian air defenses and missile production capacity.

"Significantly weakened, Iran finds itself with fewer options," Kurilla added. "In addition to an active chemical weapons program, there is one remaining pillar the Regime may consider its best chance at restoring deterrence and imposing its will on the Region – the threat of developing a nuclear weapon."

The US intelligence community assesses that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon nor has such a move been authorized by its Supreme Leader yet but that a taboo on discussing the bomb in public discourse was eroding.

Iran's proxies in Middle East

Kurilla said Tehran's attempt to capitalize on the Palestinian armed group Hamas's attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 has largely failed after serial military setbacks.

"After Hamas's attack on Israel, Iran operationalized its entire proxy network and arsenal of standoff capabilities – two pillars of their strategic approach – in pursuit of one goal: to seize a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the region to its advantage."

Iran's losses could be the United States' gain, Kurilla suggested, without mentioning any specific course of action.

"We now have an unprecedented opportunity to advance the vision of a
prosperous and integrated Middle East in which US national interests are advanced
and Iran’s violent attempts to upend this peaceful order are defeated."

“During his police interrogation, it became clear that Iranian officials had recently contacted the minor, a resident of Tel Aviv, via the Telegram app, and asked him to perform several tasks in exchange for a sum of money,” a statement said on Tuesday.

The case mirrors dozens of others uncovered since the Gaza war, involving the arrests of Israelis for what the state alleges are Iranian-backed plots, some with aims to assassinate top military and political figures.

Suspects are recruited via social media, initially offered payment for seemingly innocuous tasks like spraying graffiti, then progressed to more serious activities, including intelligence gathering on the country's nuclear and defense facilities.

“The minor … sprayed graffiti in the Tel Aviv area and in return received sums of money. In addition, the minor was asked to photograph the Iron Dome system, but ultimately did not carry out this task," the police added.

He is now under house arrest.

Oded Ailam, a former head of counter-terrorism at Mossad, said that the legal system’s failings are making the deterrence strategy for Israel more challenging amid a wave of plots in the country.

“The Shin Bet does impressive work uncovering and thwarting these plots time and again. But once a case reaches the courtroom, the system falters. Weak evidence claims, outdated legal frameworks, and lenient sentencing all contribute to a breakdown in deterrence,” he wrote in a paper for the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

“Today’s espionage doesn’t involve trench coats and dead drops, it happens on Facebook, paid in dollars. Yet the legal response still treats it like a relic of another era.”