Iran will resume building centrifuges for its nuclear program tomorrow despite international objections, but is continuing its suspension on uranium enrichment, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday.
Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the governments of the UK, Germany and France about its decision.
"We declared to IAEA and the three countries that we are prepared to resume work as of June 29th," Asefi said.
However, he said Tehran will remain committed to suspension of actual uranium enrichment -- injecting gas into centrifuges.
The announcement came days after the IAEA approved a European-drafted resolution that rebuked Iran for past cover-ups in its nuclear program. The US accuses Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, geared toward production of nuclear energy.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, has said Iran's decision to reconsider its suspension of some uranium activity was in response to failure of the three European countries to help close Iran's nuclear dossier at last week's IAEA meeting. According to Rowhani, the three European powers promised in February to work toward closure by this month if Iran stopped making centrifuges. It did so in April.
Asefi insisted Iran's nuclear policy has not changed.
"Nothing important has happened ... Europeans failed to respect their commitments. Therefore, there is no reason for us to keep our moral promise," he said.
Though he was critical of the UK, France and Germany, Asefi said Iran's new decision didn't mean Tehran would end its dialogue with Europeans. Rather, he said, a dialogue of Iranian and European experts is planned "in the coming days."
Asefi said Iran wants the IAEA and the three European countries to supervise Iranian building, assembling and testing of centrifuges when the program resumes.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS