TEHRAN: Iran’s newly-elected president reappointed a US-educated official who came under United Nations sanctions 16 years ago as head of the country’s nuclear department, state TV reported Saturday.
Mohammad Eslami, 67, will continue his work as chief of Iran’s civilian nuclear program and serve as one of several vice presidents. Eslami’s reappointment by President Masoud Pezeshkian comes as Iran remains under heavy sanctions by the West following the collapse of the 2015 deal that curbed Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Pezeshkian had said during his presidential campaign that he would try to revive the nuclear deal.
The United Nations sanctioned Eslami in 2008 for “being engaged in, directly associated with or providing support for Iran’s proliferation of sensitive nuclear activities or for the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems”, when he was the head of Iran’s Defense Industries Training and Research Institute.
He was appointed as the chief of Iran’s nuclear department for the first time by late President Ebrahim Raisi in 2021, before that, from 2018, in moderate former President Hassan Rouhani’s era, Eslami served as Transport and Urban Development Minister.
He has experience working in Iran’s military industries, for years, most recently as deputy defense minister responsible for research and industry.
Eslami holds degrees in civil engineering from Detroit University of Michigan and the University of Toledo, Ohio.
The US, France, Britain and Germany accused Iran of escalating its nuclear activities far beyond limits it agreed to in the 2015 deal and of failing to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran accused the US and its allies of continuing to apply economic sanctions that were supposed to be lifted under the deal, and insisted its nuclear program is peaceful and geared toward generating electricity and producing radioisotopes to treat cancer patients and remains under constant oversight by the IAEA.
Iran is building two nuclear power facilities to supplement its sole operational 1,000-megawatt reactor at the southern port town of Bushehr, which went online with Russia’s help in 2011. Under its long-term energy plan, Iran aims to reach 20,000-megawatt nuclear electric capacity.
The nation has in recent months faced country-wide power outages.
Iran’s new president reappoints UN-sanctioned official as head of the country’s nuclear agency
https://arab.news/zx3xd
Iran’s new president reappoints UN-sanctioned official as head of the country’s nuclear agency
- ohammad Eslami, 67, will continue his work as chief of Iran’s civilian nuclear program and serve as one of several vice presidents
Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association
“The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office has begun legal action to remove Istanbul Bar Association president Ibrahim Kaboglu and his executive board,” Turkish Bar Association head Erinc Sagkan wrote on X late Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed several weeks after the Istanbul Bar Association demanded an investigation into the deaths of two journalists from Turkiye’s Kurdish-majority southeast who were killed in northern Syria.
Nazim Dastan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin, died on December 19 when their car was hit by what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was a “Turkish drone strike” during clashes between an Ankara-backed militia and the SDF, a US-backed group of mainly Kurdish fighters.
Turkiye sees the SDF as a terror group tied to the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.
The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets Rojnews and the Anha news agency, and the strike denounced by the Turkish Journalists’ Union.
The Turkish military insists it never targets civilians but only terror groups.
At the time, the Istanbul Bar Association issued a statement saying “targeting members of the press in conflict zones is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention.” It demanded “a proper investigation be conducted into the murder of two of our citizens.”
Prosecutors immediately opened an inquiry into allegations of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “publicly spreading false information” on grounds the two journalists had ties to the PKK.
The Istanbul Bar Association denounced the lawsuit as having “no legal basis” and said its executive council was “fulfilling its duties and responsibilities in line with the Constitution, democracy and the law.”
Turkish Bar Association head Sagkan said: “Although the methods may change, the only thing that has remained constant for the past half century is the effort by the government’s supporters to pressurise and stifle those they see as opponents.”
UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban
OSLO: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will continue to provide aid to people in the Palestinian territories despite an Israeli ban due to be implemented by the end of January, its director said Wednesday.
“We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo. “UNRWA’s local staff will remain and continue to provide emergency assistance and where possible, education and primary health care,” he said.
Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday urged all countries to “take their hands off” Syria and said Turkiye had the capacity and ability to crush all terrorist organizations in the country, including Kurdish militia and Islamic State.
Speaking in parliament, Erdogan said the Kurdish YPG militia was the biggest problem in Syria now after the ousting of former President Bashar Assad, and added that the group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms.
World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM
OSLO: The international community will have to maintain pressure on Israel after an hoped-for ceasefire in Gaza so it accepts the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday.
A ceasefire agreement appears close following a recent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying late Tuesday that a deal to end the 15-month war was “on the brink.”
“The ceasefire we’re talking about ... came about primarily because of international pressure. So pressure does pay off,” Mustafa said before a conference in Oslo.
Israel must “be shown what’s right and what’s wrong, and that the veto power on peace and statehood for Palestinians will not be accepted and tolerated any longer,” he told reporters.
He was speaking at the start of the third meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, gathering representatives from some 80 states and organizations in Oslo.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, the host of the meeting, said a “ceasefire is the prerequisite for peace, but it is not peace.”
“We need to move forward now toward a two-state solution. And since one of the two states exists, which is Israel, we need to build the other state, which is Palestine,” he added.
According to analysts, the two-state solution appears more remote than ever.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, firmly supported by US President-elect Donald Trump, is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israel is not represented at the Oslo meeting.
Norway angered Israel when it recognized the Palestinian state, together with Spain and Ireland, last May, a move later followed by Slovenia.
In a nod to history, Wednesday’s meeting was held in the Oslo City Hall, where Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The then-head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israeli prime minister and his foreign minister were honored for signing the Oslo accords a year earlier, which laid the foundation for Palestinian autonomy with the goal of an independent state.
Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls
DAMASCUS: Families of missing persons have urged Syria’s new authorities to protect evidence of crimes under president Bashar Assad, after outrage over volunteers painting over etchings on walls inside a former jail.
Thousands poured out of prisons after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of tens of thousands of relatives and friends who went missing.
In the chaos following his ouster, with journalists and families rushing to detention centers, official documents have been left unprotected, with some even looted or destroyed.
Rights groups have stressed the urgent need to preserve “evidence of atrocities,” which includes writings left by detainees on the walls of their cells.
But a video appearing to show young volunteers paint over such writings at an unnamed detention center with white paint and adorning its walls with the new Syrian flag, the depiction of a fireplace or broken chains has circulated on social media in recent days, angering activists.
“Painting the walls of security branches is disgraceful, especially before the start of new investigations into human rights violations” there, said Diab Serriya, a co-founder of Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP).
It is “an attempt to destroy the signs of torture or enforced disappearance and hampers efforts to... gather evidence,” he said.
Jomana Hasan Shtiwy, a Syrian held in three different facilities under Assad, often changing cells, said the writings on the walls held invaluable information.
“On the walls are names and telephone numbers to contact relatives and inform them about the fate of their children,” she said on Facebook.
In each new cell, “we would write a memory so that those who followed could remember us,” she said.
A petition appeared on Tuesday calling for the new Syrian authorities to better protect evidence, and give investigating the fate of those forcibly disappeared under Assad “the highest priority.”
It slammed what it called “the insensitive treatment of the sanctity” of former detention centers.
“Some have gone as far as to paint cells, obscuring their features, which for us represents... a great wronging of detainees,” said signatories, including ADMSP.
The president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said last week determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war would be a “huge challenge.”
Mirjana Spoljaric said the ICRC was following 43,000 cases, but that was probably just a fraction of the missing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.
