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[webfact]

Iran ratchets up tensions with higher enrichment, draws warnings

By Parisa Hafezi and Tuqa Khalid

 

A woman walks in front of a mural depicting the Statue of Liberty in Tehran, Iran July 7, 2019. Nazanin Tabatabaee/ WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran announced on Sunday it will shortly boost its uranium enrichment above a cap set by a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, a major breach likely to draw a tougher reaction from President Donald Trump, who has pressured Tehran to renegotiate the pact.

 

In a sign of heightening tensions, France, Germany and Britain -- all parties to the deal -- expressed concerns over the step taken by Tehran, its latest effort to force the West to lift sanctions ravaging its limping economy.

 

In a live news conference, senior Iranian officials threatened further violations, saying Tehran would keep reducing its commitments every 60 days, unless European signatories of protect it from U.S. sanctions imposed by Trump.

 

"We are fully prepared to enrich uranium at any level and with any amount," said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation.   

 

"In a few hours the technical process will come to an end and the enrichment beyond 3.67% will begin," he added, referring to the limit set in the 2015 agreement.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the step was extremely dangerous and was designed to create atomic bombs, and again called on Europe to impose punitive sanctions on Tehran.

 

Iran has denied any intent to develop nuclear weapons.

 

The confrontation has taken on a military dimension, with Washington blaming Tehran for attacks on oil tankers, and Iranshooting down a U.S. drone, prompting aborted U.S. air strikes.

 

The Europeans, who object to Trump's withdrawal from the deal, have so far failed to salvage the pact by shielding Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions, which cost billions of dollars in lost oil sales.

 

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Iran's decision as a "violation" of the pact which the United States pulled out of last year.

 

Iran must immediately stop and reverse its activities, a spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said on Sunday.

 

The European Union strongly urged Iran to stop actions that would undermine the pact, saying it was in touch with other parties and may set up a joint commission to examine the issue.

 

"The Iranian government is trying to create a crisis that will force a multilateral negotiation without precipitating a war," said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

 

SPACE FOR TALKS?

Iran did leave some room for negotiations.

 

All measures taken to scale back its commitments to the agreement were "reversible" if the European signatories of the pact fulfilled their obligations, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Sunday.

 

The Iran nuclear deal dispute resolution mechanism will not be triggered for now, said a source at Macron's Elysee office. The French government is giving itself until July 15 to try to get all parties talking again.

 

Under that so-called snapback mechanism, if a series of steps designed to resolve differences fails, sanctions in all previous U.N. resolutions would be re-imposed.

 

Daniel Byman, senior fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, said Iran was engaged in a tricky balancing act.

 

"The step is meant to show domestic audiences that Iran is standing up to U.S. pressure. It is also meant to convey a sense of risk to European audiences that Iran may provoke a crisis," he said.

 

According to the terms of the pact, Iran can enrich uranium to 3.67% fissile material, well below the 20% it was reaching before the deal and the roughly 90% suitable for a nuclear weapon.

 

Simon Henderson, Director of Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he feared that if Iran wanted to raise enrichment it would have to raise it to 20 percent for technical reasons.

 

Kamalvandi said Iran would enrich uranium for use in fuelling its Bushehr power plant, to the level of 5%, confirming what Reuters reported on Saturday.

 

PRESSURE ON EUROPEANS

Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog who are in Iran will report back once they have checked that Tehran has enriched uranium to a higher level of purity than that allowed under its nuclear deal, the agency said.

 

Long-tense relations between Tehran and Washington deteriorated in May 2018 when Trump withdrew from the deal reached before he took office, and reimposed sanctions - saying the agreement did not go far enough, and did not addressIran's missile programme or its policies in the Middle East.

 

Tehran says its missile programme is defensive.

 

Under a dispute process, Iran could argue the U.S. withdrawal and Washington's sanctions campaign constitute "significant non-performance" and "treat the unresolved issue as grounds to cease performing its commitments".

 

"European countries have failed to uphold their commitments and they are also responsible," Abbas Araqchi, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, told the news conference in Tehran.

 

"The doors of diplomacy are open but what matters are new initiatives which are required."

 

Under the nuclear deal, most international sanctions against Tehran were lifted in return for limitations on its nuclear work.

 

Iran's main demand - in talks with the European parties to the deal and as a precondition to any talks with the United States - is to be allowed to sell its oil at the levels before Washington pulled out of the agreement and restored sanctions.

 

(Additional reporting by Thomas Escritt in Berlin; Kylie MacLellan in London, Paris bureau and Francois Murphy in Vienna; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Keith Weir, Dale Hudson and Alexandra Hudson)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-08

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[Tug]

Why the hell not it worked for little Kim lol

[expatfromwyoming]

Trump needs to understand there are more persuasive ways achieving results than wielding a big stick and playing bully boy. I guess that is just to entrenched in his DNA as that has been his modus operandi his entire life.

[Morch]

3 hours ago, Tug said:

Why the hell not it worked for little Kim lol

 

Depends how you mean "worked". If talking about the regime's political survival, maybe yes. If referencing the people and the state of the country - not so much. Plus, Kim presented the world with a fact. Iran will have to develop such weapons while under scrutiny. A very different situation.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Morch

[Krataiboy]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the step was extremely dangerous and was designed to create atomic bombs, and again called on Europe to impose punitive sanctions on Tehran.

