(November 30, 2021 / JNS) European diplomats said on Tuesday that if Iran does not demonstrate seriousness in nuclear negotiations with world powers this week, there will be a problem.

Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an expert on the Iran nuclear program, told JNS that “if Iran comes to talks with maximalist demands for sanctions relief and refuses to resume discussing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the P5+1 will quickly realize that Tehran’s game is one of extortion, and they could pivot to a united pressure front.”

The P5+1 is made up of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany.

Diplomats from France, Britain and France said on the sidelines of talks in Vienna that the issue of what to do with advanced centrifuges Iran is using to enrich uranium remains unresolved, reported Reuters.

Stricker said, “If Iran asks for massive sanctions relief in return for a limited nuclear deal, talks could drag on for months.”

The Biden foreign-policy team may accept a weaker deal than the JCPOA “simply to check a box on the Iran problem and move on,” she asserted.

Iran has made irreversible knowledge gains regarding higher enrichment, advanced centrifuges and uranium metal production, among others, continued Stricker.

Interestingly, she said it is increasingly likely that Tehran has decided that it can live without Western sanctions relief and is using talks as a cover to move closer to the nuclear threshold.

“If so, what we could be seeing is a slow-motion breakout,” she said.

Two unnamed Israeli officials told CNN in a report published Monday—confirming a story first reported by Axios—that Israel shared intelligence with U.S. officials recently that showed that Iran is preparing to enrich uranium up to 90 percent.

While the P5+1 focuses on debate, they could lose precious time to unite and stop Iran’s advances, noted Stricker: “Iran could be positioning itself so close to making nuclear weapons that if Tehran chose to break out, countries mighty be deterred from intervening.”

Furthermore, through current inaction at the IAEA Board of Governors and U.N. Security Council, and in the absence of multilateral sanctions, “the P5+1 are narrowing their options to military intervention or accepting a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Regarding the possibility of a military attack against Iran’s nuclear program, Stricker estimates it not as an easy target, and it is unlikely that strikes could end the program. Facilities, people and capabilities are widely dispersed.

‘Talks are achieving no desirable outcome’

Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, was pessimistic regarding the chances of a good result from the renewal of talks with Iran.

“We are on our own,” he stated starkly.

If Jerusalem chooses to strike, the situation could escalate dramatically and force Washington to consider intervening. Stricker sees Israeli sabotage of the nuclear program and alleged operations against infrastructure as middle ground.

For its part, Israel has been warning that it can make life very tough for the regime if Tehran continues its nuclear advances.

In a Twitter post on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett sent a message to the Western powers negotiating with Iran stating: “Don’t give in to nuclear blackmail.”

He went on to say in the video, “Iran won’t just keep its nuclear program. From today, they’ll be getting paid for it.”

A report by David Albright, Sarah Burkhard and Stricker for the Institute for Science and International Security said the IAEA’s latest report notes that Iran has enough enriched uranium enriched to nearly 20 and 60 percent to produce “a single nuclear weapon in as little as three weeks.”

“Even if Iran continues to permit the IAEA to service agency equipment, the verification process may now face such serious gaps that it is impossible to restore the IAEA’s continuity of knowledge of Iran’s nuclear activities, which is so vital to verification,” it stated.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said as much, warning that it would soon be unable to effectively monitor material produced at the factory in Karaj because of a lack of access.

As Inbar summed up: “The talks are achieving no desirable outcome and serve as no more than a debate club.”

Source: https://www.jns.org/we-are-on-our-own-israel-plans-action-against-iran-as-world-stalls-on-nukes/

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This Friday, July 3, 2020 satellite image from Planet Labs Inc. that has been annotated by experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury Institute of International Studies shows a damaged building after a fire and explosion at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site. (Planet Labs Inc., James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury Institute of International Studies via AP)

Israel is reportedly bracing for a possible Iranian retaliation as officials in Tehran suggested on Friday that a mystery fire and explosion at a top-secret nuclear complex could have been caused by an Israeli cyberattack.

An Israeli TV report Friday night said the attack “destroyed” a laboratory where Iran was developing advanced centrifuges for faster uranium enrichment, and a Kuwaiti report quoted an unnamed source assessing that the strike set back the Iranian nuclear program by two months.

Three Iranian officials told the Reuters news agency they believed the incident at the Natanz enrichment facility early Thursday was the result of a cyberattack, and two of them said Israel could have been behind it but offered no evidence.

Asked about reports of the incident at a press conference Thursday evening, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed aside the question: “I don’t address these issues,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a press statement from his office in Jerusalem, July 2, 2020. (Screen capture: YouTube)

But Amos Yadlin, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies, and a former head of IDF military intelligence, tweeted Friday that, “According to foreign sources, it appears that the prime minister focused this week on Iran rather than [his plan for West Bank] annexation. This is the policy I’ve been recommending in the last few weeks.”

