Latest news with #MohammadEslami
Newsweek
16-07-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Iran Makes Nuclear Threat
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Iran is threatening to raise uranium enrichment to weapons-grade levels and exit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if Western powers move forward with reimposing United Nations sanctions, according to Iranian state media. The warning follows mounting pressure from the United States and its European allies. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom agreed in a phone call Monday to set an August deadline for a nuclear agreement, Axios reported. If no deal is reached by then, the three European powers plan to trigger the UN "snapback" mechanism, which would automatically reinstate global sanctions on Iran's arms trade, banking sector, and nuclear program. Newsweek has reached out to State Department and Iran's foreign ministry for comment. Why It Matters The possible reactivation of UN snapback sanctions threatens to dismantle the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and push Iran toward enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels of 90 percent. This crisis has deep roots in the U.S. withdrawal from the deal in 2018 under President Donald Trump, which led Iran to reduce compliance and expand its nuclear program. Recent Israeli and U.S. strikes directly on Iran's nuclear facilities have further escalated tensions. Combined diplomatic and military pressures have heightened tensions and if Iran does exit the NPT, it could end international oversight of its nuclear activities, weakening global nonproliferation efforts. In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Masoud Pezeshkian, second right, listens to head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami as he visits an exhibition of Iran's nuclear achievements, in... In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Masoud Pezeshkian, second right, listens to head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami as he visits an exhibition of Iran's nuclear achievements, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. More Iranian Presidency Office/AP Photo What to Know According to the Tasnim news agency, Iran has warned that triggering the snapback mechanism could prompt it to raise uranium enrichment from 60 percent to 90 percent—considered weapons-grade—and potentially redirect its enriched uranium stockpile for military uses not explicitly banned under international agreements. Not Backing Down Echoing that position, a member of Iran's Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Tehran would respond firmly to renewed sanctions. "Iran has given and will continue to give proportional responses to Western missteps," Alaeddin Boroujerdi said. He urged Europe to act "wisely," stressing Iran will not retreat under pressure and will defend its legal rights. While open to negotiations, Boroujerdi said talks must respect Iran's sovereignty and its right to enrich uranium. He added that Iran's scientific expertise cannot be destroyed by force: "Bombing cannot erase this knowledge — it will only come back stronger." No Rush to Talk On Tuesday, President Trump said that Iran was eager to reopen talks with Washington but that he was in "no rush" to respond, citing the recent U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. His comments came as Rubio and European foreign ministers of France, Germany, and the UK held a joint call to coordinate strategy on Iran. The call focused on contingency planning ahead of the end of August deadline for a nuclear deal and explored how best to manage the snapback timeline before Russia assumes the rotating UN Security Council presidency in October. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after arriving at Joint Base Andrews, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Joint Base Andrews, Md., as Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt,... President Donald Trump speaks to the media after arriving at Joint Base Andrews, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Joint Base Andrews, Md., as Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, center right, look on. More Evan Vucci/AP Photo What People Are Saying US President Donald Trump: "They [Iran] would like to talk. I'm in no rush to talk because we obliterated their site." French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said: "Without a firm, tangible, and verifiable commitment from Iran, we will [trigger snapback] by the end of August at the latest." Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned: "This move would mark the end of Europe's role in Iran's peaceful nuclear file." What Happens Next If no progress is made by the August deadline, France, Germany, and the U.K. are expected to initiate snapback sanctions with U.S. backing. Iran could then escalate its nuclear activity and withdraw from the NPT—moves likely to inflame tensions already heightened by recent Israeli and U.S. military action and which could lead to further conflict.
Shafaq News
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Iran to continue nuclear work as IAEA calls for inspection restart
Shafaq News/ Iran will continue its nuclear program without interruption, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, announced on Tuesday. Eslami told state broadcaster IRIB that assessments of damage to nuclear facilities were still ongoing, while experts said the extent of destruction from recent Israeli and US strikes remains unclear. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for an immediate resumption of nuclear verification activities in Tehran. 'The inspections had been suspended after the attacks, but the technical team remains in Iran and is ready to resume verification, including checks on uranium enrichment at 60 percent levels,' IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said. He reported severe damage at the Arak, Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz sites, though no radiation leaks were detected outside the facilities or in neighboring countries. In a letter to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Grossi called for a meeting and a restart of cooperation with the agency, stressing that continued inspections are vital for a diplomatic resolution. The United States recently struck Iran's underground Fordow facility with bunker-buster bombs. President Donald Trump claimed the raids destroyed Iran's 'main uranium enrichment sites,' though this remains unconfirmed.
New York Post
24-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Here's how long US strikes may have set back Iran's nuclear program
WASHINGTON — Saturday's US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities set back the Islamic Republic's atomic weapons capabilities by roughly two years, American and Israeli officials and experts tell The Post – adding that Tehran remains 'highly incentivized' to pursue a bomb. While President Trump vowed Tuesday morning that Tehran will 'never rebuild' its nuclear weapons program, Iran's atomic chief claimed that arrangements are already being made to restore the bombed sites at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz. 'The plan is to prevent interruptions in the process of production and services,' Mohammad Eslami of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran told Iran's state-owned Mehr News, adding that Tehran had been prepared for airstrikes by the US and Israel to damage the sites. Exact assessments of the damage — which require access to the sites that Iran is unwilling to grant — may never take place. Advertisement 3 Satellite images taken Tuesday of damage at Iran's Fordow facility Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies/AFP via Getty Images But multiple nuclear physicists and national security analysts said the strikes — paired with Israel's 'Operation Rising Lion' campaign targeting top Iranian scientists and military officials — were able to push back Tehran's nuclear timeline to months to years away from making a weapon rather than days to weeks. 'Iran likely requires months, if not years, to restore an option to build nuclear weapons,' said Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the Foundation for Defending Democracies' nonproliferation and biodefense program. 'Still, Tehran is highly incentivized to cobble together a crash nuclear weapons effort using what it has.' Advertisement 'The United States and Israel may need to conduct additional strikes to ensure that threat is eliminated,' Stricker added. 'Alternatively, or alongside, Washington can insist Iran to agree to a deal for the full, verifiable, and permanent dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program and remaining assets.' Where's the uranium? Israelis are highly concerned that Iran will reconstitute its program, though there is a general sense of relief that the threat has at least been temporarily eased, said Scott Feltman, the vice president of One Israel Fund, which raises money for Jews living in the West Bank. 'There is a very, very real fear, but [Israeli Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu has been on this bandwagon for 20 years. I don't think he would have agreed to the cease-fire if he didn't think that, at the very least, that it set them back a few years, if not more. 'But I don't believe that he feels that Iran could ever be trusted in the current regime.' Advertisement 3 Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei watches a nuclear demonstration in 2023 via REUTERS Imagery from open-source satellite images taken Thursday and Friday showed more than a dozen cargo-style trucks lined up outside the gates of Fordow, leading some to express suspicion that Tehran evacuated the nuclear fuel prior to the US strikes. Others have suggested the trucks were being used to block tunnel entrances with earth in an attempt to mitigate the impact of US bunker bombs. If Iran was able to remove its estimated 400kg — about 880 pounds — of uranium enriched to 60% purity, the countdown to a weapon could grow short once again, DC-based nuclear physicist Steve Nelson told The Post. 'The thing about being enriched beyond 20% is that it makes it way easier to enrich it to 93%, which is basically weapons grade,' Nelson said. 'And then once you get to 90% to 93%, somewhere in that range, you can make a nuclear weapon out of uranium very easily.' Advertisement On Monday, the Iranian parliament's national security committee indefinitely suspended its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, preventing the United Nations organization from overseeing Tehran's nuclear activities. 'The Iranian nuclear program has been set back significantly … We have to see what they want to do. Do they, are they going to reconstruct what they have?' IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told Fox News on Tuesday. 3 The Arak heavy water reactor, pictured in 2019. AP Regardless of whether the uranium was salvaged, Stricker said it remains unlikely that Iran would be capable of producing a nuclear weapon anytime soon, as Tehran would still need to reconstruct enrichment facilities damaged or destroyed in the US strikes to push the 60% uranium to the amount required for a bomb. 'While it may still have possession of some amount of highly enriched uranium, it likely lacks the capacity to weaponize it for nuclear bombs,' she said. 