Tehran Rejects Cooperation with IAEA Beyond Scope of Safeguards Agreement

A picture distributed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran of the sixth-generation centrifuges at an exhibition of the nuclear industry last week 
A picture distributed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran of the sixth-generation centrifuges at an exhibition of the nuclear industry last week 
TT

Tehran Rejects Cooperation with IAEA Beyond Scope of Safeguards Agreement

A picture distributed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran of the sixth-generation centrifuges at an exhibition of the nuclear industry last week 
A picture distributed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran of the sixth-generation centrifuges at an exhibition of the nuclear industry last week 

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami said that his country’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) falls under the IAEA safeguards.

Eslami dismissed comments that as many as 100 new cameras have been set up at a nuclear power plant in Isfahan.

“The AEOI will act based on the Strategic Action Plan,” he said.

The Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions was approved by the Iranian parliament in December 2020. It required the Iranian administration to restrict the IAEA inspections.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said last week that the country's nuclear authorities should continue working with the UN nuclear watchdog "under the framework of safeguards."

Khamenei called on Iranian authorities not to yield to the IAEA's "excessive and false demands".

"There is nothing wrong with the agreement (with the West), but the infrastructure of our nuclear industry should not be touched," Khamenei said, according to state media.

"This is a good law ... which must be respected and not violated in providing access and information (to the IAEA)," added Khamenei

Having failed to revive the deal in indirect talks that have stalled since September, Iranian and Western officials have met repeatedly in recent weeks to sketch out steps that could curb Iran's fast-advancing nuclear work, free some US and European detainees held in Iran, and unfreeze some Iranian assets abroad.

Both sides are discussing more Iranian cooperation with the IAEA, Reuters quoted a Western official as saying, and could include Iran committing to pause enriching uranium by 60%.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani said in a tweet on Wednesday that he "had a serious and constructive" meeting with European Union foreign policy official Enrique Mora in Doha.

"We exchanged views and discussed a range of issues including negotiations on sanctions lifting,” he added.

For his part, Mora tweeted saying: “Intense talks yesterday and today with Vice Minister Bagheri Kani in Doha on a range of difficult bilateral, regional and international issues, including the way forward on the JCPOA.”

Kani said last week that he had met diplomats from the European Troika in the UAE to discuss "a range of issues and mutual concerns".

EU spokesperson Peter Stano said the bloc was "keeping diplomatic channels open, including through this meeting in Doha, to address all issues of concern with Iran".



Trump Again Calls to Buy Greenland after Eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal

 US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
TT

Trump Again Calls to Buy Greenland after Eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal

 US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

First it was Canada, then the Panama Canal. Now, Donald Trump again wants Greenland.

The president-elect is renewing unsuccessful calls he made during his first term for the US to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding to the list of allied countries with which he's picking fights even before taking office on Jan. 20.

In a Sunday announcement naming his ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that, "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."

Trump again having designs on Greenland comes after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the US could retake control of the Panama Canal if something isn't done to ease rising shipping costs required for using the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

He's also been suggesting that Canada become the 51st US state and referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "governor" of the "Great State of Canada."

Greenland, the world’s largest island, sits between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 80% covered by an ice sheet and is home to a large US military base. It gained home rule from Denmark in 1979 and its head of government, Múte Bourup Egede, suggested that Trump’s latest calls for US control would be as meaningless as those made in his first term.

"Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale," he said in a statement. "We must not lose our years-long fight for freedom."

Trump canceled a 2019 visit to Denmark after his offer to buy Greenland was rejected by Copenhagen, and ultimately came to nothing.

He also suggested Sunday that the US is getting "ripped off" at the Panama Canal.

"If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question," he said.

Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded in a video that "every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to," but Trump fired back on his social media site, "We’ll see about that!"

The president-elect also posted a picture of a US flag planted in the canal zone under the phrase, "Welcome to the United States Canal!"

The United States built the canal in the early 1900s but relinquished control to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

The canal depends on reservoirs that were hit by 2023 droughts that forced it to substantially reduce the number of daily slots for crossing ships. With fewer ships, administrators also increased the fees that shippers are charged to reserve slots to use the canal.

The Greenland and Panama flareups followed Trump recently posting that "Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State" and offering an image of himself superimposed on a mountaintop surveying surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag.

Trudeau suggested that Trump was joking about annexing his country, but the pair met recently at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to discuss Trump's threats to impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods.