Iran has scaled back its uranium enrichment program, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday, suggesting the move on the part of Tehran could signal willingness to resolve the international standoff over its nuclear defiance.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei spoke at the end of a special meeting of his agency's 35-nation board that approved sending an agency team to North Korea as well as agreeing on the IAEA's 2008-2009 budget.
While expressing hope that Iran might go as far as totally freezing enrichment activities -- as demanded by the UN Security Council -- ElBaradei told reporters that there had been a "marked slowdown" in centrifuges on line and in using them to turn out enriched uranium.
IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen was to leave for Tehran yesterday to explore how willing Iran is to make good on pledges that it is ready to answer all outstanding questions about activities that could be linked to a nuclear weapons program.
If Iran honored that promise and froze all enrichment activities, "this would influence the actions" of the six nations -- the five permanent council members and Germany, ElBaradei said, suggesting that the council would desist from approving new sanctions as a result.
He repeated a call for the US to speak directly to Iran over the nuclear standoff.
ElBaradei said: "I think that would help ... in many ways for us to make progress. You need to understand where each other is coming from."
In a report to the IAEA board last month, ElBaradei said that Tehran had assembled just under 2,000 centrifuges in links or cascades of 164 machines each -- the configuration needed to enrich. Diplomats subsequently said that the Iranian technicians were linking up one cascade every two weeks and running their assemblies at their underground facility in Natanz to produce minute quantities of the low-enriched uranium, suitable for generating power.
The enrichment facility is housed near the city of Natanz in halls built underground -- apparently to protect it from attack. Both Israel and the US have not ruled out aerial strikes should Tehran continue to expand the program.
But a diplomat familiar with the issue said Monday that centrifuge assembly ``had significantly slowed'' since ElBaradei met late last month with chief Iranian nuclear envoy Ali Larijani who strengthened a pledge to come up with answers long sought by the agency.
ElBaradei believes that Tehran recognized that moving the enrichment program forward would only provoke the council into passing new sanctions. ElBaradei held out hope Tehran might go even further.
"At this delicate stage, ideally they would even freeze what they have at the present stage," he said.
On the linked issue -- Iran's pledge to be forthright with the agency -- ElBaradei said progress there could go a long way in defusing the crisis.
"If we are able to ... clarify these issues and be able to provide assurances about [the peaceful nature] of Iran's nuclear program, that, obviously, will influence the actions of the Security Council," he said.
The IAEA began investigating Iran's nuclear activities only four years ago, after a dissident group revealed nearly two decades of a clandestine atomic program.
On North Korea, and the return of an agency team to the secretive communist country, ElBaradei cautioned that the IAEA mission -- which is tasked with shutting down the country's plutonium-producing Yongbyon facility -- was only beginning.
"It's going to be a long and complex process, but I welcome the return of the DPRK to the verification process," he said.
ElBaradei said timing for the visit depended on when the North Koreans issued an invitation, perhaps "in the next week or two."
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was