US State Department Warns of Undeclared 'Nuclear Activities' in Iran

 A number of new generation Iranian centrifuges are seen on display during Iran's National Nuclear Energy Day in Tehran, Iran April 10, 2021. Iranian Presidency Office/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
A number of new generation Iranian centrifuges are seen on display during Iran's National Nuclear Energy Day in Tehran, Iran April 10, 2021. Iranian Presidency Office/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
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US State Department Warns of Undeclared 'Nuclear Activities' in Iran

 A number of new generation Iranian centrifuges are seen on display during Iran's National Nuclear Energy Day in Tehran, Iran April 10, 2021. Iranian Presidency Office/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
A number of new generation Iranian centrifuges are seen on display during Iran's National Nuclear Energy Day in Tehran, Iran April 10, 2021. Iranian Presidency Office/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

In an annual report on compliance with arms control and non-proliferation obligations, the US State Department warned of undeclared nuclear activities conducted by the Iranian regime.

It said that Iran did not cooperate with the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at a time when Iran seeks the removal of US sanctions in exchange for a return to the nuclear agreement.

The annual report of the US State Department highlighted Iran’s efforts to continue enriching uranium and deploying centrifuges in its nuclear facilities, non-compliance with agreements, in addition to covering up a number of undeclared sites that saw nuclear activities.

The report warned that Iran’s continued expansion of uranium enrichment activities would lead to the production of enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon.

It also noted that although “uranium metal” has conventional civilian and military uses, it is a major enabler for the production of nuclear weapons, because “Iran will need to convert weapons-grade uranium from the gaseous form used in enrichment, to metal to make nuclear weapons components.”

The report emphasized that Iran abandoned the protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on February 23, 2021, which “seriously” undermined the verification activities of the IAEA. In this context, it pointed to concerns about possible and undeclared nuclear activities in Iran, including four sites, as evidenced by the IAEA’s ongoing safeguards investigations.

According to the report, the United States continues to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the major nuclear weapons development activities that it deems necessary to produce a nuclear weapon. However, if Iran manufactures or acquires a nuclear weapon through different means, such actions would violate its obligations under Article II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Based on reports provided by the IAEA on the implementation of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the Additional Protocol, the United States concluded that there remain serious concerns about possible undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.

The 56-page report issued by the US State Department added that Iran has not yet provided a reliable explanation for the existence of man-made uranium particles and a full answer to the IAEA’s original questions.

During the reporting period, the IAEA Director-General, Rafael Grossi, repeatedly called on Tehran to fully cooperate with the agency and to provide the necessary information and documents to answer outstanding questions, noting that Iran had not provided technically reliable or satisfactory answers to the agency’s inquiries.

The report noted that atomic energy inspectors have been subjected to inappropriate treatment, which is inconsistent with internationally accepted security practices, such as invasive body searches by Iranian security personnel at nuclear facilities.

According to the report, one year after the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, Iran announced its intention to gradually begin expanding its nuclear program. Tehran enacted a law entitled, “The Strategic Action Plan for Lifting Sanctions and Protecting the Interests of the Iranian Nation,” which required the Iranian government to further expand Iran’s nuclear activities in the event that the nuclear agreement was not implemented. Expansion activities included the production of 20 percent enriched uranium, the installation of advanced centrifuges and reduced cooperation with the IAEA. Production was later expanded to 60 percent, shortly after the explosion in April 11 last year, which caused a power blackout at Iran’s Natanz fuel enrichment plant and a number of centrifuge failures.

The report referred to commercial satellite images, which indicated that the TESA workshop for the manufacture of centrifuge components in Karaj was damaged by a drone attack on June 23 last year 2021. Iran claimed that atomic energy cameras may have been hacked, which facilitated the attack, pushing Iran to reject the access of atomic energy inspectors to the site.

The report comes as US lawmakers, from both Republican and Democrat camps, are increasingly opposed to President Joe Biden’s efforts to return to the nuclear agreement with Iran.



