TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s nuclear program said Sunday that the Islamic Republic has begun “preliminary activities for designing” a modern process for 20-percent uranium enrichment for its 50-year-old research reactor in Tehran, signaling new danger for the nuclear deal.
Restarting enrichment at that level would mean Iran had withdrawn the 2015 nuclear deal it struck with world powers, an accord that President Donald Trump already pulled America out of in May.
However, Ali Akbar Salehi’s comments to state television appeared aimed at telling the world Iran would slowly restart its program. If it chooses, it could resume mass enrichment at its main facility in the central Iranian town of Natanz.
“Preliminary activities for designing modern 20 percent (enriched uranium) fuel have begun,” state TV quoted Salehi as saying.
Salehi said adding the “modern fuel” will increase efficiency in Tehran research reactor that consumes 20-percent enriched fuel.
“We are at the verge” of being ready, he said, without elaborating.
In June, Iran informed the UN’s nuclear watchdog that it will increase its nuclear enrichment capacity within the limits set by the 2015 agreement with world powers. Iran continues to comply with the terms of the deal, according to the UN, despite the American pullout.
Salehi heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, whose Tehran campus holds the nuclear research reactor given to the country by the US in 1967 under the rule of the shah. But in the time since that American “Atoms for Peace” donation, Iran was convulsed by its 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent takeover and hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran.
For decades since, Western nations have been concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, accusing Tehran of seeking atomic weapons. Iran long has said its program is for peaceful purposes, but it faced years of crippling sanctions.
The 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with world powers, including the US under President Barack Obama, was aimed at relieving those fears. Under it, Iran agreed to store its excess centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment facility under constant surveillance by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran can use 5,060 older-model IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz, but only to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent.
That low-level enrichment means the uranium can be used to fuel a civilian reactor but is far below the 90 percent needed to produce a weapon. Iran also can possess no more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of that uranium. That’s compared to the 10,000 kilograms (22,046 pounds) of higher-enriched uranium it once had.
Trump, who campaigned on a promise to tear up the nuclear deal, said he ultimately pulled America out of the accord over Iran’s ballistic missile program and its malign influence on the wider Mideast.
In an interview in September with The Associated Press, Salehi warned that Iran could begin mass production of more advanced centrifuges if the deal collapses.
“If we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal, we certainly do not go back to where we were before,” Salehi said at the time. “We will be standing on a much, much higher position.”
Nuclear chief says Iran exploring new uranium enrichment
Nuclear chief says Iran exploring new uranium enrichment
- Restarting enrichment at 20-percent level would mean Iran had withdrawn the 2015 nuclear deal it struck with world powers
Erdogan, Syria’s Sharaa hold talks in Istanbul
The two countries’ foreign ministers also attended the talks
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was holding talks with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Istanbul on Saturday, news channel CNN Turk and state media said, broadcasting video of the two leaders greeting each other.
The visit comes the day after US President Donald Trump’s administration issued orders that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria. Trump had pledged to unwind the measures to help the country rebuild after its devastating civil war.
Video footage on Turkish television showed Erdogan shaking hands with Sharaa as he emerged from his car at the Dolmabahce Palace on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait in Turkiye’s largest city.
The two countries’ foreign ministers also attended the talks, as well as Turkiye’s defense minister and the head of the Turkish MIT intelligence agency, according to Turkiye’s state-owned Anadolu news agency.
The Syrian delegation also included Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.
MIT chief Ibrahim Kalin and Sharaa this week held talks in Syria on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militant group laying down its weapons and integrating into Syrian security forces, a Turkish security source said previously.
US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources
- “Five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan
- Washington once regarded the group as the militant network’s most dangerous branch
DUBAI: Five Al-Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.
“Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in Aden.
“The US strike on Friday evening north of Khabar Al-Maraqsha killed five,” said a second source, referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda.
The second security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were not known, it was believed one of Al-Qaeda’s local leaders was among the dead.
Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network’s most dangerous branch.
Born in 2009 from the merger of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi militants against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.
Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on militant-held areas of the country.
The Houthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.
The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.
Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian
- Iraqi officials are working on a deal to release kidnapped Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed for murdering an American civilian
- Tsurkov was kidnapped in March 2023 allegedly by paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq
BAGHDAD: Baghdad is working on a deal to free kidnapped Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed in Iraq for murdering a US civilian, security sources said Saturday.
The deal depends on US approval, the senior Iraqi security officials told AFP, asking to remain anonymous because the matter is considered sensitive.
Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023.
There was no claim of responsibility for her abduction, but Israel accused Iraq’s powerful Kataeb Hezbollah of holding Tsurkov.
The Iran-backed armed faction has implied it was not involved.
Iraq has been working to solve the issue which “depends on the Americans’ approval for the release of the Iranian accused of killing an American citizen,” a senior security source said.
The three Iraqi sources said that Washington has not yet agreed to this.
“The Americans have not yet agreed to one of the conditions, which is the release of the Iranian who is being held for killing an American citizen,” one official said.
Iraq is both a significant ally of Iran and a strategic partner of the United States, and has for years negotiated a delicate balancing act between the two foes.
The Iranian and another four Iraqis were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq for murdering American civilian Stephen Troell, who was shot dead in Baghdad in November 2022.
In December last year, the US Justice Department announced that a “complaint was unsealed... charging” Iranian Mohammad Reza Nouri, “an officer” in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with allegedly orchestrating the killing.
Tsurkov, who is likely to have entered Iraq on her Russian passport, traveled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.
Security and diplomatic sources have told AFP they do not rule out the possibility that she may have been taken to Iran.
In November 2023, Iraqi channel Al Rabiaa TV aired the first hostage video of Tsurkov since her abduction.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or to determine whether she spoke freely in it or under coercion.
British Airways cancels Israel flights until August
- UK carrier suspended route to Tel Aviv after Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport in May
- Air France flights remain suspended but Delta, Aegean flights recommenced this week
LONDON: There will be no British Airways flights from the UK to Israel until at least August, the airline has said.
BA cited security concerns for the decision, having suspended flights to Tel Aviv in May following a Houthi missile attack that injured six people at Ben Gurion International Airport. The airline subsequently evacuated staff staying in the city to the Austrian capital Vienna.
A BA spokesman said in a statement: “We continually monitor operating conditions and have made the decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv, up to and including 31 July. We’ve apologised to our customers for the inconvenience.”
A message on the airline’s website for the route reads: “Sorry, we have no flights available. Please edit your search to find other routes.” The next scheduled flight from London to Tel Aviv is on Aug. 1.
Air France has halted flights in and out of Israel until at least May 26. Greek airline Aegean resumed flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, while US carrier Delta commenced daily flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Ben Gurion on Monday. Both had suspended their routes following the Houthi attack.
African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes
- Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah
- The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government
ADIS ABABA: The African Union called for a permanent ceasefire in Libya on Saturday after deadly clashes in the capital earlier this month and demonstrations demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
The latest fighting in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle, resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations.
Despite a lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence, calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”
In a statement on X, the council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals for no external interference.”
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade, which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
