UN atomic agency seeks answers from Iran after it installed advanced centrifuges in a move that puts further pressure on the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers
Cornel Feruta, acting Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaks during a press conference after the IAEA Board of Governors meeting at the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria on September 9, 2019. The acting head of the UN nuclear watchdog on Monday called on Iran to "respond promptly" to the agency's questions regarding Tehran's nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating the particles' origin and has asked Iran to explain the traces. But Tehran has not done so, according to the diplomats, stoking tensions between Washington and Tehran. Those traces were, however, of uranium, the diplomats said - the same element Iran is enriching and one of only two fissile elements with which one can make the core of a nuclear bomb.
Iran may soon release a detained British tanker after the completion of legal steps, state television reported on Sunday. Salehi said the EU "was supposed to fill the vacuum" in enforcing the deal, but "unfortunately they could not." He said compliance with the deal is not a "one-way road. The IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors will discuss Iran at a quarterly meeting that begins on Monday.Iran has started up advanced centrifuges to boost its stockpile of enriched uranium but will allow the UN atomic agency to continue monitoring its nuclear programme, spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation Behrouz Kamalvandi said.
Earlier, the once-detained Iranian oil tanker pursued by the US appeared to be off the coast of Syria, where Tehran reportedly promised the vessel would not go when authorities in Gibraltar agreed to release it several weeks ago, according to satellite images obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.
President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that the new steps included abandoning all limits set by the 2015 deal to Iran's nuclear research and development."These activities we consider are inconsistent with the JCPOA . And in this context we urge Iran to reverse these steps and refrain from further measures that undermine the nuclear deal," European Commission spokesman Carlos Martin Ruiz de Gordejuela told a media briefing in Brussels.
He ordered all limits on nuclear research and development to be lifted, the country's third step in scaling down its commitments to a 2015 deal with world powers."The atomic energy organisation is ordered to immediately start whatever is needed in the field of research and development, and abandon all the commitments that were in place regarding research and development."
"I don't think that... we will reach a deal so we'll take the third step and we will announce the details today or tomorrow," Rouhani told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Araghchi was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying "it is unlikely European countries can take an effective step" before the deadline.Iran will free seven crew members of the detained British tanker Stena Impero, Iranian state television reported on Wednesday.
"We have agreed to make further efforts and take more measures to protect economic projects with Iran and to gain independence from payments in dollars," Sergey Lavrov said.US sanctioned an Iranian oil tanker previously held for weeks by Gibraltar and released despite Washington's efforts to keep it detained.
The flurry of contradictory statements further muddies the waters for the Adrian Darya 1, formerly known as the Grace 1, and obscures where its 2.1 million barrels of oil will ultimately go.Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1, released after being detained for six weeks by the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, is now headed for Lebanon, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.
The idea of direct talks between Washington and Tehran as a way out of the crisis grew this week after Trump mooted the idea and the new US defence secretary urged Iran's leaders to engage.Zarif says Iran's supreme leader will not meet Trump unless Washington halts its "economic terrorism" that has hurt ordinary Iranians.
"We are worried about tension in the Middle East and we hope to make some diplomatic effort to ease the tension," Kono told reporters as he stood with Zarif.Japan has historically had friendly ties with Iran and is also a close US ally.Rouhani told the US to "take the first step" by lifting all sanctions against Iran, dampening down the likelihood of meeting US counterpart Trump.
Ali Rabiei made the announcement at a news conference on Monday in Tehran. He says the buyer of the oil will decide the ship's ultimate destination. The vessel, fully laden with oil, had previously been heading to the port of Kalamata in southern Greece but Greece had said it would not offer any facilities to the tanker.
"France had presented some suggestions and we presented some suggestions about how to carry out [the nuclear deal] and the steps that both sides need to take," Zarif, said. "All parties in the shipping sector should conduct appropriate due diligence to ensure that they are not doing business with nor facilitating business for, directly or indirectly, sanctioned parties or with sanctioned cargo," the official warned.Iran is prepared to work on French proposals to salvage the international nuclear deal that Tehran signed with world powers in 2015, Zarif said.
