Moscow has warned Tehran it will not deliver fuel to a nearly completed Russian-built nuclear reactor unless Tehran lifts the veil of secrecy on suspicious past atomic activities, a European diplomat said.
Separately, a US official said Russia was not meeting other commitments that would allow the Iranians to activate the Bushehr nuclear reactor and suggested the delays were an attempt to pressure Tehran into showing more compliance with UN Security Council demands.
The increased Russian pressure came at a time when Iran appeared to be ready to compromise on a key international request -- that it fully explain past activities that heightened suspicions it might be looking to develop a nuclear arms program.
Those fears led to Security Council demands that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program -- and to UN sanctions over Tehran's refusal to mothball the program, which can be used both to generate power and to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
In Algeria, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that his country would continue pursuing nuclear energy and will refuse to talk with any countries that do not recognize Tehran's right to civilian nuclear power.
But Tehran last month told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would answer questions about past experiments and activities that could be linked to a weapons program. That -- as well as a slowdown in enrichment activities and a decision to lift a ban on IAEA inspections of a reactor that will produce plutonium once it is completed -- appeared aimed at deflecting US-led moves to implement a third set of sanctions.
Last month, IAEA inspectors visited the reactor, near the city of Arak. And a second European diplomat said that the Iran had recently began providing valuable information on "four of 10 questions" that the agency wanted answered.
IAEA officials declined to comment.
But concerns detailed by past IAEA reports have included suspicions that Tehran has secretly developed elements of a more sophisticated enrichment program than the one it has made public; that it might not have accounted for all the plutonium it processed in past experiments and that its military might have been involved in enrichment, a program that Tehran insists is strictly civilian run.
Revelations that Iran has diagrams of how to form uranium metal into the shape of warheads have heightened concerns.
Russia has played a complicated role in attempts to pressure Tehran to comply with international demands.
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
RSS