DUBAI: The star of a live television interview in Iran’s new nuclear workshop wasn’t the head of the country’s atomic agency, but three centrifuges labeled in English in the background, advanced devices Tehran is prohibited from using by the nuclear deal with world powers.
The placement of the centrifuges, identified as IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6, may have served as a subtle warning to Europe as it tries to salvage the atomic accord after President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from it and restore US sanctions.
In recent days Iranian officials from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on down have vowed to boost the country’s uranium enrichment capacity. The moves they have outlined would not violate the 2015 nuclear accord, but would allow Iran to quickly ramp up enrichment if the agreement unravels.
“I think they’ve been quite clear in saying that if the US pulls out and the EU doesn’t live up to its side of the deal, it will rapidly increase its enrichment capacity,” said Ian Stewart, the head of a nuclear proliferation study called Project Alpha at King’s College London. “It doesn’t mean that it would go for nuclear weapons, but it does mean they could rapidly do that if they chose to do so.”
Under the nuclear deal with world powers, Iran accepted limits to its uranium enrichment and gave up its stockpiles in exchange for the lifting of crippling international sanctions. Western nations and Israel have long suspected Iran of covertly seeking a nuclear weapons capability alongside its civilian program. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes like electricity and the production of medical isotopes.
In the 2015 agreement, Iran agreed only to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent, enough to use in a nuclear power plant but far lower than the 90 percent needed for an atomic weapon.
Iran also mothballed much of its centrifuges, the devices it uses to enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas. Today at Natanz, its main enrichment facility, Iran can run only 5,060 of them. Those centrifuges are models known as IR-1s, based on a 1970s Dutch design that Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan used to build Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program and later sold to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6 models are all believed to produce three to five times more enriched uranium in a year than the IR-1s, according to Western anti-proliferation experts.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s nuclear agency, said Wednesday night that the IR-6 is 10 times more effective than the IR-1.
During the live state television interview at Natanz, a nuclear facility with underground bunkers protected from airstrikes, Salehi said a new workshop there that was nearly ready to open could build 60 centrifuges a day. He said it could build all three of the displayed models.
It wasn’t clear whether the centrifuges displayed were working models of the IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6, though they resembled pictures of the three previously circulated by Iranian media.
“The IR-2M and the IR-4 have passed the research and development period and we can mass produce them, but due to the (nuclear deal), we don’t do it yet,” Salehi said. He said the IR-6 had some faults but could be mass produced after solving them.
Not on display was the IR-8, one of Iran’s most advanced prototypes, which Western experts believe is at least 16 times more effective than the IR-1. A 2016 report by Iran’s pro-reformist Arman newspaper described the IR-8 as 24 times more effective.
Salehi said the IR-8 was too big to be produced in the new workshop, though another workshop could be built nearby for it. He said that model remained years from mass production.
For now, Iran remains within the terms of the nuclear deal. But if it falls apart, nothing would prevent Iran from immediately using these advanced centrifuges — and potentially raising the risks of a confrontation with the West.
“If you have a smaller number of very advanced centrifuges, it’s easier for you to enrich in a secret location,” Stewart said.
With nuclear deal under threat, Iran shows off centrifuges
With nuclear deal under threat, Iran shows off centrifuges
- Centrifuges are advanced devices Tehran is prohibited from using by the nuclear deal with world powers
- In recent days Iranian officials have vowed to boost the country’s uranium enrichment capacity
Lebanon PM to visit new Damascus ruler on Saturday
- Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati will on Saturday make his first official trip to neighboring Syria since the fall of president Bashar Assad, his office told AFP
BERUIT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati will on Saturday make his first official trip to neighboring Syria since the fall of president Bashar Assad, his office told AFP.
Mikati’s office said Friday the trip came at the invitation of the country’s new de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa during a phone call last week.
Syria imposed new restrictions on the entry of Lebanese citizens last week, two security sources have told AFP, following what the Lebanese army said was a border skirmish with unnamed armed Syrians.
Lebanese nationals had previously been allowed into Syria without a visa, using just their passport or ID card.
Lebanon’s eastern border is porous and known for smuggling.
Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah supported Assad with fighters during Syria’s civil war.
But the Iran-backed movement has been weakened after a war with Israel killed its long-time leader and Islamist-led rebels seized Damascus last month.
Lebanese lawmakers elected the country’s army chief Joseph Aoun as president on Thursday, ending a vacancy of more than two years that critics blamed on Hezbollah.
For three decades under the Assad clan, Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon after intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war.
Syria eventually withdrew its troops in 2005 under international pressure after the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri.
UN says 3 million Sudan children facing acute malnutrition
- Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month
- Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the army and the paramilitary forces
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: An estimated 3.2 million children under the age of five are expected to face acute malnutrition this year in war-torn Sudan, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“Of this number, around 772,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition,” Eva Hinds, UNICEF Sudan’s Head of Advocacy and Communication, told AFP late on Thursday.
Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed assessment.
Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands and, according to the United Nations, uprooting 12 million in the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Confirming to AFP that 3.2 million children are currently expected to face acute malnutrition, Hinds said “the number of severely malnourished children increased from an estimated 730,000 in 2024 to over 770,000 in 2025.”
The IPC expects famine to expand to five more parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region by May — a vast area that has seen some of the conflict’s worst violence. A further 17 areas in western and central Sudan are also at risk of famine, it said.
“Without immediate, unhindered humanitarian access facilitating a significant scale-up of a multisectoral response, malnutrition is likely to increase in these areas,” Hinds warned.
Sudan’s army-aligned government strongly rejected the IPC findings, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.
In October, experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council accused both sides of using “starvation tactics.”
On Tuesday the United States determined that the RSF had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader.
Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to IPC, which said: “Only a ceasefire can reduce the risk of famine spreading further.”
Turkiye says France must take back its militants from Syria
- Ankara is threatening military action against Kurdish fighters in the northeast
- Turkiye considers the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as linked to its domestic nemesis
ISTANBUL: France must take back its militant nationals from Syria, Turkiye’s top diplomat said Friday, insisting Washington was its only interlocutor for developments in the northeast where Ankara is threatening military action against Kurdish fighters.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insisted Turkiye’s only aim was to ensure “stability” in Syria after the toppling of strongman Bashar Assad.
In its sights are the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which have been working with the United States for the past decade to fight Daesh group militants.
Turkiye considers the group as linked to its domestic nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye and is considered a terror organization by both Turkiye and the US.
The US is currently leading talks to head off a Turkish offensive in the area.
“The US is our only counterpart... Frankly we don’t take into account countries that try to advance their own interests in Syria by hiding behind US power,” he said.
His remarks were widely understood to be a reference to France, which is part of an international coalition to prevent a militant resurgence in the area.
Asked about the possibility of a French-US troop deployment in northeast Syria, he said France’s main concern should be to take back its nationals who have been jailed there in connection with militant activity.
“If France had anything to do, it should take its own citizens, bring them to its own prisons and judge them,” he said.
Lebanese caretaker PM says country to begin disarming south Litani to ensure state presence
- Najib Mikati: ‘We are in a new phase – in this new phase, we will start with south Lebanon and south Litani’
DUBAI: Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Friday that the state will begin disarming southern Lebanon, particularly the south Litani region, to establish its presence across the country.
“We are in a new phase – in this new phase, we will start with south Lebanon and south Litani specifically in order to pull weapons so that the state can be present across Lebanese territory,” Mikati said.
Tanker hit by Yemen militia that threatened Red Sea spill has been salvaged
- The Sounion had been a disaster in waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard
- The Houthis have targeted some 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started
DUBAI: An oil tanker that burned for weeks in the Red Sea and threatened a massive oil spill has been “successfully” salvaged, a security firm said Friday.
The Sounion had been a disaster in waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard that had been struck and later sabotaged with explosives by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militia. It took months for salvagers to tow the vessel away, extinguish the fires and offload the remaining crude oil.
The Houthis initially attacked the Greek-flagged Sounion tanker on Aug. 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Aspides rescued its crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.
The Houthis later released footage showing they planted explosives on board the Sounion and ignited them in a propaganda video, something the militia have done before in their campaign.
The Houthis have targeted some 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The Houthis maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