He had said on Monday he would meet Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Paris on Friday. "Now that our enemies do not accept logic, we cannot respond with logic," Rouhani said in the televised speech. The US re-imposed sanctions on Iran after the Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal over concerns about Iran's missile program and regional influence.Iran displays domestically built mobile missile defence system
"With this long-range air defence system, we can detect ... targets or planes at more than 300 km , lock it at about 250 km, and destroy it at 200 km," Defence Minister Amir Hatami told state television.Greece closes ports to Iranian oil tanker The vessel can still enter Greek waters or anchor offshore, in which case Athens will "see" what it will do, Varvitsiotis added.The United States will take every action it can to prevent an Iranian tanker from delivering oil to Syria in contravention of US sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned.
"There is officially no request concerning the arrival of the Iranian tanker in a Greek port," Plakiotakis told Greek media.The website Marine Traffic placed the supertanker carrying 2.1 million barrels of oil some 100 kilometres northwest of the Algerian port of Oran.Iran said it warned Washington through the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which represents prior US interests, against trying to seize the tanker again.
The Iran-flagged Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, set course for Kalamata, Greece, with an estimated arrival on August 25, according to ship-tracking service MarineTraffic. It wasn't immediately clear why the tanker would be heading there or whether the destination could change. The vessel has been detained for over a month in Gibraltar for allegedly attempting to breach European Union sanctions on Syria.
A new crew is expected to arrive and sail the tanker to an undisclosed destination as early as Sunday.The United States faced an against-the-clock legal battle to re-seize an Iranian supertanker caught in a diplomatic standoff before the vessel's shipping agent said Saturday he would go ahead with the ship's planned departure from Gibraltar on Sunday or Monday.
Gibraltar lifted the detention order on Thursday but the vessel’s fate was further complicated by the US, which made a last-ditch legal appeal to hold it.The US Justice Department unveiled a warrant on Friday for the seizure of the Iranian oil supertanker Grace 1, one day after a Gibraltar judge allowed the release of the detained vessel.
Picardo said the US could still begin a new legal procedure for seizing the Grace 1, but that provisions under the European Union's sanctions regulations were ending on Thursday. The US requested that Gibraltar hold in detention an Iranian supertanker at the centre of a stand-off between Tehran and London that sparked tensions in the oil-rich Gulf.
"There is no reason to keep Grace 1 in Gibraltar a moment longer if we no longer believe it is in breach of sanctions against the Syrian regime," the newspaper quoted a source close to Picardo as saying.A Gibraltarian government source denied an Iranian news agency report which said the Iranian oil tanker Grace 1 would be leaving the British overseas territory on Tuesday.
A court in Gibraltar is to decide the fate of the ship on Thursday, when an order for its detention lapses. It had been inoperable due to "sanctions, lack of spare parts and the inability of foreign engineers to carry out repairs", it added.Any Israeli involvement in a maritime coalition in the Gulf is a "clear threat" to Iran's national security and it has a right to confront the threat, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Friday, according to a statement on the ministry's website.
Calling the US the main source of tensions in the region, Hatami called on Gulf countries to enter "constructive talks" to provide maritime security by themselves.Washington said that US-flagged commercial vessels should send their transit plans for the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf waters to US and British naval authorities ahead of time. This comes from the US Maritime Administration in an advisory on Iran threats.
According to the newspaper, Katz said in a meeting of ministers that Israel has no conflict with Gulf nations. "We want a European mission," he said, adding that the issue was not off the agenda but it would take time to convince the European Union to carry out such a mission. The tensions are rooted in the US decision last year to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear accord and impose sweeping sanctions on Iran.Iran will take the third step to reduce its commitments to a landmark 2015 nuclear deal within the framework of the pact, Zarif said on Saturday, according to parliamentary news agency ICANA."We have said that if is not completely implemented by others then we will also implement it in the same incomplete manner.
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