Latest news with #UNSanctions
Reuters
3 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
France making own assessment of Iranian nuclear damage, Macron says
THE HAGUE, June 25 (Reuters) - France will finalise its own analysis on damage to Iran's nuclear facilities in the next few days and will then compare results with allies, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, after U.S. and Israeli strikes. Speaking to reporters after a NATO summit in The Hague, Macron said he would meet the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog Rafael Grossi in Paris later to discuss his latest assessment. "We are finalising our analysis with everything we have and then it will be confronted with the analysis of other interested countries, obviously the Americans, other Europeans, Israelis," Macron said. President Donald Trump said earlier on Wednesday that the damage from the strikes was severe and "there was obliteration," though he also conceded that U.S. intelligence had been inconclusive. France, along with Britain and Germany, is party to a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran and prior to the war between Israel and Iran had sought to play a role to negotiate a solution to the Tehran's contested nuclear programme. Following the strikes, the European powers have few levers and diplomacy has been thrown into disarray. However, they will at some point need to make a decision whether to re-impose United Nations sanctions on Iran before the U.N. resolution ratifying the 2015 deal expires in October. "We have a timeline that is running and decisions need to be made by the summer," Macron said.
The Herald
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald
North Korea condemns US strikes on Iran as violation of sovereign rights
North Korea said on Monday it strongly condemns the US strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities as a grave violation of a sovereign state's security interests and territorial rights, the country's state media reported. The US and Israel are the culprits of the tensions in the Middle East born out of Jerusalem's 'ceaseless war moves and territorial expansion accepted and encouraged by the West', North Korea's foreign ministry said. "(North Korea) strongly denounces the attack on Iran by the US which violently trampled down the territorial integrity and security interests of a sovereign state,' an unnamed spokesperson said in a statement carried by KCNA news agency. 'The just international community should raise the voice of unanimous censure and rejection against the US and Israel's confrontational acts,' the statement said. Iran and nuclear-armed North Korea have maintained friendly ties and have been suspected for decades of military cooperation, including in developing ballistic missiles. A now-defunct panel of experts monitoring UN sanctions said in 2021 the two countries had resumed cooperation on long-range missile development projects, including the transfer of critical parts. 'Pyongyang could provide important assistance in helping Iran reconstitute destroyed missile production facilities, including at new sites to avoid scrutiny, perhaps,' said Ankit Panda of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Whether either country would be interested in substantively cooperating on efforts to rebuild or accelerate Iran's nuclear weapons programme is less certain, given the political and military sensitivities over such technology, he said. 'There are matters pertaining to weapons design that the North Koreans would not want to proliferate because once in Iran, they could be discovered by the US and potentially assist the US in undermining its deterrent,' Panda said. However, Pyongyang has substantive experience in weaponisation and could be able to assist in the non-fissile components of a nuclear bomb, such as the conventional explosives, he added. North Korea has taken unprecedented steps in the past year to deepen military assistance to Russia, another partner of Iran, by sending thousands of troops and ballistic missiles and other weapons for use in fighting Ukraine, according to US, Ukrainian and other intelligence sources. Reuters
BBC News
18-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
North Korea to send thousands to help rebuild Russia's Kursk region
North Korea will send thousands of workers to help rebuild Russia's war-torn Kursk region, Moscow's security chief has said. Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu who is currently holding talks with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in its capital Pyongyang, described the deployment as "fraternal assistance", Russian state media South Korea and Japan were quick to condemn the plan, with Seoul it saying it was a violation of UN sanctions on North months concerns have swirled of deepening military collaboration between the two authoritarian states, amid reports of thousands of North Korean soldiers helping Russia fight its war on Ukraine. On Wednesday, Russia's TASS news agency quoted Shoigu as saying North Korea would send a "division of builders, two military brigades [of] 5,000 people", as well as 1,000 deminers to help with the "restoration" of the Kursk region."This is a kind of fraternal assistance from the Korean people and leader Kim Jong Un to our country," Shoigu was quoted as saying, according to an AFP report. North Korean state media also added that the meeting saw both Kim and Shoigu discuss other "long-term plans". South Korea was quick to respond, with a foreign ministry official saying they had "grave concerns" over the "continuing illegal cooperation between North Korea and Russia", local media has also expressed worries over the cooperation. "We are seriously concerned about these developments as it will worsen the Ukrainian situation and affect the regional security environment surrounding Japan," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters on November last year, Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence treaty, saying they would help each other in the event of "aggression" against either country, with Kim saying it took their relationship to a "new high level of alliance". South Korean intelligence offficers say there are an estimated 15,000 North Koreans working in Russia under bilateral industrial cooperation programmes - a source of revenue for Pyongyang. Separately, Western officials had in January told the BBC that at least 1,000 of an estimated 11,000 North Korean troops in Russia had been killed in just three months. A Seoul lawmaker said in April that they believed there were about 4,700 North Korean casualties, including 600 have said that Pyongyang could be paid, or may be given access to Russian military technology in exchange for the North Korea and Russia confirmed the presence of the North Korean troops in April - an admission that was condemned by South Korea and the the time, Seoul described the deployment as "illegal", saying that it was in violation of the UN Charter and the UN Security Council top Russian and North Korean officials have maintained regular contact as the war in Ukraine continues. When Shoigu visited Pyongyang earlier this month, Kim vowed to support Russia "unconditionally", including on "the Ukrainian issue", North Korean state media in April, Russia also claimed it had regained full control of the western Kursk region - which has been denied by Ukraine.
