EU Voices Concern Over Iran’s Non-Compliance with Nuclear Commitments

Iran's underground Fordow nuclear facility outside of Qom, Iran, October 23, 2021. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)
Iran's underground Fordow nuclear facility outside of Qom, Iran, October 23, 2021. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)
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EU Voices Concern Over Iran’s Non-Compliance with Nuclear Commitments

Iran's underground Fordow nuclear facility outside of Qom, Iran, October 23, 2021. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)
Iran's underground Fordow nuclear facility outside of Qom, Iran, October 23, 2021. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

The European Union has expressed concern over Iran’s non-compliance with its nuclear commitments.

Talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal are ongoing, EU spokesman for foreign affairs and security policy Peter Stano told a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday.

“We are very close to reach a final agreement, but we are not there yet,” he added, stressing that this requires diplomatic effort, without providing more details on outstanding issues.

He affirmed that the EU is responsible for coordinating among negotiating parties and can’t comment on the talks, AFP reported.

The nuclear pact seemed near revival in March, but talks were thrown into disarray partly over whether the United States might remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which controls elite armed and intelligence forces that Washington accuses of a global terrorist campaign, from its Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list.

In 2018 then-US President Donald Trump reneged on the deal, under which Iran restrained its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions, prompting Iran to begin violating its core nuclear limits about a year later.

The US and Iran blame each other for the stalled talks.

Iran said on Monday that Tehran is ready to reach a “good deal” with world powers, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh told a televised news conference, blaming the US for stalling talks to revive the nuclear pact.

“Even today, we are ready to return to Vienna to reach a good deal if Washington fulfils its commitments,” Khatibzadeh said.

Meanwhile, Iran is escalating its uranium enrichment further by preparing to use advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its underground Fordow site that can more easily switch between enrichment levels, a United Nations nuclear watchdog report seen by Reuters on Monday showed.

The move is the latest of several steps Iran had long threatened to take but held off carrying out until 30 of the 35 countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors backed a resolution this month criticizing it for failing to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

The IAEA’s inspectors verified on Saturday that Iran was ready to feed uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas, the material centrifuges enrich, into the second of two cascades, or clusters, of IR-6 centrifuges installed at Fordow, a site dug into mountain, the confidential IAEA report to member states said.

Iran informed the IAEA on Monday that passivation of the cascade, a process that precedes enrichment and also involves feeding UF6 into the machines, had begun on Sunday.

Importantly, the 166-machine cascade is the only one to have so-called “modified sub-headers,” which make it easier to switch to enriching to other purity levels.

Western diplomats have long pointed to that equipment as a source of concern since it could enable Iran to quickly enrich to higher levels.

Iran has also not told the agency clearly what purity the cascade will enrich to after passivation. Iran had previously informed the IAEA that the two IR-6 cascades could be used to enrich to 5% or 20% purity.

“The Agency has yet to receive clarification from Iran as to which mode of production it intends to implement for the aforementioned cascade, following the completion of passivation,” the report said, which the IAEA confirmed.

At a different site, Iran is already enriching to up to 60%, close to the roughly 90% of weapons-grade and far above the 2015 deal's cap of 3.67%.

Iran has breached many of the deal’s limits in response to the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and its reimposition of sanctions. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

In response to the Board of Governors' resolution, Iran has ordered the removal of IAEA cameras installed under the 2015 deal and pressed ahead with the installation of IR-6 centrifuges at an underground plant at Natanz, where the deal lets it enrich but only with far less efficient IR-1 machines.

The 2015 deal does not allow uranium enrichment at Fordow.



Congress is Notified by the Biden Administration of Planned $8 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel

The State Department has informed Congress of a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel - File Photo/AFP
The State Department has informed Congress of a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel - File Photo/AFP
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Congress is Notified by the Biden Administration of Planned $8 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel

The State Department has informed Congress of a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel - File Photo/AFP
The State Department has informed Congress of a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel - File Photo/AFP

The State Department has informed Congress of a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel, US officials say, as the American ally presses forward with its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Some of the arms in the package could be sent through current US stocks but the majority would take a year or several years to deliver, according to two US officials Saturday who spoke on condition of anonymity because the notification to Congress hasn't been formally sent.

The sale includes medium-range air-to-air missiles to help Israel defend against airborne threats, 155 mm projectile artillery shells for long-range targeting, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles, 500-pound bombs and more.

The weapons package would add to a record of at least $17.9 billion in military aid that the US has provided Israel since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, launched the war, The AP reported.

The Biden administration has faced criticism over mounting deaths of Palestinian civilians. There have been demonstrations on college campuses and unsuccessful efforts in Congress by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and some Democrats to block sales of offensive weapons to Israel.

The United States paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in May over concerns about civilian casualties if the bombs were to be used during an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The Biden administration has demanded that Israel increase humanitarian aid into the enclave. But in November, citing some limited progress, it declined to limit arms transfers as it threatened to do if the situation did not improve.

In recent days, Israel has been conducting airstrikes in Gaza that have killed dozens of people, adding to the tens of thousands of deaths since the war began more than a year ago.

The Israeli army said Friday that it had struck dozens of Hamas gathering points and command centers throughout Gaza. Israel’s military says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas.

The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times. Winter has now arrived, and hundreds of thousands are sheltering in tents near the sea.

The informal notice to Congress isn’t the final notification before a sale. Now the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can review the package.

News of the weapons sale was first reported by Axios.