80 Years Ago World War II in Europe Was Over. Celebrating V-E Day Is Now Tinged with Some Dread 

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)
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80 Years Ago World War II in Europe Was Over. Celebrating V-E Day Is Now Tinged with Some Dread 

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)

Even if the end of World War II in Europe spawned one of the most joyous days the continent ever lived, Thursday’s 80th anniversary of V-E Day is haunted as much by the specter of current-day conflict as it celebrates the defeat of ultimate evil.

Hitler’s Nazi Germany had finally surrendered after a half-decade of invading other European powers and propagating racial hatred that led to genocide, the Holocaust and the murdering of millions.

That surrender and the explosion of hope for a better life is being celebrated with parades in London and Paris and towns across Europe while even the leaders of erstwhile mortal enemies France and Germany are bonding again.

Germany’s new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, paid tribute to “the enormous sacrifices of the Allies” in helping his country win its freedom from the Nazis and said that millions of people were “disenfranchised and tormented by the Nazi regime.”

“Hardly any day has shaped our history as much as May 8, 1945,” he said in a statement. “Our historical responsibility for this breach of civilization and the commemoration of the millions of victims of the Second World War unleashed by Nazi Germany gives us a mandate to resolutely defend peace and freedom in Europe today."

A German soldier carries a small coffin with the remains of fallen German soldiers of WWII to the grave during a funeral service at a memorial site for fallen soldiers in Halbe, Germany, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP)

His comments underscore that former European enemies may thrive — to the extent that the 27-nation European Union even won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize — but that the outlook has turned gloomy over the past year.

Bodies continue to pile up in Ukraine, where Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion started the worst war on the continent since 1945. The rise of the hard right in several EU member states is putting the founding democratic principles of the bloc under increasing pressure.

And even NATO, that trans-Atlantic military alliance that assured peace in Europe under the US nuclear umbrella and its military clout, is under internal strain rarely seen since its inception.

“The time of Europe’s carefree comfort, joyous unconcern is over. Today is the time of European mobilization around our fundamental values and our security,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a Dutch memorial event in the lead-up to the celebrations.

It makes this unlikely stretch of peace in Europe anything but a given.

"This peace is always unsure. There are always some clouds above our heads. Let’s do what we can, so that peace should reign forever in Europe,” Robert Chot, a Belgian World War II veteran, told a solemn gathering of the European legislature.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola sounded gloomy.

Britain's Queen Camilla (L), flanked by Constable of the Tower of London, General Gordon Messenger (R), visits the ceramic poppies installation at the Tower of London on May 6, 2025 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of V-E Day also known as Victory in Europe Day, marking the end of the Second World War in Europe. (AFP)

“Once again war has returned to our continent, once again cities are being bombed, civilians attacked, families torn apart. The people of Ukraine are fighting not only for their land, but for freedom, for sovereignty, for democracy, just as our parents and our grandparents once did,” she told the legislature on Wednesday.

“The task before us today is the same as it was then to honor memory, to protect democracy, to preserve peace,” Metsola said.

Commemorations have been going all week through Europe, and Britain has taken a lead. Here too, the current-day plight of Ukraine in its fight against Russia took center stage.

“The idea that this was all just history and it doesn’t matter now somehow, is completely wrong,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. “Those values of freedom and democracy matter today.”

In London later Thursday, a service will be held in Westminster Abbey and a concert, for 10,000 members of the public, at Horse Guards Parade. In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to oversee a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.

And in Berlin, Chancellor Friedrich Merz will again highlight how Germany has remodeled itself into a beacon of European democracy by laying a wreath at the central memorial for the victims of war and tyranny.

And, symbolically, Russia and President Vladimir Putin will be totally out of lockstep with the rest of Europe, celebrating its Victory Day one day later with a huge military parade on Red Square in central Moscow to mark the massive Soviet contribution to defeat Nazi Germany.