EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton will meet Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator today, Ashton’s office said yesterday, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a political solution was still possible in the stand-off over Tehran’s atomic program.
The head of the UN atomic watchdog, Yukiya Amano, also said yesterday his agency would hold more talks with the Islamic state aimed at allaying Western concerns that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
Ashton will meet Iran negotiator Saeed Jalili in Istanbul as “part of continuing efforts to engage with Iran,” after talks between world powers and Iran in Moscow in June failed to secure a breakthrough in the dispute.
“While it is not a formal negotiating round, the meeting will be an opportunity to stress once again to Iran the need for an urgent and meaningful confidence-building step” and to show more flexibility with proposals put forward by world powers in earlier talks, Ashton’s spokeswoman said.
Merkel told a news conference in Berlin that Iran posed a threat not just to Israel, but to the whole world.
However, Merkel added: “I support a political solution ... and I believe that we are not at the point where the search for political solutions has been exhausted.”
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Amano said the UN agency, which is investigating Tehran’s atomic activities, was “firmly committed” to intensifying dialogue with the Islamic state despite the lack of progress so far.
Amano, addressing his organization’s annual member state gathering in Vienna, gave no date for a possible new round of talks that began in January between IAEA officials and Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The previous meeting was held last month.
However, Iran’s atomic energy agency chief, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, accused the UN watchdog of a cynical approach and mismanagement when he addressed the gathering.
He suggested that “terrorists and saboteurs” might have infiltrated the agency, and that it was influenced by “certain states,” a clear reference to Tehran’s Western foes.
Iran’s relations with the IAEA have become increasingly strained in recent years as the agency has voiced growing concern about possible military dimensions to Tehran’s nuclear program. However, Abbasi-Davani’s outburst was unusually strong in such an international forum.
The EU reiterated its demand in a statement at the gathering that Iran must suspend uranium enrichment — which the Islamic state has repeatedly rejected.
The demand that Iran suspend enrichment is enshrined in a series of UN Security Council resolutions since 2006.
The IAEA has been trying to reach a framework accord with Iran that would allow the Vienna-based UN agency to resume a long-stalled investigation into suspected atom bomb research in the Islamic Republic.
“We will continue negotiations with Iran on a structured approach to resolving all outstanding issues,” Amano said, referring to such an accord.
“I hope we can reach agreement without further delay, to be followed by immediate implementation,” the IAEA head added.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS