Borrell: Window for Revived Iran Nuclear Deal Narrowing

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell
TT

Borrell: Window for Revived Iran Nuclear Deal Narrowing

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell

The window for an agreement to bring Iran back into compliance with a nuclear deal along with the US is closing, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned on Tuesday.

"If we want to conclude an agreement, decisions are needed now. This is still possible, but the political space to revive the JCPOA may narrow soon," he tweeted, according to AFP.

The JCPOA is the 2015 nuclear deal under which Iran committed to curbing its nuclear program in return for lifting of international sanctions.

Former US president Donald Trump severely weakened the pact when he pulled America out of it in 2018, prompting Iran to drop its own compliance.

Iran has now enriched uranium close to the level needed to build atomic weapons.

Efforts led by Borrell and his deputy Enrique Mora to get Iran and US back under the nuclear deal's terms have stalled, largely because of a late-running added demand by Tehran that Washington remove Iran's Revolutionary Guards from a terror blacklist.

Borrell in his tweet said he had again spoken with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, following up on talks he had during a surprise June 25 visit to Tehran.

Indirect negotiations between Iran and the US hosted by Qatar last week failed to produce a breakthrough.

The 2015 deal was strenuously negotiated by European powers France, Britain and Germany, along with Russia, China and the United States.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday he would "make every effort" to get Iran to revise its extra demands and take up the agreement worked out for a revival of the nuclear pact.



Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake Strikes China Near Source of Yellow River

A lake is seen near the headwaters of the Yellow River in Madoi county, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province, China August 31, 2019. (Reuters)
A lake is seen near the headwaters of the Yellow River in Madoi county, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province, China August 31, 2019. (Reuters)
TT

Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake Strikes China Near Source of Yellow River

A lake is seen near the headwaters of the Yellow River in Madoi county, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province, China August 31, 2019. (Reuters)
A lake is seen near the headwaters of the Yellow River in Madoi county, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province, China August 31, 2019. (Reuters)

A magnitude 5.5 earthquake shook parts of the Chinese province of Qinghai on Wednesday, with its epicenter located near the source of the Yellow River, the main natural waterway serving northern China.

The vast Qinghai-Tibetan plateau has been jolted by seismic activity since Tuesday, including a deadly 6.8-magnitude quake in the foothills of the Himalayas in Tibet and a smaller 3.1-magnitude quake in Sichuan.

The epicenter of the Qinghai quake, which struck at 3:44 p.m. (0844 GMT), was located in Madoi county in the Golog prefecture at a depth of 14 km (8.7 miles), according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

It was about 200 km west of the county seat of Madoi, a town populated mainly by Tibetans, including former nomadic herders and their families who have resettled in government-built homes over the years.

Earthquakes are common along the edges of the seismically active Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, including Madoi.

A total of 102 quakes of magnitude 3 or higher have been logged within 200 km of Wednesday's quake over the past five years, according to CENC, with the largest reaching a magnitude of 7.4 in 2021.

The epicenter of Qinghai quake on Wednesday is about 1,000 km northeast of the quake in Tibet a day earlier.