Added Yadlin: “If Israel is accused by official sources then we need to be operationally prepared for the possibility of an Iranian reaction (through cyber, firing missiles from Syria or a terror attack overseas).”

Amos Yadlin (Flash90)

Officially, Iran reported an “accident” occurred Thursday at the Natanz nuclear complex in central Iran, saying there were no casualties or radioactive pollution. But top generals also said Iran would respond if the incident turned out to be a cyberattack.

“If it is proven that our country has been attacked by cyberattacks, we will respond,” warned Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, the head of Iran’s military unit in charge of combating sabotage, according to a report late Thursday by the Mizan news agency.

Centrifuge machines in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, November 5, 2019. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, File)

Israel’s Channel 13 TV military analyst Alon Ben-David said Friday evening that the attack hit “the facility where Iran develops more advanced centrifuges — what are meant to be the next stage of the nuclear program, to produce enriched uranium at a far faster rate. That facility yesterday took a substantial hit; the explosion destroyed this lab.

“Those were centrifuges that were supposed to be installed underground at the Natanz facility; they were intended to replace the old centrifuges and produce a lot more enriched uranium, a lot more quickly,” he added. “They suffered a blow. It has to be assumed that at some stage, they will want to retaliate.”

View of the Eshkol Water Filtration Plant in northern Israel, on April 17, 2007. (Moshe Shai/FLASH90)

Ben-David said Israel was “bracing” for an Iranian response, likely via a cyberattack. In an April cyberattack attributed by western intelligence officials to Iran, an attempt was made to increase chlorine levels in water flowing to residential Israeli areas.

Hours after the Natanz fire and reported explosion on Thursday, Iran’s state news agency IRNA published an editorial warning that “if there are signs of hostile countries crossing Iran’s red lines in any way, especially the Zionist regime (Israel) and the United States, Iran’s strategy to confront the new situation must be fundamentally reconsidered.”

IRNA also reported that unnamed Israeli social media accounts had claimed the Jewish state was responsible for the “sabotage attempts.”

It stressed that Iran had tried “to prevent escalations and unpredictable situations while defending its position and national interests.”

Natanz, located some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Tehran, includes underground facilities buried under some 7.6 meters (25 feet) of concrete, which offers protection from airstrikes.

There was “no nuclear material (at the damaged warehouse) and no potential of pollution,” the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation Behrouz Kamalvandi told state television.

This photo released on July 2, 2020, by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, shows a building after it was damaged by a fire, at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility some 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)

Kamalvandi said no radioactive material or personnel were present at the warehouse within the Natanz site in central Iran, one of the country’s main uranium enrichment plants.

He noted that the cause was being investigated, and said it had caused “some structural damage” without specifying the nature of the accident.

The Iranian Atomic Energy Organization released a photo purportedly from the site, showing a one-story building with a damaged roof, walls apparently blackened by fire and doors hanging off their hinges as if blown out from the inside.

The next stage of the nuclear program

Two US-based analysts who spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday, relying on released pictures and satellite images, identified the affected building as Natanz’s new Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center.

On Friday, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported Israel was responsible for two recent blasts at Iranian facilities — the one at Natanz, and another at a missile production site days earlier.

The Al-Jareeda daily cited an unnamed senior source as saying that an Israeli cyberattack caused a fire and explosion at Natanz.

According to the source, this was expected to set back Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by approximately two months.

The newspaper also reported that last Friday Israeli F-35 stealth fighter jets bombed a site located in the area of Parchin, which is believed to house a missile production complex — an area of particular concern for the Jewish state, in light of the large number and increasing sophistication of missiles and rockets in the arsenals of Iranian proxies, notably Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Fighter jets from the IAF’s second F-35 squadron, the Lions of the South, fly over southern Israel (IDF spokesperson)

Neither of these claims were confirmed by Israeli officials, who have been mum on the reports.

The reported Israeli strikes followed an alleged Iranian attempt to hack into Israel’s water infrastructure in April, an effort that was thwarted by Israeli cyber defenses, but if successful could have introduced dangerous levels of chlorine into the Israeli water supply and otherwise seriously interrupted the flow of water throughout the country.

Ultimately, the alleged Iranian cyberattack caused minimal issues, according to Israeli officials.

The alleged Israeli attacks also came amid an ongoing campaign of so-called maximum pressure by the United States in the form of crushing sanctions on Iran and Iranian officials.

The BBC’s Persian service said it received an email from a group identifying itself as the “Cheetahs of the Homeland” claiming responsibility for the attack. The email was received prior to the announcement of the Natanz fire.