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Iran on brink of rejecting US proposal on nuclear programme
Iran is on the brink of rejecting US proposals on the future of its nuclear programme after the US draft insisted that Tehran would have to suspend the enrichment of uranium inside Iran and set out no clear route map for lifting US economic sanctions. The US proposals were the first in written form since five rounds of indirect talks started, but Iranian diplomatic sources said the US proposals gave no ground on Iran's demand to continue to enrich uranium inside the country. 'Iran is drafting a negative response to the US proposal, which could be interpreted as a rejection of the US offer,' a senior Iranian diplomat told Reuters. The US proposal for a new nuclear deal was presented to Iran on Saturday by the Omani foreign minister, Sayyid Badr Albusaidi, who was on a short visit to Tehran and has been mediating talks between Tehran and Washington. A complete breakdown in the talks would trigger European moves to impose heavier UN sanctions on Iran and a possible joint US-Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites. That could see Iran in turn launch reprisals. Faced by such a catastrophe, Iran is likely to temper its response to the US plans so that further talks are possible. The best compromise available would be a US statement that Iran in principle is permitted to enrich uranium but in practice will not do so, at least inside Iran, for an indefinite period. The US has said it would allow Iran to join a Middle East consortium to enrich uranium, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, but this could not take place on Iranian soil. A regional consortium for a civil nuclear program would require huge trust between the countries involved and continued external inspection. At one point it seemed that Donald Trump would allow Iranian enrichment at low levels so long as US inspectors – not just UN teams – were given access to Iran's nuclear sites, but that solution seems to be fading. But on Monday evening, the US president said Iran would not be allowed to enrich any uranium under a possible nuclear deal. 'Under our potential Agreement – WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!' Trump said on social media, in response to a report in the Axios news outlet that said his administration's offer would let Tehran enrich some of the nuclear fuel. Speaking on a visit to Cairo, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi revealed little about the progress of the talks, but said Iran would be replying to the US proposals shortly. Iran did suspend enrichment for two years from November 2003, but in 2005 it rejected the European plan to use imported low-enriched nuclear fuel for its reactors. In Egypt Araghchi met Raphael Grossi, the director of the UN nuclear inspectorate the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), expressing his displeasure at a draft IAEA report prepared for the agency's next board meeting that highlights how Iran has continued to enrich uranium at high levels of purity contrary to the agreement the nation signed in 2015. France, Germany and the UK intend to use the report to press for a board vote leading to UN sanctions being reimposed in September. The Iranians claim the draft IAEA report contains nothing surprising or new, but accuse the west of pressurising the inspectorate to develop an increasingly propagandistic tone. The report found that Iran carried out secret nuclear activities with material not declared to the UN nuclear watchdog at three locations that have long been under investigation. Araghchi said: 'western pressures should not affect the IAEA and the IAEA must maintain its independent and technical identity. Some countries want to put pressure on Iran through the IAEA, and we hope that the IAEA will not fall into this trap.' He added: 'Iran's enrichment is completely peaceful and a scientific achievement that we have achieved through our scientists. The Iranian nation has paid heavy prices to achieve this achievement, and the blood of a number of our nuclear scientists has been shed for this issue. 'If the goal of the negotiations is to ensure that Iran does not seek to obtain nuclear weapons, we can reach an agreement in this regard, but if unacceptable and unrealistic goals are pursued in this regard and the goal is to deprive Iran of peaceful nuclear activities, there will definitely be no agreement.' Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, said: 'If a proposal is based on ignoring the principle of enrichment, it is not at all presentable, not acceptable, not admissible, not worthy of attention, and not negotiable.'
NHK
14-06-2025
- Business
- NHK
North Korean leader instructs production of more artillery shells
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has visited a munitions enterprise and called for boosting the production of artillery shells. Some experts estimate that 60 percent of the ammunition Russia is using to attack Ukraine is made in the North. Saturday's edition of the ruling Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported that Kim inspected the enterprise's factory on Friday. It said the leader learned about the output for the first half of this year. The paper said Kim pointed to the need to further expand the production capacity to increase the output of new powerful shells suitable for modern warfare. A multinational team monitoring UN sanctions on North Korea said in a report released last month that Pyongyang supplied Moscow with as many as 9 million rounds of artillery and other ammunition in 2024 alone. The team was created by 11 nations, including Japan, the United States and South Korea. North Korean media outlets reported last month that Kim toured a munitions plant, where he also instructed a further increase in the production of shells.
