VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog’s board on Wednesday censured Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the agency, diplomats said, calling on Tehran to provide answers in a long-running investigation and reverse its decision to bar several experienced UN inspectors.
The development comes just over a week after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, he latest in Tehran’s attempts to steadily exert pressure on the international community.
The vote by the 35-member board at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna sets the stage for a likely further escalation of tensions between the agency and Iran, which has reacted strongly to similar previous resolutions.
Twenty members voted for the resolution, while Russia and China opposed it, 12 abstained and one did not vote, according to diplomats. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-doors vote. The resolution was put forward by France, Germany and Britain.
Censure resolutions by the IAEA board are not legally binding but send a strong political and diplomatic message.
The resolution, a draft of which was seen by The Associated Press, called on Tehran to implement a joint statement between Iran and the IAEA from March 2023. In that statement, Iran pledged to resolve issues surrounding sites where inspectors have questions about possible undeclared nuclear activity, and to allow the IAEA to “implement further appropriate verification and monitoring activities.”
Inspectors have said two sites near Tehran bore traces of processed uranium. The IAEA has urged Iran to provide “technically credible” answers about the origin and current location of the nuclear material in order for it “to be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”
While the number of sites about which the IAEA has questions has been reduced from four to two since 2019, those lingering questions have been a persistent source of tensions.
The IAEA has identified the sites as Turquzabad and Varamin. The IAEA has said inspectors believe Iran used the Varamin site from 1999 until 2003 as a pilot project to process uranium ore and convert it into a gas form. The IAEA said buildings at the site had been demolished in 2004.
Tehran insists its program is peaceful, though the West and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program until 2003.
Turquzabad is where the IAEA believes Iran took some of the material at Varamin amid the demolition, though it has said that alone cannot “explain the presence of the multiple types of isotopically altered particles” found there.
In an apparent attempt to raise the pressure on Tehran, the resolution approved Wednesday states that IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi may need to prepare a “comprehensive and updated assessment” on unresolved issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, if there is “a continued failure by Iran to provide the necessary, full and unambiguous co-operation” to resolve the unanswered questions.
The IAEA board last censured Iran in November 2022. Iran retaliated by beginning to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity at its Fordo nuclear plant. Uranium enriched at 60 percent purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.
Iran responded to a previous resolution in June 2022 by removing IAEA cameras and monitoring equipment from its nuclear sites.
Iran in September barred several experienced UN inspectors from monitoring the country’s nuclear program. Grossi said at the time that the decision constituted “a very serious blow” to the agency’s ability to do its job “to the best possible level.”
Under a 2015 deal with world powers, Tehran agreed to limit enrichment of uranium to levels necessary for generating nuclear power in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. At the time, UN inspectors were tasked with monitoring the program.
However, tensions steadily grew between Iran and the IAEA since 2018, when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its program and quickly stepped up enrichment.
UN nuclear agency’s board votes to censure Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the watchdog
UN nuclear agency’s board votes to censure Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the watchdog
- The vote by the 35-member board at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna sets the stage for a likely further escalation of tensions between the agency and Iran
- Twenty members voted for the resolution, while Russia and China opposed it, 12 abstained and one did not vote
Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life
Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.
2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA
- The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night
Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike
- The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
- Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.
HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’
BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Monday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a US-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review.”
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement.
HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack,” it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates,” the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.”
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions,” it added.
The watchdog said it contacted Boeing and Woodard but received no response.
In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.
In November last year, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.
Lebanese rights groups have said five more journalists and photographers working for local media have been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Officials in Egypt say over a dozen people are missing after a tourist vessel sank in the Red Sea
CAIRO: Egypt's governor of the Red Sea region said Monday afternoon that authorities are searching for 17 people who went missing from a sinking vessel off Marsa Alam city.
Amr Hanafy said in a statement that rescuers saved 28 people from the boat, Sea Story, which was carrying 45 people, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 14 crew.
The tourists were on a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam, according to a statement by the Red Sea Governorate.
Hanafi said some survivors were rescued using a helicopter and have been taken to medical care. Efforts to locate more survivors were ongoing in coordination with the Egyptian navy and army.
The governorate said a distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) and that the boat had departed from Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday, with plans to return to Hurghada Marina on Nov. 29.
The Red Sea is a popular diving destination renowned for its coral reefs and marine life, key to Egypt’s vital tourism industry.