The group, which claimed to be dissident members of Iran’s security forces, had never been heard of before by Iran experts and the claim could not be immediately authenticated by The Associated Press.

The site of the fire corresponds to a newly opened centrifuge production facility, said Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. He said he relied on satellite images and a state TV program on the facility to locate the building, which sits in Natanz’s northwest corner.

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security similarly said the fire struck the production facility. His institute previously wrote a report on the new plant, identifying it from satellite pictures while it was under construction and later built.

A fire has burned a building above Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, though officials say it did not affect its centrifuge operation or cause any release of radiation. (AP graphic)

Iranian nuclear officials did not respond to a request for comment about the analysts’ comments.

Last Friday, a large blast was felt in Tehran, apparently caused by an explosion at the Parchin military complex, which defense analysts believe hold an underground tunnel system and missile production facilities.

According to the al-Jareeda report on Friday, that explosion was caused by missiles dropped by a number of Israeli F-35 stealth fighter jets. The newspaper reported that the aircraft took off from southern Israel and carried out the bombing run without the need to refuel.

This Friday, June 26, 2020, photo combo from the European Commission’s Sentinel-2 satellite shows the site of an explosion, before, left, and after, right, that rattled Iran’s capital. Analysts say the blast came from an area in Tehran’s eastern mountains that hides a underground tunnel system and missile production sites. The explosion appears to have charred hundreds of meters of scrubland. (European Commission via AP)

The Fars news agency, which is close to the country’s ultra-conservatives, initially reported that Parchin blast was caused by “an industrial gas tank explosion” near a facility belonging to the defense ministry. It cited an “informed source” and said the site of the incident was not related to the military.

However, this was largely disregarded by defense analysts as satellite photographs of the Parchin military complex emerged showing large amounts of damage at the site.

Later, Iranian Defense Ministry spokesman Davood Abdi blamed the blast on a leaking gas that he did not identify and said no one was killed in the explosion.

Satellite photos of the area, some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) east of downtown Tehran, showed hundreds of meters (yards) of charred scrubland not seen in images of the area taken in the weeks ahead of the incident. The building near the char marks resembled the facility seen in the state TV footage.

The gas storage area sits near what analysts describe as Iran’s Khojir missile facility. The explosion appears to have struck a facility for the Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group, which makes solid-propellant rockets, said Fabian Hinz.

The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies identified Khojir as the “site of numerous tunnels, some suspected of use for arms assembly.” Large industrial buildings at the site visible from satellite photographs also suggest missile assembly being conducted there.

Iranian officials themselves also identified the site as being home to a military base where the International Atomic Energy Agency previously said it suspects Iran conducted tests of explosive triggers that could be used in nuclear weapons. Iran long has denied seeking nuclear weapons, though the IAEA previously said Iran had done work in “support of a possible military dimension to its nuclear program” that largely halted in late 2003.

Western concerns over the Iranian atomic program led to sanctions and eventually to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The US under President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord in May 2018, leading to a series of escalating attacks between Iran and the US, and to Tehran abandoning the deal’s production limits.

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-bracing-for-response-as-tehran-points-fingers-over-nuke-site-fire/

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• Russia still has ten operating nuclear reactors that are similar to the one involved in the 1968 Chernobyl disaster.
• The type of reactor that exploded during Chernobyl, known as an RBMK, has been modified throughout Russia to account for some of its fatal design flaws.
• HBO’s new series, “Chernobyl,” claims that these changes were designed to “prevent an accident like Chernobyl from happening again.”
• But some nuclear scientists still worry that the fundamental design of an RBMK could pose a safety risk.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The post Russia still has 10 Chernobyl-style reactors that scientists say aren’t necessarily safe first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

An Iranian special forces commander has warned President Donald Trump if the US attacks Iran it “will destroy all that you possess”.

Major General Qassem Soleimani vowed that if Mr Trump started a war, the Islamic Republic would end it, Iranian news agency Tasnim reported.

It follows Mr Trump’s all-caps-lock tweet warning Iran’s president to “never, ever” threaten the US.

Tensions have risen since the US withdrew from the 2015 Iran deal.

Maj Gen Soleimani – who leads the Quds Force of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards – was quoted on Thursday as saying: “As a soldier, it is my duty to respond to your threats.

• Angry Trump Iran threat becomes meme

“Talk to me, not to the president [Hassan Rouhani]. It is not in our president’s dignity to respond to you.

“We are near you, where you can’t even imagine. Come. We are ready.

“If you begin the war, we will end the war. You know that this war will destroy all that you possess.”

He also accused the US president of using the language of “night clubs and gambling halls”.

On Sunday, Mr Trump tweeted a startling threat to Iran’s president.