'Prior to the US bombing, Israel carried out massive strikes on the regime's weaponization headquarters, facilities, equipment, bomb components, documentation and key scientists.' What remains? Calls for additional strikes on Iranian nuclear strikes could grow louder after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged Tuesday that at least one intelligence assessment indicated the US strikes had not completely destroyed Iran's centrifuges. Leavitt denied the accuracy of the assessment — which was leaked to CNN and the New York Times and claimed the strikes only set Tehran's program back by a few months — and chastised its author as a 'low-level loser.' 'The Israeli and American strikes on Iran's nuclear program have set it back severely, but the question is just how far,' said Ilan Evyatar, author of the book 'Target Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination – and Secret Diplomacy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East.' Advertisement 'Israeli intelligence believes that Natanz has been completely destroyed, but the picture at Fordow is not yet completely clear. In any event however, even if the centrifuge halls — which are hundreds of meters below ground — have not been destroyed, the force of the blasts is likely to have destroyed the centrifuges,' he said. Grossi, speaking before the initial intelligence assessment was reported, added to Fox News that the difference in Iran's capabilities was 'night and day' from before Israeli airstrikes began June 13. Without centrifuges, some analysts have said Iran could give some of its uranium to a proxy group like Hezbollah or Yemen's Houthi's 'to create a radiological dispersal device or RDD, known as a dirty bomb,' but that path is unlikely, according to Stricker. Advertisement 'There is a real question of whether Tehran would do so, given that creating a mass panic and threatening use of an RDD would invite swift Israeli and US efforts to fully eliminate the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], top leadership, and the regime's proxies. 'Iran is taking more measured steps to ensure its survival and probably wants to preserve its remaining [highly-enriched uranium] to build back its own nuclear weapons option. '
Khabar Agency
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Khabar Agency
الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة يحضّ إسرائيل وإيران على الاحترام الكامل لوقف إطلاق النار
Iran's government said Tuesday it had 'taken the necessary measures' to ensure the continuation of its nuclear program after US and Israeli strikes targeted its facilities. 'We have taken the necessary measures and are taking stock of the damage' caused by the strikes, said the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, in a statement aired on state television. 'Plans for restarting (the facilities) have been prepared in advance, and our strategy is to ensure that production and services are not disrupted,' he added. The United States struck the Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz uranium enrichment facilities on Sunday. US President Donald Trump called the strikes a 'spectacular military success,' although the extent of the damage is unknown. An adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the country still had stocks of enriched uranium and that 'the game is not over.' Israel announced on Monday that it had again bombed the Fordow site, buried under a mountain south of Tehran, to 'obstruct access routes.'
Middle East Eye
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
What Iran achieved during the conflict with Israel
After an 11th hour exchange of fire, and a sweary address to reporters from Donald Trump, Israel and Iran have ceased hostilities. The US president announced a 'complete and total ceasefire' late on Monday, ending 11 days of clashes. Israel launched attacks on Iran on 13 June, saying that it wanted to remove any chance of Tehran developing nuclear weapons. It attacked Iranian nuclear and military facilities, and assassinated high-profile security, intelligence and military figures, as well as nuclear scientists. Tehran, which denies it seeks a nuclear weapon, retaliated with ballistic missile strikes on Israeli towns and cities. At least 439 Iranians were killed and 28 in Israel. While the assault left Iran undoubtedly damaged, it nonetheless provided lessons about its nuclear and military capabilities, as well as the domestic standing of the Islamic Republic itself. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Nuclear strategy rethink There is little question that Iran suffered a setback on its nuclear programme, according to Mohammad Eslami, an expert on the proliferation of conventional and unconventional weapons in the Middle East. 'Precision Israeli strikes severely damaged key components of Iran's nuclear infrastructure,' Eslami told Middle East Eye, citing a heavy water reactor at Arak, uranium enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow, and research labs in Isfahan. 'These sites represented decades of accumulated technical effort and institutional knowledge,' he said. The level of damage that Israeli, and later US, strikes inflicted on Iran's nuclear sites is not fully clear. Iranian authorities are currently carrying out assessments to determine the extent of the damage. No nuclear fallout has been reported at the sites. Several nuclear scientists were also killed by Israel. 