US Warns it Will ‘React’ to Any Iranian Nuclear Escalation

Advanced centrifuges on display in Tehran during its National Nuclear Technology Day. (Reuters)
Advanced centrifuges on display in Tehran during its National Nuclear Technology Day. (Reuters)
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US Warns it Will ‘React’ to Any Iranian Nuclear Escalation

Advanced centrifuges on display in Tehran during its National Nuclear Technology Day. (Reuters)
Advanced centrifuges on display in Tehran during its National Nuclear Technology Day. (Reuters)

The United States would not expect a special meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog's board this year if the agency's deal with Iran on replacing its surveillance cameras at a centrifuge-parts workshop is carried out, a US official said on Wednesday.

"If implemented as agreed with the (International Atomic Energy Agency) Director General, we would not foresee needing a special Board of Governors (meeting) on this set of issues before the end of the year," said the official on condition of anonymity.

"Of course, if there are any new nuclear escalations, we would react accordingly,” Reuters quoted the official as saying.

Iran and the IAEA have earlier announced reaching an agreement on replacing surveillance cameras at the workshop in the TESA Karaj complex that had been removed after an apparent attack, removing one potential obstacle to wider nuclear talks.

One of the IAEA's four cameras at the workshop was destroyed in June in apparent sabotage that Iran blamed on Israel.

Iran then removed the cameras and did not let the IAEA return to replace them, angering the US and its allies.

Iran said Wednesday that it “voluntarily” agreed to grant access to the nuclear watchdog in an effort to prevent misunderstandings, according to a report by Nournews, an outlet close to Iran’s security forces.

The IAEA will soon install new surveillance cameras at Iran’s Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop under an agreement reached by Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, the Vienna-based watchdog stated.

On November 23, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi visited Tehran and said he wanted to deepen cooperation with Iran, days before the resumption of negotiations between Tehran and world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.

“I sincerely hope that we can continue our constructive discussions to address and resolve all outstanding safeguards issues in Iran,” Grossi said in a statement.



Ukrainian Troops Have Engaged with North Korean Units for 1st Time in Russia, Official Says

The site of a Russian glide bomb strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 04 November 2024, amid the Russian invasion. (EPA)
The site of a Russian glide bomb strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 04 November 2024, amid the Russian invasion. (EPA)
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Ukrainian Troops Have Engaged with North Korean Units for 1st Time in Russia, Official Says

The site of a Russian glide bomb strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 04 November 2024, amid the Russian invasion. (EPA)
The site of a Russian glide bomb strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 04 November 2024, amid the Russian invasion. (EPA)

Ukrainian troops have for the first time engaged with North Korean units that were recently deployed to help Russia in the war with its neighbor, Ukraine's defense minister said Tuesday.

Another Kyiv official said Ukraine's army fired artillery at North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk border region.

The comments were the first official reports that Ukrainian and North Korean forces have engaged in combat, following a deployment that has given the war a new complexion as it approaches its 1,000-day milestone.

Neither claim could be independently confirmed.

The Ukrainian and North Korean troops engaged in “small-scale” fighting that amounted to the start of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS in an interview.

North Korean soldiers are mixed with Russian troops and are misidentified on their uniforms, Umerov was quoted as saying by KBS. That makes it hard to say whether there were any North Korean casualties, he said.

Umerov reportedly said he expects that five North Korean units, each consisting of about 3,000 soldiers, will be deployed to the Kursk area.

Meanwhile, Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation branch of Ukraine’s Security Council, said “the first North Korean troops have already been shelled, in the Kursk region.”

He provided no further details.

Western governments had expected that the North Korean soldiers would be sent to Russia’s Kursk border region, where a three-month-old incursion by the Ukrainian army is the first occupation of Russian territory since World War II and has embarrassed the Kremlin.

US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments say up to 12,000 North Korean combat troops are being sent by Pyongyang to the war under a pact with Moscow.

The Pentagon said Monday that at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Russia near Ukraine’s border.

More troops from North Korea’s 1.3-million-strong army may be slated for deployment in Russia, according to an analysis published Tuesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations, an international think tank.

The ramifications extend far beyond Europe, it said.

“Despite integration challenges — including communication barriers and differing military doctrines — the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia represents a significant shift in European and Asian security relations,” the analysis said. “For the first time in generations, troops from East Asia are actively engaging in a European conflict.”

The North Korean troops, whose fighting quality and battle experience is unknown, are adding to Ukraine’s worsening situation on the battlefield.

Ukrainian defenses, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, are buckling under the strain of Russia’s costly but relentless monthslong onslaught.

Russian advances have recently accelerated, with battlefield gains of up to 9 kilometers (more than 5 miles) in some parts of Donetsk, the UK Defense Ministry said Tuesday on the social platform X.

It said Russia has superior troop numbers, and despite heavy casualties the Kremlin’s recruitment drive is providing enough new troops to keep up the pressure.

Russia has held the battlefield initiative in Ukraine for the past year. Ukrainian officials have long complained that Western military support takes too long to arrive in the country.

In early October, Russian forces drove Ukrainian troops out of Vuhledar, a town perched atop a tactically significant hill in eastern Ukraine.

It was part of a key belt of Ukrainian defenses in the east. Russia’s next targets likely are the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk and the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar.

In the meantime, Russia has kept up its long-range aerial attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine, authorities say.

A Tuesday morning attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed six people and injured 23 others, regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov said.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said the Russian attacks “must be stopped with strong action.”

“A stronger position by (Ukraine’s Western) allies is needed,” he wrote on Telegram.