But two days later, while speaking to a veterans’ group, the president said the US was “ready to make a real deal” with Iran.

• Three reasons behind Trump ditching Iran deal

Mr Trump’s angry tweet was a response to a warning by Mr Rouhani to the US.

“America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” he said earlier, according to Iran’s state news agency Irna.

In May, Mr Trump announced that the US was withdrawing from the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran, going against advice from European allies.

Mr Trump had said the Iran deal was “defective to its core”.

In response, Iran had said it was preparing to restart uranium enrichment, key for making both nuclear energy and weapons.

Washington is now re-imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil, aircraft exports to Iran, and precious metals trade among other sectors, despite objections from the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, who all signed the 2015 agreement.

But there are other flashpoints too. The US is deeply suspicious of Iranian activity in the Middle East and is aligned with Israel and Saudi Arabia, two of Iran’s foes.

Iran has insisted that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and its compliance with the 2015 deal has been verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44973696

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Image copyrightREUTERS

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said Washington continues to have “significant issues” with the Iran nuclear deal, after his first talks with his Iranian counterpart.

But Mr Tillerson said the talks were “very matter of fact”, and acknowledged Iran was complying with the deal.

Wednesday’s talks at the UN, involving all seven parties that negotiated the deal, focused on its implementation.

They came a day after President Donald Trump denounced the deal.

At a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Mr Trump described it as an “embarrassment”. He later told reporters that he had decided what to do about the agreement but would not reveal what he had decided.

He has until 15 October to decide whether to certify that Iran is complying with the deal. If he fails to do so, Congress could re-introduce sanctions dropped when the accord was implemented.

The New York Times quoted unnamed administration officials as saying Mr Trump will revisit the deal rather than scrapping it altogether.

Mr Tillerson said Mr Trump found the so-called sunset clause, which sees restrictions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme lifted after 2025, unacceptable.

Iran reached the landmark nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of world powers – the US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany, in 2015.

• Iran nuclear deal: Key details
• Why has Trump been so harsh on Iran?
• Tense but unclear Trump-Iran relations

What are the different sides saying?

This was the first meeting between Mr Tillerson and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

“It was a good opportunity to meet, shake hands. The tone was very matter of fact. There was no yelling, we didn’t throw shoes at one another,” the US secretary of state said, adding that the two sides saw the agreement very differently.

“The agreement has this very concerning shortcoming that the president has mentioned as well and that is the sunset clause… and that’s something that the president simply finds unacceptable,” he said.

Warning of a repeat of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, Mr Tillerson said Mr Trump had made it clear he did not want to leave Iran’s resumption of its programme for another administration to deal with.

Until the matter was resolved the US would fulfil its commitments, he said.

BBC UN correspondent Barbara Plett-Usher says the US’s Western allies shared Washington’s concerns but have warned against reopening the deal in order to address them.

“We already have one potential nuclear crisis. We definitely [do] not need to go into a second one,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said, referring to the North Korea nuclear standoff.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the UN General Assembly that his country would not be the first to violate the agreement but would “respond decisively and resolutely to its violation by any party”.

He said it would be a “great pity” if it were destroyed by Mr Trump, who he referred to as a “rogue newcomer to international politics”.

The previous day at the same podium, Mr Trump had described Iran as a “corrupt dictatorship” and an “economically depleted rogue state” that exported violence.

Will the US abandon the nuclear deal?

Crippling economic sanctions on Iran were lifted after the International Atomic Energy Agency certified Iran had restricted sensitive nuclear activities.

Iran says it has the right to nuclear energy and insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

Barack Obama’s US administration said at the time the deal would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Speaking on Wednesday, the US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, said President Trump’s remarks were “not a clear signal that he plans to withdraw”.

“What it is, is a clear signal that he’s not happy with the deal,” she told CBS News in an interview.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

How is Iran curbing its nuclear programme?

Before the deal there were two uranium enrichment facilities in Iran – Natanz and Fordo – where uranium hexafluoride gas was fed into centrifuges to separate out the most fissile isotope, U-235.

Low-enriched uranium, which has a 3%-4% concentration of U-235, can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, but it can also be enriched to the 90% needed to produce nuclear weapons.

• Iran votes to boost its missile defence

In July 2015, Iran had almost 20,000 centrifuges. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it will be limited to installing no more than 5,060 of the oldest and least efficient centrifuges at Natanz for 10 years.

The centrifuges at Fordo now only produce radioisotopes for use in medicine, agriculture, industry and science.

Image copyrightBBC SPORT

Iran’s uranium stockpile will also be reduced by 98% to 300kg (660lbs) for 15 years. It must also keep its level of enrichment at 3.67%.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41344366

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