'Building infrastructure is one thing; rebuilding a generation of homegrown scientists with deep expertise in nuclear physics, engineering and centrifuge design is far harder,' said Eslami. 'Possessing a nuclear infrastructure without a credible deterrent leaves it vulnerable to high-precision attacks' - Mohammad Eslami, weapons proliferation expert As for Iran's nuclear diplomacy in the near future, the conflict may have given it a clearer sense of how to move forward. Up to now, US intelligence assessments suggest that Iran is not yet actively pursuing the manufacture of a nuclear weapon, and that it is years away from being able to produce one anyway. Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and insists that it has a sovereign right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. Its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, previously issued a fatwa ruling that Iran could not pursue a nuclear weapon. After the events of the last few days, however, some ordinary Iranians have taken to the streets and demanded that Tehran go ahead and obtain nuclear weapons as a deterrent. 'Possessing a nuclear infrastructure without a credible deterrent leaves it vulnerable to high-precision attacks,' said Eslami. He added that while Iran tries to insist that it has the right to a civilian nuclear programme, pursuing such an approach could open it to confrontation. 'One lesson Iran may internalise is that strategic ambiguity - neither confirming nor denying its capabilities - might be a more sustainable path going forward,' Eslami added. That would be comparable to Israel's own nuclear strategy, which is shrouded in secrecy. Israel has never publicly acknowledged that it has a nuclear arsenal. Military 'can surive and retaliate' Iran suffered blows to its military infrastructure too. Israel directly struck military assets, including missile launchers. It has also likely burned through a significant chunk of its existing arsenal of ballistic missiles, which will now need replacing. 'Despite its losses, Iran's missile programme made a powerful impression. Its projectiles repeatedly breached Israeli and allied regional air defence systems, impacting both civilian and military targets,' said Eslami. 'Iran has shown that it can not only survive, but retaliate in meaningful ways. That capability cements its status as a regional military power.' Trump says Israel and Iran 'don't know what the fuck they're doing' Read More » The strikes on cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa caused major damage, completely destroying apartment buildings and other sites. While Israel has withstood rockets and missiles from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis over the past two years, none of these groups managed to inflict the level of cross-border damage seen in recent days. Ali Rizk, a Lebanese political and security analyst, said that Iran showed its allies in the region how far it is willing to engage in direct military action. In recent years, Iran has been less prone to direct attacks, relying more on proxy warfare via its allied groups. 'Iran wasn't even silent on American attacks,' Rizk told MEE, referring to Iran's retaliatory strike on the US's al-Udeid military base in Qatar on Monday. 'It was a symbolic attack, but nevertheless… The fact that Iran also insisted on responding to that, gave more and more reassurance to its allies of how far Iran is willing to go.' War rallied Iranian people Beyond nuclear and military considerations, there were far more existential questions posed over the past two weeks, regarding whether the Islamic Republic would survive until the end of the war. Both Israeli and US leaders insinuated regime change was one of the conflict's key aims, in addition to curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. Ultimately, however, there was no groundswell in support of overthrowing the government and political system on the streets of Iran. 'The United States is not in the business of pursuing regime change against Iran. It still deems that to be too risky of an endeavour' - Ali Rizk, analyst 'One of the most important conclusions to draw is that the United States is not in the business of pursuing regime change against Iran,' said Rizk. 'It still deems that to be too risky of an endeavour.' Despite Iran having a shaky few months on the global stage - with the fall of Bashar al-Assad's autocratic government in Syria, as well as the severe weakening of Hezbollah during its war with Israel - Netanyahu was still unable to persuade the US to help it overthrow the Islamic Republic. Rizk says that the war may have had the opposite intended effect: by inadvertently helping to rally the Iranian people around its leaders, the attacks have made the Islamic Republic's position stronger. 'Those who didn't designate Israel as an enemy are going to do so now. Even those who formerly didn't support the [Iranian] government,' he said. 'So this is a major strategic blunder for Netanyahu.'