 

Also extremely dangerous, Mr Netanyahu, for you to point 200 nuclear missiles at Iran.

https://nypost.com/2016/09/16/israel-has-200-nukes-pointed-at-iran-according-to-powell-emails/

[Srikcir]

12 hours ago, webfact said:

"In a few hours the technical process will come to an end and the enrichment beyond 3.67% will begin,"

So?

There are about (32) nuclear research reactors worldwide that typically use 20% enriched uranium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_research_reactors

Nuclear electric power generation can use 3-5% enrichment.

If it takes about a year to enrich from 3.67% to 90%, enrichment from 20% to 90% is figuratively just a "snap of the fingers."

13 hours ago, webfact said:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the step was extremely dangerous and was designed to create atomic bombs

I guess there's potential worldwide then for a whole lot of nuclear bombs designed to be created.

 

Compare to North Korea:

In July of 2018 told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that North Korea was actively make fuel for nuclear weapons, saying “they continue to produce fissile material.” https://time.com/5537298/north-korea-summit-nuclear-program/

Yet with North Korea Trump meanwhile promised Kim that the CIA will not spy on it and he'll patiently wait for Kim to meet and talk about denuclearization. Obviously, Kim's nuclear playbook gets results. Why shouldn't Iran do the same?

 

[Tug]

10 hours ago, Morch said:

 

Depends how you mean "worked". If talking about the regime's political survival, maybe yes. If referencing the people and the state of the country - not so much. Plus, Kim presented the world with a fact. Iran will have to develop such weapons while under scrutiny. A very different situation.

Kim doesent care about his people #1 Iran has oil =$ Korea not the kims thumped their noses at the world as they did it why can’t iran

[tso310]

I see BA now avoids Iran but Thai and EVA still overflying. 

[yawg]

The US withdrew from the treaty unilaterally so why should Iran keep its restrictions? Plus Israel owns loads of nuclear arms almost nobody is talking about. How stupid can the game get?

[Chelseafan]

3 minutes ago, yawg said:

The US withdrew from the treaty unilaterally so why should Iran keep its restrictions? Plus Israel owns loads of nuclear arms almost nobody is talking about. How stupid can the game get?

Because the Israeli's aren't nuts!

Seriously though if the Iranians develop atomic weapons then there would be a power shift in the middle east which I doubt will bode well for anyone.

 

[Morch]

23 hours ago, Tug said:

Kim doesent care about his people #1 Iran has oil =$ Korea not the kims thumped their noses at the world as they did it why can’t iran

 

Getting hard deciphering your code. Apparently, you're assuming that Iran's leaders care about their people more than they care about political survival and upholding their ideology. No support for this provided. Iran does have oil, and oil is potentially monies - if it can be sold. So far, the sanctions are pretty effective when it comes to hamstringing Iran's economy. Kim had (or has) the backing of a next door superpower, plus the breakthrough to nuclear arms was achieved as a surprise. Iran's situation is different on both counts.

[Morch]

17 hours ago, yawg said:

The US withdrew from the treaty unilaterally so why should Iran keep its restrictions? Plus Israel owns loads of nuclear arms almost nobody is talking about. How stupid can the game get?

 

Iran can withdraw from the agreement as well - and opt to revive its nuclear program. Choosing this path will see international sanctions reinstated, though, and Iran probably even more isolated than now. There's no real option for Iran to have the cake and eat it too. What the Iranian regime is currently doing is simply walking a fine line, trying to push back as far as possible - without actually breaking the agreement.

 

With regard to Israel, the difference would be that it already got its nukes. Getting countries to disarm is harder than preventing them from getting the weapons in the first place. See Pakistan, India, and NK for reference on that.

[expatfromwyoming]

35 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

Iran can withdraw from the agreement as well - and opt to revive its nuclear program. Choosing this path will see international sanctions reinstated, though, and Iran probably even more isolated than now. There's no real option for Iran to have the cake and eat it too. What the Iranian regime is currently doing is simply walking a fine line, trying to push back as far as possible - without actually breaking the agreement.

 

With regard to Israel, the difference would be that it already got its nukes. Getting countries to disarm is harder than preventing them from getting the weapons in the first place. See Pakistan, India, and NK for reference on that.

Well there is actually- Israel with all it war mongering and Trump/US support has not signed a non proliferation agreement with the world. Iran has.

 

Edit after the settling of a fine single malt- after re reading your post I agree

Edited July 9, 2019 by expatfromwyoming

[expatfromwyoming]

32 minutes ago, Morch said:

With regard to Israel, the difference would be that it already got its nukes. Getting countries to disarm is harder than preventing them from getting the weapons in the first place. See Pakistan, India, and NK for reference on that.

But you forgot Israel on that list

[expatfromwyoming]

23 hours ago, tso310 said:

I see BA now avoids Iran but Thai and EVA still overflying. 

Bullet proof- or perhaps a rare glimpse of sanity

[expatfromwyoming]

On ‎7‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 8:16 PM, Tug said:

Kim doesent care about his people #1 Iran has oil =$ Korea not the kims thumped their noses at the world as they did it why can’t iran

And they are only following through on a previously US endorsed and funded program not unlike other countries like India/Pakistan and Israel. The world was not going to end when those agreements were in place. As someone who has spent  much of his career in the Middle East serving many CIC and seeing many men die I find this abhorrent. The fat is conventions of mainstream journalism make it difficult to challenge America’s self-conception as a peace-loving nation. But the glaring truth is this: Throughout its history, America has attacked countries that did not threaten it. To carry out such wars, American leaders have contrived pretexts to justify American aggression. That’s what Donald Trump’s administration—and especially its national security adviser, John Bolton—is doing now with Iran.